chicken

Cibrèo, a forgotten Florentine dish

Tags: chicken, florence, food history, meat, nostalgia, offal, recipes, traditional
October 28, 2021
One Comment

I know, I know, the ingredients might be challenge — chicken combs and testicles aren’t the easiest to obtain or to handle for some — this isn’t for the faint of heart. But I will say that this is a wonderful, divine and very special dish with an incredible Florentine history, and I think in today’s context is still extremely relevant as a sustainable and respectful choice for omnivores who care about eating for the planet.

Tags: chicken, elizabeth david, florence, mains, meat, recipes, restaurants
March 1, 2015
14 Comments

You know when you have a dish in a restaurant that you can’t stop thinking about and every time you go you can’t bear to veer away from that dish so you keep ordering it, never trying anything else because you have been constantly thinking about it since your last visit? Well this, for me, is one of those. It is quite simple – chicken in butter, presented just as it sounds, a tender chicken breast floating in a delicious sauce of butter.

Tags: art, chicken, cookbooks, first course, food history, italy, poultry, recipes, renaissance, traditional
January 3, 2012
22 Comments

Twelve months ago, I posted a recipe from Artusi’s cookbook for a Sicilian almond pudding, biancomangiare. The 120 year old recipe is a classic, but it’s origins go back centuries further, when the pure white dish of biancomangiare was a monastery staple and bedside comfort food of chicken and almond milk. I wrote about the Renaissance version of this recipe recently for The Canberra Times, to coincide with the opening of an unprecedented exhibition of Renaissance painting in the National Gallery of the Australian capital city.

Tags: artusi, autumn, chicken, first courses, gnocchi, pasta, poultry, primi, soup, traditional
October 18, 2011
10 Comments

It’s been a long summer in Tuscany this year but finally the temperature is dropping with this perfectly crisp, cool autumn air. Where in the summer heat I wilt, I feel at the same time invigorated and comforted by autumn. I like to lie in bed for a few extra minutes just to enjoy being warm under the fluffy covers. My morning ritual now begins with putting the kettle on for a big, steaming mug of herbal tea to warm up.

Cibrèo, a forgotten Florentine dish

Pollo al burro (chicken in butter)

The art of Renaissance comfort food: Biancomangiare

Artusi’s October: Chicken gnocchi for the soul