Italian Infusion
Embrace the luxury of alfresco dining as the weather heats up and the light lasts longer! What better time is there to get outdoors and experience dishes infused with Italian flavour than in the glorious summer months? Big Mamma Cucina Popolare: Contemporary Italian Recipes, is a recipe book bursting with flavour. The book offers a tasteful array of Italian classics with a contemporary twist.
Think of pizzas crisped to mouth-watering perfection using the portable Ooni pizza oven. This wood-fired oven allows both the preparation and cooking of dinner to be an experience shared by the whole family!
Preparation time: 20 minutes / Resting time: 10 minutes / Cooking time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
- 2 bunches rapini (broccoli rabe) or
- Tenderstem broccoli (broccolini)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 anchovy fillets in oil, drained
- 250g pizza dough
- 5 thin slices of finocchiona or salami
- 90g fior di latte (or mozzarella di bufala)
- roughly cut
- 70g grated pecorino
- plus a few shavings to garnish salt
Cool to know
Finocchiona is a type of traditional Italian salami from Tuscany. Its name comes from fi nocchio – meaning ‘fennel’ in Italian – which, along with pepper, gives this salami its distinctive flavour.
Method
- Chop half the rapini (broccoli rabe) stalks (stems) and remove the leaves. Cook the rapini for two minutes in a large pan of salted boiling water. Drain, then immerse them in a large container of ice water to stop further cooking. Leave to cool for 10 minutes.
- Make the rapini cream. In a large pan, heat one tablespoon of the olive oil over a high heat. Chop the remaining rapini stalks and fry with the anchovies for 15 minutes over a medium heat. Process everything in a food processor until you have a smooth cream.
- Preheat the oven to 250°C. Cover a baking sheet with baking (parchment) paper. On a floured work surface, roll out the pizza dough into a circle about 30cm in diameter and about 2cm thick.
- Place the pizza base (crust) on the baking paper. Cover it with the rapini cream and drizzle over the remaining one tablespoon of olive oil. Bake for five minutes.
- Remove from the oven and add the chopped rapini, finocchiona slices and mozzarella. Bake for a further five minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the grated and shaved pecorino. Don’t wait, serve and enjoy immediately!
