Girl Geek Dinners Italia

Tonight I will attend to this fabulous event! If you come too, e-mail me so we can meet and catch up!

Raisins and cinnamon swirl

Give me something light and not too sweet for breakfast. Give me something yeasty too. Give me a simple, quick, plain recipe, that can be made by everyone. Give me something I can made over the weekend and that will last at least few days. Give me something with LOADS of raisins in it.
Can you vaguely imagine how difficult is to find a recipe that satisfy all those components???
Very...
At the end I found something by Martha Stewart: I've changed a bit, but it's basically it... Lighting a candle under her shrine, just next to Nigella's...
And as I'm a bit neglecting this blog lately (sorry, too much going on...), especially from a photograph point of view, this time I've tried to recreate the picture published on Martha's website. You know, most of the time the right inspiration makes your best shot, said the humble Piperita...

250 ml warm water
10 g fresh yeast
150 g all-purpose flour
200 g of strong flour
1 tablespoon sugar
4 tablespoons melted butter
150 g raisins
70 g cane sugar + 1 teaspoon
4 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 egg beaten

Crumble the yeast in the kneader bowl (normal large bowl, if kneading by hand), add a pinch of sugar, then dissolve everything with the warm water. let it rest for 10-15 minute, until it foams.
Add flours, sugar, and half the butter. Knead for 10 minutes on medium speed. Add raisins and knead for another 5 minutes. Form a ball and place it in an oiled bowl. Cover with plastic and let it rest until it doubles, for 1-2 hours.
Roll out the dough in a 30x25 centimetres square. Mix cane sugar with cinnamon, nutmeg and the remaining melted butter. Brush the rolled dough with some of the beaten egg, sprinkle with the sugar-cinnamon- butter mixture and rub everything together with the back of a spoon. Roll up the dough tightly, beginning from the short side. Close the ends and lay the sausage in a buttered plum-cake pan, 22x12 centimetres. Let it rise for 30 minutes in a warm enviroment.
Preheat the oven at 220° C.
When the dough is well risen, brush it with the remaining beaten egg and a teaspoon of cane sugar. Bake for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature at 180° C and bake for another 15 minutes.
Let it coll before to slice it.
Warning: gives addiction...

Out of fashion food?

The other day I was reading comments on one of my favourite blog (she doesn't need publicity, but here it is!) and someone wrote: "stop with avocados, they are so seventies" (in the meaning of obsolete). Well, I found that comment quite strange.
Let me explain myself. On which basis can you label a certain food out of fashion or obsolete? This concept never even cross my mind, and it's more then 10 years I'm seriously around food, 5 of which professionally. How can a food, something nature gives us, be defined obsolete?
There are a lot of lost vegetables or cooking techniques (my father in law grows many légumes oubliés, like 10 different variety of tomatoes, 5 or 6 different pumpkins...), lost during the centuries, due to famines, weather conditions, wars, drastic change of diet... But can someone decided that a vegetable, a fruit can become obsolete??? I personally do not think so. I think that everything is good, and with few basic skills everything can become an extraordinary mouthwatering dish.
I left a "talk" here and let me know, in comments or e-mails, what you think... Your opinions matter to me... As long as they are on the same track of mine! (;-D Just joking!)

The wind that shakes the barley

This is not at all an Irish recipe, as the title would suggest, but a very Italian one! Cooking other ingredients like you will do for risotto is quite common, even for pasta. Of course you always have to adjust the timing.
Barley is very good cooked with the absorption method, especially in the pressure cooker: you will obtain an orzotto all'onda (a barley[ris]otto waving in your plate!). For every 100 g of barley, use 400 ml of water or stock and cook it for 25 minutes. The method is very simple: you wash your barley under fresh water, hot some oil in the pressure cooker, add the washed barley (and the other ingredients, if this is the case), then cover with water or stock, close the lid and cook.
To the dish in the picture I added some tomatoes, some zucchini flowers (they are beginning to appear on the market but I think they are not yet at their best), and at the end I decorated everything with some sliced bottarga...

Canard aux poires

Do I have to stress again on how much I love duck? And ducks, of course: cute funny animals, but I prefer them directly from the oven! Oh, how cruel I am!!! (Add a very cruel laugh at this point)
This roasted duck is so simple that shouldn't need a recipe, but I know many people are afraid to roast whole animals. I found it rewarding!!!
My duck was 1. 7 kilos. It was stuffed with a diced pear and sprinkled with some salt. It cooked for 2 hours at 150° C, then 30 minutes at 220° C. I took it out of the oven when, piercing it with a skewer, the juices form the leg joint came out clear.
Allow it to rest for 10-15 minutes before to carve it.

It was juicy, but crispy on the outside. If I have to tell you the whole truth, I'm from the school that likes duck medium rare (rare for breasts alone), so if you prefer your bird well done, allow an extra 30 minutes at 150° C.

Serve it with the pear and some greenery.

Budino!

Watching a video of Jacques Pépin, found through The Amateur Gourmet, I was fascinated by his allure and his elegance... His recipe for Hasty Pudding reminded me my old love for budino (the Italian equivalent of pudding). Budino is the simplest dessert of all, if made with the powder selled in supermarkets, and it's even the most disgusting one, but as a toddler it was a much appreciated dessert or afternoon break!
When I was little there was a designated budino day during the week at the canteen where my father was working, and he was always able to sneak a little plastic glass with a chocolate or a vanilla budino for me! Glorious days!
During the years the range of budino available in supermarket widened to the ultimate possible peak: Lindt chocolate budino, the Everest of budino! Just heaven!
But of course, becoming older is not only a meaning of ageing, but of acquiring wisdom too (well for most people, I do not know how much for my little self...), so I began experimentation on the matter of budino. Many years back in my teens, I was still using the industrial powders but I was adding some liquors or a stratification of cookies...
The recipe by Pépin just reminded me the simplest way of all to make a budino and the perfect way to get rid of semolina before the summer (old semolina=worms, butterflies etc. ...).

1 lt of goat milk (the last one!!!)
160 g of semolina flour
130 g of sugar
3 tablespoons of yoghurt

Bring to the boil the milk with 2 tablespoons of sugar (that you took away from the overall amount).
Add semolina flour and give a good whisk. Cover the pan and let it cook for 2-3 minutes, on a very low heat, until it thicken.
Give it a good whisk, add sugar and yoghurt, give it another whisk, then spoon it in the mould/s you prefer.

Note: if you really want to spoil the perfect simplicity of this pudding, add any flavour, spice, nut or raisinof your choice. But only if you really feel the urge to spoil something... ;-)

Mon monsieur

No, this is not a picture of my French hubby, but the picture of the croque monsieur I made for fun yesterday night.
Well, croque monsieur is another of those simple stuff that it' so simple to get it wrong! Too much cheese compare to the ham, stale bread, poor quality ham and/or cheese... Well, so few ingredients involved, so many mistakes just around the corner!
I have to admit I'm not big fan of French street croque monsieur, but when made in the right way, it's a tasty bite!

Do I have to tell you how is made??? Please, I do not want to insult your brightness!

I've used cumin bread (baked following this recipe just few hour prior to the execution), cooked ham and freshly grated emmenthal. Straight under an hot grill...

Il boccone perfetto

My dear friend F is always in search of the perfect bite (il boccone perfetto)! Whenever she can find herself in front of different options, she struggle to have a mounthful of a combination of ingredients just to obtain the perfect blend of flavours and texture all in one bite, that goes directly in her mouth. For instance, last time we were delighted, by another friend of ours, K, with some options as quick entrées before the main course: a well aged Camembert, ham mousse, fried artichokes (her pièce de résistance, or cavallo di battaglia, as we say in Italy) and some rye bread. Well, F took a little piece of everything and she made her personal perfect bite: a piece of bread, a thin layer of ham mousse over topped by a piece of Camembert, to finish with a thin, just fried artichoke. Who can blame her or her search!
So, this little perfect and simple bite is dedicated to F and it's composed by some couscous, tuna, tomatoes and olives with a bit of good extra virgin olive oil... And if you can find some fresh basil, even better!
I know she'll appreciate!

Food Tube Marathon

At the beginning of this month, Adam The Amateur Gourmet launched a challenge: why don't you spend an hour on You Tube and try to find 10 wonderful food related video?
Well, he found awesome stuff! And while watching everything I thought, why don't I give it a try?
So, here they are: on a grey end of march Milanese morning, my hour looking for food video on you tube!

1. My favourite: chirashi with eel, almost 8 minutes on how to make the perfect chirashi! Carefully follow every instructions!


2. Food photography: do you know how the best food photographers work? Here are some inside views! ;-)


3. Beatles fan? Sesame street fan? Food fan? All pleased by this awesome performance!


4. Nigella Lawson's pantry and philosophy!


5. Ok, for me he's just too way too sexy: I love him! He's on my list of men I would run away with...


6. "Ready, steady, cook!" was one of my favourite program on English telly! The host, back then, wasn't the great Ainsley Harriot (a well known English chef), but a nice morbid blond lady, more like the Italian equivalent... Unluckily for us, the Italian equivalent of the original program is just unbearable... But we are here to have fun, so here it is: the original! And listen to the accent of everybody!


7. Nigel Slater and Miranda Richardson: just delighting! And she cooks!


8. Incredible! Vintage Delia Smith, the guru of English tv chefs!!!


9. Ok, maybe not entirely food related, may be not a real food video, but HE's always worth it, isn't he???


10. Last, but not least, not from You Tube, but from Serious Eats, check out what can happen if one of the most influential American food critic hire a personal chef!

P.S. Sorry, I really wanted to put each video on my post, but blogger doesn't like them...

Panna cotta

Panna cotta is an Italian classic, so simple, straight and quick that it's worth it making it!
It's even one of my favourite dessert and as it is so difficult to find it well made in restaurants, I always prefer making it myself, at home.
It's normally accompanied with red berries or chocolate, but this time I've tried a suggestion from Donna Hay: caramelized grapefruit.

For the panna cotta
600 ml of double cream
2,5 sheets of gelatin
20 g of vergeoise brune
50 g of sugar
5 cardamom pods
2 thin slices of lemon zest

Soak in cold water the gelatin sheets.
Bring to the boil the rest of the ingredients. take away from the fire, cover and let it infuse for 10 minutes.
Throw away cardamom pods and lemon zest, add the drained gelatin, stir.
Divide in 5 glasses or ramequines. Chill for four hours.

For the grapefruit
1 grapefruit
2 tablespoons of brown sugar


Cut all peel and pith from each grapefruit. Cut between membranes, releasing segments.
Add them to a pan with he sugar. Let it caramelize over high heat. Spoon it over the panna cotta and chill for another two hours.

Noodles, again and again and again...

What can I say? I love noodles... I wont add more, as I already expressed myself on this particular subject...
How can I more stress you about the wonderful property of a bowl full of steaming noodles? If you are reading this blog you are probably from some foreign (and civilized, food wise at laest) country where noodles are a daily dish.
But in Italy are still some kind of rare. Sure, we have our own version of the Asian noodles, non the less to say, Italian noodles. But sometimes I feel the urge of a nice bowl of Asian noodles, sweet & sour, spicy, crunchy Asian noodles...

Serves 2
1 table spoon of extra virgin olive oil
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
1 large piece of fresh ginger
2 or 3 pak choi or any other greenery
1 red pepper
300 ml of beef stock
2 table spoons of Hoisin sauce
1 table spoon of Oyster sauce
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
220 g of rice noodles

Soak the rice noodles in hot water and let them soak until you are ready to add them to the sauce (20 to 30 minutes).
Finely chop onion, garlic and ginger. Cut in stripes the pak choi, dice the pepper.
Heat the oil in a wok and add onion, garlic and ginger. Let them stir fry, turning constantly, until they begin to colour. Add pepper and pak choi. Stir fry for 5 minutes. add the hot stock and let it reduce at high heat. when the liquid is reduced and the vegetables are cooked, add the drained noodles, the sauces and stir well for 5 minutes, until the noodles are cooked. Serve straight trough, sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Come as you are muffins...

That is what could happen in a normal household on a (sunny) Sunday morning, when you say to your (normally clever and wit) husband: "Dear, I'm going to take a shower. Can you watch the muffins in the oven in the mean while? I put the timer, when it rings take them out".
I came out of the bathroom and the house was filled with a nice smell, but getting toward the kitchen, the smell was more towards burn than nice... And there they were: my muffins, half burned, still in the oven!!!
And all this because, as all of you understood since the cradle, cookbooks give ALWAYS the wrong timing, and because my dear French man was peacefully reading his wine notes...
So here they are: "Come as you are" muffins.

225 g of flour
1 package of chemical yeast
75 g of rolled oats
185 g of raisins
80 g f butter
4 table spoons of honey
2 egg
280 g of yoghurt

Preheat the oven at 180° C.
Melt butter and honey. Set aside and let it cool a little.
Mix all the dry ingredients. Make a wheel in the centre. Mix together eggs and yoghurt, add it to the dry ingredients altogether with butter and honey. Mix but do not over do, as you need lumps.
Spoon the mixture in a 12 muffins tin, covered with paper cups, and bake for 20 minutes.
Serve hot.

Recipe adapted from Muffins, Le cordon Bleu, Konemann, 1998.

P.S. Those muffins are dedicated to a dear expat friend: she loves muffins, she collected more than 80 muffin recipes through a meme and now she's going to open her own muffin factory, aka no more time for blogging! ;-)

Banana Pancakes

Hip hip hurrah for Nigella Lawson!
Pardon me my madness, but today in Italy is definitively spring (even 1 moth before is normally due), and there is a glorious sun in Milan: one of those rare day when the sky is blue and pollution seems to be blown away by some magical force...
So we wake up in a perfect mood and made pancakes! And Nigella suggests, in the Feast's chapter Breakfast, to make banana pancakes! And as I recently became addicted to bananas, why not?

For approximately 10 pancakes (it depends how big you make them...)
150 g of flour
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of chemical yeast
1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of sodium
200 ml of goat milk
50 ml of yoghurt
1 banana (very ripe)
1 egg

Measure all the ingredients and blend them in a food processor until you obtain a smooth batter.
Heat a teaspoon of vegetable oil in a heavy bottom non stick pan, clean it away with a pice of kitchen towel and add a bit of batter, something like a ladle full. Cook it until it bubbles, then turn it and let it cook for another 30 seconds.
Keep them hot while you are making the others.

I personally never tried a real American pancake, as I've never set foot in the States, but my husband says that Jamie Oliver's version is more like what you eat in pancakes bar... I like Nigella's too and the banana taste is very nice and subtle...

Stewed apples and pears

Sometimes I feel like an old maid (and I'm happily married!) or an old grandma: I like cooked apples...
I had a period in my file when I was cooking whole apples in the oven, and eat them warm, even two a day...
I know, it's a bit decadent, but they are so good, so comfort, so sure, so soothing...
Peace to the world with cooked apples!

This time I peeled, cored and segmented apples and pears, add the juice of two lemons and the zest of one lemon, some rosemary springs, a piece of cinnamon and 3 table spoons of brown sugar. I let them cook until puréed...
Eat warm and feel decadent!