For 4 servings:

250 grs dried beans, 1 onion, 2 potatoes, 100 grs pigskins, 6 tablespoons olive oil, 200 grs noodles,salt, pepper.

Soak overnight the beans in cold water; parboil the pigskins, scrape, cut in pieces and add to the sliced onion previously roasted with two spoons of oil in a wide pan. Add the potatoes cut in pieces, 1.5 lt water, salt and pepper. Cover and cook on a mild fire for 2 hours; take out a ladleful of beans and put them aside with the pigskins; sieve the remainder and put it back in the broth left in the pan. Stir, add some water if necessary and reach again the boiling; add the pasta, the pigskins and the beans previously left. When the pasta is still underdone, take away from fire and let idle for few minutes. Pour into the soup-plates, dressing with olive oil and ground pepper.

The recommended wines are medium body medium tannin red wines like a Montescudaio rosso or Est Est Est or a Col D’Orcia rosso.

Baccalà alla Vicentina (Dried salted Cod Vicenza style)

For 4 servings:

500 grs dried cod, 500 ml olive oil, 250 ml milk, 300 grs onions, 2 anchovies in salt, 1 garlic clove,1 handful parsley, 50 grs grated parmesan cheese, white flour, salt, pepper.

The cod must be soaked for 2 days, softening with a wooden hammer; the water must be changed several times.Skin the fish, open the stomach and debone. Pound the anchovies deboned and desalted, the parsley and the garlic; spread the pulp on the open codfish and add the grated parmesan. Close again the fish and cut it in slices 3 cm thick; flour the pieces adding some parmesan to the flour, and set vertically in a earthen pan greased with oil. Fry the onion in oil and pour everything on the cod, salting and covering with milk. Cover and cook on a mild fire for 4 hours without boiling; move once in a while with a wooden shovel to avoid sticking to the bottom.Serve with polenta.

The filling taste is better matched by a full bodied white like a Tocai del Friuli or a Pinot del Collio or a Ribolla Gialla del Collio.

Tortelli di Carnevale (Carnival Fritters)

For 4 servings:

250 ml water, salt, 1 grated peel of a lemon, 50 grs butter, 150 grs flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, 4 eggs, icing sugar, olive oil.

Boil the water in a casserole with lemon, butter and a pinch of salt. Take away from fire and add the flour; put back on the fire and keep cooking, always stirring, until the dough will come off the pan sides. Take again away from fire and add the sugar always stirring. When the compound is lukewarm, blend the eggs and stir energically until achieving a smooth dough. Warm plenty of oil in a pan and pour the dough by spoonfuls; you will obtain golden swollen fritters to be drained on blotting paper; dust with icing sugar and serve still hot.

The wine suggestion is for a red sparkling sweet wine like a Brachetto D’Acqui or a Vernaccia di Serrapetrona or a Fragolino del Friuli.