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.

Meat stock or broth (nowadays the distinction is quite blurred) is a very popular dish in Northern Italy. It is not only used for adding juices to roasted meats, stews and meat sauces during prolonged cooking, but it also creates wonderful dishes on its own. Northern Italy offers a wonderful variety of pastas created to be cooked and served in broth. There is a whole world of different stocks, made with vegetables, beef, chicken, or fumetto made with fish.

This is a family recipe, it includes hen and beef, and the Italian tradition provides many ways to reuse meats that have lost their juices in the stock.

In order to make a sumptuous stock, meats and vegetables are added to the stockpot when water is cold and left simmering for hours.

The traditional family recipes are very simple, you just need to use a very big stockpot, put the ingredients in it and cover with water. Then it must be put on the stove and left gently bubbling for a long period of time.

Now chefs have enhanced the recipe by cutting the onion into two halves and roasting it for few minutes in a non-stick pan. It adds a stronger flavour to the stock, as it extracts the essence of the vegetable.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cooking Time: 4 hours | Total Time: 4 hours and 20 minutes | Yield: Makes 2 servings.

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, peeled
• 1 medium carrot, peeled
• 1 celery stalk
• 2 medium potatoes
• 3 cherry tomatoes
• Half hen or 2-pounds chicken wings
• 1 to 1.5 kg (2.5 to 3.5 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)
• Makes 2.5 litres/10.5 cups

Instructions

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 up 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.

Freeze it in ice cube trays and add it to your risotto, stews and roasts.

Dogs love the boiled carrots, and can be given some of the beef bones. The boiled beef is recycled as a stew, in a dish called lesso rifatto or francesina. I add the hen to vegetable soups, to improve the texture.

This fig cookie recipe brings out the magic flavour of an incredible, sugary fruit. Figs are at their best at the second part of August and the beginning of September, and if you have the possibility to buy them or better yet get them ripened on the tree, you are a very lucky person. The filling could be replaced by fig jam, but it would not have the same incredible taste enhanced by lemon zest and almond flour, which create an unmistakable taste.

Since the flour reacts differently depending on the country of origin and the percentage of gluten, it is difficult to be precise. Moreover, the size of the egg can also contribute to a great variation. Add one or two tablespoons of milk to the pastry if the dough is too dry.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cooking Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Yield: Makes 4  servings.

Ingredients for the shortcrust pastry

• 1 cup (140 g) multi-purpose flour
• ¼ cup (40 g) corn starch
• 1½ tbsp (10 g) almond flour
• 1 tsp (3 g) baking powder
• ¼ cup (50 g) white sugar
• 2 tbsp (60 g) butter
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp (15 ml) milk

Ingredients for the filling

• 9 oz (250 g) fresh figs, peeled and chopped
• 2 tbsp (30 g) white sugar
• ½ lemon zest, grated
• 3 tbsp (20 g)  almond flour

Instructions for the shortcrust pastry

In a mixer, mix all the dry ingredients with the butter until it crumbles. Place in a bowl or on a marble surface and knead with the egg and milk. Wrap in plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Instructions for the filling

In a pot, cook the sugar, figs and lemon zest together for 10 minutes. When it cools, add the almond flour and mix again.

Roll the shortbread pastry between two sheets of parchment paper. Cut the pastry edges into a rectangle, then cut again into two rectangles. Place the filling in the centre of each rectangle lengthwise and seal it, overlapping the two edges.  Move the two rolls to the fridge and let sit for 15 minutes.

Heat the oven to 350 F (180 C) Bake the cookies for 25 minutes and cut them only when they reach room temperature.

The sauce of this unusual linguini with fresh anchovies combines ingredients that are characteristic of Mediterranean cuisine: olive oil, fish, and the introduction of raisins and dried fruit in savoury dishes. This Middle Eastern touch is typical in the cuisine of Italian cities that were in contact with the Arab world for centuries such as Sicily, whose cuisine was deeply influenced by it, like in the case of Sicilian rolls (link to recipe), as well as other cities on the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian Seas, like Venice, Pisa and Genoa, for example.

I had this pasta at Elba, a small beautiful island across from Livorno, rich in iron and exploited since Etruscan times, with a strategic position in the Mediterranean Sea. Pisa and Genoa fought for the dominion of the Tyrrhenian coasts for centuries.

Pisa and Genoa, with Amalfi and Venice were referred to as the Maritime Republics by 19th century historians. They were city-states that were formally independent. During the time of their independence, all these cities had similar (though not identical) systems of government, in which the merchant class had considerable power. Their power and richness came from the economic growth of Europe around the year 1000, together with the hazards of the mainland trading routes, which made the development of major commercial routes along the Mediterranean coast possible. The Maritime Republics’ relationship with the Middle East was constant, alternating periods of peace and fruitful commercial trade with hostility, due to their involvement in the crusades and territorial competition with the Byzantine and Islamic maritime powers. The complex relationship that Italy always had with the Middle East profoundly influenced its cuisine, like this complex sweet and sour taste which cannot be found in other parts of Italy’s cuisine.

Prep Time: 45 minutes | Cooking Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 60 minutes | Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients for pasta

• 3¼ cups all-purpose flour (400 grams)
• 4 eggs

Ingredients for sauce

• 300 g fresh anchovies, cleaned*
• 40 g pine nuts
• 3 tbsps. breadcrumbs or a slice of stale bread, chopped with a knife
• 30 g raisins, softened in tepid water
• 1 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
• 4 tbsps. olive oil

Instructions for pasta

On a wooden pastry board, pour the flour in 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.  It should be rolled to a 3 mm thickness.  Then cut it into rectangles that will be cut on the chitarra.

Cook the pasta in salted water; if it is fresh, it will cook in a few seconds.

The proportion is always 100 g = 1 egg, per person. Of course since the eggs are never regular you might need to add some flour if the dough is too wet or some water if it is too dry and impossible to work.

TIPS:

As you work it, keep the dough near your belly, when kneading and rolling.

Lean into the dough as you work, exploit gravity, not your shoulders and arms.

Instructions for sauce

In a non-stick frying pan, toast the pine nuts for 2 minutes, and chop them roughly.

Sauté the breadcrumbs in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. When they are golden, add the raisins and pine nuts and sauté together for a minute. Pour everything into a bowl and sauté the anchovies in the same pan for a couple of minutes.

Add the parsley to the other ingredients and mix delicately. Cook the pasta in salted water and add it to the sauce with a couple of tablespoons of its cooking water. Toss with a bit of olive oil and serve.

*Remember to cut off the heads toward the belly and tail, (the direction is important). Pull delicately and the guts will follow too. Insert a finger and detach the spine from the flesh, then break off the spine near the tail.

This stuffed calamari recipe is simple and incredibly good. Quite unusually, compared to traditional fish recipes, we add cheese which confers creaminess.

I added the technique for cleaning calamari, but you can usually find them already cleaned at the fish vendor’s, so you just need to separate the tentacles from the mantle.

Calamari are very easy to cook, and the main thing to remember is that the squid flesh is kept tender by a short cooking time. It can be prepared and kept in the fridge in advance and cooked at the very last moment.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cooking Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients

• 4 calamari
• 40 g breadcrumbs
• 1 egg
• 3 tbsps. grated Pecorino or Caciocavallo cheese
• 2 small garlic cloves, deprived of the green germ
• Parsley
• 3 tbsps. olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• 2 tbsps. dry white wine

Instructions

This Imperial Milk is a family recipe and originates from what Italians traditionally call “Portuguese Milk” or what is more internationally known as “crème caramel”. It goes by different names and is very common in all Western cuisines.

The ingredients are simple: eggs, sugar, milk, vanilla combined in a pleasant dessert, which is given a unique touch thanks to the addition of finely ground almonds and Amaretto cookies. This finishing touch was conferred by my great-grandmother who  used a coal burning range. She had to perfectly regulate the coal inside the oven and cooked the Imperial Milk by placing burning embers on the mould’s metal lid.

This dessert was extremely popular in European restaurants during the last decades of the twentieth century, probably due to the convenience for restauranteurs, who could prepare it quite in advance and to keep it until clients requested it.

The basic ingredients of this recipe bring back the use of eggs and milk, combined to make use of what were considered medicinal virtues of eggs since ancient times. During the Middle Ages these ingredients were appreciated because of the need to eat meatless alternatives during fasting periods, especially during Lent.  Nevertheless, in Spanish-speaking countries, the attention is focused on the eggs, “flan de huevo” or more simply “flan”, and not on the milk.

Prep Time: 30 minutes | Cooking Time: 1 hour + 5 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour + 35 minutes | Yield: Makes 8 servings.

Ingredients

• 4 cups whole fat milk
• ½ cup Peeled almonds
• 4 Amaretti cookies
• ½ cup white sugar
• 7 medium eggs, room temperature
• 1 vanilla bean
• For the caramel
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1/3 cup white sugar

Instructions

Bring milk and vanilla to boil in light medium saucepan. Remove from heat and let it cool down.

Pour the almonds in a baking pan, on parchment) and bake it in a pre-heated oven for 10 minutes at 350 F (180 C) – until pale gold. Let them cool down.

Pour the ingredients for caramel directly in the mold. Protecting your hands with gloves, put the mold over low heat and dissolve the sugar in it. Increase heat to medium-high and bring mixture to boil. Boil without stirring until mixture turns deep golden brown, swirling pan occasionally. Carefully tilt mold to coat bottom (not sides) with caramel.

In a grinder, pour the almonds, the Amaretti and 1 tablespoon of sugar and grind the mix, until it turns into a powder.

With an electric mixer, whisk the eggs and the rest of the sugar until pale. Add the mix of powdered almonds and Amaretti, and the milk through a sieve. Pour the custard in the mold you have prepared.

Place the mold in a baking pan and add enough hot water to it to come halfway up sides of mold.

Bake at 320 F. (160 C) for 1 hour and grill for 5 minutes at 400 F (200 C).

In the case of the Italian Milk Portuguese style, the mould is covered by a lid in order to keep the top of the custard soft. In this case, the almonds and cookies must raise to the top and form a crispy crust.

Run a small sharp knife around edge of custard to loosen. Invert custard onto plate and serve.

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).