Capon is a traditional Christmas bird in Europe. It is used either to make a very tasty but fat stock to accompany minestre, such as tortellini, or as a main course, usually stuffed. This stuffing is very simple. I had some cured meats leftover and I thought of giving them a second life. It is a very simple dish, and although there are other ways to cook it, for an Italian Christmas lunch, where there are also children who do not love exotic tastes and spices, this is the ideal cooking method.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cooking Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients

• 1 4lb (1.8 kg) capon, cleaned and trimmed
• Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the stuffing

• 12.5 oz (350 g) ground pork and beef
• 3 oz (90 g) Emmental cheese
• 3 oz (90 g) rolled pancetta
• 3 eggs
• 2 potatoes, boiled and peeled

For cooking

• 2 garlic cloves
• ½ cup (125 ml) dry white wine
• 30 g butter
• 4 tbsps. olive oil
• 4 sage leaves
• A sprig of rosemary
• 2 ladles of chicken broth.

Instructions

Remove the giblets from the capon. Rinse out the cavity with cold water and pat it dry. Season it with salt and pepper.

Add all the ingredients to a food processor and mix. If you like the giblets, coarsely chop them and add to the stuffing.

Stuff the capon and sew the cavity. Put the capon in a big saucepan, brown the capon in butter and olive oil, with the aromatic herbs. Roast it for 20 minutes, then turn it on the other side and roast it for another 20 minutes. Add the wine and season with salt and black pepper to taste. Cook for two hours, basting and turning very carefully, to avoid the skin from breaking, adding some broth and cooking on a medium-low temperature.

To serve the capon, present it at the table whole, then carve it. Remove the stuffing in one piece if possible and slice it.

This rabbit stew (the rabbit can be substituted with chicken) is a vintage dish. I found it in a 1970s collection of recipes from an elementary school project in Pergola. Each child was asked to bring one of their grandmother’s recipes to school to assemble a traditional regional cookbook.

Pergola is a tiny hillside village in the heart of the Marche region, a beautiful area that is unfortunately or fortunately out of the tourist mainstream, where a local first-class cuisine still thrives.

In an age where there was no intensive livestock farming in Italy, we followed the seasons for meat consumption so, the end of summer was the best moment to eat rabbit, since those born during the spring had fully grown.

Toss the wonderful fresh home-made noodles with the stew’s sauce in a bowl adding a few tablespoons of the pasta cooking water.

Prep Time: 30 minutes | Cooking Time: 90 minutes | Total Time: 2 hours | Yield: Makes 8-10 servings.

Ingredients

• 2 rabbits, chopped into small pieces
• 2 cans of tomato purée
• 2 onions, finely minced
• 2 carrots, finely minced
• 1 celery stalk, finely minced
• Rabbit liver, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp parsley, finely minced
• 2 slices pancetta or prosciutto, finely chopped
• ½ cup (125 ml) olive oil
• 3 cups (750 ml) water
• Salt and pepper
• Fresh tagliatelle (noodles) 800 grams

Instructions

Place the rabbit pieces in a non-stick saucepan and sauté them until their water content evaporates, about 15 to 20 minutes.

When they are cooked, add all the other ingredients except for the water and tomato, and sauté for 25 to 30 minutes at medium-low heat. Season with salt and pepper and when the vegetables and pancetta are browned, add the water and cook for an hour, then add the tomato and cook for 30 minutes.

Orvieto is a beautiful Etruscan town built on a sheer cliff that is mainly composed of tuff and pozzolana, a soft material easy to excavate.

The Orvieto cliff was apt to being easily defendable thanks to its structure; meanwhile its inhabitants started to excavate its underground in order to obtain factories, storehouses and plants without distancing themselves from the powerful walls which defended the town.

Over the three thousand years of its history, the inhabitants bored more than one thousand cavities: I visited the widest, where there are the remnants of an oil mill and some millstones. Toward the interior of the cliff, the cavity is articulated in a series of rooms: among them, three Etruscan wells with their characteristic notches were workers who were excavating put their feet (pedarole in Italian). Another cavity, bordering with it, overlooks the cliff sides, and it is characterized by a great quantity of columbaria or dovecotes. These are rooms with a great quantity of recesses where pigeon could nest. This function is validated by the presence of water tanks and openings in the cliff edge to allow the pigeon keeper to give his animals liberty for purposes of exercise while allowing them to re-enter the house without special assistance from the keeper. At the same time, these houses are constructed to keep the pigeons safe from predators and inclement weather and give them nesting places in which to raise their squabs.

Pigeons were especially prized because they would produce fresh meat during the winter months when larger animals were unavailable as a food source. In the past wealthy landowners often had pigeon houses and there are still remnants of them in some European manor houses. Orvieto dovecots were especially useful in case the town were under siege and deprived of supplies of fresh food from the country nearby.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cooking Time: 1 hour + 35 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour + 50 minutes | Yield: Makes 4  servings.

Ingredients

• 2 pigeons about 10-14 oz. (300-400 g.) each.

For the stuffing

• 2 fresh Italian sausages, peeled OR 9 oz. (250 g.) ground pork generously seasoned with salt and freshly milled black pepper
• 2 tablespoons fresh Pecorino cheese, grated
• 1,5 oz. (40 g.) stale bread (Ciabatta-like), deprived of crust
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup milk
• 1 tablespoon fresh parsley, finely minced

For the cooking

• 3 garlic cloves
• ½ cup dry white wine
• 3 sage leaves
• 4 Juniper berries
• 2 sprigs of rosemary
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 slices pancetta

Instructions

In a small bowl, pour the milk and soak the bread in it. Squeeze the milk out of it, put it in a bowl with the meat, and mix it with all the other ingredients, using your hands.

Season the pigeons with salt and pepper and the Juniper berries lightly crushed, and then stuff them but not completely, since the stuffing will swell when cooking. Close the pigeon with a toothpick or needle and thread.

Pour the oil in a heavy saucepan and add garlic, rosemary and sage. Place the pigeons in it and pancetta on the pigeons. Pigeons tend to dry, so choose a saucepan that fits them perfectly, not too large.

Roast the pigeons in all their sides and simmer with the wine until reduced.

Make the pigeons simmer for about 1 hour, covered with the lid, and add some tablespoons of water if necessary.

Serve them still warm, cut in two halves. Great with mashed potatoes.