Ciao, on Sunday we met for the December Cook Along, and we spent two hours talking, mixing sugar and honey, chopping candied peels, and measuring spices. It was fun, productive, and festive, and I won’t deny that I shed a little tear towards the end of our two hours together, moved by your friendship and support.

We baked a tray of cavallucci, a slab of panforte, and two dozen ricciarelli, and I’m sure that for one night Siena and a Tuscan Christmas were a little bit closer to your home, wherever you were connecting from. The next cook-along will be in January, and we have already a list of recipes to cook together (ribollita, gnudi, ricotta gnocchi…). Let me know in the comments if you have any requests!

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We started with a small number of participants, but now our Cook Along is growing and getting very animated. From January, we will probably move our Cook Along to Zoom, so that a recording of the class will be available for all paid subscribers. We listened to your requests!

That’s the beautiful panforte we baked on Sunday!

And today, as anticipated, I’m sharing a little back story and the recipe to make the Sienese ricciarelli at home.

Unlike Sicily and Naples, Tuscany is not a region known for its dessert traditions. Siena, however, is an exception, especially at Christmastime. The aroma of spices—cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, pepper—permeates the town throughout the year. Yet the true Sienese are dubious when it comes to traditional desserts prepared outside the holiday season, a trend they consider aimed at tourists. So, be sceptical, if you will, and consider visiting Siena at Christmas to experience its most authentic desserts.

The peak season for bakeries, pastry shops, and small artisanal shops begins in November with the arrival of pan co’ santi, a sweet, fragrant bread stuffed with raisins and walnuts, traditionally associated with All Saints' Day, November 1. 

Christmas season sees the arrival of panforte, cavallucci, ricciarelli, and copate, a brittle-like crunchy dessert of caramel and nuts wedged between wafers. Every Sienese family has its favourite bakery shop and, come the start of the season, a sort of secular pilgrimage begins as locals seek out the flavours and aromas of the winter holidays.

Ricciarelli

A cross between a small pastry and an almond cookie, ricciarelli feature a dusting of powdered sugar, with a soft inside that melts in your mouth and a striking aroma of bitter almonds.

The origin of ricciarelli di Siena dates back to the fifteenth century: the almond paste – in the form of marzipan or Marzapanetti – was once very popular in the town and Siena was famous even outside its territory for its production. The cookies made with almond paste were reserved for the sumptuous banquet of the Lords because they were made of precious ingredients, mainly almonds and sugar. They were so valuable and refined that marzipan sweets were sold in the apothecary shops along with drugs and the most exotic spices of the time.

Today, together with panforte, ricciarelli are perhaps one of the most characteristic Sienese desserts. Those made at Menchetti practically fly off the shelves, yet those at the Consorzio Agrario also merit a stop. 

Today ricciarelli also come in a dark chocolate-covered version. Taste them at Pierini and Forno delle Campane, then try to choose your favourite—a difficult task indeed!

RECIPE - Ricciarelli

This is the recipe we perfected during our December Cook Along.

This is an exclusive recipe for the subscribers. It is part of a serialized Tuscan cookbook, a collection of tested classic Tuscan recipes to add to your cooking repertoire. Learn more about the I Love Toscana project here and find all the recipes here. You can upgrade and get access to this, as well as all our monthly cook-along and live talks, on the link above.

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Walking along the steep streets of the Costiera Amalfitana and Sorrento, you are surrounded by postcard views and bottles of limoncello hanging from every shop. A typical opalescent lemon liqueur of the Italian South, limoncello is now a world-famous digestif.

Forget the sickling sweet commercial limoncello, a gluey yellow syrup with no depth of flavour. Homemade limoncello is fresh, bright, zingy, and uncomplicated. All you need are good organic lemons, sugar, alcohol, and time.

Keep your limoncello in the freezer, and bring it to the table at the end of a meal with its frozen bottle and a tray of clinking tiny glasses. It will immediately be welcomed with enthusiastic cheers. Pour a finger of chilled limoncello and sip it slowly as a digestif, savouring its lemony taste.

Limoncello is also a smart ingredient when it comes to baking: add a splash to a cake syrup, use it to flavour pastry cream, soak babà, the delicious Neapolitan yeasted sponge cake, to prepare a summer cocktail, or make a sorbet out of it.

Two cakes with limoncello from the blog archive:

• Torta Margherita with limoncello and custard. The recipe is the classic Artusi’s recipe for torta margherita, but lemon juice has been replaced with limoncello, homemade, imperfect, robust, and intense. The cake and the custard are both gluten-free, light and scented by the freshness of limoncello

• Corn cake with limoncello. This cake has a rustic texture given by corn flour and it is so deliciously scented thanks to the addition of limoncello. A scent that fills the kitchen while baking, but gives its best when the cake is cold and a bite explodes in your mouth with all its aromas.

Notes.

Choose organic lemons with thick skin. Do not discard lemons once peeled. Instead, squeeze them to make lemonade, or freeze the juice into ice cubes. Or, as I just made today, use them in a jam: their pectin will make the jam thicker in an easy, natural way.

You can find the recipe I’ve been using to make limoncello for years underneath the fold. If you ever joined one of our cooking classes or attended one of our dinners, we probably poured you a tiny glass of limoncello.

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This newsletter is a reader-supported publication. We love Letters From Tuscany, it is like having our own independent publication: we test, photograph, write each recipe just for you, to bring a little taste of Italy to your kitchen, for you and your family. We’re trying to keep things as free as possible, but if you enjoy what I write and want access to exclusive weekly recipes, and if you are at a point in your life to support our newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you!

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Everything started with a video that Robert Downey Jr. posted on Instagram. He was moved to tears by Stanley Tucci’s food (who wouldn't, after all?) - imagine all the cast from Oppenheimer invited to Casa Tucci for dinner. Even though I’ve been loving Robert Downey Jr. since before he was Ironman, and even though Stanley Tucci is a charming storyteller, in that gathering of famous people I would die to meet Felicity Blunt, Stanley Tucci’s wife and sister to Emily Blunt, but also a celebrated literary agent and one of the hosts of one of my favourite podcasts ever, Fortnum’s Hungry Minds.

But back to that video. You can catch just a quick glimpse of what Stanley Tucci is cooking, but that was enough to make me curious. Soon after, I noticed a similar video on Stanley Tucci’s profile.

Stanley Tucci shows four pans where he is cooking Cod alla Livornese: capers, fresh tomatoes, onions, a little bit f garlic, green olives, black olives…

As fate would have it, I had scheduled a recipe for the very same baccalà here in the newsletter for today! So if you want to read further, you’ll find my own take on baccalà/cod alla livornese.

Let’s talk about the name, first.

In Tuscany, a recipe for baccalà—dried salted cod—cooked in tomato sauce can be interchangeably named alla Fiorentina (made in the Florentine style), alla Livornese (made as they would do in Livorno), or even alla Pisana, so made following the Pisa’s fashion.

According to Paolo Petroni, my reference food writer and cookbook author when it comes to Tuscan cuisine, it is basically the same recipe. What can vary is the use of onion instead of garlic, or if you’ll be keeping the cod’s skin or not (my advice is: keep it! it’s easier to fry it).

RECIPE. Baccalà alla Fiorentina - Dried cod stewed in tomato sauce

Baccalà alla fiorentina is best made with fresh tomatoes, but when not in season you can easily substitute them with good canned peeled tomatoes. Avoid tomato purée or passata, as they would miss some of the texture otherwise provided by the hand-crushed tomatoes.

Read the family story of this recipe on the blog.

Kitchen Notes 

How to prepare and soak baccalà.

Soak the salted cod in a large bowl of water. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and store in the fridge for 2 to 3 days. Replace the water at least twice a day to desalt the cod. Remember to be very careful with salt when cooking with the baccalà, as it might already be very salty on its own if not properly treated. The following recipe could also be done with stoccafisso, or fresh cod.

How to peel tomatoes.

Rinse the tomatoes and with the tip of a knife cut an “x” at the base of each tomato. Plunge the tomatoes into a pot of boiling water. Cook them just until the skin begins to peel: usually, a couple of minutes are enough. Drain them and immediately plunge them into a bowl of iced water, then peel the tomatoes, discarding the skins. Crush them and use them in the following recipe.

SERVES 4

• 450 grams dried salted cod, already prepared for cooking (see headnote)

• 2 medium potatoes

• 3 cloves of garlic, unpeeled

• 1 rosemary sprig

• ½ cup all-purpose flour

• 450 grams ripe tomatoes, peeled and roughly chopped (see headnote)

• ½ red onion, thinly sliced

• ⅔ cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided

• Fine sea salt

• Finely chopped fresh parsley

Cut the baccalà into 5cm-long pieces. Pat them dry with some kitchen paper and flour them on both sides. Peel the potatoes and cut them into 5mm thick slices, then flour them, too.

Pour ⅓ cup of extra virgin olive oil into a large pan, add 2 garlic cloves and the rosemary spring, then heat on medium flame. Arrange a plate lined with kitchen paper next to the pan.

When the garlic starts to sizzle, gently place the baccalà into the pan and fry for about 4 to 5 minutes per side, until golden. Gently remove the baccalà from the pan and place it onto the prepared dish. Now fry the potatoes, about 5 minutes per side, until cooked through and golden. Transfer the fried potatoes to the prepared plate, too.

You might find yourself with just a little bit of oil left in the pan. Discard the rosemary and the garlic and, when the pan is not hot anymore, wipe it clean with some kitchen paper. You’ll be able to use it to cook the tomato sauce now and you’ll save a pan.

Now prepare the tomato sauce. Pour the remaining olive oil into a large pan, add the thinly sliced onion and the last clove of garlic. Season with a generous pinch of salt: this will help you cook the onion and prevent it from burning. Cook the onion on medium-low flame for about 10 minutes, until soft and translucent.

Add the chopped, crushed tomatoes into the pan and cook for 10 minutes, until they collapse into a sauce. Taste and adjust with salt: you want the sauce to be slightly under-seasoned, as usually, the cod is quite salty on its own.

Add the cod and potatoes back into the pan, reduce to a simmer and cook for about 10 minutes, so that all the flavours will be mixed together. Taste for the last time and see if you might need a final sprinkle of salt. Sprinkle with some finely chopped parsley and serve hot.

Any leftovers can be kept in the fridge for a couple of days. Gently reheat before serving, even though I must confess I also like baccalà alla fiorentina, straight from the fridge.

If you make this recipe, share it via email and send me a picture at juls@julskitchen.com, or on Social Media using the hashtags #myseasonaltable #julskitchen and #lettersfromtuscany, and tag @julskitchen

More recipes…

• In Cucina Povera, you can find two recipes with cod. Brandacujun, a potato and dried stockfish from Liguria, page 122, and Baccalà al forno con patate, baked salt cod from Basilicata, page 137.

• In the blog archive, you can find another baccalà recipe from Livorno, a sweet and sour salted cod. This recipe perfectly represents the Livornese cuisine, made of poor fish, tomato paste and enlivening influences brought by other cultures, all welcomed and absorbed by a town which is not just a melting pot, but a pot of steaming cacciucco.

• If you like this recipe, I’m sure you will love also my recipe for Sicilian Swordfish, from the newsletter archive. Tasty, punchy, a concentrate of Mediterranean flavours, this recipe for swordfish with tomato sauce, olives, pine nuts, and capers is a winner for a weeknight dinner.

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This is an exclusive recipe for the subscribers. It is part of a serialized Tuscan cookbook that you will receive over the course of one year, a collection of tested classic Tuscan recipes to add to your cooking repertoire. Learn more about the I Love Toscana project here and find all the recipes here. You can upgrade and get access to this, as well as all our monthly cook-along and live talks, on the link above.

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Summer is in the soft shade of the two century old linden trees that tower next to the gate, in the green smell of tomato leaves, in the hypnotic chirp of cicadas in a lazy Tuscan afternoon. Summer is back, and so are we.

I don't know how this is possible, but 3 months have passed since the last cook-along. I have to blame the weather, a winter dotted with colds and seasonal bugs, and a spring bursting with cooking classes. Oh, and I didn’t have a kitchen for a while (on this matter, updates coming soon).

The cooking class season is far from coming to an end anytime soon, but I so wanted to meet you all again, so I picked the first available Sunday to gather, cook, and chat—and it will be live from my new kitchen, so you’ll have a preview, too!

We will meet SUNDAY, July 9th at 9.30 pm CET - 3.30 pm EDT - 12.30 pm PDT. This is an event designed for those who subscribed to Letters from Tuscany.

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As always it is a moment when we cook together, but you can join just to have a chat, or a laugh, to ask questions, share stories, or simply listen while having a good cup of tea (or wine, according to where you are!)

This is an event designed for those who subscribed to Letters from Tuscany: we’re slowly building friendships, shared memories, and we’re definitely having lots of fun!

We will be making panzanella, the queen recipe of the Tuscan summer, the most refreshing bread salad you’ll ever taste, and we will be following the recipe from Cucina Povera. If you already have the book, you can find the recipe at page 250.

While soaking the bread (THIS! this step is essential to make an authentic panzanella!) we will talk about all the possible uses of stale bread in Italian regional cuisine, delving into the culture of stale bread salads, which is a thing in Italy!

For the occasion, I will be joined by a SPECIAL GUEST, my friend Enrica Monzani from A Small Kitchen in Genoa. While I will be making panzanella, she will demonstrate the Ligurian take on summer salads, cundijun, and she will be talking about her freshly published cookbook, The Flavors of Liguria.

If you are not already familiar with her, Enrica has been our guest before:

This is an unmissable event that will kick off the Letters from Tuscany Summer Season! 🏖️ 🍉 ☀️🍅 🥒

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Panzanella, the Tuscan bread salad

Known since Boccaccio’s time as “washed bread,” this ancient Tuscan recipe was later immortalized by Renaissance painter and poet Bronzino (1503-1572), who wrote of a green panzanella made with onion, cucumber, purslane and arugula. Tomatoes were not included, as they had just been introduced to Europe from the Americas and were not yet commonplace.

In my family, we tend to make the classic panzanella, without exception. But then friends arrive, each wanting a different version. Some want a panzanella without onion, while others prefer it without cucumber. Panzanella is one of those dishes that invariably bend to the mood of the day and what’s on hand in the garden or pantry.

If you want to read more about the many Italian bread salad, there’s an archive post from last year, Anatomy of a bread salad.

What’s your favourite summer recipe?

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RECIPE. Uova al pomodoro - Eggs stewed in tomato sauce

Tuscan cooking is deeply connected to the vegetable garden and its seasonal products. In the summertime, fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans and zucchini are the protagonists of many of our most loved dishes: forget bistecca alla fiorentina or stewed wild boar, a variation of seasonal vegetables is what we eat at home.

Many traditional dishes preserve the freshness and flavour of the vegetables, celebrating their simplicity, such as panzanella for tomatoes, or, even more simple, pane e pomodoro.

To make pane e pomodoro, slice a crusty loaf, rub a ripe tomato on the bread, until it is stained with its pulp and juices, then drizzle with olive oil, and season with a pinch each of fine sea salt and dried oregano. Eat voraciously, with olive oil dripping on your chin.

Another dish that exalts fresh tomatoes is a family favourite, uova al pomodoro.

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This is an exclusive recipe for the subscribers. It is part of a serialized Tuscan cookbook that you will receive over the course of one year, a collection of tested classic Tuscan recipes to add to your cooking repertoire. Learn more about the I Love Toscana project here and find all the recipes here. You can upgrade and get access to this, as well as all our monthly cook-along and live talks, on the link above.

All the recipes from I Love Toscana

I’m back to everyday life after two weeks spent in a kitchen that smelled of butter, honey, and spices, surrounded by the smiling, heartwarming company of the people I met during the eight baking classes I taught for Bake From Scratch. I lived for days in a vanilla, sugary cloud, speaking of the strength of flour, the best aroma to choose for pasta frolla, the texture of a well-baked panforte, and the perfect timing to soak ladyfingers in alchermes to make zuppa inglese.

I’m a home cook, and I am also a home baker, someone who loves nothing more than one-bowl cakes, imperfect cookies, and rustic jam tarts. My baking style is simple, familiar, and unpretentious. I love natural aromas—citrus zest, herbs, vanilla—, forgiving doughs, and all those recipes you can make with pantry staples.

There’s a definition in Italian that collects all these humble cakes: torte da credenza.

These are cakes that were meant to be kept on the dining room sideboard, closed into the glass display cabinet where our grandmas would store china, crystal, linens, and serving dishes. Kept at room temperature outside of the fridge (or, better, before that every household had a fridge), torte da credenza are made with simple, pantry staples—flour, sugar, eggs—, with no filling, no pastry cream or whipped cream. Though, they could include jams, fruit, nuts, and chocolate. Think about apple cakes, ciambellone, pound cakes, jam tarts, nut biscotti, sponge cakes, carrot cakes…

They have this humble, unpretentious look, and often remind you of your childhood, of those cakes your mum or nonna would bake for breakfast, or as a quick afternoon snack. It’s like comfort food, but applied to baked goods.

Expect more examples of torte da credenza in the next months, and have ready some space on your dining room sideboard, or on your countertop, for all the cakes and cookies we will bake together in the upcoming months.

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Here you can already find a few examples of torte da credenza:

• Buckwheat cake from Alto Adige, rustic and dense, with a thick layer of redcurrant jam, you can serve it with a side of barely sweetened whipped cream.

• Persimmon cake. Bake it for afternoon tea, or enjoy it for breakfast with a mug of dark coffee.

• Apple olive oil cake. The quest for the perfect apple cake is like searching for the Holy Grail: infinite, legendary, epic, and exciting. Each season brings new ideas, scents and textures.

• Yoghurt pound cake for breakfast. This yoghurt pound cake was born from the classic recipe for pound cake. You can find an extensive post on the blog all about pound cake if you are interested in understanding how it works and how you can play with the ingredients. Read it here.

• Coffee and extra virgin olive oil cake. It calls for very simple ingredients, from your pantry. It has the scent and flavour of a time-past cake, one your grandmother would make, to keep in her kitchen cupboard.

Kneading, baking, and eating so much pasta frolla—an Italian buttery shortcrust dough—during my Bake from Scratch classes made me realize how much I love it, how versatile it is, and how you can manage it to make it suitable also for the warmer season. So I thought I would start my journey in the wonderful world of torte da credenza with pasta frolla, and everything you can do with it.

All about pasta frolla

This rich, buttery Italian shortcrust pastry is a staple in the repertoires of fine pastry chefs and family home cooks alike. In the home kitchen, the versatile dough is the starting point for many humble, reliable recipes, from simple shortbread cookies to rustic jam-filled crostatas.

The meaning of its name is interesting to note. “Pasta” refers to “pastry,” while “frolla” comes from the verb “frollare,” which, when applied to meat, means to hang it, to let it age and mature.

The same should be done with pasta frolla. Make it in advance and let it rest in the fridge for at least a few hours, or better overnight. Allowed to rest, the dough, crumbly when first made, will become more compact and elastic, making it much easier to roll out with a rolling pin.

This is just the first stage of maturing, though; the second comes after the pastry is baked. A good general rule is to wait a few hours, or even better until the next day, to eat any pastries made with pasta frolla. Your patience will be rewarded with the perfect crisp, delicately crumbly texture, and you’ll find that the flavour of the pastry will have harmoniously melded with its fillings or toppings.

Basic Ingredients

There are endless recipes for pasta frolla, varying based on their geographical origins, their use (to make a cookie, a jam crostata, or a delicate pastry), or simply the preferences of the individual pastry chef. The core ingredients remain basically the same; what changes from recipe to recipe is their proportions.

Eggs

Eggs are essential, adding richness to the dough. Some recipes call for only the yolks, others for only the whites, and yet others for whole eggs or a combination of whole eggs and yolks. In any case, use regular-sized eggs.

Butter… 

In Italy, we tend to use unsalted butter for pasta frolla, as salted butter is less common in our supermarkets and deli shops. Sometimes, though, if I find a stick of imported demi-sel French butter, I use that instead: it immediately makes my homely pasta frolla feel fancier, giving it a more complex flavour that contrasts beautifully with a sweet jam.

The butter should be softened, but still cold when you mix it into your dough. We call the perfect consistency “in pomata,” meaning that it has the texture of a gel or pomade. This makes the butter much easier to rub into the flour. 

You can soften a stick of butter without melting it by pounding it, still wrapped, with a rolling pin, or directly on your countertop (it works magnificently also as a natural anti-stress). Once it is in pomata, cube the butter to use in the pasta frolla.

… or Lard

In older recipes, as in two of the variations of pasta frolla shared by Italian writer Pellegrino Artusi in his legendary 1891 cookbook “Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well,” you’ll find lard used as the starring fat, instead of butter. Lard can substitute for butter completely, or just in part.

Today, lard is still very common in pasta frolla recipes from the South of Italy—for example, in the crust of a pastiera from Naples, a traditional Easter cake filled with ricotta, boiled wheat berries, and candied citrus peel; or in the pasticciotti of Puglia, small pastries made with a delicate shell of pasta frolla and a heart of thick, aromatic pastry cream.

Flour

Achieving pasta frolla’s characteristic texture starts with the flour, which needs to be low in gluten. Use an all-purpose flour or cake flour, as long as it is not self-rising. I’ve also used whole wheat flour and farro flour with very good results. 

To prevent the development of gluten in your dough, rub the flour and sugar together with the butter first, so as to coat the flour completely with a thin, protective film of fat. You are aiming for a texture that resembles grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Then add the eggs, which will help you bring the coarse crumbs together into a cohesive ball of dough.

Sugar

Experiment with different varieties of sugar: the finer the sugar, the more delicate the pasta frolla. Confectioners’ sugar results in a fine, melt-in-your-mouth texture, while caster or granulated sugar produces a crumblier pastry. Try also raw or unrefined cane sugar, especially when making cookies, for a crunchy, rustic texture.

Flavourings

You can flavour your pasta frolla according to the filling or other ingredients you plan to pair with the pastry.

Grated orange or lemon zest adds brightness, freshness, and a delicate citrusy note. I find it a perfect addition to cookies, especially during Christmastime. Be sure to choose organic citrus fruits for zesting.

Dried spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, and nutmeg give a more distinct character to pasta frolla. Let your taste guide you, and experiment with your favourite spices.

I usually prefer not to use real vanilla seeds in pasta frolla, as they lose some of their fragrance when baked. If I want a vanilla-flavoured dessert, I instead add the flavour to the filling or opt for my vanilla sugar (every time I use a vanilla pod, even for a custard, I rinse it, dry it, and stick it into my sugar jar).

My friend Emanuela, my favourite pastry chef and the one that taught me more about baking, often uses loose tea leaves in her pasta frolla, with outstanding results.

The best season for pasta frolla

Cooler months are definitely better than summer months pasta frolla, when you can easily over-knead the dough, resulting in a sticky, melting dough.

My tips, if you want to make pasta frolla in the summer, are these:

• Make it in the early morning or late evening, and not in an overheated kitchen.

• Once ready, let it rest in the fridge overnight before preparing your tart or cookies. A second rest in the fridge before baking could help the tart or cookies retain their shape.

• If there are dough scraps, you can knead them again, but it’s better if you rest the dough in the fridge once more before rolling it out.

The following is just one of the many recipes you can choose to make pasta frolla, the one I’ve been following since I was a child, the one my mum and grandma would make every time we wanted to have crostata for dessert.

You can use this pasta frolla to make:

• a 12-inch/30cm jam tart (find my favourite recipe in Cucina Povera, p. 277) - oh, and the BIG NEWS is that the book is finally available also in Europe, you can find all the online shops here.

• a pastry cream tart with fresh fruit

RECIPE - Occhi di Bue

Occhi di bue, literally ox eyes, are the largest shortcrust cookies, a reassuring constant in any pastry shop, café, or bakery counter in Italy. They are perfect in their generous round shape, winking from the counter with their heart of jam or chocolate.

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The time of multiple-course heavy menus designed to impress is over. It might be because I’m getting older—I’ll be 42 in a couple of months—, and I’m no more able to eat as I used to do in my thirties, or because I feel the need for seasonal menus with a clear purpose, less dishes, and plenty of vegetables.

That’s why I elected this dish the star of a lunch I organized during a bread making course we hosted at the studio: vegetable-forward appetizers to open the meal, a glorious bowl of saffron tagliatelle with artichoke as main course, and a clean strawberry biancomangiare to seal the morning with a sweet note.

I fell in love with the recipe and the flavour combination—saffron and artichokes are a marriage of love—, so I decided to test it in the following weeks during cooking classes, tweaking the cooking times and the amount of the ingredients.

That’s the recipe we eventually came to, just in time before the artichoke season ends.

RECIPE - Saffron tagliatelle

Giving an extra layer of flavour to your fresh pasta is easy, and fun. Saffron is a quick, eye-catching option, but if you are in the mood of experimenting, you could try with porcini, too, as in this archive recipe for dried porcini mushroom tagliatelle (though not with this artichoke dressing!).

I prefer to use the most precious saffron pistils to make risotto, while for the fresh pasta saffron powder works perfectly, as it easily melts in the eggs and gives an even coloring to the pasta dough.

Saffron tagliatelle would work well with a fresh tomato sauce, with zucchini and mint, and with a mussel or seafood dressing.

For the tagliatelle (serves 4 to 6 as a first course)

• 1 cup/120 g of 0 flour (or all-purpose)

• ½ cup/ 80 g of semolina flour

• 2 eggs

• 1 pinch of saffron

• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

• 1 pinch fine sea salt

Pour the two flours on a wooden board or a large working surface, and make a well in the centre. Make it big enough so that it can fit the eggs.

Break the eggs in a small bowl, beat them quickly with a fork, then add the saffron. Stir until it has melted into the eggs, then add them along with the olive oil, and a good pinch of salt to the flour.

Mix the flour and the eggs with a fork until crumbly.

A dough scraper might be useful, too: scrape the flour, fold onto itself, and chop, and repeat, aiming for big crumbs. Making fresh pasta is fun and messy, and it can be sticky. Using a tool as a fork or a scraper, especially if you are a beginner, is helpful, as you might be tempted to add more flour when you feel the eggs sticking to your fingers. Don’t! Trust the process, and the ingredients, and keep working.

When the flour and the eggs are bind together into big crumbs, use your hands to make a ball, squeezing the crumbs together, then start kneading the dough.

Keep on kneading, more and more, as to develop the gluten which will give strength to the sheets of pasta. Just do as when you knead the bread: hold it with one hand while you roll it from you with the other, with the heel of the palm, then fold on itself and repeat.

After a while, the dough should have the right consistency: smooth, velvety and no longer sticky.

Cover with a bowl and let it stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.

After this time, roll the dough. Whether you’re using a classic long rolling pin or a pasta machine, the most important thing is to roll it over and over again, rolling and stretching it as much as you can.

Make a thin wide sheet of pasta (using my Marcato pasta machine I stop at the 6th mark).

Leave the pasta sheets for about 10 minutes on a board dusted with semolina flour.

Cut the pasta into 1 cm wide strips with the pasta machine or by hand, rolling the sheets up and cutting them with a sharp knife across intro strips.

Spread them all out on a cloth and leave them there until you want to cook them.

Tagliatelle could be prepared a couple of hours in advance, and left at room temperatures, or you can prepare them the day before and freeze them. Wrap them loosely to form a nest and arrange the nests on a tray, cover with plastic wrap and freeze. When the tagliatelle are frozen they can be collected into a plastic ziplock bag and kept in the freezer for up to 2 months. If you cook frozen tagliatelle, plunge them in the boiling water when still frozen, directly from the freezer, and cook them for one more minute.

RECIPE - Artichoke dressing for pasta

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The lemon-scented rice pudding tartlets of my childhood

The subtly lemon-scented rice pudding tartlets were my favourite sweet treat as a child. My mum would buy me one for a seldom breakfast at a café, or my aunt Silvana would pick one for me and one for my cousin Margherita in the early morning, before going to the market, when I used to spend a few days in San Gimignano during the summer holidays, to visit her and my granddad Remigio.

After all these years, the rice pudding tartlets are still among my favourite sweets when I treat myself with a breakfast in a café, or when I enter in a baker’s shop and they have just been baked and are still warm, slightly creamy inside.

When during our market cooking classes we sit at the local café before the market haul, among cappuccino, espresso, macchiato, and a few croissants, there’s always at least one rice pudding tartlet, unassuming in its look, but always a surprise after the first bite.

Common in many Italian regions, these rice tartlets can be found at pastry shops, or better, at your favourite baker’s shop, round or softly oval, wrapped in a paper towel. Nothing beats them when you find them freshly baked, still warm from the oven.

We usually eat them standing up at the counter, while queueing for an espresso. They are covered with icing sugar, and that icing sugar will inevitably dust your best dress on the most important morning of your life.

My favourite budini di riso are still those you can get in San Gimignano at Armando & Marcella.

You can find the Armando & Marcella pastry shop in via San Giovanni, 88. The café is exactly like it used to be in the ‘80s, same light, same tables, same overcrowded counters with every kind of biscotti, pastries, Sienese sweet treats and candies. This is where my mum and aunt used to stop in the morning for a cappuccino and a budino di riso. Slightly warm, with a crumbly and fragrant pastry shell and a creamy rice filling, this is the place to stop for a classic Italian breakfast.

If you are planning a visit to San Gimignano, you can find our guide with some interesting ideas on the blog.

Read the San Gimignano guide here

RECIPE - Budini di Riso - Rice Pudding Tartlets

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When I asked my grandmother if artichokes had always been a part of her cooking repertoire, her answer was simple. 

“Artichokes? Artichokes are the first thing you plant when starting a vegetable garden!” Everyone in the countryside had a carciofaia, a patch of land where the large artichokes would grow in majestic bushes, their leaves a dusty green.

I remember my grandmother walking into her artichoke patch with an old knife, almost disappearing between the huge bushes, and coming back with a few, precious artichokes in her hands, ready to trim and dip them in good olive oil with salt, or cook them into a frittata.

How to clean an artichoke

Don’t be scared by the amount of leaves you’re going to discard.

You might be used to boiling artichokes whole, and eating them by dipping the leaves one by one in butter or mayonnaise, scraping the edible parts off with your teeth. In Italy, we instead prefer to clean artichokes before eating them, therefore making it easier to appreciate and enjoy them in a dish, either cooked or raw.

You can treat cleaning the artichokes as a form of kitchen meditation: while your hands are occupied with the mechanical action, your mind is free to wander.

Start with a large bowl of acidulated water—that simply means squeezing the juice of a lemon into it. This will prevent the artichokes from browning, as they are rich in iron and oxidize quickly once cut.  Leave the two lemon halves in the water to use to rub the cleaned artichokes, and your hands, too.

First, remove the outer leaves, until you reach the pale softer ones. With a sharp knife, remove the spiky tip of the artichoke, then cut it where the base meets the stalk. Set the stalk aside. Rub the artichoke heart all over with a lemon half and plunge it into the bowl of acidulated water. Keep going until you finish all the artichokes. 

Then, tackle the stalks. Peel them until you reach the whiter, softer part inside, rub them with half a lemon to prevent them from browning, and add them into the bowl of water, too. Artichoke stalks are flavorful, perfect to use in a risotto or pasta sauce, or stewed along with the hearts.

If you’re serving your artichokes raw, cut them in half and use a small spoon to scoop out the furry choke, if needed. If they are fresh, you probably won’t need this step.

Once the artichokes are clean, you can use them in many recipes, raw and cooked.

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Globe artichokes are almost one of the staple vegetables of Italy. There are several different varieties and they are cooked in a good many different ways. The large green ones, which are so tender that the whole vegetable can be eaten, are at their best in the famous Roman dish carciofi alla Giudea (fried whole in oil), or alla Romana, stewed in oil and garlic. They can be cut into slices and fried, sometimes in batter, and served as part of a fritto misto. Very tiny artichokes are preserved in oil. The medium-sized ones with violet-coloured leaves are perfectly delicious stewed in oil and white wine, and equally good cut in papery slices and either cooked in butter as an accompaniment to veal or served raw with a seasoning of oil and lemon. Hearts of artichokes are often combined with eggs in a frittata, also in a kind of omelette cooked in the oven, and are an important ingredient of the excellent torta pasqualina, Genoese Easter pie. The French and English way of eating artichokes plainly boiled, and dipping them leaf by leaf in butter or oil and lemon, is quite unknown to the Italians.

Elizabeth David in her beautiful, inspiring book Italian Food (1954), tells everything there is to know about Italians and artichokes. She mentions most of my favourite ways of having them: raw, thinly sliced in a carpaccio, preserved in oil, stewed in extra virgin olive oil and white wine, or in a frittata. I also love to make carbonara with artichoke stalks.

Artichokes are a portentous vegetable, a flower in bud actually, which leads us from winter to spring.

If you can firmly associate the sweet, orange flesh of butternut squash with the Autumn rustling leaves and a smoky eggplant to a fierce summer day, artichokes are equally divided between two neighbouring seasons.

They pop up in our weekly menus just before Christmas, shyly stealing space from butternut squash and broccoli. I use them in flans and side dishes or bake them with potatoes and pecorino cheese in a gratin. In winter, artichokes make their appearance in recipes that are hearty, soul-warming, and comforting.

Then slowly the artichokes reveal their spring potential, the herbaceous notes enhanced by mint or lemon. So, I use them in the best soup of the new season, the garmugia, in a carpaccio of thinly sliced raw artichokes with pecorino cheese and plenty of lemon juice, or in savoury tarts, which call loudly for the first warm sunny days, picnics in the garden, and seasonal lunch boxes.

Letters from Tuscany

Garmugia, the greenest Tuscan soup for spring

If there is one recipe in Tuscan cuisine that best represents the rebirth after winter and the celebration of micro-seasonality, that is Lucca's garmugia. The garmugia was born as a restorative soup after the winter ailments, recommended to those who were recovering, or to the women who had recently given birth. After the winter we all have been through…

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4 years ago · 5 likes · Giulia Scarpaleggia

RECIPE - Artichoke and pecorino tart

I remember exactly the day I developed this recipe, twelve years ago. I was inspired by an early Spring and by my cravings for lighter, fresh flavours. My younger sister Claudia was studying in Stuttgart for her Erasmus at the University, it was the first time I would spend so many months far from her. Her brave move gave me inspiration and courage, and this produced a very creative moment in my life.

That night, I texted her I had made a delicious artichoke and pecorino tart she would love - with a hint of lemon that even nonna liked, can you imagine? - and I promised her to make it again when she would come back home for the Easter holidays.

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If you're not a fan of Carnival, you're not alone. But before you dismiss it entirely, you might want to consider the sweet side of the season.

It took me a while to write this post, and the reason is that I do not like Carnival. I’ve always felt it was the last obstacle before Spring, longer days, flowers and strawberries, and the blooming countryside.

Carnival parades, more or less successful fancy dresses and colourful confetti that will sneak into your clothes worse than the sea sand into your swimming costume, well, they are really not my cup of tea. Though, it would be unfair to say that I do not like Carnival as a whole. Actually, there is something I appreciate, and it is usually fried and covered in powdered sugar.

During Carnival, bakeries and pastry shops fill up their counters with heaps of crisp, feather-light cenci, the Tuscan fried dough scraps gently flavoured with orange zest and vinsanto, our sweet dessert wine.

You might know them by different names: lattughe, crostoli, galani, frappe, chiacchiere, bugie, intrigoni… they change the name from town to town, but what they have in common is the fact that they are fried (originally in pork fat, hence they were consumed for Carnival before the Lent fasting) and lavishly covered in sugar. How not to love them?

If you're ever in Tuscany during Carnival season, make sure to stop by a bakery or pastry shop and try some cenci. They might just change your mind about the season.

We made this recipe together during a Cook Along. You can watch the replay of it here:

RECIPE - Tuscan cenci

This is the recipe of our family Carnival cenci, but I’m pretty sure that every family in Italy has its own secret recipe, along with a special and different name for this carnival fried dough, since they are a real cross-cultural element. 

Serves 8

• 250 grams/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling out the dough

• 25 grams/2 tablespoons granulated sugar

• 25 grams/2 tablespoons butter, melted

• 2 eggs

• 30 ml/2 tablespoons vinsanto (or vodka, grappa, brandy…)

• Zest of 1 organic orange

• 1 pinch fine sea salt

• 1 l/4¼ cups vegetable oil for frying

To serve

• 2 tablespoons powdered sugar

• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Pour the flour on a pastry board or on a large working surface, make a well in the centre and add all the other ingredients.

Knead all the ingredients with your hands, as if to make homemade pasta. Knead it for at least 10 minutes, until the dough becomes very elastic and smooth, and it no longer sticks to your hands. Let the dough rest for about 30 minutes, wrapped in a kitchen towel or covered with a bowl.

Roll out the dough with a rolling pin or with the pasta machine to make long and paper-thin sheets of pasta, about 1 or 2 mm thick, so that the cenci will be feather-light when fried. Use a tiny amount of flour to help to roll out the dough, but try to dust it off or shake it off from the cenci, because it will be the first thing to burn in the hot frying oil, giving an unpleasant burnt flour taste to cenci.

Cut the pasta sheets with a knife or a wheel in strips about a span long and 3 inches in width.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large pan and when it reaches 175°C/350°F on a cooking thermometer, deep fry the cenci.

If you don't have a cooking thermometer, use some dough scraps to check when the oil is ready: dip a scrap in the oil. It will be hot enough when many tiny bubbles immediately surround the piece of dough.

Fry the cenci in batches for about 15 to 20 seconds per side, checking them often and turning them with frying tongs.

Carefully remove the cenci from the oil and drain them for a few minutes on a tray lined with kitchen paper.

Mix powdered sugar and granulated sugar in a bowl, then generously dust the cenci. They are delicious when still warm, but you will be able to detect all the flavours and aromas just when cold.

Tips for feather-light cenci

• Do not skip the alcohol, it evaporates while frying and works as a leavening agent. Choose your favourite one, or the one you have in your pantry. For me it is vinsanto, the Tuscan sweet wine, but it could be vodka, grappa, brandy…

• When you roll out the dough in the pasta machine, fold your sheet of dough on itself multiple times and feed it again and again through the machine: layering the dough ensures a light, crisp texture.

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And here you can have a look at a short video we filmed yesterday while making cenci!

If you need to print this recipe to keep it in your kitchen and use for scribbling down your notes, you find the printable PDF below and you can print just odd pages to avoid photos and save ink.

Tuscan Cenci

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Download the printable recipe for the Tuscan cenci for Carnival

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If you make this recipe, share it via email and send me a picture at juls@julskitchen.com, or on Social Media using the hashtags #myseasonaltable #julskitchen and #lettersfromtuscany, and tag @julskitchen

LAST BUT NOT LEAST: Sharing is caring. If you liked reading this post, let us know by clicking on the heart button, sharing it with your friends and family, or on social media. It would help us so much to get discovered by other like-minded people.

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This is an exclusive recipe for the subscribers. It is part of a serialized Tuscan cookbook that you will receive over the course of one year, a collection of tested classic Tuscan recipes to add to your cooking repertoire. Learn more about the I Love Toscana project here and find all the recipes here. You can upgrade and get access to this, as well as all our monthly cook-along and live talks, on the link above.

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While the world is on fire for Valentine's Day, here I am, sharing the recipe for polpettone, a rustic, unassuming Tuscan meatloaf, and a cucina povera recipe, too.

Many people turn up their noses in front of a meatloaf, one of the least photogenic foods you can imagine. Yet the meatloaf tastes of home. This may be because each family has its own recipe, dictated by needs and habits: one fries it, one cooks it with tomato sauce, and someone else bakes it, adding potatoes and onions to the pan.

Even in the meat mixture, it is the contingency of the moment, the need to finish some ingredients left in the pantry or the lack of something else that creates the traditions: you add bread soaked in milk or mashed potatoes if the meat is scarce, it is enriched with sausages or pancetta if you want to have a richer flavour. The possibilities do not end here, someone uses battuto, the finely chopped carrots, celery and onion, to flavour the minced meat, while others just finely chopped parsley and garlic.

You can find out much about a family and their habits just by tasting their meatloaf.

My polpettone has a story, of course. The story of a mum, my mum, who is not a keen, skilled cook, but who has always fed us with love and dedication. She has a small number of reliable recipes that rotate week after week, year after year, recipes that she has perfected and that mastered through the years. Polpettone is one of that.

Which is the story your family meatloaf is uncovering?

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Below the paywall, you can find my mum’s recipe for polpettone and a couple of tricks that will help you get the perfect meatloaf shape and an even browning in the pan. Oh, and also how to get the perfect soft-boiled eggs for polpettone.

And, you will see an unedited video of my mum and me in my home kitchen, with no make-up and home clothes, shaping the polpettone, carefully lifting it from plate to plate. You will hear us squabble in Italian: that’s how we cohabit in the kitchen. We both believe to have the truth and innate knowledge. Most of the time I do my own things, but with polpettone, I always surrender to my mum’s good judgement.

RECIPE - Polpettone, a rustic, unassuming Tuscan meatloaf

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On Wednesday, Meryl shared her recipe for a spiced red lentil soup with ditalini, a wholesome and hearty meal full of childhood memories.

Today it’s my turn, so I’m sharing my recipe for passato di fagioli, a Tuscan bean soup with pasta mista, in Meryl’s newsletter, at . You can read it here.

Come on over to read the recipe and the traditions behind it, and learn why you must use sage for beans and rosemary with chickpeas (Spoiler: because mum says so).

pasta social club

giulia's tuscan bean soup with pasta mista

I’m still somewhat new to Substack, but in the few months that I’ve been here, I’ve met some wonderful writers. One of those writers is Giulia Scarpaleggia, six-time cookbook author, recipe developer, teacher, podcaster, and the mastermind behind Letters from Tuscany…

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3 years ago · 4 likes · Meryl Feinstein and Giulia Scarpaleggia

This recipe is part of a serialized Tuscan cookbook that you will receive over the course of one year, a collection of tested classic Tuscan recipes to add to your cooking repertoire. Learn more about the I Love Toscana project here and find all the recipes here. You can upgrade and get access to this, as well as all our monthly cook-alongs and live talks, on the link above.

All the recipes from I Love Toscana

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This is an exclusive recipe for the subscribers. It is part of a serialized Tuscan cookbook that you will receive over the course of one year, a collection of tested classic Tuscan recipes to add to your cooking repertoire. Learn more about the I Love Toscana project here and find all the recipes here. You can upgrade and get access to this, as well as all our monthly cook alongs and live talks, on the link above.

All the recipes from I Love Toscana

Farro is the the oldest cereal grown by men, known since the seventh millennium BC in Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt and Palestine. It then became the basic food of the diet of the Latin peoples, who used to make polenta and bread out of farro flour.

Rich in protein and vitamins, it slowly releases energy combined with vegetables, fruit and cheese: it was therefore recognized as the founding element of the Roman military power – farro and not ferro (iron) helped the Romans conquer the world and create the immortal empire.

With the introduction of other varieties of cereals, thought, the farro farming slowly disappeared, except in a few areas traditionally linked to this cereal.

In Tuscany farro is farmed from immemorial time and without interruption in Garfagnana, where there are still nearly 100 companies that produce the IGP farro, made unique by the indissoluble bond with the territory where it is grown, the climate and the altitude.

The local farro is at the origin of many local Cucina Povera recipes such as zuppa di farro and a sweet farro and ricotta tart.

Farro has a lovely chewy texture, it’s nutty and hearty, and makes a comforting, easy soup when paired with beans and some basic aromatics. Clean, simple flavours and ingredients don’t mean boring food, indeed, it is quite the opposite, and this soup is a great example.

RECIPE - Zuppa di farro della Garfagnana - Bean and farro soup from Garfagnana

To make a real farro soup from Garfagnana you'd need local varieties of beans such as scritto, bianco and rosso of Garfagnana, that you can often buy in local hole in the wall shops. However, you can successfully replace those beans with cannellini, borlotti or cranberry beans, as I made in this soup. Opt for a variety of beans rather than for just one kind of bean: this add layers of flavors, textures, and colours that make every soup or stew more interesting.

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Today, as a small Christmas gift, we’re sharing the recipe for my favourite Sienese Christmas cookies with all our subscribers, as a thank-you note for an exciting year spent together! We are so grateful to have you all here!

Among Siena’s most traditional Christmas cookies, cavallucci are not elegant or photogenic, lacking the bright colours, icing, and sparkling sugar we expect from a Christmas cookie. Nor do they come in Christmas shapes: they’re round and rustic, lightly flattened on the ends, floury and a bit lumpy.

And yet, with that first bite full of warm spices, rich nuttiness, and sweet candied fruit, you’ll forget all about the presentation.

These were my grandfather Remigio’s favourite cookies. Every time my mum went to San Gimignano during the holidays, she returned home with a paper bag with a couple of cavallucci that Nonno had sent us. 

Whenever I bake them now, I am brought back to those childhood Christmas holidays. The spiced smell lingers in the kitchen for hours, one of the most evocative aromas of Tuscan festivities. 

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I’m always slow to recognize opportunities, they often pass by like high speed trains, but that day, that day I caught my train.

I offered myself as cooking class instructor, boasting an experience and a self-confidence I did not have. We agreed for a day and a menu and as soon as I got back home after work I knocked on their door, bringing a bag of ingredients and trying to hide my quivering voice. There was tiramisu on the menu, something I was pretty confident about, a family recipe which I could make with a hand tied behind my back.

The main course was instead the result of too much enthusiasm and not enough thinking. I opted for gnudi, known also as malfatti, delicate ricotta and spinach dumplings which I had probably made a couple of times in my whole life.

There’s a crucial moment when making gnudi.

You pop them into a pot of boiling water and wait faithfully for them to float to the top. A couple of minutes separates you from perfectly shaped gnudi or from a mushy mass of ricotta and spinach.

I was gazing at the pot of boiling water for any sign of failure of success: that wait had the taste of eternity. I was wondering why on earth I had chosen gnudi while I could have easily made tagliatelle when I saw the first, plump and round gnudo floating gently to the top. Soon after an army of gnudi crowded the surface of the pot. I had succeeded in preparing the first meal during a cooking class.

After dinner, I walked back home with my heart fluttering in my chest. It was the first time my work had been sincerely appreciated, I felt invincible, I had found my place in the world, my mission, the job I wanted to make.

RECIPE. SPINACH AND RICOTTA GNUDI

One recipe, two names: malfatti (badly made) in Siena, gnudi (naked) in Florence. Malfatti, because their main characteristic is to be irregular, homemade, and a bit lumpy. Gnudi because they are ultimately the filling for ravioli, without the external dress of homemade pasta.

Use well-drained ricotta and squeeze very well the cooked spinach: these are the only two secrets to making perfect soft, light gnudi that won’t melt in the boiling water.

The gnudi dough, made just with ricotta and spinach, is soft and slightly sticky, but don’t be tempted to add more flour to make it denser. The flour you’re going to use to coat the gnudi and roll them into is enough to ensure a perfect result.

This is an exclusive recipe for the subscribers. It is part of a serialized Tuscan cookbook that you will receive over the course of one year, a collection of tested classic Tuscan recipes to add to your cooking repertoire. Learn more about the I Love Toscana project here and find all the recipes here.

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