Bologna - Italy's Best Kept Food Secret

The book of the blog - coming soon

2012-01-05T16:19:00.001Z

Negotiating about food: the big business in Bologna

Bologna is Italy'sfood capital. Who would dispute that in Italy? Yet here in England (and probably in the US too), while thebookshops are full of cookery books about Tuscany and Sicily, there's nothingon Bologna. Liz Cousins and I - who have been visiting the city for 30 years -decided last year to rectify that by writing a book about the relationshipbetween the Bolognese and food, a mixture of tourist guide and cookery book.

‘Foodlovers’Bologna – a guide to eating, drinking and shopping with classic Bologneserecipes’ will be published as an e-book in March. Like A Taste for Bologna, it will introduce the best and most interestingrestaurants and restauranteurs to an English-reading readership. It willfeature the classical ingredients of Bolognese such as parmigiano, mortadellaand prosciutto, and the people who produce them. It will centre on the city buttake readers on a tour around Bologna the province. We will even visit Modenaand Parma. The book will demonstrate that tagliatelle al ragu, tortellini and lasagne- the best known dishes abroad - are part of a large and rich culinarytradition. One that is an essential part of life for the Bolognese.

Watch out for a pre-publication offer onthis site. Let us know if you want to buy.

Learning to cook in Bologna

2011-12-29T15:10:00.000Z

Paola is elated. Notonly has she turned out a creditable poppyseed loaf, she has also learned toflip her pancakes faultlessly. Later, as we sit eating the proceeds of ourlabour - actually all I’ve done is to observe the whole thing – there is aquiet satisfaction around the table at what has been achieved. Half a dozendifferent finger foods have been prepared and cooked plus several kinds ofbread by the Tuesday night cookery course. For four hours there has beenincessant activity, especially by Marcello, our teacher, who has never taken amoment’s rest.

Learning to cook is the new tourist activity and in Bolognathere is plenty of choice whether you want an introductory day or somethinglonger and more serious. The Council’s website lists 16 local cookery schools: http://informa.comune.bologna.it/iperbole/turismo/luoghi/39065

We tried three places: Alessandra Spisne’s la Scuola Vecchia on via Malvasia, Marcello dall’Aglio’s course at Locanda delCastello and the Scuola Cucina di Bologna in via del Pratello. These all offera range of courses from amateur to professional, varying in length from anevening to several months. All focus onbolognese cuisine but not exclusively - vegetarian dishes and food from otherparts of Italy and the world also get a look in.

I signed up for a morning’s pasta making with Aurelia, thesfoglina at Locanda del Castello, and learnt a lot of useful tips. Eveningcourses at la Locanda and at La Scuola Cucina are useful for introducing arange of techniques and dishes. Of course, if you want to become reallyproficient in cucina bolognese you will need a month at least and more likelythree months in one of these cookery schools or La Scuola Vecchia before youcan expect to earn a living in a professional kitchen.

Contactdetails

La Scuola Vecchia

via Malvasia, 49 - 40131 Bologna - tel: 0516491576 -

info@lavecchiascuola.com

www.lavecchiascuola.com

La Scuola Cucina diBologna

www.bolognacucina.it

Enquiries to CulturaItaliana (language school), to which it is linked, at Via Castiglione, 4 I - 40124 Bologna
tel. +39 051228003 +39 051228011 +39051227166

3 ½ hour eveningclass costs from euro 35 in a group of 8-15.

La Locanda delCastello

Via Palazzo de'Rossi

Pontecchio Marconi

Sasso Marconi

Bologna

+39 051 6781172 or mobile 348 4402943

Single eveninglesson: euro 60

Mortadella - uniquely Bolognese

2011-12-13T16:30:00.001Z

‘I can’t say it’s better than the others. All I can say is that a lot of people prefer it to the others.’

- Ennio Pasquini

Pasquini is a no nonsense, bear of a man who meets us with his arms folded and a look of undisguised scepticism. In his late 70’s, after half a century, he is still very much in charge of the business, very conscious of its importance.

Besides, time is money. But he agrees to show us around.

Ennio Pasquini - traditional hand made mortadella

Bologna is known the world over for a cooked sausage, the mortadella, that has its origins in the 16^th century. There are many firms around Bologna entitled to stamp their mortadella IGP, as a European protected product, but Pasquini is the only one within the city walls. Moreover, it is the only truly artisanal producer, with much of the work done by hand, especially of the salame rosa variant. Including the boss, there are just seven workers. The output is a tiny 20 quintals a week, or 2000 kilos. Not a lot compared with the 37 million kilos produced in 2006 by the 30 companies that make up the Bologna Mortadella Consortium.

It is highly prized in Bologna as an aperitivo snack, as part of a plate of finely sliced salami and as an ingredient in the filling for tortellini. We also liked the mortadella mousse served at Trattoria La Montanara.

Mortadella mousse

Unlike other salamis, it is cooked rather than cured. This mortadella is not to be confused with the pink, slimy chopped ham impersonators to be found in many supermarkets, especially in America. Nor does it contain the pistachios or peppercorns that some other varieties contain.

‘I decided to carry on the artisan tradition because I wanted to keep control of quality’, Pasquini explains. ‘It’s like if you had a baby, you wouldn’t want to hand it over to a nursery, you would want to bring it up yourself. Well, for me it’s the same with mortadella. ‘

He takes us into the cooling room where yesterday’s production is suspended from a large frame. ‘In some ways, it’s very easy to make. But it is also quite difficult to get right because it’s a real team effort. Yes, a team sport, not a cycle sprint. It’s like a jigsaw, every part of it has to be precision made or it won’t fit together.’

There’s a ready market for the real thing but Pasquini controls rigorously whom he allows to sell it. Simoni, the salami, ham and cheese shop in the Quadrilateral is one of the few privileged. The shelves there empty at Christmas, Davide Simoni, tells us, because that’s when mortadella is given as a present and when much of it finds its way into traditional seasonal dishes such as tortellini, a must for many Bolognese families on Christmas day.

Parmesan finger food

2011-11-13T18:14:00.003Z

Wear your heart on a stick

Since we came back from Bologna in June – writes Liz Cousins - I have been trying to keep up the Italian I learnt at the wonderful Bolognese language school – www.culturaitaliana.eu/Bologna. - where I did a week’s intensive course. So I have found a local Italian teacher Laura who is trying to cram some more grammar into my brain.

This Saturday Laura invited all of her students to a spaghettata. We were all asked to bring a contribution and the idea was that we would try out our best Italian phrases on each other. I decided to make a few nibbles to add to the antipasti plate. Both of these recipes make ideal finger food or canapés. The hearts on a stick could be what Franski is looking for for her wedding next May.

Biscotti di parmigiano

These are simplicity itself, although one or two seconds too long in the oven can ruin a whole batch. All you need is a pile of finely grated Parmesan, a flat baking tray covered with Bake-o-Glide or equivalent, a 2” (50ml) round biscuit cutter and a palette knife.

Place the cutter on the tray and sprinkle in ¼ inch (12ml) of parmesan - make sure it covers the whole area before you remove the cutter. The parmesan should retain its shape but you don’t need to be too tidy about it. Repeat, leaving a good space between each as they spread as they melt.

Taking care not to jog the tray place it into an oven heated to 220 degrees C or Gas 7. This is the tricky part- the cheese will quickly melt and bubble and you want it to very slightly change colour but not too much as this will make the biscuits bitter. Remove the tray from the oven and leave the biscuits to cool and set hard. Carefully remove with a palette knife.

You can store the biscotti for a few days in a tin but I find that they never last that long.

You can make them into lollipops for a party or heart shaped for a wedding by placing a wooden lollipop stick into the centre of the parmesan shapes before you cook them, adding a little more parmesan to cover up the stick. Cook as above.

Crostatine di parmigiano con olive

Another simple starter- Mix one large egg with 40g of finely grated parmesan and 2 tablespoons of cream, plus salt and pepper. Take a sheet of bought puff pastry and cut small squares just big enough to fit shallow bun tins (I find muffin tins too deep). Add 2 pitted green olives and a good spoonful of the mixture. Place in a hot oven (about 220 degrees C) until the pastry is golden brown and the filling has puffed up.

Asparagus and Prosciutto Parcels

2011-10-30T17:28:00.001Z

Marcello dall'Aglio's cookery course: showing how to make asparagus and prosciutto parcels

Franski has asked me for a simple stuzzicato to serve at her wedding next May. This makes an impressive finger food, ideal for parties. What’s more, it hardly takes any time. You can wrap the asparagus first in the ham, then in the filo pastry, as in the photo, or, as I prefer, lay out the pastry, cover with the ham then lay on the asparagus and wrap it all up. The recipe makes two parcels per person for four people. Serve it hot or cold.

Not an elegant photo but it shows asparagus already wrapped in prosciutto and then being wrapped in filo pastry

Ingredients for 4 people

asparagus tips	16
prosciutto, thinly sliced	8 slices
filo pastry	½ kg
butter	30g
salt and pepper	pinch
flour for dusting	3 tbl

Method

1. Snap off the woody end of the asparagus, and then cut off a bit more if necessary so that you end up with tips that are about 10cms long. The bits you don’t use can be cut into small pieces and sautéed to accompany a pasta dish like pumpkin and sage tortelloni. Parboil the asparagus in salted water for no more than four minutes, drain and refresh under cold running water to stop it cooking.

2. Now cut up and lay out on a lightly floured surface eight pieces of filo pastry, about 15cm by 20cm. Brush with melted butter. Place a slice of ham on each piece of pastry, then two asparagus tips plus some freshly ground pepper.

3. Roll up each parcel, ensuring that the ends are properly tucked in so they can’t unravel. Brush with melted butter again. Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees C. Place the parcels on a greased baking tray and put them in the oven for 15 minutes. When they come out they are ready to serve.

We're in the new Taste Italia

2011-10-25T14:09:00.000+01:00

Taste Italia - the only UK magazine specialising in Italian food - is out with our feature about Bologna. There are recommendations for hotels, restaurants and the best places for an aperitivo. Plus loads of Liz Cousins' evocative pictures of Italy's food mad city.

The best tagliatelle in Bologna?

2011-10-16T21:06:00.000+01:00

The sfoglina – or pasta maker – is the person who makes a restaurant’s reputation in Bologna. And a little known place just outside the city has now become the tagliatelle hot spot after chef Beniamino Baleottti - that's him in the centre in the blue t-shirt - won the prize of sfoglino d’oro at the recent international competition in Bologna’s Sala Borsa in Piazza Maggiore. Agriturismo Le Ginestre at Pianoro, just by the motorway’s Sasso Marconi entrance, is run by an ex-mountaineer, his wife and their seven off-spring including Beniamino. Their organic farm produces ham and salami, fruit and vegetables. As well as dinner, bed and breakfast they offer cookery courses taught, naturally, by the new sfoglino d’oro.

Contact them at www.agrileginestre.it

Aperitivo time

2011-10-16T19:57:00.000+01:00

Almost as important as lunch and dinner in the Bolognese diary is the aperitivo. Even during the depths of the winter, when a biting wind sweeps in from the Plain of the River Po, people can be seen huddled around the doors of bars all over the city, a calice - champagne glass - of prosecco or pignoletto in one hand and a cigarette in the other. In summer it is a more relaxed affair, extending through the evening. As essential as the drinks are the accompaniments. In recent years, there has been a stuzzicati boom. This, the Italian equivalent of tapas, is the way that bars compete for trade. In some places you will find long tables groaning under the weight of an imposing buffet consisting of tiny pizzas and sausage rolls, ham and cheese flavoured focaccie, deep fried vegetables, salami and crisps. But choose carefully to avoid eating loads of stodgy carbohydrates.

Time for an aperitivo?

Zanarini

Let’s start with somewhere select or ‘snob’ as they say in Bologna: Zanarini because it’s a lovely place in its own right, with ample space inside, by the bar, upstairs where the buffet is laid out, and outside in the square. This is a place where many people go to see and be seen, and to graze on food carefully prepared and presented. Zanarini, with its courtly service and splendid displays of canapés, cakes and chocolates, is less a bar than a grand institution. Funnily enough, an aperitivo here at 8 euros costs hardly any more than anywhere else.

Spritz Campari at Zanarini

Piazza Galvani 1, Bologna

MAMBo

You may prefer somewhere less grand but with equally interesting clientele and a good buffet. The bar at MAMBo, the modern art museum, attracts the young and the artistic intelligentsia. Sometimes at the weekend there will be a DJ playing the classics of the last fifty years. (Has rock and rolls really been going that long?) The drinks are standard but the buffet is more like a vegetarian feast with lots of wholesome salads. You can stand at the dimly lit bar, sit inside or under the portico outside. Depending on the season, you can stay warm and dry or bask in the evening sun.

Via Don Minzone 14, Bologna

Osteria del Sole

If you object to paying the price for a buffet you don’t want, then Osteria del Sole is the answer. It’s easier to find in the evening – you can spot it by the huddle of people, glass in hand, spilling out into tiny Vicolo Ranocchi. Otherwise, it is easily missed; there is no sign outside the scruffy entrance.

Osteria del Sole: scruffy hospitality

If anything, the interior is even less prepossessing. But that really doesn’t matter. The attraction is that this is a genuine osteria, a (usually rough and ready) place that you go to drink and chat, a bit like a pub. Here you can rub shoulders with a wide cross section of Bolognese society, including writers, politicians, academics and talkers. Many osterie do provide food these days but not here. Not even a bag of crisps. Instead the deal is that you bring your own – an inversion of the usual BYO theme. And since Osteria del Sole is right in the middle of the Quadrilatero, you can assemble lunch or a couple of stuzzicati from the best food shops in town.

You eat and drink at long tables, making room for newcomers and clearing up as you go. A wide variety of wines is sold by the glass - starting at 2 euros - or the bottle, or you can buy beer. They will provide serving boards for bread and salami.

Vicolo Ranocchi 1b, Bologna

Crostini ai funghi selvatici con pancetta croccante Wild mushroom crostini with crunchy pancetta

2011-09-28T15:22:00.001+01:00

This morning, with the weather locally shifting from damp autumnal to Indian summer, I went foraging. Driving into town, I’d spotted a pasture two minutes from home dotted with field mushrooms, so I stopped and quickly gathered half a kilo of very fresh fungus.

Mushrooms sauted with pancetta or bacon, onion and garlic is a universal classic. What makes this version Bolognese is the finishing touches – balsamic vinegar and grated parmesan. I would serve it on crostini – griddled bread – smeared with olive oil.

Or you could use streaky bacon

One tip: fry the mushrooms hard so that they begin to caramelise. You don’t want mushy soft funghi for this dish. All the ingredients should remain distinct – this is cooking alla italiana. If you like, you could finish off the dish with a couple of tablespoons of thick cream.

Ingredients for 4

150g pancetta or bacon

4tbl olive oil

1 medium onion

2 cloves garlic

4 slices sour dough bread

350g wild mushrooms

2tbl balsamic vinegar

2tbl double or thick cream (optional)

4tbl finely chopped parsley

4tbl finely grated parmesan

salt and pepper

Method

1. Cut the pancetta or bacon into slivers or tiny cubes and fry rapidly in half the olive oil so they become crunchy. Remove and set aside.

2. Finely chop the onion and garlic and fry it in the pancetta or bacon fat. Remove and set aside.

3. Heat a griddle or heavy frying pan, brush both sides of the bread with the remaining olive oil, and toast on both sides until crisp.

4. Clean with a damp cloth the mushrooms and coarsely slice, discarding damaged and muddy parts.

5. Quickly sauté the mushrooms until they begin to brown, then add back the onion and garlic and stir in the balsamic vinegar. Add freshly ground black pepper and salt if necessary. If you are using cream, this is the moment to stir it in.

6. Put a generous spoonful of the mushrooms onto each slice of toast, sprinkle with the crunchy bacon, the parsley and the parmesan.

Shopping in Bologna: Davide Simoni – new generation family business

2011-09-19T14:23:00.001+01:00

Davide Simoni - champion of mortadella

Davide Simoni’s ambition is to make the best quality artisan salami. He’s spent two years learning the ropes on the factory floor at Ennio Pasquini’s mortadella laboratorio.Now he’s back at the family shop, Simoni, learning to run one of the landmark family businesses in the Quadrilatero.

A tiny part of Simoni's ham and salami repertoire

Simoni are famous for their hams, salamis and cheeses and are one of the few outlets for the highly prized Pasquini mortadella.

Simoni - one of the shopping delights of Bologna

After completing a literature degree, Davide went to work as a journalist before trying his hand as a mortadella maker. That is what has really inspired him. In the meantime, he is planning to set up a blog. ‘I am so well placed. I have access to all the best food businesses in the city. I’m sitting on treasure.’ At Christmas, he works extra hours helping out in the family’s other business, a pasta fresca shop on via Murri. He’ll be joined there by siblings and cousins, amongst them an economist, a psychiatrist and a pharmacist. They may not share his passion for sausage making but like him they remain part of the family business, a common feature in Bologna.

See Davide Simoni's guide to the Quadrilatero at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=654742518&sk=wall#!/profile.php?id=100001878283172 (Forgive the interviewer's Italo-American)

Atti - give us this day our daily bread

2011-09-11T10:38:00.000+01:00

Anna Maria Bonaga - doyenne master baker

Paolo Atti e Figli - Bakers and Confectioners

via Caprairie 7 and via Drapperie 6

By five past six, the shelves are empty – the afternoon bread is sold out. If you live or work in the city centre, Atti is the bakery to head to for bread for the evening meal. ‘We want our customers to have fresh bread so we bake twice a day, says Francesco Bonaga, one of four siblings who now run Atti under the friendly but firm supervision of Anna-Maria, their octogenarian mother. Despite the growing presence of local supermarket chains, most Bolognese still buy their daily bread from an independent baker, and of these Atti is the biggest in the city.

Francesco Bonaga - inheriting a family tradition

Francesco claims that they make over 50 different kinds of bread plus dozens of cakes and biscuits. Their crescente, a bit like focaccia but flatter and made with lard as well as oil, is delicious, especially the ones with flecks of mortadella or prosciutto. They are famed for their certosino, a kind of Bolognese Christmas cake packed with dried fruits, and equally for the design of the box it is sold in. Atti also produce a wide range of pasta, especially tortellini, tortellone – the larger variety with ricotta and vegetable fillings - and lasagne. Many of these can be consumed with a glass of wine in the bigger of their two shops. Or taken home in another type of beautifully designed box.

Everything hand made

Let them eat cake

2011-09-04T17:48:00.001+01:00

Surely too beautiful to eat - Caffe e Dolce

Cake fills the gap nicely between lunch and dinner in Bologna, a gap of six or seven hours. You will see luscious displays of chocolate and fruit cakes as well as some over-dressed fantasies involving layers of cream and crystalised fruit in the windows of Atti, Zanarini and Gamberini. They and others also sell mignon – miniature French-style beauties – singly or weighed by the kilo. You can enjoy them on the premises or take them home. Other good places to try are

The display at Pallotti

Caffe e Dolce on the corner of Carbonesi and Massimo,
Colazione a Bianca at the beginning of Santo Stefano,
FP risto Pallotti, on the corner of Irnerio and Alessandrini, good for breakfast, and very convenient if you’re desperate for a mid-afternoon snack after a visit to the Botanical Gardens.
Lo Sfizio, via Riva de Reno 100A, has a wonderful range of Bolognese cakes, pastries and biscuits - to buy to take away only.

Zanarini - where smart babies go for their brioche con crema

Tagliatelle al ragù di manzo - Shin beef ragù with tagliatelle

2011-08-29T20:14:00.001+01:00

An interesting variant on the standard bolognese ragù is this one made with very slow cooked shin of beef. I had thought long and hard about including a wild boar recipe in the book but decided against because it is not readily available. This isn’t wild boar but the long cooking with red wine gives a powerful depth of flavour reminiscent of sauces made with game meat. If you have a slow cooker that would be ideal for this. Cooked on top of the slow there is a danger of the bottom catching and burning. Depending on the size of the chunks of meat, it will need a good six to eight hours of slow cooking. By then, the vegetables, bacon and wine will have combined to make a smooth sauce and the meat will be easily flaked. If you want to be true to the wild boar tradition, you serve it with pappardelle – broad noodles – but if the key word for you is ragù then it must be tagliatelle.

A word about the pasta: I decided to try the experiment of making it entirely by machine and the result was the best ever. I mixed the dough in a Kenwood, and then used the kneading hook on it for ten minutes. As I watched, I saw the consistency changing and when I removed the pasta dough from the mixer bowl it was dry and elastic. After resting it in the fridge for half an hour, I used a pasta machine to roll it out to the second thinnest setting, making sure that I put it through the two broadest settings four or five times. By then it was sublimely silky and easy to work. And I used the Bolognese recipe: 1 egg per 100grams of flour and nothing else.

To follow, we had a dessert made from chestnut puree accompanied by a deep, dark chocolate ice cream that wouldn’t have been out of place in La Sorbetteria or Gianni in Bologna. More of that later.

This recipe makes enough for six. Or you could double the quantities and make an extra portion for freezing.

Ingredients

for the pasta

6 large eggs

600g OO pasta flour

2 teaspoons salt

for the ragù

2 tablespoons olive oil

150g bacon or pancetta

2 onions

2 carrots

2 sticks celery

3 cloves garlic

500g shin of beef

4 bay leaves

2 tablespoons thyme leaves

200ml red wine

500ml beef stock or beef stock cube dissolved in hot water

400g tin of chopped tomatoes

salt and pepper to taste

1 large handful of flat leaved parsley

Method

1. Mix the pasta ingredients in a mixer or food processor then knead for 10 minutes. Wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge.

2. Fry the bacon in the olive oil in a large casserole. Remove and set aside.

3. Finely chop the vegetables and fry slowly until soft and beginning to brown. Remove and set aside.

4. Cut the beef into chunks about 3 or 4 cms in size, having removed surplus fat and gristle. Fry rapidly until browned. Add back the bacon and vegetables, then the wine, driving off the alcohol. Then add the bay leaves, thyme and tomatoes.

5. Bring to barely a simmer, and cook slowly for at least six hours until the meat is very tender.

6. Roll out the pasta, and slice it into tagliatelle.

7. Remove the meat carefully with a slotted spoon. Using two forks, shred it finely, taking care to remove pieces of fat and gristle. Replace the meat, check for seasoning, reheat, adding the parsley finely chopped.

8. Put on the pasta to cook in a large pan of boiling, salted water.

9. Drain the pasta when it is cooked and combine with the ragù. Serve with grated parmesan.

Lunch with the Foodie Bugler herself

2011-08-29T20:11:00.000+01:00

Raspberry and almond ice creams with blackberries from the garden

Silvana has done us proud in the August edition of the Foodie Bugle. As well as a loving account of lunch here a few weeks ago, she has included pieces about Whitbourne Hall - where we live - and its gardens, plus a report of her visit to our local grocer/butcher/deli, Legges in Bromyard.Bromyard.

Gnocchi alle fave con pesto di mandorle – Broad bean gnocchi with almond pesto

2011-08-08T19:28:00.000+01:00

From a Bolognese point of view, this recipe could be a step too far, a step towards the risky zone of mongrel fusion food. Well, I’ve eaten broad beans, gnocchi and almond pesto in Bologna – separately - and I don’t think this threatens the integrity of cucina bolognese. But you may think different. You could serve these gnocchi with the standard potato gnocchi, as I did last night, or alone.

Ingredients (serves 4)

for the gnocchi

480g broad bean paste

80g cream cheese

2 egg yolks

2 tbl plain flour

salt and pepper

for the sauce

3 tb l olive oil

8 shallots

50g podded and skinned broad beans

50g grated parmesan

for the pesto

50g parsley

50g grated parmesan

50g sliced almonds

1 garlic clove

4tbl olive oil

salt and pepper

Method

1. Cook the broad beans in plenty of salted water until they are soft.

2. Process the beans with the other gnocchi ingredients. Chill

3. Roll out the gnocchi mixture on a lightly floured board creating a number of long sausages the thickness of your thumb.

4. Flatten the sausages with the back of a fork, and then chop into segments about 2 cms long.

5. Meanwhile make the pesto by processing all the ingredients.

6. Put a pan of water on to boil. Reduce to a simmer. Drop the gnocchi into the water, and leave for three minutes. Strain and lay on a clean tea towel to dry.

7. Heat the olive oil and slowly sauté the shallots until beginning to brown, then add the broad beans and the gnocchi to re-heat.

8. Serve each portion of gnocchi accompanied by the shallots and broad beans and sprinkle with the remaining parmesan. Lay alongside a quenelle-shaped spoonful of pesto.

Cucina Bolognese and Me - 2: Virginio Merola, Mayor of Bologna

2011-08-02T12:08:00.000+01:00

My ideal dinner companions are people who love good food and enjoy it in the company of others.

Virginio Merola was elected Mayor Bologna for a five year term in May 2011. The candidate of the centre left parties, he won just over 50% of the votes cast. He has committed to tidying up the city centre – long covered in graffiti – and pedestrianising it. Merola, at home with twitter and facebook, has taken a distinctly modern stand on issues like gay marriage. In a photo for the local paper he posed in jeans and jacket surrounded by his cabinet, half of them women. His interview with us shows that he knows his onions when it comes to Bolognese food, even if he does betray his southern origins by plumping for penne all’arrabiata as his favourite dish.

Virginio Merola: Brought up Bolognese

1. Who or what has been the biggest influence on your food preferences?

Family and upbringing are the things that have shaped my taste in food. I was born in the South, in the province of Caserta and I was five before we moved to Bologna.
It took me a while to get used to Bolognese food because the flavours were quite different to what I was used to. But in time I’ve come to appreciate Bolognese food.

2. Why do you think food is so important for the Bolognese?

Food is important because it reflects the culture and tradition of a community. And Bologna, perhaps more markedly than the rest of Italy, has a strong culinary tradition.
It is not just cooking in its strict sense, i.e. how to mix ingredients to best effect, but also how to create them. Take for example tagliatelle al ragù, or spaghetti bolognese as it is known outside Italy. Here we always start by making the pasta – la sfoglia – and then we make the sauce. The traditional skills of the sfogline – the people who make the pasta- are handed on from generation to generation by cookery schools in Bologna specially set up for that purpose.

3. As mayor, what would you like to do to improve the impression that visitors have of Bologna?

One of my priorities is to establish a Bologna brand to strengthen our reputation. The aim is to attract more visitors and to raise our profile as a city. We will focus on quality of life issues because we want to improve the sense of well-being of our own citizens as well as our visitors.

4. My favourite meal is...?

My favorite dish is penne all'arrabbiata

5. My ideal dinner companions?

My ideal dinner companions are people who love good food and enjoy it in the company of others.

Marcello's Spaghetti alla chitarra with courgettes and prawns

2011-07-23T12:06:00.001+01:00

Fresh juicy prawns and a saffron stock - the keys to this dish

The best dish of a weekend in Bologna in October 2009:

‘This is tough’, I wrote then. ‘The gnocchi at Melloncello, the tortellini at Godot Wine Bar, the guinea fowl at Valsellucro, the mortadella lasagne at Caffe Concerto: these all rate highly. But ultimately, the prize for best dish of the weekend goes to the Locanda del Castello at Palazzo Rosso, Sasso Marconi for spaghetti alla chitarra with courgettes and prawns. Marcello dall’Aglio says that the key to the dish is the prawn stock and the saffron which holds everything together. Everything was just right and perfectly balanced: the tiny cubes of grilled courgette and the plump juicy prawns. Is it Bolognese – yes, of course, fresh water fish have long been a part of the tradition. And to complete the pleasure, the spaghetti came with a glass of Tenuta Bonzara’s reserve merlot, a revelation if you are underwhelmed by merlot like the two guys in Sideways’.

That was nearly two years ago. Since then, I’ve had the same dish on every visit to the Locanda. It’s an understated Italian classic, depending on a few choice ingredients artfully combined. It seems to work by sleight of hand but every element makes its contribution: fresh, quickly cooked prawns, garden fresh courgette, the best olive oil and above all the stock. This must be deeply flavoured and it should be combined with a small amount of fresh breadcrumbs to give it body. Spaghetti alla chitarra is right for this dish but linguine is almost as good and easier to get hold of.

Ingredients

1 onion

1 ½ cloves of garlic

6tbl good olive oil

100g fresh tomatoes

pinch saffron

25g chopped parsley

4 bay leaves

2 courgettes

250g uncooked, peeled tiger prawns – fresh or frozen

50g white breadcrumbs

Method

1. Begin by making the stock. Remove the heads and carcases from the prawns. Fry the onion and one clove of garlic in 3 tablespoons of olive oil until they soften and begin to colour then add the prawn carcases and contain to fry. After a few minutes add the tomato, saffron, half the parsley and bay leaves, and half a litre of water and bring to the boil. Cook hard for 20 minutes and then strain the mixture into a bowl, using a spoon to push the liquor through a sieve. You should have about 300ml of stock.

2. Chop the courgettes into small matchsticks or cubes and fry them fast in the remaining olive oil until they begin to brown. Set aside.

3. Remove from the pan and add the prawns and half a garlic clove finely chopped. Fry until the prawns are pink all over. Set aside.

4. Put the linguine on to boil in salted water. It will take about 12 minutes to reach al dente. As the pasta is coming up to being cooked, re-heat the pan used to fry the prawns, add a spot more olive oil and add the breadcrumbs. Fry them, gathering up all the pan juices as you do so. Then add the stock and cook until you have a smooth sauce.

5. Drain the pasta, add in the sauce and use it to coat the linguine. Then add back the prawns and courgettes and briefly re-heat, finally adding the finely chopped parsley.

6. Serve.

Join a cool literary society

2011-07-18T12:16:00.000+01:00

Coffee and the newspaper: quiet moment in Cafe Letterario

Cafè Letterario

via Manzoni, 2

Bologna’s newest cafe has the feel of a cool – in all senses - club library, a perfect retreat from the hot, noisy city outside. Opened in April in the Palace Caracci Fava that houses the Civic Medieval Museum, the Cafe is designed for quiet meetings, reading and contemplation. In an armchair in the corner, a lady half reclines reading the newspaper; at a table in the adjoining room, two gents are deep in conversation around a laptop and a careless array of plans. Armchairs beckon. Around the walls, the shelves hold a selection of art and history books, artisan beers and gifts. In time, clients will be able to join the library and borrow the books on display. The cafe serves coffee, cakes and sandwiches and in the early evening aperitivi and a selection of snacks. For the summer, the cafe opens late.

Since you’re here, don’t miss the Medieval Museum which down below contains a unique collection of sculpture about Bologna University in the era when it dominated learning in Europe. Instead of religious images, the gallery is full of works depicting teachers and students, talking, listening, reading, thinking.

For the best food writing and photography

2011-07-15T11:48:00.001+01:00

Culatello maker Podere Cadassa, Parma Photo: Liz Cousins

The Foodie Bugle

The online magazine that tells the whole story of good food and drink

This month's Foodie Bugle is on-line at http://thefoodiebugle.com/ It includes interviews with Anna del Conte and the editor of Delicious, plus pieces about the production of culatello - ours - and runner beans, and about setting up a chocolate factory.

Invisible followers

2011-07-13T09:48:00.000+01:00

My followers have cause to be a bit miffed. For technical reasons, you've become invisible if you are using google to enter this site. Try Firefox instead and you are restored to your rightful place.

Lasagnetta al ragù di faraona – Guinea fowl lasagne

2011-07-08T13:57:00.002+01:00

-a speciality of Vicolo Colombina, Bologna

We were so taken by this dish when we ate it last month in Bologna that we had to have the recipe immediately. Gianni Fruzzetti, the co-owner and sommelier, complied explaining,

‘We wanted to test the frontiers of the traditional approach, and this dish does that. For a start, it uses guinea fowl instead of beef or pork; there are just three layers, so it’s very flat compared with traditional lasagne. And it doesn’t use béchamel sauce. It’s an express dish, that takes just ten minutes, and it’s more digestible than the traditional version.’

Gianni Fruzetti - departing from tradition

Basically, you roast the bird, take it off the bone and shred it, and add it to a traditional ragu base – the battuto – of onion, carrot, celery, garlic – and then cook the sauce long and slow. In the restaurant kitchen, when the order comes through, they cook the lasagne sheets quickly, add sauce, grated parmesan and a kind of sauce made by mixing finely grated parmesan and water. The dish is placed under the grill to brown and then it’s ready. The recipe below is adapted for home cooking.

Another bird that could stand up to the long slow cook is duck, but don’t substitute chicken.

Enough for 4

Ingredients

1 guinea fowl

5tbl olive oil

30g butter

salt and pepper

6 bay leaves

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

3 sticks celery

2 carrots

4 slices smoked bacon

150ml passata

125ml white wine

100g grated parmesan

175ml warm water

16 sheets of lasagne

Method

1. Season the guinea fowl all over with salt and pepper and place in a roasting bag along with half the butter and half the olive oil plus the bay leaves. Put the roasting bag in a roasting tray and place in a re-heated oven at 170 degrees for 45 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil and butter in a large heavy-based saucepan. Add the onion finely chopped and gently fry over medium heat for about 7 minutes until soft and beginning to brown.

3. Add the finely chopped celery, carrots and garlic, and cook for another couple of minutes.

4. Add the bacon cut into small cubes and cook until it begins to brown.

5. Pour in the wine, raise the heat to drive off the alcohol, then add the passata and stir thoroughly.

6. Remove the guinea fowl from the roasting bag, conserving the juices and adding them to the saucepan. Remove the flesh, discarding skin, ligaments and bone, and chop it into small cubes. Add it to the saucepan

7. Bring the saucepan to the boil, and then lower the heat and cook, uncovered, at a lazy simmer, with just an intermittent bubble breaking through the surface, for 3 hours or more.

8. Prepare the parmesan ‘sauce’ by processing 50g of parmesan and the water to create a creamy consistency.

9. Cook the lasagne until it is al dente, strain and lay out on a clean tea towel.

10. Grease an oven-proof dish with a spot of olive oil then place a layer of lasagne in the bottom. Spread over this some sauce then some of the parmesan. Create three layers of pasta and sauce, finishing by spreading the parmesan cream across the top together with some of the grated parmesan.

11. Place in the oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes until it is browning and bubbling.

Tortellone ai piselli e fave con burro e menta - Broad bean and pea tortellone with mint butter

2011-07-04T15:33:00.002+01:00

Peas, broad beans and mint mark the beginning of July in our garden. There is something irresistible about the combination which draws me back to it, in different forms. I’ve used the two vegetables before to make a sauce for pappardelle (see the recipe on this blog), and here they are again as the filling – with ricotta – for tortellone. A couple of tips:

1. when you make the pasta, ensure that you knead it until stickiness becomes elasticity – that will make rolling out much easier

2. skin the broad beans before you process them.

Enough for 8 (or freeze a batch)

Ingredients

400g OO pasta flour

4 medium eggs

1tsp salt

150g skinned, podded broad beans

100g podded peas – or frozen peas

100g ricotta

1tsp salt

75g butter

75g grated parmesan

12 leaves mint shredded

Method

1. Combine flour, eggs and salt to create a ball of dough.

2. Knead until the dough loses its stickiness and becomes elastic. Wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge.

3. Cook all but a handful of beans and peas, reserving the rest.

4. Skin the beans.

5. Process the beans, peas, ricotta and salt until a smooth mixture. Load into a piping bag with a 0.75cm nozzle.

6. Roll out the pasta dough until it is thin enough to see the shape of your fingers through it.

7. Cut out 5cm squares. Pipe a squirt of filling about the size of a broad bean on each square.

8. Close the pasta to create a triangle, at the same time pressing down the filling away from the apex.

9. Wrap the tortellone around your finger and press the ends together. Aim for about 10 per person but you may as well make more if there is enough pasta and filling. The extras will keep for a day in the fridge or you can freeze them in a single layer.

10. Heat a large pan of water and when it is boiling tip in the tortellone plus the reserved peas and beans. Check after 5 minutes – they need to be al dente but not too much so. Strain.

11. Heat the butter in a frying pan large enough to hold all the tortellone, or use two pans, or do two batches.

12. Toss the tortellone in the butter, adding the shredded mint and the parmesan. Serve.

Federico Aicardi – food loving musician and pharmacist

2011-06-26T22:48:00.000+01:00

Federico Aicardi - singing pharmicist

The day job of Federico Aicardi, a singer song-writer with a growing reputation in Italy, is running a pharmacy in Bologna city centre. The previous time we met he supplied me with a few sachets of his famous Aicardi baking powder which I used to explosive effect to bake a giant focaccia. This time we met for lunch across the road at Olivo. Federico knows everyone including another diner who he introduced as one of the most famous singers in Italy.

I began by asking him about his earliest memories of being brought up in a Bolognese household. ‘I was very small and it was Christmas, and my grandmother and my mother and all the women were gathered around the big kitchen table that I used to play with my soldiers on. They were all making tortellini as if the whole of Bologna was coming to dinner.’

Apart from tortellini and lasagne, Federico has fond memories of those other Bolognese winter classics, ciambelli, a ring shaped cake and certosino, the richly fruited Christmas cake. But from holidays in the mountains in the north east he picked up a liking for polenta, and from trips to the seaside, he came to love piadina, a flatbread that is traditionally eaten filled with spinach or with mozzarella.

'It's all they ever talk about.'

Federico married into a food loving family. ‘It’s all they ever talk about when we get together – their last great meal or a favourite dish’. He promised to send me his wife’s recipe for roast guinea fowl. But why is that the Bolognese love to talk about food, I asked.

‘Well, it is a centuries old tradition here, food culture was an integral part of the every day experience in the big houses that once ruled the city. Poets would write about food and wine. We’ve always admired the skills of great cooks, and women have always been prized for their skill in the kitchen. Nowadays, our love of food goes along with our pleasure in socialising. We love to get together to eat and talk (as I’d noticed)’.

But is that any different from anywhere else?

‘People still stop for lunch in Bologna whether they’re lawyers or factory workers. They don’t in Milan. They just have a quick sandwich there. Bologna is known throughout Italy for the quality of the food you can eat and for the reputation of its university, whereas Rome is known for being the centre of government and for its monuments and Milan for fashion and the pace of life’.

We moved on to talk about favourite places for aperitivi. ‘Somewhere very traditional is the Osteria Olindo Faccioli or Drogheria Calzolari. Young people prefer the Nu Lounge in San Petronio’. And eating out? ‘ I like della Santa and Cesare Maretti’s place in via Senzanome. I also like da Vito for the atmosphere and the fact that you’re likely to be rubbing shoulders with writers and artists’.

But what about his dislikes. ‘The worst meal I’ve ever eaten was in Santa Barbara, in California, fettucine alfredo, a dish that doesn’t exist here. The pasta was overcooked and swamped in water and cream. Ugh. I can’t stand the fact that MacDonalds is right in the centre of Bologna opposite the statue of Neptune. I’ve got nothing against America or American food but this is sacrilege. Oh, and I can’t stand mostarda di cremona’. At this point I explained the well known English concept of Marmite food – you either love it or hate it.

Finally, his ideal dining companions? Every year, he gets together with 25 of his mates from high school for a meal. ‘This year it was at Anna Maria’s. I don’t know where we’ll go next year, but we are a big bunch of foodies, as you might expect’.

Highlights of a month in Bologna?

2011-06-19T23:18:00.000+01:00

Piazza Maggiore - late night

Hard to choose. But top of the list are the city itself, with its never ending vistas of medieval buildings and the porticos, fascinating shops and workshops, and the people who we have met who have been so generous with their time. Above all,

• Gianni at Vicolo Colombina and their gorgeous recipe for lasagne with a guinea fowl ragu

• Giacomo the chef at Trattoria della Santa and his recipe for tortellone

• excellent recommendations for places to eat from Giorgia Zabbini, Mimy Tavormina and Davide, the chef-tutor at the Cookery School on via Pratello

Mimy Tavormina - local where to eat specialist

• charming memories of Bolognese food from Massimo Maracci and Federico Aicardi

• Alessandra Spisne and the team at La Vecchia Scuola for their enthusiasm and hospitality

• Marcello dall’Aglio at Locanda del Castello who provided us with one of our most memorable dinners (and where we ran into Donna and Alistair, two of our blog followers)

• Davide Simoni who took time out to introduce us to Pasquini, the only artisan mortadella maker left in Bologna

• the Bergonzis at Al Vedel and Podere Cadassa near Parma who put on a special display of culatello production just for us and Marcello

• Trattorie La Montonara, Olivo and Leonida for beautiful food and lovely recipes

• two simple ideas: Almond pesto at Eataly and zuccine pesto at Al Vedel.

More of these on the blog over the coming weeks – and also in the forthcoming book.

Bologna's porticos: feast for the eye, protection from the elements

Learning to make pasta – the proper way

2011-06-15T22:16:00.000+01:00

Alessandra Spisne and her daughter Stefania

A morning in La Vecchia Scuola, Alessandra Spisne’s celebrated cookery school (writes Liz). There we met Tim and Janet, two Canadians from Toronto with a passion for pasta. That’s why they are spending five days of their holiday learning how to make pasta.

Breaking the eggs into the flour 'nest'

After donning the school’s t-shirt and yellow cap, they do what they do every day here: they create a 500g nest of flour and break five eggs into it. No olive oil, no semolina (‘that’s not traditional Bolognese’), no extra yolks, just flour and eggs.

Breaking the eggs with a fork, they gradually work in the flour until they have a ball of dough.

Looking for San Luca

Over at the next table, Massimo, who is doing the three month professional course, is rolling out his 500g and five eggs into a intensely yellow, incredibly thin oval. That’s what Tim and Jackie hope to achieve by the end of the week, a sheet or sfoglio of pasta so delicate that they can see San Luca – the church on the hill overlooking Bologna - through it.

Even though they are only here for a short time, they are taught to professional standards and learn how a real Bolognese kitchen works, with its separate spaces for the pasta maker and the sauce makers. In fact, many restaurants have a pasta workshop in another building where the sfoglina – the pasta maker – toils alone making tagliatelle and gramigna (a kind of curly macaroni that accompanies a sausage sauce), as well as the filled pastas.

The next step for Tim and Jackie is to knead the dough they have made. For this you need clean dry hands and just a little flour on the rolling board – just how much you need to knead depends on the season and the humidity. Today is hot and clammy, tough conditions for apprentice pasta makers.

Kneading the dough

Their task is to make tortellone, pasta filled (in this case) with a mixture of potato, parmesan and finely chopped parsley. Luckily you don’t have to roll the pasta as thin for tortellone as you do for the smaller, finer meat filled tortellini or for tagliatelle.

As the students cut the sfoglio into small squares, they are told not to waste any of the pasta. ‘You’ve worked hard to make it’, says their teacher Simone, ‘so you want to use every scrap of it’. They work the off cuts into the squares, which makes the pasta thicker but for tortellone this is less critical. Another clever tip is about preparing the potatoes for the filling: they put them once cold through a ricer, skins and all, and what comes out is just the potato. To this they add parmesan, parsley and an egg, and then mix well before putting the stuffing into a piping bag.

End result

Learning to use the piping bag is an art in itself. But once mastered it takes no time to pipe a blob of filling onto every square. Folding over the pasta and then forming the distinctive tortellone shape takes a bit longer. Watching the students grappling with the pasta and the filling you can see why it took Nonna years to perfect hers.

Surprise meeting

2011-06-11T13:05:00.000+01:00

Last night we dined at Locanda del Castello at Palazzo Rossi, Sasso Marconi. And so did Donna and Alistair. So what? Well, funnily enough they were there because they read this blog and decided they liked the sound of the Locanda. And they spotted me from the photo on the blog and introduced themselves. We' d sat at adjacent tables and hearing their accent, I wondered how they'd found out about this slightly off the beaten track restaurant. Anyway, it was an unexpected pleasure to meet some blog followers out of the blue.

In the excitement of the moment, I forgot to ask how they found it. I look forward to reading your comments, Donna and Alastair, about the Locanda and the other places you've tried on your eating tour.

As usual, we loved it. Especially, the lasagnette with aubergine and pesto, the pork chops, and a mille feuille with mascarpone and chocolate (look out for recipe later). The food is classically Bolognese but always with a slight twist of creativity. Incidentally, we got there on the 92 bus, getting off at Pontecchio, walking down the lane to the train station, and crossing over. But we needed a taxi home at 1130.

Apologies

2011-06-07T14:34:00.000+01:00

Apologies to all our followers. A persistent fault with Google blogspot means that you have disappeared from the site - temporarily I hope.

Welcoming eating place with style and good Bolognese food

2011-06-07T14:02:00.000+01:00

Perfect place for lunch watching the world go by

Trattoria La Montonara

Augusto Righi 15

We stumbled on La Montonara and then went back for more. It hardly figures in Trip Advisor but it does rate a mention in the Wallpaper guide to Bologna. What do we like about this small neighbourhood trattoria just off via dell’Indipendenza? Everything: the quaint decor, the service and above all the food.

Run by Filippo Venturi, whose stories about a group of young people in the Bologna of the 80s has just been published, it does simple Bolognese food with a flourish. In a selection of antipasti, the mortadella mousse stood out (see recipe below) as did the hard to get right old stager, crescentine with squacquerone – a local soft cheese that tastes much better than it sounds – and salami. Tagliatelle al’ragu was excellent as were beef carpaccio and a dish of sedanini (pasta) with tomato sauce which was a miracle of simplicity and flavour. The Coteletta Bolognese was finely judged with a tasty piece of veal surmounted by just the right amount of prosciutto and fontina. We all took a spoon to the ravishing and light as air mascarpone pudding. There is a small terrace outside but inside you can still watch the world pass by as well as taki in the fine detail of the decor which consists of toy kitchen sets and ovens, veteran cooking utensils and a set of antique bed heads.

Filippo’s recipe for Mortadella Mousse

enough for 6

Ingredients

250g mascarpone

250g mortadella

1 handful grated parmesan

salt and pepper

a smear balsamic vinegar glaze

Method

1. Cut the mortadella into cubes, then process with the mascarpone. Season to taste.

2. Butter six metal moulds and fill each with the mousse mixture

3. Chill for a couple of hours then unmould by placing each mould for a few seconds in a bowl of very hot water.

4. Alongside each mousse make an artistic smear of balsamic glaze.

The original pop up restaurant - Festa dell’Unita

2011-06-05T17:27:00.000+01:00

Imagine a pop up restaurant run mainly by volunteers, and feeding up to 300 customers every evening for a month at a time. That is the centrepiece of the annual Festa dell’Unita – Unity Festival – that takes place in the Two Madonnas Park on the outskirts of Bologna. This is one of hundreds if not thousands of similar events that take place in Italy every summer, creating that risky mix of food and politics.

We went with long time friends Sonia and Cecce and the four of us paid euro 70 for two courses plus wine. We ate excellent tortellini, lasagne and tagliatelle al ragu followed by a fritto misto of fish – OK – and a mixed grill – better. Within seconds of arrival our order was taken and within minutes the pasta arrived.

A vibrant version of zuppa inglese

Waiters and washers up are volunteers with a few professionals brought into the manage the whole affair and oversee the cooking. Out front we were surrounded by groups of all ages including three generation families. Behind the scenes, there were teams folding napkins and preparing trays of cutlery, other teams dealing with the washing up, and then more teams ladling out pasta and grilling meat and fish.

Nowadays, the Festa is one of the highlights of the year for supporters of the Partito Democratico, the centre left party currently in opposition, and a financial mainstay. Originally, the festival was run by the Communist Party whose newspaper, L’Unita, still survives even if it doesn’t. Every suburb, town and village has its Festa dell’Unita, above all in the red belts of Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna. As well as sampling food, locally produced wines and ice cream, expect to see political debates, families trying their hand at the local version of tombola, children excitedly throwing luminous balls in the air and people of all ages enjoying taking to the dance floor for a rumba or tango. Not unlike an English village fete, a local Festa is the place to go if you want to experience life with the Bolognese. The tourist information office in Piazza Maggiore in the city centre will be able to tell you if there is a Festa taking place anywhere during your stay.

Fatta a Bologna Limonata - Lemonade

2011-05-31T16:57:00.000+01:00

Walking home from my Italian class ( learning the various ways of using reflexive verbs in the past tense) I called in at the Mercato delle Erbe (San Gervasio) off Ugo Bassi. The fruit and vegetables were wonderful. Strawberries and apricots caught my eye but I was after lemons to make a refreshing drink when I got back to the apartment. I bought three beautiful lemons from Basilicata.

I cut the fine peel from the lemons, discarding the pith, and put the peel with the remaining lemon flesh, a tray of ice cubes, 250mls of water and 1 tbs of sugar into a liquidiser (you may need to add more sugar according to your taste or if the lemons are sour). Once fully liquidised I just strained the mixture into glasses - nothing more refreshing on a hot day in Bologna!

Primo post da Bologna - First blog from Bologna

2011-05-29T12:09:00.000+01:00

Benvenuti a Bologna dov’e arrivata presto l’estate quest’anno (e dove sto sciolendo come un gelato).

Eccolo il primo post della citta e il primo in italiano – la mia versione. Como sempre nell’mercati l’offerta del cibo - frutta e verdure, carne, salumi, pesce, formaggi – e stupificante. Bellisimo, soppratutto le primizie: asparagi, fragole, carciofi toscani. E, questa volta a Bologna, abbiamo una cucina nell’appartamento.

Quindi, aspettavi una serie di ricette per piatto composti da frutta e verdure. Anche interviste con persone chiavi della ‘food scene’ Bolognese.

First post from Bologna

Welcome to Bologna where summer has come early this year (and I am dissolving in the heat).

New season artichokes from Tuscany

Thanks to a week in an excellent language school – La Cultura Italiana – this is my first blog in Italian. Or rather my version of Italian. As always the display of food – fruit, vegetables, salami, hams, fish, cheese - in the markets is amazing. But the most mouth watering sight is the spring fruit and vegetables: glistening strawberries, green asparagus from Altedo, tiny purpleTuscan artichokes. And this time in Bologna we have a kitchen to cook in in our apartment. So, you can expect a lot of recipes for vegetable dishes and puddings involving fruit, as well as interviews with the people who make the Bolognese food scene tick.

Filetto di manzo con cipolline all'aceto balsamico – Sirloin steak with shallots in balsamic vinegar

2011-05-20T12:25:00.000+01:00

Deeply flavoured, almost caramelised balsamic sauce

Shallots in a sweet sour sauce made from balsamic vinegar are an ideal accompaniment to a plainly grilled steak and a favourite of many restaurants in Emilia-Romagna. All you need to add is some bread to soak up the sauce, and maybe a bed of spinach for the meat to recline on. I bought the steak from Mr Legge in Bromyard, resisting the other temptations of the finest butcher-deli for a hundred miles around. Don't worry too much about the balsamic - it doesn't need to be 10 years old for this recipe.

Enough for 4. Ready in 30 minutes. Beat that, Jamie.

Ingredients

4tbl olive oil

4 x250g sirloin steaks about 2.5cms thick

400g shallots

2 cloves of garlic

75ml balsamic vinegar

50ml sweet white or red wine

2tbl brown sugar

salt and pepper

Method

1. Peel the shallots and garlic. Chop the garlic finely.

2. Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and add the shallots and garlic, letting them brown gently. Then, add the wine, balsamic vinegar and sugar and cook on a steady flame until the sauce is greatly reduced and starts to caramelise. Turn off the gas or electricity.

3. Heat a griddle and oil it using 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Season the steaks on both sides with salt and pepper.

4. When it’s really hot, plonk the steaks on it, standing them up on their fat so that it cooks crisply. Then, griddle the steaks for 4 minutes on each side.

Begin by crisping the fat

5. Remove the steaks and place them on a metal grille over a dish so that any juices can drain into it.

6. Scrape the residue from the griddle into the pan containing the shallots and add any juices from the steaks. Re-heat the shallots, reducing the sauce so that it is thick and beginning to be caramelised.

7. Place each steak on a heated plate and spoon over some of the sauce and the shallots.

Risotto agl' aparagi – Risotto asparagus

2011-05-19T15:20:00.000+01:00

Resist the temptation to add mascarpone

Close by where we live is England’s best asparagus from Worcestershire and above all Goodman’s at Great Witley where a fat bunch sells for £3 and a large bag of all sorts costs hardly any more. As well as a risotto, I was able to make a dish of asparagus and chard stuffed pancakes al forno for £4.

It’s hard not to go a bit stupid about asparagus – during the season I could eat it every day. The mania is widespread in this part of the world. Out walking last weekend I noticed a restaurant in Evesham on the banks of the River Avon offering a three course asparagus banquet including asparagus ice cream. They understand this in Altedo, a village in Bologna province, where the annual asparagus festival in honour of the asparago verde di Altedo starts this weekend. Local restaurants there compete to display the vegetable’s infinite culinary flexibility.

Anyway, back to the risotto: the key thing as always is to ensure that the star of the dish isn’t overwhelmed by an overdose of butter, cheese and cream as in many restaurants outside Italy. In its homeland, risotto is a simple dish. So, the flavour depends on the rice, the stock, the parmesan, some butter and of course the asparagus.

Enough for 4.

Ingredients

3tbl olive oil

30g butter

1 large onion

2 garlic cloves

250g Arborio rice

125ml dry white wine

500ml chicken stock (or a stock cube dissolved in water)

300g asparagus

75g prosciutto

75g parmesan

salt and pepper

Method

1. Begin by preparing the asparagus. Cut off and reserve the spears, that is, the top few centimetres. Snap off and dispose of the bottom woody part of the stem. Chop the remaining stem into 1 cm. lengths.

2. Gently fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil with half of the prosciutto cut into ribbons.

3. Add the rice and half the butter and fry until the rice is coated in the butter.

4. Add the wine and turn up the heat to drive off the alcohol.

5. Now add the stems of the aparagus and then begin to add the stock, just enough for the rice to cook rapidly without sticking on the bottom of the pan.

6. When the rice has just reached the al dente stage, add the remaining butter, prosciutto, the parmesan and the asparagus spears. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

7. Serve.

Polpette – Meatballs

2011-05-11T17:48:00.000+01:00

Polpette - Artusi's simple classic

Spaghetti with meatballs is like chicken chow mein – a dish unknown in its native land, devised by lonesome expatriates to fill their souls and bellies, and those of the people who came to eat in their restaurants. (You can pick up on this tradition at the musically challenged http://www.arkrestaurants.com/polpette.html ) Meatballs can be eaten with pasta but in Bologna they are more likely to be served by themselves, probably in a delicate tomato sauce, as they do at Trattoria Meloncello.

I have failed to persuade the sisters who run Meloncello to part with the recipe for their light as air tasty as anything polpette so I have fallen back on Signor Artusi. His renowned La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiare bene (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well) has the status in Italy that a book written jointly by Elizabeth David, Delia Smith, Nigel Slater and Jamie Oliver with the help of Mrs Beeton might have in England. Although not a Bolognese, Artusi is big on the food traditions of the city and its region, Emilia-Romagna, and true to their spirit. So his polpette recipe is strikingly simple, without the onion, garlic and herbs that you might reach for instinctively.

Garlic, in particular, is used cautiously in Bolognese cookery. ‘Put it in for flavouring and then take it out before you serve’ was the advice I received from one elderly lady as she showed me a recipe for a pasta sauce with prosciutto.

Anyway, here is Artusi’s slightly adapted recipe for polpette which I serve with a tomato sauce and a green vegetable (for colour contrast as much as anything). Polenta would also be good.

Makes more than enough for 4 as a main course.

Ingredients

for the tomato sauce

2tbl olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 sprig rosemary, finely chopped

½ tsp sugar

salt and pepper

for the polpette

250g minced pork

250g minced beef

50g breadcrumbs

50g finely grated parmesan

50g finely chopped bacon or pancetta

salt and pepper

½ nutmeg, grated

2 eggs

4tbl olive oil

4tbl finely chopped parsley

Method

1. place the meats, breadcrumbs and parmesan in a food processor. Process until well amalgamated. Add nutmeg, eggs, salt and pepper and process again. Transfer to fridge.

2. Gently fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil until they begin to soften and go brown. Add the remaining ingredients and cook gently for 30 minutes. The sauce should had lost its liquidity and become smooth. If not use a wooden spoon to break down the tomato and cook if for a bit longer until it is drier.

3. Heat the olive oil in a large non-stick frying pan and gently add the mixture formed into balls about 2.5cm in diameter. Fry gently until beginning to brown, for five to eight minutes.

4. Add to the tomato sauce and re-heat together, gently, adding some warm water if the sauce begins to stick. Add the parsley just before serving.

5. Serve either alone with bread or with polenta or some wilted spring greens.

Aubergine, egg plant, melanzane - what’s it good for?

2011-04-07T17:09:00.000+01:00

Melanzane Parmigiana

Yesterday was the first really warm day of spring so we had lunch in the conservatory with our visitor, Mo, who popped in on the way back to Liverpool (where we lived until 1984 and where our children were born). It was a day for a light but tasty lunch and salads. So we had a trio of aubergine antipasti with a tomato salad and a green salad. The tomatoes were simply dressed with olive oil – Castillo de Canena, my current favourite from Spain via Waitrose – and I mixed some sweet romaine leaves with fresh garden herbs.

Liz is an aubergine sceptic so I’ve been thinking about some dishes to win her over. The flavour of this beautiful but diffident vegetable can be elusive, especially when it is served soggy with oil or overwhelmed with rich sauces.

We began with melanzane parmigiana which she pronounced ‘the best ever’. Can you grill some slices of aubergine? Can you make`a simple tomato sauce? Can you oil a mould? Then you can make melanzane parmigiana. Why make it in a mould? First because it looks better when it’s served. Second, because it controls the size of the portion, a vital consideration if you’ve ever been presented with a vast and over rich portion of melanzane oozing with cream and mozzarella. (Yuck.)

The second and third members of the trio are caponata and simply grilled aubergine dressed with balsamic glaze and lovage. The caponata also came in a mould, held together with a light savoury jelly. If you are a vegetarian you could dispense with the jelly by lightly freezing the caponata and unmoulding it while it is still very cold.

The test

When it came to awarding points, the lunch party was divided: Mo preferred the caponata whilst Liz’ favourite was the parmigiana. As for me, I loved them both. Would you serve them all at one sitting? Why not? Three aubergine antipasti - best made together because they use different parts of the vegetable.

Serves 4.

You will need 8 metal or foil moulds, ideally 8cm x 5cm and 6 cm tall.

Grilled with a balsamic glaze and lovage

Ingredients

3 aubergines – classic purple-black variety

50ml olive oil

for the melanzane parmigiana

1 large onion

2 cloves of garlic

4 bay leaves

1 400g tin chopped tomatoes

1tbl sugar

50g finely grated parmesan

50g fine breadcrumbs

for the caponata

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 red pepper, cut into dice

3 sticks of celery, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2tbl pine kernels

2tbl sultanas

2tbl sugar

20ml red wine vinegar

½ vegetable stock cube

2 small sheets gelatine

2tbl balsamic glaze (if you can’t find this in the shops you can make it by reducing 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar with a tablespoon of soft brown sugar and half a teaspoon of cornflour to create a smooth sauce)

1 bunch of lovage or parsley finely chopped.

Method

1. Begin by making the tomato sauce: soften finely chopped onion and garlic, then add the tomatoes, bay leaves and sugar and simmer until you have a thick sauce.

2. Oil the moulds.

3. Slice the narrow end of the aubergine to create for each mould four slices of increasing diameter so that they fit snugly into the mould. The slices should be about half a centimetre thick.

4. Fill the moulds with alternating layers of aubergine, parmesan, breadcrumbs and tomato sauce, beginning and ending with a slice of aubergine, and ensuring that the moulds are full to the top. Refrigerate.

5. Slice half the remainder of the aubergine thinly lengthwise. Oil and heat a griddle. Grill the aubergine slices until cooked through.

Caponata with grilled aubergine

6. Cut the rest of the aubergine into centimetre cubes. Fry quickly in hot oil until beginning to brown. Set aside.

7. In the same pan fry the red pepper, onion, garlic and the celery until it all softens. Clear a space in the centre of the pan, add pine kernels and cook for a couple of minutes until they start to brown. Add the sultanas. Add sugar and wine vinegar and bring to a simmer for two minutes to create the sweet sour effect essential to caponata. Now add back the aubergine.

8. Soak the gelatine in cold water to soften it. Dissolve the half stock cube in hot water in a small pan. Drain the gelatine and add to the stock, gently dissolving the gelatine on a low flame.

9. Oil four small moulds and fill each with the vegetable mixture. Then pour the gelatine fluid slowly into each one until it reaches the top. Refrigerate until the jelly sets, preferably over night..

10. To cook the melanzane parmigiana, prepare a bain marie and place the moulds in it up to their arm pits with a piece of aluminium foil on top. Place in an oven at about 170 degrees C. for 25 minutes. Take them out and let them cool for a few minutes.

11. To serve the caponata, run a knife around the inside of each mould and unmould on the plate they will be served on. Alongside them carefully place three or four griddled slices of aubergine, daintily decorated with balsamic glaze and the lovage or parsley.

12. Run a knife around the inside of the melanzane parmigiana moulds and unmould them on their serving plate.

13. You should serve the melanzane parmigiana while it is still hot, perhaps with a tomato salad.

14. The caponata and grilled aubergine you can serve alongside so that the three distinctive aubergine tastes are on display together - or keep for another meal.

Zuppa Inglese

2011-03-27T23:18:00.000+01:00

Layers of squidgy, liqueur soaked sponge, custard and raspberry jelly, topped with dark chocolate shavings - add whipped cream if you can take it

Zuppa Inglese is essentially layers of liqueur-soaked sponge cake, custard, chocolate and maybe whipped cream. Harder to define the origins of the name. However, the soggier versions do bear an uncanny resemblance to an English trifle. My version aims for simplicity but because it is rich I prefer to take it in small doses. In Bologna they often stain the sponge a vivid red with a liqueur called Alchermes. Instead, my recipe uses Marsala – for flavour - and a raspberry jelly for flavour and colour. The zuppa is made in a 15cm square (6 inch) cake tin with a removable base. I don’t top it with whipped cream but you can if you prefer. Incidentally, while the photo shows two layers of sponge, I've decided that the recipe works better with just one layer.

Try it.

Serves 4.

Ingredients

200g sponge cake or sponge fingers

100ml Marsala

170g raspberry jam

2 sheets of gelatine

4 egg yolks

100g caster sugar

25g flour

1 lemon’s zest

500ml milk

25g dark chocolate

Method

1. Line the cake tin with cling film.

2. Prick the sponge all over on both sides with a fork. Trickle half the Marsala over one side; turn over and repeat with the other side.

3. Make the custard by whisking together the eggs, sugar, flour and lemon zest in that order, then gradually adding the milk that you have heated up, stirring it constantly over a low heat until it starts to bubble and thicken. If it becomes lumpy use a hand held processor to break it up. Cool the custard.

4. Soften the gelatine in a bowl of cold water.

5. Place the raspberry jam in a bowl over a pan containing a few centimetres of simmering water. Strain the gelatine and stir in.

6. Sieve the mixture through a fine mesh and allow to cool.

7. Assemble the zuppa by carefully spooning the custard into the cake tin to create a level layer. Next comes the raspberry jelly, then the cake. Wrap the cling film over the cake and refrigerate.

8. Leave overnight if possible for the flavours to develop and for the zuppa to firm up.

9. To serve, unwrap the clingfilm, and allow the zuppa to slide out onto a plate. Carefully remove the clingfilm and grate over the chocolate.

Ragù di coniglio con pappardelle - Rabbit ragù with pappardelle

2011-03-22T11:14:00.000Z

Tastes better with pasta you made yourself

For richly flavoured stews and pasta sauces, it’s hard to beat game. Since they are becoming more widely available, I wanted to add rabbit and boar to the growing collection of Bolognese classic recipes here. Specialist butchers, rather than supermarkets, are your best bet and even if they don’t have game on display, they can usually obtain it for you. I know wild sounds better than domesticated or farmed but the latter is what you will get and in this case that is not a bad thing; the meat will be healthy and may even taste better than the more athletic wild version.

Let’s start with the rabbit. The secret is to begin by browning the meat and then adding it to the classic ingredients of the ragù: onion, garlic, carrot, celery plus lots of bay and rosemary and some bacon or pancetta. You don’t need to cook the rabbit for very long – an hour at the most – otherwise you will end up with stringy meat. Remove the meat from the bone and add it back to the ragù and you are ready to serve it with the pasta. I had a lot of help in the kitchen on Saturday so I got two of my assistants to make some pappardelle, the wide pasta that traditionally accompanies game sauces. You will need a pasta machine or a rolling pin and strong arms.

Serves 4

Ingredients

300g pasta flour

3 large eggs

1tsp salt

1 whole farmed rabbit

3tbl olive oil

100g streaky bacon or pancetta

1 large onion

2 carrots

2 sticks of celery

2 cloves of garlic

1 glass of dry white wine

1tbl rosemary

6 bay leaves

500ml chicken or ham stock

4tbl tomato paste

salt and pepper

Method

1. To make the pasta mix the flour, salt and eggs and knead for about 10 minutes until you have an elastic mass. Cover in cling film and refrigerate for an hour.

2. Roll out the pasta until it is half a centimetre thick then cut into eight pieces and put each through a pasta machine until they are as thin as the narrowest setting. Cut into ribbons 2.5cm wide.

3. Heat the olive oil in a large casserole over a medium-high heat. Add the rabbit cut into three or four pieces and brown all over. Remove.

4. Add the bacon, carrot, celery, garlic and onion – all finely chopped - and fry until they are soft and begin to colour. Add the wine and raise the temperature to drive off the alcohol.

5. Add back the rabbit plus the bay leaves, the rosemary finely chopped, the tomato paste and the stock. Bring to a simmer and cook, covered, for an hour until the rabbit meat is easy to slide off the bone.

6. Remove the meat, take it off the bone and chop into small dice. Combine the meat with the sauce, and add some more water if the sauce is too dry. If the sauce is too wet, drive off some of the liquid before adding the rabbit meat back. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

7. Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling, salted water until al dente, and then drain. Combine with the ragù and serve.

Sformati di patate con salsa di aglio selvatico – Potato flans with wild garlic sauce

2011-03-21T11:57:00.000Z

Sformato di patate with asparagus sauce is a winning starter from Teresina on via Oberdan. Ruth and the girls were up for the weekend and we decided that we would try it with a wild garlic sauce – in the new spirit of foraging - as the opener of a three course dinner. On a walk up the stream and through the woods earlier in the day we’d noticed the green carpet of new wild garlic which is still tender enough to eat in a salad but which makes a subtlety garlic inflected sauce to accompany the sformato.

The main course – which will appear here later in the week – was rabbit ragù with pappardelle – followed by zuppa inglese. More of both later.

If you have the Silver Spoon cookbook you’ll see a long list of vegetable sformati, including leek and spinach. You may have tried my recipe for leek sformati with a red pepper sauce. Do try the potato version. If you don’t have a conveniently sited bed of wild garlic you could make a sauce with leek or spring onion.

Makes enough for six.

Ingredients

50g butter

35g plain flour

350g milk

6 bay leaves

½ tsp nutmeg

salt and pepper

500g waxy potato eg Charlotte

3 large eggs

75g parmesan grated

3tbl olive oil

150g wild garlic, well washed

1 onion

100ml double cream

Method

1. Peel the potatoes, cut into chunks and steam

2. Make a béchamel sauce by melting 35g of the butter, adding the flout to make a roux and adding the milk to form a smooth sauce to which you add the cheese, nutmeg and seasoning to taste. When cooler, stir in the three lightly beaten eggs.

3. When the potato is cooked, mash, and amalgamate with the sauce.

4. Butter six metal moulds or ramekins and spoon in the potato sauce.

5. Place the moulds in a bain-marie filled with water two-thirds of the way up the containers. Cover with foil and place in a medium oven – about 170 degrees C. for 30 minutes. Use a skewer to check that the sformati are cooked – it should come out clean - remove them from the bain-marie and allow to cool. Then, run a knife around each sformato and tip onto a plate.

6. Make the sauce by softening in olive oil a finely chopped onion. and then adding the wild garlic.

7. Add the cream, cook for three minutes on a medium heat, then liquidise to create a smooth sauce.

8. Spoon some sauce around each sformato and serve.

The Foodie Bugle

2011-03-16T09:49:00.000Z

At last, a well-designed e-zine that brings together the best of food writing from all over the world to tell 'the whole story of simple, frugal, seasonal food and drink from farm to fork, from soil to shop, from grape to glass.'

The Foodie Bugle is the brain child of Silvana de Soissons, a tireless enthusiast for honest eating. A cooperative online magazine, it will 'promote education and understanding in a subject that unites all of mankind, leaving aside the cult of celebrity, aspirational advertising and passing fads.' The first edition features South African food, decadent desserts of the world, an artisan baker on the south coast of England, Persian cookery, eating in Provence and a piece by me about the pasta makers of Bologna, le sfogline.

Make a note to visit it every week at http://thefoodiebugle.com/

Pollo alla cacciatora – Chicken cacciatora

2011-03-08T13:13:00.000Z

Pollo alla cacciatora is basically chicken pot roasted in a tomato sauce. Cacciatora hints at an intriguing ancestry, related to hunting, just as carbonara suggests charcoal burners in forest clearings. But try to follow the trial and it peters out. One Bolognese cookery writer sees a connection with the sort of aromatics you might use if you were cooking game but only one of the dozens of recipes I’ve consulted confirms that view. Instead, there are endless variations on the ingredients although the basics are always the meat – and it can be rabbit or wild boar or venison – and the tomato sauce. Anyway, here is my version, the sort of thing you could expect to eat in a Bolognese trattoria. A good accompaniment would be roasted potatoes.

Ingredients (serves 4)

8 skinnned chicken thighs

3tbl olive oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 carrots, finely chopped

3 sticks of celery finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic finely chopped

75ml white wine

1 400g tin of chopped tomatoes

2 bay leaves

sprig of thyme, finely chopped

sprig of rosemary, finely chopped

salt and pepper

bunch of parsley, finely chopped

Method

1. Heat the olive oil in a roasting dish with a lid. Add the chicken and gently brown it.

2. Remove the chicken and add the vegetables, frying them until soft with the lid on.

3. Now add the wine on a high temperature to drive off the alcohol, and then the tomatoes and aromatics. Cook the sauce with the lid off until it is reduced and dense.

4. Replace the chicken and put the roasting dish in the oven at 170 degrees C with the lid on for 40 minutes.

5. Test to ensure that the chicken is cooked, then add the chopped parsley, season to taste and serve.

Macaroni con patate al forno – Marcaroni and potato gratin

2011-03-06T18:54:00.000Z

March brings the uplifting prospect of longer days, daffodils and cherry blossom. And sometimes the shift to more spring-like weather. But not this year, so far. We woke to a deep frost on Saturday morning and a biting wind so I took refuge in this winter-warmer dish raise my spirits, and maybe yours as well if you are in the northern hemisphere north of Rome. As a variant you could add crisp pancetta or bacon to the final mix, but it’s not essential. Preparation time is about 25 minutes and cooking time 35 minutes which gives you time to set the table and pour a glass of wine.

Ingredients (serves 4 generously)

500g potatoes

200g macaroni

50g butter

50g flour

500ml milk

100g parmesan

2 egg yolks

½ tsp nutmeg

1 large onion

20g butter

1tbl olive oil

parsley

salt and pepper

Method

1. Peel and dice the potatoes, and boil until al dente in salted water. Strain

2. While the potatoes are cooking, make a béchamel sauce by melting the butter, stirring in the flour and gradually adding the milk already warmed until you have a smooth sauce. Then stir in the egg yolks, half the parmesan, the nutmeg and finely chopped parsley. Season to taste.

3. Put the macaroni on to cook.

4. Fry the onion finely sliced in the remaining butter and the olive oil until it begins to caramelise (for maximum flavour).

5. Now assemble the ingredients, placing them in a well greased baking dish. Strain the macaroni and add to the potatoes, then amalgamate with the sauce and the onion. If you are using pancetta, add it at this stage.

6. Scatter the remaining parmesan on top and place in a moderate oven – 170 degrees C. with a piece of foil to protect the top of the dish. Remove the foil after 20 minutes and allow the dish to brown which should take a further 10-15 minutes.

Tagliatelle ai funghi porcini – Boletus mushrooms and pasta

2011-02-23T20:58:00.000Z

Funghi porcini – boletus – are justly highly prized for their taste, smell and appearance. Fresh ones like these – bought in the market in Santa Cruz, Tenerife – produce the most wonderful sauce for pasta. Cut them in half, slice them thinly, then sauté with onion, garlic and bacon. The dried porcini you can readily find in supermarkets are not a patch on freshly picked ones but they will do at a pinch along with maybe some chestnut mushrooms. If you know of a simpler, more delicious pasta dish, please let me know.

Ingredients

300g tagliatelle or pappardelle

1 large onion

150g bacon or pancetta

300g porcini

1 clove of garlic

1 bunch of parsley

2tbl olive oil

40g butter

salt and pepper

50ml double cream

parmesan to grate

Method

1. Put a large pan of salted hot water on to boil; heat four serving bowls.

2. Chop the onion, garlic and bacon finely and sauté until soft in the olive oil.

3. Chop the mushrooms into fine slivers and add to the onion mixture with the butter, and sauté until the porcini are soft.

4. Put the pasta on to boil. Finely chop the parsley.

5. Drain the pasta when it is cooked and add the mushroom mixture and the cream, combining them all. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the parsley just before serving.

6. Pass the parmesan.

Gnocchi di patate – Potato gnocchi

2011-02-05T17:10:00.000Z

An Estonian reader requests a gnocchi lesson so here goes.

Light and airy pillows of potato and parmesan – that is what I wanted to achieve when I experimented on Friday night with different ratios of flour, parmesan, eggs and potato. The tasting team were torn between two variants. Finally, decisively, I’ve plumped for the variant given below: the 5:1:1 recipe.

As you can see from the photo, I’ve served the gnocchi with pesto but you may prefer butter and grated parmesan, or tomato sauce with prosciutto or even gorgonzola melted in cream. Whatever you do, don’t drown the gnocchi. They’re simple souls that cannot swim. The point is the gnocchi, not the sauce.

Big tip: don’t skin and boil the potatoes – they become waterlogged and then need more flour to cohere. Bake them in the oven or cook them in a microwave.

Potato gnocchi with pesto

Ingredients (easily enough for 4)

500g potatoes, cooked and peeled

100g plain flour

100g grated parmesan

salt and pepper

½ tsp grated nutmeg

2 large eggs

100g pesto

40g butter

3tbl olive oil

Method

1. Bake the potatoes in their skins, in the oven or a microwave until they yield to finger pressure.

2. Once they are cool enough to handle, skin them and chop them into blobs. Put them through a ricer or a mouli or failing that mash them thoroughly. Do not process them unless you want to use the results for wallpapering.

3. Combine thoroughly with the flour, parmesan, salt and pepper and nutmeg.

4. Gradually mix in the two beaten eggs. Once the mixture coheres you may not need all the egg. The mixture should be sticky but not gloopy. (I’m not sure what the Estonian for gloopy is but we want something like the texture of a moist bread dough.)

5. Roll the mixture into a ball, wrap in cling film and refrigerate to firm it up.

6. Flour a rolling board and cut the gnocchi mixture into four lumps.

7. Roll these out into a sausage shape about two cms. in diameter, then cut off pieces about 1 cm. in width. Smaller is good – they cook quicker.

8. Roll each piece into a little ball, and, if you prefer, into a flatter longer more traditional gnocchi shape.

9. Have ready a wide pan several inches deep with simmering water. Poach a gnocchi for three minutes to test the cooking time. Adjust if necessary. Then poach the remaining gnocchi, and as they are cooked lay them on a tea towel to drain.

10. Melt the butter in a frying pan with the olive oil and gently sauté the gnocchi, adding the sauce. Serve.

La Locanda del Castello

2011-02-04T13:24:00.000Z

Marcello dall'Aglio chef-patron running a cookery course

‘So this is the Locanda’, said the taxi driver, as we pulled up in the courtyard of the medieval Palazzo de Rossi, near Sasso Marconi, just outside Bologna. ‘I’ve heard a lot about this place’, he said looking around in awe. It’s true the setting is amazing but it’s matched by the food. I’ve been eating here for years and never had a bad meal.

On the current menu my favourites include Spaghetti alla chitarra con gamberi e carciofi al profumo di zafferano – hand made spaghetti with prawns and artichokes in a saffron flavoured sauce - sensational tagliata di manzo – grilled beef – and too many gorgeous desserts including a chocolate pudding that you break open to reveal a molten zabaglione filling or amaretto mousse with a bitter chocolate sauce. And then there is the wine list, with lots of good local wines at reasonable prices as well as a range that takes in the best from every Italian region. Upstairs there are lovely rooms where you can sleep it off and wake up to a delicious breakfast spread including home made marmalade, a rarity in Italy.

Let me declare an interest. Marcello and Giulietta, who run La Locanda, are good friends. On the other hand, don’t just take it from me or the taxi-driver. La Locanda was chosen by the then Italian prime minister, Romani Prodi, to entertain, Tony Blair, the newly elected British prime minister and his family when they holidayed in Italy in 1997.

The cost? Well, a Valentine’s dinner is 45 euro or dinner, bed and breakfast for a couple is 180 euro. They also run evening cookery courses.

Lombo al latte - Pot-roasted pork in milk

2011-01-30T09:11:00.000Z

Although common in Bologna, this is a cross-border dish that you might also find in Lombardy or Tuscany or in the Veneto. It is a simple and irresistible way of pot-roasting pork by immersing it in garlic and sage perfumed milk with a hint of lemon. Hardly kosher. Sonia, whose Mum was Jewish, from Naples, introduced me to this. Last night I served it with borlotti beans and shredded spring greens. The reserve merlot from Tenuta Bonzara, high up in the Bolognese Hills, would go well with this, gently cutting through the greasy richness of the pork, the sauce and the crackling. Pork loin is very nice but shoulder will do and it’s much cheaper.

Cooking hints: remove the skin from the pork, rub salt all over it and roast it separately.

Ingredients

4 tbl olive oil

1 onion

1 celery stick

1 carrot

4 cloves garlic left whole

1kg pork loin or shoulder, with the skin removed and scored through

1 sprig sage

4 bay leaves

1 litre milk

salt and freshly ground pepper

1/2 lemon

Method

1. Begin with the battuto: fry onion, celery, carrot and garlic in olive oil in a large roasting pan or casserole until they soften and the onion begins to brown.

2. Place the pork in the pan along with a bundle of bay leaves and sage. Add the zest of the lemon.

3. Add enough milk to cover the meat. Bring it to a rapid simmer, then reduce the heat until the milk is barely moving and place it in a slow oven for three hours.

4. Take it out and test the meat for tenderness with a metal skewer. If necessary, return it to the oven.

5. When it is done to your satisfaction, remove the meat from the pan and place it on a carving board, covered with foil to keep it warm.

6. Remove the bundle of herbs, season the pan juices with salt and pepper and a squeeeze of lemon and whiz up them up so that they form a smooth sauce. Re-heat for serving and pour into a jug.

7. Cut the meat into thick slices and arrange on a serving dish together with the crisp roasted skin (if that’s what you’ve done). Hand around the dish and the jug of meat juice.

Pasta con cavolo verza e prosciutto - Pasta with savoy cabbage and prosciutto

2011-01-25T17:34:00.000Z

There may be a simpler and more effective recipe for macaroni. In the meantime, this one will have to do. It uses one of those excellent Italian winter vegetables, savoy cabbage. The main thing is not to stew the cabbage. If you shred it finely, it will get all the cooking it needs while retaining flavour and texture. You can use pancetta or bacon if you prefer but grill it until it is crisp. Equally, you can use penne or broken up spaghetti instead of macaroni.

Ingredients

120g prosciutto or pancetta or bacon

300g macaroni or penne

salt and pepper to taste

200g savoy cabbage

1 onion

1 clove garlic

30g butter

20g flour

100ml milk

50g parmesan

30g parsley

Method

1. Grill the prosciutto, and shred it when it’s cooled down.

2. Put the macaroni on to boil in salted water.

3. Add the savoy cabbage finely shredded as you drain the pasta – it will get all the cooking it needs.

4. In the pasta pan melt the butter, add finely chopped garlic and onion and fry for a couple of minutes until it begins to colour.

5. Add the flour to make a roux, then add the milk to make a loose béchamel, then the parmesan and the pepper.

6. Return the macaroni and savoy cabbage to the pan and combine with the sauce, adding the chopped parsley, then the grilled prosciutto.

7. Serve before the cabbage loses its crispness.

Tortelloni di zucca e mascarpone - Butternut squash and mascarpone tortelloni

2011-01-20T21:54:00.000Z

For an experiment we decided to try the River Cafe recipe for butternut squash tortelloni. In particular, we wanted to see how the fresh pasta turned out. In Emilia-Romagna all the sfogline we have consulted or seen in action have told us that the recipe is one egg per 100g of flour and nothing else apart from salt. Whereas the River Cafe recipe is for a mixture of whole eggs and egg yolks plus olive oil. Giorgio Locatelli claims to have made pasta with 52 yolks to a kilo of flour when he worked in Rebuchon in Paris.

Anyway, the pasta part of the River Cafe recipe works well but to intensify the flavour of the filling, we had to radically reduce the amount of parmesan and mascarpone in the filling and to roast the butternut squash.

Ingredients

for the pasta

350g type 00 flour

2 medium eggs

5 medium egg yolks

½ tbl sea salt

½ tbl olive oil

for the filling

0.75k butternut squash or pumpkin

50g butter

2 large garlic cloves, finely sliced

salt and pepper

200g mascarpone

200g parmesan

½ nutmeg

for the sage butter

1 bunch fresh sage

100g clarified unsalted butter

Method

1. Using a mixer or processor, combine the flour, salt, olive oil and eggs. Using a dough hook, knead slowly for 10 minutes until you have a smooth ball of dough. If necessary add another egg yolk.

2. Dust the work surface with flour, then knead the dough for 4 minutes until it is completely smooth. Wrap it in cling film and put in the fridge.

3. Roast the butternut squash in a medium hot oven for 30 minutes. Then scoop out the pips, scoop out and mash the flesh.

4. Fry the garlic in the butter and add to the squash. When cool stir in the mascarpone, parmesan and nutmeg. Season to taste.

5. If rolling by hand, roll the dough out on a floured surface until you can see a patterned tea towel through it.

6. If using a machine, flatten the dough and cut it into four, then put each quarter through at each setting, gradually reducing the setting until you have the thinnest.

7. Cover the pasta with a tea towel to prevent it drying out.

8. Take a strip of pasta and distribute a teaspoonful of the filling every 4cms using a teaspoon or piping bag (much easier).

9. Take another strip of pasta and lay it over, squeezing the two strips together, working from one end to the other, and using your fingers to exclude the air as you do.

10. Use a small cutting circle to cut out the tortelloni. Or, if you prefer, a square.

11. For the sage butter, heat the clarified butter in a large frying pan and when hot add the sage leaves for a second or two. Remove from the heat. Remove the sage.

12. Boil the tortelloni in plenty of salted water for three or four minutes.

13. Briefly sauté the tortelloni in the butter.

14. Divide the pasta between four warm bowls and place a sage leaf or two on each.

In search of the ultimate…chocolate ice cream

2011-01-08T00:30:00.000Z

Stefino - a cause for concentration even if it's not chocolate

La Sorbetteria - is this the ultimate?

If you’re ever at a loose end in Bologna, one of the most profitable ways of spending your time is in tracking down the ultimate – in our case – chocolate ice cream. It’s a perfect way of spending a summer’s day, and then, as Margherita Bianchini says, in the winter debating which was the best. Bianchini’s invaluable 101 Things to do in Bologna at least once in your life helpfully pinpoints the gelato giants of the city.

Funivia, now in Piazza Cavour, benefits from the advantage of location. You can buy an ice cream and eat it under the trees in the piazza. There’s even a fountain to wash your hands afterwards. But currently we are torn between Stefino and La Sorbetteria. As always, the ultimate test has to be chocolate ice cream, truly difficult to get right, as Fergus Henderson admits in Nose to Tail Eating where he is driven to appeal for a recipe that works. Stefino’s moro – chocolate with almonds – is a good match for La Sorbetteria’s bitter extra fondant. You could also be tempted by Stefino’s Sicilian cannoli with fresh ricotta or La Sorbetteria’s wonderful array of sweets and chocolates.

What do you think? Maybe you prefer Gianni or Gelatauro. There’s a lot to think about.

Hear Bianchini talking about her book in Italian http://www.123people.it/ext/frm?ti=person%20finder&search_term=margherita%20bianchini&search_country=IT&st=person%20finder&target_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DwIY6o_lFWdQ&section=video&wrt_id=68

Stefino

Via Galliera 49b

Closed: winter

La Sorbetteria Castiglione

Via Castiglione N° 44

Open every day until late

Serghei

2011-01-07T16:58:00.000Z

Still life at Serghei

A quiet local trattoria where businessmen eat a quick and alarmingly alcoholic lunch whilst lovers linger over bollito and a semifreddo. The menu is displayed outside and is delivered orally so you will need to concentrate. Similarly with the wine list which has a strong representation from Emilia-Romagna. Our first inclination was to rename this place Surly but once we’d tried the food we were forced to revise our opinion.

Chickpea and barley soup was a substantial and tasty winter dish which made a pleasant change from pasta. The gnocchi was feather light even if the gorgonzola sauce was slightly overpowering. Here as elsewhere in Italy, you get what it says on the menu. So, lombo – pork loin – is just that: a simple dish of pork cooked in milk to create a delicious sauce with a hint of sage and garlic. (The recipe will be on my blog before the weekend is over.) Accompanied by salad and some bread, it was easily enough for both of us. Not cheap but very good.

Via Piella, 12

40126 Bologna, Italy

051 233533

Closed Saturday and Sunday

Budino di riso con salsa mou - Rice pudding with toffee sauce

2010-12-21T21:50:00.000Z

Budino di riso con salsa mou - made in individual moulds to avoid excessive greadiness

This is Marcello dall’Aglio’s mum’s recipe for rice pudding, as she wrote it out for me when we came for lunch one bitterly cold day in Bologna around Christmas 1990. An apt dish for winter. A perfect accompaniment is salsa mou, toffee sauce. Make more than you need and store it in the fridge. The addition of the eggs makes this a denser pudding than the English version. It needs to be sliced rather than spooned onto the place.

Dare I say that you can improve the method by boiling the rice in water until it is soft and most of the water has evaporated, then adding the rest of the ingredients? That way, the rice is less likely to stick to the bottom of the pan. Otherwise, you must watch it like a hawk.

Ingredients

for the rice pudding

1 lt whole milk

2 tbl rice for risotto

pinch salt

1 zest of a lemon

150 g sugar

50 g vanilla sugar

2 large eggs

1 large egg yolk

for the toffee sauce

300g sugar

150ml single cream

Method

1. Boil the milk and add the rice, salt, lemon zest and the sugar.

2. Simmer carefully for about an hour until the rice is soft. Allow to cool.

3. Beat together the eggs and add to the rice mixture.

4. Tip into a buttered oven dish and place in a bain-marie half full of water.

5. Bake in a medium oven for about 2 hours until the top only just begins to brown.

6. Heat the sugar in a pan until it begins to caramelise. Remove from the heat.

7. Heat the cream in another pan. Slowly and carefully add to the sugar, combining the two with a wooden spoon.

Salt cod croquettes with roasted red pepper and tomato sauce

2010-12-21T21:19:00.000Z

For a southern European Christmas eve repast, I have teamed salt cod with prawn tortellini. Home salted cod is not quite the same thing as the real thing but it does produce the same firm fish flakes. It can be deep fried, in a light batter, fried or made into croquettes, as I suggest here. The sauce makes a lovely contrast in terms of flavour, colour and texture.

Ingredients

300g cod

20g sea salt

3 eggs

100g cooked mashed potato

50g parsley

salt and pepper

3 large red peppers

1 red onion

2 cloves of garlic

200g baby or small plum tomatoes

4tbsp olive oil

breadcrumbs or crackers finely crushed in a bag with a rolling pin

100cl sunflower oil

Method

1. The day before, place the cod in a plastic box and sprinkle over the salt. Weigh it down so the salt is pushed into the fish and place in the fridge.

2. The next day, wash off the salt and replace the cod in the plastic container with fresh water. Rinse the fish under running water after an hour or so. Repeat and drain the fish.

3. Place the red peppers in a roasting pan and place in a hot oven for 30-40 minutes until the peppers are blistering and beginning to turn black in places.

4. Chop the onion and garlic finely and fry until soft.

5. Peel the red peppers when they are cool enough to handle and process with the onion and garlic.

6. Coarsely process the fish, 1 egg, the potato, parsley, salt and pepper.

7. Create croquette shapes 6cms long and 3cms in girth. Beat two of the eggs and place in a bowl.

8. Saute the tomatoes in olive oil and when they are beginning to soften add the red pepper puree. Stop cooking and keep warm while you cook the croquettes.

9. Dip the croquettes in the beaten egg and then in the breadcrumbs or crushed crackers.

10. Deep fry in hot oil. Drain and place on kitchen towel to absorb surplus oil.

11. Place two or three croquettes on each place and alongside them a small pool of the sauce.

Prawn tortellini with chickpea puree

2010-12-21T21:14:00.000Z

Before midnight mass on Christmas Eve many Italian families sit down to a fish dinner. In Bologna, this might consist of prawn tortellini followed by salt fish. (The recipes are given separately here.) The tortellini are light and delicate and come served on a bed of pureed chickpeas if you are lucky enough to find this dish on the menu at Marcello dall’Aglio’s La Locanda del Castello in Sasso Marconi.

Salt fish is not widely available here but you can make a more than passable version at home using fresh cod and sea salt. This could be fried, deep fried in a light batter or, as in this case, used to make croquettes. It is accompanied by an irresistible sauce made out of roasted baby tomatoes, red onion and roasted pureed red peppers.

The tortellini are best prepared ahead because they are tricky to make at the last minute. You could also prepare the salt fish dish and its sauce in advance so if you really were coming back for dinner after midnight mass it could be on the table in minutes.

If you consider tortellini too fiddly, you could make a larger filled pasta or even serve the prawn filling between two small sheets of pasta, but it will be less delicate.

The chickpea puree needs careful preparation. Chickpeas and aubergines are two foods that are too often poorly prepared because they are taken for granted. Soak the chickpeas overnight. Bring them to the boil and then immediately put in a very slow oven for several hours or simmer on a low gas. They hate rapid boiling and tense up. If you live near a Spanish or Portuguese shop, you could buy a jar of sumptuous cooked garbanzos.

Preparation time: in inverse proportion to the time taken to down the tortellini.

Ingredients (for four generous portions)

for the tortellini pasta

300g pasta flour

3 whole eggs

3 egg yolks

½ tsp salt

for the tortellini filling

200g uncooked large prawns

2 tbsp olive oil

25ml brandy

50g ricotta

4 spring onions

salt and pepper

for the chickpea puree

150g chickpeas

4 cloves of garlic

3tbsp extra virgin olive oil

50g parsley

salt and pepper

for sauteeing

2tbsp olive oil

25g butter

Method

1. The day before, soak the chickpeas in plenty of warm water

2. The next day, bring the chickpeas to the boil along with the garlic, then immediately transfer to a slow oven (140 degrees C.) or a low gas so that the chickpeas simmer.

3. Make the pasta by combining all the ingredients and kneading until the dough is elastic and no longer sticky, 10-15 minutes. Wrap in clingfilm and transfer to the fridge.

4. Remove the intestinal channel and shells from the prawns and quickly fry in olive oil until they turn pink. Add the brandy and flambé.

5. Chop finely or process along with the ricotta, spring onion, adding salt and pepper. Place in the fridge.

6. When the chickpeas are soft, strain them and process with the peeled garlic, olive oil, parsley, salt and pepper.

7. Roll out the pasta dough using a rolling pin or a machine until it is almost transparent. You will have a number of wide strips of pasta that you should cover with a cloth to keep them moist until you come to use them.

8. Mark out 4cm diameter circles using a pastry cutter. Place a half teaspoon of filling in the centre of each one. Fold the pasta over to make an envelope and pinch it together ensuring that no air is trapped inside.

9. You can finish there or you can make the characteristic shape of tortellini by wrapping the pasta around your finger so that the two wings touch and then are pressed together. It will help if you gently push the filling into a fat little cord shape once you have created the envelope.

10. Heat the puree in a dish over a pan of simmering water or in a microwave. Put on a salted large pan of water to boil, reduce to a rapid simmer and add the tortellini a few at a time.

11. Depending on the fineness of your pasta, they will take 4-6 minutes to cook to al dente. Try one after four minutes. Strain them when they are cooked.

12. Heat a oil and butter in large frying pan, tip in the tortellini and sauté for two minutes.

13. Place a mound of puree on each plate, flatten it slightly with a spoon so that it provides a platform for the tortellini.

Pasta e fagioli – Pasta and beans

2010-12-17T23:23:00.000Z

Meat-free winter comfort food, as many versions as there are comuni in Italy. Here it is Bolognese style, in other words, with quite a lot of parmesan and more than a hint of balsamic. The beans I used were gigantic runner beans, harvested when the pods had yellowed and stiffened in October, but you could use borlotti beans just as well, or even chick peas. Equally, you can use almost any kind of pasta - I used some home made pappardelle. The quantity of garlic may seem excessive but slow cooking mellows it. In the photo, I served the dish with a dollop of pesto on top but that is optional.

You can watch a different version being prepared, espresso at http://fooyoh.com/nowwatch/watch/EzOxrjiYL3s

Ingredients

200g dried beans

4 bay leaves

1 head of garlic

1 onion

3 sticks of celery

2 carrots

4tbls olive oil

1 can chopped tomatoes

2tbls good balsamic vinegar

50g parsley

200g pasta

75g parmesan

Method

1. Soak the beans overnight. The next day bring them to the boil in fresh water with bay leaves and garlic, then place them in a slow oven for several hours to soften. Then strain and keep warm, discarding the bay leaves. Squeeze the garlic out of its skin and add to the beans.

2. Meanwhile, finely chop the vegetables – onion, celery and carrot – and gently fry in olive oil with the lid on until they soften and begin to brown. Now add the chopped tomatoes and balsamic vinegar and half a cup of water, bring to the boil and simmer for an hour until the ingredients have amalgamated to form a sauce. Add the beans and the finely chopped parsley.

3. Cook the pasta until just al dente, drain and add to the sauce and the beans. Stir in the parmesan.

Focaccia con patate – Focaccia with potatoes

2010-12-05T11:30:00.000Z

When I was last in Bologna, Federico Aicardi, singer and chemist, urged me to try his patent ‘yeast’. So I did and it was like something out of the sorcerer’s apprentice. His lievito produced a very impressive rise and a fine crumb but a focaccia double the normal height. Lievito Aicardi contains two small sachets, one containing cream of tartar (10g) and one containing baking soda (5g) which are mixed with a spot of warm milk.

Coarsely mashed diced boiled potato adds an interesting texture and flavour to the focaccia in this recipe. It toasts well so can be used for bruschetta or as an accompaniment to salami and soft cheese, a Bolognese favourite.

Ingredients

325g potatoes, peeled and diced

450g strong white bread flour

1 sachet of dried yeast or 2 sachets of Lievito Aicardi (or your version made up at home)

33ml olive oil

5tsp sea salt – for the potatoes, the dough and the topping

1 sprig rosemary, finely chopped

Method

1. Set the oven to 200o C.

2. Boil the potato in salted water (2 teaspoons), drain and mash coarsely

3. Add the flour, 30ml of olive oil, salt (2 teapsoons) and the yeast to the potato and mix by hand or with a machine.

4. If using a mixer, slowly knead the dough for 5 minutes until it has become smooth and elastic.

5. If kneading by hand, it will take a while longer until the dough becomes smooth.

6. Cover with clingfilm and leave to rise for an hour.

7. Transfer the dough to a large flat metal roasting dish, greased with plenty of olive oil.

8. Leave it to rise for another hour then using your finger or the end of a wooden spoon create small depressions all over the surface and sprinkle over sea salt and the rosemary.

9. Bake until golden brown on top, about 50 minutes. When you turn it out to cool on a wire rack, check that there’s a hollow sound when you tap the bottom, otherwise put it back to bake for another 5-10 minutes.

Perfect with salami and soft cheese

Stracotto - Braised beef

2010-11-27T14:06:00.000Z

If you would like to come home to a delicious winter braise you could cook this all day in a slow cooker, or on a low light in the oven. Stracotto means long cooked and it’s perfect for cuts of beef like brisket. We ate it last night with baked potatoes and whole steamed carrots.

The visitors had arrived late off the London train, eager for a weekend in the country with the prospect of snow. We began with a mozzarella salad and some prosciutto. Typically Italian, you might think, but things were not quite as they appeared. The tomatoes and onions, even the basil, were local but so were the cheese and the ham. The mozzarella, sold in Waitrose, is made in Hampshire at Laverstoke Park Farm (http://www.laverstokepark.co.uk/buffalo-mozzarella-cheese) while the prosciutto was made on a farm near Winchester (cured for 18 months) and comes via Italo, a cute deli-cafe in Vauxhall, London (http://italodeli.co.uk) You can buy both products online but the prosciutto is produced in small quantities and may be rationed or out of stock.

Anyway, back to the stracotto: a kilo of brisket will do nicely for 4 people. Don’t expect any leftovers. You can serve the beef with the accompanying sauce or , as I suggest here, remove the beef once it’s cooked and wrap it in foil while you make a sauce by pureeing the cooking vegetables and adding cream and parsley to finish it. Preparation time: two blinks.

the essential Battuto - stewing herbs and vegetables

Ingredients

1kg Rolled brisket

200g Pancetta, cut into small dice

2 sticks Celery finely chopped

1 large Onion, finely chopped

2 cloves Garlic

1 sprig Rosemary, finely chopped

Salt and pepper

1 sprig Thyme – leaves only

150ml Red wine

75ml Single or pouring cream

40g Parsley, finely chopped

Method

1. Place the pancetta in a largish casserole and fry over a brisk heat to brown and to release the fat. Remove using a slotted spoon.

2. Brown the beef all over in the pancetta fat. Remove.

3. Fry the vegetables to brown them slightly. Add the herbs then the red wine and cook briskly for 3 minutes. Return the pancetta and beef to the casserole and add a cup of water.

4. Place the casserole in a pre-heated oven, about 170 degrees will take two or three hours or you could cook it all day in a slow cooker or in a very cool oven. You know your oven best. Check that it’s not cooking too fast or too slow by inserting a knife into the beef from time to time.

5. Remove the brisket, remove the string if it’s been rolled and tied, and wrap it in foil to keep it hot.

6. Pour the remaining contents of the casserole into a jug, add the cream and puree with a hand blender. Add finely chopped parsley and season to taste.

7. Slice the beef and place a thick slice on each plate and pour alongside it the sauce. Add vegetables – simply steamed whole carrots finished with a lavish anointment of butter and baked potatoes, also with butter, would do nicely – or just with bread or focaccia.

Taste for Bologna - Acclaim

2010-11-21T12:21:00.000Z

Taste for Bologna has been selected as one of the best city travel blogs by the UK's Guardian newspaper. See what they say about us at http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/places/italy/bologna/index.jsp
But also explore the website. There are readers' tips for places to eat, stay and visit including Mirabilandia Theme Park. Anyone been there?

Scallopine di pollo con pomodori arrostiti e pesto – Chicken escalopes, roasted tomatoes and pesto

2010-11-15T14:53:00.000Z

If you like Colonel Saunders’, you’ll like this even more. (Please don’t say I’m pandering to my growing American audience.) Crisply fried, breadcrumbed chicken fillets accompanied by a tomato sauce, roasted tomatoes and a spot of pesto. The secret is in the breadcrumbs which are a mixture of whizzed up cheese crackers and grated parmesan. (Thanks, Ruth for that tip.)

Ingredients (serves 4)

for the tomato sauce

250g tomatoes on the vine

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon sugar

2tbl olive oil

salt and pepper

for the pesto

30g pine nuts or peeled almonds

60g basil

50ml olive oil

30g grated parmesan

for the chicken and roasted tomatoes

2 skinless, chicken breasts

10 cheese biscuits (or matzos or Doriani)

40g grated parmesan

2 eggs

30g butter

2 tbl olive oil

250g tomatoes on the vine

Method

1. Put half the tomatoes into an ovenproof dish, slosh over a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and place at the top of a hot oven for 15 minutes. Set the timer!

2. Finely chop the onion and garlic and fry gently in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil so that it softens and begins to colour. Add the sugar and the roasted tomatoes. Whizz and season to taste.

3. Cut each chicken breast in two, lengthwise. Cover in clingfilm and beat out until uniformly 5mm thick.

4. Whizz up the cheese biscuits and the parmesan to reduce to fine breadcrumbs. Beat the eggs. Place breadcrumbs and beaten egg in wide shallow bowls alongside each other.

5. Immerse each chicken piece in the egg and then in the breadcrumbs, ensuring that they are covered all over. Put in the fridge to chill.

6. Make the pesto by combining all the ingredients except the olive oil, whizzing them up and adding the olive oil bit by bit.

7. Place the remaining tomatoes in an ovenproof dish, slosh over another couple of tablespoons of olive oil and place at the top of a hot oven for 15 minutes. Set the timer again.

8. Heat two tablespoons of olive oil and the butter in a large frying pan. Cook each side of the fillets for 3-4 minutes. You can test that each one is thoroughly cooked through by inserting a sharp knife in one side only.

9. Place a large blob of tomato sauce on each plate, add a smaller blob of pesto, and surmount with the roasted tomatoes. Place the scallopine alongside.

Cucina Bolognese and me: a New Series

2010-11-11T20:13:00.000Z

We talk to well-known and less well-known Bolognesi about the city and its food and what it means to them.

Starting with Marcella Puppini of the Puppini Sisters

Marcella Puppini, the founder of the famous Puppini Sisters, has lived in London since the 80s but she was born in Bologna where her parents live and she goes back there a lot. Her career as a performer takes her all over the world so she’s had plenty of opportunities to compare cucina Bolognese with other cooking styles, including in other parts of Italy.

Christmas with the Puppini Sisters is their new album. You can hear their classic rendition of I will survive at http://www.thepuppinisisters.com/2010/09/the-puppini-sisters-i-will-survive/

We met over tea at Maison Bertaux, Soho’s venerable tea shop, on a wet and windy late October day.

1. Single biggest influence on me was watching La Traviata on tv when I was 12. The theatricality, the spectacle, the flamboyance of it decided it for me, I wanted to become a musician and performer. When I was older I left for London to study music, and apart from a flirtation with fashion, that’s what I’ve done ever since, singing and performing in London.

2. My earliest memory of eating Bolognese was when I was three and my mum made me boiled calves brains. I’ve always been able to eat anything, tongue, brawn, anything.

3. My biggest food influence was my grandmother and later my mum. I remember Sunday lunch at my grandmother’s. She was extremely traditional. We would have lasagne and roast chicken. Or sometimes it would be tagliatelle al ragu. My mother, by contrast, has always been experimental in her cooking, trying to replicate Indian or Chinese food she’s eaten out, and it was very good. If she’d been born later she might have been able to follow her longing to become an artist so in a way her cooking is a way of expressing her flair and creativity.

4. My favourite family recipe is lasagne as made by my grandmother. She made her own pasta, the ragu was very meaty and there was plenty of béchamel. I can’t stand the way they make lasagne over here. The pasta is too thick and it’s not made properly with spinach or nettles (ortica), there’s too much tomato in the sauce, which makes it acidic and heavy, and there’s not enough béchamel sauce.

5. The reason eating is so important for the Bolognese is because it’s associated with spending time with the people you love, your family, and it’s a feeling that is instilled into you from when you are very small. Italian families do get together for lunch on Sunday and the more food there is the longer you spend together at the table. It’s a basic thing in Italy, this sense of conviviality: you can never be somebody’s guest for more than five minutes before you are offered something to eat or drink.

6. Best place in Bologna for an aperitivo is Il Calice or Zanarini. I also love a glass of wine and a snack at Tamburini.

7. I can’t bear to eat bland or creamy food. French food sometimes is too rich and there’s a tendency to add cream to dishes that don’t need it in Italian restaurants abroad. I’m also not keen on fusion food that sometimes tastes of nothing because there’s too many ingredients. The thing about Italian food, from any region, is is simplicity; it all depends on just a few ingredients. Spago is a good Italian restaurant in London but there aren’t many. I prefer a good curry. Or a boiled calf’s head, then I’m in heaven.

8. When I’m in Bologna my favourite place to eat is home, without any doubt. When I was younger I would meet my dad after school at the tennis club cafe in the Giardino Margarita and the food there was good and straightforward. The trouble with restaurant food in Bologna is the lack of vegetables which isn’t true when you eat at home. When I was a teenager I would invite my friends home for lunch and tea which was good because we had a big kitchen and an open fire.

9. My worst meal – and I have a few because as a musician you’re always travelling – was in Bethnal Green, in London, at an Indian place where I had a vindaloo that was a wall of heat without any flavour.

10. My ideal dinner companions are people who can distinguish between good and bad cooking and like something a bit out of the ordinary. I like cooking for the other Puppini Sisters. They appreciate my experimental approach – like, dill and sweet potatoes. I like people who appreciate the artistry in cooking. That’s why I love Japanese.

11. London or Bologna? Definitely Bologna for eating but there’s such a great variety of choices in London and eating out has improved a lot since I first came here.

12. My final supper would consist of a Christmas roast dinner, my mother’s roast pork, or maybe her Christmas Eve dinner of fish, or probably both of them if I were facing execution. A few months ago everyone though I really was facing death. I was in Bologna with suspected swine fever, and the only thing I could eat in hospital was mashed potato and it was lovely. It turned out I was suffering from a nasty strain of flu.

Osteria dell’Orsa

2010-11-10T18:54:00.000Z

At first sight, Orsa seems a bit scruffy. It is certainly not a fine dining experience. But there’s bags of character. You find yourself at a long table, probably sharing with a group of office workers or maybe academics or poets (see below) who are clearly regulars. There’s banter with the waiting staff, discussions and live music some evenings. It’s soon obvious why it’s so busy: excellent food served in a friendly, local osteria in the university quarter of the city. Indeed – the osteria claims – it is here, rather than in the lecture rooms, where the real exchange of creative energy has happened over the years. ‘A cross roads of ideas, of music and performance, a virtual extension of the university, has brought together artists, philosophers, teachers and students, poets and professionals, workers and employers.’ Crumbs.

Anyway, one morning we were passing along the street when we noticed a shop selling pasta. As we looked in we saw in the workshop behind the counter two sfoline making pasta by hand, one of them a man, a rare sight. Sfogline, people who carry on the dwindling tradition of hand-made pasta, are invariably women. Noticing our curiosity, Ornella and Roberto invited us behind the counter to observe at first hand the making of tortellini, explaining that the laboratorio – workshop – was attached to the Osteria dell’Orsa. Our attention was taken by an unusual pasta shape. ‘It’s mezzluna’, Roberto told us, ‘a special order. The filling is artichoke and asparagus.’ He promised to set some aside for us if we came back later for lunch in the Osteria.

So lunch was mezzaluna, followed by grilled steak and chicken. As we were leaving Roberto rushed in from next door with a small parcel of tagliatelle, ‘for you to take home’.

Via Mentana 1/F

40126 – Bologna

Phone 051 231576

Open every day from 12.30 till 1.30 (kitchen closes at half past midnight)

Who visits this blog?

2010-11-07T21:04:00.001Z

In the first week of November the largest group of visitors to Taste for Bologna was British. Then came the Irish and Italians. Americans, usually second in the league table, came in fourth followed by visitors from Australia, South Korea, Canada, Germany and Mexico. Which are you?

Teresina

2010-11-07T20:55:00.000Z

Teresina stands out amongst the places we've eaten in in Bologna. It’s near the top of Oberdan, close to Piazza Maggiore. We ate in a narrow corridor-like room that feels intimate rather than cramped, and it was clear that this is a place that takes food and wine seriously but not in an intimidating way. Service is well-informed and there is an interesting array of pasta, vegetables sott’olio, wine and salumeria to buy to take away. The centre of gravity of the menu is Bolognese but there are also dishes and wines from other regions including Sicily. Excellent tagliatelle al ragu, good spaghetti al pesto and everyone wanted to pick at Annie's roast belly pork. Star of the evening was potato sformato with an asparagus sauce, a simple dish delivered exquisitely. The bill for four of us in June 2009 was euros 115 including euros 30 for drinks.

Next time, we'll try out the dining room at the back that looks as if it has more atmosphere. There’s also an outdoor area for spring and summer. It's worth booking - this place is very popular amongst locals.

Via Guglielmo Oberdan, 4

40126 Bologna (Emilia Romagna), Italy

tel. 051 228985‎

Opening hours 12.30-14.30; 19.30-22.30. Closed Sunday

Photo by Kathleen Hennessy, 2005

Back to Bologna

2010-11-07T20:27:00.001Z

The new BBC tv series next year featuring Michael Dibdin’s detective Aurelio Zen is bound to reawaken interest in Bologna. So over the coming months I’ll be trying to answer the question, where should we go to eat and what should we do if we’ve got 48 hours in the city.

I’ll be featuring places I like that you see in all the guides – because they deserve to be cited - plus some restaurants and cafes off the beaten track. I’ll also be talking about food producers and some of the wonderful specialist shops in and around Bologna. I can’t guarantee that they will all be as good as I found them on the day you visit, because even top notch restaurants have their off days. But usually I’ve been to eat there because of a local’s recommendation. In any case, the Bolognese restaurant scene is more stable than we are used to. The same people, the same families build up a track record over many years based on the consistency of their food and service. So if I recommend Anna Maria or Serghei I can be reasonably confident that you will find them as I did.

Of course, there are already many recommendations on the blog. Scroll down the left hand size of the screen to Labels, then click on Places to go.

Panna cotta with raspberry sauce

2010-11-05T18:34:00.000Z

The key thing with panna cotta is the wobble. If it’s too firm, you’ve used too much gelatine and that’s bad for the flavour as well as the appearance. Start your meal preparations by making panna cotta first because it needs time in the fridge to set. It may be easier to unmould the panna cotta if you first place a small disc of greaseproof paper in the bottom before filling the mould.

Ingredients

5 gelatine leaves

250ml milk

250ml double cream

1 vanilla pod, split lengthways, seeds scraped out (keep the pod and use it to flavour caster sugar)

50g sugar

For the raspberry sauce

175g sugar

50ml water

½ lemon

350g raspberries (fresh or frozen)

icing sugar to dust the panna cotta

Method

1. For the panna cotta, soak the gelatine leaves in a little water until soft.

2. Place the milk, cream, vanilla pod and seeds and sugar in a pan and bring to the simmer. Remove from the heat. Remove the vanilla pod.

3. Squeeze the water out of the gelatine leaves, then add to the pan. Stir until the gelatine has dissolved. Strain contents of pan through a fine mesh into a bowl.

4. Divide the mixture among four buttered ramekins or metal moulds. Leave to cool, then transfer to the fridge until set.

5. For the sauce, place the sugar and water in a pan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the sugar has dissolved and you have a smooth syrup.

6. Take the pan off the heat and add the raspberries. Simmer for two or three minutes until the fruit is soft. Take the pan off the heat and using a hand blender, blend it until smooth. Pass through a fine sieve into a bowl. Transfer to the fridge.

7. To serve, unmould the panna cotta by passing a knife heated in boiling water around the inside of each one, then turn each one out onto a plate, tapping it sharply if necessary. Spoon around the sauce and dust with icing sugar.

Risotto with bacon, peas and spring onions

2010-11-05T18:29:00.000Z

Cormac dishes up his first ever risotto on his recent Bolognese cookery course.

This is a delicious and easy dish to prepare but as always with simple recipes the details are crucial. So

• do use a well flavoured chicken or ham stock, whether home made or bought (liquid or stock cude)

• soften and lightly brown the onion and garlic before adding the rice

• if you want to prepare risotto in advance, cook it for no more than 13 minutes, then transfer to a covered, buttered container and place in the fridge

• when the recipe contains slightly delicate ingredients like peas or prawns, it’s better to cook them separately and add them just before the end

• the rice should retain a slight bite when the cooking is finished – overdue it and you’ll end up with a mush.

Ingredients

1 large onion

2 cloves of garlic

2 sticks of celery

150g bacon or pancetta

50g flat leaved parsley

40ml olive oil

50g butter

salt and pepper

250g risotto rice

750ml chicken or ham stock

150g frozen peas

1 bunch of spring onions

100ml white wine

50g parmesan grated

Method

1. Chop the onion, spring onion, parsley, garlic and celery finely.

2. Soften and lightly brown the onion, garlic and celery in half the olive oil.

3. Place the bacon in a hot oven to cook for 10 minutes until crisp and beginning to brown. Take it out and allow to cool. Chop into coarse fragments.

4. Make a parsley oil by liquidising the parsley and half the olive oil. Carefully pour into a squeezy bottle if you have one or into a jug.

5. Add the butter and rice to the vegetables and continue to fry for a few minutes stirring to amalgamate the rice.

6. Add the wine and cook off the alcohol.

7. Cook the peas in boiling water until almost tender.

8. Fry the spring onion in a small amount of butter.

9. Heat the stock and begin to add it to the rice, allowing it to be absorbed before adding more. Continue this process until the rice is almost cooked.

10. Now add the peas, spring onion, parmesan and bacon to the rice.

11. Place a neat mound of risotto on each plate and, using the squeezy bottle, surround it with parsley oil.

Another 3 Course Bolognese Treat

2010-11-04T15:19:00.000Z

Last week, I offered you the recipes for a three course lunch I cooked with Cormac when he came over from Dublin. Here are the recipes for the dinner the previous night. Or rather the outer courses because the main course - involtini di pollo (stuffed chciken breasts) - appeared a couple of weeks ago. We began with risotto and ended with panna cotta. As you can see, Cormac put a lot of effort into the risotto

Revolutionary Spaghetti Recipe

2010-11-04T14:37:00.000Z

I'm not sure that this is a classic Bolognese recipe but I want my readers to decide for themselves. It's demonstrated at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBjLW5_dGAM

Pears baked with marsala, vanilla and cinnamon with chantilly cream

2010-10-29T17:37:00.000+01:00

This dessert has exactly the right ratio of investment and outcome. Preparation is minimal, cooking requires little attention, and yet the result is lovely. If you’re making a complicated meal – as Cormac and I were doing the other day – when the main course (lasagne) entails a lot of work and the first course (leek custards) is tricky, then this is perfect. The only problem is that they were so good, we forgot to take a photo.

Ingredients

5 pears (an additional in case of accidents)

100g caster sugar

500ml marsala

1 vanilla pod

1 cinnamon stick

300g double or whipping cream

75g caster sugar

Method

1. Peel the pears, leaving the stalk if there is one.

2. In a small casserole with a lid, melt the sugar with the marsala and add the vanilla pod and the cinnamon stick.

3. Place the pears in the casserole, on their side and spoon the sauce over them.

4. Place the casserole in the bottom of a medium oven and leave it for an hour.

5. After an hour, remove the casserole, turn the pears over and again spoon the sauce over them.

6. Give the pears another hour in the oven.

7. Meanwhile make the chantilly cream. Beat the cream, adding the seeds scraped from the vanilla pod and the caster sugar, until it is light and fluffy and holds its shape.

8. Check that the pears are tender. If not leave them for a while longer. Otherwise remove from the casserole. Also remove and discard the vanilla pod and the cinnamon stick.

9. In a cup mix a tablespoon of arrowroot with a few tablespoons of the sauce, add the mixture into the sauce, and heat gently, constantly stirring with a wooden spoon until it thickens. Pur the sauce over the pears and leave to cool.

10. Place a pear upright on each plate and spoon over it some of the sauce. Pass a bowl of chantilly cream (or yoghurt if you prefer).

Sformato di porri, salsa di peperoni - Leek and red pepper custards

2010-10-29T17:18:00.000+01:00

This is an antipasto dish in the Bolognese tradition, invented in England. The sfomato, essentially a baked custard, is a very versatile way of preparing almost anything. Accompanied by a red pepper sauce, it looks and tastes delicious. When I cooked this at Locanda dell’ Castello, Sasso Marconi, Marcello dall’Aglio suggested that a few grilled prawns would make a fine accompaniment. But I’ve left them out of this version of the recipe.

To make it easier to unmould the custards, try placing a small piece of waxed paper in the bottom of the moulds before you pour in the mixture. Jam making kits have just the object.

Ingredients

3 large red peppers

2 large leeks thinly sliced

50g butter

2 egg yolks medium

1 egg medium

300g double cream

50g grated parmesan

salt and pepper

1 clove garlic finely chopped

1 piece

1cm long ginger, finely chopped

4 shallots finely chopped

15ml olive oil

Method

1. Put the pepper to roast in a medium oven for 45 minutes

2. Sauté the leeks gently in butter until soft.

3. Place leeks, eggs, cheese and cream in a bowl or jug and use a hand held processor to create a smooth puree. Season to taste.

4. Spoon the mixture into four buttered moulds or ramekins, place in a bain marie, cover with foil and bake in a medium oven until just set.

5. Leave to cool then chill in the fridge.

6. Remove the peppers from the oven and place in a plastic bag to make it easier to remove the skin.

7. Fry the shallots until soft in the olive oil.

8. Make the sauce by removing the skin from the peppers when they are cool enough to handle and processing them with the garlic, ginger and shallots.

9. Run a warm knife around the moulds and unmould the custards, spoon some sauce alongside.

Lasagne verdi al forno

2010-10-29T16:46:00.000+01:00

It is the ragù above all that marks this dish out as Bolognese. That plus the sheets of spinach-flavoured egg pasta that provide the platform for the meat sauce and the béchamel.

Lasagne stands on its own. It doesn’t need garlic bread and boring side salads even if these are regarded as essentials in Pizza Hut. Italians might follow it with a simple salad, but not always. Marcella Puppini – more about her next week – fondly remembers Sunday lunch at her nonna’s when lasagne was followed by roast chicken.

Cooking tips: Balance is crucial; ragù, béchamel and pasta have equal billing. So you don’t want to end up with a sloppy mix. And don’t believe those who tell you that the pasta does not need pre-cooking. Since it takes time to make the three separate components you may as well make a job lot and have some in the freezer for another day. I used a baking dish 28cm x 25cm x 5, which contained enough for 4 (massive) -6 (reasonable) portions, and there was still enough left over to make another smaller dish for the freezer.

Preparation and cooking time: set aside 2 ½ hours if you intend to make your own pasta. In fact, set aside 2 ½ hours whatever you do because the ragù needs to cook for two hours, and you’ll need time at the beginning to prepare it and time at the end to assemble the lasagne. Add 30-40 minutes for baking. So call it three hours.

Ingredients

For the ragù

75g butter

50ml olive oil

450g beef coarsely minced

150g unsmoked bacon or pancetta chopped

1 large onion finely chopped

2 carrots finely chopped

3 celery stalks finely chopped

2 cloves garlic

150ml red wine

150ml milk

1 can chopped tomatoes

salt and pepper to taste

For the bechamel

80g butter

80g flour

800ml milk

4 bay leaves

thimblefull nutmeg

75g grated parmesan

For the pasta

400g dried lasagna sheets

or (to make it at home)

400g OO pasta flour

150g Spinach, finely chopped

4 whole eggs

Method

1. Make the ragù by frying the beef on a medium high heat in a third of the butter and a third of the olive oil until it begins to colour. It may be best to do this in two batches because if you crowd the pan, the temperature drops and the meat stews rather than browns.

2. Remove the meat using a straining spoon and then add and fry the bacon or pancetta.

3. Remove the bacon and add the onion, celery, carrot and garlic plus the remainder of the olive oil, put the lid on and gently cook until the vegetables are soft – about 15 minutes.

4. Add the wine and cook on a high heat without the lid for five minutes.

5. Return the meats to the pan and reheat.

6. Add the milk and cook until it has been absorbed.

7. Add the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper.

8. Make the béchamel by melting one third of the butter in a saucepan and then adding the flour gradually to form a smooth paste.

9. Heat the milk in the microwave or in another pan and gradually add it to the flour to form a smooth emulsion. Use a wooden spoon to work any bits of flour into the sauce. Add the bay leaves.

10. Cook the sauce on a gentle heat for 10 minutes, taking care to stir it constantly.

11. When it is ready grate in the nutmeg and season to taste.

12. If you are using bought dried or fresh pasta, cook in plenty of boiling water for the time specified by the manufacturer.

13. If you decide to make your own pasta, begin by cooking the spinach in nearly all the remaining butter until it is reduced to a dry mass. Squeeze any moisture out of the spinach and food process so that it is a smooth puree.

14. Mix 4 whole eggs with 400g of OO pasta flour plus a pinch of salt. Add the spinach to the dough and thoroughly amalgamate. Knead the dough until it is smooth and springy. Cover in cling film and set aside somewhere cool for half an hour then roll it out into transparent sheets. Cut these into rectangles 8cm x 12cm. and cook in plenty of gently boiling water for 3-4 minutes. Strain and lay flat on a teacloth.

15. Butter an oven dish and arrange sheets of pasta so that they cover the bottom and hang over the sides (these overhanging bits will eventually form a crusty top of the lasagne).

16. Cover with a thin layer of ragù and béchamel and sprinkle on some parmesan.

17. Repeat with another layer of pasta – without the overhangs – and the two sauces and the cheese.

18. Finally, fold over the overhangs and cover with a layer of béchamel and the rest of the cheese.

19. Bake in an oven at 170 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes with the lasagne covered with a piece of foil for the first 20 minutes. The lasagne should be brown and bubbling.

20. Serve by itself. Nothing else is needed.

Lasagne verdi al forno

2010-10-29T16:02:00.000+01:00

This is no ordinary lasagne verdi.

What you see is Cormac’s first lasagne, one of the highlights of his recent cookery course. Cormac, who flew in from Dublin, was determined to show his beloved Lotte that he could shine in the kitchen. So Lotte’s mum bought him a cookery course for his birthday, and asked me to deliver it.

We had two three hour sessions, an afternoon leading to dinner and the next morning leading to lunch. Lasagne was the star of lunch, preceded by leek custards – sformati – with red pepper sauce and followed by pears baked with marsala, vanilla and cinnamon. Dinner was a pea, spring onion and bacon risotto, followed by chicken involtini – you saw the recipe for this here last week – with a stunning dessert: panna cotta with raspberry sauce.

Recipes and more photos follow.

Involtini di pollo - Stuffed chicken breasts

2010-10-24T17:52:00.000+01:00

Involtini – or saltimbocca (jump into the mouth) – are a quick and delicious answer to the question: what else can I do with chicken breasts? Besides chicken, involtini can be made with other meats such as veal and pork or with a white fish such as plaice or even red mullet. You will also need some slices of prosciutto and perhaps another filling such as mushrooms.

The big question is, do you wrap the chicken in the prosciutto or the other way around? My answer is the prosciutto is wrapped in the chicken because this way you can add flavour by browning the chicken. I recognise that this is a minority view but it produces superior results.

What to serve the involtini with is almost as big a question. Tiny roast potatoes are one solution. In the photo you can see I’ve gone for another: the involtini rests on a mound of chard and alongside are a couple of slices of grilled polenta.

Ingredients (enough for 4)

150g mushrooms (you choose the type), finely chopped

1 medium onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

olive oil for frying

salt and pepper

a small bunch of thyme

4 chicken breasts

8 slices of prosciutto

4 tablespoons plain flour

125mls white wine

100mls chicken stock (you can use half a stock cube dissolved in boiling water or part of a tub of stock)

75mls of double cream or crème fraiche

250gm polenta

400gm chard (or spinach if you prefer)

50gr butter

Method

1. First make the mushroom filling by frying together finely chopped mushroom, onion and garlic until they are soft.

2. Slice each chicken breast lengthways to produce 8 pieces.

3. Wrap each one in cling film and using a rolling pin or a mallet beat them out until they are very thin, perhaps ½ cm. thick.

4. Place each piece on a chopping board and place on top a slice of prosciutto.

5. Place a level tablespoon of the mushroom filling on the prosciutto plus some thyme, season and carefully roll up the involtini so that the filling is not extruded. Roll each involtini in flour.

6. Now heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a casserole dish large enough to hold the involtini and then carefully insert the involtini so that the join is on the bottom out of sight.

7. Fry the involtini until you can see that the bottom join has sealed and that the bottom is beginning to brown, then turn them so that they brown slightly on every side.

8. Add the wine to the casserole and turn up the heat to burn off the alcohol.

9. Add the stock and the cream, put the lid on and place in a medium oven for 30 minutes.

10. Make the polenta by stirring the powder into a pan of simmering water and following the maker’s instructions. Once it has cooked through – this will take about five minutes depending on the fineness of the polenta – empty the polenta into a greased shallow metal dish and let it cool.

11. Wash the chard and chop it finely, then fry in a pan with butter until it becomes a soft mass. Just before serving turn up the heat to drive off any surplus liquid and season.

12. When the polenta is cold and solid, slice it into 8 10cm lengths by 4 cms wide.

13. Five minutes before serving, heat a griddle or heavy frying pan, lightly coat it in olive oil. Griddle the polenta gently so that it does not burn.

14. Meanwhile, remove the involtini from the casserole and place it on top of the stove on a fairly high flame so that the sauce is reduced if it is too liquid.

15. Place a flat mound of chard on each plate and then two involtini on top. Pour around some of the sauce, then place two slices of polenta alongside.

Crochette di prosciutto - Ham croquettes

2010-09-17T11:14:00.000+01:00

You want to make something utterly delicious and relatively quick? Ham croquettes are irresistible. I used the end of a piece of culatello I bought in Bologna months ago, chopped into tiny dice. You could use a few slices of Prosciutto chopped finely or a few slices from a roasted ham hock, shedded finely. Make them small and they are ideal finger food; a bit bigger and they can be served with a salad and maybe some garlic mayonnaise. Don’t add salt to the mixture – there’s plenty in the ham. If you don’t have suitable bread to make breadcrumbs, take some cheese biscuits (Jacobs or Doriani are perfect) and bash them to smithereens.

Ingredients (enough for 20 pieces as finger food)

2 tablespoons olive oil

50g butter

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, squashed and chopped

50g plain flour

350ml milk

pinch of nutmeg

black pepper to taste

30g grated parmesan

2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

2 eggs, beaten

75g breadcrumbs

sunflower oil for deep frying

Method

1. Gently fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil until it is soft and beginning to brown.

2. Melt the butter in the same pan and stir in the flour.

3. Heat the milk and add to the flour mixture, stirring it in to create a smooth sauce which you should cook bubbling gently for two or three minutes. Add and integrate the ham, parsley, black pepper and parmesan. Leave it to cool for an hour or so until set firm.

4. Using a tablespoon, scoop up the cold mixture and roll into balls and then into fat cigar shapes. Dip each one in the beaten egg, then in the breadcrumbs and deep fry in the hot oil for about four minutes until brown and crisp on all sides.

5. Lip out with a straining spoon and place on kitchen roll to absorb surplus oil. Serve straight away.

A night at the palace

2010-09-16T15:09:00.000+01:00

I’m always wary about making recommendations about friends to friends. Before they set off on a road trip through Europe to Turkey, I suggested to my friends, Sue and Alec, that they call in on La Locanda del Castello at Sasso Marconi, just outside Bologna. They did and this is what they wrote in their travel blog.

‘Martin had said Marcello had a few rooms but he hadn’t said anything about a 14th century palace! We just had to eat there which meant we had to spend the night there because I couldn’t drink and drive, could I? We were well looked after, we ate the most delicious food of our whole trip, washed it down with a delicious wine (recommended and I can’t remember what), and we spent the night in a VERY comfortable room. Expensive? Not at all. We could have eaten more expensive meals and drunk more expensive wine but what we had was very reasonable. As was the cost of the room. I would recommend it to anybody.’

La Locanda del Castello and Hotel del Castello Bologna
Via Palazzo Rossi, 13
Sasso Marconi (Bologna)
Italy
Tel 051/6781172
Email : info@hoteldelcastello.it