We recently presented the traditional Italian product of “fave”, or broad beans, and here is an excellent spring recipe with a broad bean soup. Adding some mint leaves gives this light dish a fresher flavour, perfect for days when the body is getting used to warmer temperatures but isn’t quite ready for salad.

Ingredients for four people are: 350 gr of fresh broad beans (shelled), 1.5 litres of vegetable stock, two onions, a carrot, one celery stick, one potato, fresh mint, extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper.

Prepare the stock if using a stock cube and set aside. Toss the beans into some salted boiling water and boil for two minutes. Drain them and remove the skin. Wash, peel and chop the various vegetables and heat them in a casserole dish with some olive oil. Add some mint leaves and the broad beans.

Add the vegetable stock and a little salt if necessary. Cook for 50 minutes on medium heat and towards the end of the cooking, remove about three quarters of the soup and blend in a food processor. Add it back to the soup and mix together to get a smoother and creamier mixture. Add a little pepper and serve garnished with a fresh mint leaf.

Photo | Flickr

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I love zucchini flowers done any way - fried, stuffed, roasted, whatever. Today we bring you a great Italian recipe for summer with these courgette flowers and ricotta. The traditional Italian product is very versatile and this is the kind of dish you can use as an Italian antipasto, or even as an entire light lunch on the weekend.

Ingredients for four people are: eight large, open zucchini flowers, 300 gr of ricotta cheese, 4-5 tablespoons of grated cheese (parmesan should work), a small bunch of chopped chives, the juice of a lemon, olive oil and salt.

Clean the flowers and slice them vertically in half. Place them on a chopping board. Wash and chop the chives and place them in a bowl. Add the ricotta, grated cheese and a little salt and mix well to achieve a creamy texture. With a wet spoon, place a spoonful of the ricotta mixture in each half zucchini flower and bring the sides together to close the flower.

In a small bowl, squeeze the lemon and add a little salt and olive oil, whisking with a fork. Take four plates and drizzle the lemon juice over them, placing the zucchini flowers on top and you’re done! A nice, zucchini flower salad for summer.

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Italian pasta recipes can get creative and while it might seem like a strange combination to some, there is more than one example in Italy of pasta and potato served together. As summer in Italy approaches and we’re in a heat wave right now, pasta is still a great dish to serve as long as you keep it light. This fresh, summer feeling and experimental dish uses the traditional Italian product of pesto sauce, with linguine and potatoes.

For four people, you’ll need: 300 gr of linguine, 300 gr of broad beans, 300 gr of potatoes, one large bunch of basil, one bunch of rocket lettuce, two tablespoons of pistachio nuts, one clove of garlic, four tablespoons of grated pecorino cheese, extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper.

Wash and clean the rocket and basil, peel the garlic clobe and put it through a food processor with the pistachios and some salt and pepper. Add the basil and rocket and mix again. Blanche the broad beans slightly in some boiling salty water and take off the skin. Peel and chop the potatoes and boil for ten minutes. Boil the linguine pasta with the broad beans in some water, drain but keep the water aside.

Toss the pesto sauce through the pasta and add some of the water if it’s too dry. As a last flourish, add the pecorino cheese and serve. This would do with a nice bottle of Italian white wine, possibly from the Liguria region as this regional cuisine is home to the pesto sauce.

Photo | Flickr

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If you are on a diet, this delicious pasta recipe is not for you, but it’s so delicious that if I were you, I would give it a try it all the same. But remember the fish must be absolutely fresh and if you can, use fregole instead of spaghetti. I don’t know if you are acquainted with it, but fregole is an exquisite variety of pasta from Sardinia; made from semolina flour, it looks (and taste) a little bit like Couscous. Here are the ingredients:

400 g fregole; eggs; onions;; hammer fish fillet; dry tomatoes; prawns; mussels; pecorino cheese; parsley; marjoram; vegetable stock; lemon zest; oil and butter.

Preparation: in a large pan melt the butter and brown the chopped onions; then throw in the hammer fish cubes and add the oil. Cook for a couple of minutes and then stir in fregole. Next add the chopped dry tomatoes and gradually pour in the vegetable stock (keep stirring the mixture) In the meanwhile cook the mussels until the shells open. When they are done, add the chopped prawns. Next cook the eggs in a bain-marie, throw them in and then sprinkle with marjoram. Stir in the pasta and add pecorino cheese and lemon zest. Bon apppetit .

This recipe serves four.

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As we’ll soon be bringing you an Italian recipe of mascarpone and maraschino, we thought we’d go with healthy Italian food today and try a risotto with peas and chickpeas. This is a simple recipe but it takes some time to prepare. In fact, it’s better to start with a chickpea soup.

For the soup you need 100 g of chickpeas, a pinch of oregano, a minced garlic clove, some parsley and black pepper. You will need to soak the chickpeas first overnight, then drain them and place in a saucepan to cook. Add 500 ml of water and leave to cook over low heat for a couple of hours. Check the consistency and add the herbs and spices, then cook again. It should have a consistency where the chickpeas are extremely soft.

Cook the rice and peas in boiling water. Drain and add to a non-stick pan with a two spoons of olive oil and a garlic clove, stirring over high heat for a couple of minutes. Add the chickpeas and mix the lot together. The dish should be served very hot and the rice should be creamy, so add some water in the final step if things dry out too much.

Source | Gustoblog.it
Photo | Flickr

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The shape of pasta is not just a random thing that you can throw any sauce at. On the contrary, Italian cooking has known for centuries which are the best sauces to match to certain pasta shapes, and which shapes can create specific sensations in the mouth.

The same publishing house as Nigella Lawson’s books, called Here, has produced the Italian cookbook in English: The Geometry of Pasta. Including recipes from chef Jacob Kenedy, the great little video above is a super-quick Italian pasta recipe on how to do farfalle with cream and prosciutto. For more information see the Heredesign website.

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This tasty side dish uses the traditional Italian products of gorgonzola and radicchio. Italy’s famous blue cheese has become more industrial these days, often with a creamier texture, and you can use it in this recipe with radicchio. Italy has many varieties of radicchio and it will probably be difficult outside the country to get the variegated Castelfranco variety, but any type will do.

For this recipe you need: 150 g of gorgonzola, two heads of radicchio, extra virgin olive oil and pepper. The warm gorgonzola and radicchio salad is prepared by cutting the radicchio in half, washing and drying the pieces, and placing them each on a large square of baking paper. Dress each one with a little olive oil and some pepper.

Drop a slice of gorgonzola into each radicchio half, wrap each parcel in the rest of the oven proof paper, bunching at the top, and place on an oven tray. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about 15 minutes. Take the radicchio from the paper and serve immediately.

You can accompany this dish with some good Italian homemade bread, in the rustic style, and even made with walnuts. The warm salad can be served as a first course, or as a side dish to something lighter that needs a little extra.

Source | Gustoblog.it

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Today is the fourth annual International Day for Italian Cuisine and this year’s focus is the regional Italian cuisine dish of pesto from Liguria. Genoa is the home of Italy’s famous pesto sauce and this edition follows the previous celebration of local Italian products and cuisine after carbonara pasta sauce, Milanese saffron risotto and Bologna’s old favourite tagliatelle with ragù were showcased in previous years.

We already published our traditional homemade pesto sauce and when done well, with fresh, Ligurian basil, it’s a delight. The international day and its pesto sauce making worldwide competition stipulates that chefs must use Ligurian basil, extra virgin olive oil, garlic, pine nuts, Pecorino cheese and sea salt.

The day ultimately aims to help protect Italian traditional cooking and ingredients, which are often subject to imitations that attempt to cash in on the industry and tradition. While there is obviously a business case to be made in protecting the Italian culinary industry, the country is also concerned about protecting its cultural heritage. Look out for some traditional pesto dishes in your local restaurants today!

Source | Italymag

Photo | Flickr

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Winter in Italy has got particularly cold of late and so here is a perfect Italian recipe to warm us up: soup with chickpeas, bread and scamorza, or smoked cheese. It’s a typical dish from the tiny Molise region and while I’m not personally a fan of scamorza, the cheese certainly lends a lot of flavour to this soup. Ingredients to make a soup for four people are: 200 g of dried chickpeas, eight slices of bread, two eggs, one small onion, as much smoked cheese as you like, some extravirgin olive oil and salt.

After soaking the chickpeas for sufficient time (our recipe tells us that two whole days are good, changing the water every 12 hours), boil them on low heat in plenty of salty water for about two hours. Drain them but keep the water, setting aside for later. In a pan heat some oil and fry the onion until slightly golden, and then add the chickpeas. In the meantime, beat the eggs with a pinch of salt and then toss in the slices of the bread, already toasted.

Lay out four slices of bread in an oven dish, cover with some chickpeas and a few slices of scamorza, and pour over some of the broth from the boiled chickpeas. Repeat the operation with the rest of the bread slices and then place in the oven at 200 degrees for 20 minutes. The thick soup can then be divided or if you prefer, you can bake in separate portions, using one slice of bread and then making another layer on top, dividing the eight slices equally among four people.

Photo | Flickr

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Eggplants, or aubergines, are in season at the moment and with the days getting shorter and temperatures lower, it’s time to try the comfort food of the traditional Italian recipe, melanzane alla parmigiana. I did my first attempt with an original recipe over the weekend and it is a combination of all that is good from traditional Italian products: eggplant, tomato, mozzarella and parmesan cheese.

Given those ingredients, it’s not one for those watching their calorie intake; the generous amount of mozzarella combined with frying the eggplant first means you’re getting a hit in one go of hearty food. If you’re a salad person, this is not for you. But it’s great reheated on a colder evening when you’re got no time for cooking and in fact, it’s even better (a bit like reheated lasagne leftovers - it tastes better the second time around).

The basic ingredients are above and while it sounds like it’s fiddly, it’s basically a process of dipping the eggplant in flour and egg, frying it, doing a tomato sauce and then layering in an oven dish with mozzarella and parmesan. It will look so good that by the time you get to the baking stage of just 10-15min, your appetite will be more than stimulated. For the full recipe, see Aglio, Olio e Peperoncino.

Photo | Flickr

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