The culinary tradition of Cassino has very ancient origins, and it is based on the genuine and poor products of the Italian countryside. 

Widely produced in the area, extra virgin olive oil plays the leading role. Homemade pasta is definitely the queen of the first courses, with its several different preparations, such as “sagne e fagioli” (strips of pasta with beans), “fettuccine al ragù” (fettuccine with tomato sauce and minced meat), gnocchi. However, the second courses aren’t of less importance, we can mention chicken and peppers, “alici arraganate”, snails, “abbacchio”, and “coratella”, all of them well combined with a glass of local wines, among which the good “Cabernet Atina Doc” or the “Maturano”.

Cassino offers a large variety of restaurants, trattorias, and wine bars where all the different dishes of its local cuisine can be tasted. From the basic “slow food” and “km 0” regional dishes to a modern revisitation of the tradition, all the palates will be satisfied!

Ingredients (4 people): 10 oz Cannellini Beans, 10 ounces all-purpose flour, 1 spoon garlic or chopped onion, salt, 2 to 5 tablespoons olive oil, pepper, 2 or 3 tomatoes. 

Heat oil in a cooking pot, add garlic or onions, and stir for a few minutes until the garlic/onions are softened. Then add the chopped tomatoes, and simmer again for about ten minutes more. Add beans, salt, pepper, and hot water, and boil the sauce until the beans are cooked. When the pasta is ready and the beans’ sauce is boiling, you can add the “pettole” (a kind of pasta) and cook everything together until it will be ready. Average: 10/15 mins.

Ingredients (10 people)

Dough: 10 eggs, 2lb/3oz whole-wheat flour 

Sauce: 7oz lard, 10.5 oz ground beef, one sausage, one onion, olive oil, salt, celery, basil, parsley, 2 liters tomato sauce, pecorino cheese, chili, white wine, 1.7 oz grated bread, parmesan. Prepare the phyllo dough and wait for the flour to get dried for about 30 minutes. Afterward, cut the fettuccine, 1 cm large. Put oil and chopped onions in a pot together with lard and pan-fry the ingredients for a few minutes. Add the tomato sauce, basil, celery, and salt. Meanwhile, prepare the meatballs with ground beef, eggs, pecorino cheese, parmesan, grated bread, salt, and parsley. Add them to the sauce together with the sausage and a pinch of chili, and let everything slowly boil for about two hours. Cook pasta in boiling water, and when it is “al dente”, mix it with the sauce and pecorino cheese.

Ingredients (6 people): lamb offals and well-washed and dried intestines, rezza (the film around the lamb’s liver),1 onion, celery, parsley, 1 cup white wine, grated parmesan, 6 eggs, 1 sausage, salt. Put oil and chopped onions with celery in a large pan, and, while the ingredients pan-fry for a few minutes, chop the offals, add it to the pan, and simmer. When partially cooked, pour white wine and wait until it evaporates. In the meanwhile, mix the eggs and add them to the pan together with parmesan, salt, pepper, and parsley and slowly cook everything for about three minutes. When the offals are cooked, stretch the film on a large cutting board, or any kind of wood board, and put part of the ingredients on it, adding small pieces of sausage. At this point, wrap the film around them creating a roll, and finally, wrap the intestines around the roll. Put the rolls in the pan again, pan-frying them for about three minutes more, before placing them on a baking pan and putting them in the oven, for about twenty minutes. After that, let rest the Abbuoto for about thirty minutes, before cutting it into slices. Enjoy it!

Ingredients: First step: 2,50 oz flour, all-purpose flour, 4 tbsp. water, 1 egg, 1 spoon of sugar, 1/2 cube of beer yeast. Second Step: ½ cup milk, ½ cup olive oil, 5 tbsp vermouth or sweet white wine, 2 eggs, 5.30 oz sugar, ½ cup of sweet liqueur such as sambuca, 1 grated lemon rind, aniseeds, candied fruit, one teaspoon cinnamon, 1,50 lb flour (50% type ’00). 

First Step, knead and work the dough. Then cover it, and let it rise for a whole night. On the second day, add all the ingredients of the Second Step, and mix them into a large bowl. Cover with a tea towel and place in an oven preheated to 30°, and let it rise for 4 hours. At this point, reheat the oven and cook for 40 minutes. When the pie is ready, ice it with caster sugar and colored aniseeds.

Ingredients: Filling: 1 cup parmesan, 5 oz Roman cheese, 1 sausage, 4 oz chopped salami slices, 9 eggs, ½ lb flour. Mix in a bowl parmesan, Roman cheese, sausage, salami, and 1 tbsp of parsley, binding everything together with 6 eggs. Dough: Mix flour and 3 eggs with 1 spoon of lard. Knead and work the dough, stretching it out into a large flat disc with a rolling pin, on a wood board, and cut small discs out of it (7 inches large). Fill each of them with the mix of ingredients. Fold over the discs and cook in the oven at 350 degrees. They take about 25 minutes. You may want to raise the oven temperature to 400 degrees to brown the top.

Fonte: G. Salveti, Fasule & Tagliarieglie, Cassino 1985.