The Tuscan Table : The Simple Food of the Countryside

Tuscan cooking does not belong to the riotous, extravagant school of Italian cooking; it is rigorously plain. As a result, the ingredients it relies on have to be superb: deep-green peppery olive oil, locally cured prosciutto and salami, free-range poultry, feathered game and wild boar, porcini and other wild mushrooms, and greens gathered in the fields. Tuscan tastes are so austere that white and whole-grained breads are baked without salt in the dough. Strange at first encounter, the startling contrast between unsalted bread and salty prosciutto or olives quickly becomes an addiction. And what could be better than this earthy bread and a wedge of snowy Pecorino, a sharp sheep’s-milk cheese from the hills of Siena?

Tuscans are basically bread-eaters rather than pasta-eaters. Stale bread goes into some of the favorite country dishes, such as ribollita , a soup of beans, black cabbage and other vegetables reheated with a piece of bread at the bottom to thicken it. Fett’unta is a slice of grilled day-old bread vigorously rubbed with a fresh garlic clove and soaked in good olive oil.

In summer, look for panzanella , a refreshing salad of torn bits of bread tossed with tomatoes and onions in a red wine vinegar and virgin olive oil. You’ll see these same dishes again and again, but fewer pasta dishes than in any other region. Pappardelle (wide ribbon noodles in a savory hare or rabbit sauce) is a classic, as are ricotta-filled ravioli in melted butter and sage leaves.

Tuscans like their food livened with fresh herbs and that irresistible olive oil, but unobscured by competing flavors. One of the most famous Tuscan dishes is bistecca alla Fiorentina , a two- to three-inch-thick slab of the native (but increasingly hard-to-find) Chianina beef grilled rare over charcoal. In fact, all kinds of grilled and roasted meats are popular here--rabbits, chickens, game birds, pork and veal chops and especially arista (pork roast with rosemary). The contorno or side dish might be cannellini beans drizzled with olive oil, deep-fried artichokes, or potatoes roasted with bay leaves.

Dessert is the most austere course of all: usually just fruit, or hard almond biscuits from Prato served with a glass of amber vin santo , the Tuscan dessert wine made from semi-dried grapes. During the grape harvest, wine estates serve schiacciata , a sweet flatbread stained with dark grapes. And in chestnut season, castagnaccio , a flat chestnut flour cake flavored with pine nuts and rosemary, appears on trattoria menus.

Chianti Recipes

“Le Fette al Cavolo--a piece of bread, slightly toasted, with olive oil and black cabbage on top--is a typical Tuscan first course,” explains Marchese Piero Antinori, who produces a wide range of wines at the family firm’s estates in Tuscany and Umbria. This recipe comes from the popular Florentine restaurant Cantinetta Antinori, a showcase for Antinori wines and informal Tuscan fare .

Black cabbage is an elongated, deep-bluish-green cabbage particular to Tuscany; kale or Swiss chard makes a good substitute.

LE FETTE AL CAVOLO (Black Cabbage or Swiss Chard on Toast)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

1 bunch black cabbage or Swiss chard, rinsed, patted dry and coarsely chopped (discard stalks)

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

2 thick slices oven-toasted Italian bread drizzled with olive oil (bruschetta)

Heat olive oil in 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic and saute 1 to 2 minutes (do not brown). Stir in black cabbage. Reduce heat to medium, cover and cook until tender, about 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Spread mixture over bruschetta and serve immediately. Makes 2 servings.

Another classic dish, almost always on the menu at Cantinetta Antinori, is the famous Tuscan soup Ribollita. Literally meaning “reboiled,” it is Tuscan-style minestrone reheated and thickened the next day with day-old bread. It’s always an improvised soup that changes through the seasons--including more cabbage one day, more carrots or potatoes the next.

RIBOLLITA (Tuscan-Style Minestrone)

1/2 pound dried white Tuscan beans

Water

1 ham hock or prosciutto bone

3/4 cup olive oil

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 medium carrot, chopped

1 medium celery stalk, chopped

1 small bunch kale, shredded

1 unpeeled potato, cut into small chunks

1 small bunch Swiss chard, chopped

1 large tomato or 1 cup canned tomatoes, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 1/2 teaspoons rosemary leaves

1 1/2 teaspoons chopped parsley

1/2 teaspoon thyme leaves

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

6 thick slices Italian or French bread, toasted

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Place beans in large saucepan and add enough cold water to cover. Let stand at room temperature overnight. Drain beans well and return to saucepan.

Add ham hock and enough water to cover generously. Bring to boil over high heat. Reduce heat and simmer until beans are tender, about 1 1/2 hours. Drain, reserving liquid and ham hock.

Transfer half of beans to food processor or blender and puree (or put through strainer). Reserve whole beans. Remove and discard bone from ham hock. Cut meat into small pieces and reserve.

Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in Dutch oven or large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add chopped onion, carrot and celery and saute about 5 minutes. Stir in kale, potato, pureed beans and about 6 cups reserved bean cooking liquid, adding water if necessary to make 6 cups. Bring to simmer over medium heat until all vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes.

Add Swiss chard, tomato, garlic, rosemary, parsley, thyme and reserved ham. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Simmer until chard is tender and flavors are well blended, at least 1 hour, adding more bean cooking liquid or water if soup is too thick.

Stir in reserved whole beans and reserved ham hock. Simmer until heated through, 5 to 10 minutes. Cool. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Arrange toast in bottom of large oven-proof soup tureen. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bring soup to boil. Ladle soup over toast. Top with remaining 1/2 cup olive oil. Bake at 375 degrees until bubbling, about 25 to 30 minutes. Serve in individual terra cotta bowls. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Note: Ribollita means reboiled, so make large amount and simply reheat, or reboil when needed.

A favorite with Tuscan wine makers for its well-edited wine list, Ristorante Arnolfo in Colle Val d’Elsa, a hill town 10 miles outside Siena, features sophisticated country cooking by young chef Gaetano Trovato. This pasta dish--bright pink beet-flavored tagliolini with summer zucchini--is one of his best.

TAGLIOLINI ALLE BARBABIETOLE E ZUCCHINE (Beet Tagliolini With Zucchini)

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

3 eggs

Salt

1 medium beet (about 1/4 pound), steamed or boiled, peeled and finely chopped

8 tablespoons butter

2 pounds zucchini, diced

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Mound flour on pasta board. Make well in center and break eggs into it. Add generous dash salt and beets into well. With fork beat egg-beet mixture. Gradually begin incorporating flour from inside of well.

Knead in remaining flour with hands. Continue to knead until smooth and elastic. (If pasta dough seems too wet, knead in little additional flour.) Cover with damp cloth and let dough rest about 15 minutes.

Cut dough into 3 or 4 parts. Using manual pasta machine pass one part through widest setting of rollers. Fold dough in thirds and lightly flour. Repeat with remaining dough.

Pass lightly floured pasta through successively narrower settings of rollers until last notch, lightly sprinkling pasta with flour after each pass. Cover with clean cloth and let rest 10 to 15 minutes.

Cut pasta into thin noodles, passing through narrowest blades of cutter.

Boil tagliolini in large pot of boiling salted water until they rise to top or until cooked al dente. Drain immediately.

Meanwhile, heat 6 tablespoons butter in another pan. Cook diced zucchini until tender-crisp. Combine with hot pasta. Stir in remaining butter and Parmesan cheese. Serve very hot. Makes about 8 servings.

Piero Antinori says: “It is a very old tradition in Tuscany to eat chestnuts. We enjoy them boiled or roasted with the new wines. In the countryside, they still make a sort of chestnut polenta called pattone. We also have several sweets or desserts made with chestnuts, such as the famous Monte Bianco, a sweetened chestnut puree mounded with whipped cream. And then you have Castagnaccio, a flat chestnut flour cake with pine nuts and rosemary. Until recently, it was sold on street corners from wide copper pans, but you can still find it in most typical Florentine trattorias.” Cantinetta Antinori’s version is a little crunchier than most, as flat as a cookie, and garnished with rosemary and pine nuts.

CASTAGNACCIO

(Florentine Chestnut-Flour Cake With Rosemary and Pine Nuts)

1 (12-ounce) package chestnut flour

2 cups water

5 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup pine nuts

1 tablespoon chopped rosemary

Sift chestnut flour into large bowl. Stir in enough water just until creamy (not liquid). Stir in 2 tablespoons olive oil. Let stand 30 minutes.

Mix chestnut flour batter well. Stir in raisins and pine nuts, reserving some to decorate top of cake.

Spread remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil in jellyroll pan. Heat pan and briefly saute rosemary. Pour chestnut batter onto warm oil. Sprinkle top with reserved pine nuts and raisins.

Bake at 425 degrees 25 to 30 minutes, or until edges are slightly brown and crunchy. (How crunchy or soft cake turns out depends on how much water is mixed into chestnut flour.)

Note: Chestnut flour is available at Irvine Ranch Market. This “cake” is very thin or flat, almost like cookie, and not at all sweet. Tuscans love it, but many Americans find that it is an acquired taste.

This is a recipe from the cooking classes Italian cookbook author Lorenza de’ Medici teaches each summer at her Chianti wine estate Badia a Coltibuono. The onions are baked whole with an unusual sweet stuffing of bread and almond-scented cookies.

CIPOLLE RIPIENE AGLI AMARETTI (Onions Stuffed With Amaretto Cookies)

4 medium white onions

8 amaretto cookies, crushed

1 handful Italian bread, soaked in milk and squeezed dry

1 egg

Salt, pepper

Grated nutmeg

1 tablespoon butter

Cook onions in boiling water until tender, but not mushy. Drain and cool slightly. Cut 1/2 inch off tops and set tops aside. Remove insides, leaving bottom root end intact and 1/4 inch shell on sides. Cool.

Mix amaretto cookies with bread and egg in small bowl. Season to taste with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Fill onion to top with cookie mixture. Top each with little butter and replace top.

Place in buttered 9-inch baking pan and bake at 375 degrees about 50 minutes. Makes 4 servings.

Note: Amaretto filling will be on sweet side.

Order a glass of vin santo, the Tuscan dessert wine made from semi-dried grapes, and it is likely to show up at the table with a small plate of Cantucci di Prato, crunchy almond-studded biscotti or “twice-cooked” biscuits from Prato, the textile center northwest of Florence. The shape is an elongated oval, flat on one side, and perfect for dipping in the narrow glass of dessert wine. This is Lorenza de’ Medici’s recipe.

CANTUCCI DI PRATO (Biscuits From Prato)

2 1/4 cups unbleached flour

Dash salt

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

2/3 cup chopped unpeeled almonds

1 egg yolk

1 tablespoon milk for glazing

Mix flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, eggs and egg yolk in bowl. Knead dough until smooth. Mix in almonds.

Divide dough into 4 parts and form each part into 4 cigar-shaped strips. Place strips well apart on floured baking sheet.

Bake at 450 degrees 20 minutes, cut into 1-inch biscuits when still warm and soft. Turn biscuits on sides and continue baking until lightly golden. Separate biscuits and cool before storing in airtight container. Makes 6 servings.

This is a simple, classic--and superb--Tuscan recipe. RAVIOLI WITH RICOTTA AND SAGE BUTTER

1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese

Grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

Ravioli Pasta Dough

Sage Butter

Sage leaves

Combine ricotta and 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese with nutmeg in bowl. Beat until thoroughly blended. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Divide dough into 8 portions and using pasta machine set on widest setting, roll several times into thin sheets, 4 inches wide and 18 inches long. Spread each pasta sheet out flat on work surface. Divide dough into left and right halves. Place 8 rounded teaspoons ricotta filling over right hand side of sheet. Moisten pasta with water between filling.

Fold left side of pasta over filling, pressing down all spaces before completely sealing. Seal dough between filling by pressing firmly with sides of hands. Cut into 2-inch squares using fluted pastry wheel; discard scraps. Transfer to floured cloth. Repeat with remaining pasta sheets.

Cook ravioli in boiling salted water until they float to surface, about 5 minutes. Remove with slotted spoon and drain in colander. Serve with Sage Butter and sprinkle with more Parmesan cheese. Makes 8 servings.

Sage Butter

1 cup butter

1/4 cup minced sage

Heat butter in skillet over medium heat until golden brown. Stir in sage, cook 1 to 2 minutes.

Ravioli Pasta Dough

2 cups unbleached flour, about

3 extra large eggs

3 teaspoons olive oil

Place flour in food processor bowl fitted with metal blade. Beat eggs and olive oil in small bowl until thoroughly blended. With motor of food processor running, add egg mixture all at once. Process until dough forms ball and is very smooth. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface. Knead well, adding flour as needed, until dough is smooth and very elastic. (Add small amounts of flour while kneading, just enough to keep dough from sticking to hands and surface.) Let dough rest 20 to 30 minutes before rolling out.

Food styling by Minnie Bernardino and Donna Deane