Group items tagged

Tuscan Tomato, Cucumber & Bread Salad

“Panzanella, little swamp, is another tomato favorite, a salad of oil, vinegar, tomatoes, basil, cucumber, minced onion, and stale bread soaked in water and squeezed dry - a true invention from necessity. Since bread must be bought every day, Tuscan cooking makes good use of leftovers.” Nothing could be easier. I used 3 small tomatoes cut up in small bites, half a cucumber also cut up into small bites, minced onion, fresh local basil, 8 slices of leftover hard baguette seasoned with salt and pepper. Like many Tuscan cooks, I added the olive oil and vinegar by eye but you should know the typical ratio is 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar. The bread was soaked in water and squeezed as dry as possible. At first I didn’t think it would taste very good but after dressing the salad and letting it sit for a while, the bread gave the salad a wonderful texture and absorbed some of the seasoning with the juices from the vegetables. It was amazing.  And it went great with a chilled bottle of Prosecco!

Choose fresh wild mushrooms porcini. Clean and cut into slices and plunge in water and lemon juice. Put mushrooms in a pot with 1 l. of boiling water, lemon juice, salt and let cook for 4 minutes. Dry on a sloping surface. Clean and peel tomatos, eliminate seeds and mix. Put mushrooms in a large pot with extra virgin olive oil, ½ cup of white wine and evaporate. Dry mushrooms. In the same pot brown garlic and onion. Add tomatos and cook to low fire since sauce has been reduced of half. Add mushrooms (with their juice) and season with salt, pepper or minced chilli pepper and minced pircely. Use sauce to season durum-wheat pasta (like spaghetti) or fresh home made pasta like tagliatelle. Ingredients for 4 people 4 wild mushrooms porcini; 8 ripe tomatos; extravirgin olive oil; garlic; onion; salt; pepper or chilli pepper; ½ cup of dry white wine; lemon juice; parsley