Juls.... She is a girl after my own heart!! We met about a year ago through the happy media of twitter and blogosphere. I was amazed about how many common interests and likes we had and our shared outlook on so many things in life.. She is like a sister I was meant to have!! Siblings to grow up, share, tease and enjoy together!!
Only she is from gorgeous Tuscany, a place I yearn to spend sometime in, sit back, relax and catch up with Juls.. But I am glad I will be atleast seeing her soon, in her backyard or in just Europe's backyard! ;-)
Since we met, we have collaborated on a few projects together like the Christmas issue of G2Kitchen. It's always been fun to work with her enthusiastic energy spurring you on. Her blog, Jul's Kitchen, is a reflection of that same energy and her charming personality with recipes of the home and heart, lovely photographs and straight from the heart posts :)
So, without further ado, please travel with me to the gorgeous streets of Florence.... :)
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After more than a year of Twitter, Facebook and obviously blog friendship, finally this Autumn I'll meet Asha during her holidays in Europe: yet to decide when and where exactly, but since we'll be sharing the same continent for a while, we'll definitely have the chance to meet. I'm so excited, because it will be like meeting an old friend, but for the first time!
I'm proud to be in such a great company to celebrate Asha's blog anniversary, three years of mouthwatering recipes, vivid photos and - more important - three years of honest and contagious love for food. I asked Asha to contribute to her street food series with one of our typical street food, the
Florentine Panino al Lampredotto.
Soon it will be summer again, and maybe we’ll be tempted to go to Florence to have a walk in the centre, looking at the fascinating high couture shop windows or simply strolling lazily along tiny back lanes, amazed by the sudden view of the Dome you discover behind every corner. You can decide to get lost into Florence neighborhoods, little towns with their own personality enclosed into the bigger city, each area with its market and its typical shops.
This is the right time to mingle with the Florentines and eat one of the most famous street food in town:
panino al lampredotto. Lampredotto is a kind of tripe, darker with a more intense taste, it's the fourth and leanest part of a cow stomach. I know.. I know... maybe I've lost you at the beginning: it's not easy to have someone eat offal, especially when this habit doesn't belong to their food and culture background. But Florentine people love the quinto quarto (literally the fifth quarter) the offal, the less noble part of an animal, as head, tail, stomach, heart...
Lampredotto is boiled in a broth and put in a sandwich with salsa verde (green sauce) or – more recently – with a spicy sauce. The bread used is the typical semelle (also known as semellino) and on request it can be soaked into the lampredotto broth. You can enjoy this unique street food in markets at the trippaio stall, queuing with the Florentines on their lunch break or with brave tourists who dare to try this panino. Give it a try and you'll discover a new, hearty and genuine flavour.
I asked aunt Silvana for the recipe: years ago she was thinking about opening a trippaio stall at the market, so who better than aunt Silvana could give me the recipe?
Panino al Lampredotto
1 carrot
2 celery stalks
2 ripe tomatoes
1/2 red onion
coarse salt
500 g lampredotto
Ingredients to make Mum’s salasa verde (green sauce):
plenty of parsley
1 hardboiled egg
1 handful of pickled capers
2 slices of bread, soaked in water and white vinegar
1 clove of garlic
extra virgin olive oil
salt
pepper
Rinse the lampredotto under cold running water and place it in a pot filled up to 3/4of water with a carrot, the celery, the tomatoes, the onion and a handful of coarse salt. Bring to the boil and let it simmer on low heat for at least an hour.
Meanwhile make the salsa verde. Soak the bread in water and white vinegar, squeeze it well and crumble it with your hands. Chop the parsley with a knife along with the hardboiled egg, a clove of garlic, the capers and the crumbled bread. Put all the chopped ingredients in a bowl and pour in a generous dash of extra virgin olive oil, stir well and season with salt and pepper.
To make the panino, remove the lampredotto from the broth and slice it thinly. Open the panino and fill it with the lampredotto, season with plenty of salt and ground black pepper and a generous spoonful of salsa verde.
Pay attention while eating your panino: the green sauce and the olive oil will be dripping from all sides, but that’s the beauty of our panino al lampredotto!
Obviously lampredotto can also be eaten sitting at table in a proper dish, seasoned with salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil or with green sauce, enriched by some pickles.
