Symphony in green

The season is officially started and our BBQ is working its ass off in the weekend. I might destroy years of fights for gender equality, but I want to say it: BBQ is a man's job ;)

I realised it when I followed my flatmate to buy one. I thought we were looking for a regular charcoal BBQ to bring over to the river in days of sunshine, along with a guitar and few beers, but HELL NO!! We got home with the rolls royce of all the BBQs: two grills, four fires, closing lid with thermostat, option to make cappuccino. I guess the point is that men in front of BBQ have their primordial instincts challenged, and they feel the moral need to purchase the largest fire available to take care of all the tribe ;)

Good point is that I can enjoy the sunshine and do a little work. This sunday I did only a tiny bit of pasta alla norma (only 700 grams for 10 people, I am almost ashamed to confess it....), that was really really good. The problem is that all my good recipes containing aubergines really need to be cooked with slowness :)

PASTA ALLA NORMA

for 10 people, a small portion each

5 aubergines

3 cans of crushed tomatoes

3 garlic cloves

basil

700 gr penne

ricotta salata

Cut the aubergines in small cubes and leave a couple of hours in a bowl with cold water and salt. Rinse and dry them, then deep-fry in a pan with oil EVO. Dry them and place in a colander with something heavy on top. Leave to rest overnight. 

In a large pot, fry the garlic with 2 spoons of oil EVO, then add the crushed tomato. After 20 minutes,   take the garlic off and add the aubergines. Cook for additional 10 minutes, turn the fire off and add the basil leaves. Cook the pasta al dente, add the sauce and grated ricotta salata on top. Enjoy!

Lasagne, aka the taste of my childhood

I warn you, this post has a high emotional content :)

If I were to recall the best taste my mouth ever tasted, no doubts: the lasagne made by my babysitter. Besides being an amazing cook, she is also an incredible woman that over the years has become a second mother for me. I basically grew up above her kitchen table (literally: above the table. I liked to lie on the wooden table, no chances of moving me to the bed), watching her cooking. I am sure my love for food started back then (I was 11 months old!)

She makes the best lasagne in the world, seriously. She doesn't follow the original recipe, so her lasagne are not made with the ragù (bolognese meat sauce) but totally vegetarian.

I am sure many people could be disappointed by this choice, but not me, I actually think that the vegetarian version is lighter, softer, as opposed to the stone brick consistence that generally the traditional one has :)

I have never tried to reproduce that taste until last week. I was feeling inspired & nostalgic of that creamy taste that melts inside the mouth, and I decided to give it a try. Well, we were 9 and we almost finished all the two big trays that I made (with substantial help from my housemate)

LASAGNE
(2 trays)

for the pasta:
5 eggs
500 gr flour
a pinch of salt

for the tomato sauce:
a lot of good tomatoes (if it's too much tomato sauce, keep it for tomorrow's pasta)
3 garlic cloves
4 spoons oil EVO
basil

for the besciamella:
50 gr butter
50 gr flour
1 l milk
nutmeg

to assemble:
mozzarella cut in thin slices
parmigiano

First, make the pasta dough by mixing the ingredients until solid and elastic, then leave in the fridge to rest. Peel the tomatoes (30 seconds in boiling water will make the job easier), chop them in pieces and cook them with the garlic and the oil EVO. When ready, add salt, pepper and basil leaves.
Make the besciamella: melt the butter in a large pot, turn the fire off, add the flour and mix. Turn the fire on, start adding the milk while stirring. When it is boiling, turn the fire off, add nutmeg and salt.
Make the pasta layers with a pasta machine and, when ready, boil them for one minute in water. Assemble the lasagna on the tray: one layer of pasta, tomato sauce, alternating mozzarella/besciamella and parmigiano on top. Repeat it until ~2 cm close to the border of the tray and make the last layer with only pasta, besciamella and parmigiano. Some oil EVO on top. Bake for 45 minuter at 200 degrees + 5 minutes grill. Enjoy!

Raviolare con lentezza

My 31st bday was all about ravioli this year! I love filled pasta. It gives me so many possibilities, and also can be:
- prepared with the help of your guests to make it part of the social event
- prepared the day before, so that when your guests arrive you simply need to boil it for two minutes... which implies you can wear 12-cm-heels, sip a glass of wine, chat for a while, beg pardon to your guests and come back 2 minutes after with homemade ravioli, leaving the kitchen shining as it was before (clapping hands, lots of compliments, boyfriend proud in an ancestral kind of way)

I did both :) our neighbours, a super cool couple that makes living in grey Frankfurt a bit more tolerable, helped us during the preparation and then, the day of the party, we had 240 ravioli with three different fillings. Quite a ravioli night. For the followers of cucinareconlentezza (so far, officially, 1), my personal winners:

RAVIOLI WITH MUSHROOMS AND CHEESE FONDUE

For the pasta dough:

4 eggs
400 gr flour (half regular white and half semola)
1 pinch of salt

Place the eggs in the middle of the flour (and the salt) and mix until the dough becomes compact and elastic. Leave in the fridge to rest.

For the filling:

400 gr mixed mushrooms (champignons, shitake)
2 bags of dried porcini
oil EVO
garlic
parmesan
1 egg

Leave the porcini in warm water for 20 minutes to rehydrate. In the meantime, cook the mushrooms with 3 spoons of oil EVO and few garlic cloves. Add the porcini. When ready, take off the garlic and blend to get a coarse mushroom cream. Add parmesan and the egg.

Make the ravioli, cook them in water for 3-4 minutes and then serve with a cheese fondue (I used a Spanish cheese, parmigiano and milk) and crushed walnuts.

The fruits of the sea

I am not sure this is the right way of translating the name of this Italian recipe, but "fruits of the sea" sounds so poetic so I'll go for it :)

The past weekend I assisted two marathonists in the preparation for their first race. The night before the big event they asked for some "pasta with substance" and so there I was, talking sign language with the Turkish guy at the Turkish supermarket, an amazing place to buy fish in Frankfurt if you are not too concerned about hygiene ratings :) 

Anyway, the pasta turned out pretty good, and perhaps it contributed a tiny little bit to the big success. It was great to see my man picking a goal and working his ass off to reach it, and when I saw his smile at the finish line my mind started soaking in a hot bath made of proudness, admiration and oxytocin :D

SPAGHETTI AI FRUTTI DI MARE

Serves 4

500 gr cockles 

1 calamari (damn autocorrection!!!!! CalamarO!!!!)

1 squid 

500 gr prawns with heads

400 gr spaghetti n.8

Garlic

White wine 

Parsley

First leave the cockles in cold water for 30 minutes, drain and fry in a pan with oil EVO and a garlic clove until they start opening. Peel the prawns and place shells and heads in a pot with oil EVO, fry for 5 minutes and add water to cover. Boil for some 30 minutes to make a nice fish stock. In a big pan, put oil EVO, a garlic clove and the remaining fish cut in stripes, cook for 2 minutes and then add a good sip of white wine. In the meantime, boil water and cook the spaghetti halfway, then add them to the squid and calamari. Add the prawns cut in pieces and the cockles. Add the fish stock until the spaghetti are al dente. Generously add parsley and oil EVO to serve. The day after, 42.195 km will be in your legs, I guarantee ;)

When pistachios meet bucatini

During my several dinners in Tel Aviv with number of guests > 10 I have learnt to love pesto, due to its impressive performance in terms of costs and cooking efforts :) also I found out it comes out quite nice even with non-local ingredients, so I go for it quite often. 

This time I made it a bit special and sicilian-style, as my mum brought some pistachios. I like the word pistachios, it reminds me of a very special person that once tried to persuade me that its initial was an F, just like in Fenelope Cruz ;)

BUCATINI WITH SUNDRIED TOMATOES & PISTACHIOS PESTO

Blend the pistachios and leave two spoons aside for later; add rocket leaves, sundried tomatoes, EVO oil and blend until creamy. At the end add grated parmigiano. Cook the bucatini al dente and add an obscene amount of pesto. Decorate with rocket leaves and pistachio powder.

A bed made of cheese

This came out less pretty than I thought but tastier than I had hoped, so please use your imagination ;)

A few days ago my mum came to visit me here in the cold north, where winter has already come (this is for all the GOT nerds), and in line with the worst italian stereotype she brought vegetables, cheese, herbs and a bunch of other italian tasty cousins of the tasteless stuff I can buy here :)

She even brought courgette flowers! We make pizza with those (we=italians). We fill them with mozzarella and anchovies and fry them (we=romans). But this time I made pasta:

PASTA WITH COURGETTE FLOWERS, ANCHOVIES AND FONDUE

In a pan, fry a garlic clove, 6-7 anchovies and chilli with oil EVO. When the anchovies are melted, add the pasta cooked half-way and continue cooking it adding its water. When the pasta is almost ready, add the courgettes flowers in stripes. Serve on top of a couple of spoons of fondue made with half gorgonzola and half milk (I made it in the microwave).

I <3 breadcrumbs

My recent trip to Sicily reminded me how much I love breadcrumbs, and also that breadcrumbs in italy are, quite oddly, crumbs made with old bread, as opposed to the orange stuff that is sold in northern europe to make schnitzel :)

So I took with me a small packet with breadcrumbs made by my mother. Italian, homemade, mother: when these three words are used altogether to describe something, it is normally food and it is normally delicious. 

SPAGHETTI WITH RED PEPPERS AND BREADCRUMBS

The red peppers were roasted into the oven at 180 degrees for ~45 minutes, then placed into a bag and sealed to let them "sweat their skin away", then pealed. In a pan, fry a garlic clove cut in small pieces and a few anchovies (3 to 7 depending on how much you love anchovies, me 10); when the garlic is golden, add the red peppers cut in stripes. In the meantime, cook the spaghetti half way and pour them in the pan, then cook until ready adding their water from time to time. In another small pan, fry the breadcrumbs with some EVO oil until golden. When the spaghetti are ready, pour generously the breadcrumbs and enjoy <3

Xmas lunch/1

True that xmas has been now over for more than two weeks, but the silver nail polish I am wearing gives me all the rights to still feel the festive mood and talk you through my xmas lunch :)

To my super-nerd mind, Xmas is like a function that multiplies everything by ten, which means it increases the happiness content of the happy moments but also increases the pain in case the mood is not that happy. This year I felt my family needed a change, thus I decided to divert the lunch from a regular, traditional smooth periodic function, made of tortellini and mixed boiled beef, to a more eclectic collection of delta functions (the steepest and shortest function on earth), ten of them for the sake of precision, ten tiny dishes cute for the eye and tasty in the mouth :D 

CAPRESE FINGERFOOD

this is taken almost exactly from here. I have to say the result was very cute but "meaningless" taste-wise (according to my brother, who instead loved everything else)

RAVIOLI DEL PLIN

I had this amazing ravioli in Torino, and I felt in love with them. The filling is made with mixed pork and beef meat cooked with celery-onion-carrot, blended with spinach and scarola salad, one egg and parmigiano. The sauce is made by overcooking the celery-onion-carrot left in the meat juice and blending them, adding some flour to make it more dense. 

TORTELLONI SPINACH AND BUFFALO MOZZARELLA

These were my winners ;). I made the filling simply cooking fresh spinach in a pan sealed with a lid and a spoon of olive oil for few minutes. When ready, I let them cool down and added cubes of very VERY good buffalo mozzarella, one egg and some parmigiano. Then I made the giant tortelli, boiled them and served with a plain cherry tomato sauce (I made it by first peeling the tomatoes dipping them in boiling water for 30 seconds, and then cutting them into cubes and cooking the sauce for 5 minutes) and some thyme leafs to decorate.

BARLEY WITH HAZELNUTS AND FENNEL IN CASTELMAGNO FONDUE

The taste of barley, hazelnuts, fennel seeds and cheese fondue all together is absolutely stunning. I borrowed the idea from my chef friend, and every time I make them I am surprised by the pair fennel/hazelnut. It is indeed very simple: I boiled the barley, added grated hazelnuts, oil EVO and fennel seeds. I used a round pasta cutter to make nice towers of barley and served with a fondue of cream fresh, milk and castelmagno (a strong cheese from the north of italy).

A siculoisraeli salad

One of the most heart-warming rituals I take part since I am living in the holy land is the pomelo break: during the pomelo season, my boss comes in the morning with this giant heavy orange and we all gather after lunch to have a piece of the holy citrus, amen. As passionate as he is for italian cousin, the idea of exporting pomelo (unknown to most of Europe, as far as I know) into italian food came naturally, so hey, challenge accepted :)

POMELO, FENNEL AND SYRIAN OLIVES SALAD

I peeled the pomelo (which is already quite a challenge, as this obese orange has a very thick skin :) ), squeezed half of it and cut the rest into pieces. I sliced the fennels keeping the small leaves for decorating the salad. I took the seeds out of a bunch of green bitterish olives (yes, sometimes I buy food only because it has a fancy packaging!) and mixed them with the pomelo pieces and the fennels. I made an emulsion with half lemon, oil, the squeezed pomelo, salt and pepper to season the salad. Nice :)

SICILIAN LINGUINE WITH CARAMELISED CHERRY TOMATOES

As refreshing and patriotic as it was, a salad is not enough to have two young and sporty people still in their 20ies satisfied (me and A), so I stayed on the track of Sicilianness and made this linguine with breadcrumbs, anchovies and caramelised tomatoes. 

I cut the tomatoes in halves and place them in a baking tray with some caster sugar, salt, oregano and oil EVO. They need to dry in the oven @ 150 for about one hour. I boiled the linguine; in the meanwhile, I took a large pan and add oil EVO, two garlic cloves and the anchovies. When the anchovies were melted, I take the garlic cloves out and add breadcrumbs (a shame I didn't have real bread!). I fried the breadcrumbs in the pan for a couple of minutes and seasoned the linguine with this mix and the cherry tomatoes. 

A fishy disappointment

I am sure my criticisms towards some tiny negligible features of my host country will be well accepted, given the affection for Israel I show on a daily basis.

After many independent samples, i can say it loud and statistics is on my side: fish sucks here. No matter if I go in that specific place warmly recommended by this or that food lover. I can basically choose between being disappointed by buying frozen shrimps and disappointed and poor by buying fresh shrimps. The other day I surprisingly went for the former option and made the following:

LINGUINE ZUCCHINE AND FROZEN UNTASTY SHRIMPS THAT BECOME TASTY THANKS TO FISH STOCK

Good fish stock is mandatory in this case. First I sliced the zucchine and grilled them in a pan with one teaspoon of oil EVO. Then I cut them in sticks and put them aside. I took another pan with one spoon of oil EVO and cooked quickly the frozen shrimps, adding a sip of white wine halfway with gas at full power to let the alcohol evaporate. In the meantime I boiled the linguine for a few minutes (they need to be hard inside), added them to the pan with the shrimps and started pouring the fish stock one spoon at time. When the linguine were almost ready I added the zucchine sticks, salt and pepper. I served with parsley and oil EVO.

Canapés and the thin difference between puff pastry and shortbread

Last week I hosted a lab night to warm up out new flat and the task to accomplish was to feed 11 hungry neuroscientists (just to give you a picture, one of them spontaneously compares herself to a truck driver when it comes to food), luckily hungry AND very talented in the kitchen so it was not only because of Silviot that the night was a success :)

Actually, one of the Silviot (me) did her best to sabotage the night misreading the package of frozen puff pastry, that turned out to be frozen shortbread, hence I had to make a great story up about the long-standing italian tradition of using sweet pastry in association with cheese and curry to create a unique combination of flavors in the mouth. Not sure I persuaded them but they still hold me in the lab so it is fine!

I will not describe in details the recipes but I'll give the idea. I made canapes with roasted cauliflower and tahini, canapes with roasted red peppers and dill, red pepper muffins, a sort-of quiche with broccoli besciamella and salmon, S1 made the tuna roll with potatoes and capers and my colleagues made two delicious desserts, a meringue with halva and cream and the balcanic version of the pannacotta. As the queen of aubergines, the main was of course pasta alla norma :)

My ragù (plus its kosher/pregnancy-friendly version)

One of the nicest person I ever met, who happens to be also my very first Israeli friend, asked me about ragù, and since my recipe (that we will call THE ragù) was proofread (proofeaten?) by a number of referees, and received only minor corrections, I am really happy to share it :)

The picture belongs though to its skinny version that we had the other night for dinner, adapted to be kosher-friendly (for my collegue who does not eat diary) and pregnancy-friendly (for his wife who is pregnant): a bit lighter in the taste but still yummy. And VERY yummy was the dessert, but that recipe is in the hands of S1, the chef patissier!

"THE" RAGÙ

Coc->vegetable stock. Chopped coc and oil in a pot until they are golden (soffritto) and then add minced beef and pork (half-half). When the meat changes color add one glass of red wine and, since the bottle is now open, pour one glass and sip it slowly. In a while add one glass of milk and let cook. Add the tomato concentrate melted in part of the vegetable stock and let it cook slowly for at least 1.5 hours, adding stock whenever the sauce gets thirsty. Add salt/pepper/nutmeg. Enjoy!