Stuffed Vegetables Recipe from Puglia

Try our stuffed aubergine recipe from Puglia! Like most regions in Italy, food in Puglia relies on seasonal produce and ingredients are sourced freshly and locally. As May marks the start of the aubergine season, we want to share one of these mouthwatering dishes, popular on our cooking holidays in Puglia. To try our recipe check https://www.flavoursholidays.co.uk/blog/in-season-stuffed-aubergine-recipe/ 

Cooking holidays and wine tasting in Puglia

Puglia is the region which comprises what we could call the heel of Italy’s boot, situated in the country’s south east corner and extending out into the Mediterranean Sea. The region is generally very hot, with flat ground and constant breezes through the Salento peninsula. With these conditions, it’s unsurprising that Puglia is considered one of the country’s prime spots for agriculture.

When we imagine the picturesque Italian countryside, we’ll often picture acres of lush fields basking under a golden sun. The real Puglia isn’t far from this, and unsurprisingly, Puglia produces 70% of all olives and a majority of the pasta for the entire country. On top of this, the fertile ground and optimum weather conditions make Puglia a hot spot for the growing of grapes. 

Puglia is world famous for the production of wine, with 17% of the entire world’s supply originating in this region. Puglia was originally seen as a place to grow grapes inexpensively, which would then be added to low quality wine from elsewhere to provide substance. However, a change in perspectives and practices over the past two decades has seen a resurgence in the production of high quality red’s and rosé’s.

White wines typically take a back seat in Puglia, with the dark Negroamaro and Primitivo grapes proving to be most popular. Negroamaro is literally translated as “Blackest of the black”, based on the Greek and Latin languages of the region’s early inhabitants. Almost exclusively grown in Puglia and the Salento peninsula, the grape resist drought well and produces large bunches. The grapes themselves are thick-skinned and dark red in colour, leading to the characteristic dark colour of the region’s wines. 

Alongside being used in mono-varietal products like Graticciaia, on certain wines Negroamaro is also found as the dominant grape of a blend. You may have previously tried Notarpanaro, which is a mix of Negroamaro and Mlavasia Nera, or Divoto, in which it is mixed with Montepulciano. Negroamaro contributes towards wines which are both red and rosé, still and frizzante. This means that regardless of your individual preferences, the chances are that you can experience the unique taste of this most celebrated of Puglia’s grapes.

Puglia’s other famous grape is the Primitivo, which is named so due to its quick ripening process. The Primitivo is genetically identical to the Zinfandel grape, which has been cultivated heavily in California since the 18^th century. With a comparatively high sugar content, the Primitivo is renowned for sweet and full-bodied tastes, with the potential for alcohol content to surpass 15%. Wines like Primitivo di Manduria and Dunico are manufactured exclusively from Puglia’s Primitivo grape, but mixes are also available, like the Amativo with is a 60-40 blend with Negroamaro.

Have you ever experienced the picturesque scenery of Puglia? Do you have a favourite wine from the region, and is it made from either Negroamaro or Primitivo?

Pasticciotto

Today we have something extra special for all Italian food lovers! One of the most delicious Italian dessert recipes we teach in our cooking holidays in Italy.
 

Pasticciotto is a typical dessert from the Salento area in Puglia. It is a type of custard pie: a short crust pastry filled with pastry cream. Genuine local ingredients and a recipe passed down from one generation to another are among the reasons why pasticciotto plays a big role in the habits of people in Salento:  they eat pasticciotto for breakfast when it is fresh out of the oven to appreciate the smell of the pastry cream and of the baked short crust pastry.


The traditional recipe is of an oval pastry but you can also make a bigger round pasticciotto cake. The filling can also have some variations: with pastry cream and black cherry marmalade, with chocolate pastry cream or you could also use cocoa short crust pastry.

 

Some say that pasticciotto was born in the 18^th century in a village near Lecce during the festival of San Paolo. During the festival in a small pastry shop, a man wanted to prepare another cake but did not have enough pastry cream or dough, so he used what he had left and put it in a small copper container. Then he created this very little cake and he thought it was a real “pasticcio” (an Italian word that means both “a mess” and “pie”). He baked it and then, fresh out of the oven, he gave it to a pedestrian walking by. But the pasticcio was not a mess at all, the man really liked it and asked for more to take back to his family. The pasticciotto news spread rapidly and now it is a very typical sweet of Salento.

Here is the recipe to make about 20 pasticciotti!

For the pasta frolla (short crust pastry dough):

500 g all-purpose flour

250 g shortening (if you want it softer as it is should be) or butter (it will be slightly crisper)

200 g sugar

4 egg yolks

1 teaspoon of baking powder

For the pastry cream:

500ml milk

50g all-purpose flour

6 egg yolks

150 g sugar

1 vanilla bean stick or 1 lemon zest

For the final egg wash:
1 egg, beaten.

Pasta frolla: Sift the flour and make it into a well on a pastry board. Add baking powder, sugar and put the butter (it has to be room temperature)/shortening in the centre of the well and stir a little with you fingertips. Then add the yolks and mix everything together. Your aim is to create a ball by kneading quite quickly, otherwise it will warm up and the dough will melt (because of the butter). Divide the dough in half and create two round disks of pasta frolla: then wrap each one with plastic wrap. Put them in the fridge and let them chill for at least 1 hour before rolling out.
Pastry cream: Place the milk in a heavy-bottom pot and warm it over low heat. Add the lemon zest/vanilla stick and let it steep for 10 minutes. Turn it off before it boils. In the meantime mix the flour and sugar. Then put the egg yolks in a bowl, whisk them vigorously with some warm milk and little by little add the mixture of sugar and flour. When you have a consistent mixture, add the rest of the milk.

Pour everything back in the heavy-bottom pot over medium heat until it boils. Remember to keep on whisking quickly the entire time, otherwise it will stick to the bottom of the pot. Let it boil until it is creamy and solid enough.

Put a little bit of flour on the pastry board and roll one of the pasta frolla disks until it is 3-4 cm thick. Then drape it over the moulds pushing it in gently and then roll the rolling pin over the top to remove the excess. Fill them with the pastry cream until it is just below the edge of the pastry.

Roll out the other disk of pasta frolla for the tops, and then brush the tops with egg wash. Bake the pasticciotti at 200 C for 15 minutes, and when the tops are golden brown you can take them out and serve them…Enjoy!!

So, if you like to learn more traditional Italian dessert recipes why not check our cookery holidays in Puglia?

Cookery courses in Puglia: Lecce, Florence of the South

Way down south, in Puglia at the heel of Italy, is one of Italy’s hidden gems. The sunnily ornate baroque buildings of Lecce have earned it the tag ‘Florence of the South’. Its northern counterpart might boast a more impressive list of native artists and sculptors – but Lecce scores on food. With its glorious Mediterranean climate, the Puglia region enjoys intensely flavoured fruit and veg, rich meats, and – with the dramatic Adriatic and Ionian coastlines never far away – fresh seafood. A visit to Lecce is a cookery course by itself.

The architecture itself is enough to get your mouth watering, even before you’ve visited the markets. The local limestone, formed from the remnants of unimaginable numbers of ancient seashells, comes out the quarries soft as clay – but gradually hardens in the air, making it easy to work but durable. Hence the city’s lovely architecture: exuberant, rich but never flashy — like the cuisine. The heart of Lecce is the Piazza Sant’Orono. This is the place to socialise and relax in the warm evenings, while deciding which of the city’s burgeoning new cafes or restaurants to visit. A Roman amphitheatre stands at the southern end, while in the centre is a Roman column that marked the end of the ancient Appian Way, the main road north. The Rome-bound traveller of two thousand years ago asking for directions would no doubt be told, in that smiling and laid-back southern Italian way, to just follow the road, you can’t miss it.

Consistency of style – mostly 17th and 18th century – is what makes Lecce so easy on the eye. The Cathedral is one of Italy’s most impressive, and the facades in the Piazza del Duomo were all built or reworked in that period.

Probably the best example of the Lecce Baroque style is the Basilica de Santa Croce, near the Piazza Sant’Orono. Food is never far away from the Pugliese mind: the Basilica’s facade has an array of intricately carved animals, vegetables and fruit, while the overall impression it gives to many is that of a giant wedding cake, complete with meringue and cream!

If you’re on the hunt for local Salento produce in the markets or restaurants, you’re spoilt for choice. As for snacks, the local bakery speciality is puccia, a mixture of bread dough with olive and onion, delicious by itself or filled with slices of meat. Rustici leccesi are pastries stuffed with meat or cheese. Pasticciotto is a sweet shortcrust pastry filled with cream and a drop of black cherry. And if you need a recommendation – for a cafe or restaurant, market stall or snack – simply stop and ask a local. They take eating seriously here and you’ll get instant advice on where to go for the tastiest food at the best price. But this is Italy – ask three people and you’ll get at least three different opinions!