The classic Borlotti beans soup with Mista Corta

You can call it detox food, hot meal or even comfort food, but there is nothing better than pasta soups in winter and for me Pasta & Fagioli is just the most traditional italian soup you can cook: easy, with just few simple genuine ingredients and really delicious.

This is part of our reach gastronomic history, and it's one of these dishes made in all the regions, from North to South. There are slightly different versions everywhere, but Pasta e Fagioli it's really a national dish, thanks also to the cheap nature of the ingredients and the high energy provided.

This is the way I made it following the advices and secrets of the master Giuseppe Di Martino and few other voices, (my mum included). I discovered for example that you can have a light version, a middle reach and a very reach one, of course my favorite and for me the most traditional.

Here the ingredients for 4 people:

400 gr dry Borlotti beans

250 gr Pasta Mista Corta from Gragnano, Pastificio dei Campi.

a bit of celery, chili, some garlic cloves finely chopped

olive oil, salt, pepper,

140 gr of pancetta

a sprinkle of parsley

The first thing to do it's to soak the beans overnight or for 12 hours at least. Then change the water and hot up in a pan some olive oil. Cut finely the celery, the chili and some garlic cloves (this is called "trito" in Italy), place them in the pan and let them fry (we call this "soffritto" instead). Once this is ready, add the pancetta cut in cubes or little pieces and then the Borlotti beans.

Add enough water to make them boil and stir from time to time. They will need around one hour, one hour and half. Add water when you see they need more to cook and at the end adjust the taste with some other salt if needed. When they will be almost ready, take the beans out and mash half of them.

In the meantime, in the same water, cook the pasta Mista Corta, that translated means "short mix". This pasta is in fact a combination of different little shapes and the tradition said this comes from the families' need to use the left-overs of the other pasta shapes. By the way the Mista Corta is just perfect for this recipe.

Here is the most important step of all the recipe:  when the pasta cooks in the same water where the beans have been cooked, the starch will be released and it will mix with the rest of the ingredients creating the characteristic thick and tasty soup.

When the pasta is almost ready, bring back the beans, stir and let everything cook for some minutes more. If the soup is too thick, add some more water and stir. Serve it hot with the sparkle of parsley and just a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. This will amplify the beans and pancetta taste in the soup, much more than some flakes of Parmesan. Trust me!

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It's resolution time again but I have some good news for you!

Welcome to 2011! Are you having a great start or are you still carrying around "left overs" from 2010?

I personally started off the New Year quite well with the classic concert on TV ( it's a tradition  in my Italian family) and a great lunch with friends. But the real big news is my new Facebook profile! I have created it during the past days and I have already a good number of friends following me and ready to give their suggestions and opinions on the Italian food and the ways to cook it!

My Facebook profile in fact will be a place where you can ask questions and leave your opinions. But also where to look for recipes and see the latest culinary news from Italy and UK. It will be a medium  to gather people and experts of food, all in one place. The new Facebook profile will give you the opportunity to learn more about Italian cuisine, pasta dishes and more also about the Pasta from Gragnano, Pastificio dei Campi.

If you are interested, just look for Linguina Dei Campi on Facebook and add me as a friend.

Let's say that this is also my resolution for this year: if with the blog and Twitter I had the chance to speak with lots of food lovers in England, with Facebook I will be even nearer the people who like food, pasta and the Italian gastronomy, especially those without  a blog or a twitter account. With Facebook I can be your little Italian friend always available among contacts and on your wall, so if you have any question or cooking doubt, please just give me a shout.

I generally hate all "new years resolutions" about diets and changes of life, that normally comes to an end after just a month or so (even less for the weaker ones of us). Don't think about this year as a time of starving nor like a mountain to high to climb: instead why not trying  to learn how to eat well and healthy using good products and with few "easy steps"?

Follow me and you will get some great ideas that will help you succeed and maintain your New Years resolutions. Actually, let's start with the first one: how does Pasta Soup sound to you? In this cold time of the year and after all the food eaten in Christmas, I think you will find these dishes really helpful.

I will start this week giving you some absolutely irresistible traditional recipes. These will fill you, keep you hot, healthy and happy!

What do you think? are you interested in this? See you soon then,  here, on twitter and now on Facebook too!

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A quick and easy recipe to start 2011 in the best way

This is the moment of the year when everyone it's fed up to  cook for a big number of people. After all the festivities and the good food served, it's hard to think about the menu' for New Year's Eve.

Everyone would like just to enjoy the party with their friends and family, have fun and cheers to the 2011. So this is what we normally cook in Italy for parties, when you have a good number of people to feed, adult and children too, but you don't want to spend time in the kitchen: Pasta al forno (in the oven).

I'm sure you have cooked it before, maybe with some pasta leftovers or just to prepare some quick and delicious meal for children. This time instead I will give you the classic recipe of the pasta al forno made with béchamel and tomato sauce. Do you know how to prepare "besciamella"? Have you ever try it? It's quick, easy and far better than the ready made!

For the pasta I have chosen this time the Fusilli corti con il buco (short fusilli with the hole) because they can catch the sauce in a fantastic way, creating this amazing full structure, that when biten it's just heaven.

It's instead traditional in Gragnano to use "pasta rigata" for the oven recipes , this more or less for the same reason: in the oven in fact the pasta cooks with the sauce and the starch coming out from the stripes help to bind everything. Anyway you are free to use any shape of pasta you like.

Here the recipe for 4 people:

350gr Fusilli corti con il buco Pastificio dei Campi

1  mozzarella (and for a special twist use some Mozzarella di Bufala Campana PDO)

50 gr Parmesan

500-600 gr  Passata (if you want to make it special just add Ragu' bolognese instead of Passata)

Onion, celery, 1 carrot, salt , pepper

For the béchamel:

50gr flour,

50gr butter,

500ml milk

Salt and a pinch of nutmeg

Clean and finely cut the celery, onion and the carrot. Put them in a sauce pan with some olive oil. Let it cook a bit and when the onion get transparent add the passata and some salt. Put the water for the pasta on the fire, add some salt  and wait for it to boil.

In the meantime put some butter in a pan on a low fire and while this is melting, add some flour little by little. As soon as the first clots will start to appear, add the milk and mix until creating a cream. Add the other flour and the other milk until the end of the ingredients, and let it cook always stirring to eliminate all the clots. Don't forget to add some salt and nutmeg because they will give an amazing taste to the béchamel.

When the water is boiling, it's time to put the pasta. For this dish i normally mix béchamel with the tomato sauce so all the pasta take some of the béchamel, but if you want you can leave them a part and create layers after. When the pasta is ready, some minute before the final time, when is still a little bit hard,  toss it in the tomato sauce. Then cover a baking pan with some butter and place in it a first layer of tomato pasta, then the béchamel, some pieces of mozzarella and Parmesan. Then  a second layer of pasta and all the rest until the end of the pasta. On the top layer put just the béchamel, lots of Parmesan and some little pieces of butter.

When your guests arrive place it in the oven for 1o-15 minutes just the time to finish to cook the pasta , to melt the mozzarella and to create a delicious crust on top.

From Pastificio dei Campi we wish a wonderful 2011 to everyone!

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From the Christmas eve dinner party, pasta and traditions

As i told you in the previous post, this year i was ready to prepare the Christmas dinner in a very traditional way, cooking just fish but also trying to present to my guests a dish that could be a bit original. I thought could have been nice to put together products from Italy and UK, so i choose to use the Wild Smoked Scottish Salmon from Forman & Son.

This is in fact a 100 year old family business supplying smoked salmon, caviar and other smoked and fresh fish to the world's leading hotels and finest restaurants in UK and from 2002 is also online on Forman & Field, fine food mail order company specializing in fresh, traditional British produce from small, independent producers. 

This was just a part of my special treat for my guest on Christmas. They still didn't know Pastificio dei Campi, the pasta that was going to be used to create the main protagonist of the Christmas eve dinner: Spaghetti with Wild Smoked Salmon and cream of courgettes.

Here the ingredients for 6 people:

600 gr Spaghetti Pastificio Dei Campi

200 gr of Smoked salmon

4 courgettes of a medium size

1 fennel

4 spoons of  pine nuts

4 spoons of Mascarpone or single cream

some garlic cloves,

salt, pepper, some fennel seeds

a glass of white wine

Cut the courgettes and the fennel in little cubes, then place them in a pan with some olive oil and chopped garlic cloves. Let it cook for around 10 minutes adding some salt and pepper and then pour the glass of white wine. When evaporated, turn a bit down the fire and cover the pan.

Now in a big sauce pan prepare the water for the pasta, add some salt and when it starts to boil, add the spaghetti. Let them cook and in the meantime blend the vegetable with the pine nuts until creamy. Now put everything again in the pan you used before with also the mascarpone or single cream and the smoked salmon in strips.

When the pasta it's "al dente" drain it and toss it in the pan with the salmon and the cream. I added here some whole pine nuts too and I serve it hot with a sprinkle of fennel seeds. If too dry, you can even add a bit of olive oil but not Parmesan. We don't normally use it with the fish and you could risk to cover some flavors.

This dish it's perfect for Christmas, but it's also a quick and easy recipe to cook any day of the week, being a very complete main course. I hope you will try it!

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Some original ideas from the Pasta World for your Christmas.

Just few days are separating us from Christmas, so it's time to put together all our energy to buy the latest presents and prepare the house for our guests. This will be the focus of my next posts.

Let's start directly with the first idea: the Christmas pasta tree. A new way to decor your tree and your house for the festivity, using some natural and easy material like pasta... ok it's not exactly something that I suggest everyone to do, but it's just something that come up in my mind observing the pasta from Pastificio dei Campi: it's not just great to eat but it's really beautiful! A pleasure for the mouth and for the eyes :) Just have a look a this "Santa Pacchero!"

Let's speak now about something a bit more interesting and serious like the gift list: are you sure you have bought all the presents you needed? Have you already wrote all your desires to Santa or are you still putting down the latest ideas? Here few more suggestions all absolutely "pasta related".

Do you often cook the same shape of pasta, or you try to combine the right pasta shape  with  sauces? Do you need help and some more learning about this? here is the book for you (and for me, considering is at the top of my personal wishes list).

“The geometry of pasta” by Caz Hildebrand e Jacob Kenedy. " The perfect shape + the perfect sauce = The perfect Pasta!" Problem solved. Kenedy is the chef and owner of the restaurant Bocca di Lupo in London, while Hildebrand is a designer. By their union has born this elegant, simple, but extremely beautiful and interesting book to learn how to team up sauces with pasta shapes. Really unique in its genre, this book it's really something useful even for an italian like me, who can always miss some perfect combination. Is better penne or eliche with arrabbiata sauce? Spaghetti or bucatini for carbonara? etc.

Then for the ones in troubles with the long pasta, like linguine, spaghetti or bucatini, instead of the classic spoon to help you with, why don't try this technological fork? I have to admit I found it a bit weird, but maybe could be a real solution. Do you have a friend always in trouble when eating pasta? Or you simply don't want to splash sauce and pasta everywhere  anymore? Another problem is solved with Hog Wild’s Twirling Spaghetti Fork

Finally if you simply want to give a nice pasta hamper for Christmas, Pasta di Gragnano PGI from Pastificio dei Campi, is here to help, offering you one of the most high quality products on the market.... and look at the packaging. It seems to be made to be a gift!

You can buy this directly here in the shopping section of the website, or on Food in the city site, or you can even purchase them in all the Harvey Nichols shops around England. Finally you can even try to win an hamper on the blog Eat like a girl, but run because you won't have so much time left.

I hope this guide will help you with your latest presents, or simply letting you know a bit more about the pasta world!

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Converting people to the real italian pasta taste!

On Saturday and Sunday I was protagonist of a really interesting tasting session in Harvey Nichols in London. This is the main chain where you can find our products in the UK and we decided to offer to all the visitors in London a little bite of our pasta.

We started our session around 12 o'clock both the days and I have to admit it was all really well organized, the staff nice and the customers happy and interested in the black and red brand.

We placed a little table exposing our products and me, Linguina in person, cooked pasta for everyone. Just simple tomato sauce and Parmesan, but thanks to the good quality of the pasta, it was everything very good and even easy to maintain "al dente".

Everyone could try the Eliche, Lumache and even Calamarata, and all of the visitors discovered the real difference between this pasta and the one they are used to! I was keep on saying that one bite could tell them much more than 2000 words, because until you don't try it, you can't really believe in the difference.

This pasta is naturally tasty, consistent and special, because made by 100% pure italian Durum wheat. It's slow dried, thing that maintains the pasta tasty and reach with the 14% of proteins, while the bronze dye make it rough on top and able to absorb the sauce in a unique way.

I'm not just here to impress you all being particularly auto - celebratory. I'm saying this because I saw it on the face of the people when they were trying the pasta. It's all true and you can taste it!

So next time don't loose this occasion and come to taste it you too! You will be surprised!

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A recipe to celebrate the local producers and the good food.

Today it's for the second time Terra Madre Day, a celebration of food diversity and the right to good, clean and fair food, organized by Slow Food. Last year  more than 1,000 events took place across 120 countries. Lots of different events have been organized this year too and you can find all of them here.

Following the invite by Carlo Petrini, Slow food International President, to highlight today the importance of eating locally, I thought could have been nice to create a recipe with english and italian ingredients made by local, traditional and very careful producers.

It so happens that i have been finally to Taste of Christmas the past weekend and between stands of wines, fudges, bread and cheeses, I found also the english cheese winner of the title of World Champion Cheese 2010: the Cornish Blue, a handmade ArtisanFarmhouse Cheese from Cornwall, right case of english local producer.

I couldn't miss the occasion to buy it and considering the taste, similar to Gorgonzola but much less strong (I'm simplifying just to let all of you understand), I though to put it together with walnuts, a classic seasonal ingredients!

Then Pasta di Gragnano PGI from Pastificio dei Campi with its old history and traditional and careful way to produce the pasta, from the  bronze extraction to the drying process, it's a perfect representative of a local south italian producer.

So here is my "locally sourced" recipe!

Ingredients for 3 people:

300 gr Mezzi Occhi di Lupo from Pastificio dei Campi

120 gr of cheese gorgonzola

60 gr  walnuts

40gr butter

Finely chopped parsley, salt and pepper.

The preparation is not very long so i suggest you to put some  water on the fire as soon as you start. Then add some salt and the pasta when it's boiling. Meanwhile in a saucepan melt the butter then add the chopped cheese and let melt it too over low heat, stir well together until the mixture is as smooth and creamy as possible.

Then take the walnuts and chop them finely,  the more the better. Add them to the pan and stir well, to mix all together. If the cheese tends to stick to the pan just add some water from the pasta.

When this is ready and "al dente", drain it  and pour into the pan with the sauce and toss it. I serve it without Parmesan to don't miss the Cornish blue's taste, but with some chopped parsley.

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