Brussels sprouts can be very good if not overcooked and this pasta dish gets the best out of them, also thanks to the sweetness of the pepper and the saltiness of the pecorino cheese.
Orecchiette, literally “small ears”, are a type of thick small pasta that is particularly good with sauces containing strong flavoured vegetables, like Brussels sprouts and broccoli.
If you can find it, I recommend using pecorino Romano cheese in this recipe. It’s a very salty and sharp sheep cheese that is used on pasta dishes in a similar way as Parmigiano cheese. Once opened, it lasts for months in the fridge, so you don’t have to worry about wasting any if you buy it for the first time for this recipe.

Wash the Brussels sprouts and quarter them. Wash the bell pepper, remove the stem and seeds, and cut it in big cubes.
Heat the olive oil in a big pan (it needs to fit all the ingredients, including the cooked pasta) on medium heat with the whole garlic gloves. When hot, add the sprouts and the pepper. Fry for 4 minutes stirring often.
In the meantime, start cooking the pasta according to the instructions on the package; it should take about ten minutes, but it varies depending on the pasta brand.
While the pasta is cooking, add the cream and a few spoons of hot water from the orecchiette pan to the vegetables and cook on low heat until the vegetables are cooked but still crunchy (6 or 7 minutes). If the vegetables get dry while cooking, add some more water. If the vegetables are ready before the pasta, just turn off the heat.
Drain the cooked pasta and add it to the vegetables. Turn the heat back on and cook for a minute, adding more hot water if the pasta gets too dry. Add salt and pepper, and cook for a minute.
Serve the pasta with plenty of grated pecorino cheese on top.

A few months ago I found an old piece of paper with a recipe for baci di dama biscuits. I’m not sure who wrote it and when, but the recipe was written on the back of a 40-year-old letter, so I guess that the recipe was written in the early ’70s. I tried it and the results were delicious!

If you are wondering, a bacio di dama (lady’s kiss) is a biscuit made with two hazelnuts biscuits that are stuck together with chocolate, so that the two halves “kiss” each other. Like most Italian recipes with hazelnuts, baci di dama come from Piedmont.

If you don’t have a food processor, you can also use ground almonds instead of hazelnuts.

Put the hazelnuts and the sugar in a food processor and reduce to a fine powder.
In a bowl, mix with your fingertips the hazelnut and sugar mixture, the flour, and the butter cut into pieces. You will end up with a mixture looking like coarse breadcrumbs. Work quickly and don’t overmix or the biscuits will come out very hard.
Press the mixture to form a ball, wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven at 160 °C/320 °F. Cover an oven tray with greaseproof paper or aluminium foil.
Make little balls (½ inch large) of dough with your hands; even if the dough looks like crumbles, it should easily stick together when you press it. Put the balls on the tray leaving some space between them.
Bake the biscuits until golden, about 30 minutes.

Melt the chocolate in a metal bowl or pot set over a bigger pot of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally, until smooth.
Put a small amount of chocolate on the flat part of a biscuit and then top with another biscuit pressing slightly. Let the biscuits rest until the chocolate is firm.

Aubergine parmigiana is a traditional dish from Southern Italy (it’s not clear if it’s from Naples or from Sicily), made with layers of aubergines, tomato sauce and cheese.
Traditionally the aubergines are deep fried, but I prefer a quicker (and lighter) version with oven cooked aubergines.
For this recipe you need to use real mozzarella; the one that comes shaped balls and is packed with water to keep it fresh and moist.

Heat the oven to 180 °C. Usually aubergines are not peeled, but sometimes the skin is a bit tough, so it’s your choice whether to peel them or not. Cut the aubergines lengthwise into slices ½cm thick. Put some foil on the oven tray, drizzle some olive oil on it (so the aubergines won’t stick) and place the aubergine slices on it. Probably the aubergines won’t fit in a single tray, so repeat with another tray or with the wire shelf.
Bake the aubergines for 30 to 35 minutes until soft, turning once during the cooking time.

In the meantime, heat up a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a pan with the finely chopped garlic. When it starts sizzling, add the tomatoes, the shredded basil, some salt and some pepper. Bring back to a boil and cook uncovered (or partially covered to avoid splatters) for 25 to 30 minutes, until quite thick.

When the aubergines and the sauce are both ready, you can start assembling the dish. First of all, drain the mozzarella balls and chop them in small pieces.
Spread a couple of spoons of the sauce on the bottom of an oven safe rectangular dish (I use a 35x23cm pyrex dish).
Cover with a layer of aubergines; you should use about a third.
Spread one third of the tomato sauce on the aubergines and cover with one third of the mozzarella.
Repeat for other two layers. If you used a differently sized tray you could end up with more or fewer layers, but it doesn’t matter for the final result.
Spread the grated Parmigiano cheese on top of the dish.

You can now bake the parmigiana or keep it in the fridge until needed; it will last for a couple of days.

Bake the parmigiana in a preheated oven at 180 °C for 30 minutes. Leftovers can be reheat in the oven for 20 minutes or in a microwave until hot.

Alternative version with fried aubergines. Cut the aubergines in the same way as in the original recipe. Heat up quite a bit of frying oil (sunflower oil for instance) in a pan. When hot, fry a few aubergines at a time until golden on both sides and soft. Dry the aubergines with some paper towels to absorb the excess oil.
Make the sauce and assemble the dish as in the original version.

Pandolce, the typical Christmas cake from Genoa, exists in two versions, short (basso) and tall (alto). The latter is made with yeast and is similar to a sweet and fruity bread. The short one, my favourite and the one described in this recipe, has a crumbly texture, similar to a scone. Both variants are very rich of pine nuts, raisins and candied orange peels.

First of all, weigh the pine nuts, peels and raisins and put in a small bowl. Line a baking tray with baking paper and preheat the oven to 160 °C. You don’t want to have to do these things while your hands are covered in dough!

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, softened butter and eggs in a big bowl using your hands and work the mixture until the dough is smooth, but don’t overmix. Add the pine nuts, raisins and peels and mix until completely incorporated. Make a ball with the dough and then press it slightly so that the bottom and top surfaces become flat. Place the dough on the baking tray and cook in the oven until the top becomes golden brown, it takes about 1 hour and 10 minutes in my oven.

When the pandolce is cooked, it will still appear a bit soft; let it cool down completely before eating, so it can get the right texture.

Making two smaller cakes. If you prefer two smaller cakes you can proceed in the same way, but split the dough in two before shaping it. The cooking time will be 5 to 10 minutes shorter.

I really like “proper” Italian-style lasagne with layers of lasagne sheets, homemade ragù Bolognese and bechamel, but it takes quite a while to make. This lasagne dish is quite tasty and creamy without any bechamel, thanks to the gorgonzola cheese, and it’s way quicker to cook as the sauce needs to be cooked for only 25 minutes, while a proper ragù should be cooked for several hours.

Prepare the sauce. Fry on medium-low heat the chopped onion with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. In the meantime, cut the chorizo lengthwise and then cut it into ⅓cm slices (as thick as a £1 coin). Add the chorizo to the pan and fry for a few minutes.

Add the canned crushed tomatoes, half a can of water, some salt and some black pepper to the pan. Bring back to a boil on medium heat and cook uncovered for 25 minutes.
Taste for salt and pepper.

Add the gorgonzola to the sauce and let it melt. Stir to mix the melted gorgonzola.

Assemble the lasagne. Spread a couple of spoons of the sauce on the bottom of an oven safe rectangular dish (I use a 35x23cm pyrex dish). Cover with a layer of lasagne sheets. The sheets should cover completely the surface without overlapping; you can simply break them with your hands to get the needed size to fill all the gaps. Spread one third of the tomato sauce on the lasagne. Cover with one third of the grated mozzarella.
Repeat with more lasagne, sauce and cheese. In total you should have enough ingredients for three layers.
Spread the grated Parmigiano cheese on top of the lasagne.

You can now bake the lasagne or keep it in the fridge until needed; it will last for a couple of days. You can also freeze the lasagne until needed. In this case defrost it completely before baking.

Bake the lasagne in a preheated oven at 180 °C for 30 minutes.

If you have leftover lasagne you can just reheat it in a microwave.

Cannoli (the singular is cannolo) are typical Sicilian pastries. They consist in crunchy deep fried shells filled with a creamy ricotta-based mixture, usually containing candied fruit and chocolate chips.

To make cannoli you need a few cannoli moulds; 3 is enough, but it’s easier and faster if you have at least 6. I use some cannoli moulds I ordered on amazon.co.uk.
This recipe includes gelatine because the ricotta that I can find here seems to be a bit watery even after draining it, but it’s not a traditional ingredient.

And remember, “leave the gun; take the cannoli”.

Make the dough for the shells. Mix all the ingredients for the shell, except for the egg white and the oil, in a bowl until you get a uniform and smooth dough.
Make a ball with the dough, wrap in some cling film and put in the fridge for at least one hour.

Make the filling. Put the gelatine in a small bowl and cover with cold water for at least 5 minutes.
Put the ricotta in a sieve to get rid of as much water as possible. With a spoon or spatula push the ricotta through the sieve into a bowl (collecting also the ricotta that remains on the bottom of the sieve).
Mix the ricotta with the sugar and the orange blossom water until smooth.
Add the chocolate chips and candied orange peels.

Bring the milk to a boil in your smallest pan. When it starts boiling, turn off the heat and add the drained gelatine. Mix until completely melted.
Slowly pour the gelatine into the ricotta mixture and mix very well.
Put in the fridge for at least one hour.

Cook the shells. Roll the dough until thin (1 or 2mm). Using a 4 inches (10 centimetres) wide cookie cutter or large glass, cut the dough in circles. You should get between 10 and 12. If you don’t have any cookie cutter of the appropriate size, you can cut the dough in rectangles.
Press the circles a bit to enlarge them slightly and wrap around the cannoli moulds. The two opposite sides should slightly overlap. Seal the overlapping sides with the egg white.

Heat enough oil to cover the cannoli in a pan big enough to fit 2 or 3 cannoli. Deep fry 2 or 3 cannoli at a time until browned on all sides. Remove from the oil and dry on kitchen towels.
To remove the mould, let the cannoli cool down for a few minutes, then press the sides of the mould and remove.
Let all the shells cool down completely.

Fill and decorate the cannoli. Fill the cannoli pushing some ricotta mixture inside the shells from both sides with a teaspoon.
Dust the cannoli with some icing sugar. Cut the cherries in half and decorate the sides of the cannoli with them.

Minestrone, literally “big soup” in Italian, doesn’t have a fixed recipe, but it always contains a few vegetables and some kind of beans. Other common ingredients are pasta or rice added towards the end of the cooking.
When I was a kid I really disliked minestrone, but I now really like a few variants, in particular if they contain tomatoes (not a very common ingredient for minestrone) and no rice.

Being a quite thick and rich soup you can serve it as a main course on its own or, in smaller quantities, before another main course.

Add to a big pot a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, the diced onion and the diced celery. Fry on low heat until translucent but not browned.

In the meantime, if you are using the bacon, chop it very finely so that it can almost melt into the soup; you could use an electric chopper if you have one. Add the bacon to the onion and celery, and cook for a few minutes.

Clean the cabbage and chop it in big pieces.
Add the cabbage, crushed tomatoes, the drained beans, the broth, the spices, the sugar and a couple of big pinches of salt.
If you have some Parmigiano cheese, cut a big piece of crust from it and add it to the soup; it will add an amazing flavour.
Let the soup simmer 45 minutes, adding water if it gets too thick.

Add the washed and chopped kale to the soup and cook for about 10 minutes.

Taste and add salt if needed. The soup should be quite thick, but still a soup, so add water if needed.
Add the pasta and cook until tender.

Remove the crust of Parmigiano from the soup and throw it away (or better, eat it!).

Serve in bowls. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil and dust with some grated Parmigiano cheese.

How to freeze

Minestrone freezes really well, in particular without the pasta.
If you are planning on freezing the minestrone, keep it a bit thicker. When the kale is cooked, remove the pot from the heat and let it cool down. Split the minestrone in portions and freeze it in individual containers.

When you want to eat the minestrone, put the thawed soup in a pan with a bit of water and bring to a boil. When it’s boiling, add the pasta and cook until tender.

Hideg meggyleves (cold cherry soup) is an unusual, but very good, Hungarian soup; despite containing cherries and sugar, it’s normally eaten as a proper soup and not as a dessert.
Usually the soup is prepared with sour cherries, but fresh ones are not easy to find in England, so you can just use normal cherries (that are also quite cheap at this time of the year).
If you prefer, you can use fresh, frozen or canned sour cherries, but check they don’t contain extra sugar. If using sour cherries you should use 150g of sugar.

Wash the cherries and pit them. Put the pitted cherries in a pot with 1.4 litres of cold water, the sugar, the cinnamon and a pinch of salt.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for about 15 minutes, until the cherries are soft but not falling apart. Remove the cinnamon sticks.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour with a few spoons of hot soup. When mixed, add the sour cream and a few more spoons of soup and mix.
Add the sour cream mixture into the soup and mix well. Simmer for other 5 minutes stirring frequently.

Cover the soup and let it cool down a bit. When warm, put in the fridge until cold and thick (it will take at least a couple of hours).

This is an interesting (and delicious) variation of the normal tiramiù, with coffee replaced by strawberry puree. The recipe for the mascarpone mixture, unlike most British and American ones, doesn’t use whipped cream, producing a much better final result. Note that tiramisù contains raw eggs, so you should use very fresh eggs.

Quickly wash 500g of strawberries under running cold water and hull them. Cut the strawberries in half and put in a bowl with 60g of sugar and the lemon juice. If you have time, set aside the strawberries for about one hour.
Put the strawberries and the juice they released in a blender and blend until you get a liquid puree. If you don’t like the tiny strawberry seeds, you can strain the puree through a fine sieve.

Whisk the yolks with the remaining sugar until the mixture is fluffy. Add the mascarpone and mix well. In another bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Delicately fold the whipped whites in the mascarpone mixture.

For normal tiramisù I prefer whole savoiardi biscuits, but, in this case, they don’t soak the puree as well as coffee, so I prefer to cut them in half lengthwise. If you are in a hurry, you can skip this step.
Soak a few savoiardi at a time in the strawberry puree and arrange them in a serving dish (I usually use a 35×23 cm Pyrex dish). You should use about half of your biscuits for the first layer. Spread half of the mascarpone mixture over the savodiardi. Repeat with another layer of soaked biscuits and one of mascarpone mixture.

Wash and hull the remaining strawberries. Cut the strawberries lengthwise and decorate the tiramisù with them.
Refrigerate for at least 8 hours before serving.

I got inspired for this risotto recipe, one of my favourites, by a restaurant in Vercelli.
In Italy I would use a toma cheese from Piedmont to prepare this recipe, but this kind of cheese is difficult to find here. After a few experiments I found out that Ossau-Iraty is quite similar to toma cheeses, but I also add some creamy Gorgonzola to add a bit more flavour and creaminess. It’s important that you get the creamy version of Gorgonzola (like the one in the picture below) because the stronger version would cover the flavour of the Ossau-Iraty. Alternatively, you can replace the gorgonzola with Galbani Dolcelatte (it’s similar in flavour, very easy to find and cheaper too).

First of all, read the recipe for basic risotto for hints about making risotto.

If you are using non-toasted hazelnuts, preheat your oven to 180 °C. Place the hazelnuts in a baking pan and put in the oven for about 10 minutes. Let the hazelnuts cool down enough to be handled easily. Get a few hazelnuts in your hands and rub them to remove the skins (don’t worry if some skins don’t come off).
Chop the hazelnuts into small pieces.

Heat up the broth in a pan, or prepare one if you are using fresh ingredients.
Finely chop the onion or shallots and fry on low heat in a pan with a knob of butter or with the olive oil. When the onion starts getting slightly translucent, but it’s not browned, add the rice. Turn up the heat to medium-low and fry the rice for 2 minutes stirring often.
Add the wine and stir. It should evaporate quickly.

When the wine is evaporated, add a ladle of broth. Add some salt and ground black pepper. Whenever the liquid in the pan is absorbed, add another ladle of broth. If you run out of broth before the rice is ready, you should start adding boiling water.

While the rice is cooking dice the Ossau-Iraty in small pieces and the Gorgonzola in big chunks.
Prepare the port reduction by putting the port in a small pan with the cinnamon. Bring to a boil and let simmer until reduced to about half.

The rice needs to be cooked al dente; it’s ready when it’s not hard any more but it is still firm inside. It will take about 15 minutes, but it depends on the rice you are using.
Check for seasoning and add more salt and black pepper if needed.

Turn off the heat. Add the butter and the three cheeses, and stir well. Cover the pan and allow to sit for 2 or 3 minutes.
Stir again and transfer to serving plates. Pour the port reduction on the risotto and sprinkle it with the chopped hazelnuts.