Here we are again with the second appointment with Italian street food. Talking about Italian street food, I bet the first thing that comes into your head is pizza. Indeed, you are not wrong! Actually, pizza has primacy, but it is followed by the piadina, then by the Genoese focaccia, and afterwards, by two types of sweet: the strudel from the Trentino-Alto Adige region and the sbrisolona from Lombardy (at least, these are the recipes that are more searched by the web population).
Yet, there are many more types of street food that complete the long list that we started in the first part. Mondeghili in Lombardy, Brezel in Trentino, cichètì in Veneto, cevapcici in Friuli Venezia Giulia, crescentina in Emilia Romagna. Moreover, there is the torta al testo in Umbria, olives all’ascolana in Marche, supplì in Lazio, baccalà (salted codfish) in Molise and u pastizz in Basilicata.
Today, the guest of honour is one of the most widespread street food in Italy: olives all’ascolana. Named after their city of origin, Ascoli Piceno (Marche region) where they were first prepared, the variety of olives that is used got the PDO status in 2005.
It’s a simple recipe and a very versatile food, as it can be considered as street food, finger food or as a tasty appetizer.
They say it may date back to the early 19th century. At that time, some chefs invented this recipe that combines the pulpy green olives grown in Ascoli Piceno and the meat that the noblemen they worked for received in huge quantities by their peasants.
Nowadays, you can find them frozen in the supermarket, but people from Marche keep up the tradition to make them from scratch on Sundays.
A black and white view from Ascoli Piceno.
Ingredients list:
You need green olives from Ascoli Piceno first. Remove their pits, cut the pulp in a spiral and fill in the space left by the pit with the mixture of beef and pork meat you previously simmered with white wine and herbs. You also have to add egg yolks, grated parmesan and nutmeg to this meat mix. Some people use to add a small quantity of lemon zest and cloves too, but, well, it all depends on your tastes.
After that, recompose the olives so to make them look like they were never cut and opened, coat them with flour, then beaten eggs and finally with breadcrumbs. Deep-fry them.
Now you just have to serve them, maybe accompanied by a good red wine, chilling out and chatting with friends on a rainy Friday night. What do you think about?
tag24.it - Street food made in Italy
it.wikipedia.org - Olive ascolane
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