The Cooking and Cuisine of Tuscany

[fortedei]

But of course you wouldn't know that what you consider "regular" we consider exotic and vice versa.

Wikipedia in English illustrates what is most common here in the U.S. as the first, large picture on the right, here.  Even this is exotic to many of us since I never ate kale as a child growing up in the Northeast, nor out in the midwest later.  It wasn't until fairly recently, that is, in the 1990s that grocery shoppers could expect to find the vegetable in large supermarket chains, in part, due to the so-called "natural foods" movement and the availability of kale in counter-culture food co-ops (where shoppers joined as members and worked in the store) or farmers markets.  A variety of large-leaf sturdy greens were more prevalent in the South than elsewhere, though ornamental kale has always been grown in flower beds during cold months.

Tuscan kale is one name for what we even call cavalo nero, lacinato and dinosaur kale in the U.S.  In the farmers market where I shop, it can be less costly than at Whole Foods, but still, organic bunches weighing around 1/2 a kilo go for $2.25 a bunch, $1.75 a bunch for 2.  It is becomng more and more popular, but I doubt a majority of Americans would recognize it--or "regular kale" at this point in culinary history.

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Thanks. Now I understand. The kale we get in Tuscany is dinosaur kale.

Cavolo nero, by the way, just means kale in my part of Tuscany.

[divina]

although the kale is already out in the market here in FLorence too.. it is prefered to be used after the first freeze!

I think that it tenderizes it!

the new oil is out.. and my favorite way to enjoy it is with fettunta, the garlic rubbed toasts, topped with overcooked kale or tuscan beans, some of the cooking broth and new oil..

More broth and it is soup!

but not really cold enough here yet!

am waiting.

so the new oil is being used for pinzimonio, raw veggie dipped in oil with salt and pepper.

including raw artichokes.

[hathor]

Not enough hours in the day... I didn't even do a Tuscany intro! Mi dispicace!!!

But, I did make mialie arrabiata. The recipe was in the magazine, Sale & Pepe, and says its eaten inthe Maremma area of Tuscany during vendammia. The pork is marinated in white wine, lemon slices and bay leaf, then sauteed with garlic, chili peppers and fennel seeds. The marinade is reintroduced and cooked down, the olives get tossed in at the last moment. Tasty dish, but the recipes calls for the chili peppers to stay whole, the pork was more felice than arrabiata, secondo me. Next time, I'll chop up the chilis.

[rpdkpd]

We have just returned from a wonderful trip to Southern Tuscany (and Rome). Food highlights:

An extraordinary day of exploring Brunello and Vino Nobile Montepulciano under the care of Pamela Sheldon Johns, the prolific author on various aspects of Italian food. Pamela, who posts on this Forum, organized a tasting at Biondi Santi (just south of Montalcino), and then a very special lunch at Ost. La Porta in Monticchiello (about 10K SW from Montepulciano). to pair the local wines with food of the region. Pamela's deep knowledge of the food was equaled by the wine knowledge of Daria at La Porta. We have traveled widely in Europe using recommendations from eGullet, and this day was one of the best! Pamela also has a B&B which looked very attractive.

While in Montepulciano, we had dinner at Rist. Cittino. A true local find, with the owner/chef preparing and serving her handmade picci. Not fancy (and very quiet on a cold early November evening), but a rare chance to enjoy homestyle cooking.

We stayed at Hotel Dionora, which we highly recommend. Dionara is just outside Montepulciano. Splendid property in the country, with beautiful views from our room overlooking hills (and sheep) to the west toward Pienza. Giulio is the manager, and is gracious and accomodating. Breakfast is served by Giulio in a glass enclosed "winter garden." .

[Pontormo]

Not enough hours in the day... I didn't even do a Tuscany intro! Mi dispicace!!!  

But, I did make mialie arrabiata. The recipe was in the magazine, Sale & Pepe, and says its eaten inthe Maremma area of Tuscany during vendammia.  The pork is marinated in white wine...

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Drat! I was going to ask how you made a pig angry in the Dinner thread, but you explain here. Great picture(s including in the Cooking forum) and nice to have a less trafficked area of Tuscany represented.

I wouldn't worry about writing an introduction since so many of us were raised on the romance of this region--as much or moreso than the stiff and proper Baedeker-bearing Brits in A Room with a View.

BTW, today is the Festa of San Martino, an early bishop saint whose cult is shared with the French since his most important piligrimage site is in Tours. However, the Franciscans like him a lot, too, and I suspect he might be popular in Naples. In Tuscany, raisin bread is baked in his honor, one that includes walnuts, honey, EVOO, lemon zest and, yes, a little bit of salt in a recipe supplied by Nancy Harmon Jenkins. It's called pan co' santi and is also shaped into small buns, not just loaves.

Judith's discussion of sapa or saba and vincotto (in the Umbrian thread?) is relevant since the holiday marks the first day vin novello is tasted. "'San Martino, ogni mosto diventa vino'"--On Saint Martin's Day, every must becomes wine.

[hathor]

As they say around these parts, "Oh, Mama!!" If you want details on how I spent my San Martino festa, here's my blog entry. I'm still in a sort of recovery mode... I have also officially closed the season on chestnuts. I. Can. Not. Eat. Any. More. Chestnuts.

(Last night I brought a chestnut semifreddo with my home made saba as a sauce to a dinner party.)

I'm done. Finshed. There will be no more chestnuts. Until next year!

[FoodMan]

Yesterday, Sunday, the weather was very nice and just a little chilly. Perfect time to light up the grill, play some soccer with my three year old and prepare a lovely...

Bistecca All Fiorentina

This is a pricy piece of meat, so I do not do this very often. When I do I only go for a nice thick (about 2 inches) Prime grade T-bone steak from my butcher.

I loosly follow Marie Batali's recipe in his first book. I make an herb mixture of sage, rosemary and Thyme. I salt the meat and let it sit for an hour, apply the herbs, and grill over charcoal with some apple wood chips thrown in (no vine clippings here...need to talk to Kevin about that ). I cook it medium rare to rare, slice and serve

The strip and the fillet portions

Sliced

For contorni, I had three of them:

- Grilled butternut squash agro dolce with mint. A Batali recipe as well, but I grilled the slices instead of sauteeing. First time doing this, and the result was outstanding. Who knew butternut squash grills so good. This was easily the favorite contorno.

- Large mushroom caps, grilled with garlic, parsley and olive oil.

- Of course we also had garlicky satueed spinach

Here are the spinach and squash

The Shrooms

Plated and served with a very good and surprisingly affordable 2002 Chianti.

Dolci was a recipe from Italian Country Table by L R Kaspar. A "Torta De Melle", or what she calls a crispy crackly meringue apple cake. It was like a cross between a cake and a pie of sorts. Very delicious with a scoop of vanilla gelato (aka ice cream).

[Pontormo]

Wonderful! Of course the steak was the real nod to Tuscany, but I have to say the dessert is especially intriguing. The meringue "cap" (vs. full-coating) is interesting and I bet the texture was a perfect foil for the softened apples.

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Hathor, really fun entry on wine, Martino and chestnuts!

[Kevin72]

Magnificent, Elie! This is the perfect weather for this type of meal. Where do you get the meat from?

That's really interesting about grilling squash. It cooks through and everything without getting scorched?

[Kevin72]

Sunday's dinner began with crostini toscane "finta": fake Tuscan crostini since my wife doesn't like chicken or any kind of liver. So, I pureed sauteed mushrooms and sherry (standing in for Marsala, which was supposed to stand in for Vin Santo), chilies, and capers, then topped them with pickled red onion:

We continued with baked ravioli gnudi, a dumpling made of ricotta and spinach, then baked with tomato sauce:

The main was arrista fiorentina, the famous pork roast of the region. I didn't get it trimmed properly as for a crown roast, so I totally botched carving it. So, in keeping with my inability to make any meat I make look appealing:

That's the filling scattered over the top: minced rosemary, garlic, and pancetta, which really permeated the meat.

The region's famous stewed beans were the contorno:

But not made in the wine flask, however.

Dessert was the cantucci Pan mentioned at the start of this thread, I probably didn't shape them right:

And yes, these are made for dunking, not so much eating by themselves.

[FoodMan]

Magnificent, Elie!  This is the perfect weather for this type of meal.  Where do you get the meat from? 

That's really interesting about grilling squash. It cooks through and everything without getting scorched?

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I normally get beef like that from Pete's on Richmond. I could nopt get there this weekend however. So, I actually bought this from the HEB close to my house. I knew they sell prime beef, so I called and asked the butcher if he can cut me a 2 inch thick T-bone and he was happy to oblige. I have to admit, ever since they opened Central Market, even their HEB stores are top notch comapred to other grocery chains.

I was so glad the squash grilled nicely. You definitly have to keep and eye on it and move the disks (I only used the top part of the squash, the part with no seeds. I peeled it and sliced it into 1/2 inch disks, rubbed them with oil and salted them) around every so often. But in the end you should end up with slices that are a little charred on the outside and fork tender inside. I wil certainly be grilling this favorite of vegetables again.

[hathor]

Elie, that steak looks perfect!! We are down to, uh, nothing left to eat in the house, so I might beg to be taken to our local steak joint tonight. Its our last meal before heading back to NY. Your steak just looked tooooo good.

Kevin, you're too modest. That pork looks outstanding! I'd be the one picking at the filling with my fingers! Nice idea on the crostini, not everybody likes chicken liver, I need to remember that.

[Pan]

Kevin, you're right: Biscotti di Prato usually look different from that. But the most important things are the taste and texture; if those were satisfying, that's all that really counts. Really good ones are perfect for eating by themselves as well as dunking, though. I like the ones with plenty of almonds inside.

I love the gnudi - they look really appetizing!

Edited November 15, 2006 by Pan (log)

[JasonZ]

That's really interesting about grilling squash. It cooks through and everything without getting scorched?

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Kevin, every summer Albertson's Cooking School does a 6 week, 6 session "grilling" course. This year, at least 2 of the instructors (well known chefs in the Philadelphia area) used squash, as well as eggplant, on the grill and yes, they can be cooked through (and take on a wonderful nutty flavor) without burning. Key to getting it right is the thickness of the cut. At least one chef uses the whole squash, cutting off the two ends, then using a spoon to remove the central core -- the slices look like pineapple slices or donuts, but allow you to use the whole veg.

Regards,

Jason

[FoodMan]

So why are we (me included of course) not giving Tuscany the time it deserves? Probably everyone is busy prepping and planning for Turkey day here in the US, right? I know I have.

In any case, here is my latest Tuscan quick dinner from yesterday. Both the polpette and the contorno are from this Sweet Lucca episode of Molto Mario that aired a couple of weeks ago and everything on it looked fantastic. I really wanted to make those canneloni but did not find the time...yet.

Lemon scented meatballs (Polpettine al Limone): I used ground turkey meat instead of veal. These were full of lemon flavor, delicious and tender.

Peas in the style of Tuscany (Piselli alla Toscana). I love frozen peas in almost any preparation, they worked out great with the turkey polpettine.

[mrbigjas]

So why are we (me included of course) not giving Tuscany the time it deserves? Probably everyone is busy prepping and planning for Turkey day here in the US, right? I know I have.

that's what's happened to me!

i'm gonna make the bruschetta with black kale tonight, but other than that our meal is going to be grilled luganega, which isn't necessarily tuscan...

[Kevin72]

Yeah, poor Tuscany. I was really looking forward to this month but it's going by so fast and I feel I've barely made anything at all!

I made ribollita this weekend, but it's not the most photogenic soup. Tasty, though.

[Eden]

Likewise, but I did fit in an arista the other night, and per the instructions I tossed chard (the only dark greens available) in the drippings, which really made chard go up several notches in my book

[mrbigjas]

well, i did make the bruschetta tonight, and i have to wonder why i never have before. talk about a dish that transcends the sum of its parts... woo. i mean, toasted/grilled bread with garlic, with some boiled kale on it, and splashed with a little of the salty, kale-y water. i mean, what is that? at the very least just looking at it you'd think that it would need a little cheese or something, but it certainly doesn't.

and then in another nod to tuscany, i made some zuppa di farro, which brings up a question i have about this grain: all the recipes i read say to soak it overnight and then cook it for two hours or something (like this here). i'm buying some kinda fancy italian farro (triticum dicoccum, it says on the label), and i've used it a bunch of times, in farrotto, in soup, etc, and it doesn't take more than about 45 minutes to cook, with no pre-soaking.

do you think the recipes are talking about wheatberries? like, the red winter wheat you get in the bulk bin at whole foods, instead of the emmer wheat you pay way too much for at the fancy international gourmet store? (of course, even that will cook up in about an hour without soaking).

i just don't understand it. are people going for total breakdown here? after less than an hour tonight, the grains were totally cooked--whiter, expanded--but still separate.

anyway, we did have the grilled luganega for the meat course, but for the rest of the meal i was thinking of tuscany month, which i've mostly missed so far.

[Pontormo]

Beautiful, Elie. You've contributed so much to this thread.

ETA: MrBJ: Of course you like something with kale! As for instructions for soaking, they probably are designed for unhulled farro.

Already expressed a bit of restlessness to Kevin in a PM last month and have been playing on other forums instead, but definitely the holidays and end of year things have an effect. But there are other factors such as moving from one country to another, having babies, changing jobs...

For me, one reason echoes an early post by Kevin concerning how much we take Tuscan food for granted. Since I'm so used to it, it's not the same as learning about Piemontese culinary contributions (beyond gianduia), or getting out the pasta machine for the first time in about a decade to fill ravioli with cookies. It's sort of like that tour of the White House I've never taken, either.

I still do wish to make budini di riso (the little pastries vs. what we in U.S. call a pudding) and the schiacciata that would have been best back in early October. There is too much other baking to attend to for now, but the way I look at it, these threads are easily resusitated when the spirit moves.

Well, tis very late and my loaf of salted bread has stopped crackling. Much to do later this new morning.

Buona Festa, tutti! And remember, if you find yourself in Tuscany at Thanksgiving, there's plenty of turkey and plenty of zucca to bake a pie, but for cranberry sauce, get yourself a jar of red currant preserves and doctor it a bit.

Edited November 22, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[divina]

november flew by!

I had been busy egblogging for a week and was sort of burned out of the slow dialup I have and downloading foto's.

Snuck a weekend flea market shopping in Provence... and am back!

What is November in Tuscany?

San Martino, which is November 10th is Saint Martins day, and as tradtion holds.. one should east roast goose and drink the new wine and roast chestnuts.. Which I think Hathor did for us already!

HIP HIP for Judith!

The other festivals are the white truffle festivals in San Giovanni D'Asso and San Miniato.

So for you truffle lover's

In class, we bought some lovely frsh pasta, fabulous French butter, and a large white truffle.

personally, I cannot really taste truffles, I can smell them.. but the elusive flavor isn't there for me that makes them so expensive. My truffle was 50 Euro, there were 5 of us eating.

about 20 grams

We lightly melted the butter in the skillet, but over the boiling pasta water ad not on direct heat, this maintains the flavor of the butter without changing it and remains creamier.

Then I shaved the truffle into the butter and covered it, letting the flavors infuse.

When the pasta was ready, we drained it, dropped in into the skillet and then mixed, covered and let it permeate with the truffle.

Simply served with a little parmesan.

[divina]

November is new oil!

I wrote about my going to the mill next door to my house on the egblog(link in my signature).

I buy my oil from the mill, BYOB, it costs 8 Euro a liter.

The people pay for the crushing of the olives often by leaving oil for the cooperative to sell.

The new oil i buy from the stores can be from 8 euro to 20 euro a liter.

Is one better than the other?

NO.

If I could I would buy all my oil from the mill, but it is fun to taste different oils.

I picked up 5 liters from the mill next door, 5 liters from the shop down the street from me in Florence from outside the city ( that was in a tin and was also 40 euro for 5 liters)

To celebrate oil.. nothing is better than the toasted Tuscan unsalted bread and then great salt sprinkled on top.

I don't always rub garlic on my bread. I enjoy the flavor of the oil to come through.

I also have a rather large salt collection now, My vendors at the market have a huge choice that you can buy by weight!

black, red, white, pink, smoked, infused...

from hawaii, the himalaya's, persia, wales.... and of course Italy!

Edited November 22, 2006 by divina (log)

[divina]

November....

Wild Boar!

it has been way too warm to even think about doing stews!

We bought a nice piece of wild boar at the Market.

marinated it for a day with carrot, onion, celery, bay leaves, juniper berries.... under wine.

The next day, we seperated the ingredients and sauteed the vegetables, browned the meat and then added the wine and let stew till done!

At the end we added a tiny bit of tomato sauce and salt.

We made our own pasta and cut it by hand to get a ready wide pappardelle!

I don't drink new wine.... so will let Judith cover that!

Edited November 22, 2006 by divina (log)

[Kevin72]

well, i did make the bruschetta tonight, and i have to wonder why i never have before.  talk about a dish that transcends the sum of its parts... woo.  i mean, toasted/grilled bread with garlic, with some boiled kale on it, and splashed with a little of the salty, kale-y water.  i mean, what is that? at the very least just looking at it you'd think that it would need a little cheese or something, but it certainly doesn't.

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It's probably anathema to the simplicity of this dish, but do try Tuscan pecorino (or any of the younger, somewhat softer pecorino like caccio) over it some time. The slight tanginess of the cheese really works well with the slight bitterness of the greens.

But yes, this is a fall favorite for both my wife and me. She starts asking about it as soon as the cooler weather hits.

Thanks for the pics and posts, Divina! Loved the blog!

[divina]

This recipe is especially for the Texans!

Simone Manetti in the market, created this pork roast called Brontasauras...

It is a rack of pork ribs, frenched, the rolled around a pork tenderloin ( cut in half and then remounted, the thinner parts together in the center, for even cooking.)

The pork that was 'frenched" is then pulled away from the bones and wrapped around the pork tenderloin.

Season the ribs with chopped rosemary, sage, garlic , salt and fennel pollen if you have it.

Tie closed and roast at 350-375 for an hour!

enjoy!

We cooked potatoes under the rack.. and they were incredible!!!

Nothing beats pork fat!.. except Duck fat!