Olive all’Ascolana, coccoli fritti and polenta fritta

• By Claire Borg

You will need:

Olives, finely ground beef, bread-crumbs, olive oil, flour, eggs, polenta, bread.

Olive all’Ascolana are large green pitted olives, filled with a mixture of very finely ground beef, bread-crumbs and olive oil. They are rolled in flour, then in egg and after that in breadcrumbs, and then deep-fried. Coccoli fritti are fritters made of Tuscan bread-dough, sprinkled with fine salt and deep-fried. Polenta fritta is polenta cooked in the usual manner, left to cool and then cut into chunks, sprinkled with fine salt and deep-fried. These three specialities are sold at bread-stalls and delicatessens in most of the daily markets around Florence. Children munch on them while their parents are shopping, or they are simply taken home and eaten as an antipasto.