Mothers’s Day, La Festa Della Madre, always presents a few dilemmas. To celebrate or not, to give gifts or not. The commercialisation of the day is viewed with suspicion in my family, however for grandmothers and great -grandmothers, this day often has more significance. In the past, we’ve enjoyed small family gatherings with my mother, often in the dining room of the Lomond Hotel. A table for nine, set with white linen and fresh flowers, free bubbles for the ladies, followed by a simple three course meal, it was an easier way to get together than at Christmas. My mother always gave small gifts to her three daughters on this day, recognising that we are all mothers. This year, as my mother is in residential care, visits are not yet permitted. The facility management is adhering to very strict guidelines and has partially opened up: one designated family member may visit her once a week. To err on the side of caution makes sense, given that the elderly are so susceptible to the devastating effects of this plague. And as for my immediate family, none of us are planning to break the gathering rules. I’ll miss her today, but she does enjoy a long phone chat.
Crostata di albicocche
My biggest dilemma today is this- sweet versus savoury for Mother’s day? I’ve gone with both. For my daughter, a mother of three daughters and two leggy whippets, a crostata filled with apricot jam, Crostata di Albicocche, and for my caring son, a sourdough Panmarino bread filled with baked garlic and fresh rosemary.
Panmarino sourdough with baked garlic. A small blowout in the centre of the salty crown. Sourdough, like life, is rarely perfect. ‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember.’
When it comes to sweet versus savoury, I think I’d choose the garlic- laced bread. I may need to steal a slice or two of that loaf. How would you choose, dear reader?
Perhaps even more so during times of uncertainty, we are inclined to seek out tradition as a means of connecting with the past. This seems to be the case with food during the global pandemic: suddenly everyone has turned to bread making, if they can get hold of any decent flour that is. Festive breads are loaded with symbolic connection but the Hot Cross Bun definitely takes the cake for its conspicuous association with Christian mythology. The bun marks the end of Lent while the cross represents the crucifixion of Jesus and the spices signify the spices used for embalming. In Australia, Hot Cross buns land in the supermarkets on Boxing day, December 26 and continue through the new year to Easter and beyond. Most children have no idea what the cross stands for. When I inform them of the crucifixion story, they look aghast and reply ‘that’s gross’. I have to agree with them, but remove the cross, that thick part holding the sweet glaze on the top, the favourite side, and there goes your tradition, and another reason not to learn how to bake festive and seasonal foods, or learn about how food is connected to history and legend.
Tricks of the trade: piping the crosses using an old plastic sauce bottle. Cross mixture too thin.
Over the last week, I’ve attempted four different HC bun recipes. That week might have been 11 days long because I’ve lost all track of time. Thank God it’s Easter Sunday today, now I have a reference point for a while. My first two attempts were both sourdough buns requiring a long period of fermentation. Pande Ramerino, a Tuscan Easter bun, is usually made with either yeast or a biga. I adapted this recipe to sourdough, making it much easier on the digestion. The buns contain raisins and are flavoured with rosemary oil, the tops crossed with a tic tac toe pattern before glazing. They are lovely to eat, but I missed the spice, that sweet and ancient aroma of a bun warming in the oven for breakfast.
Pan de Ramerino, Tuscan Easter Buns flavoured with rosemary
The next sourdough recipe came from a sourdough baking group of which I am a member. The dough turned out to be so difficult to handle and ended up as a Hot Cross Focaccia, which tasted fine, but did not provide the sense of tradition I was searching for, despite the sticky quince glaze used on top. If a recipe is not pleasurable and reasonably intuitive to make, and this is my golden rule for bun making, I don’t repeat it. If at first you don’t succeed, give up.
sourdough foccaccia
tasty, but missing the bun shape.
The next two buns were yeast based. If you can eat yeasted products without suffering indigestion from the fast ferment, then this is the best way to go at Easter. The first one came from the pastry chef, Darren Puchase, of Burch and Puchase Sweet studio in Melbourne, whose recipe was recently published in the New Daily. The recipe is easy to follow, though I was tentative about the whopping use of dry yeast in the recipe. ( 28 gr of yeast to 400 gr of flour plus other ingredients). The recipe works very well. You can make them in around 3 hours all up. I broke a little with tradition and opted for an XR symbol (Extinction Rebellion) on top. They are now called the XR buns here, a reminder that climate action is still number one priority for our mother earth.
The final recipe came from Celia of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial who has been working variations of her yeasted HC bun for years. The buns were easy to make, and using a stand mixer made the process even faster. Her two recipes can be found here and here.
So which buns were the best? The Tuscan buns lasted well, and being sourdough, were still edible on the third day. The Focaccia -come- bun had a lovely texture but the recipe was far too wet and difficult to shape for my liking. The other two yeasted buns were satisfactory, and good for cooks who have not branched out into the world of sourdough. I find yeasted breads hard to eat, with the taste of unfermented flour too up front on the palate for my liking. Yeasted buns also dry out too quickly. So it’s back to the drawing board, as I search for an achievable and satisfactory sourdough Hot Cross Bun next year. Let us hope that next April will be a safer and happier place for the world.
Auguri di Buona Pasqua 2020. State a Casa. Happy Easter Greetings 2020, Stay at Home.
There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.
Ophelia, Act 4, Scene 5, Hamlet.
The most exquisite and evocative bread of my sourdough repertoire is Panmarino. Now that’s a big call I know but it might have something to do with the fragrant mixture of Rosemary and Salt, the soft comforting texture of the bread, or the dramatic diamond encrusted star on its baked dome. I have only recently converted this yeasted bread to sourdough, and must make sure that I don’t make it too often. I prefer to think of it as a festive bread, perhaps best associated with reminiscence and memory. It would be a lovely bread to make for the anniversary of a loved one. Pray you, love, remember me.
This bread was first popularised by Carol Field in her classic work, The ItalianBaker.¹ According to Field, it was invented by a baker named Luciano Pancalde, the baker with the perfect hot bread name, who created this bread as the encapsulation of one he had read about in a biography of the d’Este family of Ferrara. I really like this idea on many levels. That he read about a Renaissance bread, visualised it, then recreated it makes it rather special but that this bread was eaten at the courts of my favourite historic family makes it even better. I plan to come back in my next life as Beatrice d’Este. In the meantime, I’m enjoying a virtual memory. Rosemary does that. It’s the time traveling herb.
Beatrice was here. Castello Sforzesco. Vigevano.
The recipe listed by Field is for a yeasted bread: it is easy to make, and it tastes good too. But to my mind, the bread made in the Renaissance courts of the d’Este family would have been made with something like a biga or lievito madre. Using my standard sourdough starter, a very fine traditional Panmarino can be made. Some of the recipes I have drawn on suggest a long gestation time of 4 days. I’m happy with a 24 hour time frame, given a ready starter, one that has been refreshed over a day or so. I also like to add a little wholemeal to mine, in keeping with a loaf of the past.
Slices and keeps very well, if it lasts.
Sourdough Panmarino, un pane per la bella Beatrice d’Este.
I have simplified this bread for speed and ease of making. I’ve played with the proportions of starter and am happy with the results so far. If you would like to follow one source of this recipe, see here. Before making this recipe, refresh your starter three times over a day or so, then start the process in the morning.
150 g bubbly active sourdough starter
150 g water filtered or tank, at least not chlorinated
150 g whole milk
500g baker’s white flour or a mixture of baker’s white flour, ie 400g and wholemeal plain flour 100g
5 g diastatic malt 5g ( optional)
10 g sea salt
40 g olive oil
20 g or less chopped fresh rosemary
salt flakes such as Maldon for the shaped loaf
Directions.
Weigh the the starter, water and milk then add to a large mixing bowl. Add the flour (s) and malt and mix roughly with your hands. It will look like a shaggy pile. Cover with a shower cap or plastic film and leave for 20 minutes or so.
Mix the chopped rosemary, olive oil and salt and work this through the dough with your hands. You will feel the gluten begin to develop. Cover with cap. Leave the covered dough at room temperature.
Do some stretch and folds every 20- 30 minutes, inside the bowl at least three times. You will feel the dough become smoother each time. Now leave the dough on the bench, covered, for 8 hours. It should be well risen by this time.
Place the covered bowl into the fridge for an overnight rest, coinciding with a rest of your own.
In the morning remove the dough from the fridge, have a peep at it, then let it come to room temperature, again still covered.
Using a bread scraper, place the dough onto a large silicon mat or good bench top, adding a small amount of fine semolina to the work surface. Stretch and fold the loaves a few times again, then shape the dough into a nice boule shape. Let this sit for 30 minutes or so, then place the boule into a round shaped and dusted banneton. Cover for 30 minutes to an hour. It will rise a little more.
Meanwhile preheat your oven to 225c FF. Turn the bread out onto a sheet of parchment paper, then lift the paper with the dough and place inside an enamel roaster/baking tin. Using a lame with a sharp blade, slash a star shape on top of the loaf and sprinkle generously with salt flakes. Cover with the lid of the roaster and place in the oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove the lid and continue baking for a further 20 minutes.
Remove the bread to a wire rack and let it cool completely before slicing.
Panmarino, star burst greater on the sourdough version. Better crust.
Yeasted version.
Thanks Maree for alerting me to the sourdough version of this bread.
Waiting for Beatrice d’Este, Vigevano
‘Then, when a memory reappears in consciousness, it produces on us the effect of a ghost whose mysterious apparition must be explained by special causes.’ Henri Bergson. Of the Survival of Images. Memory and Mind.
Heaven and earth!/ Must I remember. Hamlet, Shakespeare
It is hard to imagine a world without pasta. Italian style pasta was unknown to most Australian households until the 1970s, despite the presence of Italian pasta manufacturers here in Melbourne. One of the earliest producers of quality pasta, Nello Borghesi, established La Tosca Company in 1947 in Bennett’s Lane, Melbourne. They eventually moved to a larger factory in Brunswick in 1971.
“Before then, Melbourne’s Italian community were largely the only customers of this fine pasta. By the 1970s many new Italian restaurants emerged: it was, for many families of Anglo-Saxon background, the first time they had tasted real pasta beyond spaghetti or macaroni from a can.” ¹
Dried pasta could be bought in supermarkets, especially around Carlton and Brunswick, but it was still unusual to eat pasta at home regularly, and when it did make a regular appearance, it came only in one form: the ubiquitous Spaghetti Bolognese.
‘The Borghesi found it challenging at first to introduce the pasta to the Anglo-Australian consumers. The Italian Australian market also had to be convinced that the product was as good as that which they could make themselves. The pasta would be made in the mornings, then delivered in the afternoons in the family van. It was a very labour intensive process and the whole family would help in the production. Deliveries were made to most Melbourne Italian food outlets and restaurants, such as Florentino’s, The Latin, and Mario’s. By the 1960s, the clientele grew to catering for weddings and non-Italian cafes, and then the business really took off. In the 1960s, the delivery of dry pasta was replaced by frozen products.”¹
The Borghesi business and I became very well acquainted in 1997 when I decided to take a job at La Tosca Pasta Company in Victoria Street, Brunswick, a suburb of Melbourne. This short-lived factory job was wedged between one era of teaching and another, a time when I felt lost in my search for meaningful work. I took the job thinking that it might be interesting to work in a completely different field, to do some physical work for a change, and that the Italian staff might help me acquire a better grasp of idiomatic Italian. I had finished a degree in Italian, followed by three years translating an autobiography. Without daily interaction in Italian, I feared that I might lose the language. So off to La Tosca I went.
Our working day started at 8 am precisely. We would begin by moving the racks of drying spaghetti, linguine or tagliatelle which had been stored on wooden drying rods in darkened rooms overnight. The pasta was carefully scooped off the rods, taking care not to break any of the brittle strands, and bundled neatly onto the bench for packing. Each stack was then weighed to a precise weight: after a while it was easy to gauge this visually. The pasta was placed in small boxes, ready for the machine to wrap and seal with the La Tosca logo. These packets were then placed in large boxes, twenty to a box, ready for the delivery trucks. The work was relentless and swift: there was no time for conversation beyond the conveying of basic instructions.
At 10 am on the dot, a whistle would sound, and a short Neapolitan woman would yell “Andiamo,” let’s go. All activity ceased instantly, machines and work stations were abandoned, the factory floor silenced by the call to coffee. We climbed the narrow stairs in single file and gathered in a cramped morning tea room above the factory floor for a piccolo cafe ristretto, made in an old beaten up aluminium Napolitana by the Andiamo lady. Ten minutes later it was back to work. Huge dough mixers gyrated above, operated by men on platforms, moving effortlessly in a noisy industrial ballet. Other machines chugged permanently in the background- pasta cutters, ravioli stuffers, packing machines- the factory floor was alive with mechanical noise. The strong coffee kept us going for more back-breaking work, boxing, stacking, wrapping, then sweeping, constantly inpiedi for the 8 hour working day. I lasted for about 6 weeks at the La Tosca Pasta factory- the unremitting noise eventually drove me demented, my legs longed for that moment of rest and my back was trashed. I began to consider other forms of paid work.
In that short time, I came to admire the endurance and stamina of these women who had worked in factories since migrating to Australia in the 1950s and 60s, sturdy middle- aged and older women, dressed in sensible and spotlessly clean factory uniforms, standing solidly on concrete floors in stockinged legs and sensible shoes. The work was hard and relentless. They made the pasta that Melbourne came to love.
A vintage Napolitana coffee maker
Melbourne’s Italianita´can be found far more easily without taking such drastic steps, as I was to discover. Inner city libraries specialise in Italian film and magazine collections, there is a local Italian newspaper, Il Globo, an annual Italian film festival, numerous Italian regional and cultural clubs as well as fresh markets, delis, restaurants, and Italian supermarkets. Melbourne’s Italian manufacturing centred around pasta, cheese making, salami and shoes, though this was far more pronounced in the last century than it is today.
Zuppa di Ceci con Maltagliati-Chick pea soup with Pasta Offcuts.
Zuppa di Ceci con Maltagliati
I recently made a large batch of pasta and after cutting the square shapes for some cannelloni, I was left with a nice pile of maltagliati, irregular shaped off cuts. ( I often call these cenci or stracci too ) These little pieces make a wonderful addition to a rustic soup, which can be thrown together in minutes, becoming a meal in a bowl. Like many good Italian recipes, my quantities are approximate. The soup is designed to be eaten at once- any soup with pasta is not suitable to be eaten the next day. The amount below makes three good serves.
Ingredients
2 -3 large garlic cloves, chopped finely
one stem fresh rosemary, leaves stripped, finely chopped
4-6 anchovy fillets
one dried chilli, finely chopped
a generous glug of EV olive oil
cooked chick peas- around two cups ( if using canned chick peas, drain off well and rinse off that awful preserving liquid)
one vegetable stock cube with water or home-made stock, vegetable or chicken.
Fresh pasta offcuts/maltagliati
Italian parsley, finely chopped
black pepper to taste
grated Parmigiano to serve
Using a heavy based saucepan, add the oil to the pan and gently fry off the soffritto, the garlic, anchovy, chilli, and rosemary, pressing the anchovies to a paste as you go.
Add the chickpeas and stock to cover (or water and stockcube). Bring slowly to the boil, then add the pasta pieces. Fresh pasta should cook in two minutes- if the pasta has been left overnight, allow a little longer. Taste as you go. Season with black pepper. Serve with ample parmesan cheese.
What happens on Boxing Day in Australia? Yes, you guessed it, the hot cross buns show up in the supermarkets, a good three or more months before Easter. I have not succumbed to a single premature Pasquale bun to date, despite the array of warm specimens offered to me by my extended family on camping weekends. Good humoured accusations fly, about being a born- again hypocrite, as I, a non- Christian, patiently wait for the traditional bun eating day. I am rather fond of tradition and religious rituals of many persuasions. Now is the time to make and eat hot cross buns.
This year’s offering is a traditional Tuscan Easter bun recipe- Pan de Ramerino– a recipe that has been around since medieval times although adapted over the years. They were once eaten on Holy Thursday so I am eating mine tomorrow, though I may sneak one today as they cool on the rack. It is interesting to note that these buns are now popular all year round in Tuscany, not just at Easter. Just goes to show, it’s hard to keep a good bun down.
The recipe comes from Carol Field’s The Italian Baker, who attributes the recipe to a Florentine baker, Giovanni Galli. It is very lightly sweetened: the combination of rosemary oil and raisins is a delightful and aromatic combination. The buns are not as cloying as the ones I know.
Pan di Ramerino, Rosemary and Raisin Buns
Makes 12 buns
The ingredients are listed in cups/spoons OR grams.
3 ½ teaspoons/10 g active dry yeast
¾ cup/180 g warm water
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
¼ cup/55 g olive oil, plus more for brushing
2/½ tablespoons/35 g sugar
3¾ cups/500 g unbleached plain flour
1 teaspoon/5 g salt
3-4 sprigs rosemary
2/3 cup/100 g golden raisins
1/3 cup/75 g apricot glaze
In a large bowl of a stand mixer, stir the yeast into the warm water. Let stand until creamy. Add the eggs, the egg yolk, 2 tablespoons of the oil, and the sugar and mix thoroughly with the paddle. Add the flour and salt and mix until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Change to the dough hook and knead at low-speed for two minutes, then at medium speed for 2 minutes more. The dough should be elastic and supple.
First Rise. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap or a plastic bowl cover and let rise until doubled.
Shaping and Second rise.
While the dough is rising, sauté 2 rosemary sprigs very briefly in the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil. Toss the rosemary out after it has flavoured the oil. Add the raisins and sauté very briefly in the oil. Remove from the heat and add 1 chopped fresh rosemary sprig to the mixture. Cool then add this mixture to the dough and knead, using the mixer, until well incorporated.
Cut the dough into 12 pieces and roll each piece into a ball. Place on a baking paper covered baking sheet and cover with a towel. Let the rolls rise until doubled, or about 1 hour.
Reshape the buns, which will have slumped a little, into definite balls. Brush the tops with oil. Slash a deep double cross or tic-tac-toe pattern in the top of each bun. Let the buns rise again for another 10-15 minutes.
Baking. Preheat the oven to 200º. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove the buns to a wire rack and brush the tops with an apricot glaze.
Glassa di albicocca/ apricot glaze
2/3 cup good quality apricot jam
2- 3 teaspoons water or fresh lemon juice
Heat the jam and water in a small heavy saucepan over moderate heat until the mixture comes to a boil, then strain through a sieve. Use the glaze while still warm.
A duck walks into a bar and asks: “Got any Bread?”
Barman says: “No.”
Duck says: “Got any bread?”
Barman says: “No.”
Duck says: “Got any bread?”
Barman says: “No, we have no bread.”
Duck says: “Got any bread?”
Barman says: “No, we haven’t got any bread!”
Duck says: “Got any bread?”
Barman says: “No, are you deaf?! We haven’t got any bread, and if you ask me again and I’ll nail your f ***ing beak to the bar you annoying f***ing duck!”
Duck says: “Got any nails?”
Barman says: “No”
Duck says: “Got any bread?
I always think of this duck joke every time I pull more fresh loaves from the oven or when I see a family of wild wood ducks taking a fancy to our swimming pool. Both trigger a “Got any Bread” moment, but with entirely different emotions. At least it’s a lot better than the typically imbecilic jokes contained in Christmas bon bons. Who writes these Christmas jokes and why do we feel so compelled to read them aloud?
You can leave your hat on!
Today’s festive olive bread is a super easy yeasted bread bound to stay moist. While dark looking and rustic in appearance, due to the olives, rosemary and olive oil worked into the dough at the first kneading stage, it is still a light bread. The recipe comes from Maggie’s Table.* I like the simplicity of this version, especially when time is precious at Christmas. You can make these lovely loaves in less than two hours with lots of resting time in between to indulge in a Christmas drop or two.
Olive and Rosemary Bread/ Pane con Rosmarino e Olive
15 g or 1 ½ teaspoons dried yeast
1 teaspoon castor sugar
300 ml warm water
500 g unbleached strong flour (bakers flour)
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup freshly chopped rosemary
190 g pitted kalamata olives
Combine yeast, sugar, and warm water in the mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Leave for 5 minutes. Then add the flour, salt, rosemary and olives. Mix with the paddle till the dough comes together, then swap to a dough hook ad mix for a few minutes. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead gently for another five minutes. The dough is meant to be quite moist and sticky, however you may need to add a little extra flour along the way. Turn into a clean and lightly oiled bowl and brush the top with a little olive oil. Cover the bowl and leave until doubled in size ( about 1 hour).
Divide the mixture into two portions and shape into loaves. Brush a baking tray with olive oil and leave the loaves to rise, covered, on the oiled tray for a further 20 minutes. Meanwhile heat the oven to 220c FF. Bake the loaves for 20 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 180c and bake for a further 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack before cutting. Makes two loaves, one for me and one for the freezer.
*Maggie Beer, Maggie’s Table, Penguin 2005. Gifted to me by the Richard’s family after the fire. Thanks Christine and Peter.
We live on top of a ridge. The night, which now descends in the afternoon, fills the valley with blackness. The winds spring up, the loud turbulence filling the black void with a sea of sound. Below and around us, a black restless sea. The house bones creak as it braces itself for a rough night. It isn’t an old house but it likes to complain. The TV commentaries sound hollow, it’s all bad news anyway, and the white wine tastes too thin. On nights like this, I can barely hear myself cook.
winter herbs
Minestra di Ceci e Zucca
Chickpea and Pumpkin soup. A meal in a bowl. For 4
2 Tablespoons EV olive oil
one onion, finely sliced
two cloves garlic, finely chopped
one stick celery, finely chopped
sea salt, ground
rosemary branch, around 10 cm long, stripped and finely chopped
2 cups small diced pumpkin, such as Kent or Butternut
2 cup cooked chickpeas and some of the cooking liquid
home-made vegetable stock ( or chicken if you prefer)
a drizzle of good oil to serve
I always start with a little soffrito. Heat the olive oil and gently cook the onion slices until very soft but not brown, then add the garlic, rosemary a few grindings of salt, and the celery. Continue cooking until soft, then add the diced pumpkin, stir about, then the cooked chick peas. Cover with stock and a little of the chick pea water. (if you have used canned chickpeas, rinse well and discard the canning liquid as it tastes quite foul, I’m not sure why).
Cook for 30 minutes on low heat. Add a small handful of broken pasta if you wish. I used left over broken pizzocheri or buckwheat pasta. Raise the heat towards the end of cooking. As the pumpkin has been diced, most of it will disintegrate and thicken the soup.
As this is a sweet soup, add more salt at table to counteract this. Dress with a drizzle of good oil. A very sustaining one bowl meal for a dark windy night.
ALMOST ITALIAN 