Revealing the secrets of Italian cooking

“THIS is a completely different way of making bread with a very wet dough,” Katie Caldesi tells me as she shapes her hand like a duck’s web and starts to pull dough, the consistency of porridge to one side of a mixing bowl.

She smacks it vigorously until air bubbles rise to the surface and she assures me “the dough is now ready to prove and shape”. When the focaccia is cooked it is golden brown with a delicious crisp crust and a wonderful springy texture. It flies off the plate as she hands it round a group of us to taste.

Katie has spent years travelling across Italy meeting home cooks and trattoria chefs to gather authentic, unusual recipes and introduce them to cooks in the UK through her master classes, TV appearances and books.

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Each recipe has a surprise element: “Padovan chicken in a bag was originally cooked in a pig’s bladder but these days we cook it in a roasting bag. I have even cooked it in a plastic supermarket bag,” Katie chuckles as I watch her husband Giancarlo, an ebullient Tuscan chef, carve the chicken. He serves a portion with some of the vegetables.

The chicken is succulent, the vegetables tender, and the gravy has a concentrated umami (savoury) taste with a hint spice. It’s an ideal dish to serve to crowd and can be padded out with lovely rustic bread, or mashed potatoes.

The history of rustic Italian cookery is overshadowed by poverty. Italian cooks are masters at feeding a large family delicious food on a shoe string.

Giancarlo shows me how to make gnocculi, a thin baton of pasta with a frilly edge from just flour and water – “an egg would only be added to pasta if the family could afford one. Otherwise eggs from the family’s chickens would be sold”.

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Katie makes a cuttlefish stew from the Marsala area of Sicily with tomatoes, wine and herbs to accompany the gnocculi. Cuttlefish is a sustainable fish caught off the English coast. It is scrumptious and we should all ask fishmongers to stock it more often. Fresh squid is a good substitute.

Crispy pugliese focaccia

Serves 6-8

150g potato, cooked; 500g strong white bread flour; 1 tsp salt; 500ml tepid water used for cooking the potato; 25g fresh yeast; ½ tsp sugar; 3 tbsp olive oil. For the topping: Olives, oregano.

Line the base of a circular tin about 28cm in diameter and 5cm deep (or equivalent) with baking parchment.

Mash the potato, add salt and mix with flour. Blend yeast and sugar with the water until dissolved and stir into flour.

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Make your hand into the shape of a webbed foot, hit the dough and pull it up to one side of the bowl. The higher you pull the dough, the more air will be incorporated and the quicker this form of kneading will be.

Repeat this motion picking up speed as you go. It will become tiring but you will see the air becoming trapped into the dough. Once you see bubbles rise to the surface the dough is ready.

Oil the lined tin. Pour the focaccia dough into the tin and pat oil over the surface to prevent a crust forming. Leave it to rise in a warm, draft-free place until it is level with the top of the tin and then add your chosen toppings.

Place the tin in a preheated oven (200C/400F/Gas mark 6). Cook for between 50 minutes and 1 hour or until the bread is golden brown.

Spaghetti with squid, tomatoes and green breadcrumbs

Serves 4

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Sauce: 1 small onion; 2 garlic cloves; 1 handful of flat-leafed parsley, stems removed; 4 tbsp olive oil; 4 squid (or cuttlefish) cleaned and chopped into bite sized pieces; 200ml white wine; 400g tinned tomatoes; salt and black pepper. Green breadcrumbs: 50g white bread; 10g flat-leaf parsley; 1 clove garlic; 2 tbsp olive oil.

Pulse onion, garlic and parsley to a paste in a food processor. Heat the olive oil and fry the paste gently for 15 minutes. Add the wine and continue cooking for another few minutes. Add the tomatoes. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Add squid to the sauce five minutes before serving. Season to taste. If using cuttlefish, add to the sauce with the tomatoes and cook until tender.

Pulse bread in a food processor with the parsley and garlic. Stir in the olive oil and spread over a thick-bottomed frying pan. Cook gently for 5 minutes until the breadcrumbs are gently toasted. Serve squid sauce, with pasta and green breadcrumbs strewn over the top.

Padovan chicken in a bag

Serves 4-8 depending on the size of the chicken

1 medium to large chicken; salt and freshly ground pepper. For the stuffing: 2 tsp salt; 1-2 apples, roughly chopped; 1 medium onion, roughly chopped; 1 celery stalk, roughly chopped; 1 medium carrot, roughly chopped; 1 cinnamon stick; 1 large clove of garlic, crushed; 10 cloves; 2 bay leaves.

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Season the chicken inside and out and fill the cavity with the stuffing ingredients through the end nearest to the legs. Fold the skin of the chicken over the hole and secure by tying the legs together tightly. Put the chicken into a roasting bag with the leg end of the bird facing downwards.

Insert a length of cane into the bag but leave the end poking out of the top. Tie the bag around the cane several times. This allows steam to escape and the cooking juices to concentrate. Leave two 10cm lengths of string dangling from the knot. Place the bag into a large saucepan. Rest a long wooden spoon across the top of the pan and tie the lengths of string onto it.

Fill the pan with enough water to cover the bag containing the chicken but do not submerge the opening.

The bird will bob to the surface but as it cooks steam vents from the bag via the cane and the chicken falls.

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Bring the water to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for at least two hours.

When cooked take the chicken out of the bag and carve into slices/portions. Serve with cooked vegetables and the juices from the bag. * The Italian Cookery Course by Katie Caldesi is published by Kyle Cathie Ltd.

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