Caponata or sicilian ratatouille
Ingredients:
3 red onions
4 eggplant
2 red and 2 yellow bellpeppers
500g tinned plum tomatoes
200ml white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons of brown sugar
50g of stoned olives (taggiasche if possible)
2 tsps of de-salted capers
Method:
Peel and dice the eggplant, salt it and let it drain for 30 minutes to get rid of the bitter flavours.
In the meantime, thinly slice the onions and sweat them down over a low heat in a tablespoon of ev olive oil for about 10 minutes until they are soft and just starting to colour. Add the tinned tomatoes, season with salt and pepper and cook for 10 minutes. Then add the sugar, cooking the mixture for a further 5 minutes. Finally, pour over the vinegar, turn up the heat and mix occasionally until all the vinegar has boiled off and set aside for the time being.
Wash and dice the pepper, making sure to get rid of the white, bitter parts. Sauté it in ev olive oil until it is nicely coloured then remove it with a slotted spoon and leave it to drain off further in a sieve or on kitchen paper. Rinse and pat dry the eggplant and sauté it until golden brown, once again, draining off the excess cooking fat. Add the vegetables to your sweet and sour tomato sauce, bring it to a simmer and add the olives and capers.
To serve: It goes particularly well with buffalo milk mozzarella and some torn basil leaves.
Winter chestnut and black cabbage soup
Ingredients:
200g of fresh chestnuts (boiled and peeled)
200g leeks (roughly 3)
4 carrots
500g of Tuscan black cabbage (roughly 5 bunches)
200g of potato (roughly 3)
Sage, rosemary
Extra virgin olive oil Tenuta di Monte-Ficali
Method:
Firstly, prepare the chestnuts by washing and then boiling them for roughly 30 minutes in unsalted water. Peel them when still hot and set aside.
Finely slice the leeks and place them in a heavy-based saucepan with a tablespoon of olive oil and sweat them slowly over a low heat.
Chop the carrots and potatoes into small cubes and add them to the pan. Cook them together for about 5 minutes. At this stage, add the chestnuts and the shredded black cabbage, cooking everything together for a few minutes, and then cover with cold water. Bring the soup to the boil and then simmer for about 20 minutes.
Blend 1/3 of the mixture with a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil that has been aromatized with rosemary and sage by heating it over a low heat together for a few minutes.
Add this emulsion into the reserved soup, season with salt and pepper, and cook for a further 10 minutes.
“Zuppa Lombarda”
Ingredients:
300 g of dried cannellini beans (zolfini are the most nutritious if you can find them)
400 g of stale, saltless Tuscan bread (a classic!!), best if it's toasted
1 garlic clove
A bunch of fresh sage
Salt and cracked black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil Tenuta di Monte-Ficali
Method:
Soak the beans overnight. Drain them the next morning, and rinse them well under running water, then place them in a large saucepan and cover them with cold water. Add the handful of sage and bring the pot to the boil. Traditionally, no salt is added at this stage, since it was a scarce and expensive ingredient!
Once boiling turn the heat down to a simmer and semi-cover the pot. The beans should take about 35- 40 minutes to cook. Once tender, turn the heat off and leave them in their water
Toast thick slices of bread and rub them generously with the raw garlic clove.
Place the one piece of toasted bread in a shallow soup bowl and ladle the beans on top, with some of their cooking broth. Add some, salt, freshly cracked black pepper and a generous drizzle of Tenuta di Monte-Ficali extra virgin olive oil!
“Pappa al pomodoro”
Method:
Ingredients:
Peel and finely chop the onion, carrot, celery and garlic then place them in a large, heavy based pan with the extra virgin olive oil. Sweat them down until they are softened but not coloured. Add the tomatoes, basil leaves, salt and pepper and cook over a medium heat until they are all broken down and ‘saucey’ which will take about 1 hour. If the sauce dries out during the cooking, add a little water. Once cooked, pass the sauce through the food mill, turning the handle clockwise until you are left with just a dryish residue of seeds and skins. At this point add the bread which has been previously cut into cubes. Cover and leave the mixture for about 10 minutes so that the bread can soften. Stir it well together to create a homogeneous mixture.
Traditionally, the pappa is served warm with a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and torn basil. It is also delicious when top with sautéed prawns, or accompanied by burrata or buffalo milk mozzarella with a dollop of pesto!
250g Tuscan bread (preferably stale)
1 red onion
1 carrot
1 stick of celery
2 cloves of garlic
1 bunch of fresh basil leaves
Extra virgin olive oil (about 250ml)
I kg of fresh, ripe tomatoes, chopped into quarters
Salt and pepper