CHEF and blogger Paul James writes for our paper.
Now I have never been fortunate enough to have visited Italy let alone Tuscany, So this dish is basically a few of my ideas thrown together, with fingers crossed.
Tuscany is a region in central Italy.
Its capital Florence is world famous for art, architecture and the beautiful rugged Appennine mountains.
Now baring this in mind and with Tuscany known for its influence on the high culture, something which is totally lost on me I thought I would put my arty masterpiece onto a plate.
It will be fair to say this is a beautiful tasting almost rugged, as it’s landscape, type of dish.
Cavalo Nero is a type of cabbage from Tuscany – the leaves are very dark green in fact almost black, hence why it translates to ‘black cabbage’.
Cavalo Nero is very versatile and can be boiled, stir-fried, steamed or even chopped up and eaten raw in a dressing.
Now I absolutely love ‘our’ kale so this along with smoked pancetta was a lovely accompaniment to the Italian-themed cheesy biscuits.
Like I said this dish was just a play around with a few ideas I’ve got – especially as I’m looking for inspiration an upcoming competition based on Italy.
Overall I’m pleased with the taste of this dish and I hope you enjoy it too.
Visit facebook.com/recipesfrommytravels for more of Paul’s recipes and his blog.
Tuscany cheese and basil biscuits with Cavalo Nero and pancetta
Ingredients
1 cauliflower
Pinch of salt
Pinch of pepper
100g of grated mozzarella
One egg
Basil roughly chopped
100g bread flour
Cooking oil
Bunch of Cavalo Nero leaves
25g of smoked pancetta
Knob of butter
Method
- Boil after cauliflower with a teaspoon of salt in boiling water.
- Once the cauliflower is tender place into a clean bowl and gently mash.
- Add one egg and mix well.
- Then add a pinch of salt and pepper mix well again.
- Tip in the bread flour, basil and mozzarella and mix well.
- Form the cauliflower into little patties.
- Once this is done, add it to plain flour and deep fry in batches until golden.
- Drain onto some kitchen paper.
- Then while the biscuits are resting on the absorbent kitchen paper finish the dish with Cavalo Nero.
- In a frying pan add the pancetta (no oil) and cook until crispy.
- Give the Cavalo Nero a good rinse, shake dry and add to the pancetta, cover with a lid until the Cavalo Nero starts to wilt.
- Then add a knob of butter.
- Serve on a warm plate, with the cheesy biscuits.
