Cooking from Romagna: Starters

Ingredients: 500g of flour, 30g of lard, a pinch of salt, a pinch of baking soda, a little bit of tepid water

Preparation:
Piadina is the most traditional speciality of Romagna. Once it was cooked on a special earthenware slab called “testo”, nowadays an iron frying-pan is used on top of the stove.
Mix all of the ingredients to form a rather solid dough.
Roll out into Ѕ cm. thick and 15 cm’s large disks.
Cook , turning frequently and piercing the surface with a fork tip.
The piadina are eaten with soft cheese or cold cuts.

Ingredients: 500g of flour, 2 eggs, 2 tblsp of vinegar and 2 of olive oil, a pinch of sugar, a pinch of salt, 100g of lard

Preparation:
Prepare a large heap of the flour, pour in all the ingredients and mix the dough for several minutes.Divide the dough into many small parts.
Roll out the pieces of dough into thin disks.
Melt the lard in a frying pan and fry each piadina until golden brown. Remove and place on brown paper to absorb the grease. At this point you can sprinkle the top of each piadina with either sugar or salt to have a sweet or a salty piadina.

For 4 people

Ingredients: 500g of soft cheese (eg. “squaquaron”), 600g of white flour, brewer’s yeast, 1 tblsp. of vinegar, 1 tblsp. of lard or 2 tblsp. olive oil, salt to taste

Preparation:
Mix all the ingredients and knead to get a firm dough. Divide the dough into small balls. Roll each ball of dough into a Ѕ cm. disk.
Melt the lard in a frying-pan, and when hot cook the piadine.
When they are golden brown, remove from the frying-pan and place on brown paper to absorb the grease.
Salt and serve.

Ingredients: 500g of pork crackling, 500g of bread dough already risen, 4 eggs, 50 gms of lard, salt to taste

Preparation:
Mix all the ingredients and let rise for half a day. Then roll the dough out into circles, thickness 5 cm., diameter 15 cm.
Cook the piadina in a frying pan, piercing the surface with a fork.

Ingredients: a loaf of bread, a little bit of milk, 1 egg, 3 or 4 chicken livers, grated parmesan cheese, a few sage leaves, salt to taste

Preparation:
Sauté the chicken livers in olive oil with the sage and salt. Once cooked, blend the liver into a fine paste and add the egg and sufficient parmesan to obtain a soft homogenous paste. For a few minutes and constantly stirring, heat the mixture in order to cook the eggs.
At this point slice the bread into squares or triangles, give them a quick dip in the milk and fry each slice in hot oil until golden brown. Remove the slices and spread each one with the chicken liver paste and serve hot.