The therapeutic fish

Today I feel like an era has come to an end. I started this blog talking about my previous life, and just today I realised it's totally-completely-without-regrets-on-either-sides... over. Plus, I heard with my very own ears the magic words: it was not your fault. S2, you can go in peace now and enjoy an unexpected friendship that came out of it, amen :)

Anyway, tanta tanta roba, i.e., a lot to process today, and cooking with slowness helps the processing step indeed :)
Four small mackerels were calling me from the fish counter a couple of days ago, so I decided to make a vintage recipe that actually comes from the same past I buried today (quite a forecast!):

MACKERELS WITH TROPEA ONIONS, BLACK OLIVES AND PEPPER

Open the mackerels in two halves, cutting the spine and the head away. Prepare a marinade with black pepper, salt, squeezed orange and oil, cut some red onions and remove the bone from a bunch of olives. Prepare a foil bag with the mackerels, a layer of onions, olives and rosemary, seal the bag leaving a small opening and pour the marinade inside. Let it rest for 30 minutes and then place in the oven at 180 degrees for 15 minutes. Match with an intense melt-out lunch session with your personal shrink (in my case, my mum)

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.

Chicken, beer and love

It has been quite a while since my last post, I have to say this is because my mind was still focused on the amazing food I had in Portugal/Spain and I couldn't come up with anything nice myself (this is a cheeky way to say that I ate like a duck before turning into foie gras and my stomach had to recover from the pork fat loading :D). Hints of the trip:

1) as much as I love Portugal and think is the best country in the world, I didn't like the Algarve, it looks like Portugal that has been cleaned up because the british are coming

1 bis) the fact that in Portugal they still sell the magnum double caramel is a strong sign of its high level of civilisation

2) a country whose colors are yellow and red can only be awesome

3) it is never too early for a tostada with jamon

But the past weekend a super nice guest was around @arlozorov73 so my italian housewife mood switched on (when it happens, OMG, I can't help it) and I made a couple of dinners quite tasty (in the spare time between crashing a wedding and watching a chef cleaning 20 kg of fish). The recipe I am going to post has a long story, and it is not mine actually, it comes from my past welsh life :)

BEER CHICKEN

Pan-fry 4 chicken thighs (if you also have an israelorussian butcher, since you can't choose whichever part of the chicken he has planned to give you is fine) with some EVO oil, a couple of garlic cloves and rosemary. When the skin is golden, add a can of your fav beer (guinness is supergood!) and let it cook until the beer is evaporated and only a sticky kind-of-bitter juice is left (that's the best part!). I served it with israeli salad and cauliflower with tahini.

THE pizza.

This trip back from Torino is the most appropriate moment to talk about something else that was soooo good I want to recall its amazing taste in my mouth again and again: my focaccia. Yes, after many trials, after being scattered from one food blog to another, I found THE recipe and I want to share it with the entire universe (BTW, there is some aficionado of my blog that reads it from Russia - wow - this is very cool as I do not know any Russian except the one with vodka and coffee)
A note for my non-italian readers: this is not the round pizza that you get in the pizza restaurants; this is more something similar to the pizza al taglio that you get as a quick lunch in shops, thicker and with more variety in the toppings.

THE PIZZA (for three big focacce)

500 gr regular white flour
500 gr semola flour
600 gr warm water
25 gr fresh yeast
5 teaspoons of honey
5 teaspoons of EVO oil
7 teaspoons of salt

Melt the yeast and the salt into the warm water and add honey and oil. Mix the two flours in a bowl and make a hole in the middle, then pour slowly the water inside the hole and start mixing with the hand. When all the water is added, start working on the dough on the table until it is solid and homogeneous, then let it rest for at least one hour in the oven turned off (with just the light on).
Prepare the baking trays with EVO oil, place one third of the dough in each tray without touching it more than necessary, and flatten it with the fingers VERY GENTLY, leaving the surface as irregular as possible, i.e., leaving the holes made by the fingers. Place the trays back into the oven and let the three dough rest and raise for another hour minimum.

I made three focacce: one with slices of potatoes, mozzarella, black olives, black pepper and red onions; one with tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil and speck, and the last I cooked it plain with just coarse salt and rosemary and then I stuffed it with prosciutto and mozzarella. I suggest to always sprinkle with coarse salt as the grains have a superb taste when they melt in the mouth. Enojoy!

Un po' di cazzi miei (Some business of mine)

Few hours ago I was walking down Ibn Gavirol with 2 thoughts in my mind: 1) the interaction between my low blood pressure and TLV's burning whether is making me useless for research in particular and for society in general; 2) I feel happy. I know this latter feeling is going to expire soon, as in 20 minutes I'll have an appointment with Natasha the russian waxing lady around the corner, but let's not think this far in advance :)

I am happy about the life I am living lately, happy because of all the awesome experiences that are involved in living in a place so different from what I was used to. The connection with food is that this happiness sometimes clashes with the picture of all the crazy stuff I was cooking when I was in a relationship (see picture below) that at that moment I thought was forever. And now I am so happy it was not, because the abrupt change in perspective (from a mortgage in Cardiff to a shared flat in Tel Aviv), in the CV of my life, will look like something that made me more open, more experienced, more balanced and eventually happier :D

I do not envy people who did not have the possibility of such a variety in life, and also I think one should share the life with someone only if, before that, he/she was able to feel happy alone (potentially indefinitely). BTW when I see this same independence in a man, I feel more keen on undressing than in front of Javier Bardem with a 2-days moustache :D

Gnocchi (again!) with caramelised cherry tomatoes and aubergines (again!) pesto

I know I know, it looks like I am always making gnocchi, so please, all of you who live nearby my place and might consider coming over for dinner at some point, would you mind organising a collection for buying me a pasta machine, to increase my blog's entropy? 

And now that I think about it, I was meaning to post another recipe today (chicken stripes with red pepper and mint) but it was magically disappeared from the kitchen before I managed to take a picture, which perhaps means it was too good to last? Anyway, I had such a stuffed day I didn't even find time to eat what I cooked, but that made the taste of the rogalach(ot? im?) I had after the movie night even better ^__^

GNOCCHI WITH CARAMELISED CHERRY TOMATOES AND AUBERGINES PESTO

Caramelised cherry tomatoes: cut each tomato in half, place in a baking tray and sprinkle some caster sugar on top, then salt, some EVO oil and let the tomatoes dry in the oven @ 130 degrees for one hour or so.

Aubergines pesto: bake the aubergines in the oven for one our, peel them and remove some of the water. Blend with garlic, mint, basil, pine nuts, EVO oil and salt. 

And before going back to work, a snapshot from one of my fav mangas ever, that talks about two roommates that had met by chance but become absolutely necessary to each other in almost no time: sounds familiar? :D

Hachi actually is very loud, loves cooking and naively believes in the goodness of all the human beings. But as a consequence of a much stiffer attitude towards contraception, my Hachi is happily dating Nobu at the moment :D

Fish ravioli and baked salmon, AKA meet the family!

I am back to work after three weeks overseas during which I had many many occasions to prove my cooking skills, but  the one I was more worried about was the planned meet-the-family dinner that I hosted to introduce S1 and S2 's families. And it turned out an A-W-E-S-O-M-E night! 

Before life abruptly taught me so, I did not believe in the influence of the family in a relationship, but well, I learned the lesson I guess :) 

As it's been already 3 months since S1 and I moved in together, we thought it was about the time for us to introduce our families, in my case there was a chunk missing (my nephew and my sister-in-law were at the beach, lucky them) but not having constantly to check that my nephew was not trying to kill himself allowed a smoother conversation. Conversation that was as usual mastered by my brother, and the more I get to know him, the more I love him (funny that the process started only a few years ago even if our existence overlaps by 30 years)!

FISH RAVIOLONI WITH AUBERGINES AND FENNEL FLOWERS

Make circles out of the pasta dough and fill them with raw cubes of stone bass, an aubergines baked in the oven for 45 mins, salt and fennel flowers from the countryside around Roma. Make the ravioloni folding the circles in the middle and pressing the edges with a fork. Boil and season with a sauce made with cherry tomatoes and one spoon (one spoon only!) of cream fresh.

       

BAKED SALMON

Put the salmon fillets in oil, lemon and herbs for a few hours. Mix breadcrumbs, paprika and crushed almonds and add the filtered juice of the marinade. Cover the fillets and cook in the oven for 10 minutes. I served the salmon with zucchine a scapece (fried zucchini with vinegar) and baked potato slices.