Two Parts Italy

One thing that I have learned living, and cooking, in Italy is that the best foods are often the simplest. There is no need to simmer sauces for hours or add 16 fancy ingredients to a dish – bright flavors, fresh ingredients, and simple preparations represent the very best of Italian cuisine. That is certainly true when it comes to pasta sauces, be it Marcella Hazan’s famous 3 ingredient tomato sauce, a carbonara with just egg, guanciale, and cheese, or an even more simple pasta olio e aglio (oil and garlic).

Recently I was introduced to a new (to me) pasta sauce with ingredients straight from the orto (garden) – Salsa di Ortolano. This is a sauce that adapts to the seasons with ingredients reflecting what is fresh and readily available in the garden or market. Lighter in spring and summer with fresh peas, fava beans, and tomatoes. A bit heartier in fall and winter with carrots, peppers, zucchini, or mushrooms.

I learned to make this dish from Giuseppe, the chef at the Olive Press Kitchen, during an informal cooking session and lunch with friends. The main event that day was making Necci (see post from Oct 13,2025) but first came lunch – a wonderful spinach pasta with salsa di ortolano.

First, a demonstration by talented pasta maker Rosetta. She mixed just a few ingredients (type 0 flour, some semolina, an egg, cooked spinach, a drizzle of olive oil), briefly kneaded it, and proceeded to roll out, by hand, the thinnest sheet of pasta I have ever seen. The pasta was then cut into rough squares, called maltagliata (literally badly cut) dusted with flour, and set aside to dry. I would share the recipe if only she had used one!

A simple homemade vegetable broth is a key ingredient in the pasta sauce

Next – the ortolano sauce. The preparation began with a homemade vegetable broth. Again, just a simple concoction, 1 carrot, 1 stalk of celery, an onion, two small tomatoes, a few herbs.

Seeing how simple yet flavorful this broth was makes me embarrassed to admit to ever having used those little vegetable boullion cubes. Shame on me! Never again.

While the broth simmered, we got to work preparing the sauce. Again, there was no recipe. We used celery, peeled yellow and red peppers, leeks, carrots, zucchini, and asparagus. All fresh from the market. And some good Extra Virgin Olive Oil too.

Preparation for the sauce began with peeling the peppers and then dicing them, along with the other vegetables, into small pieces

The ortolano sauce was then prepared by a slow layering of vegetables, beginning with the ones that needed the longest time to cook (carrots and celery) and ending with those that needed the shortest cooking time (zucchini and asparagus).

The preparation was simply a matter of stirring, adding small amounts of broth to keep the veggies from sticking, and layering in the other veggies. The final sauce was more vegetable than liquid - just moist enough to coat the pasta squares.

Nepitella has small green leaves and tiny purplish flowers.

Seasoning was simple – the flavorful olive oil used to begin cooking the vegetables, salt, pepper, a little garlic, and some nepitella. Nepitella is a wild herb in the mint family, it can be found growing in rock crevices. It has a pungent, herby flavor so just a little bit will do.

To put the dish together, the pasta squares were briefly cooked in boiling water, drained, and tossed in the pan with the salsa ortolano.

Once plated, it was finished with a sprinkle of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. The simple sauce, bright and colorful atop the green maltagliata pasta, went well with a glass of white wine.

I am spending a few weeks in New Mexico visiting family and will definitely make this dish while I am there. I won’t be able to find nepitella, but pinches of basil, thyme, and mint will be a good substitute. I will also likely use store bought fresh pasta squares, plain or spinach (why? because I am a bit pigra - lazy), but who knows, perhaps I will be inspired to make homemade pasta too. As for the veggies – asparagus won’t be in season, but mushrooms will be wonderful in this pasta. Maybe some butternut squash or thinly sliced Brussel sprouts. The possibilities are endless! And isn’t it good to start the new year off with a healthy, veggie topped pasta?

Buon anno e buon appetito !

If looking for cooking classes near Lucca or Florence, The Olive Press Kitchen is a great choice.

email: info@theolivepresskitchen.com call or WhatsApp : +39 329 743 3364

Fall is chestnut season. The leaves and the round stone disks above can be used to turn chestnut flour into rustic crepe-like necci.

Roasting chestnuts at the fall festival in Colognora di Pescaglia

Fall is chestnut season here in Tuscany. Any day now the scent of roasting chestnuts will fill the air. When that happens, necci are sure to follow. Necci, essentially chestnut flour pancakes, were once a staple in the kitchens of the Tuscan countryside Only 3 ingredients are needed to make the batter – chestnut flour, a pinch of salt, and some water. They are a classic example of cucina povera, dishes made from ingredients readily available in times of scarcity. In Tuscany, the abundance of chestnut trees supplied many essentials to people who might otherwise have gone without – wood for heating, charcoal for cooking, and chestnuts to roast, dry, or grind into flour. That flour is the basis for necci.

I was introduced to necci (necci is plural, the singular form is neccio) years ago at a local fall food festival where the batter was ladled onto long-handled, flat, metal paddles and cooked quickly over a gas flame. Hot off the paddle, and naturally a little sweet, they were heavenly rolled around a filling of fresh ricotta cheese with a drizzle with honey.

Testi - stones that are heated to cook necci the rustic way

Necci were made differently in times past. I first learned about the old method when visiting the Chestnut Museum in the tiny village of Colognora di Pescaglia years ago. In the museum a stack of round stone disks, called testi, sat beside an open fireplace. The museum guide explained that the testi were used to cook necci long before the metal paddles came into use. But just exactly how that worked was not entirely clear to me.

Fast forward to last year when I took a cooking class with chef Giuseppe Mazzocchi at The Olive Press Kitchen in the hills near Montecatini. The kitchen there has a large open fireplace; sitting beside it was a stack of testi. Necci were not on the class menu that day, but Giuseppe promised that in the fall he would teach me the old way of cooking necci.

A week or so ago a few friends and I headed to Guiseppe’s kitchen, in the building that once housed his grandparents’ olive mill, to make necci the rustic way, just as his grandparents and their neighbors did a generation or two ago. In additional to flour, salt, and water to make the batter, we used chestnut leaves, the stone testi, and a hot fire.

The dry chestnut leaves, collected from property around the mill, were soaked in water to make them pliable. While they were soaking, the stone testi were placed on a rack above the fire in the kitchen’s beautiful open fireplace.

Heating the testi to prepare them to cook the necci

Once heated, the layering began. First, a hot stone. Next, a layer of wet chestnut leaves. On top, a scoop of batter (not too much, the necci should be thin. It takes some practice to get this just right). More leaves go on top of the batter. Next, another stone.

We repeated the layering until we had a tower of stones 6 or 8 high. The heat from the stones cooked the necci as they sat close to, but not above, the fire (I’ve posted a short video of the process on Instagram two_parts_italy). It didn’t take long for the necci to be ready – but between our chatting, sipping prosecco, and having a wonderful lunch, I admit I lost track of the exact timing.

The necci became our after-lunch treat. As we pulled the stacks of stone apart, the chestnut leaves left their imprint on each neccio – making them look as beautiful as they smelled. Filled with the traditional filling of ricotta and a little honey, they made a perfect ending to the meal – an autumn delicacy infused with the flavors of the past.

I can’t thank Giuseppe enough for hosting us and patiently teaching us the rustic method of necci making. For me, it was the perfect combination of history, cooking, friends around the fireplace, and the start of the fall season.

Olive Press Kitchen contact info: website: theolivepresskitchen.com email: info@theolivepresskitchen.com phone/WhatsApp. +39 329 743 3364

Pasta Ortolano

Making Necci At The Olive Press Kitchen