Tuscan Dessert : Biscotti di Prato

Biscotti di Prato with Vin Santo by Jacqui Lui

The first documented recipe for this cake is a eighteenth century centuries-old manuscript. The recipe was then taken , by  the pastry chef Antonio Mattei ,to the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1867, winning a special mention..
For dessert, they are usually paired with a bottle of vin santo of Tuscany.
There is a small discussion on the name. Some say that the biscuits of Prato are erroneously called Cantucci or Cantuccini. In fact, the nooks and almond biscuits are prepared by another method, are in fact made of bread dough and anise. For others, the common name of "cantuccini"or "nooks" has a curious origin and dates back many years ago when the Biscuit Mattei di Prato, in its glory years, was selling scraps of biscuits (the edges, both ends of the loaf, in fact the "nooks" in Prato) at a lower price.

Biscotti di Prato

• 500g  (5 cups and  a half) all purpose flour / plain flour    
• 300 g (1 cup and a half) sugar                                         
• 150g  (¾ cup) almonds  
• 4 eggs and 2 egg yolks
• 8  g  (2 teaspoons) powder                          
• 1 pinch saffron
• 1 pinch of salt 

Place  the flour on the table and make a well in the middle.Add sugar, 3 eggs, 2 egg yolks, baking powder, salt and a pinch of saffron. 
Knead the dough  and add the unpeeled almonds , oven toasted , mixing them  well into the dough. 
Prepare  large loaves about 2-3 cm.wide 1 cm high.

Place them well apart on a greased and floured  baking tray.Bake them for  ca. 15 minutes at 180 C ( till they are firm  enough).

Take the tray out and  brush the loaves  with beaten egg , cut obliquely just about every inch in order to obtain the typical shape of the biscuits of Prato and  bake them for other 10 minutes

     

Veal with 3 sauces

A meat dish which can be prepared in advance also in quantities and with a small variation sounds as a totally different dish.
You can prepare the meat and serve it with 3 different sauce on top.
First step you have to prepare and cook the veal.

Ingredients

1kg. veal rump
Handful parsley
5 bayleaf leaves
1 carrot
1 onion
1 celery stick
2 rock salt spoons
2 spoons olive oil

Roll the veal in flour ,chop parsley, carrot, onion, celery stick .Let them cook in oil in a pan,slighlt cook the meat in it, add 4 l.water,bayleaf and salt.Eliminate the foam that comes on top. Let it cook for 50 minutes. Let it cool. Wrap into paper and put into the fridge. Before serving it you have to slice thin and pour one sauce on top.

3 Sauces:

Trito Aromatico

80 gr. Depitted Green olives
60 gr. Parsley
60 gr. Inside of stale bread
2 spoons vinegar
3 hard boiled eggs
Extra vergin olive oil
salt and pepper

Separate yolks from whites. Soak the bread into the vinegar for 10 minutes. Chop parsley, olives and egg whites. Mix them with the bread and 2 yolks. Add salt and pepper .Amalgamate adding some oil. Slice the veal thin and spread the mixture on it. Chop the remaining egg white and distribute it on the meat. Pass the remaining yolk through a strain and serve it on the meat.

Pesto al pomodoro con mandorle e basilico

4 peeled tomatoes
Handful basil
2 garlic cloves
Handful pinetus
Handful almonds
Peel the almonds
Salt and pepper
2 spoons extra vergin olive oil

Chop tomatoes,basil, pinetus and almonds, garlic,add salt and pepper and the oil.
Slice the veal thin and spread the mixture on it, adding some pinetus and almond slides on top.

Salsa Tonnata

Mayonnaise
2 small spoons anchovy paste
170 gr. tin Italian Tuna
1 tablespoon capers
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon parsley

Mix capers, anchovy paste,tuna, lemon juice and mayonnaise in a blender. Place the veal slightly overlapping on a serving dish. Serve on top of the meat with fresh lemon slices, a few bits of parsley and capers.

Tuscan Christmas dessert

An Italian Christmas revolves around family and food. We spend time in preparing our family’s favorite recipes that have often been handed down for generations. Every region, city, and country town have their own ritual foods for the Christmas season that are prepared in great quantity to be shared with family and friends. A Christmas lunch includes many recipes and at the end a dessert

We have chosen a Chianti dessert which reminds us of the nice old woman who lives next to us. She is from here , Chianti wine region .Born here, always lived here. She knows everybody in this neighborhood and many are her relatives .
The first Christmas we were here, we people who moved from the “ town”, she brought us this cake as a welcome good luck sign. Now, after 15 years , we cook it together talking about all the people we now know, about new born babies, about everything from here

IL SERPE (SERPENTE) published on Taste Italia magazine

"Il serpe" is the Tuscan word for snake.
Two centuries ago in Chianti there were many people working in the fields. They had to put their hands in small holes among stones, or among pieces of woods, and they were not so careful because they were in a hurry and tired by their work, it could happen accidentally that they touched a viper. Vipers were the only dangerous animal in Chianti fields, not poisonous to death but giving nerve troubles.
So people were afraid of snakes and what could have been a better solution that creating something to defend themselves. For this reason they created a nice tradition of preparing a cake with almonds, typical ingredient in Sienese countryside, with the shape of a snake.
Till nowadays people prepare this “snake” and eat it on Christmas day as a good luck against vipers’ bites.

Ingredients:
300g very-finely-ground almonds
3 stiffly-whisked egg whites
A handful of pine-nuts
150g very-finely-ground candied lime
300g sugar
2 coffee beans


Work together almonds, sugar and candied lime, adding the whisked egg whites a little at a time. The mixture must be dense, not too runny. Make the mixture into the shape of a snake. Decorate with the pine-nuts in a herring-bone pattern. Use the coffee beans for the eyes and a piece of candied lime for the tongue. Cover the head and tail with aluminium foil. Bake in the oven at 150°C for 30 minutes.