Globes (sweet)
Introduction
Use ricotta as cheese, preferably “primo sale” or goat cheese.
Ingredients
This will prepare the “globes”. you will mix equal parts cheese and spelled flour. With this dough you will make as many “globes” as you want.
You will pour some lard into a hot pan. You will fry one or two at a time, and you will turn them with two shovels: when they are fried you will remove them, spread them with honey, and grate some poppies on them. You will serve them like this.
Instructions
Mix ricotta and flour: form the dough into balls or donuts and fry them in boiling oil or lard. Sprinkle them with honey and poppy seeds. (Cato 79)
Source: SAP
The “cassata” of Oplontis
Introduction
A fresco in a triclinium of the Villa of Oplontis (Torre Annunziata) depicts a dessert with an incredible resemblance to a modern cassata, the traditional Sicilian dessert made with ricotta and sugar. Here is a recipe based on ingredients that existed at the time.
Ingredients
Dice some dried fruit consisting of apricots (150 g), plums (150 g), sultanas (100 g), dates (to taste) and set aside some whole fruits for decoration. Cook 100 g of peeled walnuts and pine nuts in a little honey until you obtain a consistent caramelized mixture. Leave to cool and then chop. Pass 1 and a half kg of cow’s milk ricotta through a sieve, leaving 100 g for the top decoration. Mix the rest, gradually adding 500 g of honey until you obtain a cream with the same sweetness as that of normal cassata. Continue mixing until the cream becomes soft and light. Add the diced fruit and the chopped caramel. Separately, mix 150g of almond flour with a little honey and a little red pastry color powder to obtain a sort of red marzipan. Line a 30cm diameter baking tray with paper greased with oil on the inside. Roll out the red marzipan with a rolling pin to obtain a strip with which to line the sides of the pan. Fill the void in the pan with the ricotta cream and place everything in the refrigerator. Leave to rest for a day, then turn out the cassata onto a tray, gently peeling off the paper. Cover the top with a layer of ricotta passed through a sieve and decorate with the fruit set aside.
Source: www.archemail.it
Libum (first course)
Ingredients
6 ounces of cheese
3 ounces of soft wheat flour
150 g of semolina
Instructions
You will prepare the “libum” in this way: chop well in the mortar 2 lbs [6 etti] of cheese; when you have chopped them well, you will pour in 1 pound [3 etti] of soft wheat flour or, if you want it softer, just half a pound [1 etto e mezzo] of semolina, and mix everything well.
With this dough you will make a loaf, place it on laurel leaves and cook it slowly in a hot oven. (Cato 75)
Source: SAP
Sweet and sour black olives
Introduction
It was a way to preserve olives during the winter season and consume them gradually. The ideal way to enjoy them better is to prepare the olives at least 15 days before consuming them. In this case, olives are placed in a large jar.
Ingredients and instructions
Prepare a marinade consisting of 3 parts honey and one part vinegar, as well as a pinch of fennel seeds, all sufficient to completely cover the olives. If you don’t have much time and want to taste the olives immediately, use a baking dish to pour the olives into. Prepare the marinade with 3 parts honey and one part vinegar as well as a little fennel seeds and pour it over the olives, but without covering them entirely. In practice, not having to preserve the olives, but consuming them immediately, all that is needed is a thin layer of marinade sprinkled on them.
Source: www.archemail.it
Daily patina
Introduction
What we propose is a sort of white lasagna pie (the Romans did not know tomatoes, imported from the Americas in the 16th century) which was seasoned with a sauce which, in the original recipe, was made with “pieces of sow’s stern, chicken and fish”.
Ingredients
half a kg of lasagne pastry (in ancient times they made it without eggs), pieces of meat, chicken, fish, ham and so on, 1 liter of broth, 3 or 4 egg yolks, 4 teaspoons of starch, 1/2 glass of Marsala, 1 glass of wine, pepper, lovage (can be replaced by a mixture of celery and premezzolo), garum (or 3 anchovies dissolved in a little oil and salt).
Instructions
Mix or blend together pepper, lovage, wine and Marsala. Dilute with the broth and salt with the garum. Put everything in a pot with leftover meat, fish, chicken, cured meats and whatever else you have at home. Boil for a long time and finally combine with the egg yolks and starch. Then arrange the lasagna sheets and sauce in alternating layers on a baking tray, concluding with a layer of pastry which is pricked and then covered with sauce. Cooking can take place either on a large stove or in the oven for 18 minutes at 180°, covering the pan with a lid and partially immersing it in a larger one with water (this prevents the upper sheet from drying out).
Source: www.archemail.it
Ricotta 4 colors
Ingredients
Very fresh ricotta, 1 spring onion, 1 handful of borage flowers, 1 handful of poppy petals, 1 handful of pink geranium petals, 1 handful of yellow violet petals, salt, pepper. In a bowl mix 600 gr. of ricotta with 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of salt and one of white pepper.
Instructions
Chop and then add a shallot or a small spring onion (or 3 stems of chives). At this point divide the ricotta into 4 parts. To the first portion add a handful of coarsely chopped borage flowers.
Proceed in the same way with the second portion of ricotta, but use the poppy petals; then use pink geraniums for the third portion and yellow pansies for the fourth. You will thus obtain 4 different colored creams to serve inside salad leaves.
Source: www.archemail.it
Cattabia Hall
Introduction
It is a fresh way to enjoy a sort of ancient “bruschetta”.
Ingredients
Take some homemade slices of bread, preferably a wholemeal type. Wet them with a mixture of two parts water and one part vinegar, allowing any excess liquid to drip off. Prepare a sauce in a blender with the following ingredients: 50 g of grated parmesan, 3 or 4 leaves of green coriander or parsley, 3 or 4 mint leaves, a sprinkle of pepper, 2 cloves of garlic (if you like them), 3 tablespoons of wildflower honey and a little oil (minimum 3 tablespoons). Form a paste (if necessary, add a little more oil or very little water) and pour it onto the slices of bread.
Instructions
In the summer, you can prepare everything a few hours in advance by placing it in the fridge. You can also try some variations, for example, replacing the parmesan with cow’s milk ricotta. Or cut the bread into pieces and, after wetting it with water and vinegar and wringing it out well, place it in a bowl and then pour the sauce over everything.
Source: www.archemail.it