These recipes are part of our cooking lessons program run by Patrizia Gozzini

STARTER

Small steamed celery “polpette” with tomato sauce

Ingredients:

for the polpette

1 celery,garlic, parsley, olive oil, 4 tablespoons of grated parmigiano, 2 eggs

for the sauce

0,5 kg ripe tomatos, one red onion, basil

Procedure: Clean the celery taking care to remove all the thicker filaments. Cut the celery in pieces and steam it, once it is cooked, pass it in the mixer with a little bit of garlic and parsley. Add to this mixture the parmigiano and the bead eggs. Cut same oven paper in pieces 20cmX20cm and fill them up with a big spoon of the dough and close them just like a candy and after steam them. Four the sauce cook in a pan the tomato with the herbs for 15 minutes. Put the salt and a little bit olive oil, pass all in the mixer and serve it on the small polpette

The stuffed celery it is pre-eminently a typical dish from Prato. On the “ 8 September” fair , for the Saint Mary’s Feast there were always long queues in front of the stalls which sold it. It is a dish which is still in use on present days for special recurrence and it requires almost one day of preparation. This recipe for small polpette is much more easy and fast, but it still reminds the taste of the traditional old recipe

MAIN COURSE

home made pasta with chick-pea

Ingredients:

For the pasta

2 eggs, 350 gr flour, tiepid water

For the soap

200 gr dry chick-peas (Cover the chick-peas with cold water and add a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda and let it rest for 24/h. Rinse them and boil for about an hour), onion, carrot, celery, rosemary

Procedure:

For the pasta: His type of pasta it is call in the Arezzo area “spenta a ova”, because with the flour you not suppose to use not even a drop of water, but only fresh eggs. The women used to work the pasta inside the” madia” (an old stile chest for making and storage the bread ). They proceed pouring the whole eggs in a hole in the middle of the flour and beating it with a fork, incorporating slowly all the flour at any bit. After this they proceed to knead with the hands…… this is still the method to make home made pasta. When you obtain homogenous dough you can roll it out with the hands or with the appropriate machine. Ones the pasta is ready let it dry mine while you prepare the rest.

For the sauce: During the pasta is drying, make a puree with the chick-peas that you cooked before leaving three spoons of them whole, fry gently the vegetable with the rosemary and add to this the puree of the chick-peas and let it cook for 15 minutes. At the end pour in the cooked pasta and the left whole chick-peas, sauté all tougher and serve it hot.

SECOND COURSE:

Aromatic lamb with field salad (The quantity of the lamb it dipends on the number of table of companions )

Ingredients:

garlic, OiL, Salt, pepper, rosmary, one glasses of white wine, mixed salad for accompaniment

Procedure: Brown the lamb’ cut in pieces with a generous quantity of mix garlic and rosemary .once the lamb is browned add to it a glasses of wine ,and cook it until all the wine drys up ,at this point poor enough water to cover it and cook it on stove or in the oven at 180 degree ( in this case poor less water ) in both case calculate approximately one hour of cooking