a recipe of poor cuisine that we like so much – Italian Cuisine

According to tradition it is made only with bread and water. Let's see how to prepare it and discover its variants traveling from north to south Italy

Searching for the word "pancotto" online you will come across many different recipes.
There are those who say that it is a southern dish, those who attribute maternity to northern Italy.
What is known for sure is that this is one poor recipe which traditionally was prepared with two ingredients: stale bread and water.
But do we want to lose all its variants?
We will tell you in this article.

recipe-pancotto

The bread

Bread is the most important ingredient: it must be stale. This dish is born, in fact, from the need to recycle dry bread and it would not make sense to prepare it with fresh bread, also because it would change taste and consistency.
In some recipes they will advise you of toast the bread in the oven then soften it in water or broth, but we like the classic version with stale bread.
That type of bread use? There is no difference since, precisely, the goal is not to throw away anything.
But avoid cereal bread, wholemeal bread and everything that is pizza or focaccia because there must not be too many flavors and seasonings.

Oil and salt

In addition to water, the other two ingredients that can be added are oil and salt, although the traditional recipe lacked because the bread is already salty (at least in northern Italy) and theextra virgin olive oil was a privilege of a few.

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Pancotto recipe

To prepare the pancotto, cut the stale bread into pieces and wet it with water until it is covered.
Cook everything over medium-low heat until the bread has become a cream.
Blend it if necessary, but if the cooking has been long and slow there will be no need.
Add salt to this point if the bread was not salty and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
Grated cheese was not included in the poor recipe, but we advise you to treat yourself to this luxury!

The variants

Tomato soup

In the pappa al pomodoro recipe the bread is softened with the broth and then with the tomato, finally flavored with raw oil and lots of basil. Someone also likes to add grated cheese. In this case, use Tuscan bread and fresh blanched tomato, cut into large pieces and passed through a vegetable mill.

Pangalluccio

The Abruzzese recipe is prepared without tomato, but with the addition of a clove of garlic, chilli and rosemary.
First let the diced bread fry with garlic and oil and then add water to soften everything.
Finally, season with chilli, salt and pepper.

Pancotto Pugliese

This is the richest variant because in addition to the bread in this recipe there are the vegetables.
You can add catalogna and chicory, but also potatoes, broad beans and broccoli according to some local traditions.

Pancotto with beans

This is a complete dish from the nutritional point of view because it contains a protein part thanks to legumes.
You can use borlotti beans, but if you prefer a more delicate taste also cannellini beans.
It is prepared starting from a sauté of celery, carrots and onions, adding the boiled beans and then the diced bread.
Finally, wet everything with the vegetable broth and cook. The bread must not become creamy, but remain fairly consistent.

Ribollita

An even richer version of the previous one is the classic ribollita which as a base always has stale bread, but which is enriched with many ingredients such as beans and black cabbage.
A complete soup in short, perfect on cold winter evenings.

Boiled egg and 5 other simple dishes that are always wrong – Italian Cuisine

It's a classic: the simpler a thing is, the easier it is to underestimate it. There are dishes that seem devoid of any possible catch. An example? See them in the oven: whisk in the pan, turn on the gas and ready! But no, there are 7 errors lurking … And what about tomato sauce? Six key passages must be respected … Easy, yes, but not discounted.

Here are six more dishes very good, fast and very accessible that can be a real specialty like a complete failure. And indeed, normally they are the litmus paper to understand if one (or one) in the kitchen really guesses.

The first rule is that of quality of the ingredients that, precisely because they are few and precisely because the workforce is limited, they become the real protagonists.

Garlic, oil and hot pepper
They are the dish of the improvised dinners par excellence and in this must of midnight spaghetti with friends there are basically two possible pitfalls: burning garlic and not getting the right humidity. Garlic should be put 'in shirt', ie the clove with the skin crushed at the bottom of the pan. Chili pepper, if dry, it is better to add it later. Humidity means that the spaghetti does not result too drowned in oil nor too dry. There hotness instead it is subjective and there is no rule. Finally, even if it seems superfluous to specify it, the spaghetti must be al dente, rigorously, even more than in other sauces or situations. Extra: you can enrich the spaghetti with col toasted breadcrumbs, which will give them an exquisite crunchy texture. In any case, it is highly recommendable scuffing spaghetti in the pan where the garlic has been passed with oil and chilli, so that they are well seasoned.

The boiled egg
It has the reputation of being the simplest recipe in the world: it is that of the boiled egg. And yet how many times you have happened to ruin it: olive yolk, crushing of the aforementioned, impossibility of peeling the egg or even too raw egg. In the meantime, freshness is essential and to verify it, simply immerse the egg in a basin filled with cold water: if it goes to the bottom lying down horizontally it is cool, if it is positioned vertically and part of the tip floats it means that it has so muchinner tubeand therefore it is less fresh. Finally, if it floats on the surface of the water it is certainly dated and it is better to avoid it. At this point, after filling the pan with plenty of water, a trick is to add a tablespoon of vinegar, which serves to ensure that the shell does not break with simmering. If you like, you can also add a pinch of salt. The egg must be immersed in cold water (there are also those who immerse it directly in boiling water, but this is not what we recommend), making sure it is completely covered by water. Remove it after 8-10 minutes from the moment of boiling (if it cooks 3 minutes it is the cocque, if it cooks 6 minutes it is barzotto). Attention: do not exceed the scheduled time! If cooking or immersion in boiling water proceeds indefinitely, the yolk turns green and is more difficult to peel. By the way: how to skin it without going crazy or ruining and taking away the outer part of the album? Tap the shell and then leave it to soak in the cold beautiful water, so that the water penetrates and the film is then easy to detach. And anyway remember: the fresher the egg, the harder it is to peel!

Fried egg
It all starts by doing melt a knob of butter (which is not all the same!) in a small non-stick pan, preferably in stone. When the butter becomes liquid, immediately break the egg, trying to move the yolk to the center as much as possible with the help of a spatula. The correct cooking must observe this protocol: it must be crunchy underneath, but not burnt, while the yolk must remain soft so as not to lose its taste and nutritional properties. To guarantee the result, you can do this: keep the red aside and add it to the pan only after the white is almost completely fried. Better a sprinkling of salt only on red and as soon as you remove from the pan even a handful of Parmesan can stand it. If instead times in red a little more compact and white super-well cooked, you can turn and quickly turn the fried egg with a spatula in the pan.

The cutlet
Small, large, available in a thousand variations: the cutlet is a must in the imagination of many adults and almost all children. The birthright belongs to the Milanese cuisine, even if the Austrians consider it a variant of their Wiener Schnitzel. The preparation provides for cream the eggs in a large bowl with a little salt added. Optional add grated cheese and a pinch of pepper. Beat the slices lightly and immediately pass them in the cream of eggs and then in the breadcrumbs that must be very fine (there are also those, first and foremost, le infarina). At this point, two options: oil (a lot) or butter (unparalleled). The pan must be wide and very hot, the cutlets must be added a few at a time. If you have used chicken meat, the secret is to remove the just golden breasts, to prevent them from hardening, it being understood that they must be well cooked.

Pasta with fresh tomatoes
This is also a recipe that is considered easy, fast and affordable for everyone. Yes, but bear in mind that tomatoes are right blanched for 30 seconds in lightly salted water and then drain them with a slotted spoon, peel them, cut them in half, remove the seeds and cut the pulp into cubes. Excellent a touch of oregano (even dry) or basil leaves (strictly fresh) and garlic should not be dried in the pan for more than 4-5 minutes, otherwise there is the risk of it burning. The linguine, this is the ideal pasta, should be strictly drained al dente and pour into the pan where there are garlic and tomatoes for at least a minute. Note: this sauce, especially if the tomatoes are organic or really genuine, is delicious even when we prepare it completely raw, with the whole chopped tomatoes quickly along with the other ingredients.

Beef steak
This is the last classic of good and easy dishes but it can be full of pitfalls and it is not so unusual to fall right on a steak. First of all it is fundamental to choose the right cut, the origin and ideal maturation, on which tenderness and taste obviously depend. Color red meat is important: it must be intense and the presence of clear and compact fat is a sign of quality. The smell is another important clue and the first mistake to avoid is to salt the meat when it is still raw, because the salt risks to make our steak dry, hard and stringy. Furthermore, it is fundamental that it be a room temperature before cooking, because if it is cold in the fridge – especially if it is thick – it will remain hot on the outside and cold inside. As a pot, the grill, the griddle or the grill are fine, the important thing is that they are hot and possibly of iron or cast iron. There cooking does not occur half on one side and half on the other. The steak is cooked well on one side and when the edges are already well roasted it turns: the residence time on the B side will be less. Finally, it is good not to eat the freshly cooked steak, but wait just as long as the juices can be redistributed between the fibers.

Emanuela Di Pasqua,
April 2017
updated by Carola Traverso Saibante
October 2019

photo credits: Wikipedia

DISCOVER THE COOKING COURSES OF SALT & PEPE

Downton Abbey: secrets in the kitchen – Italian Cuisine

Tricks, secrets, tricks in the kitchen of Downton Abbey and behind the scenes of the beloved TV series. Today it has also become a movie

Believe that the protagonists of the kitchens of Downton Abbey would have become very expert in preparing the richest and most appetizing dishes in the world would be a lie. The series, winner of numerous awards, had the merit of telling with elegance the ties and intrigues that lurk within an Edwardian residence of the early twentieth century, with particular attention not only to aristocrats, but also to servants. It is in the common room and in the kitchens, in fact, that the plots become thicker, inebriated by the smell of the sandwiches to bake and the stuffed salmon mousses. A principle that is also honored in the film by Downton Abbey that arrives at the cinema on October 24th and that in America has been full of consents reaching the first place at the box office in its first weekend of programming. Everything is studied in such detail to give the impression that time has crystallized, especially when we see the wonderful delicacies prepared by Mrs. Patmore and Daisy, always with the apron tied and the bonnet in her hair. To reveal something more than the organizational machine of Downton Abbey in terms of food, however, the food stylist Lisa Heathcote, who in several interviews, from the "New York Times" to "Hello", opened the secret drawers of the pantry explaining that it's not all as it seems.

Secrets … in the kitchen

To indicate what will be served for lunch or dinner on the upper floors is the script signed by Julian Fellowes, creator of the series: it all starts from there. The food is prepared both at the castle of Highclere, which would be the residence of Downton, and in the studios of Ealing, where the lower floors of the castle are recreated, those occupied by the servants, so to speak. For the first three seasons of the series, the preparation of the dishes was outdoors, in a special tent called "easy-up" which had caused many problems. Like when Lady Carnarvon's dogs escaped his control by pointing the meat dish that the Heathcote was preparing, or when the cold was so stiff that the food stylist discovered, to his enormous surprise, that the sauce he was spinning had frozen. . This is why, starting with the fourth series, the food staff had the chance to work inside their own small truck. However, the fact that the actors learned little in the kitchen when shooting is a fact. "Maybe they are getting better at chopping, but also managing all kinds of food. It may be because they are not picky, "says Heathcote, amused, ready to solve even the most insurmountable problems. Like that scene that foresaw that a lobster would fall on Jimmy's silk suit arousing the ire of the costume department, not at all enthusiastic about welcoming the news. "So I glued the real food on the plate with fake prawns and parsley, just enough to fall into my lap without the stain," insists Heathcote, who adds that keeping the food so delicious and perfect at the sight despite the hours of filming and the warm lights of the set it is a challenge that he thinks he has solved in the simplest way: to restore the dishes from time to time as if they were in the restaurant.

Secrets … in the set

In this sense, it is also important to choose the right ingredients: «It is important to consider, for example, that some leaves wither with time. A good fresh watercress is fantastic, but to continue restoring it is better to use a dry one , specifies the food stylist reassuring that not everything you see at Downton Abbey it is edible. Aspics and jellies much more solid than they should be in reality allow, in fact, to resist as long as possible at the time of shooting, guaranteeing a particularly attractive appearance. The same goes for the salmon mousse which is mentioned several times during the fourth season of the series but which, in reality, is made with chicken because «otherwise the fish would have been smelly and unpleasant after a while. Despite these precautions, the typical menu of an evening at Downton Abbey is more or less always the same: a clear soup, a fish dish, an appetizer, a roast, a composition of cheese and fruit and a savory morsel, like prunes wrapped in bacon to make up your mouth. Beyond the breeding of pigs carried out by the Crawley family and responsible for a large part of the estate's economy, Heathcote concludes by saying that the estate, if it were active, would be completely self-sufficient. "All the vegetables, fruits, meat, dairy products and cheeses would have come from near the estate and they would have all been absolutely delicious. At the time they would all have been organic and produced directly from the soil and put on the plate. It would have been an excellent country kitchen, good healthy food, but elegantly decorated .