Porcini Mushrooms are an autumn essential in the Italian kitchen. As soon as you start prepping the ingredients for this recipe, your kitchen will immediately be filled with the impressively powerful smell of the best mushrooms in the world: Porcini from Borgotaro in Emilia Romagna, a hidden valley about 2 hours west of Bologna. These Borgotaro Porcini…
Category: Bio Alberti
Beans are Back
ALL the beans are here. from Bio Alberti in Umbria Walk, don’t run. We are fully stocked with Bio Alberti organic legumes from Umbria! These are the heirloom varieties that the Alberti family cultivates on their stunning organic farm outside of Perugia: ✧ Creamy white Cannellini Beans ✧ ✦ Hearty Cicerchie (wild chickpeas) ✦ ✧ Classic buttery Borlotti Beans ✧ ✦ Tiny savory Chickpeas ✦…
Orzo with Porcini Mushrooms
We can’t get enough of the powerful umami flavor of dried porcini mushrooms. But there’s a cooking trick to get all the depth of mushroomy aromas out of them. We always soak the porcini in abundant water, extracting what looks like a very dark and incredibly intense broth. That’s a game-changer! The rustic grains of…
How to cook Bio Alberti beans
In the medieval borgo of Poggio Aquilone, in Umbria, the Bio Alberti family cultivates their land the same way Umbrians have since ancient times: using exclusively organic practices. With a distinctive and vibrant flavor, Bio Alberti beans are the genuine expression of the rural food traditions of their territory. These beans require lots of patience…
From Bittman: Beer glazed black beans
This recipe was adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to cook everything. When we read about it in Mark’s weekly newsletter, we had to try it ourselves. This is what he has to say about cooking black beans with beer: It’s amazing how much flavor you get from adding a cup of beer to black beans,…
How to cook cicerchie
Cicerchie are one of the most ancient legumes of history: there’s proof of cicerchie beans in archaeological sites of the Fertile Crescent dating back to 8000 BC. They have an incredible resistance to droughts, so in tough times, people relied on cicerchie as their main sustenance for months. Forgotten for a long time, they are…
Summer farro salad agrodolce
Mediterranean flavors like olives, tomatoes, and capers can combine together in endless recipe variations. This salad recipe is bright, nutty, and perfect for summer. It also provides an interesting variation on the ubiquitous Mediterranean trio of olives, tomatoes, and capers by adding balsamic saba 6 for an agrodolce kick.
Mark Bittman’s Modest Yet Gorgeous Farro
Mark Bittman recently prepared and wrote in his newsletter about a pretty delicious bowl of Bio Alberti’s farro monococcum. Bittman said (and we have to agree), “I believe that with food, the beauty is way more in the flavor than in the appearance, because to me, this modest-looking dish is gorgeous.” After cooking our farro simply…
The Most Savory Chickpeas
These are the most savory chickpeas we have ever had. The first time we ate these chickpeas, we had them boiled in well-salted water and dressed with just EVOO. Their taste surprised us. They are distinctive and characterized by deep savoriness. They are vibrant, rich, and have a nutty satisfying flavor. What makes these chickpeas so special? We were…
Umbria Is For Beans And Grains
Bio Alberti Farm is in the village of Poggio Aquilone, in Umbria, near Perugia.The farm has been in the Alberti family for three generations. Today, Paola, Guido, Andrea, and Benedetta Alberti cultivate their land in the same way Umbrians have since forever: using crop rotation and organic fertilizer from their own cows. The Alberti family…