Risotto with radicchio

One of the many joys of winter in Italy is the abundance of radicchio, and there are so many varieties, like this long and compact beauty, perfect for risotto.

I also found my Mum's old green pot (about 50 years old) which she always used to make risotto, and discovered that it is suitable to my new Italian kitchen's induction cooker. It may look a bit battered but it cooks beautifully!  

To start chop a white onion and sauté with butter (plenty of butter!) then add the chopped and rinsed radicchio with a pinch of salt, put the lid on and simmer, stirring from time to time, until the the radicchio is all wilted and doesn't taste too bitter.

It should take about 20 minutes on low, and look like this (with a bit of juice). Now add the arborio rice,  (I made risotto for 8 with about 600 g of rice, only one onion and one radicchio!).

Stir until the rice is hot and then start adding the vegetable stock, ladle by ladle as needed, you will need about two litres of it.

Keep stirring and adding stock until ready. When working with large quantities of rice it is better to rinse it first to remove a little starch, otherwise it will become too hard to turn, and too sticky.

Risotto with Radicchio is a great Italian classic, very popular in Veneto and Emilia Romagna (the best radicchio is from Treviso). Possibly in Veneto you would accompany it with one their fine whites, but in Emilia I paired it with a Pignoletto and it tasted great! Grated Parmigiano or Grana Padano are optional. Enjoy!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Back to my village in Italy and making tortellini without meat

Back to my home village and to my roots, making tortellini with 92 years old Agnese and her son Antonio. Agnese has been making fresh pasta since she was a child, like all the women in these mountains, and before Christmas a number of friends and village women come over to make tortellini with her, because you don't make tortellini alone, you do it in company, as you have to work fast filling and folding and you need many tortellini (at least 30 per plate if eaten in broth, more if served with cream). So you work, and chat at the same time, and perhaps it is this conviviality that makes the women of this area live a long life.

I remember my grandmother and her sister making pasta by hand, with a long rolling pin. Today Agnese (my grandma's cousin) uses a pasta machine because she has arthritis, and her sono Antonio helps her.

But she can still cat and fold the tiny tortellini!

I often make tortelloni, which are bigger and with a vegetarian filling, so it was great to make tiny little tortellini again, hundred of tortellini!

This is to give you an idea of the size.

At home I decided to make them again with my kids, and with a non-meat filling. For the fresh pasta the ratio is 1 medium-large egg for 100 g of flour, considering that 100g of flour make about 2 servings of tortellini. For the filling I made some fresh bread crumbs with stale bread, mixed with a little beaten egg and milk, and added tons of grated aged Parmigiano Reggiano, then black pepper and freshly ground nutmeg (adjust with salt to taste, but since I used plenty of Parmigiano I didn't need any). The filling should be quite firm and easy to roll into little balls. 

Roll one piece of pastry at the time, so it doesn't dry up, then cut it, add the filling, fold into triangles and then each one around your finger into a tortellino. Agnese cuts the tortellini shapes by hands, so some of the shapes differ lightly in size (and may fold differently) but for home use nobody worries here: it is the content and final taste that counts. Restaurants often follow suit, bus pasta shops tend to make all the tortellini the same size so they look better. I got a tortellini square cutter which helps  with the size, and the off cuts of pasta are kept aside too, these are called maltagliati (literally badly-cut) and they are used for soups like pasta e fagioli or minestrone (below you can see them in the tray on the side).

And here are our meatless tortellini! I served them with a vegetable broth, buonissimi!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Ferrara, city of art, bicycles and 'coppie'

Ferrara is a small but beautiful city in Italy, in the region of Emilia Romagna. It has been said to be one of the most liveable cities in Italy (and the world) and the best for cycling. Everyone has a bicycle and young and old use it daily to go to work, to school, for shopping... for everything!

The city has a long history, beautiful elegant buildings and many cobbled streets, it is perfect for a day visit, and has been not invaded by tourists like nearby Bologna. 

Girolamo Savonarola was born in Ferrara in 1452

The food is delicious, like everywhere in Emilia Romagna, and the 'symbol' of the city is its bread, called 'coppie'. There are many types, long and short, and we tried a few: the centre has a soft white dough and the 'legs' are crunchy.

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

White Christmas in the mountains in Italy

This year we spent Christmas in Italy, in my old village in the Appennines, we arrived on 11 December and after a few days we were blessed by snow. I loved looking out of the window and seeing snowdrops, animal footprints on the ground and little birds coming to the window for a break.

 My village is Sestola, in the province of Modena, looking good with a white mantle.

Preparing the Christmas Tree

 Sestola at night

Winter delights

The best thing was skiing on Christmas Day, up in Passo del Lupo. Glorious day and good snow. 

I also did a few walks around the Lago della Ninfa, next to Passo del Lupo.

A view of the Cimone Mountain, the second highest mountain in the Apennines.

Near home there are also a few lovely places where to walk and enjoy the winter 'wonderland'. A great end to 2017, and a lovely experience for the family.

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Tagliatelle ai funghi, in memory of Antonio Carluccio

When I learned that Antonio Carluccio had died I was really sad, I didn't know hime well, but I did meet him twice, and wrote to him once (and got a reply!), he was an inspiration. When I was young and poor and constantly hungry and cold in London I used watch his programmes, and dream of Italy, sun and endless food. I met him in the street there but I was so shy that the only thing I could say was Buongiorno and run away! After writing my first book I emailed him (his publisher) to send him a copy, and got an email reply (signed by him, but I will never know if he wrote it) and a thank you and well done!. Then I met him two years ago at Gusto at the Grand in Auckland, and that was fantastic, I was sitting at his table so I managed to chat a bit with him. What a great memory!

So to honour his legacy I took out my pasta board and went out in the garden, (it was a lovely day), and made some tagliatelle. I even added some flowers to some, just for fun. To make pasta I just use an egg for every 100g of flour, this is good for two people, so double for 4 and so on. Since I have two teenagers I used 300g of flour and 3 eggs :-). 

Then I made a sauce, I had a big pack of dried porcini mushrooms which a soaked, and some other mushrooms, which I cut, and since I didn't have many I added some eggplant, cut and salted (to sweat). If you add eggplant to mushrooms it will absorb the flavour and the texture is a little similar so you can dream that you have lots of mushrooms. I sautéed the fresh mushrooms and eggplant with a little olive oil, chopped parsley and garlic cloves and then added the dried mushrooms and their water, a big bottle of tomato passata,  extra tomato puree and salt to taste. At the end I had a huge pot of sauce, even after I cooked the lot for one hour (to thickens the sauce), I used some for pasta the first day and for a pie the day after.

We had the tagliatelle and mushrooms with Parmigiano, and a glass of red whine, and toasted to Antonio. Goodbye Carluccio, sit tibi terra levis.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©