Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Tortelli di San Giuseppe / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Tortelli di San Giuseppe

And its Carnival time again at Maroggia’s Mill! Last year for this occasion for the Cookbook I prepared some tortelli who believed themselves to be chiacchiere, while today I present the classic recipe for round tortelli di San Giuseppe, which are made with a batter reminiscent of pâte a choux that is used to make cream puffs and éclair. A quick and easy recipe to celebrate Carnival in sweetness.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Rye Tagliolini with Oil and Sage Emulsion / Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Tagliolini con farina di segale con emulsione di olio e salvia fresca

And it’s Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook time again. And I’m back to making fresh egg pasta a couple of months after my recipe for Pici with sausage, hazelnuts and coffee sauce. I simply love making pasta at home. This time around I chose to use a beautiful rye flour, the same flour I used for my blood orange and onions chutney filled snails. The result is really good and rye, with its rustic quality, gives these tagliolini (as this very narrow pasta is called) a pleasant roughness.

Crunchy Licorice Snails / Chioccioline croccanti alla liquirizia

It has been a while that I’ve been entertaining the idea of experimenting a little with basic grissini dough and some time ago, a morning before going off to work, I baked my first batch of grissini snails.

Testaroli with almond sauce / Testaroli con salsa di mandorle

We already tried once before, but I had failed miserably. We have not talked about since, most certainly because both taken by other duties, maybe I was just a little embarrassed by my terrible flop. But in the end we made it.

Cassava and Rice Flour Gnocchis with Wild Garlic Pesto/ Gnocchi alla Manioca e farina di riso con pesto di aglio orsino

Cassava, this – to me – quite unknown vegetable. A root that for several years I only watched from a distance, intimidated by its seemingly thick and hard rind. Let’s say that because of a purely aesthetic matter and my own ignorance about its use in cooking our paths have never really crossed if not for my rapid and puzzled looks to it, before reaching the shelf to get my beloved avocados. Well, I’m not ashamed to say that I was wrong, and how was I wrong!

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Pici with Luganega sausage, Hazelnuts and Coffee Sauce / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Pici con salsa alla luganega, nocciole e caffé

And here we are, back to the Mill’s cookbook. Having already experimented with baked goods such as grissini, ciabatte and muffins this month I decided to turn my attention to a pasta recipe. With an incredible timing I came across a recipe for pici, a tuscan pasta, by Margherita/La petite casserole, and loved so much its rustic simplicity I just had to do it straight away. And rustic is the sauce I pulled together for this dish.

Panissimo February: Ticinese bread / Panissimo Febbraio: Pane alla ticinese

Panissimo’s theme for this month was regional breads. As soon as I read Sandra’s post I knew I would be baking pane alla ticinese, one my favourite breads as a kid. Funnily enough my first article for Azione was about this special kind of bread, a thing which brought back to mind many colourful memories about my childhood and the afternoon snack I used to eat with my friends: bread and chocolate.

MTC Challenge February: Savoury strudel with Butternut squash, creamed Cassava, Bacon and Walnuts with Roquefort cheese Béchamel / MTC Challenge Febbraio: Strudel salato alla zucca butternut, crema di manioca, pancetta e noci con besciamella al Roquefort

MTC Challenge this month is being held at the home of Mari, aka Lasagna Pazza, who has challenged us with strudel. Now I will bother you once more by saying how much I love these challenges, every month living the anxiety and joy of a new culinary discoveries (a proper strudel made with homemade dough, not a plastic store bought version), breaking my head against the wall thinking about flavour pairing and seeking the right ingredients. Improving my skills. And I can not but be grateful.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Aniseed, White Chocolate and Lime Zest Grissini / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Grissini all’anice, cioccolato bianco e scorza di lime

It’s already the third appointment with the Mill’s Cookbook, time does fly quick doesn’t it? This recipe is one that has been lying around for a long time, just as an idea, on my recipe notebook. No better chance to put it to practice and see whether the flavour combination would work or not, and hell it works!

My heart belongs to Genoa. Sourdoug Surprises: Focaccia with pickled artichokes, red cabbage and anchovies / Il cuore a Genova, una focaccia alla crema di carciofi, cavolo rosso e acciughe per l’amore della mia vita

Focaccia, Genoa’s most famous bread, is this month’s Sourdough Surprises theme. Genoa has adopted me for little less than a year back in 2006, and still is the city I consider my true home.