In the trattorie of Florence I have heard shelled beans cooked in this way called “fagiouli all’uccelletto”.
(Pellegrino Artusi, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well)

This recipe is a typical Florentine way to eat their beloved cannellini beans which have replaced meat for centuries. The name originates from the way small game birds were cooked in Tuscany, seasoned with a generous amount of sage.
The bean’s abundance in vegetable proteins and fibre has nourished Mediterranean populations for centuries. In these times of abundance, they are still quite appreciated.
Beans are an excellent side dish, but you can add sausages to the basic recipe and create an excellent traditional Tuscan main course.
There are many versions of this recipe, some include onion and seasoning. The recipe reported by our Romagna gentleman consists of sage and tomato, I personally love adding garlic.
The first recipe we find in the original cookbook of Italian cuisine is the one which considers beans as a side dish, excellent for accompanying stewed meats. In it, the beans are browned in a substantial amount of oil and sage, and later enriched with tomato sauce. I prefer to use a milder temperature and less oil.

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

Ingredients

• 500 g beans, already cooked in water with a poached garlic clove, a sprig of rosemary and 3 sage leaves. Reserve the cooking liquid.
• 4 sausages
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 tin of crushed tomato
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• Sea salt
• 10 sage leaves
• A sprig of rosemary

Instructions

Put a pan on the stove with the oil, sage leaves and garlic. When the oil starts to sizzle, toss in the sausages and brown them, piercing them with the prongs of a fork in order to make them lose their juices.

When the sausages are golden, toss in the beans and season with salt and pepper. Add the tomato sauce to the beans with 2-3 tablespoons of their cooking liquid. Let them simmer for 15-20 minutes without a lid, take them off the stove and serve.

This pasta recipe is quite rustic. Savoy cabbage and Italian sausage give a robust quality to this dish, and you can play with different flours. In this case I prefer blending durum wheat and pastry flour, in Italian a “00”, but also using whole wheat or buckwheat is an excellent choice. I do not love artificial colourings; I prefer to add mashed vegetables or aromatic herbs to the flour.

It is a very rich dish, and perfect from a nutritional point of view. If you open the meal with a very fresh salad, the balance will be perfect.

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

Ingredients for pasta

• 3 eggs
• 1 + 2/3 cups (g. 200) pastry flour
• ½  cup + 1 tablespoon (g. 100) durum wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons of fresh rosemary, finely grinded

Ingredients for the sauce

• 3 sausages (350 g. about 12 oz.)
• 1 small Savoy cabbage
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• Marine salt

Instructions for pasta

On a wooden pastry board pour the flours in a mound, make a hole at its center and pour the eggs in it. Join the rosemary. Mix, make a dough that you are going to roll out by hand using a rolling pin.  Roll the dough into a sheet about two mm. (1/24-inch) thick.

While pasta is drying, prepare the sauce.

Instructions for the sauce

Put a big pot with salted water on the stove. Wash and core the cabbage leaves (about half of the cabbage).

In a wok, simmer the onion with the oil.

Peel the sausages, chop them in small chops and join them in the pan. Simmer the ingredients together.

Boil the cabbage leaves for a couple of minutes, and then put them in a bowl with water and ice.

Core and shred the leaves. Join them to the sauce.

Sprinkle the pasta dough with durum flour and roll it. Cut it in stripes. If it does not dry, cut it with the tool.

Boil pasta in the same water where you boiled the cabbage and pour it in the wok with the sauce. Add a couple of tablespoons of boiling water, and mix all the ingredients together. Add a bit of olive oil before serving the pasta.

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.

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).