“Simple and familiar but always rich in taste. It’s got Lombard style, but speckled with flavors from the South.” Born and raised in Milan, this is how Silvana Schinardi describes her concept of cuisine. And she demonstrates it with two dishes. First the crespelle (a sort of crepe): “For me they’re synonymous with the love of food, because when I was a skinny, sickly child with no appetite, it was precisely a crespella to restore my pleasure in eating. Signora Ida had prepared it especially for me in the kitchen of an inn in Spotorno, where my grandmother had taken me for a bit of sea air. Since then crespelle have been in our family’s recipe book. I prepare them often, using different fillings, whenever a special occasion arises.” And the sea bream? “A perfect example of the irresistible attraction the flavors of our South have for me. I love fish, I like chili pepper, garlic, onions. And some special preserves from Puglia, full of Mediterranean aromas.”
Nonna Silvana
In short, Silvana is a completely Italian cook, she grew up on cassoeula (Lombard cabbage-based casseroles) but adores wild onions. She can prepare ossobuco with risotto blindfolded, but for a family lunch (besides her husband, there are her two children, their spouses, and four grandchildren) she chooses a nice fish. Of course, not just any fish: “I prefer the large ones, as they’re hardly ever farmed fish, and they taste better.” Today she has decided to accompany it with artichokes, because she wanted “a more refined side dish than potatoes (which are still always good).”
Recipe for crespelle with Taleggio cheese and radicchio
As an ancestor of French crepes, crespelle are a typical dish from Abruzzo (in broth or in timbales) and Campania (prepared like cannelloni).
4 servings:
For the crespelle
2 cups flour
2 cups milk
2 eggs
butter
For the bechamel sauce
4 cups milk
½ cup butter
⅔ cups flour
salt
nutmeg
For the filling
1 lb. red radicchio
9 oz. Taleggio cheese
grated Parmesan cheese
salt
pepper and butter
Beat the eggs with milk; add flour, little by little, stirring with a whisk until the mixture is smooth. Then cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge for 30 minutes. Use a few ladles at a time to cook them in a pan with a little butter for 2 minutes per side, making the crespelle one by one. Melt the butter in a pan with the flour, pour in the milk and cook until you get a bechamel sauce; season with salt and nutmeg. Chop the radicchio and cook it in a pan with a pat of butter for 4-5 minutes; add salt and pepper. Stuff the crepes with the chopped radicchio and Taleggio cheese cut into cubes; close them and place them in a baking dish, then cover with the bechamel sauce and Parmesan cheese and bake at 350 °F for 20 minutes.
Radicchio and Taleggio Cheese Crespelle
Baked sea bream with artichokes, recipe
“I like to vary my seafood recipes: from the savory and spicy recipes of the South to the simpler and fresher recipes of Liguria.”
6 servings:
1 sea bream of about 3 lbs
8-10 small artichokes
2 garlic cloves
rosemary
sage
parsley
extra-virgin olive oil
lemon
salt
pepper
Clean the sea bream and remove its scales. Fill the inside with a clove of garlic sliced in half, a little bit of pepper, a few slices of lemon, a sprig of rosemary broken in half, and a handful of sage. Place the fish on a baking sheet and bake for about 35 minutes at 350 °F. Meanwhile, clean the artichokes, cut them into 8 wedges and cook them by plunging them in boiling water for 15 minutes, then drain. Toss them in a pan with a little oil and a clove of garlic for 5-6 minutes. Once cooked, add a spoonful of chopped parsley and some salt. Serve along with the sea bream.
Baked sea bream with artichokes