5 Incredibly Easy Rustic Recipes from Lake Como You Should Try Right Away
The so called “pancotto” - Image via Mangiarebuono.it
Some time ago we were given a magnificent book: it's called Se Diséva e se Mangiava Inscée (literally “They used to say and eat like that”, written and self-published by Maria Erminia Acquistapace), and it's a beautiful illustrated cookbook of Lake Como.
The extraordinary thing about this book is the nostalgic analogy with the old dusty booklets of recipes of our grandmothers: the ingredients are always very few, the procedures and preparation steps are extremely basic and straight to the point. It’s not by chance that the book opens on the first page with the photo of an old handwritten cookbook, with that elegant and romantic handwriting that only the grandmothers of the past used to have.
The opening page of book “Se diseva e se mangiava inscée” by Maria Erminia Acquistapace
In the past, women needed a lot of imagination and creativity to cook, because the ingredients were few and always the same, taken from the vegetable gardens, woods, lake and farms; and the tools in the kitchen were few (but eternal). But one thing is sure, according to who remembers those times well: all that was cooked was healthy, simple and super tasty. It was the so-called "eating well", knowing how to eat with awareness and gratitude.
That is a way of approaching the cooking art that unfortunately, as the author Acquistapace reminds us in the pages of her book, has been lost with industrialization: with the economic boom in Italy, women gradually abandoned their homes to go to work, ending up with cooking in an increasingly more standardized way.
Here then is the author's desire - which we fully share here at Lakeside: trying to go back to the origins, to preserve the collective memory that exists in traditional Lake Como dishes.
Unfortunately, this unmissable book is exclusively in Italian, but no panic: in this article we’ve collected 5 rustic recipes that will give you an idea of what is inside this epic cookbook.
If you want to buy it, we are also ready to assist you in the translation of all its recipes. We are multitasking here at Lakeside, did you know, didn’t you?
#1 Gnocchi al cucchiaio (“Gnocchi alla lariana”)
We have to admit that we’re kind of obsessed with gnocchi. This is a delicious recipe for hand made gnocchi: "Minestra di gnocchetti di pane al cucchiaio", i.e. soup with little gnocchi made with bread.
Even before the arrival of potatoes in Italy, our beloved gnocchi were protagonists on the tables of Lake Como: in fact, they were prepared with wheat flour mixed with water and milk, with the addition of an egg to act as a binder, and flavored with spices (salt, pepper and nutmeg).
These “gnocchi al cucchiaio” are particularly special because they are poured in spoonfuls directly into boiling water.
Ingredients
180 g bread
80 g butter
1/4 L of milk
3 eggs
1 L of beef broth
4 tablespoons of grated Parmesan
Nutmeg
Salt and Pepper To Taste
Soak the bread in milk for at least an hour. In a small pan, melt the butter and pour the lightly squeezed bread (to dry it). Pour everything into a bowl adding the eggs, salt, nutmeg and Parmesan, and stir until you get a well-blended mixture. Bring the broth to boil and with the help of two teaspoons (filling one with the dough and removing it with the other) make some dumplings that you will drop into the broth. The soup will be ready when the dumplings come to the surface. Serve with Parmigiano Reggiano!
#2 Broth brunt with lard
Another delicious soup! Its name is "Broth burnt with lard" (technically "Broeu brusaa cul lard", if you want to amaze your friends with our local dialect): it's extremely easy, as all you have to do is basically to melt the lard in a pot, and then add the broth. Let's see all the steps!
Ingredients
1 L hot water
100 g white flour
300 g lard
1 clove of garlic
Rosemary
Extra virgin olive oil
Pepper
Salt (to taste)
On a cutting board, beat the lard, the rosemary and the garlic and pour the mixture into an iron pan to toast it. When the mixture is perfectly creamy, add the flour, stirring constantly so that it doesn't stick, until you get a golden brown mixture, with a pleasant aroma (not burnt). Pour about a liter of hot water, continuing with cooking without ever stopping stirring, until you get a soft and thick soup. Serve hot and decorate with lard shavings, pepper and parmesan.
#3 Pancotto
“Pancotto" is a poor, easy, and super tasty recipe. As our grandmothers used to say: throwing bread is a sin... so why not trying to prepare a pancotto with the leftover bread you have at home!
Fun fact: the origin of Pancotto lies in the peasant culture, when the bread was baked every two weeks, inevitably becoming hard, and you had to sharpen your wits to make it palatable again. Pancotto soon became a good solution to this problem.
Ingredients
400 g of stale durum wheat bread
1 clove of garlic
Grated Parmesan cheese
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Reduce the bread into chunks and cook them in a liter of lightly salted water (if you like you can prepare a broth and cook it there). Add the clove of garlic and three tablespoons of oil. As soon as the mixture starts to boil, start stirring so that the bread doesn't stick and let it slowly turn into a cream. At this point remove from the heat and serve adding cheese, pepper and a drizzle of oil. Tip: you can "personalize" the Pancotto pretty much as you want, in the end. You can add tomato puree, or bacon, or some extra cheese, or even mushrooms.
#4 Panadèl, Paradèll, or Cutizza
Image by La luna sul cucchiaio
A sweet recipe, perfect for a tea break: Panadel (or Paradèll), aka Cutizza! We're talking about a simple crepe filled with apple and sultanas. That was a common dessert for our grandmas when they were children.
Ingredients
4 apples
5 tablespoons of sugar
1 small glass of grappa
20 g of sultanas
20 g of butter
2 egg whites
1 lemon
3 tablespoons of white flour
1 teaspoon of yeast
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
Milk
Salt to taste
Cinnamon if you like it
Peel the apples and cut them into very thin slices; arrange them on a plate, pour over 2 tablespoons of sugar, the grated zest of a lemon and the grappa. Mix everything gently, until you get a homogeneous mixture. In a bowl mix the flour, a little milk, the remaining sugar, the yeast, the raisins and a pinch of salt. Mix the batter with the apple mixture, add the beaten egg whites and mix everything gently. Fry the batter with the apples as if it was an omelette, turning it on both sides, adding some butter when turning. Serve very hot, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.
#5 Lario cream
Crema del Lario is a refreshing dessert, which you can easily serve instead of the classic lemon sorbet. Apparently, the dessert comes from Tremezzo.
Ingredients for 2 cups
2 spoons of icing sugar
1/2 spoon of sugar
250 g liquid fresh cream
Half a lemon
Two small glasses of dry liqueur (ideally Maraschino)
In a tureen whip the cream and only then add the sugar, the grated lemon zest and the juice, finally the liqueur. Stir gently to prevent the cream from falling apart. Pour into bowls and refrigerate for at least two hours. Serve with shortbread biscuits.
Article by Laura Zanotta
Looking for a property around Lake Como, or simply wanna start studying the market to understand which location would work best for you?