Cauliflower is normally not a very exciting dish, but you can give it some pizazz thanks to this recipe: a crispy and flavourful gratin turns a conventional vegetable into a real treat.

This recipe uses the same ingredients as a Mornay sauce, but is a bit lighter because there is no cream added. If you do not have Grana Padano or Parmigiano cheese, add some other cheese that you love, as long as it is not too strong so that it does not overwhelm the cauliflower’s flavour. The gratin needs Grana Padano or Parmigiano though, to which you could add a bit of grated bread if you want to make it even crispier.

Italian sformato, also known as flan, can be prepared with a variety of vegetables. This cauliflower version was once prepared in the French cuisine tradition. The cauliflower was puréed with the same sauce ingredients as our recipe, placed in a fluted pan baked in bain-marie in the oven. This type of recipe dates back to a time when Italians cooked their vegetables until they had no texture, taste or nutritional value left. Thank goodness times have changed!

Cauliflower is a very ancient vegetable in Italian cuisine, already mentioned in the 1st century AD by Pliny the Elder, who included it among his descriptions of cultivated plants in his Natural History treatise. This sauce adds a bit of fat to an amazing vegetable, which is low in calories, has no fat, but it is an incredibly healthy choice. It is rich in sodium, dietary fiber, vitamin C, vitamin K, calcium, iron, potassium, and magnesium. Last, but not least, since it is mainly composed of water, cauliflower can help keep you hydrated. The list of benefits is not finished yet, since this veggie has a group of substances known as glucosinolates. During digestion, these substances are broken down into compounds that may help prevent cancer , since they help protect cells from damage and have anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and antibacterial effects.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cooking Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Yield: Makes 6 servings.

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg (2 lbs) cauliflower florets, washed
• 1 L (4 cups) milk
• 80 g (⅔ cup) flour
• 80 g (cup) butter + more for the gratin
• Salt
• 50 g (1.5 oz) grated Grana Padano or Parmigiano cheese
• 2 egg yolks
• ½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Instructions

Boil the cauliflower florets in salted water for 15 minutes. If you have a steamer, even better.

In the meantime, make the bechamel sauce.

Drain the cauliflower when it is cooked but still firm, since it will be baked. Move the florets to a bowl.

Heat the milk.

In a saucepan, melt the butter, add the flour and stir. When it begins to thicken, begin to pour the milk in batches, stirring constantly until you finish. Add the nutmeg, yolks, salt, and ⅔ of the Grana Padano cheese to the bechamel, and stir, mixing thoroughly. If there are any lumps, use a hand blender. Toss the cauliflower with the sauce to coat. Let cool for 5 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 200° C (400° F).

Brush a casserole dish with oil using a pastry brush.

Move the cauliflower mix to the casserole and sprinkle the remaining Grana Padano cheese and dot with bits of butter on top.

Bake for 20 minutes until the top turns golden and serve warm.

The cuisine in Emilia-Romagna is permeated with sexual innuendos, expressed in its iconic stuffed pasta, tortellini. Local legends say that the creation of tortellini was inspired by the goddess Venus herself, who was spotted by an innkeeper while staying at his inn. Stricken by this vision, he rushed to the kitchen, rolled out a sheet of pasta and shaped it like the only part of his beautiful guest’s body he had seen from the lock. Today, the hole in the centre of a tortellino is still called “Venus’ navel”.

I follow my grand-grandmother’s recipe, who was from Modena, and made an all-pork stuffing, whereas in other parts of Emilia they prefer substituting pork loin with beef.

Tortellini are a typical Christmas dish in Emilia, but nowadays you can find them at any time during the winter season.

At Christmas, my family cooks them in a warm capon stock that I prefer preparing one day in advance, in order to refrigerate it in a smaller container overnight to remove the solidified fat from the top of the chilled stock. On normal Sundays, we have tortellini in our traditional meat stock (link).

Making tortellini is quite complicated and time-consuming, and it has always been a team effort. Traditionally, the entire family gathered around the “arzdora” (the mother, the real family boss in Ravenna dialect) to put the filling on the small squares of pasta and shape the tortellini. With their small fingers, women and children were the most capable when it came to sealing the tortellini.

In order to be efficient, the filling and the dough can be prepared one or two days in advance. I love using a piping-bag for the filling, and recently, a chef suggested I refrigerate the dough in a vacuum-bag, since the absence of air in the bag prevents oxidation and the dough from changing colour. Still, it is better to work as a team – at least two skilled people – in order to shape tortellini in time to prevent the sheet of pasta from drying.

Prep Time: 4 hours | Cooking Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 5 hours | Yield: Makes 10 servings.

Ingredients

For the filling

• 3.5 oz (100 g) pork loin
• 1 tbsp dry white wine
• Sea salt and black pepper to taste
• 2 tbsp (30 g) butter
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 small rosemary sprig
• 2.8 oz (80 g) Parmigiano Reggiano
• 3 oz (90 g) Parma ham
• 3 oz (90 g) Bologna mortadella
• 2 eggs
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated

For the pasta

• 6 eggs
• 4 cups (500 g) all-purpose flour

For the capon stock

• 1 medium onion, peeled
• 1 medium carrot, peeled
• 1 celery stalk
• Half capon
• 3 parsley sprigs
• 4-5 black pepper corns
• 1 kg (2.5 lbs) various beef cuts used for Italian braised meat like beef tongue, tail, shin bones with meat, marrow bones and bones with a little meat on them, such as oxtail, short ribs, or knuckle bones (cut in half by a butcher)

Instructions

For the capon stock (one day in advance)

Place a large stockpot on the biggest burner. Fill with 4-5 litres/4.5 to 5.5 quarts of cold water (about two-thirds full) and add all the ingredients. Bring the water to the simmering point.

Gently simmer the stock, covered, for 3-4 hours, or even longer if you have time, topping up with water if necessary. Skim the white foam that bubbles to the surface with a slotted spoon.

Strain stock using a fine-mesh sieve and discard bones and vegetables. Let the broth continue to cool until barely warm, then refrigerate in smaller containers overnight. Remove solidified fat from the top of the chilled stock.

For the filling

Add the butter, rosemary, and garlic to a small pan, and sauté the meat. When the meat is roasted externally, add the wine and season with salt and pepper. Cook for five minutes and let it cool down. When it reaches room temperature, coarsely chop and put in a food processor with all the other ingredients. mince at maximum speed until the filling is perfectly blended and is pink in colour. Fill a piping-bag and keep in the fridge. Take it out and keep at room temperature an hour before using it, or it will be too hard to squeeze it out of the piping bag.

For the pasta

On a wooden pastry board, pour the flour into a mound, make a well in its centre and crack the eggs into it. Blend by hand, making a dough that you are going to smooth with a rolling pin.

Divide the dough into two halves, wrap them in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Roll them out, remembering to sprinkle them with flour. Roll each ball of dough into a sheet about 2 mm (1/24 inch) thick.

Cut each dough into small 2-inch (5 cm) squares, and put little piles of filling in each  centre.

Fold the squares into rectangles enclosing the filling. Gently lift one of the long sides against the stuffing at a time, roll around your baby finger and overlap the two corners. Lay on a paper tray or a normal tray covered with parchment, make regular rows and avoid that they come into contact with one another or they will stick together.

Cook them in the boiling stock and serve them still fuming hot.

Imperial soup has an Austrian origin, and was introduced to Emilia-Romagna by Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, the second wife of the Emperor Napoleon I. As usual, this soup which can be traced back to Krinofel, went through a major process of adjustment to adapt to local ingredients. Yet, this recipe is “heretical” in a country where caconic recipes are considered with religious devotion: the traditional preparation includes semolina and butter, as Marcella Hazan shows in her Marcella’s Italian Kitchen, which my mum replaced with ricotta cheese.
This soup is therefore lighter and gluten-free, not a bad option for celiacs, still extremely tasty and comforting. Cooked and served in a sumptuous meat stock, it is a luscious dish, a festive delicacy once offered during the Christmas and Easter festivities, but now quite common at Sunday lunches.