Florence Food and Recipes

Florentine food, like most Tuscan food, is based on solid peasant traditions with a few fundamental locally produced ingredients such as olive oil, tomatoes, beans, herbs, ham and salami. The resultant dishes are fresh, wholesome and nutritionally excellent.

Some of the common first course dishes include: 'ribollita' which is a soup based on black cabbage, beans, and other vegetables; 'bruschette' which is a toasted bread with garlic and olive oil and sometimes covered with liver pate, anchovy paste or olives; and beans in a 'uccelletta' style which is basically a minestrone soup with boiled beans, cooked in oil with tomato sauce and sage.

There are many recipes for Florentine or Tuscan dishes and we have chose one of the most famous, called 'bistecca alla fiorentina', despite the fact that Italians do not eat large pieces of meat like their more northern European counterparts.

Recipe for the typical Florence dish of Beefsteak Florentine Style or 'bistecca alla fiorentina'

Serves 4 people:

• 1 porterhouse / T-bone steak, preferably aged 2 to 3 weeks and 4 to 5 cm (1 ½ to 2 inches) thick weighing about 1 kilo (2 to 3 lbs)
• 2 fresh rosemary sprigs
• 6 anchovy fillets
• 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt
• 3 tablespoons olive oil

Allow the steak to reach room temperature for 2 to 3 hours before cooking it.

Strip the leaves from the rosemary sprigs and coarsely chop them. Then combine the rosemary, anchovies and salt in a mortar and crush them with a pestle to make a coarse paste. Drizzle in enough of the oil, while continuing to grind the mixture with the pestle, until the mixture is thin enough to spread smoothly. Set aside.

Light a charcoal fire (preferably hardwood) in a grill and place the grill rack about 4 inches from the heat. When the flames have died down and the coals are glowing bright red, place the steak over the heat. Allow it to cook, without moving it, until the underside is well browned (about 8 to 9 minutes).

Turn the steak and cook until the second side is well browned and the meat is rare at the thickest part, close to the bone. The meat should fell springy to the touch.

Transfer the steak to a carving board. Rub a generous amount of the anchovy mixture into both sides of the steak and let it rest 5 to 10 minutes before carving.

To carve and serve the steak, first cut the meat away from both sides of the T-bone. Cut each piece of meat on a slight angle into 1 cm (1/2 inch) slices. Reform the slices and place them back next to the bone. Bring the steak to the table like this, right on the board and serve slices from the board.

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