Italian fall ingredients, dishes and food festivals

The Italian countryside will soon be ablaze with warm colors, tables will be laden with comforting foods, and food festivals are gearing up to showcase Nature's best. 

When it's time for the harvest of plentiful crops and brown leaves fall, chilly showers replenish the soil and procure Italians with a bounty of porcini mushrooms, truffles, pomegranate pouches of rubies, plump persimmons, bouncy new wine and cloudy green, freshly pressed olive oil.

Salads leave room to soups and flans, casseroles, fragrant loaves and rich cakes. Pumpkin, mushrooms, truffles, creamy Alpine cheeses, chestnuts and brassica greens will feature prominently in regional recipes. Risotto season is due to resume any minute!

Continue Reading ➔ Autumn in Italy, as appeared on Gambero Rosso International

Vellutata recipes

With the first chill of November, heaters are turned on in Italian apratment buildings, and soups are brewed all over the boot-shaped peninsula. My favorite kind of soup is vellutata.

Vellutata is one of those perfect Italian words.

vellutata 

[vel-lu-tà-ta] 

noun, fem. 

Gastronomic term – Vegetable puree combined with heavy cream, starchy legumes or egg yolks rendering a creamy, and––as the name implies––velvety consistency.

Growing up, my son––who loyal readers of this blog know as Mr E––loved vegetables. He's always been daring and tried all the food I presented him, regardless what color it was. His kindergarten, and then later grade school peers, did not eat anything green.

Then at around 6, he started pushing away the bowl of minestrone. My industrious mother, who may have pulled this trick with me too at some point in my growing up, started pureeing soups with an immersion blender and serving them to him as velouté. That silly exotic word (with an actual completely different meaning) has remained in our family lexicon. We actually normally refer to vellutata as velouté.

The most popular velouté in our household is one made with zucca (pumpkin) given the abundance of it in markets and on autumn tables. But this creamy soup can be made year round with a wide range of other seasonal crops. During summer, vellutata is a bounty of zucchini, peas, asparagus, peppers, etc. Now I'm going crazy with broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, leeks, carrots, squash, leafy greens and apples, even. It's the trickiest way of serving children a whole lot of vegetables, shielded behind a voluptuous texture and a mysterious name.

I like to mix my vellutata soups up with other kinds of vegetables and spices, topping them with croutons, toasted nuts and seeds, sautéed mushroom, fried onions or crispy pancetta. 

The beauty of this dish is that it can virtually be made with what's available in the fridge that day. Take vellutata di patate e porri, for example: this creamy leek and potato soup is made soft and creamy by adding a boiled potato to gently simmering leeks. The potato gives the mixture a rich, velvety texture. More thickening helpers for your vellutata can be chickpeas, lentils, a spoonful of flour, egg yolks, aquafaba, beans, ricotta, cooked chestnuts... you name it.

If I can, I'll avoid using heavy cream as the liquid element in my vellutata. A trick is swapping it with coconut milk, bone broth, yogurt or sour cream.

The first vellutata of the season I made this year was with roasted zucca mantovana, which is a sensational candy-sweet pumpkin. I pureed it with turmeric, coconut milk and canned chickpeas for thickness. It was to die for. 

After a particularly rainy rugby training last week, my son and I came home under a torriential downpour craving something warm and comforting. I blended together steamed cauliflower, a can of cannellini beans, a pinch of curry and used vegetable broth I had made in advance and froze in an ice cube tray. I topped our steaming bowls with toasted almonds and we ate on the sofa under a pile of fleece blankets while binge-watching Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat on Netflix.

I recently received wonderful porcini mushrooms from my neighbor's campagna. I immediately made vellutata di porcini, or velouté rather. I made it gluten-free so my little sister could have some too in case she decided to stop in for dinner after work.

Ingredients

300 g wild porcini mushrooms

1 white onion, minced

Extra virgin olive oil

Garlic

Fresh sage

500 ml (17 fl oz) vegetable broth

50 g (1/4 cup) rice flour

400 ml (13 fl oz) whole milk, chilled

Clean the mushrooms by scraping the stems and leaing the caps on, then shave them using a mandoline. Save a couple for garnish.

Sauté the chopped onion with 3 Tbsp. olive oil and a clove of garlic. Add a sprig of sage and the shaved porcini. 

When just lightly wilted, add all the broth. Season with salt and pepper to taste and gently simmer over moderate heat for about 6 minutes. 

In the meantime, work on the thickener: in a plate and using a wire whisk, mix the rice flour with the cold milk, then pour the obtained mixture into the mushroom soup. 

Cook covered for about 15 minutes, remove the sage sprig and pour in a blender to puree until creamy. Add more broth if it's too thick.

Heat the soup briefly, then serve garnished with raw porcini slices and one last turn of the peppermill.

Buon appetito!

Cooking mushrooms, Italian style

Italy is in full-on mushroom frenzy right now. Porcini, finferli, chiodini, ovoli, prataioli, spugnole… you name it, the majority of local Autumn mushroom varieties are here and we're binging on them at home and when dining out.

The easiest way to cook mushrooms? Trifolati. 

The Italian cooking term means "cooked in olive oil, garlic and parsley" and the adjective only applies to mushrooms, as in "funghi trifolati".

Funghi trifolati is a delicious, light side dish, a classic of seasonal fall cuisine and among Italy's most loved vegetarian dishes.

Continue Reading for the recipe ➔

Chestnut soup

Autumn has officially become my favorite season.

Porcini mushrooms, antioxidant and smelly brassica, aromatic truffles, plus pumpkin and chestnuts all start making their appearance on market stalls all over in Italy. Cheeses made with summer pasture milk are reaching their 3-month maturation period, which means flavor pangs and rich texture in each bite. Grapes and olives are being harvested, fireplaces are crackling and the air is crisp enough to bury our chins in favorite wolly scarves again.

With crunchy fallen leaves underfoot and a precise seasonal shopping list in mind, I negotiate the trek to my neighborhood market, mentally going over what fall recipes I can finally start making again.
The first thing to catch my eye at Luisa's stall is a crate spilling with plump shiny chestnuts that seem to be popping out of thier thorny urchins.

Chestnuts are a very versatile food that can be eaten in a variety of ways: fire roasted, boiled, oven baked and dried to make flour, plus candied for marron glacé, or made into a creamy spread, or crafted into mont blanc cake.

Thoughts of castagnaccio, necci pancakes, poultry stuffing and other delightful chestnut-based treats danced around in my head. Then I remembered about soup.

500 g (1 lb) fresh chestnuts
2 slices crusty homestyle bread, cubed for croutons
2 celery ribs
1 whole leek
1 carrot
1 white onion
Extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper

Score the skins of the chestnuts with a paring knife – this prevents them from exploding during cooking. Place them in a large pot covered with cold water. Any that float to the surface should be discarded.

Cook the chestnuts for approximately 20 minutes from when the water starts to boil. Drain and once cooled off enough to handle, peel them making sure to remove the inner husk too. 

Prepare a light vegetable broth with approximately 1,5 liters (about 6 cups) of water and chopped leek, onion, carrot and celery, boiling for about 20 minutes. I don't add salt at this point but you may be accustomed to seasoning broth earlier than I do.

Add the peeled chestnuts to the broth and cook over medium heat for another 20 minutes. Drain the chestnuts and whir them in a food processor or blender. Should the cream be too thick you can filter the broth and add some of it to dilute the chestnut cream. 

Adjust seasoning.

Place the cubed bread in a single layer on an oven pan drizzled with a thread of olive oil and a sprinkle of your favorite fresh herbs. Grill in the oven for a few minutes, until barely golden. 

Serve the hot chestnut soup with a few croutons, a thread raw olive oil and a few more turns of the pepper mill.

Buon appetito!
 

Last photo courtesy of lacucinaitaliana.it

Bagna càuda recipe

In the earliest part of my childhood I spent a lot of time with my Nonna Titta. I've spoken about her in many occasions on this blog. She was a pillar of my upbringing, and even though I was 9 when she passed away, she left me many memories and an impressive mark on my nature and individuality. I see a lot of her in myself today.

In particular, the memories I associate the most with Nonna are sensory. The taste of her gummy, black Allenbury candies stashed in a tin box at the bottom of her beauty case, the glint in her emerald green eyes while we played pretending to be ladies having tea, and mostly, the smells coming from the kitchen when she'd cook. Her pièce de résistance was bagna càuda, characteristic of her Piedmontese origins.

This appetizer/soup, whose name in dialect means "hot bath," is enjoyed by dipping raw, boiled or roasted vegetables in a manner similar to fondue in a heated blend of garlic, anchovy and olive oil. It is traditionally an autumn/winter recipe and must be eaten hot, as the name suggests.

Bagna Càuda can be served in individual dipping bowls, or placed in a larger terracotta pan, placed on a burner at the center of the table, for communal sharing. Pictured above is the clay pot in which Nonna cooked and served hers.

Whenever my mother or I make Bagna Càuda, this is what we we still use.

Here's how we continue Nonna's tradition:
500 g (2 1/2 cups) extra virgin olive oil
150 g (3/4 cup) salted anchovies
50 g (1/4 cup) butter
6 cloves of garlic, peeled

Assorted vegetables for dipping:
2 cardoons (if these are not available where you live, substitute with 3–4 ribs of white celery, cut in sticks)
2 yellow bell peppers, cut in sticks
1 cup cauliflower florets
2 topinambur (aka Jerusalem artichoke, sunroot, sunchoke, or earth apple), peeled and cut in chunks
5 radishes, peeled
2 carrots, cut in sticks
2 artichokes, cored, outer leaves removed and quartered lengthwise
3 spring onions

Scrape the anchovies with a paring knife, rid them of the bones and open them flat. Brush away excess salt with a kitchen towel, and do not rinse with water.

Thinly slice the garlic and trim away green parts, if any.

In an enameled terracotta pan (if you don't have one, a common nonstick saucepan will do), melt the butter over extremely mild heat, add the garlic and let it tan without browning.

Add the olive oil and the anchovies, gently simmering, stirring and breaking up the fillets with the back of a wooden spoon. Do this for 10 minutes, or until the sauce is creamy and evenly blended.

Serve on a fondue burner or on a cooling rack placed over tea light candles to keep the delicious bagna as càuda as possible while you gobble away, washing down with rivers of Barbera or Dolcetto.

Note: For those fearsome of such copious amounts of garlic, there's a trick: you halve the quantity of oil and compensate with a cup of whole milk, to be poured in at the same time. Identical garlic quantity, and same exact procedure: the milk tames the punch of the garlic.

It works, trust Nonna.

Positano for the weekend

It's October, I should be pulling out scarves, sweaters and rain gear; polishing apples and sweeping dried leaves from the doorstep, stowing away summer clothes and beach towels..

Not me.

I'm rubbing aftersun lotion on my brown shoulders after a spectacular secret weekend escape in Positano with my little boy.

We packed a small tote, left on the hush hush and spent two fabulous days swimming, relaxing in the sun, eating seafood and meeting friends in what is said to be the warmest Fall season in 150 years.

We like to catch the Laurito shuttle early, before the crowds. It's a 5 minute sail south of Positano, and the red fish ferries its lido patrons every half hour, despite what's painted on the fish (every 60 mins.)

We found a spot on the rocky beach and waited for Laura to arrive from Amalfi. It was a real treat to finally meet in person after almost two years of knowing each other via web.

We ate lunch on the terrace at Da Adolfo, and it was laid back and delicious as usual. I always have the house specialty, a mozzarella antipasto, which is grilled on wild lemon leaves... very tasty. We also slurped zuppa di cozze, sopped up the juices with a loaf of crusty bread and downed a caraffe of chilled white wine with chopped peaches bobbing in it.

After bidding arrivederci to Laura, we were swept away on a friend's motoscafo, and we laughed in the sun, giddy with acceleration and high on beauty.

More snorkeling and swimming at "il germano," a rock formation said to resemble a German soldier's profile. The water is deep deep blue, with patches of emerald green, and the mountains reflect on the surface.

We returned to Positano in time for aperitivo and...

My son couldn't believe it, and neither could I. Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" tune kept ringing in my ears.

...and dinner of course!! Paccheri are a regional type of broad, tube-like pasta whose name means "slaps." These were made with sautéed scampi, and just a few fresh tomatoes thrown in the pan. The Buca di Bacco holds cooking classes in the restaurant kitchen, taught by the charming Executive Chef Andrea Ruggiero. I'd like to join one before the hotel closes for the winter.

One last swim before heading back home yesterday. I have to keep reminding myself it's October.

Ciao Positano, a presto!

Please head over to Ciao Amalfi! for Laura's exquisite reportage of our Laurito rendezvous...