I spent last Christmas in and around Lombardy. And while it’s not a region as famed for its food as other parts of Italy, it’s certainly no culinary slouch. After all, it’s the home of taleggio! But what you should truly be on the lookout for is the mushrooms, picked in the mountains and paired with a plate of creamy polenta enriched with salted butter, bay and nutmeg.
If you’re after a sweet, sticky and generously glazed cinnamon bun, you’ve come to the wrong place. Instead, these let the quality of the enriched bread and already sweet cinnamon filling do the talking. To my mind, that makes these more akin to the famous Swedish kanelbullar than what you might consider a cinnamon bun to be.
Minestrone is all about the seasons. My initial intention had been to describe this as an “Autumn Minestrone” – unbeknownst to me, and somewhat embarrassingly, I’ve already written that recipe. So, what you have before you is to be referred to as a recipe for Kale and White Bean Minestrone. It is to be made between the months of September and November.
Discard half your sourdough mother and feed. Baking sourdough bread is, by the definition of many, wasteful. All too often, little thought is given to that unwanted blob of starter. But if you’re not planning to bake with it, a batch of these Einkorn Sourdough Pancakes is about as good as it gets.
Food is at the very heart of San Sebastian, and nowhere is that more evident than in its Old Town. Littered with tiny Basque restaurants, it’s one of the very best places to enjoy the region’s famous pintxos washed down with a glass of extravagantly poured txakoli.