This aubergine salad is served as a starter along with crust bread and various other ‘salate’ or on the table for a late summer barbeque. It can easily be made well in advance and make plenty, because it’s also extremely delicious just on its own for a lunchtime snack, and all the better with some crispy grilled ‘lipia’ bread (a kind of round thin bread, something like a flatbread or pitta). What’s more, it’s simple to make!
Polenta e Osei is probably the most representative dish of Vicenza’s traditional cuisine.
The recipe contains simple ingredients and its secret lies in a long and low heat cooking. The meat has to be moistened during the whole cooking process and the heat has to be uniformly distributed.
A typical Christmas dish is the roasted hen turkey with pomegranate.
The dish dates back to the Renaissance, and more specifically to the magnificent banquets of the Serenissima Republic.
Bassano is a small and lovely town not far away from the city of Palladio, where a precious white plant grows up every spring, becoming the main protagonist during Easter – the asparagus.
Eggs and Asparago Bianco di Bassano DOP represents one of the most typical dishes of the Veneto province. The dish is an example of a simple but tasty regional recipe and goes very well with white wines.
Capons are often used in the traditional cuisine of Vicenza and Capon ala canevèra is a dish that is usually prepared in winter, during Christmas holidays.
But what is the canevèra? It’s a kind of pipe used as a blowhole during the cooking process in the oven, so the meat can keep all its taste.
A great dish of Veneto’s cuisine tradition is the classic but tasty recipe of pasta e fasoi.
For the locals of Veneto beans are related to strength and survival, as they helped families to feed themselves and carry on during hard times of war and famine.
Bigoli con L’Arna is one of the most mouthwatering dishes of Vicenza’s cuisine.
This is an ancient recipe which brings us back in time of 16th century, when the Holy League defeated the Ottoman Empire in the famous Battle of Lepanto.
To remember the glorious victory, Pope Pio V (and subsequently Gregorio XIII) established a feast called Our Lady of the Rosary, celebrated by the locals of Veneto with this special dish every first Sunday of October.
Hrudka is a traditional meal of Eastern Slovakia and it’s an essential part of the Easter table. Eggs were considered the symbol of life and fertility and because of that, food made of eggs was served especially during Easter (celebrated in spring), when nature wakes up after winter rest.
In Slovakia, the most popular freshwater fish are carp, trout and pike. The Christmas Eve table could not lack fish, with carp being the most frequently chosen one. On the other hand, Slovak forests provide plenty of different kinds of edible mushrooms and they are usually prepared with meat, scrambled eggs, soups or sauces.
In the 18th century, sheep cheese manufacturers were established in Slovakia: the first one was in 1787 in Detva, and the second one in Zvolenská Slatina in 1797, which is still operating nowadays. Demikát, together with sheep cheese gnocchi, is another Slovak traditional dish, for the preparation of which this type of cheese is used.
During the summer many fruits ripen, so they have also become part of the traditional Slovak recipes. The cooked dough dishes are some of the most popular among them, where besides gnocchi and noodles, potato dumplings with fruit belong to. Many different kinds of fruit can be used for its preparation, but the most common are cherries, strawberries, apricots, plums and blueberries. As a topping/streusel curd, nuts, poppy seed or bread crumbs can be used.
Autumn in Slovakia belongs to goose feasts, with their long tradition especially in the Small-Carpathian region. Breeding of geese and goose feasts in Slovakia have about a hundred year long tradition that is related to the southern regions of our country. The tradition of roasting goose came to Slovakia from German-speaking countries, especially Austria and Germany, where it is associated with the feast of St. Martin. In Slovakia, it was mainly established for economic reasons because selling roasted goose at the local markets was the activity of Slovak housewives, which in this way improved the household budget. Gourmets from various parts of the country began to search for places where the best goose came from (Chorvátsky and Slovenský Grob). Another reason for the emergence of this habit was just to the South of Slovakia with plenty of small rivers and brooks ideal conditions for breeding geese.
