Market Day Recipes

I am really blessed. I lived in front of Florence’s Central Market for 20 years while running my cooking school Divina Cucina and since closing the school in Florence and moving out to the countryside while I finally got my book published, I now have 2 market days in my village of Certaldo.

I first began cooking in the late 70’s after traveling to Europe several times, I was thinking about a way to travel abroad and work and a hotel career seemed the most possible. After a year or two of front of the house, cashiering, waitressing and taking some management classes, I chose to go behind the house and into the kitchen.

Back then, it was a male dominated kitchen, and French was the predominant cuisine. Testosterone all over the place! I chose to seek out a corner of the kitchen job and found my calling in pastry.

I was lucky enough to be trained on site as well as a class I took at Tante Marie’s Cooking School in SF- I found my place in the kitchen.

Pastry may be the hardest way to start cooking, but I loved it. Watching the rest of the kitchen while working, I knew I made the right choice. But as I watched, I also learned.

With my pastry skills, I could also cook! You can fix mistakes when you cook, but not with pastry. I basically taught myself the basics of classic French cuisine with Jacque Pepin’s La Technique, a bible, still today, for the basics.

I find it all comes in handy when I hit the market. For me it is like living Iron Chef every time I shop. When I see a bell pepper I think, stuffed with meat? stuffed with rice?, cooked with red onions and vinegar for a peperonata?, or just roasted and served in strips.

Then I continue shopping and building on what is in season.

I knew I wanted to make Pollo al Mattone, chicken cooked under a brick- and the rest would happen to create a menu for the weekend at the market.

This weeks market menu:

Bell peppers and new red onions: peperonata

zucchini blossoms: fiori fritti– stuffed fried blossoms with sheeps milk ricotta

Watermelon: watermelon/chili jelly ( I am on a jelly and jam kick!)

Fresh fruit: cobbler with the peaches, and peaches marinated in wine and sugar, roasted apricots with amaretto cookie chocolate filling

Cantaloupe: prosciutto and melon and more melon jelly.

Then after shopping my vendor Francesca, GAVE ME, a whole case of eggplant and zucchini, knowing I love to “put things up”. Now to research more recipes to use for those.

Zucchini bread for sure…and possibly jams!!!

 

 

Pollo al Mattone

Chicken under a Brick

I think this is one of the best summer recipes!

The split chicken (the English call it spatchcocked) is rubbed with Tuscan herbs and grilled with a brick on top to keep it flat and to ensure that it cooks evenly! Serve with lemon wedges, drizzled extra virgin olive oil, and a sprinkling of salt.

Here’s how to split the chicken:

Open the chicken along the backbone using kitchen shears. Remove the backbone.

Then open the chicken, like a book.

Turn it bone-side down and crush it down with your hands on the breastbone.

Pull each of the legs hard until they are pulled out of the socket, and then press hard down, flattening the chicken.

The chicken will be flatter, and will cook more evenly.

Traditionally it is cooked over the charcoal with a heavy brick weighing it down, so that it cooks evenly. I have the indoor clay pot.

 

I like to marinade in red wine vinegar and my Tuscan Herb Blend. Put all the ingredients on a cutting board and chop finely.

 

Most butcher’s have their own, adding pepper, fennel or fennel pollen, pepper or chili pepper.

 

I do a stovetop version using boneless chicken thighs marinated in red wine vinegar, Tuscan herbs, black pepper, and chili flakes (this is “pollo al diavolo”), cooking them in a cast iron skillet.

Today I bought a whole chicken and had it opened by the butcher. He cut through the breasts, then you press down to crush the bones open and make it lay flat.

In the United States, you can buy a circular terra cotta weight designed to fit cast iron skillets.

 

Place the lid on the chicken and let cook until crispy and flip to the other side. I do this a couple of times, until the bones pull away and the meat is tender.