Browse Techniques

Easter kid goat roasted in a wood-fired (or domestic) oven with wedged potatoes, rosemary, garlic and white wine. The kid is jointed, marinated overnight in wine and aromatics, then arranged over the potatoes so the meat juices baste the potatoes as it roasts. High initial heat renders the fat and crisps the skin; a lower second phase cooks the meat through.

A dense mountain soup from the Abruzzo highlands combining cicerchie (grass peas — a legume with a nutty, chickpea-like flavour) and farro (emmer wheat) with fried guanciale, wild herbs and peperoncino. Cicerchie were a staple crop of the Apennines before chickpeas replaced them — this soup preserves an older flavour profile now largely forgotten.

A thick, mountain-warming soup from the Abruzzo Apennine hillside farms — Farro Perlato cooked with small brown lentils, guanciale, celery, carrot and rosemary in a lard-based soffritto until both grains are tender and the broth has thickened naturally. Finished with raw Abruzzese olive oil and aged Pecorino. The lentils dissolve partially, creating a velvet base for the chewy farro.

A celebratory Abruzzese Sunday preparation — chitarra-cut spaghetti served with small lamb meatballs (polpette di agnello) in a slow-cooked tomato sauce with onion, bay and peperoncino. The lamb meatballs are mixed with egg, stale bread soaked in milk, Pecorino, parsley and nutmeg, rolled very small and fried in olive oil before being added to the sauce. A rich, comforting dish tied to Easter and Sunday family lunches.

A robust bean soup from the Abruzzo hinterland — dried borlotti or cannellini beans slow-cooked with pork cotenne (rinds), local fresh sausage and lard soffritto. The cotenne dissolve their collagen into the broth, creating a viscous, silky consistency. The sausage crumbles into the soup, perfuming it with fennel and peperoncino. Served with grilled farro bread.

A spring soup from the Abruzzo countryside using fresh fava beans (fave fresche) — shelled and double-peeled for the tenderest result — cooked in a light pork bone broth with guanciale and finished with aged Pecorino Abruzzese and a drizzle of raw olive oil. The fresh fava season in Abruzzo is brief (April–May) and this soup is made almost exclusively during this window.