Here is a healthy and tasty recipe for an aperitif with friends. Today I want to propose a healthy, colourful and nutritionally balanced dish.

Michela Marinoni, nutritional biologist, says in the video: “Perhaps it is still a bit taboo to think that a vegetable diet can provide us with everything we need, but that is exactly how it is if it is well managed. Among protein sources, legumes are often excluded, yet they would be a good way to vary meat, eggs, cold meats, cheeses…; or we forget that cereals also provide protein, thinking in terms of watertight compartments; or again, that among cereals there is not only wheat, and therefore only pasta or bread, but there are many cereal grains, which are real treasure chests of beneficial substances”.

The recipe

Ingredients for 4 people:

• 4 whole-grain Friselle
• salt to taste
• extra virgin olive oil

For the chickling vetch paté

• 200 g dried chickling vetch
• 1 cooked red beet
• a few tablespoons of turmeric
• Kombu seaweed (3 cm in size)
• 1 small onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• extra virgin olive oil

For the decoration:

Rose petals, marigold, and sage.

Preparation methodology

After soaking the chickling vetch for at least 12 hours, changing the water several times, simmer them in a pot with twice as much water as their volume.

Add the kombu seaweed, chopped onion and garlic.

When the legume is cooked and all the excess water has been absorbed, blend well adding salt and extra virgin olive oil.

Divide the mixture in half: one part of it should be blended with the beetroot, the other part of the mixture should be combined with turmeric.

Put first one mixture and then the other in a sac à poche.

Immerse the Friselle in cold water for a few minutes until they are moistened. Salt them and add a little extra virgin olive oil and place them on a plate.

Meanwhile, clean the chicory and cut it into strips. Separate the ribs from the green part. Blanch the ribs in salted water for about 3 to 4 minutes and the leaves for about 2 minutes. Drain and cool quickly in cold water. Heat oil, garlic and chilli pepper in a frying pan. Add the vegetables and stir-fry for a few minutes.

Compose the dish as in the video: make small florets of different colours of chickling vetch and add chicory to the centre of the Frisella.

Enjoy your meal!

Davide Larise

“Teacher at the Italian Food Academy and Alma the International School of Italian Cuisine. Today he is a consultant for restaurants and companies. Davide has worked at chef Pietro Leemann’s Joia restaurant in Milan.”

This recipe was prepared on