A traditional menu from the Oltrepò Pavese

In the first episode of our series on traditional dishes from the wine region the Oltrepò Pavese we covered the preparation of bread, which is an essential part of any lunch, lunch or dinner, dinner in Italy is. Below we present a complete menu with antipasto, primo, secondo en Dolce† Have fun (and enjoy your meal)!

Antipasto – Starter: shined

Simple dishes are often surprisingly tasty, such as well-made cake† The Oltrepò Pavese also has such a traditional starter, shined, called.

Shine are simple pancakes fried in oil for which you only need flour 00, very cold and strongly bubbling mineral water and salt.

With the flour, water and salt you make a not too thick batter that you let rest in the fridge for at least an hour. Remove the batter from the refrigerator and stir. If it has become a bit thick, add some cold mineral water.

Then heat sunflower oil in a non-stick pan. When the oil is hot, add a spoonful of the batter and let it run into a pancake by moving the pan.

When it is golden brown, turn it. The secret of the SCHITA it's in the thickness: the thinner it is, the more fragrant.

For a slightly more refined variant, you can add finely chopped onion to the batter. The shined After baking, let it dry on kitchen paper and eat it straight away, with or without sugar.

Primo - First course: pisarei e fas

Pisarei e faso is a dish that the Oltrepò shares with the neighboring province of Piacenza. The I would piss are balls of pasta made from stale bread with traditionally a tomato and borlotti bean sauce, to which Leda's nonna also added ground beef.

Ingredients of the I would piss (bread balls):

• Old, crumbled white bread
• Milk and water (boiling)
• Parmesan cheese, ground
• egg yolks
• Nutmeg and salt
• Bloem

Soak the white bread with the warm milk and boiling water (in equal amounts). The resulting dough should be well moistened.

Let it get lukewarm and then add the egg yolks, cheese, salt, nutmeg and flour until a soft dough forms that you can make small balls the size of a borlotti bean.

Press your thumb into the I would piss to create a small hole. Place them on a floured dish and sprinkle with some flour as well. Then get started with the sauce.

The ingredients for the sauce are:

• Fresh borlotti beans, or dried ones that have been put in the week the night before
• Olive oil (extra virgin)
• Tomato passata (pulp)
• Minced beef
• pancetta (belly bacon),
• Ui
• Garlic
• Bay leaf, salt

In a pan with olive oil, fry a finely chopped mixture of the pancetta, garlic, onion and bay leaf.

When the mixture is sufficiently fried, add the minced meat, fry it for a few minutes and then add the past, salt and the borlotti beans.

Let this cook until the beans and the minced meat are cooked. If the sauce gets too thick, add some hot water. In the end, the sauce should not be too thick.

Now cook the I would piss in boiling salted water. Once they float to the top, scoop them out and pour the sauce over them and sprinkle with plenty of Parmesan cheese.

Secondo – Second course: rabbit

Rabbit in the manner of Leda.

Ingredients:

• Rabbit
• Olive oil
• cooking butter
• Onions
• sage leaves
• Bouillon cube (vegetable)
• Dry white wine
• taggiasche olives (these are small olives from Liguria, see https://www.kokswereld.nl/taggiascheolijf/)
• Salt

Cut the rabbit into pieces and bake them in a covered non-stick pan without oil or butter turning the meat occasionally. This is to allow the unpalatable liquid, which rabbit meat tends to retain, to run out.

Drain this water and add to the same pan with the rabbit meat a few spoons of olive oil and a piece of butter, a few chopped onions, 5 or 6 leaves of salvia and a finely rubbed vegetable stock cube.

Let the meat fry well and then pour half a glass of dry white wine over it. Once the wine has evaporated, add two handfuls of taggiasche olives along with a cup of hot water. Bring to the boil while stirring and add salt to taste.

Desserts – Dessert: chocolate sausage

Ingredients:

• 250 grams of wheat biscuits
• 125 grams of soft butter
• 5 eggs, yolk and white separated
• 150 grams bitter cocoa
• 200 grams of sugar

Crumble the cookies. Beat the egg white.

Beat the sugar into the egg yolks and then alternately add the softened butter, the cocoa and the crumbled biscuits and the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Optionally you can add more cocoa to taste if you want a darker sausage and the same goes for the consistency which you can vary by using more or less biscuits.

Spread the dough mixture on baking paper and roll it up into a sausage shape. If you let the sausage rest in the fridge for a few days, it will become softer because the ingredients mix better.

🇮🇹Reading tip: Want to read more fun stories about life in Italy? You can find it in the three parts 'Italiaanse Status' by Stef Smulders, available at bol.com.