Wanted

Dear fellow bloggers/ friends/ readers/ commenter,

One of the thing I was never able to make (except from macarons, but I’m still studying…) is puff pastry.
I never found a recipe that satisfy me at the point of making it instead of buying it…
Depending on the recipes, the pastry turned out to be too hard, too heavy, not so puff, too buttery, not enough buttery… I experienced everything can turn bad in a puff pastry recipe! Except the right result, off course…

Is there anyone who’s able to make (or found the recipe for) the most perfect puff pastry in the world, dummies and dumb proof (so Piperita proof), and would like to share it?

The recipe can be sent to me (peppermintpatt [at] gmail [dot] com) or just leave the link (if you had already publish it) in the comments, and it can be either in English, French or Italian…

If you didn’t yet publish it, we can make up a nice joint blogging venture and make joint posts about it… Just an idea…

I must admit I didn’t dig all the blog in my sidebar before to write this so I don’t know if someone in the rest of the world already explored the subject…

Many thanks

Flambè!

Or how to burn eyelashes and some air while cooking…
Home flambé is safe, don’t worry, but only if you are not French and you do not exceed with the amount of alcohol you use.
But if you are French, like my husband, you won’t care: you’ll put too much Armagnac, and while your (very wise) wife is telling you that maybe (only maybe) there is too much alcohol in the pan, you begin to lower the pan toward the flames, that’s how you’ll end up: burned air and eyelashes… Not to much, but still burned…

Serves two

500 g of fresh prawns
Armagnac
Thick sour cream

In a hot frying pan cook the prawns until they turn pink. Add enough Armagnac to cover the bottom of the pan. Lover the pan towards the fire and let the Armagnac burn. When the flames are gone add the sour cream and let it heat trough.
Serve it hot and eat it with your fingers, licking them thoroughly!

Fall, finally!

As many other blogger did, I noticed that finally, despite the 20° C you still get even in Milan, fall has arrived: the air is briskly, especially in the morning, after dawn is cold and the laundry needs ages to dry!
So, soup time!
I’m not big fan of soups: I can just eat Chinese soups and potage (the velvety, smooth version of soup) and that's all! The only think of a minestrone makes me sick...
So, here I come with some basic and some variations of potage.
Basics: you get any vegetable that is not feeling very well in your fridge, put it in a large saucepan with some potatoes chunks, water, salt and pepper, bring it to the boil, let it cook slowly and then blend it until smooth.
Variations: add some bay leaves or other spices; add stock; add rice; add miso; add anything you feel like…

Serves 4

3 carrots
1 leek
5 medium size potatoes
1 l of water
1 tablet or 1/2 tablespoon of vegetable stock (I used some that Petula kindly gave me!)
Sea salt

Peel the carrots and cut them in chunks. Do the same with leek and potatoes. Put all the vegetables in a large saucepan and add water, stock and not too much salt. Bring to the boil and let it simmer until all the vegetable are cooked through and are tender.
Blend everything and serve with some milk or crispy pancetta (vety thin bacon), like in the picture, or by itself, with some fresh grounded pepper.

EBBP 6

I received it! This morning! I was so exited that I felt like that Christmas my parents gave the Barbie House!!!! So exited that I had to take the picture in no time, because I wanted to blog about it… And begin to dig in it, testing everything!!!! My package was form Caryn, from Reality Bites, the woman with the most beautiful handwriting I ever seen!!! She labelled every item, with a little description and some notes! She lives in Exeter, Devon, Uk, so the pack was plenty of English goodies!!! And until this morning I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed cheddar!!! I felt like Wallace from Wallace & Gromit: “Mmmmh, Cheeeeeese!!!!”
My husband is away for business until tomorrow night, so I hope I can wait to dig in it, so I will give him a surprise English dinner (he doesn’t read my blog… And if neither my husband nor my friends read my blog, who’s reading it then???), in memories of the old times, when he lived in Bedfordshire!

So, getting there in order:

Centre: the whole package on my kitchen table. My cat wants particularly to thank you for the plastic rope that get the package together: he loves them and he’s playing with them ever since!!!
Clockwise, from up left to down left:
- Tyrells hand fried vegetable chips, natural beetroot, parsnip and carrot: WOW it’s the only word that come to my mind! You can’t imagine my effort to take my hands far from it!
- English tea: breakfast, afternoon and London tea!!!
- Homemade butternut squash muffin, spicy, plenty of raisins: just delicious!!! Ok, for those I couldn’t wait!
- South Devon Chilli Farm, Chilli chocolate: exquisite!!!
- Godminster Cheddar: THE English cheese, it’s since 1999 I do not eat a piece of it! So glad to have it my fridge!!!
- Fudges Oat Crackers: “Gromit, we have crackers but no cheese, Gromit! Not a bit in the house!” Now I’ve got both and I don’t have to go to the moon to find cheese to go with my crackers!
- Maldon Salt: I always wanted some but never got!!! So many recipes crossing my mind!!!
- The Poacher’s Relish: Smoked salmon relish with lemon zest: to use very sparingly!!! You think it possible???
- And Somerset cider Brandy Butter, in a separate, red, festive box, to include a treat I have never tried and I will sure make some pancakes as soon as possible!!!

Thanks Caryn, you made my first EBBP a wonderful experience, never to forget!

The thousand nights and a night

I am very fond of Middle East patisserie. There are few Arabian patisseries in Milan, quite good actually, but do it yourself is always better: you can choose the amount of honey, butter and sugar, so it is not too honey, too buttery or excessively sweet.
And you can play around with ingredients. Baklava defines a sweet treat made with phyllo pastry and chopped nuts. But why not add some chopped dried fruits, as figs and apricots? And some spices too, as cinnamon, fennel seeds, nutmeg and ground ginger?
My inspiration was from Dessert des mille et une nuits, Èditions S.A.E.P., 2004, an extensive collections of Middle-East and North Africa treats, from loukums to jams.

Makes around 30 pieces

500 g of phyllo pastry, partially defrosted
200 g of butter, melted

For the filling
200 g of roughly chopped walnuts
200 g of roughly chopped hazelnut
200 g of roughly chopped almonds
10 dried figs, roughly chopped
16 dried apricots, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
1 tablespoon of fennel seeds
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
4 tablespoons of orange flower water

For the syrup:
250 g of caster sugar
250 g of cassonade (raw brown, cane sugar)
1 lemon, freshly squeezed
400 ml of water


Prepare the filling, mixing all the ingredients. Let it to rest for a few hours.

Cover a big ovenproof rectangular dish with greaseproof paper. Roll out the phyllo pastry and butter each sheet. Cover bottom and sides with 6 buttered sheets of pastry. Spread half of the filling, cover with 2 buttered sheets of pastry, spread the rest of the filling, and cover everything with the remaining buttered phyllo pastry and the remaining melted butter.
With a sharp knife, cut along to form little squares.
Cook in a hot oven, at 180° C, for 40 minutes.
In the meanwhile, prepare the syrup, melted the sugar with all the other ingredients for 10 minutes.
As soon as baklavas are cooked, take them out of the oven, pour over it the syrup, and let it cool. Let it rest overnight in the refrigerator. Serve at room temperature.

About the picture: the tablecloth under my baklava is a gift form my husband's grandma. She lived for a good part of her life in Morocco (she came back in the middle of the 60’s), teaching French to Morrocans pupils, at the local school, and she brought back many memories and wonderful gifts, like this gorgeous tablecloth.

Cosa bolle in pentola?

I was born in a city near the Italian – Swiss border, part of my relatives leave there, as one of my uncles married a Swiss lady, and all my childhood was surrounded by Swiss chocolate, Swiss food, trip to get cheaper Swiss fuel and Swiss television.
When in Italy food programs were still new and rare (and now there are too many, and not all good…), on Swiss television there was one of the program that made me the cook I am now: Cosa bolle in pentola? (what is brewing?), presented by Bigio Biaggi, one of the pillars of the channel. Bigio was speaking mainly dialect (very similar to Lombardy dialects, so I could understand with no problem) and he could not cook at all, not even a boiled egg. He invited Swiss chefs and food amateurs and gourmets and made them cook some recipes, asking clever question along with very banal ones, but all the time useful.
Thanks to him and his program now I know how perfectly whip and add egg whites, the most perfect sweet short crust pastry, how to make a delicious risotto…
It was tuned for 8 years, stopped in 2000 or around that, and with the collection of my mother cook books, those were my first steps in the art of cooking.
All this to tell you about this recipe for Swiss pigtail (braid): a wonderfull fluffy bread, slightly sweet.
I strongly recommend an electric kneader (such us my wonderful Kenwood chef), because by hand you will need to knead for something like 30 minute to obtain the right texture.
Adaptation from Pâtisserie maison, by Florence Edelmann.

12 g of fresh yeast
150 ml of milk, warm
450 g of flour
25 g of sugar
1 small bag of vanilla sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
1 egg
75 g of melted butter

For the glaze
1 egg yolk
1 spoon of milk

Melt the fresh yeast in the milk. Mix flour, sugar, vanilla sugar and salt in big bowl. Add the beaten egg and the melted butter, and begin to knead. Add the milk and yeast mixture and knead until you obtain a soft dough, not sticky, light and elastic (as said before, 30 minutes by hand, 15 minutes with Kenwood chef, beginning with the lowest speed for 5 minutes and continuing for 10 minutes at speed one). Make a ball and let it rest, cover with a tea towel, for 1 hour and half.

Punch the dough, divide it in three, roll each piece in a thick 50 cm string and begin to make the pigtail (braid), exactly like the one you would do with your hair. Florence Edelmann explain another method, but frankly, I found it absolutely incomprehensible.
Lay the pigtail (braid) on greaseproof paper over a baking sheet and let it rest, covered with a tea towel, for 1 hour.

Glaze it with the beaten egg yolk and milk and cook in a preheated oven, 180° C, for 30 minutes.


No translation (too lazy), get the book!

Hi, my name is Piperita, and I am garlic addicted…

Garlic bread is something that the entire world consider Italian (altogether with Penne Vodka), except by Italians: we do not even know what it is… Really, if you came to Italy you know: there is not such thing in our bakery goods, or served in restaurants! Garlic bread is just a WONDERFUL Anglo-Saxon invention, and I am very thankful for it!
When we lived in England we used to pick up a garlic bread at Sainsbury’s or Tesco, on the way to the counter: the delicious smell of the parsley/garlic mixture, combined with the fragrance of the bread where one of the most comforting thing, far from home, from the sun and the hot, in the rain and cold of English summers…
This recipe is originally from one of my cooking bibles: How to be a domestic goddess, by Nigella Lawson. I adapted it a little, add something, made it a bit more mine…
In Italy we can easily find Manitoba, an high-gluten flour that takes his name form the Canadian province of Manitoba. You can substitute it with any high-gluten flour you find at you local suppliers.

For the bread:
250 g of durum wheat flour
350 g of Manitoba flour
12 g of fresh yeast
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
125 g of extra fresh ricotta
Milk, if needed

For the garlic topping
4 heads of garlic (yes, yes, 4 ENTIRE heads of garlic)
Flat leaf parsley
Extra virgin olive oil
Dried flakes of hot chilli pepper


Make the dough for the bread. Melt the fresh yeast in 300 ml of warm water. Let it rest for 15 minutes, then add all the ingredients, except milk. Begin to knead the dough, better with a robot or a kneader, until all the ingredients are combined. If the dough it is too hard add some milk and knead for few more minutes. The more you knead the better it will be.
Cover it with a damp tea towel and let it rise for 2 hours or until it doubled the original volume.

In the meanwhile, prepare the topping.
Pick every clove form the entire heads of garlic, leaving skin on. Place them in a big parchment of foil, close it loosely around them, but be sure it has no holes or openings. Place the bag in a preheated oven (200° C) and cook it for 45-50 minutes.
Place parsley leafs in a food processor, add the garlic cloves (squeezed from their skins) and some oil. Blend until smooth.

Once the dough has doubled its volume, punch it (yes, yes, punch it!) and let it stand for another 30 minutes.
Divide the dough in 4 balls and roll them out in rounded squares. Cover them with a damp tea towel and let it rest for another 2 hours.
Preheat the oven at 220° C.
Brush the breads with the blended garlic mixture, sprinkle with chilli pepper and cook it in the oven for 20-30 minute, or until golden.

Eat warm as a starter, with some ham or salame, or on its own.

At this point your home will wonderfully smell garlic!!! For ever!!!

In Italian, please

Goody good!

Tarte Tatin is one of my favourite desert: always a hit, always a save soirée! You just need apples, butter, flour, sugar and egg and the trick is done…
Tatin sisters invented it in the end of 19th century by accident, cooking some apple for too long, so the sugar did caramelize, and placing the pastry OVER them, and not under…
This upside down desert is perfect still warn on its own, but even with a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream and/or a scoop or two of crème fraîche, the French thick sour cream.
As you can imagine, it is not the lightest desert of all!!!
This recipe is from one of my favourite cook books, Pâtisserie maison, by Florence Edelmann.

Serves 8

6 to 8 cooking apples, firm and not too watery

For the pastry
130 g of butter, soft
1 egg
1 pinch of salt
230 g of flour
70 g of caster sugar, but better with confectionary sugar

For the caramel
50 g of slightly salted butter
150 g of caster sugar

Make the pastry. Place the diced soft butter in a bowl and begin to whisk it to obtain a thick paste. Beat the egg with a fork and pass it through a sieve in a glass with 30 ml of cold salted water.
Add it to the butter, whisking constantly, then add part of the flour sieved with the sugar and continue to beat. Add all the flour and sugar and make a ball. Leave it to rest in the fridge for at least one hour.
In the mean while,. Make the caramel with the sugar and 4 spoons of water.
Put the butter in a cake mould of 25 cm and pour over it the caramel.
Peel and clean all the apples and cut them in eighth, and dispose them over the caramel.
Roll the pastry in a round larger than the cake mould, place it over the apples and fold over the exciding pastry, to make a edge.

Cook in a preheated oven (170° C) for 40 minutes.
When the pastry is golden, take it out, let cool for few minutes, then turn upside down in a serving dish. If the apple made to much liquid, turn it in another cake mould, larger, discard the exceeding liquid and then move the cake to the serving dish.

Serve still warm with vanilla ice cream and/or crème fraîche.

In Italian, please

Pasta!

Orecchiette is a typical pasta from the south of Italy, very popular made with turnips tops and anchovies, but you can easily adapt it for any sauce. They are better fresh, but even dried one are not too bad. Pasta is one of the less expensive food in the world, so it’s worth to buy the most expensive you can find at your local suppliers.

Serves 2

250 g of orecchiette

1 red pepper
1 shallot
1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon of Piment d’Espelette or mild chilli pepper
2-3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
thyme

Hard salted ricotta, grated, to serve

Deseed and clean the red pepper. Cut it in small cubes. Chop the shallot and gently fry it in 1 tablespoon of olive oil, together with the fennel seed and the chilli pepper. Add the red pepper and cook gently for 10 minutes: the pepper must be cooked, but still crunchy.

Bring on boil a large pot of salted water. Once is boiling, add the orecchiette and cook accordingly to the time on the package, leave it “al dente” (still a bit hard). Drain the orecchiette e transfer them in the pan with the red pepper, and stir fry it on high fire, adding some more oil if needed.
Serve immediately, sprinkled with the ricotta.

How to make a cake this ugly...

Oh, believe me, it is SO simple to make an ugly cake! (and that’s not even the ugliest I made in my life… There was once an accident with ganache, and mini meringues and a chocolate cake risen in the wrong way… But it was many years ago, before the blog, before catering… My friends still remember that mud mess…)

First of all, you need three major factors:
- Waking up with a bad mood: we are not machines or a starred chef (not even an “unstarred” one in my case!), and a bad mood can influence a lot our “cooking skills”… At least tell me it is like this for everybody!!!
- Make the wrong pastry the last time you had a bad mood (and you do not remember how much flour you put, but sure too much for the amount of butter you used) and freeze it…
- Defrost the wrong pastry during the day with a bad mood, knowing you have a bad mood, but keeping forgetting about it…

Once you have established all those three requirements for disaster, be sure to have enough marmalade to overload your cake. And be sure that that day you absolutely want to play “the good pâtissier” game and try to established the perfect crostata (jam tart) with an innovative technique that nobody, not even Pierre Hermé, thought about.

Yesterday I was all this at once, something that happens maybe once in a lifetime, and so why not use all this hidden potential of mine and make sure to come up with a disaster???
What am I, a fool???

My original idea was a two layer cake. The layers made with sweet shortcrust pastry, and the filling with homemade jam (I have too many!).
So, why nobody in the pâtisserie world EVER came up with such an idea??? Well, maybe because it is a BAD idea, and even worst if you have the WRONG pastry!!!

My pastry was everything but not compact. To roll it for the base I had to put it on a piece of greaseproof paper, to be sure not to destroy it while transferring it in to the mould. As I had lots of leftovers form the base I decided to make a second layer. So I putted a jar of orange marmalade on the base, and my intention was to put a layer of pastry over it and then a layer of lemon and grapefruit marmalade.
First problem: my pastry, as you should have understood by now, was WRONG, so it kept crumbling and crumbling. So I thought what a nice idea it was to have a layer of crumbled pastry!!! And so I did.
Second problem: unlike the orange one, lemon and grapefruit marmalade was extremely thick, so absolutely impossible to spread over the crumbled pastry without mixing it all together.
But I am stubborn, very stubborn, so I kept going on, hoping that everything would settle in the oven…

I couldn’t be more wrong…

At the end, the finished product was really ugly, but it does taste good… Maybe too much marmalade for my taste, but my French husband (from now on The French) liked it…
And as I am slower writing my blog in English, and at the moment I do not have so many posts to publish for hard and busy times, I couldn’t let such a disaster be wasted…