Back Typical Dishes

Typical Dishes

The Marche’s most typical first course is vincisgrassi, made with meat sauce and the addition of béchamel. In traditional recipes chicken giblets and possibly sweetbreads are also used. Brodetto is the most famous fish stew of the Adriatic coast and varies in form from each coastal town. The Marche’s versions of brodetto include red and gray mullet, cuttlefish or squid (or both), oil, garlic and saffron - served on either fried or toasted bread. Other seafood favorites include the Ancona's Stoccafisso (dried codfish) and local varieties like sole, bream, clams and mussels. Traditional soups are frascarelli (lumps of flour boiled in water and seasoned with garlic and pecorino cheese) and passatelli (a soup made with eggs, parmesan cheese, pepper, nutmeg and lemon zest ). Among the main courses we mention: the fragrant pork in porchetta style (seasoned with fennel, garlic and rosemary), tripe, rabbit in potacchio sauce (seasoned with onion, tomato, white wine and rosemary), chicken with sweet peppers, the marinated lamb, and the omelet with mint.

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Level of difficulty: media
Target: Enogastronomia
Seasonality: Estate

The stages of the itinerary

  • Traditional recipes: Calcioni

    The Calcioni are a typical product of the municipalities of Ancona, in particular Arcevia, Serra San Quirico, Macerata, and Treia where the third Sunday of May, the Calcione Festival is celebrated. On this event, the product can be served as a second course or a dessert thanks to its sweet and slightly spicy taste.

    Ingredients: puff pastry, wheat flour, eggs, Pecorino cheese, sugar and olive oil.

    Method: after making puff pastry disc (1 cm thick with a diameter of 10 cm), put the dough made of wheat flour, eggs, Pecorino cheese, sugar and olive oil in the middle. Then, close the disc and cut off the top so as to let the dough partially leak out, while cooking. Cook it on a hot oven.

  • Bostrengo
  • Brodetto di pesce
  • Vincisgrassi
    Vincisgrassi is a famous regional recipe. Legend has it that it was prepared in honour of the Austrian general Windisch Graetz,who defended the city of
    Ancona against Napoleon's troops in 1799. A rustic variation of ovenbaked pasta: a festive dish prepared for the most important holidays.

    Ingredients: A chicken with its innards, onions, carrots, celery, tomato purée, lasagna sheets, grated parmigiana reggiano cheese, salt and pepper, olive oil, beef and pork, pancetta, broth.
    Ingredients for the pasta: Flour, Egg, Salt, Butter
    Roll out the pastry until 1mm thick and cut 10x30cm squares, half boil (4/5 min) and set them out, interspersed with paper to avoid sticking.
    For the Béchamel sauce: Butter, plain flour, nutmeg, warm milk

    Preparation: Start with preparing the ragout. Cut the pancetta into strips and the meats into small pieces: pork, beef and chicken innards. Mince the celery, carrot and onion and brown with the pancetta in the olive oil for about 5 minutes. When the flavours are well combined add the beef and pork and brown for about 10 minutes. Add the tomato purée and adjust the seasoning. Add the chopped chicken innards and mix with a wooden spoon; cover and cook for about half an hour, stirring once in a while and adding hot broth if the sauce becomes too dry. The ragout should be dense and well-cooked. Meanwhile, to make the béchamel sauce, prepare a roux by melting the butter in a small saucepan. Add the flour and nutmeg. Cook for few minutes. Add the roux to the warm milk, whisking very quickly. Bring to the boil and cook for 10 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon. If too thick, add cold milk and whisk gently.
    Blanch the lasagna sheets in boiling water for 5 minutes, strain, then place on a clean cloth to dry.
    Grease a 30 cm x 45 cm baking try with the butter. Spread 1 ladle of béchamel on the base and arrange the lasagna sheets to cover the bottom of the tray. Add a layer of ragout and béchamel (the béchamel should be half the quantity of the ragout), and sprinkle with parmesan.
    Continue building the layers until there are at least 10 (typical of this dish), ending with a top layer of ragout and a generous handful of cheese. Bake at 180° for about 30 minutes, remove as soon as a golden crust has formed on the surface.


  • Le Frittelle di polenta
  • Traditional recipes: Crescia sfogliata

    The Crescia sfogliata is a a typical product of the province of Macerata; it is a semi-circle dessert of golden colour. In Fiuminata, a small municipality of Macerata, the Crescia sfogliata Festival is celebrated every year. 

    Ingredients: wheat flour, water, sugar and olive oil. For the stuffing: ricotta cheese, raisin, walnuts or hazelnuts, sugar, cocoa, vanilla, cinnamon, grated lemon peel, anise or rum, alkermes.

    Method:  the pastry is obtained by mixing together the wheat flour, the sugar, the olive oil and hot water. Roll out the pastry to dry; put the stuffing in the middle of the pastry and roll it up to obtain a semicircular shape. Then, cook it in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for about 45 minutes.

  • La Cicerchiata
  • La Crescia di Pasqua o Pizza al formaggio
  • Il Ciambellone marchigiano
  • Le Castagnole
  • Il Coniglio in porchetta
  • I Cavallucci
  • Ancona's Stockfish

    The Ancona’s Stockfish is one of the most important typical dishes of Ancona, and even its gastronomic symbol. It needs a long cooking time, it is made of large diced potatoes and a great abundance of wine and olive oil.

    Ingredients: a good quality stockfish already soaked, washed and desalted anchovies, green celery sticks, onion, carrots, rosemary, desalted capers, Verdicchio of Castelli di Jesi wine, chill pepper (optional), black olives, ripe tomatoes, potatoes, extra-virgin olive oil, salt.

    Method: clean the stockfish by removing its backbone, cut it into pieces and put them in a baking pan. Grind celery, carrots, onion, capers, anchovies and rosemary, and season the stockfish with this mixture, and add salt and ½ of extra-virgin olive oil. Cut potatoes in large slices and put them on the stockfish. Season it with the other half the mixture, a little chill pepper (optional), salt, chopped tomatoes, Verdicchio wine, cold water and black olives. Cook on a low heat for about 2 hours. Turn off the stove and leave it to cool slowly. The advice is to eat the stockfish 12 hours after the cooking.

  • Typical recipes: Olive Ascolane(Stuffed Fried Olives)
    Awarded DOP status in 2005, these mild, greenAscolana olives, filled with a meat stuffing and fried, are a perfect starter, either hot or cold. The recipe
    originated in the XIX century using a meat filling, a specialty of wealthy families.
    Ingredients: Beef, pork,chicken, a pan-fried mixture of celery, onion and carrot, oil, white wine, salt, large green Ascolana olives, lemon zest, parmesan
    cheese, eggs, oil for frying. To coat: flour, eggs, milk, breadcrumbs.
    Preparation: slowly brown the celery, onion and carrot mixture in the oil. Add the meat which has been cut into tiny pieces. Seasonwith salt, add the wine and
    continue cooking for about an hour. Pit the olives usinga spiral cut, to facilitate stuffing. Grind the meat in a grinder, add lemon zest and the grated cheese andgrind it again. Mix it with the eggs, make small ballswith it and wrap the pitted olive around it, reshaping the olives as you go. Flourthe olives, dip them in amixture of two beaten eggs with a bit of milk, then roll them in the breadcrumbs. Deep fry in hot, but not smoking, oil.
  • Pizza con i grasselli
  • I Passatelli in brodo
  • I Maritozzi
  • Gli Scroccafusi
  • I Frascarelli
  • La Crema fritta