briciole

formaggio fresco di kefir fatto in casa

homemade fresh kefir cheese

kefir cheese with dukkah and cacao nibs

As I mentioned in the post on homemade kefir, for my first attempt I used kefir culture. The flavor of the kefir was a bit too acidic for our taste, and at that point, I had not yet learned all the ways in which to use kefir that I know now. I decided to see how the kefir would taste once the whey was removed, so I poured the kefir into a cloth-lined colander, then made a bundle and hung it up to drain for 24 hours (at room temperature).

I then chopped up finely a sample of herbs from my little garden: dill (aneto), mint (menta), chives (erba cipollina), parsley (prezzemolo), added a bit of salt and freshly milled pepper and mixed into the drained kefir, then molded it using my favorite heart-shaped mold.

The mold rests on a small grid for draining

I let the kefir cheese drain in the fridge for 3-4 days, then unmolded and tasted it.

kefir cheese with fresh herbs

The flavor was pleasantly tangy and the herbs gave it a nice nuance. It was particularly nice spread over a slightly sweet bread like my homemade challah.

After this success, I obtained kefir grains (grani di kefir), as recounted in the previous post. I made kefir using them and then made kefir cheese again, but this time instead of herbs, I added dukkah and cacao nibs (granella di fave di cacao). If you don't know what dukkah is, read on.

A few years ago, I attended an evening class on sourdough bread. It was not only the beginning of my sourdough baking adventure, but also of an acquaintance that turned into a friendship with Rhonda, who taught the class. For the bread tasting, Rhonda made some dukkah, something I had never seen before.

my rendition of dukkah

Dukkah (also spelled duqqa or dukka) comes to us from Egypt: it is a mix of toasted and ground spices and nuts.

The word is derived from the Arabic for "to pound" since the mixture of spices and nuts are pounded together after being dry roasted to a texture that is neither powdered nor paste-like. The actual composition of the spice mix can vary from family to family, vendor to vendor though there are common ingredients, such as sesame, coriander, cumin, salt and pepper. [source]

The recipe I use comes from 101 Cookbooks. I halve the quantities, because the full recipe makes quite a bit. And I like it coarsely ground (I use the food processor to do the grinding).

fresh kefir cheese (drained kefir)

Back to the kefir, this time I drained it using a double layer of cheese netting instead of cloth. As I was about to gather some herbs to repeat the process followed before, my eyes encountered the jar where my freshly made dukkah was stored and I interpreted that as a sign. Next to it, there was the container where I keep cacao nibs (which I get from Dick Taylor Chocolate). Having successfully used cacao nibs with hard cheese, it was not difficult to decide to add those as well (after all, they are also toasted and ground, like the spices and nuts in dukkah).

I added a teaspoon each of dukkah and cacao nibs, relying on my sense of balance to make an educated guess. I wanted the flavor to be detectable, but not overpowering, a balance I had previously achieved with the herb mix. I also added a bit more of salt, mixed lightly and then filled the heart-shaped mold. Once again, I let the cheese sit in the fridge and drain further for 3-4 days and then tasted it: I was very happy with the result.

For my second batch of kefir cheese, I increased the amount of both dukkah and cacao nibs to 1 and 1/2 teaspoon each and let the cheese rest in the fridge 5 days. If you try, I recommend you start with the lower quantity and see how you like it. (I suspect that the combination would also work with labneh, but have not tried it.)

Ingredients:

• 10 oz drained kefir (see Note below)
  
• a generous pinch of sea salt
• 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoon dukkah (see text above)
• 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoon cacao nibs (see text above)

Note: How much kefir? I use kefir made with non-fat milk and drain about 7 cups (1.65 l). I don't make that much kefir all at the same time. I usually make a pint (2 cups, 475 ml) or a quart (4 cups, 950 ml), depending on what my plans for using it are. (According to this site, it is actually better to let kefir ripen for a day or two before using it.) Pour kefir into a cloth-lined colander (I use a cotton napkin with a tight weave or a double layer of cheese netting). Gather the corners and make a bundle. Hang it over a bowl and let drain for 24 hours. (I don't have a photo of my set up, but this is quite similar: note the colander placed over the pot: if for whatever reason the bundle falls, it doesn't splash into the whey.) Reserve the whey and use it.

Sanitize a 4 1/4-inch heart-shaped mold (or other mold of choice) in boiling water. Sprinkle salt, dukkah and cacao nibs on the drained kefir and mix in. Place into mold and pack lightly.

Place a small grid at the bottom of a container and put the mold on it. Cover the container and refrigerate. Every day, discard the whey that collects at the bottom of the container.

After 3-5 days, unmold the cheese ahead of time and serve at room temperature. If the cheese is still very wet, put the leftover back into the mold and the draining container. If the cheese is not too wet, store it in cheese paper. Either way, put the cheese in the fridge. Ideally, you should bring to room temperature only the amount of cheese you will consume, so the rest can remain at constant temperature.

curry pumpkin and ginger scones

My favorite combination is kefir cheese spread over curry and pumpkin scones made with kefir instead of buttermilk and brown butter (details in an upcoming post).

Exciting update (May 26, 2012): my kefir cheese story is featured in today's post on the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company blog.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

formaggio fresco di kefir fatto in casa

or launch the formaggio fesco di kefir fatto in casa audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

kefir, cheese, dukkah, cacao nibs

kefir fatto in casa

homemade kefir

mango lassi made with kefir

A couple of months ago, I made kefir using this culture. The process was straightforward and in about 24 hours, we could taste it. I ended up making fresh cheese with it: I will described that in an upcoming this post.

While my first adventure with kefir was unfolding, Jeri, who writes the blog of the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company, published a three-part summary of information received by readers of their newsletter: 1. ordering kefir grains; 2. growing kefir grains; 3. using kefir grains.

In the first post, I learned more about kefir grains (grani di kefir) and the difference between them and the culture I had used. The cultures have probiotics in them, but "nowhere near as many as in the living grains." Probiotics are defined as living organisms, which upon ingestion in certain numbers, exert health benefits beyond inherent basic nutrition.

Kefir is a unique cultured dairy product due to combined lactic acid and alcoholic fermentation of lactose in milk. Kefir is produced by microbial activity of “kefir grains” which have a relatively stable and specific balance of lactic acid bacteria and yeast. [source]

I decided I needed to get some first-hand experience of the interesting-looking kefir grains. At the same time (and I guess this was all part of a grand scheme), Claudia of Honey from Rock wrote about her adventures with kefir. Shortly afterwards, I spent a few days on the Big Island and visited Claudia

Among the many goodies that Claudia gave us (I already mentioned one in this post), there was a small bag with some kefir grains in a milk bath. They did fine on the trip back and as soon as I got back home, I started my first batch of kefir.

Basically, it does not get easier than this. You still need to be careful about sanitizing the tools you are using, but really, making kefir at home is a breeze: you only need a glass jar, a strainer and a spoon or something similar to move the kefir grains. I sterilize the glass jar in the oven and the lid with boiling water. When the jar has cooled, I strain the kefir grains (from the previous batch of kefir or from the milk in which they were resting in the fridge).

The photo above is from a while ago. Most recently, instead of straining the kefir grains, I spoon them out, taking advantage of the fact that they tend to be at the surface of the jar of ready kefir. I then strain the content of the jar to separate small grains left behind. I have not read this anywhere: I feel like this way I stress the grains less. In any case, when straining kefir grains, be gentle.

Add milk of choice to the jar (I use pasteurized organic milk straight from the bottle) and then the strained kefir grains, cover the jar (leaving the lid just a bit loose to allow the CO₂ produced to escape), then set it aside in a warm, dark place (or wrap it in a kitchen towel). The kefir grains will take it from there and deliver kefir within a certain number of hours. It takes me 24 hours to get kefir, sometimes a bit longer, depending on the temperature. Once strained, I store kefir in the fridge and let it ripen for a day or two before using it.

Rather than go into the details of the set up, which is described in details in a number of places on the web — like this page and also this page, the one most people reference — I have summarized in a diagram the ways in which I have used kefir in its natural or drained state (arrows pointing down from "kefir"). The arrow pointing up from kefir grains means that I reculture milk with the grains strained out of the previous barch. I don't make kefir continuously. When I don't need more kefir than I have, I place the grains in a jar, cover them with milk and put them in the fridge for a few days. Since the grains grow while also making kefir, you may want to find a friend who wants to try and give her/him the extra grains that you get.

I have already shown one of the ways in which I use kefir in this post, where it substitutes sour cream topping for soup. The mango lassi in the top photo was made with

• chopped ripe mango
  
• kefir
  
• a bit of agave nectar as sweetener (the quantity depending on the sweetness of the mango and your personal preference).
  

And the beautiful scones below were made using kefir instead of buttermilk (latticello).

curry pumpkin and ginger scones

If you go to Honey from Rock and enter "kefir" in the Search field, you get the list of posts where Claudia talks about her adventures. The idea is that once you have kefir, you come up with various ways to use it. That is, at least, what happened to me.

Due to the claimed health benefits of kefir which include reduction of lactose intolerance symptoms, stimulation of the immune system, lowering cholesterol, and antimutagenic and anticarcinogenic properties, kefir has become an important functional dairy food and consequently, research on kefir has increased in the past decade. [source]

There are indeed a number of scientific papers describing research that looked more closely at the composition of kefir grains and at various effects of kefir administration to mice and rats. There are studies on specific health effects of kefir consumption in humans. For example, in this one on people with lactose maldigestion, kefir improved lactose digestion and tolerance. In other areas, results have been mixed (as this article summarizes): I hope larger studies will be conducted. In the meantime, I will continue enjoying making and using kefir at home.

Exciting update (May 26, 2012): my kefir story is featured in today's post on the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company blog.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

kefir fatto in casa

or launch the kefir fatto in casa audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

kefir

pane alla zucca

pumpkin bread

The cart in the foreground contains the result of our visit to the Warren Creek Farms pumpkin patch last October. Besides three pumpkins for carving, we chose several other specimens, like the Cinderella pumpkin indicated by the arrow. Since it is partially hidden, I have drawn two arrows to indicate two others that were on display. The original name of this variety of pumpkin is Rouge vif D'Etampes, but Cinderella pumpkin (literally, zucca di Cenerentola) fits it perfectly.

The pumpkin was so pretty, I could not bring myself to cook it. I have a cold room that is perfect for storing squashes, but even there they don't last forever, so one day recently, I decided it was time to bake the Cinderella. I pierced it in several places with a blade and put it in the oven preheated to 375 F for about half an hour to slightly soften it. When the pumpkin had cooled a bit, I cut it in half and scooped out the seeds (a grapefruit spoon is perfect for this task). I did not discard what I had removed from inside the pumpkin (see below).

I put the two pumpkin halves back in the oven, cut side down, until I could easily pierce the flesh with a blade. I took out of the oven the baking sheet and let the pumpkin cool. I discarded the water that was released by the cooling pumpkin. I then scooped out the flesh (again using the grapefruit spoon) and put it in a colander set over a bowl. By the time I was finished with the two big pieces of cooked pumpkin, a bit more water had been released and I discarded that as well. On this page, you can see some photos of the process I somewhat followed. Note the color of the roasted pumpkin in the photos: it resembles that of oranges, and it is lighter that that of canned pumpkin. This has an impact on the color of the bread (more on this at the end of the post).

At this point, knowing that I would use the pumpkin to make bread and also ice cream, I put it in a bowk and processed it briefly with an immersion blender. I immediately froze more than half of the purée and refrigerated the rest until ready to use it. I also rinsed the seeds I had removed from inside the pumpkin and roasted them at 375 F until they were crisp. The seeds (semi di zucca) were larger than those of the pumpkins my husband had carved for Halloween and very tasty. In the part of Italy where I grew up, roasted and salted pumkpin seeds are called bruscolini.

As I write, I have already made this pumpkin bread several times. The photo above shows it accompanying some roasted applesauce. It goes really well with cheese and it is a pleasure to nibble a slice au naturel. The recipe for the bread comes from the King Arthur Flour website. I always halve the quantities to make one braid. Originally, I was worried that the spices (spezie) would be a bit too intense, but that is not the case. I weigh the flours and some of the other ingredients, so my list is as follows:

• 5 3/4 ounces (165 g) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour (this is not an advertisement: I always use this flour to make bread)
• 4 1/4 ounces (120 g) whole-wheat flour from my grain CSA
• 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) cinnamon (cannella)
• 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) ground ginger (zenzero in polvere)
• 1/8 teaspoon (0.625 ml) ground cloves (chiodi di garofano in polvere)
• 3/4 ounce (20 g) diced uncrystallized candied ginger (zenzero candito; see the Note below)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 tablespoon instant yeast
• 7.5 ounces (210-215 g) puréed roasted pumpkin
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons (1 ounce / 30 g) melted butter

The original recipe calls also for 1 1/4 ounce (35 g) brown sugar. A few times I used 1/2 ounce (15 g) of honey (miele), but the last time I made the bread, I skipped the sweetener altogether and I liked the result better.

Note: according to this page, the difference between crystallized and uncrystallized ginger is only that the former is rolled in granulated sugar after being candied and the latter is not. I don't like the coating, so I prefer uncrystallized ginger.

Making the bread following the instructions on the KAF recipe page is pretty straightforward. The only thing I did differently is the use of convection baking. Since my oven adjusts the temperature automatically when selecting the convection baking option, I still set it to 350 F. And in my oven, the bread bakes in 25 minutes.

The photos I had of previous realizations of this bread, apart from the one with the applesauce, were not satisfactory. The photo above shows the unsweetened pumpkin bread I baked yesterday, together with some candied ginger: it was made with another one of the pumpkins in the cart at the top, the oblong green one to the left of the Cinderella. Unfortunately, I failed to ask the name of the variety. The color of the roasted flesh is lighter and more yellow, which explains the different color of the bread. When you make your own, consider that the color of the pumpkin will have an effect on the color of the bread.

I am submitting this recipe, bookmarked on the King Arthur Flour website to the December edition of Bookmarked Recipes, an event originally started by Ruth of Ruth’s Kitchen Experiments and now hosted by Jacqueline of Tinned Tomatoes.

This post contains the roundup of the event.

I think this bread makes a great breakfast option, topped with preserves or cheese or used to make French toast, so I am submitting the post to the December edition of Breakfast Club: an event started by Helen of Fuss Free Flavours. Guest-host Krithi of Krithi's Kitchen has chosen Bread as the theme for the event.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

pane alla zucca

or launch the pane alla zucca audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

bread, pumpkin

sale e pepe

salt and pepper

In a recent post, where I talked about the items I had purchased during my most recent trip to Italy, I mentioned "something for the table (a pair of objects, actually), which I will describe in a future post." Like my beloved grattugia, I obtained the objects in exchange for "points" earned by my parents by shopping (fare la spesa) at a specific supermercato.

The objects were described as saliera e pepiera (salt shaker and pepper shaker), but the salt and pepper contained in them go through a grinder before coming out from one of their feet, so, they are actually a salt mill and a pepper mill, macinasale and macinapepe, respectively. I particularly like the salt mill, which allows me to place coarse sel gris on the table for our guests.

I like my salt and pepper mills a lot, because they are colorful and have a cheerful shape. My husband describes them as methane molecules, based on their shape: imagine the carbon atom as their core body and the four hydrogen atoms, one at the end of each limb. There is a lid on the "head" of the mill, which you open in order to fill the "body" with salt or pepper. To grind, you turn the upper part of the body and the ground salt or pepper comes out from one of the feet, which also has a lid that prevents sprinkling when the mill is not in use (both lids are visible on the pepper mill in the photo above).

A few expressions related to pepper (I have talked about salt in a previous post):

• pepe in grani (whole peppercorns)
• pepe macinato (ground pepper)
• sale e pepe (salt-and-pepper), as in capelli sale e pepe (salt-and-pepper hair)
• tutto pepe (spirited)
• peperino ((real) live wire)

Hear me pronounce the words on the sale e pepe audio file [mp3] or go to the sale e pepe audio page for more listening options.

sale

salt

The photo on the left shows the following kinds of salt: sel gris (grey sea salt, top left), sale grosso (coarse sea salt, right), sale fino (fine sea salt, bottom left).

Growing up in Italy, a store I visited often was the tabaccheria across the street from the apartment building where I lived. Vanessa of Italy in SF just published a post with a nice photo of the sign that marks the presence of such a quintessential Italian store. The sign tells you that in the store you can purchase: sali, tabacchi and valori bollati, i.e., salts, tobacco products, mail stamps, stamps for documents and stamped paper sheets. The last two articles are necessary in Italy to make bureaucracy work (this is a long story, which I may one day tell you to make you laugh — if you are Italian, though, it is no laughable matter).

Sale grosso is what my mother adds to boiling water to cook pasta and sale fino is what she uses to season food. That is the simple world in which I grew up. To be honest, there is another kind of salt, salgemma (rock salt), but I don't think my mother used it, so I don't. Sea salt is harvested in saline (salt works). The two white salts in the photo were harvested in Sicily, in the province of Trapani (a city located on the top left tip of the triangular island).

The language corner — The word salario (salary) has its root in the allowance paid to Roman soldiers to buy salt. A food lacking salt and/or flavor is described as insipido.

The history corner — In 1540, my home town of Perugia fought a war against the Pope called Guerra del Sale. Forced to purchase salt from the papal state's salt works at a high price, people tried to limit their consumption. Bread without salt — the famous pane sciapo — is a type of bread still enjoyed today, whose flavor surprises visitors.

Sel gris (unprocesses sea salt) and other so-called gourmet salts are described on this page. When I visited the San Francisco Fancy Food Show last January, I saw an incredible array of flavored salts. One of them caught my fancy: vanilla salt. I will talk about it in a future post. The only flavored salt I have ever bought is matcha salt, which I purchased a while ago (together with the grey salt) from the company where I get my loose leaf tea, and which I have been using mostly to decorate and flavor Lavash crackers.

Hear me pronounce the words on the sale audio file [mp3] or go to the sale audio page for more listening option.

aroma (1)

spice

In German: Gewürz. The plural is aromi and in Italian we also have the plural word spezie. The reference to German is important, because the spice mix I will talk about arrived in a bright yellow package from Germany, compliments of Ulrike of Küchenlatein. It was not unexpected, since earlier this month I signed up to participate to Season's Eatings, an event engineered by Katie of Thyme for Cooking, the Blog. So, I knew I would receive something, but did not know what and from whom.

Ulrike sent me four different brands of the spice mix that is used to make the traditional Lebkuchen. She also sent me a couple of recipes, a Holiday card and a nice letter. Thank you so much, Ulrike!

She tells me that, as far as she knows, Lebkuchen is not the same as gingerbread. Coming from Italy, I am no expert on gingerbread, an item not yet in my culinary repertoire. In Italian, gingerbread is pan di zenzero (literal translation), something that, as a child, I thought it only existed in fairy tales (favole). Lebkuchen is translated by the dictionary I consulted as pan pepato, literally, bread containing pepper (pepe). Note that a kind of Lebkuchen is called Pfefferkuchen (Pfeffer is pepper in German).

The Lebkuchengewürz is a ground mix where the prevailing spice, in terms of quantity, is cannella (cinnamon). The others are chiodi di garofano (cloves), pimento (allspice), semi di coriandolo (coriander seeds), zenzero (ginger), cardamomo (cardamom), noce moscata (nutmeg) and/or macis (mace). Other ingredients in the mixes I received are: anice (anise), anice stellato (star anise), semi di finocchio (fennel seeds) and vaniglia (vanilla).

After reading all the information received, I used one of the Gewürz packages. One of the recipes Ulrike sent me is for German Lebkuchen Loaf Cake, freely translated by me into pan speziato tedesco. The source for the recipe (Quelle in her post) is here (in English). I made the following adjustments to the list of ingredients:

• 1 cup regular flour
• 1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 cup whole-grain barley flour [see Note below]
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup marmellata di prugne (plum spread of my own making)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons Lebkuchengewürz
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa

Note: as shareholder of a grain CSA, I am the lucky recipient of, among other goodies, freshly-milled barley flour. I have been experimenting with barley flour in my baked goods and I know that it imparts a pleasant, nutty flavor to them. Hadn't I had it, I would have used whole-wheat flour instead.  I followed the given instructions and baked the pan speziato in a loaf pan.

Based on the color of the batter, I thought my Lebkuchen loaf cake would not come out the same as it did for Ulrike. But, lo and behold!, when I took the cake out of the oven it was indeed of a nice, enticing brown color and it smelled heavenly. It was not easy to wait for it to cool down.

Finally, I cut a slice and tasted it: it was wonderful! I served the pan speziato as dessert accompanied by gelato al caffè (coffee ice cream) and gelato alla zucca (pumpkin ice cream). It is also great for breakfast, with a glass of milk, and for an afternoon snack, with a cup of tea. So, it is a pan speziato for all occasions. 

The word aroma has also another meaning in Italian, which I will discuss separately, and that is why I added (1) to the title of this post.

Katie's lively account of the intricate web she wove for the event can be enjoyed here.

Hear me pronounce the words on the aroma audio file [mp3] or go to the aroma audio page for more listening options.

cardamomo

cardamom (or cardamon)

I love receiving packages. We have a PO box, so, as I bike, or drive, or walk to our ufficio postale (post office), I have time to try and imagine what I will find when I get there. A few days ago, in our little box (casella postale) I found an envelope coming da molto lontano (from far away) that packed a lot of flavor.

Let me backstep a second. Last month, Katie of Thyme for Cooking and Lindsay of Country Girl City Living launched their Seasoned Eatings event. I could not resist the offer of sending and receiving a surprise package. The most amazing thing is that when I opened what I received, it contained a spice I had been meaning to get for a while. I call this simple serendipity (serendipità pura e semplice).

As you may have already guessed from the title, my surprise package contained cardamom, pods of green cardamom, to be precise (baccelli di cardamomo verde), sent to me by Wendy of A Wee Bit of Cooking, who lives in Scotland. She also sent me a delicious recipe for White Chocolate Cardamom Mousse, which I am planning to make after I come back from my Holiday travels. Grazie mille, Wendy (thank you so much, Wendy): you made me really happy with your gift.

Before moving to California, I had never tasted cardamom and only heard about it. In his "On Food and Cooking" Harold McGee provides some interesting pieces of information about cardamom, "the world's third most expensive spice after saffron and vanilla." The cardamom plant, which belongs to the ginger family (Zingiberaceae), "is indigenous to the mountains of southwest India, and was grown only there until around 1900. German immigrants then brought it to Guatemala, which is now the largest producer." The seeds I received come, indeed, from Guatemala, a fact that, on opening the envelope, I had immediately noticed. The seed-carrying capsules (capsule) are harvested by hand. On this page, I read that, although it is possible to buy cardamom seeds (semi) and even ground cardamom, "it's preferable to use the pods, either removing the seeds and grinding them or grinding the whole pod - quickly done with a pestle and mortar."

Since I really wanted to try and use my newly-received gift (regalo), I decided to make a recipe I had encountered while hosting Weekend Herb blogging #112: Carrot and Cardamom Mash presented by Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. To crush the cardamom pods, I used my recently-purchased mortar and pestle (mortaio e pestello). The result was much appreciated at the dinner table.

You can follow one part of the trail of gifts and recipes here and the other part here.

Hear me pronounce the words on the cardamomo audio file [mp3] or go to the cardamomo audio page for more listening options.

aceto

vinegar

The name of my favorite condiment comes from the Latin acetum, which in turn comes from the adjective acer, meaning sour. Fermentation of ethanol produces acetic acid, which gives vinegar its characteristic flavor.

The vinegar most commonly used in Italy is aceto di vino, which is important both as an ingredient and as a preserving medium: pickled vegetables are called sottaceti.

Aceto balsamico, a product typical of Modena and Reggio Emilia, is made with must and is aged in wood casks.

My mother uses home-made vinegar from wine-making friends or relatives. It is so strong that you only need a splash. Failure to control the dosing hand will result in an inedible dish.

Hear me pronounce the words on the aceto audio file [mp3] or go to the aceto audio page for more listening options.