10 of the best Italian pastries
Italy is literally stuffed with pastries, from biscotti to zeppole. Here I present ten of my favourites representing Italy north to south. Some are well known, others less so, but all are delicious. Enjoy!
Veneto
Bigoli in salsa: Venetian pasta (recipe)
Bigoli in salsa is the only really traditional Venetian pasta dish. Made with simple ingredients from the Venetian lagoon it’s packed with umami. Follow my instructions to Venetian heaven on a plate.
Venetian word of the day: Ciò
Ciò is one of the most famous words in Venetian. In standard Italian the word ciò is a kind of relative pronoun, meaning. But in Venetian, the meaning is very different. You hear it everywhere, and it’s often overused by zealous movie scriptwriters wanting to make their characters sound Venetian (such as in the wonderful film Pane e Tulipani where most of the Venetian heard is spoken by an actress from Turin).
Polpette biscotte al finocchio: fennel meatballs (recipe)
Italian food may be simple, but often it’s not fast: but that’s one of its charms. Good ingredients, cooked well. It’s no surprise therefore that the Slow Food movement started in Italy. Traditionally, a lot of the more time-consuming dishes would have been cooked by housewives while their husbands were out at work, …
Polpette biscotte al finocchio: fennel meatballs (recipe) Read More »
Patience rewarded!: Amo Venezia (review)
Last year, you may remember, I was in Padua searching for its most famous traditional cake whilst waiting for the rain to stop. It was almost impossible to find the pazientina but a long search led me to one of the last patisseries still making it and the only one I could find. Imagine my surprise …
Tintoretto: a new Venetian dessert (recipe)
This weekend I had some friends from out of town visiting and wanted to cook something typically Venetian. I planned to serve the mazzancolle in saor from the last post, a risotto al nero di seppia—more about that in a later post—but what about the dessert? Everyone loves tiramisù it’s true, but I am a little bored …