Stracciatella crostini with cavolo nero, crispy pancetta and beans

Silvia Colloca's crusty bread toasted, rubbed with garlic, then piled with creamy stracciatella, wilted cavolo nero, smashed cannellini and crisp pancetta. A Tuscan-style crostini that turns each piece into a small composed plate. Eat with the fingers, drink with red.

Stracciatella is the Puglian cheese (the strings of mozzarella curd torn into thick cream that forms the inside of the burrata) sold as its own ingredient at high-end Italian delis and increasingly at supermarkets. The texture is the point: creamier than ricotta, looser than mozzarella, salty with that proper fresh-cheese tang. Substitute with the centres of two burrata if you can't find pure stracciatella.

The pancetta-crisp-and-renderfat technique is the small step that ties the whole crostini together. D'Orsogna rolled pancetta sliced into rounds, fried hard in olive oil until golden and curled, removed to drain. The rendered fat in the pan becomes the cooking medium for the cavolo nero, which soaks up the bacon-y depth as it wilts. The kale picks up the seasoning before it even hits the bread.

Smashed cannellini beans (a tin of cooked beans warmed in olive oil and roughly mashed with a fork, seasoned with salt and pepper) form the foundational layer on the bread, providing structure and earthy depth. Garlic-rubbed toast underneath, the bean smash, the stracciatella in a soft pile, the wilted cavolo nero, the crisp pancetta. Cracked black pepper, a final drizzle of olive oil. A glass of Chianti or Nero d'Avola alongside.