Part 2: Italian Beach Salads - Inspiration: The Piazza
Plus: We left on Sunday morning for a DAY-hike in Switzerland and didn't come back 'til Monday night
Ciao friends!
I went completely off the rails making this salad, but I have to share it with you because it’s so damn good! Inspired by the bar in the cobblestone piazza under my house: summer spelt aka farro salad with lemon, mint, feta, and the secret ingredient: radish. The feta becomes buttery with the lemon, while the mint and radish bring a fresh peppery crunch. I’m spooning the leftovers into my mouth from a glass Mason jar while I type. Jump directly to the farro salad recipe here - or come with me first on our Swiss Alps escapade including a serendipitous gourmet meal in a tiny greenhouse under the mountain peaks!
Grazie for being here! There are 275 of you after just 3 months of Weeknight Pasta, including paid subscribers! Means the world to me! I’m having so much fun sharing these authentic weeknight pasta recipes and hearing back from you on what you make! Please drop me a note or send photos. I love to see what you do!🫶🏼
Our Swiss Escapade
My boyfriend, Giorgio, our dog, Coco, and I left early Sunday morning to escape the Italian heat and humidity with a hike in the nearby in the Swiss Alps. (We’re just 5 km from the Swiss border here in Como.)
Italians have a word for combined high heat and humidity: “afa”. It has been afa in Como for a good 2 months now. On top of the afa, Giorgio runs a hair salon with the blasting heat of hairdryers all day. So, 30 minutes into the drive and barely in sight of the snow-covered peaks, Giorgio blurts, “Let’s stay the night and come back tomorrow.” We didn’t have anything but our hiking backpacks with some of Coco’s dog food, a few swimming towels and an apple, but YES. 100% YES! It ended up being the kind of 2 day break that feels like a week-long holiday.
Dinner in a tiny greenhouse in the Swiss Alps
Upon arriving in San Bernardino, which is in the Canton of Ticino, the Swiss-Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, we found a gorgeous, newly renovated Swiss-mountain-style hotel, centrally located in the village. Our vibe is not always “centrally located” because: budget, but this was just ONE NIGHT. You can see where this is going.
Outside the hotel I’d seen this group of 8 tiny greenhouses with beautiful dining tables and told Giorgio, if you pay for the hotel, I’ll pay for dinner in a greenhouse!
Note to self: I should do research before I make promises. It turns out the very adorable greenhouses were there for 10 days only for very special dining events with rotating guest chefs. Greenhouses meet my credit card. It was just ONE NIGHT, right?! It was SO worth it. Our chef was Caterina Vosti, a sustainable chef from Ticino working as Excutive Chef at Collina Relais in Bergamo, Italy. We were assigned a serra or greenhouse with 2 other couples, both from Ticino. As it was just the 6 of us in this tiny greenhouse, we got to chatting.
Couple #1 lived just DOWN the road towards Italy in the tiny town of Lostallo. It so happens that the delicious and incredibly fresh salmon we ate that night was from Swiss Lachs, a sustainable salmon farm in Lostallo. I wasn’t previously aware that sustainable salmon farming methods existed! The sushi grade salmon was served raw and I would have thought it was wild-caught if I hadn’t known otherwise. This lovely local couple was also able to tell me the location of a nearby waterfall and swimming hole that we went to last summer, loved, and then promptly forgot where it was. I’d been desperately searching for it on Google maps for weeks. Was it fate?
Couple #2 lived just UP the road in the miniscule high valley village of 60 people called Hinterrhein. Martina and Martin are cow and goat dairy farmers and invited us to stop by their farm next time we are in the area. Cannot wait!
On with the meal! Here was our menu and a little filmino aka video I put together. (I forgot to take a snap of the salmon. It was Giorgio’s first time eating raw salmon ever in life at age 57 so I was a little distracted. After stating that he couldn’t eat it, he ended up practically licking the plate clean.
AMUSE BOUCHE
Tartelletta con tartare di manzo e tartufo nero / Beef tartare and black truffle tarts
Tacos di farina di mais, carota e maionese alla curcuma / Corn tacos with carrot and turmeric mayonese
ANTIPASTO / Starter
Salmone di Lostallo, cetriolo, menta e caviale / Lostallo Salmon with cucumber, mint, and caviar
PRIMO / 1st Course
Ravioli o risotto con ricotta di capra, ortiche e limone / Ravioli or risotto with goat ricotta, nettles, and lemon
SECONDO /2nd Course
Lucioperca del Lago Maggiore, pomodoro cuore di bue e erbe di campo / Pike-perch or zander (struggling to translate this fish!) from Lake Maggiore with beef heart tomato and wild greens
DOLCE / DESSERT
Cremoso allo yogurt d’alpe, pesche e granola / Creamy alpine yogurt with peaches and granola
Hiking, waterfalls, and our greenhouse dinner. Volume up. ❤️
Pimp my Pasta
A new section of Weeknight Pasta! You beautiful readers send me photos of your WPFI inspired creations starting with my dear friend and insanely accomplished home cook, Steve, who made the Effortless Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Fusilotti in London, and made it his own. Steve has a track record of making The Best Food, and if I could, I would give him a Michelin star for home cookery. When I was in London for my yoga teacher training, I stayed with Steve and his partner, Greg, and would come home in pieces, exhausted from a day of Sanskrit and vinyasas. Steve would have prepared the most divine from scratch, multi-course meals including homemade desserts. Such happy memories of my time with them.
Here are Steve’s pasta incarnations. He added red peppers, a few chili flakes, grated pecorino cheese and a fair amount of cooking water to my recipe. He also roasted the garlic with the veggies, which I think was a stroke of genius.
PSA: Cleaning your Moka Pot
I received an excellent question this week about cleaning your moka!
Many of you may have seen that Erin from Quaintrelle is shopping for a new espresso maker. As I am a moka pot super fan, I recommended the moka pot.
Anyway, Tracie had a great follow up question: does the moka need to be cleaned?
Yes, occasionally.
Daily cleaning should just consist of rinsing all the parts of the moka with tap water and letting them dry thoroughly.
Do not use soap to clean your moka.
How an Italian rightfully reacts to soap being intentionally used to clean the moka, as demonstrated in one of the meanest moka videos ever made: here. Dishwashing detergents will leave a bad taste in the moka, ruining it.
my beloved moka disassembled after cleaning ©️lolly martyn
Occasionally a more thorough cleaning with sodium bicarbonate aka baking soda is required to remove any buildup of oils which could become rancid. For this, fill the base with a mixture of sodium bicarbonate and water. Heat the moka per usual until water comes out the holes. Then rinse, and heat it a couple more times like this with only water. Your moka will be deodorized and ready to once again prepare you delicious, aromatic espresso!
My Love in Salad Form
Back to today and this 30 minute spelt/farro salad inspired by the vibrantly fresh lemon-mint farro salad my girlfriends and I eat all summer at the wooden slatted tables under the trees in the piazza. Our piazza recipe has octopus, which I understand is not very convenient in many other countries. So I’ve adapted with feta, the Greek cheese that has exceeded popularity of goat cheese in Italy by 3 times over. The combination of feta, lemon, and mint is a winner and has become part of modern day Italian cooking!
The recipe can be adapted and experimented with to your whims with 2 must dos:
Add the olive oil and lemon immediately to the hot/warm spelt. Do not refrigerate the spelt first and THEN try to add the rest of the ingredients later. Cold spelt won’t absorb the oil and lemon and consequently be less flavorful - and a bit soupy. I also recommend adding ALL the ingredients when the spelt is warm, so the feta gets melty and soft around the edges, but itìs the lemon and oil that are most critical.
Chop the mint into tiny pieces otherwise you will feel like a goat, and not like the Meryl Streep or Serena Williams kind of G.O.A.T., the I’m-eating-grass kind of goat.
***One more thing. Radishes are the secret ingredient. Nice fresh crispy peppery ones. Trust me! Yum!
The radishes and arugula add salady peppery crunch which is met and balanced by the creamy salty feta. All layered on the backdrop of heady lemon, mint and olive oil.
fresh radishes / i ravanelli ©️lolly martyn
pst! Scroll to the very bottom to download recipe pdf!
For more info on Part 1 of Italian Beach Salads click these:
What is Farro Salad? and
Rules for an Italian Beach Salad
Spelt salad with lemon, mint, feta, and radish
Insalata di farro con limone, feta, menta, e rapanelli
FOR 4 PEOPLE
The ingredients
320 g spelt aka farro
16 Tbls good quality extra virgin olive oil
6-8 Tbls freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tsp freshly grated lemon zest
80g feta cheese
4 Tbls mint, chopped finely to avoid feeling like you’re grazing
4 Tbls arugula, chopped
200g radishes, chopped about the same size as the feta
4 green onions, quartered and thinly sliced
Optional: freshly ground pepper, to taste
The method
1) Fill a big tall pot with water and salt and set on high heat stove burner. Taste the water to make sure it’s salty like the sea (and add more salt if needed).
2) Meanwhile:
prep your vegetables, lemon, feta, and oil per the instructions above
put all ingredients except spelt in a large bowl and give a gentle mix
3) Once the water is boiling, add the farro. Cook until packet instructions (utually 15-30 minutes).
4) Add spelt to your bowl of vegetables, lemon, feta and oil. Stir to combine flavors.
5) Add pepper if you like pepper. Taste for salt and add more salt if you need.
Spoon into pasta bowls. Or into your beach or picnic container for transport!
Refrigerates well, up to 3 days.
Buon appetito!
Notes:
Salt: It’s important not to skimp. This salt is flavoring your farro.
Farro: you can substitute with barley or quinoa!
Extra virgin olive oil: The olive oil is your sauce so its important! Don’t skimp! If it says ‘extra virgin olive oil’ and ‘cold pressed’ on the glass (not plastic) bottle, that’s a good start! Reference Olive Oil Unfiltered for more tips on selecting an olive oil you like.
Buon appetito!
x Lolly
Love the look of your salad Lolly Martyn, from your new subscriber Cathie Martyn haha are we related 😂🤣
I love farro so making this tonight and 100% agree re radishes.