At home Suardi kitchen and stove have always been the happy kingdom of mom Palmi, which since I was a child has made me and my brother love vegetables, yes even green ones like spinach, and without having to call for help and arm wrestling and his friends. It was enough for me to see her on the marble surface to chop and mix to make me feel very hungry, it was she who stimulated my curiosity in the kitchen and who taught me to taste before turning up my nose. She is the one I call when the messy doubts block me in the kitchen, and it is with her that I have prepared many imprecise misdeeds, more good than beautiful, as the rule requires.

The recipe for Mum Palmi's misdeeds

There are many versions, each family has its own recipe, those who use spinach and those who prefer herbs or chicory, someone season them with butter and sage and others with tomato sauce. You can prepare tapered or slightly rounded, each has its own hand, the important thing is that they are homegrown, homemade.

Ingredients for 6 people

1 kg frozen spinach
300 g ricotta
250 g white flour
150 g butter
120 g Parmesan cheese
3 eggs
nutmeg
Sage
Salt and pepper

Method

Boil the spinach, drain and cut them on a cutting board. Let them cool and transfer them to a large bowl with the ricotta, mix well and then add the eggs, flour, parmesan, salt, pepper and a grated nutmeg. Mix all the ingredients so that they are well blended and the dough has no lumps. With a spoon, make some balls to quickly go over again in the flour and to coarsely roll with the palm of the hands. Dip them in boiling salted water, when they come to the surface they are ready, then drain them with a slotted spoon and season with melted butter flavored with sage and a generous sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.

The misdeeds of Carpenedolo

THE badly made they are a first course of the Lombard tradition and more precisely of the Brescia cuisine, we are in Carpenedolo, a municipality in the lower eastern Brescia area, on the left bank of the Chiese river. Here in 2014 the Carpenedolo malfatto received the De.Co certification, or municipal denomination.

The story goes that to deal with food shortages which often affected the inhabitants of the area, field herbs and raw materials collected in the countryside they turned into delicious dishes, with the addition of poor ingredients available to everyone, such as stale bread, eggs and cheese. The composition of the malfact could therefore vary according to the season, wild chicory, chard, dandelion or dandelion. To date it is not easy to find an official recipe, it is a dish of the home kitchen handed down from generation to generation, and to clarify we rely on the recipe deposited and certified De.Co of the malfatto di Carpenedolo, in the Brescia dialect "malfàcc de Carpenédol". To be considered as such, Carpenedolo's malfact must have an oblong, although irregular, shape, in fact, every malfact will be different from the other, because they are made by hand and not with the stencil.

Ingredients

500 g herbs
500 g spinach or dandelion or field chicory
350 g grated cheese
200 g butter
3 eggs
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
Flour and breadcrumbs to taste
Amaretti biscuits
Salt and pepper
nutmeg
Sage – bay leaf

Method

Wash and boil the spinach and wild herbs in boiling salted water, drain and if necessary squeeze them carefully to remove excess water. Chop the herbs, add the eggs, the bread and the grated cheese, salt, penis, nutmeg and chopped amaretti. Let the dough rest and prepare a floured pastry board, then divide the mixture into smaller parts and as you would for the gnocchi, create small loaves with the palm of your hands, to be cut into small pieces the size of an inch. Dip them in boiling salted water and when they come to the surface they are ready, then drain them with a slotted spoon and season with browned butter and sage and a sprinkling of grated cheese.

If desired, they can also be fried and in this case they are served as an appetizer, the choice is yours.