Get ready to feel like you are taking a tour through Tuscany without ever leaving your home.
Chef Cal Bruno from Bruno's of Brooklyn joined ABC7 and displayed some fresh recipes, straight from Tuscany.
Cantucci Biscotti
Cantucci always contains almonds, but otherwise, they're ripe for tweaking with chocolate chips, pistachios, or dried fruit. While it's a coffee add-on worldwide, in Tuscany, cantucci are often served for dipping in Vin Santo dessert wine at the end of a decadent meal.
Arguably Tuscan food's most famous export, cantucci are hard almond biscuits more widely known as biscotti. Outside of the region, they're most commonly found balanced on an espresso saucer, their sweet nuttiness a foil for the coffee's bitterness.
AKA Biscotti di Prato. Prato is the almond grove-encircled city, just north of Florence, given credit for these crunchy, twice-baked miracles. The tradition of twice-baking cookies reaches into Roman times, the process ensuring an extra-long life for sea voyages and expeditionary legions.
Ingredients:
1 3⁄4 cups raw almonds 5 large eggs
1 1/3 cups sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted & cooled
4 cups pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Method:
Preheat the oven or a toaster oven to 350°F.
Toast the almonds in the preheated oven until fragrant and lightly golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.
Beat 4 eggs with the sugar. Pour in the butter and beat until combined. Add the flour and baking powder. Mix until well combined, then stir in the almonds. Refrigerate the dough until firm, about 1 hour.
When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven again to 350°F. Line 2 jelly-roll pans or cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Transfer the dough to a work surface, and cut it into two equal portions. Shape each portion of dough into a log the length of the prepared pans. Whisk the remaining egg, and brush it lightly onto the tops and sides of the logs, cleaning the brush of excess egg so it doesn't drop down the sides.
Bake the logs of dough in the oven for 20 minutes. Allow them to cool on the pans, set on racks.
When the logs are cool, use a sharp knife to cut them at an angle into slices about 1⁄2-inch thick. Place the cookies on the pans, cut sides down, and bake at 350°F, turning once, until golden, about 25 minutes.
Serve with Vin Santo.
Crostini Toscani with Pate
In Tuscany, crostini toscani are the traditional antipasto of a celebratory feast. However, while respect for tradition remains strong in Italy, these deeply savory mouthfuls of chicken liver pâte spread over toasted bread slices have become more common outside of celebrations — they're too delicious to eat only a few times a year.
This must-have mouthful of Tuscan cuisine also has a weighty role in culinary history. When Catherine de Medici left Florence to become the Queen of France in the 16th century, her imported Florentine chefs introduced the French to these delicious morsels. This revelation, according to some sources, apparently became the inspiration for foie gras.
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 Lb chicken livers, trimmed of fat and membrane, halved
2/3 cup Port wine
4 cups Shallors, chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups 36% heavy cream
1 baguette, cut into slices 1⁄2-inch thick
Finely chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley, for garnish
Method:
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until it is soft and translucent, about 5 minutes.
Now add the chicken livers. Cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 5 minutes. Add the Pirt, season with salt and pepper, and cook until the Port is reduced by half. Stir in the butter, remove from the heat and let cool.
Preheat an oven to 375°F.
Arrange the baguette slices on a baking sheet. Brush the tops with olive oil. Toast the slices until golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool.
When the chicken livers have cooled slightly, transfer the mixture and the heavy cream to a food processor and blend until smooth.
You may need to add some chicken stock to achieve a paste-like consistency.
Top each baguette slice with a generous tablespoon of the liver mixture. Garnish with chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley.
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