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 ;)

Brisè olè

Yesterday I was surfing through food blogs to find a recipe for a pie to bring for dinner at friends and I saw many yummi quiches. My brain was about to send the command to type "puff pastry" in my shopping list when I read the recipe for making shortcrust pastry (pasta briseé in italian): water, butter, flour, mix, done. Well well well, let's give it a try, I thought. Now I wonder why I ever bother spending hours of my life looking for puff pastry in the supermarkets (it is always in an unpredictable place) when shortcrust is so easy. Also, I have to say, apologising in advance to my french readers, despite it contains a good amount of butter, it doesn't give the impression of eating a whole french bakery as the puff pastry does :) 

SPINACH AND FETA PIE

for the pastry:

200 gr regular flour

100 gr butter

70 gr cold water 

for the filling:

20 gr butter

a small onion

800 grams fresh spinaches

200 gr feta cheese

4 eggs

80 gr parmigiano

nutmeg

In a mixer, place the flour and the butter extremely cold and mix until sand-like. Place on a cold surface (metal for example), make a volcano and add the cold water sip by sip, but quite quickly, to make a solid dough. Place in the fridge until the last second.

Boil a large pot of salty water and cook for a couple of minutes the spinaches, then drain them and, when cold enough, squeeze them to remove as much water as possible. In a pan, place the butter and the chopped onion, and then the spinaches. Let it go for 5 minutes and then blend it quite coarse.

In a bowl, mix 4 eggs with the grated cheese, add the blended spinach cream (cold!!!!) the nutmeg, salt (only a bit), pepper and the feta cheese cut in small cubes. 

With a rolling pin, make a thin layer with the shortcrust and place it on a round tray, trim the border and use the remaining pastry to make small stripes. Place the spinach cream inside, fold the border, place the stripes and bake in the oven for 35 minutes. Delicious!

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

Story of a lonely cod

I am having some troubles in finding a decent fishmonger here in the Netherlands, the only fish I can easily find is salmon but salmon I like it raw so not much material for my blog :)

But I came across this cod, most likely died of loneliness, and I started dreaming about the baccala' (the salty dried cod) they do in Roma…

SWEET AND SOUR COD WITH CHERRY TOMATOES AND KALAMATA OLIVES

It took me literally 7 minutes to do it, 5 of whom talking with my nephew on skype (and luckily he has a good sight and at some point shouted "aunty, aunty, smoke!" saving my dinner)

200 gr codfish

100 gr cherry tomatoes

10 kalamata olives

2 teaspoons of honey

4 teaspoons of white vinegar

2 spoons of white flour

2 garlic cloves

oil EVO

salt

pepper

Roll the cod cut in stripes into the white flour and pan-fry it with 3 spoons of oil EVO. When the cod gets tanned, remove the pieces from the pan and keep it warm. In the same pan, add a spoon of oil EVO and the garlic. After one minute, add the cherry tomatoes, the olives and some warm water. After few minutes, add honey and vinegar and cook for 2 more minutes (adding water if it gets dry). In the last 30 seconds I added back the cod really carefully to avoid smashing it. Salt and freshly ground pepper. Enjoy!

Mindfulness

Another foodless post in my food blog, I should stop calling myself a foodblogger, also because my foodless posts (sadly?) are read much more than my recipes :)

I have been cooking a lot lately, but I failed in taking any decent picture. Hence, tonight let me talk about one of my personal hot topics of 2014, which is mental health and specifically the effect of meditation and physical exercise on it. Wow, I am a real radical-chic, I wear a Burberry trench coat and talk about vegan shit and meditation, unbelievable! (the 10-years-back myself would have killed me)

I (in my spare time, as many friends would say) work as a researched in the field of neuroscience, and thus I hear quite often words related to brain conditions such as disease, plasticity, degeneration, and so on, but I guess I always saw such things as legends in my plots, factors in my anova, and nothing more.

But more recently, I joined the anxiety club, a very prestigious gathering of people that is not as exclusive as one might think, but instead rather welcoming with new members from all over the world :)  Googling my symptoms (and throwing years of medical research out of the window), amongst a lot of shit I also found something interesting: a paper showing that the effects of meditation in anxiety/depression are comparable to those of mild antidepressants. Ok, let's do it.

For the first week or so, I only learned to mind the weight of my ass on the chair. But I didn't quit, because at the time the thought of my ass pressing on the chair was better than anything else that was crossing my mind. I did it for a while and I still do it when I feel like. What I liked most was the idea of letting thoughts and feeling flow, without fighting the negative and chasing the positive ones. I am not sure I learned how to do it, perhaps not, but I liked this idea so much that I kept trying. But every now and then, the 10-years-back myself popped up in my mind, saying with a teasing voice: what are you becoming, a freaking hippie? Will you start dancing in the moonlight and talking with flowers? The brain is working as any other organs, full stop.

Well, after a while I made my mind on it. Yes, the brain is like any other organs, ok, a bit more sophisticated, but that's what it is. Abnormal mental states are symptoms that something is not working properly, as muscle pain is the symptom of too much exercise. But perhaps meditation is a way of training the brain to engage healthy circles of thoughts, just like controlled physical exercise is a way of training the body. BTW, training the body too has a positive effect on mental states, and this is one of the reasons why I run my ass off during the week :)

So, I still think lighting incense sticks and orienting the bed towards east (or west? or south?) is not helpful for mental health. Eventually, it is a misbalance of neurotransmitters. But meditation yes, perhaps it helps. Along with a deep search of what has gone wrong. And someone that every day reminds you that perfection is boring, just loving you the way you are.

The 10-years-from-now myself is looking at me with a gentle gaze and the smile of who thinks that a lot of water has to pass under the bridge (perhaps too much of a literal translation from the italian, but you know what I mean ;) )