The Salentine cuisine, fruit of a balance between the peasants and sea cuisine, includes simple dishes and not elaborate recipes, characterized by flavours, at times delicate, at times very intense. The real protagonist of the Salentine table is fish. Perfumed dentex, basses, dorys, vopes and sardines. Moreover, the fish soup, spaghetti with mussels, wealth of the sea, risotto, boiled polypus, fried or in the pan, lobsters and the grated mussels are excellent as well.

For 6 people - 1 kg black mussel,a kg of walnuts , a kg of hen clam, some feet of goat (carapace, if one has the luck to find it) 500 gm of fasolari - 12 fresh crayfishes, 6 cawry

Wash the shellfish several times in seawater to remove all the sand . Put the shrimps into a large pan with half a glass of oil and brown them then add cloves of garlic crushed on marble slab with a knife blade and sprinkle with white, dry wine. Let it evaporate and add the crabs cut in four pieces; then, when they change their colour in the boiling oil, add a mix of 300 g of hot water and white dry wine (at 50%); increase the heat and reduce the liquid; add the shellfish, cover with a lid and let the shells open. Add salt and, some freshly ground, black pepper and a bit of chilly pepper. For this dish too, prepare small pieces of toasted bread.

A speciality from Lecce named after the typical shape of the felucca. It is good both hot and cold and ideal for an outing in the country.

Flour, olive oil, salt, courgettes, aubergines, veal escalope, eggs, scamorza or mozzarella or fresh caciocavallo cheese.

Spread out the outside pastry somewhat thickly in an eliptical form after kneading the flour, olive oil, water, and salt. Separately, fry the aubergines and courgettes and sauté the escalope in a fry pan. Cut the hard-boiled eggs cut into round slices and slice the scamorza, mozzarella or caciocavallo.
Cover half the dough with the filling, fold the other half over. The cappello da gendarme, pricked on the surface, should be placed on a greased baking sheet and cooked in the oven.

  an hour

A typical Salento dessert perfect to end a meal. Try them with limoncello or a glass of good white wine.

For the shortbread pastry: 500 gr flour, 250 gr butter, 200 gr sugar, three egg yolks
For the custard: half litre milk, 3 eggs, 125 gr sugar, one vanilla sachet

Prepare the shortbread pastry and allow to rest for 30 minutes. Prepare the custard and allow to cool. Place the ball of pastry on a floured surface. With a rolling pin, make a sheet about 7-8 millimetres thick. Grease and flour the moulds, eliminating the excess. Line the bottom and sides of the moulds with shortcrust pasty and prick with a fork. Fill to the top with custard and cover with another piece of pastry, sealing well and forming a convex form with your hands. Brush with lightly beaten egg white, place the moulds in an oven preheated to 170° and bake for 10 minutes; increase the temperature to 200° and bake until the surface is a light amber colour. Remove the moulds from the oven and allow to cool. Separate the pastries from the moulds carefully.

  an hour