Bruschette and Crostini Cooking Recipe, Ingredients, Cooking Method
These are Tuscany’s most traditional antipasti, found on every table in every season, often accompanied by charcuterie.
Serves 8
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
Fettunta
- 8 slices of grilled country bread (if possible, use bread without salt)
- Top-quality olive oil
Bruschette
- 8 slices of grilled country bread
- 1 clove garlic
- A few basil leaves
- A few sprigs of thyme
- 2 ripe tomatoes
- Olive oil
- Salt
Mushroom crostini
- 4 slices grilled country bread, cut in half
- 14 oz. (400 g) mushrooms (button mushrooms, porcini, or other)
- A few sprigs of parsley
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- Scant ½ cup (100 ml) white wine
- 1 stock cube (or meat stock)
- Olive oil
- Salt, pepper
Chicken liver crostini
- 4 slices of grilled country bread, cut in half
- ½ onion
- 1 tablespoon capers
- 5 oz. (150 g) chicken livers
- 2 anchovy fillets in oil
- Olive oil
- Scant ½ cup (100 ml)
- Tuscan vin santo (sweet wine); otherwise brandy, Marsala, white wine, etc.
- 1 teaspoon flour
- Salt, pepper
Anchovy crostini
- 4 slices of grilled country bread, cut in half
- 8 anchovy fillets in oil
- Butter
Cooking Method
Prepare the fettunta (fetta unta means, literally, “oily slice”).
- Sprinkle the slices of grilled bread with a top-quality olive oil (extra virgin, from the first cold pressing), preferably the new season’s oil.
Prepare the bruschette.
- Peel the garlic and crush half the clove.
- Wash the basil and thyme, remove their leaves, and chop them.
- Peel the tomatoes with a serrated vegetable peeler, or after immersing them in boiling water for a few seconds and then in cold water.
- Cut the flesh into small cubes and mix well with the crushed garlic, basil, thyme, and olive oil.
- Season with salt. Rub the slices of grilled bread with the remaining half of the garlic clove.
- Spread them generously with the tomato mixture.
Make the mushroom crostini.
- Clean the mushrooms and dice them.
- Wash the parsley, remove the stalks, and chop.
- Peel the garlic and chop.
- Dilute the tomato paste in a small ladle of stock.
- Brown the mushrooms in a skillet with a little olive oil, the parsley, and garlic.
- Once the water from the mushrooms has evaporated, deglaze with the wine. Let evaporate.
- Add the diluted tomato paste; season with salt and pepper and cook for 10 minutes.
- Generously spread the slices of grilled bread with the mixture.
Prepare the chicken liver crostini.
- Peel and chop the half-onion, the capers, chicken livers, and anchovies.
- Fry the onion in a skillet with a little olive oil; add the capers, livers, and anchovies and continue cooking for 3 minutes.
- Deglaze with the wine. Dissolve the flour in a little warm water and stir it into the mixture in the skillet; season with salt and pepper and leave to cook for an additional 5 minutes.
- Generously spread the slices of grilled bread with the mixture.
Make the anchovy crostini.
- Thoroughly drain the oil from the anchovies.
- Butter the slices of grilled bread and lay one anchovy on each slice.
Suggested food/wine match
- La Mozza I Perazzi Morellino di Scansano DOC
