Food in Tuscany

There is so much to say about it…

Food in Italy is always simple, fresh and great… I love to go shopping on the markets (there are markets pretty much everywhere) and find some local delish, I love to cook the simple fresh vegetables in season. My favorite Italian vegetables are zucchini, with the flower even better), fennel, artichokes, celery, radicchio, ceps and tomatoes. I love also the fresh pasta, the million varieties of cheeses and the prosciutto and the speck… but Italy is also great for herbs and dry fruits: pine nuts, hazelnuts, pistachios depending on the region. Pisa province is a region where pine nuts are produced and I couldn’t help but try them and bring some back to Japan! Recipes using them coming soon!

While in Italy I cooked a few different and very simple meals. I am a big fan of pesto soup and minestrone, so as soon as I can I usually cook one. In particular when the fresh beans are in season. It is really simple: celery, tomato, zucchini, fresh beans is the base, then add whatever: spinach, chard, carrot, onion… cook in salted water, serve with olive oil and grated Parmigiano. Enjoy warm or cold.

Fresh pasta are always good at least so much better than anything you can find elsewhere that there is no need to make tour own!! And stuffed pasta are always my favorite. Ricotta-spinach ravioli is on the top of the list, served with either a tomato sauce or chards and basil simply blanched and then cooked in olive oil with the ravioli. An other quick and delicious recipe!

When I have more time I like to prepare risotto with fresh and seasonal vegetables. Fennels that can hardly be found in Japan make a fresh risotto served with fennel flowers picked during a stroll in the garden. An onion to start with, plenty of olive oil, the perfect risotto rice, a large fennel, vegetable broth, and here is a beautiful risotto after 30 minutes!

Here it is for my selection of simple recipes for a little dinner fix in Italy!

September 4, 2018

Tuscany

Well… I’m just back to Tokyo after spending one week in Tuscany, one beautiful week.

It was A. 5th trip and my third in the span of 9months and now is time to share a few addresses and places I really loved.

One of my strong requirement during our trips was to have a kitchen, and for all our trips except that one we stayed in Florence downtown in a very nicely furnished and large enough appartement at the Domux home Ricasoli. The location is ideal to visit the city, go shopping at Sant’Ambrogio market, San Lorenzo market as all detailed in post on Florence. It is also close to the station and to the Duomo.

This time we wanted to avoid crowd and heat so we decided to rent a house in the countryside, something a little typical of Tuscany: a farmhouse on top of a hill. The villa I picked: villa Monterosoli (top picture) didn’t disappoint us. Remote location but still less than 1h drive from all good places and my work places, very quiet and a nice view. A pool for the morning swims, and a cat visiting, some vineyards and olive groves around.

As for visiting options they are endless. I usually work in Florence and in Pisa, but there are so many options a short drive away to go for a visit for a few hours. From this summer visits I would say that San Gimignano was a great discovery, Siena’s duomo with the full pavement visible this time was amazing, and Lucca a beautiful small and lively town.

Lucca on top of its historical and classic attractions has a nice vibrant downtown with many shopping options, nice cafes, a cinema in the old villa Bottini with a broad movie selection (old and new), a contemporary art biennale which exhibited large paper sculptures in the street. It felt more crowded than the other places we visited.

Lucca contemporary art biennale: paper-art-design

View from San Gimignano’s fortified path

San Gimignano was a really great discovery, the scenic going there, the beautiful towers in the city, the churches with beautiful paintings, the paved streets, the view from the fortified path. Everything there was Tuscany at its top. And curiously it was not crowded!

And of course Siena was as beautiful as it was in February when we first visited. The Duomo this time had the full marble mosaics visible (only from mid-August to mid-September) and that was s great surprise. The modernity in the drawings and the beautiful scenes depicted with only white, ocre and black were really stunning.

And of course there are many other small villages to stop by on the way, to discover, to take a short walk, drink a coffee or a freshly squeezed orange juice (my favorite drink in Italy), such as Palaia, Monteriggioni, Greve in Chianti to only cite a few.

There are also the many farmers markets in the morning to go grocery shopping and discover some of the local products. Talk about that in my next post!!!

September 2, 2018

Italia!

What was supposed to be a nice and peaceful trip to Italy and France started with quite a bit of a commotion with a few centimeters of snow in Paris… and I landed in Paris at 4:00AM only to learn a few hours later that the flights to Florence I was successively checked-in were all cancelled and I decided to fly to Roma instead and take the train and I arrived in Florence 12h later than expected… My long expected visit to the San Lorenzo market, to buy fresh fruits, vegetables, pasta, flowers and cheese was postponed… but not for long! As soon as I came back from work in Pisa on Thursday I went grocery shopping and I could enjoy cooking again the seasonal vegetables that we don’t have in Japan: chards, corn salad… Sometimes with pasta, sometimes with gnocchi, always with fresh cheese. Here is one of my favorite recipe with corn salad, a fresh simple recipe but really tasty (picture below). I spare you the chard recipes because they were really too simple and the pictures talk for themselves.

Corn salad one plate:

– 100g of corn salad

– 2 branches of celery

– 6 green asparagus

– a handful of pine nuts

– freshly grated Parmigiano

– olive oil, salt and pepper

Wah the vegetables, blanche the asparagus. Chop the celery in dice, chop the asparagus. Mix them together and add the pine nuts. Stir. In the plates, start with corn salad, top with the mixed celery-asparagus-pine nuts, add olive oil, salt and pepper and finish with grated Parmigiano. Enjoy!

Have a great week ahead!

February 11, 2018

Leftover Italian cooking

Since we’ve arrived in Florence, everyday I’ve been cooking something different for dinner: simple vegetables and salad, pasta, risotto, cereals… I’ve tried them all. And I’ve been using as much as possible things I don’t usually find in Japan, and that I love extremely: artichokes, fennels, lamb lettuce and a great variety of cheeses. And what I’ve been doing is make sure that each time I would have some leftover for my lunch the next day. Indeed, what’s better than working all morning, going for a walk at noon, coming back at two cold and starving, and having already the lunch half prepared? And what’s better than olive oil pan roasted pasta or risotto when them become all crispy and golden? For me leftovers are a real treat! And top them with some new sort of cheese everyday and it’s pure happiness, and pure energy for working the rest of the day!

Here are my two favorites from this week: leftover pasta with newly added artichokes, and fennel risotto with newly added plenty of tomme cheese. For the first one (top picture), simple pasta leftover is good. Then boil one or two artichokes remove the leaves and keep the hearts, slice or chop them. In a heated pan generously add olive oil, the pasta, the artichokes. Stir once in a while until the pasta are golden crispy. Top with a bit of parmigiano and eat right away!

The second one (bottom picture) is even simpler. I actually made some fennel risotto with some pork roast, so I just cooked it again in a pan with a lot of olive oil and didn’t stir until it got really crispy on the edges, then I served it with plenty of some tomme cheese I bought at the market, a much softer cheese than parmigiano but not less fragrant.

December 22, 2017

Mezzelune

For those who’ve been following us, they know that I love to make fresh pasta, and even more stuffed pasta like ravioli (all my recipes are here!). I’ve been testing many options and yet I was satisfied but never fully satisfied by the result, in particular the pasta itself, but not only, though the taste was always really delicious. So while in Florence and A. too busy with work, I decided it would be a great opportunity for me to learn from a real Italian “Mama” or a real chef. My first idea was to go to Giula’s cooking classes at Juls’ kitchen, but it’s too far away from the city for this time, I’ll go later in the spring… I wanted something that wouldn’t take more than 2h. So when I found the cooking classes at the mercato centrale (again mercato centrale… which in the end I’ve been visiting every day!), and that they just had a vegetarian mezzelune class at the perfect timing for me, I had to go!
And I didn’t regret it, I made some of the best pasta ever I think, because thanks to the chefs I’ve finally learned the tricks that where missing to me:
1. it’s OK to knead a lot the pasta and really use the palm of the hand to squeeze it;
2. let the pasta dough rest before rolling it so that the glutinous structure has time to develop;
3. roll and fold once first before rolling for real;
4. and that’s the most crucial, get the sauce moisten (with some of the boiling water for the pasta) and after boiling the pasta add them to the sauce pan at medium-high heat, shaking regularly, so that they roll over in the sauce and it becomes just creamy, neither to watery nor too dry. Serve and it right away!
So now I feel really equipped to prepare more stuffed pasta!!! And I can’t wait to have my new motor for my pasta machine!!!

And because this something I would have never prepared, but it was really delicious, here is the recipe of the mezzelune I made.

Potato and chestnut mezzelune (for 2, makes 8-10 mezzelune)

For the pasta:

same recipe as usual: 100g of flour, 1 egg, olive oil (or not)

For the filling:

– 2 small potatoes

– 1 handful of boiled chestnuts

– a bit of parsley

– 10g of butter

– 20g of grated parmigiano

For the sauce:

– 5 mushrooms

– 1 little handful of dried porcini

– olive oil

– 15 g of butter

– 4-6 leaves of sage

– 30g of grated parmegiano

Start boiling the whole potatoes with the skin, simply washed and add the chestnut to soften them.
Re-hydrate the porcini.
Prepare the dough for the pasta , wrap it and keep it on the side.
Clean and peel the mushrooms, chop them, chop the sage. Drain the porcini and chop them. In a pan heated, add half of the butter for the sauce, a splash of olive oil, then the mushrooms, the porcini, the sage, cook at high heat until it start to golden, then lower the heat, add some hot water and keep cooking all along, while keeping it moisten.
By now the potatoes should be ready, so peel them and chopped them roughly. Mash them with the chestnut (a blender may be welcome here), add the parsley, the parmigiano and stir well to obtain a creamy-dry paste. Roll the pasta, cut out circles and start filling with the filling. close well.
Boil the pasta for about 4-5 minutes, then drain and add them to the sauce pan directly, add the rest of the butter and shake in the pan at high heat, until the pasta has rolled over in the sauce and the sauce has reduced to a creamy texture (look at the top picture at it looks like!). Serve, top with a bit of parmigiano, and enjoy!

December 21, 2017

Life in Florence

So, it’s been four days we’ve been in Florence, except for Sunday that we spent walking around the city as described here, it’s been a rather studious time. A. leaves early in the morning while it’s all dark and comes back late at night, and this gives me more than plenty of time to work, write and spend a little hour or two outside walking around the city in the cold and shopping for lunches and dinners.

I’ve now explored both the San’Ambroggio market and the San Lorenzo market, got to see everything twice or thrice to decide what to buy choosing between all the delicious cheeses, fresh pasta and all the fruits and vegetables that are alien to Japan. I must say that I passed on fish, not being fully satisfied with the stands and on meat as there was too many options and I am not good with meat too much… but I guess that I will have to try some for A.. For the moment I’m sticking to speck and San Daniele and it’s been perfect. I also got my tea from La Via del Te as recommended by Giula from the beautiful Juls’ kitchen. And really I am more than happy with my little kitchen and the simple cooking I can do!

So far the things I have really been enjoying are the greens: I packed on lamb’s lettuce, rucola, zucchini, fennel and artichokes and I have been using them in many various preparation. My best being this delicious dish of pasta with olive oil roasted fennels and zucchini and topped with rucola. It is so simple and so fresh, and so easy to make, that here is my recipe:

Pasta with zucchini, fennel and rucola (for 2)

– 125g of pasta

– 1 zucchini

– 1/2 fennel

-1 handful of rucola

– olive oil, salt and pepper

– additionally some fresh parmigiano or some other cheese

Boil the water for the pasta and the pasta. In the mean time, wash and cut the fennel and the zucchini, and in an olive oil greased frypan cook them, but not overcook them! Add the drained pasta, salt, pepper, and olive oil, top with rucola and stir, serve immediately. Add cheese if you like!

And have a great Wednesday!

December 20, 2017

Firenze!

Good morning from Florence! So here we are, finally in Italy, this time it’s not Sicily but Tuscany, and it’s not for the Christmas holidays with the family but a business trip. Nonetheless it’s the Christmas season and it’s Italy with panettone and Christmas songs everywhere and the many delicious food to eat! In order for me to have enough space to work and to cook A. has rented us an apartment where I have a small kitchen to play with, and just 12h after landing in Florence I was already happily cooking lunch for us!

What was I doing during 12h? Well I slept 6, then woke up at 6AM in the dark… right… it’s Europe, it’s winter and it’s dark until 7:00 or 8:00…
Waking up early is still a great thing, because while it’s still all sleepy and empty and the sun is rising slowly we first enjoyed walking around the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio before it’s getting impossible to enjoy. And then only we went for some important shopping: food! We first went just around our apartment to Eataly (but honestly when you’re in Italy you don’t need Eataly, there’s so much more to explore!) and at the San Lorenzo market, where they have a food court on the second floor of the mercato centrale where you can buy, take away or eat there plenty of Italian food: pizza, fresh pasta, curd meat, Fiorentina beef, fish… no city is escaping the hipster food fashion with all the good and the bad… Anyway… I got there and around some essentials: olive oil, parmigiano, panettone, honey, tangerines, and for the lunch: fresh vegetarian ravioli with spinach and ricotta and some speck. Everything for a day outside walking all over the city in the cold, because it is quite cold indeed in the narrow and shaded streets of the city.

all what's needed to start with! — all what’s needed to start with!

It is impressive how quickly the city gets crowded on Sunday with groups first and then just crowd and past 11:00 am it gets really crazy, so to avoid most of the crowds we then headed for the Abbazia di San Miniato al Monte, from which the view is worth the small additional climb from piazzale Michelangelo! It’s so quiet and green. And I recommend the funny bucolic and almost rural walk down through the via dell’Erta Canina among the olive trees and the cypress trees. And well that’s how my first day ever in Florence went… beautifully and deliciously! And there five more to come!

December 18, 2017

Souvenirs from Sicily

After one week in the south of Sicily trying local products and visiting historical sites, it was obvious I would not come back to Japan with empty hands. And with both Christmas and my birthday I was spoiled. Here is a bit of the Sicilian delights and gears I took back with me. Starting from the top right corner and going clockwise. First a new ravioli rack and the wooden roller, for large ravioli this time. I already tried it for the foie gras ravioli and for the ricotta ravioli, amazing! Very easy to use, larger ravioli seems much easier to make than smaller ones! Then a cooking book of Sicilian cuisine: “la cucine Siciliana”. My rusty Italian has gotten much better this year, so reading in Italian would not be a problem. Then some speck, some fresh ricotta salata. A little gnocchi rack to shape my gnocchi instead of using a fork! Sicilian flours for bread and pasta, polenta. A ceramic fruit plate from Caltagirone, I am totally in love with these ceramics, but I had a hard time finding some vintage ones. And in the background a new apron! So, very soon on Tokyo-Paris sisters some recipes using all these! And you, what do you bring back when you travel?

January 2, 2017

Tagliatelle

Being in Italy we eat fresh pasta quite often. And being with our mother we cook all together. This time it’s a recipe that our mother created. Very simple, taking advantage of the seasonal products and that can easily be prepared ahead and for large tables. This is tagliatelle with radicchio, spinach, speck and pine nuts. Served with fresh parmegiano. You need one radicchio, a few bundles of spinach, a few slices of speck, a handful of pine nuts, olive oil, fresh parmegiano. In a large pan, heat some olive oil, wash and cut in bite size the vegetables, cut in bite size the speck. Add all in the pan and stir until soft but still colorful. In a small pan, grill the pine nuts, when golden roughly crush them, add to the vegetables. Boil the tagliatelle (homemade, fresh or dry), when al dente, drain them and add them to the vegetables mix, add olive oil, stir well and serve. Top with parmegiano.

December 27, 2016