Tuscany recipes | PlanningaTour.com

Balsamic vinegar

Dark, glossy, sweetly sour, balsamic vinegar is the perfect condiment for both salads and desserts. Here’s how to choose a great one.

It costs more than many wines. It fills the rooms of a museum. It even inspired one of Italy’s greatest designers, Giugiaro, to create a bottle out of Murano glass. It’s hard to believe that aceto balsamico is a humble byproduct of grape must.
But then many elements conspire to make this vinegar special. Its history for starters—the very first grape must vinegars were made in the area in Roman times, although the qualifier ‘balsamic’ was only appended to the condiment in the 18th century.

Then its production method—must from Trebbiano, Lambrusco or Ancellotta grapes is cooked, then fermented and aged in progressively smaller casks made of chestnut, mulberry, oak, juniper, ash and other woods, for at least 12 years. And most of all, its taste—thick, viscous and glossy dark, it teases the mouth with a round, velvety texture and a complex flavour that has notes of must and of the many woods the vinegar aged in. And, unlike any other vinegar, the balsamico’s perfect balance of sweet and sour ensures it is just as good on salads, meats and parmesan as on strawberries, zabaione or custard.

However, not every aceto balsamico is the traditional, mouth-watering deal. Only balsamic vinegar made in the Reggio Emilia and Modena provinces, following the strict rules laid out by two local consortia—which include mandatory tastings of each vinegar before it is released to the public—can be called aceto balsamico tradizionale.

The traditional variety tastes much better than plain aceto balsamico di Modena (which is usually a blend of must and wine vinegar, sometimes with added caramel, and doesn’t require ageing in casks), and is a world apart from the cheaper, so-called ‘balsamic’ vinegars, which are just normal wine vinegar with caramel and thickeners.
Traditional balsamic vinegar are usually made by passionate small producers, like Modena’s Ermes Torricelli, who runs a garage by trade and makes vinegar for fun, and are covered by a European Protected Denomination of Origin, as well as its Italian equivalent, the DOP.

The label is not only a useful tool to help consumers distinguish the small-scale, cask-aged artisanal product from cheaper industrial versions, but also a recognition of the part the vinegar plays in the local culture—events such as weddings or births are often celebrated by acquiring new casks to use in the production process, or bequeathing old ones to grown-up sons and daughters.
So if you are after the richest, most complex balsamic vinegar flavours, look for an aceto balsamico tradizionale DOP. Then look carefully at the bottle to find out how long the vinegar is aged for and what flavour you can expect from it.

Among the Reggio Emilia vinegars, choose the lobster-orange label for those aged at least 12 years, which have a clear vinegary note (great on meat and fish carpaccio); the silver label for those aged at least 18 years, which have an intensely sweet and sour taste (perfect on grilled fillet); or the gold one, for those aged at least 25 years, which have the richest flavour (try them on strong cheese, ice cream, custard, chocolate desserts or even drink them on their own at the end of a meal). Among the Modena ones, those with the white cap are aged for at least 12 years, whereas those with the gold cap are aged at least 25 years.

But if you want to savour only the very best, choose those tradizionali that topped the rankings at the Palio di San Giovanni, the annual competition for artisanal balsamic vinegars that takes place in Spilamberto, a village near Modena, which is home to the balsamic vinegar museum.

Every year, tasting masters sample more than a thousand balsamic vinegars over the course of two months to select the twelve best, which are awarded a prize. Here are the winners of last year’s edition, but beware—like all artisanal products that take time and effort to make, these vinegars don’t come cheap. Expect prices in the region of €40-€100 for 100ml bottles.

Leslie Halloran
Please check out my website at: www.lihdesigns.net

“A frog in the well does not know the sea.” – Japanese Proverb

Tuscan recipes

Tuscan recipes: Zuppa Toscana

ZUPPA TOSCANA (NORTHERN TUSCANY)
This recipe was contributed by Michele Molinari, whose great-grandmother was from southern Reggio Emilia on the border with Northern Tuscany. She used to call it Zuppa Toscana because she said that was the way it was prepared in Tuscany; Michele has no precise details as to where it originated for sure.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup millet
1 cup borlotti beans
2 cups chickpeas
2 cups lentils
2 cups farro
water
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 white onion, sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
5 sage leaves
10 plum tomatoes, chopped
2 bay leafs
1 cup green peas
salt and pepper
Soak the millet, borlotti beans, chickpeas, lentils and farro in water overnight, changing the water 2 or 3 times if possible. Rinse and drain.
Place them in a pot, cover with water, and bring to boil. Then simmer for about 2 hours, covered. Add salt towards the end of the cooking time.
Meanwhile, heat 1 cup extra virgin olive oil in a saucepan, add onion, garlic, celery, carrots and sage. Fry for a few minutes over a medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon. When the onion and the garlic begin to darken, add the tomatoes. Simmer until the excess water from the tomatoes evaporates. Turn off and wait for legumes to be ready.
When legumes are cooked, take about 2 cups of the legumes and purée in a food processor or food mill. Return the purée to the pot.
Add the bay leaves, green peas and the olive oil mixture, simmer for 1 hour semi-covered. Add boiling water if needed to reach the preferred thickness.
For a perfect taste, serve the following day after preparing the soup. Serve hot with a swirl of extra virgin olive oil, ground pepper, and a couple slices of slightly toasted bread.

Buon appetito!

Leslie Halloran
Please check out my website at: www.lihdesigns.net

“A frog in the well does not know the sea.”- Japanese Proverb

Truffles

The Tuscany truffle area around San Miniato in Pisa province

Every autumn hundreds of truffle lovers congregate in the ancient main squares of the towns to sample, judge and evaluate the many varieties of this so desired and costly fungus or tuber about which the great Brillant Savarin once said that it could ‘make a woman more tender and a man more loveable’.

In San Miniato in Pisa province, in woods on low hills armies of expert hunters, aided by their faithful pig or pup, literally dig up first-class specimens of both the white and black varieties. In those autumn days of gourmet festivals the truffle is king of the kitchen and its unforgettable aromas never cease to amaze and spell-bind.

What is the truffle ?

Truffles grow only on or near the roots of trees, mainly limes, poplars and weeping willows and especially oaks, at depths up to thirty centimetres (twelve inches). They are hunted with the aid of keen-nosed pigs or talented dogs, but since porcine predilections for the precious lumps are even more enthusiastic than mankind’s, determined digging sprees for the prize are usually won by the pig. It is therefore prudent to train up a dog, by nature indifferent to truffle charms. Commercial cultivation is impracticable – rare and special soils are needed in addition to the right tree roots, and the creation of fecund conditions requires much costly, expert and laborious care for eight or ten years before, if ever, any useful specimens appear (often none ever do).

Truffles are so rare in North American that few people have ever heard of them, let alone hunted any. Apparently truffles live in symbiosis with the tree, absorbing water and mineral salts from the soil through the tree roots. Colour, texture, aroma and flavour seem to be determined by the symbiosis. Oak-borne truffles have a more penetrating, pungent aroma compared with those growing near lime trees, whose perfume is powerful but gentler, sweeter. It should be remembered that truffles have very little flavour by themselves – their preciousness derives from their unique ability to impart a wonderfully delicious, almost magical flavour to accompanying or ancillary foods on which they are placed or with which they are mixed.

The use

The very best sorts should be cut into paper-thin slices for covering the food they are to garnish – meats, pastasciutta, vegetables. Lesser qualities are excellent for cutting into little pieces and browning them in oil with a little garlic and thyme, this condiment to be applied quickly and directly to the main dish on the plate or they may be ground into sauces for innumerable uses.

Web-site: www.comune.san-miniato.pi.it