Antonio & Priscilla Carluccio’s dressed polenta with sausage
One of the most warming dishes you can get high up in the mountains, especially of the Aosta Valley, is polenta concia, which sustains even the strongest worker. It is usually accompanied by a stew of chicken or venison. With pork sausages, however, it blends to a perfect marriage.
I like to use traditional polenta but if you use quick-cook polenta the cooking time is only 5 minutes. The Bramata polenta is by far the tastiest.
For 6-8 (or even more)
dried porcini mushrooms 25g
luganiga sausage 400g, cut into 10cm chunks, or alternatively chipolatas
olive oil 4 tbsp
garlic cloves 2, coarsely chopped
onion 1 small, thinly sliced
rosemary a sprig
chilli 1 small, finely chopped
dry red wine 3 tbsp
tomato passata 600g
salt
For the polenta concia
water 2 litres
salt 25g
coarse polenta 500g
unsalted butter 100g
parmesan 100g, grated
fontina cheese 150g, preferably from the Aosta Valley, cut into small cubes
Soak the porcini mushrooms in lukewarm water for about 30 minutes. Put the luganiga in a large pan with the oil and fry until brown on all sides. Now add the garlic, onion, rosemary and chilli and fry for 5 minutes. Drain the porcini and squeeze out the excess water, then cut them up roughly and add to the pan. Pour in the wine and bubble to evaporate, then add the passata and some salt and simmer for 20 minutes. Keep warm while you prepare the polenta.
To make the polenta, bring the water to the boil with the salt. Gradually add the polenta, stirring constantly with a long wooden spoon until all the flour has been incorporated into the water and is lump-free. At this stage you must be careful that you do not splash hot polenta on to your hands. Stir the polenta constantly over not too fierce a heat for about 30 minutes, by which time it should be pulling away from the side of the pan. Add the butter, Parmesan and fontina cheese and stir well until everything has amalgamated.
There are two ways of serving this: either by the spoonful on a plate or, as they traditionally do, by pouring the polenta on to large wooden board and leaving it to cool a little, then slicing it with a steel wire and putting it on a plate with the sausage stew.
From Carluccio’s Complete Italian Food by Antonio & Priscilla Carluccio (Quadrille Publishing Ltd, £14.99)
Elizabeth David’s minestrone
Serves 6-8
¼lb (115g) of dried haricot beans, 2 carrots, 2 small potatoes, a small turnip, 2 onions, a piece of celery, 4 tomatoes, half a small cabbage, 2 rashers of bacon, garlic, herbs and seasoning, olive oil, a small glassful of red wine, 2oz (55g) of broken-up macaroni or spaghetti, or pastine, or any of the pasta made in small shapes, such as little stars, little shells, etc
Put the haricot beans to soak overnight. Next day prepare all the vegetables, and melt the sliced onions in the oil, adding 2 cloves of garlic, the bacon cut into pieces, and plenty of herbs, marjoram, thyme, basil, or whatever may be available; add the chopped tomatoes, or a tablespoonful of concentrated tomato purée; pour in the red wine, let it bubble a minute or two, then add the drained haricot beans; cover them with 3 pints of hot water and let them boil steadily for two hours. Now put in the carrots and about 15 minutes later the turnip and potatoes. Ten minutes before serving, add the celery, the cabbage cut into strips, and the pasta. See that the soup is properly seasoned, stir in 2 tablespoonfuls of grated parmesan, and serve more parmesan separately.
According to the season almost any vegetable can be added to a minestrone: peas, beans, spinach, leeks, small marrows; rice can be substituted for the pasta.
From Italian Food by Elizabeth David (Penguin, £12.99). Click here to buy from Guardian Bookshop for £9.99
Anna del Conte’s risotto with lemon
Serves 4 as a first course or 3 as a main
chicken or vegetable stock 1¼ litres
unsalted butter 60g
olive oil 1 tbsp
shallots 2, very finely chopped
celery stick 1, very finely chopped
Italian rice 300g, preferably Arborio
organic lemon ½
fresh sage leaves 5 or 6
fresh rosemary leaves a small sprig
egg yolk 1
parmesan 4 tbsp, freshly grated
double cream 4 tbsp
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Bring the stock to a gentle simmer (keep it simmering all through the cooking of the rice).
Heat half the butter, the oil, shallots and celery in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and sauté until the soffritto – frying mixture – of shallot and celery is softened (about 7 minutes). Mix in the rice and continue to sauté, stirring, until the rice is well coated with the fats and is partly translucent.
Pour over about 150ml of the simmering stock. Stir very thoroughly and cook until the rice has absorbed nearly all of the stock, still stirring.
Add another ladleful of simmering stock, and continue in this manner until the rice is ready. You may not need all the stock. Good-quality Italian rice for risotto takes 15-20 minutes to cook.
Meanwhile, thinly pare the zest from the lemon half and chop it with the herbs. Mix into the rice halfway through the cooking.
Squeeze the half lemon into a small bowl and combine it with the egg yolk, parmesan, cream, a little salt and a very generous grinding of black pepper. Mix well with a fork.
When the rice is al dente, draw the pan off the heat and stir in the egg and cream mixture and the remaining butter. Cover the pan and leave to rest for 2 minutes or so. Then give the risotto an energetic stir, transfer to a heated dish or bowl and serve at once, with more grated parmesan in a little bowl if you wish.
From Italian Kitchen by Anna del Conte (Square Peg, £20). Click here to buy from Guardian Bookshop for £16
Claudia Roden’s pumpkin gnocchetti
Serves 4-6
pumpkin or squash flesh 800g, cut into pieces
egg 1 large
sugar 1-2 tsp
salt and freshly ground pepper
plain flour about 150-175g
unsalted butter 75g, melted
grana padano or parmesan grated
Put the pumpkin in a large pan with 500ml water. Cook over high heat with the lid on for about 15 minutes until soft. Take the lid off and let all the liquid evaporate. Then mash to a paste with a potato masher and return to the hob, stirring over a high heat to dry it as much as possible. Add the egg, sugar (Italian pumpkins are sweet), salt (it needs a good amount) and pepper, and work in the flour beating vigorously.
Make dumplings by dropping the paste by the tablespoon into boiling salted water – grease the spoon with oil and use another spoon to push it off. When the dumplings rise to the top, let them cook a few minutes longer, then lift them out with a slotted spoon, drain and serve with melted butter and grated cheese.
From The Food of Italy by Claudia Roden (Square Peg, £25). Click here to buy from Guardian Bookshop for £20
Giorgio Locatelli’s sardines with bread salad
Panzanella is a very old Tuscan tradition – a salad made with leftover bread, which would be unsalted, in the local style. It is a summer dish, which you would make when tomatoes and basil were good and plentiful.
If you want to make it the day before you eat it, the flavours will have longer to infuse and it will taste even better.
When you cook the sardines, it is very important to get your griddle pan really hot, otherwise the sardines will stick and you won’t be able to turn them without them breaking up.
Serves 4
sardines 12 large
extra-virgin olive oil 5 tbsp
For the panzanella
stale Tuscan bread or ciabatta 200g, without crusts, torn up
white wine vinegar 4 tbsp
tomatoes on the vine 3
red onion 1 large, cut into 2cm dice
basil a big bunch
extra-virgin olive oil 5 tbsp
salt and pepper
First, get a griddle pan smoking-hot, otherwise the sardines won’t release their fat and will stick to the pan.
To make the panzanella: soak the bread in the vinegar. Take the tomatoes from the vine, dice and add to the bread, together with the chopped onion. Tear the basil and add that too. Add the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Stir together and set aside.
Under running water, scale the sardines and then open them out, leaving the heads attached. To do this, insert a sharp filleting knife at the tail end, next to the backbone, and cut upwards, until you reach the belly of the fish. Turn the sardine over, then cut in the same way to the same point on the other side of the bone. Starting at the tail end, take the backbone between your forefinger and thumb and run them along the length of the bone up to the head. Cut across the bone at the tail end and head end and the bone should lift out, leaving the fillets still attached at the opposite side, so you can open them out like a book. At the outside of each fillet, you will see a black area with some fine bones. Just take your knife under these parts, and remove them. Then, with a pair of tweezers, take out any pin bones that may have remained in the fillets.
When all the sardines are prepared, season, brush with a little of the olive oil and put on the hot grill, 6 at a time. Let them get crusty on one side (about 3 minutes), then turn over and do the same on the other side (about 2 minutes).
While the sardines are cooking, spoon some of the panzanella on each serving plate, then put the sardines on top, drizzle with the remaining olive oil and serve.
From Made in Italy by Giorgio Locatelli (Fourth Estate, £26). Click here to buy from Guardian Bookshop for £20.80
