Cultivate the "pleasure of taste"!
Don't be satisfied just with the sea, the sun, and the marvellous panoramas.
Oil, wine and basil, the three jewels of Mediterranean food, find their ideal site in the Diano area.
First of all the white wine called Vermentino D.O.C. of Diano Castello (of which we are producers): it is a classic, sparkling wine, apt to any occasion, from aperitifs to fish and typical Ligurian courses, with an intense bouquet, flowers, herbs and fruit scented.
Vermentino is usually made according to the tradition, or else fermented and left maturing in little barrels made of oak, a method that adds freshness, mellowness, and persistence to the taste.
From Diano Gorleri to Diano Castello there's a succession of terraces with the taggiasca olive trees. Among their silvery green leaves hide the oil mills, where a delicate extra-virgin olive oil is produced (we are producers of olive oil too).
Ligurian olive oil has a very delicate taste, sweet, lightly fruity, the most qualified to accompany fish, but excellent for preparing vegetable-based dishes, all sorts of pizzas and salty or else sweet crunchy breads called "focaccia", but most of all for the sauce pesto.
The sauce pesto, made with local basil of an unmistakable perfume, is an essential element of the cooking of our region, both of the inland and of the coast.
Olive sauce
Cut into small pieces some green stoned olives (a packet) and a packet of black one (better of the "taggiasche" kind).
Pour some extra virgin olive oil in a pan with an entire clove of garlic and make it brown. Add the olives and serve spaghetti with this sauce and a handful of fresh cut up basil.
Pesto sauce
For 4 persons: take 25 leaves of basil, 25 g of Parmesan cheese, 25 g of pecorino cheese, 40 g of pine kernels, extra virgin olive oil and some salt.
Wash and dry with care the basil. Put them in a mixer with a glass of extra virgin olive oil, pine kernels, some salt and whisk for a short time at a medium speed. Add the grated cheeses and whisk again.
Serve the "trenette" (a particular sort of spaghetti), the gnocchi (a kind of potato dumpling) or else the "trofie" with the obtained sauce.
Stuffed anchovies
For the stuffing take four anchovies, clean, mince and brown them in a pan.
Add a bread roll soaked with milk, some minced parsley and garlic, one egg (or two, if you use more than four anchovies).
Fill the remaining anchovies with the stuffing prepared, season with some olive oil, then put into the oven.
Cuttlefish a zemin
Finely cut parsley, garlic, onion, and half a carrot, add some olives pound in a mortar and make them slightly brown in a pan with a portion of olive oil.
Add the cuttlefishes cut into thing slices and a bay leaf. Make it brown for a while, pour some white wine and wait till it evaporates, then add some tomato sauce and water and cook for some minutes.