Paccheri is a new pasta shape particularly well suited for being stuffed. With truffle sauce, sausage, and porcini mushrooms, it is ideal for festive occasions. In winter, I always look for occasions to turn on the oven, and this recipe is perfect for holidays and meals with friends and family around a festive table.

It is a rich dish, and a bit time-consuming, but you can prepare the filling in a piping-bag and the sauce in advance, and compose the dish at the last moment.

Porcini mushrooms and white truffle are seasonal and are considered  the sovereigns of Italian cuisine.

Prep Time: 1 hour | Cooking Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour + 30 minutes | Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients

• ¾ lb. (300 g.) Paccheri pasta

Ingredients for the stuffing

• 13 oz. (400 g.) potatoes, boiled and mashed
• 6,5 oz. (180 g.) Italian sausage
• 1 big egg
• 1,5 oz. – 1/3 cup (50 g.) white truffle paste
• Sea salt and black pepper for seasoning

Ingredients for the sauce

• 1 + ½ tablespoons (20 g.) butter
• 3 tablespoons (20 g.) flour
• 1 cup (200 ml.) milk
• 3 oz. (100 g.) Porcini mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of fresh parsley, finely minced
• 1 garlic clove, finely minced
• For the final touch:
• Parmigiano Reggiano, a piece

Instructions

In a blender, combine the ingredients for the filling. Mince everything finely and pour them in a piping bag.

In a pot, make a béchamel melting the butter over low heat, combining the flour and salt and whisking with a fork as you add to prevent lumps. Add the milk a little at a time, whisking as you pour. Raise the heat to medium-high, and bring to a boil. Simmer for about 5 minutes to thicken, whisking to prevent and break up any lumps (eventually use an immersion blender).

In another small pot, combine olive oil, parsley and garlic and simmer for 1 minute over very low heat, then join the mushroom, cover with a lid and cook for 2 minutes.

Join half of the mushroom to the béchamel and mix with an immersion blender.

Pour the sauce on a serving dish that can be used in the oven.

In a pot with salted water, boil the pasta for 2/3 of the cooking time indicated on the box.

Drain pasta and sprinkle with a tablespoon of olive oil and mix. When it is tepid, stuff it with the filling and gently lay it on the sauce, vertically.

Arrange the remaining mushroom around pasta and grate chips of Parmigiano using a potato-peeler.

Bake it in pre-heated oven for 10 minutes at 400 F. (200 C).

Porchetta is a typical dish of Central and Northern Italy. It consists of a whole pig, emptied, deboned and seasoned with rosemary or wild fennel, according to its origin.

According to the traditional way of making it, porchetta is seasoned with rosemary in Southern Tuscany, in Roman Castles area and other areas in Central Italy; in Northern Lazio, Umbria, Marche, and Romagna they prefer to season it with wild fennel, which gives it smell and taste absolutely unique.

Like the word parmigiana, in porchetta describes also the cooking and seasoning style for other meats, like the rabbit, in this case.

I bought a farmyard rabbit, for this dish. This was a summer dish since in August and September rabbits who were born in the springtime had reached the right weight. Nowadays, industrial agriculture has altered these natural cycles.

I have never tasted the famous porchetta in Ariccia, near Rome, which is seasoned with rosemary.

In Ravenna market, my family has always been buying porchetta from Marche, made by a gentle lady who prepares this fantastic product, together with ciccioli and lard, two products which are used so widely in our family piadine and focacce. The presence of the wold fennel, added with a gentle touch, gives an unmistakable note.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cooking Time: 1 h + 30 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour and 40 minutes | Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients

• 3 ½ pounds (1,5 kg.) rabbit, with its liver
• 1/2 cup roughly chopped wild fennel fronds, or a 12-inches branch of wild fennel, in chunks. If you cannot find it, replace with 1 tablespoon fennel seeds
• 4 oz. (100 g.) pancetta, roughly chopped
• 2 oz. (50 g.) lard, roughly chopped
• 6 garlic cloves
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 glasses white dry wine
• Salt and black pepper for seasoning

Instructions

Wash rabbit and liver with the wine. Season the rabbit (inside too) with salt and pepper.

Roughly chop liver, and sauté it in a pan with pancetta, 1 olive oil, 3 garlic cloves and 2/3 fennel, season with salt and pepper. Stuff the rabbit with it and sew it with needle and thread, in order to avoid the rabbit to lose the stuffing while cooking. Transfer the rabbit to a roasting pan with lard, 3 garlic cloves, oil, fennel, and bake for 1 1/2 hours at 350 F (180 C).

The stuffing of this gnocchi is very similar to the one of Ascoli olives, a skilled mix of meats cooked in a soffritto, whose taste is made lighter by a touch of lemon zest. The only complicated phase is finding the procedure to fill the gnocchi; I think that using a piping bag makes the operation a lot easier.

It is quite hard not to find intriguing recipes in Italy: its regional cuisine is extremely rich and varied and, Marche region, not very known by mass tourism, offers us wonderful dishes with meat, vegetables, and fish.

In the near future, I am going to propose some Marche recipes: I learned to appreciate various dishes thanks to some sibling who introduced me to many treats. In addition, some trips in which I explored wonderful restaurants made me appreciate this region even more.

The scarce knowledge of the regional treasures contributed to maintaining an Italian atmosphere, not wretched by the mechanisms of great masses of tourists.

I have always been thinking that the real atmosphere of a country is much better seized in small towns, which tend to be more conservative and contribute to keeping the great Italian culinary tradition alive.

Now the region is living a new awakening, also as a reaction to the destructions caused by an earthquake, which stroke it in 2016: concerts like “Marche Rise Again” and new cycles of art exhibits propose a panoramic view of artistic treasures of the region, like, for instance, the cycle dedicated to Lorenzo Lotto.

Prep Time: 50 minutes | Cooking Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour + 30 minutes | Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients for the stuffing

• 2,5 pounds (1 kg) white, russet or other starchy potatoes, steamed and peeled
• 2 cups (250 g.) pastry or “00” flour, plus more as needed
• 10 oz. (300 g.) mixed meats (chicken breast, pork, and veal)
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 carrot, finely minced
• 1 onion, finely minced
• 1 celery stalk, finely minced
• ½ glass of white wine
• ½ glass water
• ¼ organic lemon grated zest
• 1 tablespoon grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoons butter

Ingredients for the sauce

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves
• 14 oz.  (400 g.)  finely chopped tomato sauce
• Sea salt

Instructions for making the gnocchi

Heat butter and oil in a saucepan and sauté the vegetables in it. When they are cooked, add the meats roughly chopped. Cook the meats, adding water and wine. Stir the meats and, when the wine has evaporated, cover with a lid and make the meats simmer for half an hour. When it is cooked, take the meats, draining them from the cooking liquid, and put them in a mixer.

Filter the cooking liquid with a sieve, and put it aside. Ground the meats in the mixer, then add the yolks, the Parmigiano, the lemon zest, and the cooking liquid. Mix again. Move the stuffing to a piping bag.:

While the meat is cooking, steam the potatoes for the gnocchi.

For making gnocchi, follow the instructions in this recipe.

Divide the dough into parts bigger than usual, since it must contain the filling. Stuff the gnocchi and close the little balls by rolling them quickly between the palms of your hands.

Lay the gnocchi on a paper tray previously sprinkled with flour.

Instructions for making the sauce

In a non-sticking pan, sauté garlic cloves in oil and discard them when golden. Add the tomato and make it simmer for 10 minutes.

Cook the gnocchi in boiling salted water for few minutes, it can be drained when it floats and poured directly in the pan with the sauce. I suggest using a pastaiola or draining them in batches, using a slotted spoon.

This simple dish demonstrates the deep interconnection of Italy with the Middle East and the Arab world. In all Italy, mainly along the coasts, we have the introduction of pine nuts and raisins in many dishes; see for example the Liguria cuisine, or Venice one, as a demonstration that along the century the contacts have been intense.

The case of Sicily is special since the Muslim Arab directly ruled it for centuries. This is not a history blog, so I need to summarize briefly a complicated but very interesting period.

Sicily, which was part of the Byzantine Empire, fell under Arab control first in the 7th century, in a short-lived conquest, that ended briefly. The systematic invasion of the island was concluded in 965 after a prolonged series of conflicts from 827 to 902.

The Muslim Arabs created a multi-ethnic society, where the previous Byzantine Sicilian inhabitants and a Jewish minority were “tolerated” and were able to flourish. In agriculture, the Arabs promoted a land reform, encouraging the growth of smallholdings and the subsequent increase in productivity. We also owe them the introduction of oranges, lemons, pistachio, almonds, and sugarcane to Sicily, as well as the improvement of the irrigation system thanks to the Qanats.

Due to intra-dynastic quarrels, which took place within the Muslim regime, the island fragmented into four areas. These internal divisions led to the progressive weakening of the Arab rule and the success of the plot of the princes from the inland, who enrolled Christian Norman mercenaries. The Emirate was conquered in 1071.

The Normans were great admirers of the Arab culture and under their rule, Sicily enjoyed a period of prosperity and the flourishing of Siculo-Norman architecture and art. 

This vocation towards multi-ethnicity perpetuates nowadays: the local dialects and cuisines in centuries have been embracing ingredients and other languages in its local culture, from France and Spain because of dominations, and the culture of the Mediterranean. Nowadays the cultural melting-pot has one of its most poignant symbol in the couscous festival, which is held every September in San Vito Lo Capo.

Usually “potage” and “sea” contradict each other. This recipe is connected to “land” ingredients like potatoes, leeks, and a lot of fresh cream.

I created this recipe when trying to exalt Autumn vegetables, and trying to propose something healthy but extremely stimulating. I have always been inspired by French cuisine, but the recipe of the normal potage sounded really a bit too rich with all that cream. I decided to keep potatoes and leeks, add squash and a good fish stock and prawns, and I have to admit that it is very appreciated.

This encounter of fresh ingredients, poor in calories and rich in vitamins and fibers, is an excellent way to taste an unusual dish, light but full of taste.

In Italy, there are other dishes, mainly first courses, that enhance squash, like butternut squash gnocchi, the Ferrara squash ravioli, the Mantua ravioli. This vegetable is wonderful and versatile, rich in fibers, minerals and increases the sensation of fullness, helping a lot for the diets.

While in traditional Italian first courses squash is processed and squeezed, here the labor is extremely reduced; the addition of prawns and chili pepper balances the sweet note of squash and leeks.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cooking Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 45 minutes | Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Cacciatora stew is one of those simple dishes which comfort you, above all if served with mashed potatoes on a cold winter day.

It is an incredibly rich and simple dish, the result is an amazing sauce in which you can plunge bread and collect it in the famous “scarpetta”. It is a gesture not be made in a restaurant, still the most of us would not resist the temptation. It is almost a moral obligation, none could waste such a treasure.

With some variations, this Tuscan dish is loved and prepared in all Italy. Some cooks add olives, they use dry white wine and no tomato, probably the version I am proposing is revised compared to it. Tomatoes appeared on the tables of Central and Northern Italy quite late, only in the second half of the nineteenth century, I guess that this addition was made more recently.

For the white version, follow the same recipe replacing the red wine with a dry white one and do not add tomato. Some also add pitted olives half an hour before the end of the cooking process.

The same recipe is used for the rabbit too, and the result is always excellent.

It is those of these dishes that represents Italy at its best: Mediterranean herbs, vegetables, wine. The frequent use of wine allows us to use fewer fats and keeping the meat or fish moist. In the meanwhile, it enhances the taste of the seasoning, letting us to use less salt.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cooking Time: 2 hours + 20 minutes | Total Time: 2 hours + 30 minutes | Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients

This is an extremely fresh way to be introduced to octopus. This salad is ideal to be served in a hot summer day, above all if you are back from the beach.

Italy has an incredibly wide range of fish and seafood, and as many recipes to cook them. Throughout the country, Octopus is a favourite dish. It is an extremely clever animal, but unfortunaly for it, its meat is extremely tasty, low in fats, but rich in good cholesterol, like prawns and other crustaceans.

I was introduced to the joys of octopus quite late – in my mid-20s – by some friends from Civitavecchia who came to visit with some of them, caught by their father. These cephalopods live in rocky coasts. Hailing from the sandy coast of the northern Adriatic coast, I had never seen it. In these past few decades, Italy has been discovering the cuisines of other regions, and it is common to see it in seafood restaurants all over Italy.

When the octopus is fresh, it is extremely tough. The new way to deal with the problem is provided with technology. (see recipe). The old way, that is quite grisly for my taste, has been turned into a touristic show in the old Harbour of Bari. It consists of pounding the octopus on the rocks for hours. Another technique consists of beating it with a stick until the color changes from red to white. Then it is washed in a basin on a tilting stool until it curls. For more info look here.