Italians have always eaten a special meal for luck on New Year’s Day. Lentils – coin shaped – are said to ensure financial security in the New Year. In the North, particularly the region of Emilia-Romagna, lentils are traditionally served with delicately spiced cotechino* sausage. Make this recipe with less liquid to accompany cotechino.
This very easy soup is a staple in southern Italy. Relatively low in calories and very low in fat, it’s a perfect example of the healthful–and tasty–Mediterranean Diet. The soup should be highly flavored with herbs and a touch of crushed, red hot peppers.
This recipe literally means “cooked bread” but is best described as bread soup. It’s the most commonly made peasant soup, which starts with a base of rustic country bread (not sliced loaf or sandwich bread, which would make it gluey and unpleasant), and a combination of local ingredients. In Italy the cook would use bread that has become firm and dry,…
Two elements in particular are basic to the cooking from the region of Val D’Aosta: bread, the basis of the peasant diet, and the stock pot always simmering on the back of the stove. Zuppa alla Valpellinentze begins with a brodo, but by the time the soup is done the brodo has practically disappeared and the soup has turned into a thick hearty bread porridge and the word soup seems hardly appropriate….
Minestrone does not really need a recipe. Farmhouse cooks use whatever vegetables are available to create supper for the family. Cook the vegetables until soft, add a filler such as beans, rice and/or pasta and finish with a final seasoning of olive oil, cheese or herbs.
THE VEGETABLES: start with the soffrito (sauté) of finely chopped carrots,…