Tag: Italian Cooking

ITALIAN NEW YEAR’S LENTILS (Lenticchie di Capodanno)

In Italy, lentils (lenticchie) are particularly eaten on New Year’s Eve (Capodanno) as they are one of the most enduring symbols of good luck, prosperity and abundance. As the old year concludes and the new one begins, bowls of lentils are placed on tables across the country, consumed with the hopeful belief that they will bring financial security and good fortune in the months ahead.

If you believe in tradition, eat them before midnight and make a wish for the year ahead.

Brown lentils (also known as green lentils) are followed by Puy (also known as French lentils) and a smaller variety of brown lentils.
The Symbolism of Lentils

The symbolism is ancient. Lentils’ small, round, coin-like shape has long been associated with money and wealth. This idea dates back to Roman times, when lentils were exchanged at the turn of the year in the hope they would transform into coins. Over centuries, this belief became embedded in Italian food culture, turning lentils into an essential New Year ritual rather than an everyday superstition. Some traditions even claim that the more lentils you eat, the greater your prosperity will be.

Traditional Pairings

Lentils are commonly paired with rich pork dishes such as cotechino or zampone but are equally satisfying when prepared on their own or with vegetables, herbs and olive oil. They can be served warm and garnished as a salad. These gently braised lentils are rich, comforting and symbolic, a dish to welcome prosperity in the coming year without being heavy. I have included a traditional and cultural recipe for lentils with cotechino on my blog.

 I also enjoy braising good quality pork sausages with lentils. I am particularly fond of both of these dishes but it is also suitable for a warm Australian evening or as a salad for a barbecue. It can be eaten warm at room temperature or even the following day. In fact, like most lentil dishes, it improves with time.

This dish is more commonly associated with the north of Italy, but as we know, food habits change. Recipes travel. Traditions adapt. Just as panettone has become a Christmas fixture in Australia, lentils have found their way onto many New Year tables well beyond Italy. Lentils are traditionally eaten at the turn of the year because their coin-like shape symbolises wealth and abundance. This simple preparation allows their meaning — and flavour — to shine, making it a perfect dish to usher in the New Year with intention, restraint, and hope.

Lentils as an accompaniment to stuffed artichokes.
Customising and Enjoying Your Lenticchie di Capodanno

I have always prepared lentils in this manner, so I have never considered writing a recipe. For those who prefer Indian or Middle Eastern flavours, it is simple to omit the bay, rosemary and thyme and add Indian or Middle Eastern spices.

The cooking method will look familiar. Onion, carrot, and celery make their inevitable appearance — the Italian usual suspects. This soffritto forms the base of countless soups, braises, and stews, and it works just as well here.

You can easily adjust quantities. Add more lentils if you like leftovers (and you should). They reheat beautifully, and with a little extra liquid can even be turned into soup the next day — particularly welcome if you are living somewhere cooler than I am.

Serve warm or at room temperature or as a salad with a few additional simple ingredients.

And do appreciate the leftovers. The flavours deepen over the next few days. Very good eating indeed.

Italian New Year’s Lentils with Olive Oil, Garlic & Herbs

(Lenticchie di Capodanno all’Olio d’Oliva)

INGREDIENTS

4–6 as a side or light main

  • 250 g dried lentils (Green lentils or Puy lentils)
  • 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 1 carrot, finely diced
  • 1 celery stalk, finely diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed
  • 2–3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus extra to finish
  • 1 bay leaf
  • A small sprig of rosemary or thyme
  • Vegetable stock or water (as needed)
  • Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

METHOD

Rinse the lentils thoroughly. If using high-quality small lentils, soaking is not necessary.

In a wide saucepan, warm the olive oil over gentle heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic. Cook slowly until soft and fragrant, without browning.

Stir in the lentils, bay leaf, and herbs. Coat well in the aromatic base.

Add enough stock or water to cover the lentils by about 3 cm. Bring to a gentle simmer.

Cook uncovered for 25–35 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are tender but still hold their shape. Add more liquid if needed.

Season with salt and pepper towards the end of cooking. Remove the bay leaf and herb sprigs.

Serving Suggestions and Tips

Serve warm in a shallow bowl, make it glistening with a generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

For a salad add a little lemon zest, lemon juice or wine vinegar and for brightness finely chopped parsley.

Pair with sautéed greens, roasted vegetables, or crusty bread.

Roasted vegetables such as pumpkin, carrots and potatoes can be added to lentils for a hot or cold dish.

Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Flavours improve overnight.

Add left over vegetables to lentil salads.

COTECHINO AND LENTILS; NEW YEAR’s EVE and CHRISTMAS

Lentils with Cotechino

SBS Italian Radio – Stuffed artichokes & photos

When Massimiliano Gugole from SBS Italian Radio invited me to share a recipe on the morning show, I didn’t have to think twice—I chose stuffed artichokes. They’re my favourite way to prepare this elegant and flavoursome vegetable, and with the first spring artichokes just arriving at the Queen Victoria Market, the timing couldn’t have been better.

Over the years I’ve experimented with all sorts of fillings – minced meat (like mixture for polpette), ground almonds with ricotta, pan-fried breadcrumbs with egg, lemon zest and pine nuts, anchovies with black olives,  but I always come back to my favourite mix: breadcrumbs, parsley, a touch of garlic, grated parmesan (if I am trying to emulate Northern Italy) or pecorino (as in Southern Italy), and good olive oil. The mixture is gently tucked into the centres before the artichokes are simmered in stock, white wine, and bay leaves.

I usually serve them as a main, with vegetables cooked in the same pot. Because the artichokes need to stand upright (their stems trimmed at the base), I often nestle potatoes around them – they hold everything in place and soak up some of that exquisite, unique flavour.

potatoes used to hold artichokes upright

Whole potatoes can be added simultaneously with the artichokes, and  other spring vegetables such as peas and broad beans can be added approximately 15 minutes before the artichokes are cooked. Asparagus also makes a welcome addition and will need less cooking.  Additionally, I enjoy poaching eggs in the stock, adding protein for a better balanced meal.

I also ensure that good bread is placed at the table to soak up any remaining rich cooking juices. A spoon doesn’t go astray with friends either, although this does not follow Italian etiquette.

In this post I will translate the Italian podcast but also include photos of the preparation of the seven artichokes I cooked  for friends in my largest fish kettle a couple of weeks ago.

The Translated Podcast

“All Italians know how to cook artichokes,” says Marisa Raniolo Wilkins. But if you need some inspiration, here is a traditional, tasty, seasonal recipe, along with a few valuable tips for an excellent result.

“My favourite way to cook artichokes is the simple method my mother always used,” says Marisa Raniolo Wilkins, author of the blog All Things Sicilian And More.

“My maternal grandmother Maria (originally from Catania but who lived in Trieste for several years) also cooked them this way,” Marisa told SBS Italian, recalling how her grandmother used the same mixture of breadcrumbs, parsley, garlic, grated cheese, and a drizzle of olive oil to stuff her sardines, tomatoes, and artichokes.

“I like to serve artichokes as a main dish; they’re too fiddly to eat as a side,” she says. Listen to the recipe from the author of All Things Sicilian And More.

Ingredients (serves 6)
• 6 artichokes
• 100 g (1 cup) dry fresh breadcrumbs (made from good-quality bread, 1–2 days old, crust removed, finely chopped)
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 2 tablespoons grated cheese (Parmesan is fine, but in Sicily, pecorino is more common)
• A drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
• 4 cups stock (vegetable or chicken, stock cube is fine)
• 1 cup white wine
• About 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
• A few bay leaves

Marisa Raniolo recommends placing the artichokes in acidulated water as you prepare them — add the juice of a lemon to a bowl of water.

Preparation
Choose and clean the artichokes carefully. Cut off the stems so the base is flat — they need to stand upright in the pot, which should be the right size so the artichokes fit snugly and stay upright.

Peel the tough skin from the stems, cut about 1 cm from the tips of the artichokes, and remove the tougher outer leaves. Check for the choke in the centre, which is more common in mature artichokes.Choke is fieno/barba in Italian and hay and beard in English; one has to love the Italian language!

Drain the artichokes from the acidulated water. With your fingers, gently open the leaves, especially in the centre. Sprinkle a little salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil between the leaves.

Mix the stuffing ingredients together and fill each artichoke.

“In Australia, artichokes are still considered exotic and perhaps difficult to prepare. But once you know how to clean them, they’re simple to cook,” says Marisa.

Place the artichokes upright in a pot. Put the stems between the artichokes and drizzle with more extra virgin olive oil.

I often like to press pine nuts into the stuffing.

Add the stock or water to about 2 cm below the top of the artichokes. Pour in the wine, add the bay leaves, and the rest of the oil.

Cover with a lid and cook slowly for about an hour.

You can also add peas, broad beans, and/or potatoes.

“I often add potatoes to help keep the artichokes standing,  and they’re very good,” Marisa explains. “Potatoes can be added straight away, while peas and broad beans should go in about 15 minutes before the artichokes are done.”

***Link: SBS PODCAST AND RECIPE

Below, market in Sicily. Artichokes are always sold with long stems because stems are delicious.

This is the process for preparing the artichokes explained with photos.

The Cleaning:

the stalks need to be stripped
notice how I remove the tough leaves leaving the edible part on the artichoke
the stems have been trimmed and the artichokes are kept in the acidulated water
the tops have been trimmed and the leaves need to be eased apart to make room for the stuffing in the centre

The Stuffing

The peeling/stripping of the stalks

Stuffing the artichokes

the artichokes are placed in the stock and wine
ready for cooking
artichokes sitting in a fish kettle

Some recipes:

I LOVE ARTICHOKES

ARTICHOKES and how we love them; CAPONATA DI CARCIOFI

ASPARAGUS and ARTICHOKES

Melbourne; August: Winter Artichokes in risotto and stuffed

I LOVE ARTICHOKES

My partner who does the shopping came home with these artichokes from the Queen Victoria Market.

They were pretty big specimens and nearing the end of aritchoke growing season (when they turn woody and their fibrous chokes develop), but not having eaten artichokes for quite a while, I was excited about them.

They did prove to be quite fibrous – vecchi – Italians would say, but I did clean them as best I could, removing most of the outer leaves and really digging in to remove their chokes. I also cut more of the tops off than I usually do with younger artichokes.  Although the stems were long, once I stripped off the outer fibre, I was only able to use very little of them.

Really, I should have taken off all the leaves and used only the base – fondi – Italians call them.

Artichokes can be cooked in many ways and you will find several recipes on my blog, but I particularly like them stuffed. The stuffing was easy – day old breadcrumbs, garlic, grated pecorino, parsley and a good amount of extra virgin olive oil.

Last of all, I added some toasted pinenuts and some grated lemon peel to the stuffing.

And then I stuffed the artichokes.

These are ready to cook. They are nearly submeged in stock, white wine,  extra virgin olive oil and a little salt. I always add fresh bayleaves, but this time I also added thyme.

Cover and braise slowly.

And they did cook for much longer than I usually cook artichokes. After about 60 mins of cooking on a slow flame, I added chunks of potatoes and when the potatoes were nearly cooked (about 20 mins) , I added broadbeans and peas (Spring vegetables) and all cooked a further 10 – 15 minutes.

Like most Italians, I rarely do the cooking at the last minute. With braised dishes the flavours need to develop, and resting is a good thing. I cooked these in the afternoon, ready for the evening. This also gave me time to concentrate on accompanying food.

Where would we be without seasonal broadbeans!! My partner even double peeled them, something that I refuse to do.

In spite of all my fears, we chewed on the ends of the leaves and the bases (the fondi) just melted in our mouths…. They tasted pretty heavenly.

Some of these posts were written a long time ago!

THE AMAZING ARTICHOKE

CARCIOFI (Artichokes and how to clean them and prepare them for cooking)

ARTICHOKES and how we love them; CAPONATA DI CARCIOFI

CARCIOFI (Artichokes)

CARCIOFI FARCITI (Stuffed artichokes: with meat and with olives and anchovies)

STUFFED ARTICHOKES WITH RICOTTA AND ALMOND MEAL

There are more recipes for artichokes – use the search button.

MELANZANE – eggplants – AL FUNGHETTO or TRIFOLATE

Sometimes, some recipes are just so simple that I do not bother writing about them, but then I buy a new cookbook and notice that simple recipes are what we like and want…and besides, not everybody grew up in an Italian household and they may not be familiar with this style of cooking.

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One simple way of cooking some vegetables, for example eggplants, zucchini or mushrooms is a funghetto in bianco or trifolate.

A funghetto, translates as mushroom, i.e. in the style or method of how you would cook mushrooms – simply sautéed in extra virgin olive oil with garlic and parsley.

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In bianco translates as in white, i.e. without tomatoes. Photo above is of king mushrooms cooked a funghetto.

This style of cooking is a common way to cook either of these three vegetables throughout Italy, but it is typical of the Veneto. I grew up in Trieste, so I identify with this style of cooking very much.

Once again, I will write this recipe as an Italian – no measurements. The recipe is so simple, and the photos tell the story so who needs measurements!

C8EC1013-26A8-4459-9BCD-E8C05CD26471eggplants/aubergines, cut into cubes

extra virgin olive oil, 

cloves of garlic, chopped (to taste)

chopped parsley

pepper and salt

extra virgin olive oil

Use gentle to medium heat throughout the cooking – the ingredients are not fried, they are sautéed till softened.

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Heat a splash of oil in a frypan (I like to use a frypan with a heavy base). Add the garlic and stir it around for a very short time so that it begins to soften.

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Add the eggplants and stir often until they have softened and have coloured. Add pepper and salt.

Add the chopped parsley and keep on stirring through for about 30 seconds…and I hate to say it…until it has softened.

Eat hot or cold – fabulous as a starter, side dish….as a dressing for pasta?