Ribollita im pita

Winter in Tel Aviv means a week with some rain and some 7 degrees. Ok, readers from abroad, no room for complaining but please understand that the apartments here are damn cold and the only way of heating them is either rivers of cava (and yes, we VERY reluctantly did it) or a hot soup. 

And now that the winter is already gone, the sun shines high in the sky and the parka coat can rest in peace into the closet until I move to Maastricht, Silviot are left with ribollita soup for the whole week and for the whole building :) 

But ribollita without bread is like peas without carrots, like AS Roma without Totti, like, to come back to the main point, TLV without sun. I had mini pitot in the kitchen and no will to go fetch more suitable bread, so here we go:

RIBOLLITA IN THE PITA POCKET

I started with the celery-onion-carrot mix chopped and fried in a big pot with two spoons of oil evo. I then added cannellini white beans, a whole peeled potato, one can of crushed tomatoes, mixed herbs and filled the pot with water. I let it cook for a lot doing a bit of catch up with my online spanish classes, until the potato was soft. I mashed the potato, took out some of the beans (40%) and blended them, hence added everything back into the soup. I also added a package of unknown green vegetables (I dreamed about finding black kale, then hoped to be surprised by regular kale, sincerely wished to find a cabbage but eventually settled for this weird 7 shekels dark lettuce). I served it with the vegetables inside a pita pocket and the soupy part outside, and I will serve it again, and again, and again….

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. 

Finger food contest AKA pick the right glass!

After a few days in which my italianhousewifeness gave its best, I restored the cosmic balance of poshness with a finger food night, that was a very enjoyable rehearsal for a very special event yet to come ^__^

5 judges tasted 6 different dishes, all arranged into small cups. Cups are horrible, I know, but the german el-al security is the one to blame for this as they spotted a possible threaten for Israel in my pink Vivienne Westwood shoes and shipped them separately, delaying all my afternoon schedule. (BTW, the only threaten that those shoes might have is that Israeli girls will understand that in Israel they don't know how to make shoes and book a flight to Heathrow)

Back on track: the judges were extremely helpful with their suggestions, but hey, I hope the people attending the event will be a wee bit easier to please or I will have to take a month off only to study the presentation! :D :D :D

DE-STRUCTURED CAPRESE

Tomato cream at the bottom is made by blending a few red tomatoes with salt, oil EVO and fish gelatine. The white layer is mozzarella and the quenelle on top is made with basil and courgettes pesto (basil, parmigiano, oil EVO, pine nuts and pan-fired courgettes). Sort-of-borrowed from www.giallozafferano.it.

ROASTED CAULIFLOWER IN TEHINA DIPPING

This is very similar to what I made here (but with no crunchy quinoa and no chicken)

BARLEY AND ROASTED PEPPER FLOWERS

I boiled the barley until tender and seasoned it with thyme leaves and oil EVO. I roasted the peppers in the over for 45 minutes and then peeled them, seasoned with salt and cut them in stripes to make the shape of the flower.

AUBERGINES WITH FETA AND TEHINA

Aubergines are grilled in the oven for 45 minutes, then peeled and seasoned with chilli, basil, mint, salt and oil EVO. Feta is cut in small cubes and seasoned with chilli too.

PEA BALLS WITH SESAME SEEDS AND TZATIKI

I cooked the peas in a pan with a spoon of oil EVO. When ready, I blended them with one egg, parmigiano and cubes of bread from the day before. I made small balls and covered them with sesame seeds. The tzatziki is explained here.

BRIE, PEAR AND HONEY

Superfast but super tasty…. this is nothing more than pear and brie cubes with honey on top

RTD or UTD?

Ohhhhhh, cooking. That sweet relaxing and satisfying thing you can do when you have gas and you cannot do when, instead, the gas tank is empty and the gas guy keeps standing you up like the worst of the boyfriends :D

I came back on scene with a great show at my friend O's place. The menu was discussed on Saturday morning at around 5:30 AM in front of a succulent burger with chips that made its job in giving me the strength and the lucidity to get back home, plus to put together a respectful menu. These dinners always give me the opportunity to make some masterpieces of italian cousin without feeling the moral need to decrease the amount of saturated fat and increase the lavishness of the dish name. One example is the notorious RTD aka Ridicolously Tasty dish aka Parmigiana di melanzane (layers of fried aubergines, tomato, mozzarella and parmigiano) that by now I give for granted in every italian dinner. But something else made its way into the olympus of italian dishes that cannot be missing in such events: the UTD, aka unbelievably tasty dish:

UNBELIEVABLY TASTY DISH

Boil some milk and add rice, stirring from time to time and adding more milk if needed as if it was a risotto. When it is ready, add nutmeg and parmigiano. Cook spinach leaves for some minutes in boiling water and dry very well the leaves. Oil a baking tray and add breadcrumbs; then place layers of rice, layers of spinach and layers of smoked salmon. Cook in the oven @ 180 for ~30 minutes.

        

The breadsticks in the first picture are another big classic of my italian dinners, aka puff pastry with one egg on top, parmigiano and poppy seeds.

For this, as usual all the credits go to S1 that is becoming amazingly in both taste and aspect of her cupcakes ^__^

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.