Cook Once and Entertain Twice: An Afternoon Tea and Evening Aperitivo

I’ve always adhered to the “cook once, eat twice” school of meal prep. This was especially true in the days when I was working full time and doing most of the cooking for my family. Even now, when I am usually cooking for just one in my tiny Italian kitchen, I love making extra and having leftovers. Soups, stews, extra salad ingredients all prepped - these things make life much easier.

One lump or two ? The quintessential tea question.

But I’ve never really applied that approach to entertaining. It was just a bit of serendipity that recently saw me doing some culinary recycling, stretching the preparations over two separate events.
I had carefully planned the first event - an afternoon tea for a a group of friends, one of whom is soon to depart Lucca for her home across the sea.

The tea was a fairly formal affair with dainty tea sandwiches, scones with lemon curd, and the Queen’s own shortbread (or so the recipe claimed) along with chocolate cookies rolled in pistachio bits.

It was served in proper courses - first savories, then scones, and finally sweets. Very ladylike!

With plenty of leftovers, I turned around the next day and hosted an impromptu rainy evening aperitivo. One key - there was no overlap in the two groups that I hosted, so that no one was seeing the same dishes twice. I did fess up to the aperitivo group that I had served some of the same things, though in slightly different form, the day before. They did not seem to mind at all! Of course a formal tea with scones and the like is not appropriate fare for an evening aperitivo, so I had to change things up a bit.

A buffet rather than a formal table setting worked best for the aperitivo. But the fall centerpiece and even the tablecloth worked for both.

For the aperitivo I did make one platter of small sandwich rounds filled with a gorgonzola pecan spread and some cherry jam (exactly the same as I’d served for tea the day prior). But I changed the other sandwich offering - the one with a salmon cream cheese filling. For the aperitivo, I served the salmon filling as a spread for crackers rather than in the little triangular sandwiches I had made for the tea.

What was a salmon sandwich filling for tea became this spread with crackers for the aperitivo

I added a bowl of potato chips and a couple of bottles of wine and - voila! - an Italian aperitivo. We ended up talking for hours, solving many of the world’s problems, which gave me a perfect excuse to set out the leftover cookies.

Doing the two events back to back was fun and used my leftover ingredients to great advantage. And it really cut prep time! With slight modification, the table setting morphed from formal tea to informal aperitivo. Even the fall centerpiece of leaves (collected on Lucca’s walls) and local gourds and pumpkins made the transition nicely. Plus, I was able to see two different sets of friends and enjoy two very different events. That was the best part.
Cook once and entertain twice or, in Italian, cucina una volta e intrattieni due volte, just may be my new motto.

Fall days in Lucca are perfect for entertaining.

Prosciutto and Asparagus Bundles Marcella Style

Marcella Hazan introduced me, and many Americans, to authentic Italian recipes. Her food, and the details she described about Italian cuisine, were part of what first brought me to Italy in search of the flavors and ingredients in her dishes. (For more on her story, here is a link to a post from the summer of 2018: https://www.twopartsitaly.com/blog/2018/8/8/cooking-with-marcella).

On that first trip I marveled at the fresh produce in the markets, the meats, the cheeses, the variety of fresh pasta, and the delicious meals I had in Florence, Venice, and along the shores of Lake Como. And I took notes!

Returning home, I began a journey to recreate all those flavors with the best ingredients I could find, often guided by one of Marcella’s cookbooks. Now that I live most of the year in Italy (something I never even dreamed of back then) I have access to those wonderful ingredients and I enjoy making these recipes even more.

When spring arrives in Italy so does asparagus season. Heading into summer, the markets in Tuscany have gorgeous bright green bundles of asparagus - I try to pick the nice fat ones which I prefer to the more slender stalks.

When the asparagus appears, I know that it is time to make one of my favorite Marcella recipes - Involtini di Asparagi e Prosciutto (originally published in her book More Classic Italian Cooking). The flavors of fresh asparagus, slightly salty prosciutto, fontina cheese and a generous amount of butter combine to make a flavorful dish perfect for a spring or early summer brunch or luncheon.

3 basic ingredients - prosciutto, fontina cheese, fresh asparagus. Just add some butter !

The prosciutto is topped with the asparagus, cheese, and butter before rolling into a tight bundle.

The preparation is easy and involves only 4 ingredients. The asparagus is cooked ever so briefly in boiling water (my non-Marcella shortcut is to wrap the spears in a wet paper towel and microwave for 90 seconds or so) and then flash cooled in cold water. 3 spears are placed across a slice of prosciutto, topped with slices of fontina, dabbed with butter, and rolled up tight.

Another couple of cheese slices are placed on top, with a bit more butter (ok, maybe more than a bit), and baked until the cheese is melted and golden, a quick 15 - 20 minutes. They look beautiful on a platter drizzled with the flavorful pan drippings. For exact measurements, just google “Marcella’s Asparagus Prosciutto Bundles” and the recipe will pop up - or better yet get a copy of the cookbook which is chock full of wonderful recipes.

Ready to bake !

A couple of keys: Medium to large asparagus are best, and that first cooking in boiling water is just until they begin to soften. If overcooked they will get mushy in the oven. It’s also important to use a good quality, soft prosciutto. If the prosciutto is leathery to begin with it will become more so when baked and that’s not good (the same is true if baked too long). In Italy I buy “prosciutto di Parma morbida” (morbida means soft). My Italian butcher tells me that one end of the prosciutto is actually softer than the other, and so that is what he slices for me. Who knew? In the US, I find that Costco actually has a nice, fairly soft, thinly sliced imported prosciutto that works quite well (brand name Citterio). If the slices are small I overlap two for each bundle so that the prosciutto base is wide enough to just let the tips and ends of the asparagus spears stick out.

These involtini make a wonderful brunch / lunch when paired with a poached egg or a salad. For dinner, a side of rice goes nicely.

Grazie Marcella !

Involtini di asparagi e prosciutto - flavorful rolls of prosciutto filled with asparagus and fontina cheese.

La Polleria (The Poultry Shop)

Shopping for groceries (fare la spessa in Italian) is one of the great cultural experiences for stranieri (foreigners) living in Italy. Food, and the process of obtaining it, helps to define a culture. And the act of shopping itself provides a language lesson as it requires use of a specialized vocabulary - after all one wouldn’t want to request uva (grapes) when needing uova (eggs) or pesche (peaches) instead of pesce (fish). I look forward to grocery shopping in Lucca with an enthusiasm that I lack when in the United States.

While there are some big grocery stores here (true supermarkets), they are outside of the historic center of the town where I live. I do use one of the small grocery stores inside Lucca’s walls for essentials - pasta, rice, coffee, sugar, etc. But for other items it remains common in Lucca to visit a number of small specialty shops, something I love to do. Two years of living here has made me a bit fussy about foods. I prefer milk from the region of the Maremma, available at a nearby latteria (dairy store). It just tastes better than what I can buy at the grocery store, plus that same latteria sells the nicest cheeses and lovely little slices of frittata and vegetable tartlets. I buy only local olive oil, freshly pressed each fall. I have a couple of favorite meat markets, delis, and vegetable markets. As for bread - well it seems everyone has their favorite panificio (bread bakery). I will gladly walk across town for the best focaccia.

One of my favorite shopping experiences is to venture to the local polleria (poultry shop) where they specialize in the freshest, tastiest chicken. In Lucca that’s the Polleria Volpe on Via San Paolino. In addition to wonderful chicken they also have a variety of other meats and shelves full of pasta, beans, olive oils, and other staples.

Just some of the ready-to-cook meats available at Polleria Volpe

The yellowish color is typical of chicken found in Italy (apologies to my vegetarian friends, but these birds are tasty!)

As someone who was used to purchasing chicken on a white styrofoam tray wrapped in plastic, my first visit to Polleria Volpe was an eye-opener. I did not see what I wanted in the display case, so I asked if they had chicken thighs of the bone-in and skin-on variety. They did, but would need to cut them for me. The macellaio (butcher) then proceeded to remove a large chicken from a huge box full of chickens. Next, out came a big cleaver which she used to expertly removed the thigh / leg quarters from the chickens. Then she separated the thighs from the lower legs with a slightly smaller knife. They way she did it made it look more like an art form, or an ancient weaponry display, then butchering. Along the way she taught me the difference between cosce (which my dictionary said was a thigh but actually means the thigh / leg combination) and anca (hip - meaning just the upper thigh).

As if that weren’t enough, she then asked me “bruciate?”. HUH? Burned? Why would I want my chicken thighs burned? As it turned out, she was asking if I wanted her to singe the bits of remaining feathers, something no American butcher has ever asked me. That process leaves little brown singe marks on the skin and I swear it adds to the flavor once those thighs are roasted. That first visit to the polleria was a valuable cultural, language, and culinary, experience!

Who knew a butcher shop could be this colorful and interesting ?

Over time, I’ve come to know the butchers at Volpe and depend on their recommendations. They were most helpful in picking out a large roasting chicken to do stand-in for a Thanksgiving turkey last year. I was only a bit surprised when the chicken they pulled out for me had both its head and two very, very long legs. Thankfully the butcher removed both before wrapping it up in paper for me to take home. The bird also came with their best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving, which they called the “American holiday”.

A while back I saw small involtini (little rolled pieces of meat) in their display case. At first I thought they were chicken but they were actually strips of rabbit (coniglio) laid on top of thin strips of lardo (pork fat), rolled up and secured with a toothpick. I was intrigued, but since I had never cooked rabbit I asked the butcher how to prepare it - in the forno (oven) or in a padella (frying pan)? Her recommendation: frying pan with a bit of olive oil and some white wine. I followed those instructions, but first I rolled them in finely chopped herbs (sage and rosemary) along with salt & some garlic. Then I seared them, added the white wine, squeezed in a bit of lemon juice, and let them cook for about 30 minutes. I finished the sauce with a little knob of butter and served the finished involtini over rice. The flavor was heavenly!

Pre-packed chicken wrapped in plastic just can’t compete, either for flavor or for the sheer delight of shopping at the polleria. And trying new dishes, like the rabbit involtini, adds to the fun! I wonder what I’ll find on my next visit ?

A Spring Brunch at Home in Italy

Warning: this post may make you hungry !

The very small size of my Italian apartment, not to mention the lack of a real oven in the minuscule kitchen, makes entertaining a challenge. I’ve managed as many as 6 for a dinner but that took a lot of juggling and some very cozy seating around the table. And now, when social distancing is the norm, even 6 is way too many. But it’s spring, the weather is gorgeous, the markets are full of beautiful strawberries and asparagus, and I’ve been itching to prepare a meal for friends. When the pandemic rules limiting visitors were relaxed over Easter weekend I was able to invite 2 friends to my home for a meal. With that in mind, I happily started planning a brunch menu. Sometimes it’s fun to get a little fancy and this was one of those times. When you find me ironing a vintage table cloth, you know I’m about to get fancy! Pretty flowers, a nicely set table, the good dishes, and soft music set the stage.

Homemade lemon curd - nice and tart with a smooth as silk texture.

The brunch menu combined some wonderful Italian ingredients with some of my American standards and gave me chance to fix some of my favorite dishes.

Preparations started a couple of days beforehand with the making of lemon curd. This no-fail recipe from Fine Cooking magazine is better than any lemon curd I have ever purchased. (https://finecooking.com/recipe/classic-lemon-curd). It’s my go to recipe for a fancy brunch or tea menu. Using juicy Italian lemons makes it even better. The hardest part was setting it aside until the day of the brunch. I may have sampled just a taste (or two) beforehand.

Of course where there is lemon curd there must be scones. I prepped the dry ingredients a couple of days before; it was easy to finish the dough and bake them on the morning of the brunch. The scones and lemon curd paired nicely alongside a bowl of bright red strawberries.

The main dish was a crustless quiche, another Fine Cooking recipe (https://finecooking.com/recipe/crustless-quiche-with-red-peppers-goat-cheese).

These small tin foil baking dishes aren’t very elegant, but they fit nicely in my little countertop oven.

This is a versatile recipe because it is so easy to vary the ingredients. I have only a small countertop electric oven (two steps above the Easy Bake oven I had as a kid), so I divided the quiche base into two smaller pans. In one, I used the red peppers and goat cheese from the original recipe. In the second pan, I crumbled crisp pancetta, sautéed mushrooms, and fontina cheese. My tiny oven only baked one pan at a time but, covered with foil and set on top of the oven while the second one baked, the first one stayed nice and warm. And they were delicious - soft and light as clouds. All the credit goes to this fantastic recipe - it’s a snap to make and always a hit.

I couldn’t resist the fat stalks of asparagus I found in the market. Cooked quickly and drizzled with a lemony vinaigrette they made a simple and tasty addition to the menu. Both asparagus and the quiche go well with some slightly salty prosciutto, so I added a small platter of that and the meal was complete.

Is there a better combination than fresh spring asparagus and prosciutto? Well, maybe a summertime prosciutto with melon, but that’s a few months off yet.

Well, almost complete. We were celebrating spring so mimosas made with Prosecco and orange juice made brunch even more festive.

Good company, good food, and lots of laughter. A good way to welcome spring !

Cacciucco: An Italian Fisherman's Stew

One of the things that most surprised me when I first started visiting Lucca is that, while we are only about 30 minutes from the sea, the traditional cuisine here is very meat-based. There is not a seafood market to be found within the centro storico (the historic center of town) and restaurants serve far more meat than fish. I’m not complaining, the meats are fabulous - porchetta (spit roasted pork), tender tagliata (slices) of beef, huge grilled Tuscan steaks, thin but oh-so-flavorful lamb chops, perfectly roasted chicken, cinghiale (wild boar). Even the traditional pasta of Lucca, Tordelli Lucchese, is a meat filled pasta topped with a meat sauce.

A shellfish carbonara at Osteria Via San Giorgio, Lucca

There are some fish dishes to be found. The seafood carbonara at one local osteria is a particular favorite of mine, but these dishes are definitely in the minority.

I’ve searched for why this meat preference is so strong and the only answer I’ve found is that in times past wealthy people ate meat and poor people fished, cooking with whatever they caught. Lucca was historically a very wealthy town, so meat was plentiful and nobody fished.

That fish is less common here made it all the better when, on a recent chilly and windy March day, I walked past a restaurant take-out window advertising a daily special of cacciucco. Cacciucco is a fisherman’s stew with origins in the areas along the coastline of Tuscany which includes the port towns of Viareggio and Livorno. It is a bit like cioppino, the fish stew brought to San Francisco by Italian immigrants. However, cacciucco’s ingredients are more of a poor fisherman’s mix compared to the more expensive ingredients found in cioppino (crab, shrimp, scallops).

Cacciucco - thick with seafood and covered in a fragrant broth

Of course there are legends surrounding the beginnings of cacciucco. It is said that the widow of a drowned fisherman made the first cacciucco from odds and ends of fish collected by her children from local fisherman. They took the mix of fish home and the mother cooked them (the fish, not the children) in a broth which she then spooned over day old bread. The neighbors caught the delicious scent and before long the dish became a local favorite. One whiff of a good cacciucco made me a believer in this legend! Another legend about cacciucco is that, to be authentic, it must contain 5 different types of fish - one for each C in the word cacciucco.

The recipe begins with a broth made from fish parts and white wine. To that base are added spices, tomatoes, and a mix of fish. The fish can include white fish along with octopus, mussels, cuttlefish, calamari, red fish, and scampi (or whatever else is available).

A mix of local seafood makes cacciucco a type of cucina povera (poor man’s food)

The ingredients vary from city to city and there is of course disagreement about which city makes the best version. According to one article I read (La Repubblica, 2010) the differences between a cacciucco in Viareggio versus one made in Livorno is that the Viareggio version is lighter and a bit more refined. There is no garlic and the fish is boned and filleted. In Livorno the dish is more rustic, including garlic and a soffritto (a sauté of onion, celery, carrot). Also, in the Livornese version, the fish is in chunks, including some pieces with bones.

If the sight of tentacles, scampi with heads, and fish bones bothers you then this may not be the dish for you. As for me, those little tentacles are tender and tasty and all the bits of fish are wonderful. Even better is mopping up the broth with a good piece of rustic bread.

If you’ve been watching the CNN program “Stanley Tucci Searching for Italy”, you may have seen him eating a cacciucco in Livorno during the Tuscany episode. That was definitely an upscale version, with the addition of lobster. Rather than mopping up the sauce with bread they tossed the leftover sauce with some pasta. Something to try!

This is not a dish I’d ever attempt to make at home. But I think I am going to have to make a pilgrimage to both Livorno and Viareggio as soon as possible to compare the two versions, all in the name of culinary research of course.

With restaurants closed to seating due to COVID restrictions, these take out windows are becoming more popular. This one is in front of the restaurant Nonna Clara in Lucca. Along with the street food some items from the regular menu are available to go, including this day’s special of cacciucco .