Tuscan Cooking and Recipes

Do you prefer MODERN or TRADITIONAL?

Here you’ll find just a few info about Tuscan food. Are you going to go Tuscany? Get a feeling.

Have you just got back from Tuscany? You might have loved a few dishes and what to try them at home.

Remember, I’m not a professional chef and what you are going to find here are just my recipes, plus somethings coming from my Mom’s note book. Let me know, give me feedbacks!

I’ll use 4 categories: Modern, Traditional, Every day and Events. 

Modern might be a dish you can make with local ingredients, although put together in a different way, while Traditional are the very “evergreen” ones, which make and made Italian cooking famous.

An Every Day dish can usually be prepared in a short (Italian) time, while an Events dish needs usually a few hours.

 

Precious basics

We usually say in Italy that there is no better dish than the one made by Mom at lunch on a Sunday, when she  is in good and relaxed mood, plus plenty of time to cook.

 

The sentence means a lot more than what you just read. It means that she has already selected the best quality food in season, she has set a menu that matches our tastes and she will work hard to make her family happy, face and stomach! We will sit for hours at the table enjoying the company and the pleasure of our palate. In Italy lunch or dinner, if shared with friends or the family can’t last less than one full hour (and more!).

Now, let me tell you that my family was running a food store for over 50 years. I love food and I love looking for the best ingredients. My husband is Spanish and his family has a similar background even if there, they drink a lot more and they eat a lot less. I’m not joking, food is mostly a way who to keep up drinking and walking from one tapas bar to the next one!

In Italy, in order to have the real best, you must be home, have lots of time and “listen” to Mom who is trying to do her best today, to show her care and love for all of us.

That said, don’t forget that a good recipe is simply what you like on my opinion, and that it’s almost impossible to end up with a very bad dish (unless you burnt it or overloaded it) if you start with very high quality and fresh ingredients.

 

If you have no idea what’s growing at the moment in your area, Google it. A fresh tomato can not be the best in January in Italy, as well as an orange has a very bad taste in the summer.

Cabbage, leeks, Swiss chard, chicory, artichokes and fennels are winter veggies, bell peppers, tomatoes, green beans, eggplants, peas, courgette and so on are summer stuff.

Supermarket is fine for can beans and soap, for toilette paper, and so on but for very good and juicy meat, fresh and possibly not farmed fish, try to find a good farmer market on the street.

It is very much time consuming, I know. but if you put some effort in it, you’ll be in a much healthier environment, you’ll fell good and you’ll help the business of family owned farms.

So….  cooking the Italian way means…

• buy fresh and on season ingredients
• avoid big supermarkets if possible, try to find a good farmer market with organic products
• don’t keep your meal in the fridge very long. If you can’t finish it all, freeze it.
• Try to avoid butter and buy high quality extra vergin olive oil
• Have always some basic ingredients handy like garlic, onions (or leeks), extra vergin olive-oil, parsley.

The most common base for everything is olive-oil and garlic, in many cases parsley too.

Why so? Parsley is a very good source of vitamin C and garlic is a natural remedy to help your immune system.

 

 

(In Jainism they say that people eating garlic and onions are very aggressive…. and in a bad mood… mh…. Possibly not the case around the Mediterranean, but who knows….)

 

I’ll try to post each time, one traditional dish recipe and one modern dish recipe.

Let me know what you like the best!!!!

ALL RECIPES ARE HOME MADE RECIPES; some of them might have a spanish influence (which will be written)

 

 

 

 

In Italy is not common to have just one dish per meal. You should have at least two. A Primo and a Secondo. A “First” and a “Second” dish.

Small portions, but a variety of veggies, carbs and proteins.

First mostly means pasta with a sauce (any sauce). Otherwise it can be rice, it can be ravioli or gnocchi (potato dumplings), but NEVER EVER try to put on the same plate, pasta and a piece of meat and veggies!!! It’s a sacrilege!!

On events days you might wanna start with some antipasti (which means before pasta) then you pass to a pasta dish, better if home made, and then you go for proteins: meat, fish or eggs, next to some yummy veggies.

A desert… and some fruit “to clean up your mouth”!

 

Starters:

 Crostini di fegatini   –   Chicken liver pate’

Traditional

I know that just reading or saying it, you won’t love this dish… but try it. It’s the most common starter in Tuscany, it’s cheap and very tasty. Kids love it.

Buy some chicken livers – better if coming from an organic farm – and rost them a bit in a pot, with some olive-oil, salt, garlic and a large leaf of sage.

When they are done (10 mins or so), wait for a few minutes to let them getting colder and add same capers (those in a jar with vinegar. Squeeze them first, to avoid a too strong taste of vinegar), some FRESH persley leaves. Chop everything finely. – Don’t use a mixer please…. In that case you’ll get a too soft and mushy mix. Use a knife or something quite professional that cuts very finely without loosing the ingredients consistency. –
Put the pate’ in a jar in your fridge. At the moment you need it, put some of it in a pot and on the fire again – add a few drops of water if it’s too dry – and once you get it out of the fire, add some anchovies pate’ (you can find them in a supermarket in a little tube, the best quality in Italy is “balena”, the others are way too salty! Careful!)

You have to add the anchovies paste just at the very end, a few minutes before serving it, on slices of toasted bread.

Buon appetito!

 

You can serve them on a nice tray, granny’s style, with some fresh carrots, cucumbers, a slice of Prosciutto or some good fresh veggies.

 

Pinzimonio

Traditional/Every day

Hard to translate the word… It simply means that you deep good and fresh veggies in a cup filled with very high quality extra vergin olive-oil, salt and some herbs you might like.

Very very simple but fresh and a good source of vitamins.

 

Fresh carrots, celery, fennel roots, bell peppers, fresh artichokes!

Wash them very carefully and display them on a nice tray. Give everybody a small cup where to put some (not too much!!! It’s full of calories and you have not to drink it! It’s just to have a nice flavor and dressing on your veggies!) olive-oil, salt and herbs.

The secret of the dish is to have very fresh and high quality ingredients.

Enjoy! It might be fun for kids too!

 

 Crostini misti  – Spreads

Events

In Italy, any Sunday once you go to Mom for lunch, or any time you have a guest, fist of all you put something on the table, as a starter, as a snack. Don’t think about chips or nuts, they are real cooked dishes, where you can find anything. Sit and taste some smoked salmon seasoned with dill, lemon juice and capers just “lying down” on a toasted piece of bread.

Toasted bread can have any kind of spread then. Fresh pork meat sausage and “stracchino” – soft cheese (baked 5 for 5 minutes), chopped bell peppers and onions, the “green sauce” and so on.

Every region has its own crostini. Anything you like it’s fine an appropriate as far is it’s spread on a piece of toasted bread!

Cappesante al forno – Baking scallop shells

Events

Scallop shells are quick and easy. Wash them carefully, take them out of the shell and then put them back in. The orange part has to have a very good and strong orange color. If not, don’t buy them.

Dress them with some butter or olive-oil (I prefer the oil), some very finely chopped parsely or fresh coriander if you have it. Add safran and some bread crumbs.

Bake it for about 10-15 minutes. Don’t let them getting too cold before you serve them.

 

Possible option: I like to dress them with some olive-oil, chopped parsley and a mix of asian spicies called “carmencita” I usually buy it in Spain, which has: coriander, cumin, red and black pepper, cloves, ginger, cinnamon and tarmeric (plus something else I guess!). It’s delicious!

 

Passata di piselli con calamari freschi pomodori secchi di pachino e menta fresca

Pea-soup with fresh Calamari, sun dried tomatoes from Pachino and fresh mint

Events

I never use can peas… I don’t like the smell of the can… I prefer some peas of my sister’s vegetable garden, but if not in season I use the frozen ones.

Try to buy good quality peas.

Boil them in water and salt and them put them in a pot with some garlic, persley (not chopped so you can take it away at the end) and olive-oil.

Taste them. I usually put some white sugar in too, to make them sweeter.

Take a passatutto and mix the whole thing (if no passatutto around then use your mixer but remember that will create a blend that includes lots of air… that you’ll find in your stomach very soon… That’s why we in Italy still use that ancient tool, that sounds old and time consuming but it has lots of benefits, giving a healthy result.

 

At this point your soup is basically done, you decide if you like it thicker or softer, adding some more water, but once you are ready to serve it, prepare some fresh calamari, cut in rings and quickly rosted in a pot with parsely olive-oil and garlic. You can actually add any kind of good fish you want, in any flavour.

I’d add on the top some sun dried tomatoes (better if from Pachino, Sicily) – I take the real dried one and let them boil in water a few minutes to make them tender – remember they are usually very salty. Add on the top some fresh chopped leaves of mint.

 

Buon appetito!!!!

p.s. if you have it around, add some Pimenton de la Vera on the top, instead of the sun dried tomatoes. It’s so good! It will add a very unusual taste! It’s a very typical Spanish spice, produced in the area of Caceres, it’s very strong red in the color and simply a powder, rich in taste; a variety is spicy and hot, with a smoked flavor.