Italialicious

Tested & Approved

2010-06-05T19:18:00.003-04:00

"I've been craving Blueberry Gelato ever since I found the recipe on Italialicious. Daziano makes it so easy with his instructions. Follow them and you will have the most creamy and delicious treat to every pass your lips!! " More

Anti-cold Orange Sorbet

2009-10-19T19:31:00.005-04:00

Ingredients
3 cups freshly squeezed orange juice
3/4 cup sugar

In a saucepan over medium heat, dissolve the sugar in 1 cup of orange juice. Let it simmer for about 2 minutes. Then let it cool. Mix with the remaining orange juice and put in the fridge for a couple of hours. Prepare the sorbet using your ice cream maker, and serve it with some orange zest!

Vicenza Mac and Cheese

2009-10-17T20:08:00.005-04:00

According to an apparently recent legend, Thomas Jefferson invented macaroni and cheese. Truth is that pasta and cheese was served long before Jefferson declared himself a fan of macaroni. And by the time of Jefferson, the word macaroni was used as is used the Italian word maccheroni: basically a synonym of dry pasta without an associated shape. In fact, depending on the Italian region, maccheroni may refer to smooth rigatoni, square-shaped spaghetti or even tagliatelle.

Although Jefferson did import to America the first pasta maker for his own macaroni and we do know that in 18th-century North America people enjoyed pasta and cheddar baked together, we don’t know which shape of pasta nor which recipe Jefferson liked. But what we do know is that Jefferson pretty much enjoyed his travels in Northern Italy, and that he admired the works of Palladio. In fact, Jefferson followed Palladio’s principles to design his house in Monticello. Andrea Palladio was one of the most important Italian architects. His works can be admired all around the province of Venice, but mostly in Vicenza. His vision of classic architecture pushed Renaissance architecture to a whole new level that even anticipated neoclassical style, which was popular by the beginning of the 19th century. When visiting Monticello you can see the result of Palladio’s influence on American neoclassical architecture, which became the official style of the new nation. Actually, Monticello reminds you a lot of La Rotonda, a fabulous villa in the outskirts of Vicenza designed by Palladio.

Well, all this being said here is my interpretation of this American staple.

Ingredients
½ lb whole wheat macaroni
2 cups milk
1½ cups grated sharp cheddar cheese (+½ cup to put on top)
½ cup fontina cheese, grated
2 Tbsp corn starch
Salt, pepper
1 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp olive oil
½ tsp dry mustard
½ tsp nutmeg

While you cook your pasta, preheat the oven to 350F. In a separate saucepan, melt the butter. Add 1 Tbsp of olive oil. Whisk in the corn starch dissolving any lumps, and let it cook for a couple of minutes. Pour in the milk. Add some salt and pepper, the dry mustard and nutmeg. Let it simmer until it thickens a bit. Add the cheese and let it melt while you stir. When the pasta is al dente, drain it but reserve about half a cup of the cooking water. In a baking dish, mix the pasta, melted cheese sauce and reserved water. Pour about half a cup of grated cheese on top and bake for about 20 minutes or until a golden-brown crust forms.

Tips
Jefferson’s Italian pasta maker, the first in America as I mentioned, didn’t last long. Jefferson, being an ingenious man, made drawings to put together his very own machine. However, records say that after his Italian machine broke, he decided to import his macaroni… from France!

Both Monticello and La Rotonda are UNESCO world heritage sites. Monticello is the only house so recognized in the US.

Succulent bistecca alla fiorentina

2009-10-14T19:51:00.003-04:00

Italians don’t have a lot of grilled beef recipes. But when Italians do it, they do it right. Beef doesn’t need to be marinated, because if you do your beef won’t sear as it should and then it won’t be able to retain all the goodness of its own juices. That’s why real bistecca alla fiorentina (steak in the style of Florence) calls for nothing besides salt and pepper, added only when the beef has already been seared on the grill. Bistecca alla fiorentina is a staple of Tuscan cuisine; it was even described by Artusi in his famous book.

Ingredients
4 thick porterhouse steaks, at room temperature
Salt, Pepper

Bistecca alla fiorentina has to be prepared on an outdoor coal grill. The grill has to be hot, but no flames — mi raccomando. Place the steaks on the grill. Grill next to the hot coals for about 2 minutes. Raise the grill and continue grilling for another 3 minutes. Turn the steaks over and salt the seared side. Grill for 5-7 minutes for rare (10-12 minutes in total). Salt and pepper the unsalted side of the steaks. Let the steaks sit for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Tips
Ideally your steaks should be chianina beef (the traditional breed in Tuscany) and one-and-a-half or two-fingers thick (about 1 – 1 ½ inches).

The word bistecca comes from English beef-steak.

Leftover turkey Panini

2009-10-12T19:11:00.008-04:00

The perfect ending for Thanksgiving!

Ingredients (2 panini)
1 medium loaf whole wheat bread
4 slices cooked turkey breast
4 slices provolone cheese
Pesto mayo (3 Tbsp mayo + 1 Tbsp pesto)
Cranberry sauce for dipping

Choose a nice and crunchy whole wheat bread. I chose one with cereals, walnuts and raisins. Cut the bread in half and then open it. Spread some pesto mayonnaise on both sides of the bread. Fill your sandwich with sliced turkey breast and provolone cheese. Set some leftover cranberry sauce in a small plate for dipping your sandwich into! Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!!!

Tip
Warm up the turkey. By doing so you’ll activate the fabulous pesto aroma. Or heat the whole sandwich in the oven or in a panini grill until the cheese melts.

Cotoletta alla Milanese

2009-10-04T21:22:00.004-04:00

My great-grandmother was from Milan, and maybe because of that my mother and I love breaded cutlets which are a staple of Milanese cuisine. So, every time I go to Milan I not only shop but I also have a good cotoletta alla Milanese.

Ingredients
4 veal cutlets with bone
2 eggs
4-6 Tbsp butter
1 cup breadcrumbs
Salt, pepper

Cut away any fat and pound each cutlet gently. Beat the eggs slightly, add a touch of freshly ground pepper, and pour the eggs into a shallow bowl. Set the breadcrumbs in another bowl. Start a standard breading procedure: dip the cutlets into the eggs and then dip them into the breadcrumbs. Sauté the milanesas in a preheated saucepan with butter (for a golden result shallow-fry the cutlets adding more butter). Over medium-high heat, it won’t take a lot to be ready: 4 minutes on one side, turn once, and then 2-3 minutes on the other side for medium rare. Drain the cutlets on paper towels, salt them and serve with sweet potato oven fries. Not an Italian side dish I know, but they are better for you than traditional fries and they are just perfect for holiday dinners!

Sweet potato oven fries Ingredients
2 large sweet potatoes
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cinnamon
Kosher salt

Wash and scrub the sweet potatoes. Cut the potato into wedges. Toss the sweet potatoes wedges with the olive oil, cinnamon and salt. Set them onto a baking sheet forming a single layer, and bake in a 425F preheated oven for about 30 minutes until tender and golden brown (while they're baking, turn the potatoes a couple of times).

Tips
The words cotoletta and cutlet actually have the same origin!

Do cotolette alla Milanese remind you of Wiener schnitzel? Apparently Marshal Radetzky (yep, the same as in Strauss’s march) introduced veal cutlets to Austria after living in Milan. However, Austrians are very proud of their cutlets so they don’t agree with the Italian origin.

Berlines – I Krapfen Cileni

2009-09-18T21:02:00.009-04:00

I know you loved my doughnutella mini krapfen recipe. As I mentioned before, Krapfen are a sweet treat very common in Alto Adige, the German-speaking region of northern Italy. In fact, Krapfen are typical doughnuts of the whole German-speaking world. Whereas in Italy and Austria these doughnuts are known as Krapfen, in Germany they use the word Berliner. In Chile, where German migration influenced Chilean pastry-making, Krapfen are known as berlines. Berlines are usually filled with custard, jam or dulce de leche. In addition, Berlines are now the quintessential Chilean snack for breaks at school. So, if you like doughnuts you’ll love Berlines, filled with sweet dulce de leche. Krapfen and berlines share another common feature: Krapfen come from the region of the Dolomite Mountains in Italy, and berlines come from Chile, the country of Torres del Paine in Chilean Patagonia. Don’t you think that Torres del Paine could easily blend into the Italian Dolomite region?

Ingredients (30-40 mini berlines)
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1 cup warm milk (+ 1 tsp sugar)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 stick of butter (softened)
1/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
pinch of salt

Peanut oil for frying
Dulce de leche for filling
Confectioner’s sugar for dusting

Just follow the directions for my doughnutellas, but fill them using dulce de leche.

Tips
In Canada, these doughnuts are called Bismarck doughnuts.

Today is Chile's National Day! Happy Chile Day!!!

Acciughe al pomodoro - anchovy antipasto

2009-09-15T21:43:00.004-04:00

After tasting this traditional antipasto, you’ll say: ‘who knew fresh anchovies were this good’!

Ingredients
1.5 lbs fresh anchovies
1 can San Marzano tomatoes (28 oz), drained and diced
2-3 Tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove
1 bunch Italian parsley, chopped
Salt, pepper

First, remove the scales of the anchovies with a knife under cold running water. Rinse the anchovies. Cut right above the heads and then remove the heads together with the insides. Cut the anchovies lengthwise and remove the spine. Pat the anchovies dry using paper towels.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Pour half of the canned tomatoes into a baking dish. Pour the anchovies over the tomatoes. Mix the garlic with half of the parsley and pour this mixture over the anchovies. Sprinkle with some salt and cover with the rest of the tomatoes. Bake for about 20 minutes, and serve warm with the rest of the parsley on top.

Tips
I know, cleaning anchovies sounds like a post-mortem, but it’s not really that hard and the flavor of fresh anchovies is totally worth it.

Organic Tropical Sorbet

2009-09-11T21:25:00.004-04:00

Sometimes just a couple of days back at work or at school are enough to make us dream of summer again! My organic tropical sorbet is perfect to recall those days at the beach! And it’s so simple you’ll want to do it even when you’re on vacation.

Ingredients
3 cups mixed tropical fruits
½ - 2/3 cup organic agave nectar

Just puree the fruit with the agave nectar using an electric blender. Pour the puree into your ice cream machine and let the machine do its work. After 20-25 minutes you’ll be tasting a tropical paradise, wherever you are!

Tips
I used Trader Joe’s tropical fruit trio: mango, papaya, pineapple

Cooling down the heat

2009-09-06T17:13:00.003-04:00

Some of the most traditional antipasti are based on very old rules proposed by Galen, the second century Greek physician. Following Galenic standards, to compensate for their imbalanced nature some foods needed to be eaten with some opposite food. According to Galen’s point of view, melons have a cooling effect on ham, a hot and dry ingredient. So, what we have here is prosciutto crudo and melon! The ultimate antipasto! In addition, cold and moist figs are heated by ham: prosciutto and figs!

Prosciutto e melone
1 cantaloupe, sliced
7 oz prosciutto crudo, thinly sliced

Prosciutto e fichi
8 figs, quartered
7 oz prosciutto crudo, thinly sliced
(Optional: olive oil, pepper)

Prosciutto, melone e fichi
4-6 figs, quartered
Slices of melon (cantaloupe and honeydew)
7 oz prosciutto, thinly sliced

Simply arrange fruit and prosciutto as your creativity tells you, and serve on a nice serving dish!

Spaghetti con le vongole in bianco

2009-08-30T19:24:00.003-04:00

Spaghetti con le vongole – spaghetti with clams, a specialty from the region of Campania – is one of the easiest Mediterranean dishes you can think of. This is my favorite version of the dish, called in bianco because no tomatoes are added. With this dish, tasting the flavors of the Mediterranean Sea is guaranteed!

Ingredients
1 lb spaghetti (or vermicelli)
2 lbs small clams
2 garlic cloves, minced
5 Tbsp olive oil
1 bunch of Italian parsley, chopped
Salt and pepper

Discard any clams with broken shells or any clams that are open and that do not close when you firmly try to close them with your fingers. Rapidly wash the clams and then let them soak in abundant cold and salted water for at least 1 hour (you can let the clams soak in the fridge overnight).

In a saucepan, heat 4 Tbsp of olive oil. After you begin to cook the pasta, add the garlic to the saucepan with the heated olive oil and sauté the garlic over medium heat for about 1 minute. Add the clams and some salt and pepper. Cover the saucepan with a lid and let the clams cook for about 3-4 minutes, until all the clams are open. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and toss it over the clams. Add some parsley and 1 Tbsp of olive oil. Give a quick stir and serve.

Tips
Mediterranean clams are tiny and flavorful. In North America, use Manila clams.

Doughnutella mini Krapfen

2009-08-20T12:42:00.004-04:00

Krapfen is a typical doughnut, usually filled with jam, from the Italian region of Südtirol. My doughnutella mini Krapfen are a tiny version of this northern Italian treat, filled with Nutella of course! Since they are smaller than regular Krapfen my mini Krapfen are also more sophisticated and perfect for chic cocktail parties – just ask Donatella Versace about my doghnutella ;) !

Ingredients (30-40 mini Krapfen)
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1 cup warm milk (+ 1 tsp sugar)
1 stick of butter (softened)
1/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
pinch of salt

Peanut oil for frying
Nutella for filling
Confectioner’s sugar for dusting

Dissolve the yeast in sugared warm milk and let it double its volume. In the meantime, put the flour in a bowl and make la fontana (a hole in the flour, where you'll mix the other ingredients). Then add the dissolved and active yeast, the sugar, the butter, and the 2 eggs and begin to stir with a fork, gradually incorporating the flour. When everything is incorporated, knead the dough with your hands for about 8 minutes. Then, let the dough rest for at least 45 minutes inside the bowl and covered. When the dough has doubled its volume, punch it down and knead the dough for 2 minutes. On a well-floured surface and using a rolling pin, roll the dough out into a rectangle of about 1/3 inch thick. Cut out the dough using a round cookie cutter. Let the cutouts rest for about 15 minutes before frying.

Heat the oil in a big but not too high skillet. When the temperature is around 350 F start frying your mini Krapfen. Fry them in batches until golden brown, turning them once. Drain on paper towels and allow your mini Krapfen to cool before filling them with Nutella (cut on the side for filling or use a pastry nozzle). Dust with powdered sugar. I bet you can’t have only one!

Lemony spaghetti

2009-08-18T20:40:00.004-04:00

This is a stress-free recipe for a simple dish that just tastes like summer.

Ingredients
1 pound spaghetti
2 organic lemons
2 ½ - 3 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp olive oil
Salt

Cut one lemon in half and put one half in the salted water you’ll use to cook the pasta. Grate the peel of the remaining 1 ½ lemons. Bring the water to a boil and cook the pasta. Just a couple of minutes before the pasta is al dente, melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the lemon zest and some salt to the melted butter and give a quick stir. If you prefer, add a touch of olive oil to avoid burning the butter. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and pour the spaghetti into the lemon-scented butter sauce. Give a quick stir, and if you like add another touch of olive oil, and serve.

Tips
Just think how good this recipe is when you use lemons from Sorrento! Having this dish on a terrace facing the Mediterranean Sea is an indulgent way of enjoying the pleasures of summer!

In search of fresh mozzarella

2009-08-16T21:29:00.004-04:00

On your way to Paestum, from Salerno to Battipaglia, the best thing you can do is to stop at a caseificio and buy some fresh mozzarella. And I mean the real thing: mozzarella di bufala campana DOP. After tasting this it’s so hard to accept that the yellowish-and-gummy cheese you buy shredded for your pizzas can be sold as mozzarella. Made from domestic water-buffalo’s milk, mozzarella cheese is so good that some call it ‘regina’ (queen) of Mediterranean cuisine or ‘oro bianco’ (white gold). Nobody knows how water buffalos ended up in Italy (they live in swampy regions of Asia), but what really matters is that water buffalo’s milk is dense and tasty and it has a higher content of both protein and fat than cow’s milk. Because of this higher content of fat, mozzarella cheese has a creamier texture and flavor than ordinary cheese.
Mozzarella is creamy and soft, light and fresh. In a way, real mozzarella summarizes Italian cuisine: it’s simple and yet perfect because of the high quality of the ingredients. You don’t need anything fancy to taste perfection: just fresh mozzarella and a drizzle of good olive oil and that’s it! Or add some tomatoes from Campania and basil from coastal zones of Italy and you get the most famous Italian salad: insalata caprese.

Tips
The name mozzarella comes from the Italian verb mozzare (to cut), because of how the cheese-makers cut the cheese with their hands to shape the mozzarella.

Branching out
Insalata caprese
Caprese salad in Technicolor
Crostini capresi
Pizza margherita

Paestum

2009-08-14T22:45:00.004-04:00

If someday you’re somewhere around Naples or the Amalfi Coast, please go to Paestum (about 62 mi / 100 km SE of Naples). Often neglected by foreigners, Paestum is the classic Roman name for the city of Poseidonia, a Greek colony founded in the 7th century BC. Close to the sea, Paestum was dedicated to Poseidon (hence its Greek name) but Hera and Athena were greatly worshipped there too. Because of the fertile soil and strategic position, Paestum rapidly became a large and prosperous city. Grandiose temples were built, and Paestum also became an important place of procession and devotion. In 550 BC a temple was built to honor Hera. A century later, another temple was added to create a huge complex devoted to the goddess. Thousands of offertory statues of Hera were made for the people who came to praise the wife of Zeus. Not too far away, a temple dedicated to Athena was erected (500 BC). All three temples can be seen today. In fact, these temples are ranked among the best-conserved Greek temples in the whole world. Only one temple in Greece is actually said to be better preserved than Paestum’s temples. In addition, the second temple of Hera is considered by some specialists as the most perfectly executed Doric temple in the world because of its architectural details and perfect proportions. The defensive walls and the Heraion, a temple outside the city limits, are worth a visit too.

Beyond the glorious temples that are enough to take your breath away, the archeological site has even more to offer. Whereas in Pompeii you can enjoy the magnificence of Roman wall paintings, in Paestum you can discover the enigmatic Greek frescoes. Roman frescoes were inspired by the art of the Greeks, and some say the Roman copies never attained the level of mastery of the Greeks. However the remains of Greek painting beyond vase-art are almost non-existent. The paintings in Greek temples vanished (actually every Greek statue was painted in vivid colors) and no volcano covered a city as Vesuvius did with Pompeii. Whereas Etruscan frescoes were preserved because they painted the walls of underground tombs, the Greeks did not have the custom of painting the insides of tombs. But in Paestum, because of the contact with Italic peoples, the Greeks acquired this custom of painting the insides of tombs.

Good for us, because in 1968 a tomb was found in a small necropolis in Paestum. The tomb of the diver (tomba del tuffatore) dates from the first half of the 5th century and is “the only example of Greek painting with figured scenes dating from the Orientalizing, Archaic, or Classical periods to survive in its entirety. Among the thousands of Greek tombs known from this time (roughly 700–400 BC), this is the only one to have been decorated with frescoes of human subjects” (Holloway, The Tomb of the Diver, American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 110 n. 3, 2006). The frescoes found inside the tomb were first thought to be Etruscan because as I told you there is no evidence in Greece of painted tombs. Also the diver in this enigmatic fresco is a subject that is absent in other expressions of Greek art such as pottery painting, but there are some examples of this subject in Etruscan art. The fresco that covered the lid of the tomb depicts a diver in the act of jumping, and there’s a huge debate about what it represents. Some say it is a representation of the deceased jumping into the afterlife. On the walls of the tomb, scenes of a symposium were depicted.

The symposium, the all-male drinking and debate party, was a Greek social institution and therefore is a familiar scene in Greek art; for example Greek pottery of that time showed similar scenes. The symposium scenes and the techniques employed advocate a Greek manufacture of the tomb (not to mention that the tomb was built during the Golden Age of the Greek city). It is known that Paestum kept commercial contacts with the Etruscans, so it’s not that strange that they were influenced by them in some aspects.

If you visit the National Archeological Museum of Paestum, which is next to the temples, you can take a look at this tomb together with other frescoes of later tombs dating from the period of the Lucanians (a native people from the mountains that conquered the city by the end of the 5th century). I was so impressed by the frescoes that I had to sit and admire them for a long while. Sometimes I think it’s hard to really impress me, but Paestum certainly did with its glorious temples and truly amazing frescoes.

Tips
Because archeology is hard work, sometimes it is not easy to know what the thing you’re excavating was for. So, don’t get confused if you see that the first temple of Hera is sometimes called the Basilica, that the second temple of Hera is sometimes called the temple of Neptune, and that the temple of Athena is sometimes called the Temple of Ceres. It’s just that for example the temple that now seems to be dedicated to Athena was first thought to be dedicated to Ceres.

The temples survived because in the middle ages this area was a big swamp and people were afraid of malaria!

Jump-in-mouth Saltimbocca alla romana

2009-08-12T20:56:00.004-04:00

After the unification of Italy, Pellegrino Artusi established the basis for an Italian national cuisine when he became the first cookbook author writing a single book with recipes from every Italian region. Artusi was also a food critic. Around the end of the 19th century, Artusi described a delightful dish he had had in a trattoria in Rome. This dish included veal, prosciutto and sage. And it was such a delectable dish that it just jumped into your mouth: saltimbocca alla romana (which is Italian for jump-in-mouth, Roman style).

Ingredients
8 veal cutlets
4 oz prosciutto crudo
8 fresh sage leaves
3 Tbsp butter
1 cup white wine
1 big handful flour
Salt, pepper

Using a meat pounder, pound your cutlets until they get really thin. While you pound the meat sprinkle it with some salt and pepper. Set the flour in a shallow bowl and then coat the veal cutlets with flour. Atop each cutlet lay a piece of prosciutto crudo and then a sage leaf. Fix the prosciutto and sage leaf into the meat by using a toothpick. Heat the butter in a large skillet. When the butter is melted add the veal, prosciutto side up. Sauté the veal until golden brown, about 1-2 minutes. Carefully turn the veal and cook for a minute, taking care not to burn the prosciutto or the leaves. Take the veal out of the skillet and place it in a serving plate, prosciutto side up. Pour the wine into the skillet, give a quick stir and let the alcohol evaporate for a minute. Pour the thin wine sauce on top of the veal, serve and let the veal cutlets jump in your mouth (remove the toothpicks first)!

Tips
Chicken saltimbocca? Nice idea, but when in Rome do as the Romans do (which means using veal for your saltimbocca)!

If you have read my previous posts on Roman cuisine you already know that Romans like recipes that are simple, easy and delicious. Saltimbocca alla romana meets all these criteria. But Roman cuisine is also a poor one, so the use of butter (an ingredient almost inexistent in southern Italy) puzzled me. Last time I was in Rome I asked my butcher (a lovely genuine Roman lady) and she confirmed to me the use of butter. So, even though olive oil would be a more Roman ingredient, follow this recipe and use butter.

Butter is not the only odd ingredient in this recipe. Veal cutlet is a pretty nice cut of meat and certainly not among the cheapest. It is true that Roman cuisine is a cucina povera, but it’s also true that in Rome you also find Vatican City. And as Romans say “Chi se vo' impara' a magna', da li preti bisogna che va” (if you want to learn how to eat, you have to go to see the priests). In other words, for centuries while common people struggled to prepare something to eat, the Pope enjoyed a splendorous cuisine where meat and dairy products were served frequently.

Wonder why I haven't been posting?

2009-06-22T14:30:00.002-04:00

I haven't been posting just because I'm on vacation... in sunny Italy, of course!!!

Buone vacanze anche a voi!!!

Spaghetti alla carbonara

2009-05-21T22:12:00.002-04:00

Yep, this is another rustic and traditional pasta recipe from Rome. No one exactly knows the origin of this dish, but because carbonara is a cognate of the Italian word carbone (charcoal), some people say this pasta was initially prepared for charcoal workers who needed a hearty meal during their hard work day. In a way there is some truth in this statement since at the beginning of the 20th century, Italian laborers used to carry simple pasta dishes to work, such as spaghetti cacio e pepe. However, coal miners worked in Umbria (and not in Rome), and in fact there are no historical records of spaghetti alla carbonara before World War II. This suggests that a possible origin of this dish was the Italian interpretation of what the American and Canadian soldiers ate while they were in Rome during WW II. Basically, Italians took the quintessential North American breakfast based on eggs and bacon and served it with … pasta, of course!

Ingredients
1 lb spaghetti
5 oz guanciale, diced
4 oz pecorino romano cheese, grated
4 egg yolks
1 egg
Olive oil
Salt, pepper

In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks and the entire egg. Gradually add the cheese while vigorously whisking the egg mixture. Add some freshly ground black pepper to the egg mixture. Meanwhile, begin to cook the pasta. In a saucepan, heat about 1 Tbsp of olive oil, then sauté the diced guanciale until it turns golden. About 1 minute before the pasta is cooked al dente (according to the cooking time on the label instructions), add a couple of Tbsps of the cooking water to the egg mixture. Does it sound familiar? We are tempering the eggs, just as we did when making gelato. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and toss it directly into the pan where you sautéed the guanciale. Then toss the spaghetti into the bowl with the egg mixture. The eggs were raw, but the heat of the pasta will cook them. If you are not convinced of this, make sure you are using pasteurized eggs. Add the guanciale. Give a quick stir and serve your spaghetti alla carbonara with freshly ground black pepper and more grated pecorino romano cheese.

Tips
Common mistakes when people make spaghetti alla carbonara outside Italy: adding onions, butter and cream. The use of cream is something you actually can find in the north of Italy, but this is a Roman dish, so, no cream.

In North America, people associate carbonara sauce with the erroneous version with cream and butter. At the same time, North Americans prepare “coal miner’s spaghetti” which not only has a name that seems to be a translation from Italian (if we believe the mine worker origin), but also the way you prepare coal miner’s spaghetti is more like how you prepare spaghetti alla carbonara. However, coal miner’s spaghetti calls for bacon instead of guanciale, people use a combination of Parmesan and Romano cheeses, parsley is also added, and the ultimate Italian-American ingredient is not absent either: garlic.

Despite the simple ingredients of this dish, spaghetti alla carbonara is pretty tricky to make. Usually what happens is that you get scrambled eggs instead of a creamy egg sauce. The use of cream and onion makes this recipe foolproof, but you should try the traditional recipe.

I dintorni di Roma – the surroundings of Rome

2009-05-14T19:52:00.003-04:00

When you are in Rome, you’re forced to make some hard decisions. For example suppose that you’re at the Fontana di Trevi and that you want to go to Piazza Navona. Well, there are several routes, each one with incredible things to see. And, because of constraints on both time and energy, when you choose one route you’re missing all the things on the other available routes. On the other hand, the what-to-see lists provide the essential highlights, but there’re plenty of attractions that are not mentioned in the guides. So let’s face it: it takes more than a lifetime to get to know Rome. I’d say that 3-4 days is the very minimum to see the top 5 Roman essentials: St Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museum, the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Fontana di Trevi and the Piazza Navona (visiting the Pantheon in between). But I’d recommend to everyone staying in Rome for at least 5-6 days. Actually, I always tell my friends to stay in Rome for at least a week. That way, you can leave one day to visit the surroundings of Rome. Again, you have a lot of alternatives: I castelli di Roma, the Etruscan ruins, il lido di Roma (the Roman shore) … but I have two suggestions about what to see in the surroundings of Rome: Tivoli and Ostia Antica.

First, I have a lot of friends who complain about not having had enough time to go to Pompeii when they were visiting Italy – usually people visit Rome, Florence and Venice on their first trip to Italy, leaving Naples for a second visit. Although Naples and Pompeii are not that far from Rome, they’re not that close either. If you don’t have enough time to go to Pompeii, then Ostia Antica is the perfect substitute. Ostia Antica is the ancient harbor of Rome, and now a huge archeological site. Getting there is pretty simple since Ostia Antica is easily reachable by taking the Roman subway! Ostia Antica is full of ruins from imperial times, so there you can have that feeling of experiencing life in an ancient city. There you can visit the old theater, the forum, some nice houses, the public bathrooms, the market and old restaurants. One thing you don’t find in Pompeii is the ruins of insulae: the apartment buildings of ancient Rome. You’ll be impressed with how huge and tall they were. Since Ostia was abandoned, mainly because of several attacks by pirates, and not covered by lava and ashes as Pompeii was, the remaining wall frescoes are scarce and far from being as impressive as the ones in the Pompeii area. However, in Ostia Antica you can find really nice mosaic floors. Finally, one thing to think about … if Ostia Antica was the ancient harbor of Rome, then where is the sea? (Ostica Antica now lies about 2 miles from the sea.)

Another very interesting place to visit not far from Rome is Tivoli. There you have two attractions, each one being a perfect example of the lifestyle of the rich and famous of two different eras. On one side of the town of Tivoli, you find the Villa Adriana. Hadrian’s Villa was the retreat home of the Roman emperor Hadrian, who wanted to escape all of the gossiping, intrigues and troubles of the capital’s Palatine Hill and its court. The Villa was composed of more than 30 buildings, including various palaces, theaters, thermae (individual spas), libraries and temples. In one word, the Villa provided tutti i confort (every comfort) an emperor needed. Everything in the Villa was inspired by the emperor’s numerous travels around the known world, especially to Egypt and Greece. These destinations in a way reflect Hadrian’s passion for the Greek youth Antinous, who mysteriously died by drowning in the Nile. Hadrian deified his beloved Antinous after Antinous’ tragic death: one of the most recent excavations at Hadrian’s Villa was a Temple dedicated to Antinous. Hadrian, a devoted Hellenophile, loved all expressions of art and he was involved in the design and construction of the Villa. In fact, we don’t know the names of the architects who worked with Hadrian, because he was the head of the whole project. This is why the great complexity that the Villa exhibits also reflects the complexity of Hadrian’s mind.

On the other side of Tivoli, you find the Villa d’Este. The Villa was commissioned by Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, son of the infamous Lucrezia Borgia (and therefore grandson of the fearsome Pope Alexander VI, il Papa Borgia), after receiving the property and the title of governor of Tivoli for life. Both were a gift from Pope Julius III returning the favor of the cardinal d’Este’s voting for Julius III as the future Pope. The villa is a magnificent example of an Italian renaissance mansion and gardens. The frescoes decorating the walls and ceiling inside the villa are exquisitely regal. Decorative renaissance frescoes combine the new techniques developed in that period with elements from ancient Roman frescoes, which were re-discovered by that time when artists visited the recently excavated Domus Aurea (the golden house of Nero). The gardens are exceptional. Because the house is advantageously located on top of a hill , its gardens enjoy a glorious theatrical layout filled with fabulous fountains. The famous Cento Fontane (one hundred fountains – which can be spotted in the banquet scene of Ben-Hur) and the Rometta (the little Rome fountain, which displays a miniature version of how Rome looked at that time) are just two of the most illustrious fountains in the villa. In fact, it is hard to count all of the fountains: Europa, del Bicchierone, del Pegaso, dei Draghi, dell’Ovato, di Proserpina, della Civetta, dell’Organo, di Nettuno, etc. The splendorous gardens from Villa d’Este with their charming fountains and spectacular giochi d’acqua were the inspiration of several gardens not only in Italy, but also all around Europe.

Tips
The tower of Pisa was almost entirely made from building material coming from the ruins of Ostia Antica.

Lots of the marble and statues displayed in the Villa d’Este came from Hadrian’s Villa.

Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe

2009-05-13T17:52:00.001-04:00

As you might have noticed, Roman recipes for pasta are extremely simple to make. Spaghetti cacio e pepe means spaghetti with cheese and black pepper, and with these two ingredients you can enjoy a delectable dish of pasta!

Ingredients
1 lb spaghetti
7-8 oz pecorino romano cheese, grated
1 Tbsp olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper

Pour the grated cheese into a bowl. Cook the pasta in plenty of salted boiling water. Just minutes before the pasta is ready, take a couple of tablespoons of the cooking water and add it to the cheese. Whisk until a creamy paste forms (use enough hot cooking water to achieve this). When the pasta is almost al dente (about 1 minute before the total cooking time), drain it and toss the spaghetti into a saucepan with 1 Tbsp olive oil and freshly ground black pepper (reserve about 1 cup of the cooking water). Quickly sauté the spaghetti. Add the creamy cheese mixture and stir for about 1 minute. You may need to add some more cooking water to keep the creamy texture of the sauce. Serve hot with a nice touch of grated pecorino cheese and black pepper.

Tips
If you know some Italian probably you’re more familiar with the word formaggio for cheese. Although formaggio is the most usual word, in Italian you can also say cacio for cheese and, in some dialects, the word cacio is more common. Actually, also in Latin there were two ways of saying cheese: cāseus and formāticus. While the original word for cheese was cāseus, molded cheese was called cāseus formātus, which gave origin to the abbreviation formāticus. Formāticus is the origin of the modern words formaggio in Italian, fromage in French and formatge in Catalan. Cāseus is the origin of the modern words cacio in Italian, queso in Spanish, queijo in Portuguese, Kaese in German, and even cheese in English!

Bucatini all’amatriciana

2009-05-07T20:23:00.003-04:00

Bucatini all’amatriciana is another very Roman recipe, a red version of spaghetti alla gricia, where the influence of Neapolitan cuisine appears with the use of tomato. While the original recipe comes from the town of Amatrice (now in the Lazio region but before in the Abruzzo region), it is in Rome where people eat bucatini with this sauce. But in Amatrice, sugo all’amatriciana, which means sauce in the Amatrice style, is almost always served with spaghetti. Actually Amatrice claims the invention of spaghetti.

Sugo all’amatriciana is very simple to prepare, although lots of people make the mistake of adding onion to it. Even Italians do it. Even some Romans do it, but people never do it in Amatrice. I was watching Lidia Bastianich on TV once, and I almost fell down when she was blanching some onions for her amatriciana. Good Lord! I must say though that in Italy adding onion to a sauce for pasta is a question of personal taste, but you must take note of the interesting lack of onion in a lot of traditional recipes: puttanesca, amatriciana, arrabbiata, carbonara … no onion at all! And yet, especially when sauce is prepared outside Italy, people tend to use onion. In Chile, where pasta is one of the most common dishes, people use big chunks of onion in their sauces. I’ve heard of some Italians that freak out at how oniony Chilean sauces are! (And I’ve heard of lots of Italians who freak out at how garlicky American sauces are, but that’s another story.)

Ingredients
1 lb bucatini
4-5 oz guanciale
12 oz passata di pomodoro (good quality tomato sauce) or canned San Marzano tomatoes
1 cup white wine
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 pinch peperoncino (red pepper flakes)
4 Tbsp pecorino romano cheese, grated
Salt, black pepper

Dice the guanciale. In a saucepan over medium heat, sauté the diced guanciale with the olive oil and peperoncino. When the guanciale begins to lose its fat, add the wine. Sauté until the guanciale turns golden. Take the guanciale from the saucepan and reserve. Start cooking the pasta in salted boiling water. While the pasta is cooking, heat the tomato sauce in the same saucepan where you sautéed the guanciale. Add the guanciale and continue heating the sauce until the pasta is al dente. When the pasta is ready, drain it and toss it directly into the saucepan with the sauce. Give a quick stir, add some black pepper and serve with pecorino cheese!

Tips
In Rome some locals call this sauce matriciana. That’s why some people argue that the Roman version with bucatini (and onion according to some other people) has nothing to do with the amatriciana from Amatrice (with absolutely no onion, often served with spaghetti, and sometimes using pancetta instead of guanciale, the latter being considered too poor as an ingredient). Actually they claim that the word matriciana comes from the Latin word matrix in reference to motherhood and matriarchy: an argument that, they claim, shows how ancient the Roman recipe is (they forget that tomatoes were introduced from America though). However, a common feature of Romanesco or the Italian dialect from Rome is dropping vowels, so not surprisingly people simply say matriciana in Rome.

Spaghetti ajo, ojo e peperoncino

2009-04-28T19:45:00.002-04:00

This is another extremely simple recipe from the Roman kitchen to yours. If you know some Italian I’m sure you’ll be surprised by the name of this recipe. Maybe you would recognize better aglio, olio e peperoncino. While aglio, olio e peperoncino is standard Italian, ajo, ojo e peperoncino is Roman dialect or romanesco. Both mean garlic, oil and hot pepper. As a matter of fact, these are exactly the ingredients we’ll use.

Ingredients
1 lb spaghetti
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
5 Tbsp Olive oil
1½ Tbsp peperoncino (red pepper flakes – or 2 small and fresh hot peppers)

Cook the pasta in plenty of salted boiling water. Just minutes before the pasta is ready, sauté the garlic with the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the peperoncino. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and reserve about ¼ cup of the cooking water. Toss the pasta over the quick soffritto and add the reserved starchy water. Give a quick stir and serve!

Bucatini alla gricia - a pristine recipe from Rome

2009-04-19T21:06:00.003-04:00

This might be the easiest pasta dish to make! And this recipe is the real McCoy, in the sense that other traditional Roman dishes like bucatini all’amatriciana and spaghetti alla carbonara were inspired by bucatini alla gricia.

Ingredients
1 lb bucatini pasta
5 oz guanciale (Italian unsmoked bacon), diced
4 Tbsp pecorino romano cheese, grated
Freshly ground black pepper

Cook the pasta in plenty of salted boiling water. In the meantime, in a saucepan over medium heat sauté the guanciale until nice and golden. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and reserve about ¼ cup of the cooking water. Toss the pasta over the guanciale, add the cheese, some freshly ground black pepper, and the reserved starchy water. Give a quick stir and serve!

Tips
Pasta alla gricia is supposed to come from the town of Grisciano near Rome. The absence of tomatoes indicates its ancient origins: pasta alla gricia was eaten before tomatoes were introduced to Europe from South America.

Bucatini are like thick spaghetti with a transversal hole inside. Buco means hole in Italian.

The traditional recipe calls for guanciale, a kind of Italian unsmoked bacon (actually, cured and unsmoked pig jowl). However, New York City is the only place I know in North America where you can find guanciale (in one store in the middle of the meat district). So, it's only for this reason that you’re temporarily allowed to use pancetta or unsmoked bacon instead… but if you’re in New York, then you MUST get some guanciale! The same thing will apply to every recipe calling for guanciale.

Fierce penne from Rome – penne all’arrabbiata

2009-04-17T21:13:00.003-04:00

This is a super simple pasta dish to make and a perfect example of the Roman cucina povera. Penne all’arrabbiata means penne pasta in a rage… and their anger is expressed by being really spicy!

Ingredients
1 lb penne pasta
1 ¾ cup passata di pomodoro or good tomato sauce
2 Tbsp peperoncino (red pepper flakes – or 2 small and fresh hot peppers)
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 Tbsp olive oil
1 bunch Italian parsley, chopped

Cook the pasta in salted boiling water. Meanwhile, in a saucepan over medium heat and using 2 Tbsp of olive oil, sauté the garlic together with the peperoncino for a minute or so (be careful since we don’t want to burn the garlic). Add the tomatoes and the remaining 2 Tbsp of olive oil. Let the sauce cook for about 5 minutes, just until the pasta is al dente. Drain the pasta and toss it over the sauce. Give a quick stir, add the parsley, and your penne all’arrabbiata is ready to serve!

Tips
Instead of tomato sauce, you can also use about 15 oz ripe tomatoes (peeled, chopped and seeds discarded) or 15 oz canned San Marzano tomatoes (pelati).

If you want a less-angry version of penne all’arrabbiata, use 1 garlic clove and 1 Tbsp peperoncino.

In Italy, pasta is condita, which means seasoned with a sauce. That’s why you’d probably find traditional recipes a bit scarce in sauce by international standards.

So, there’s no cheese in this recipe? In traditional recipes, usually cheese is not added to a sauce when you’re using garlic.

Despite my love for Giada de Laurentiis, arrabbiata sauce does not call for pancetta or bacon. If you use pancetta then you’ll be getting something closer to pasta all’amatriciana. The use of onion is also a widespread mistake. In sum, onion, pancetta and cheese (even pecorino romano) are considered a sacrilege to the traditional recipe!

Cucina romanesca – Exploring Roman cuisine

2009-04-15T21:05:00.004-04:00

Roma è una città meridionale – Rome is a southern city – used to say my grandfather, proud of his deep northern Italian roots. You can really tell this is true when you look at what Romans eat. In Italy there are two different pasta regions: while in the North we prefer fresh pasta – pasta fresca – (and sometimes we prefer rice), in the South people use dried pasta – pasta secca. And Romans love dried pasta. In fact, they die for spaghetti! In Rome you’ll find the apotheosis of recipes calling for spaghetti: spaghetti alla carbonara, spaghetti cacio e pepe, spaghetti alla carrettiera, spaghetti alla gricia, spaghetti ajo, ojo e peperoncino... Romans love their spaghetti so much that they dispute with Naples the origin of spaghetti alla puttanesca! But Romans do not only love spaghetti. Rigatoni (such as in rigatoni alla pajata), bucatini (think of bucatini all’amatriciana) and penne (penne all’arrabbiata) are also dried pasta shapes Romans like.

Roman cuisine, and by extension the cuisine of the whole Lazio region, is also a cucina povera or peasant cuisine. No dairy products, almost no butter, no cream… so, carbonara sauce with cream? Heresy! And that’s also why you’ll never find fettuccine Alfredo in a trattoria in Rome. Actually, Alfredo sauce doesn’t even exist in Italy. So, if you visit Rome please don’t ask where you can have the “authentic” fettucine Alfredo or you’ll hear a loud “mai sentito!” (never heard of it!).

Also don’t expect garlic bread in Rome, because, you know, it doesn’t exist in Italy. However, Romans do have wonderful bruschette and crostini, which constitute a perfect starter or antipasto for your meal.

Broccoli is also a very Roman thing, but artichokes are the quintessential Roman vegetable: carciofi alla romana, carciofi alla matticella, carciofi alla giudia. Artichokes Jewish style or carciofi alla giudia is a dish that comes from the important Jewish community – a community living in Rome since antiquity but also including refugees from Spain after their expulsion in 1492 and from Naples, by then under Spanish rule. Another legacy of the Roman ghetto is the love for deep fried food: baccalà alla romana (deep fried cod) and fiori di zucca fritti (deep fried zucchini blossoms).

What about meat? Roman cuisine is a poor one, so what people could afford was the offal of butchered animals: kidney, liver, tripe, entrails… I assure you that most of the quinto quarto (or offal in Italian) tastes better than it sounds. So, if you are brave enough you won’t regret asking for coda alla vaccinara (oxtail) or trippa alla trasteverina (tripe).

Are you thinking of having pizza in Rome? Although pizza is something you should try in Naples, where pizza was born, Romans have their own specialty: pizza bianca di Roma (white pizza from Rome). If you’re in a hurry, don’t hesitate to try a piece of pizza al taglio (pizza by the slice): it was the Romans who created the idea of rectangular pizza that they cut in little squares and then sell by the piece. Whereas in Naples pizza has only two different toppings (marinara and margherita), Romans got more creative with pizza al taglio, offering it with more toppings.

Finally, whereas peasants couldn’t afford cakes or pies on a daily basis, there are some elaborate Roman desserts, usually deep fried doughnuts, that were prepared for holidays and special occasions: bignè di San Giuseppe, castagnole, maritozzi con la panna, frittelle zuccherate. But the Roman dessert I like the best, and I’m sure you will too, is gelato!!!

Tips

In Rome, there are two restaurants for American tourists that claim to be the creators of the non-Italian fettuccine Alfredo (or all’Alfredo). Both are the only places in Italy where you can have pasta with Alfredo sauce. Actually they don’t use sauce, but Parmesan cheese with lots (I really mean lots) of butter – and now you know: Parmesan and butter is not a very Roman thing at all. In one of those restaurants, Alfredo himself (well… Alfredo “the third”) comes to your table to serve a big portion of his fettuccine using a golden fork and a golden spoon… MADDAIIIIIIIIII!!! If you’re visiting Rome please choose an authentic Roman trattoria!

Rome, capital of the world

2009-04-13T11:52:00.009-04:00

April is the perfect month to write about Rome. According to legend, April 21 is when the imperial city was founded. Also, when you live outside Rome and especially if you live abroad, it is always at Easter when you have this special connection with Rome because of the activities the Pope performs. I’m talking about the broadcasting of the Via Crucis from the Colosseum, and then the Easter Mass and the multilingual Urbi et Orbi blessing (Urbi et Orbi means to the city – of Rome – and to the world).

It is hard to write just a few lines about Rome, the city that was the capital of the Roman Empire and then became the capital of the largest spiritual empire in history. That’s why Rome is known as the eternal city and capital of the world. It’s astonishing how all the hectic contrasts in Rome build a perfect harmony that allows us to enjoy a fabulous experience, full of history and passion: Rome is baroque, classic, sacred, profane, pagan and Christian. When you have the pleasure of visiting the Roman Forum, the Palatine hill or the Colosseum, or when you’re walking down the Via Sacra or the Via Appia, you can close your eyes and you’ll have the feeling of experiencing the birth of western culture.

According to legend, Rome has its origins with Romulus and Remus. However its historical roots are clear: the Etruscan, the Latin and the Greek worlds. In 753 B.C. Romulus, the mythical founder and first king of Rome, traced the boundaries of the new city around the seven Roman hills. The new city was chaotic from the beginning, with simple huts and narrow and dirty streets. However Romulus, who knew about conquest because he was the son of Mars – the god of war – and Rhea Silvia – a direct descendant of the Trojan fugitives –, together with his Latin fellows rapidly took possession of the Etruscan surroundings of Rome. The next step was obvious: conquering the known world. It was the Roman fate to command the nations: “tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento”. The city got bigger and, because of the limited space, houses with several storeys were built. The streets were still narrow and because of the high density of the population and the poor quality of building materials, the hazard of fire was a constant threat. In fact and as you might have known, fires destroyed Rome on several occasions – “Nero’s” fire being the most famous one.

It was Augustus who, as emperor, received a Rome made of brick and left a Rome made of marble. He ordered and managed the renovation of the city. Rome could no longer have the appearance of a provincial city, and a new Rome had to be built to be a worthy capital of the new empire that had been forged. Rome was enriched with parks, temples, monumental public buildings and the Forum, the Roman version of the Greek agora, was consolidated as the center and meeting point of the city. The Forum was populated by merchants who offered the most varied of products. Later, new Fora were scattered around the city.

Trade was so important for Romans that entire large buildings were dedicated to commercial activities. A clear example is Trajan’s Market, which can still be seen surrounding the Roman Forum. This building had several storeys, which housed more than 150 stores: a veritable shopping mall of ancient times.

In the Palatine Hill magnificent palaces for the new emperors were built. These palaces were so grandiose that the word palace comes from the name of the Palatine Hill. At this point you might notice a big difference with the Greek world: the Romans exalted certain men over others. Romans not only built great temples, but also huge mansions and ostentatious mausoleums. The most important and influential Roman men were perceived as having a divine component. For example, the first work of Augustus in Rome was the construction of the Temple of Divus Julius, in commemoration of his adoptive father, Julius Cæsar.

Most of the people of Rome lived in insulæ, large apartment buildings of up to seven storeys with a very fragile structure. Juvenal, the Roman satiric poet, once wrote: “But here we inhabit a city propped up for the most part by slats: for that is how the landlord patches up the crack in the old wall, bidding the inmates sleep at ease under the ruin that hangs above their heads”.

But Romans were remarkable engineers, especially good at hydraulic engineering. Using a net of aqueducts (some of them still in use), water was brought in to Rome to supply fountains, bathhouses and public bathrooms. One of the pleasures of Rome still is to drink water directly from one of the thousands of highly decorated fountains. The rich had pipes that carried water to their homes and, around Rome, some villas even had central heating.

During imperial times, Rome had eleven public baths, more than a thousand fountains and pools, nineteen aqueducts, thirty-six arches, two amphitheaters and six circuses.

The Colosseum or Flavian Amphitheater was the meeting place of the common people. There, the inhabitants of Rome could forget their poverty and their problems, concentrating on the shows that were offered: the ludi or games where gladiators wrestled with wild beasts of every kind. The amphitheater was a Roman invention: the precedent for modern stadiums was born of the union of two Greek-style theaters joined together facing each other (amphi meaning on both sides in Greek). Although there is some evidence of Christians being executed in the Colosseum, the truth is that Christian martyrdom was held in the circus, the same place that hosted chariot races. The biggest circus was the Circus Maximus, with a seating capacity of 250,000 spectators. Today almost nothing remains of the Circus Maximus, but you can still have an idea of the size of it by looking at the park there now. Another circus was built under what is now Piazza Navona: actually the unusual shape of the square is due to the ancient track! On the Vatican hill there was another circus, right where St Peter’s basilica is found now.

While it is still possible to admire and recognize the wonders of imperial Rome, most of the things you see are just moribund pieces of a magnificent past. These ruins survived a destructive process caused primarily by looting and the practice of recycling marble. And not only barbarians destroyed the city: part of the marble you can currently see in Roman churches has an obvious origin. Moreover, the famous bronze figure of St Peter in the Vatican was made by casting ancient bronze statues. But this is not an indictment of the Church, because the Romans often acted similarly with the places they conquered. For example the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, and they brought to Rome what they found inside.

It was Pope Benedict XIV who saved the Colosseum from marble extraction for churches. The Colosseum was then devoted to the Via Crucis.

Note that there is only one building that remains standing and almost intact from Imperial Rome: the Pantheon. The Pantheon was built to honor all gods, and it was precisely this concept that saved it from destruction. With its large dome, in a way the Pantheon seems like a church and actually during medieval times it became a church dedicated to Our Lady.

Finally, when visiting St Peter’s Basilica (it was the Romans who created the idea of basilicas) you totally feel that the Catholic Church was the natural heir to the Roman Empire; even the images of saints are represented in such a way that, with very little imagination, you can sense a certain similarity to the Roman gods.

To a large extent our laws, our institutions and many of the languages spoken in the Western hemisphere (even English), all have deep Roman roots. Therefore, to know Rome is to know a little more of ourselves.

Harrogate – so quaint I could die!

2009-04-08T19:41:00.014-04:00

Last week I presented a paper at a conference on choice modeling in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. I had the opportunity not only to meet Dan McFadden, who won the Nobel Prize precisely because of his contributions to discrete choice models – which by the way is exactly what my research is related to –, but also all the other big names in choice microeconomics and econometrics of consumer behavior. I also met with my dear friends from Chile and Italy. Interestingly, both Chile and Italy have a bunch of very good researchers on choice modeling – a world that is largely dominated by the Anglophone academic community. The Chilean school is particularly prestigious, leading research in the area.

That being said, I was very happy with the location of the conference. Harrogate is a lovely (or should I say ‘loovely’?) and affluent SPA town with impressive Turkish baths, superb public gardens and parks, interesting 16th century pubs, and really nice architecture – mainly Victorian and Edwardian. Actually, it reminded me of some areas of Pennsylvania (but nicer).

Because of the warm and sulfurous waters, Harrogate became an important touristic destination of the European aristocracy, especially in the last part of the 19th century. People came to relax and enjoy the healthful benefits of spring water: salus per aquam (health through water). Rapidly a luxurious hotel and a nice Kursaal were built. The touristic vocation of Harrogate has perpetuated to the present. Currently, Harrogate is one of the most important exhibition and conference centers of the United Kingdom.

When in Harrogate you have to go to Bettys tea rooms. Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate is a lovely tea house – actually one of the Queen’s favorites. There, you can enjoy the full afternoon tea experience. Yorkshire loose tea is served in a teapot, together with another pot with hot water. Tea is drunk without sugar and with a touch of milk, and accompanied rigorously with raisin scones, homemade strawberry jam and clotted cream. You can also have a piece of cake (I had a delicious Yorkshire curd tart) and a sandwich (smoked salmon is a very good choice). Now, I want to have my afternoon tea on a daily basis! Since I grew up in Chile, it was a wonderful experience for me. In Chile we also have the tradition of afternoon tea, which we call onces or elevenses in Chilean Spanish (onces are served in the afternoon and not in the morning, when the British elevenses snack is supposed to be eaten).

Despite the fact that Harrogate has plenty of hotels, I highly recommend staying at the Acorn Lodge Hotel. A ‘loovely’ Bed and Breakfast offering affordable luxury, ranked 1st for B&B’s in Harrogate on TripAdvisor. Phil is an extremely welcoming host. And he prepares the most succulent full English breakfast (a tradition that we do not have in Chile or in Italy): eggs, crispy bacon, grilled tomatoes, sausage, sautéed mushrooms, beans and toast!

L'Aquila earthquake: solidarita' ai fratelli abruzzesi

2009-04-06T19:16:00.007-04:00

Ai fratelli abruzzesi tantissima forza e coraggio!

Solidarita' ai fratelli abruzzesi: IBAN IT 22 O 03226 01606 000500074972
Conto attivato da SKY per l'Abruzzo e per sostenere le persone colpite dal terremoto.

L'Aquila earthquake
272 reported dead
1500 injured
10,000 buildings affected
50,000 people affected
L'Aquila is the mountainous region 50 miles North East of Rome. Rome not affected.

Colomba pasquale – Italian Easter dove bread

2009-04-05T20:18:00.001-04:00

This recipe makes 2 loaves when using 17 oz capacity paper molds.

Colomba pasquale is a traditional sweet bread made especially for Easter in Italy. I personally believe it is the perfect excuse to eat panettone off-season. The texture and procedure are almost the same, with Colomba di pasqua being a little bit nearer to a French brioche. The process is long and hard to do by hand; however the result is just spectacular.

Sponge
½ cup warm water
3 ½ tsp active dry yeast
1 Tbsp sugar
½ cup flour
3 egg yolks

Dissolve the yeast in the ½ cup of warm water. Add the sugar and wait until it doubles in size (about 5 minutes). In a bowl, mix the flour with the active yeast, and add the egg yolks one by one while mixing. The result will be a very sticky dough. Cover and keep it refrigerated overnight. The day after you’ll understand why it’s called sponge.

First dough
Sponge +
1 tsp yeast
1 tsp sugar
3/4 cup warm milk
1 ½ cups flour
3 Tbsp butter

Dissolve the sugar in 5 Tbsp of warm milk. Add the yeast and let it rise for about 5 minutes. In a bowl, mix the flour with the active yeast. Add the sponge and the butter, and mix using your hands. Let it double in size for about 2 hours, covered in a warm place.

Second dough
First dough +
½ cup sugar
1 Tbsp honey
3 egg yolks
1 pouch vanilla sugar *
2 pouches orange puree *
Zest of 1 orange
2 cups flour
Pinch of salt
8 Tbsp butter
* I use Dr Oetker brand

Take the first dough, press it with your hands, and then add the flour and all the other ingredients, except the butter. We’ll add the butter later. Work the dough with your hands for at least 10 minutes. One by one add each tablespoon of butter and continue kneading the dough. Take the dough, stretch it and then slap it on the table repeatedly for at least 5 minutes. I know… it’s an excellent way to keep stress away! In the case you’re wondering why we’re doing this, it’s because this process aerates the dough ensuring that the end product is nice and fluffy.

Shape a ball and let it rise for at least 6 hours, covered in a warm place. It sounds like this recipe takes a lot of time, and actually it does. But it’s more the waiting time than anything, and please let the yeast do its work. Meanwhile you can go to work, read a book or – if you live in Quebec City, where you still have snow for Easter – shovel out the entranceway to your house.

And there’s more…
Second dough +
1½ cups chopped candied orange and lemon peel
½ cup flour

Mix the candied orange and lemon peel with the flour, and then add it to the risen second dough. Spray the paper molds with oil. Shape two balls, then with each ball make two ovals and form a dove-like shape directly into the dove paper mold. Now – yes, you’re right – let it rise for a minimum of two hours (overnight is strongly advised). When shaping the doves you should not exceed half of the height of the molds. Let it rise until it has doubled in size.

Glaze
2 handfuls blanched almonds
8-12 whole unpeeled almonds
1 egg yolk
1 Tbsp milk
1 pouch vanilla sugar

Make an egg wash with the milk, sugar and egg yolk. Brush the wash over the doves and sprinkle on the almonds. You can also make a glaze using an egg white and confectioner’s sugar.

Finally it’s baking time! Preheat the oven to 400F. Put a little container with hot water inside and bake the cakes at 350F for 45 minutes until nice and golden brown, and you’re whole house is fragrant. As you should have noticed, you need to start making this magnificent sweet bread at least 3 days before Easter. And trust me, all this work is absolutely worth it!

Tip

You’ll need some dove paper molds, which are made in Italy especially for baking Colomba di Pasqua. I found mine in Fante’s Kitchen Wares Shop right in the Italian Market in Philadelphia, PA. Hopefully you’ll find it in your local Italian neighborhood. If you don’t, shape the dove in a pan, as if you were making a bread loaf.

This is also an entry for the Happy Baking Easter event hosted by CindyStar. We expect you in large numbers!

In Italy, life is a runway

2009-03-26T20:05:00.014-04:00

Prada, Versace, Gucci, Armani, Valentino, Bulgari, Zegna, Brioni, Cavalli, Ferragamo, Fendi, Dolce & Gabbana. That Italians love fashion is not news. But is it true? Of course! Men and women, they both are utterly sexy and personal appearance is one of their major concerns.

Where does this Italian obsession come from? I don’t know, but I think it has always been like that. Just think of the intricate hairdos Italian women used during Roman times. I mean, they knew how to work it out! Ever since imperial times, in Italy there has been a fascination for personal opulence which translates into embracing a perfect sense of style. Fare bella figura, which means something like to give a good image of yourself, is the personal motto of most Italians. This includes how to behave, how to keep your reputation, and how to dress appropriately!

Related to the Italian love of fashion, the ultimate Italian social ritual is not a wedding, a baptism or a funeral, but la passeggiata. In every Italian city and in every Italian town, Italians love to dress up for their daily late-afternoon walk. The idea is to see and to be seen. Before dinner, you pick your best clothes and then go out. You greet your friends, you window shop, you sit around the Renaissance fountain on the main square of your town and talk endlessly by cell phone, you sit on a terrace of a restaurant and have a glass of wine with your friends, you check what everybody else is wearing and you show your new shoes (or your new love)!

But what’s the core of this fashionista way of life? The real Italian obsession is a passionate love of beauty! Just think of the works of Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raffaello, Botticelli, Giotto, Vasari, Tiziano, Ghirlandaio... I can go on and on citing Italian artists whose works reflected their love of beauty... and please note how Botticelli made his Venus naked, but Flora is hurrying up to cover Venus with a gorgeous piece of Florentine fabric – almost an allegory of fashion!

Going to more recent times and beyond clothes, think of Italian design for cars, furniture and home goods. Not to mention the uncountable number of anonymous artists of ancient Rome who copied the work of anonymous sculptors and painters from Greece.

This is another dimension of the Italian character. In Italy, life is a big theater and appearance (again, fare bella figura) can be more important than the real thing. You can sacrifice other things, but you’ll never see an Italian with a suit that doesn’t fit; because if you’re Italian you’re concerned with how you present to your public, which is the rest of the world. So, you’re a poor Sicilian country boy? It doesn’t matter! During the passeggiata you have to look wealthy! In addition, Italians know they look good with their signature sunglasses… so, the sun is not shining? It doesn’t matter because you know you look fierce! Italians always make the joke that you can recognize your connazionali (other Italians) living in London, because they are always wearing their sunglasses, even with heavy rain – which in London is the normal day, you know.

I remember I was in Rome when Valentino decided to retire. He organized a big fashion show in the temple of the goddesses Rome and Venus (how Roman is that?). At the same time, and after many years of restorations, the Ara Pacis Augustæ was open to the public. The Ara Pacis is the big Altar of Augustan Peace built by the first Roman emperor Augustus, the very Caesar who took a Rome made of brick and turned it into marble (by covering the brick with marble… I told you that the important thing is appearance). The Ara Pacis celebrates the period known as Pax Romana or Roman Peace (however, you should ask the Parthians and the Goths what they thought about this Roman peace). Anyway, the Ara Pacis is a really nice thing to see by itself, not only because of the historical value but also because of the art involved. But if only in an Italian-themed flower show you can find shoes, only in Italy can you find a fashion exhibit in an almost 2,000 year old monument, the big opening of the Ara Pacis with a glamorous Valentino retrospective. I’m not complaining, because the setting was striking! The work of the most Roman fashion designer displayed in a grandeur that’s only possible in Rome. The mannequins looking like Vestal Virgins – the priestesses of the goddess Vesta in Ancient Rome – seemed to be ready for a sacrifice in the name of good taste, high fashion and style. Well, you know. In Italy, life is a runway.

Tips
If Augustus was the first emperor, Valentino is the last one to date. At least that’s what the new movie Valentino, the Last Emperor claims. The film features the last two years of Valentino’s career, including the big Roman finale I just told you about. It also tells you the story of his partner of 50 years, Giancarlo Giammetti.

I won’t be posting for a little while, because I’m going to northern England for a few days. But don’t worry, I’ll be wearing my sunglasses there!

Happy cherimoya sorbet

2009-03-25T21:57:00.003-04:00

This is not quite the cherimoya ice cream you can enjoy in Santiago while you walk around Plaza Italia (Italian Square). However, this is just as good… or even better!

Ingredients
2 cups freshly squeezed blood orange juice
2 cherimoyas
½ cup sugar
1 Tbsp of Chilean pisco, if you can find it.

In a saucepan over medium heat, dissolve ½ cup of sugar in 1 cup of blood orange juice. After two minutes, turn the heat off and let it cool. Add the rest of the blood orange juice and the cherimoya flesh. Puree the happy cherimoya mixture using an electric blender. If you want, add a touch of pisco, which is a South American grape brandy. Then pour the happy cherimoya puree into your ice cream machine and let the machine do its work.

Branching out
Bloody Happy Cherimoya

Sugar time: I cupcakes italo-canadesi

2009-03-24T21:46:00.007-04:00

When spring comes to Quebec, we have normal winter-like days, by international standards. There’s snow on the ground, but since the temperatures are mild (-10C/14F), there’s no suffering when you go trekking. It’s also le temps de sucres (sugar time!), i.e. the time of the year when you go visit the cabanes à sucre (sugar shacks). A cabane à sucre is a rustic place right in the woods where the maple sap is boiled to turn it into maple syrup. The maple sap flows when you have a continuum of above-freezing temperatures followed by below-freezing temperatures. That’s exactly what happens in Quebec from the beginning of spring until Easter. During sugaring season, a mature maple tree produces about 40 liters (10 gal) of sap, which when boiled down turns into only 1 liter (1 quart) of maple syrup!

Not just maple syrup can be found in a sugar shack. When you boil maple sap, first you get maple syrup, then maple butter (which is REALLY good), and then maple sugar. And between maple syrup and maple butter, maple sap gets the perfect sugaring point to make the most scrumptious treat you can make with maple (my humble opinion): tire d'érable or maple toffee. The hot liquid is poured directly onto snow, and the cold snow solidifies the maple sap and you get a soft maple candy! To lift the maple toffee you take a wooden stick and roll it to get the candy! It’s SO good!

Now, let’s go to my very own tribute to Quebec and its cuisine, my Italian Canadian cupcakes!

Ingredients
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
3 eggs
1 stick of butter, room temperature
¾ cup sugar
⅓ cup maple syrup
⅓ cup blueberry jam
3 Tbsp milk

Glaze
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
3 Tbsp blueberry syrup
1 Tbsp maple syrup

In a bowl, beat the butter with the sugar. Add the eggs one by one, beating continuously. Add the milk, the maple syrup and the blueberry jam. Stir to incorporate. In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients: flour, salt and baking powder. Little by little, add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Stir to incorporate. Preheat the oven to 325F. Use some cooking spray on your muffin pan, and then scoop the batter into the pan. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes. Prepare the glaze by adding the blueberry syrup and the maple syrup to the sugar. If the icing is too dry, add a little bit more syrup. If it’s too wet, add a little bit more the icing sugar. When the cupcakes are cool, coat them with the blueberry and maple glaze.

Tips
75% of the world production of maple syrup comes from Quebec, and that’s almost 85% of the Canadian production! So what is Canada's share of world maple syrup production (algebra problem!!)?

I made my express blueberry jam with just a touch more water. This way, the jam turned a bit more liquid, so I was able to get some blueberry syrup from the liquid part of the jam.

Branching out
Blueberry jam
Blueberry gelato
Ricotta blueberry muffins
Crostata ai mirtilli
Frutti di bosco jam
Protein-rich blueberry sorbet
Lac Saint-Jean

Trota alla griglia – quick and easy grilled trout

2009-03-21T20:53:00.005-04:00

Trout is a much appreciated fish in northern Italy. In fact, trout is the most consumed freshwater fish in the north of Italy. And because trout prefers cool waters, it is mostly farmed in the Po Valley or Pianura Padana in Italian, which is the valley of the Po river, from Piemonte and the western Italian Alps to Veneto and Friuli right on the Adriatic shore. Trout is a fish closely related to salmon (salmon prefers salt water though). Actually, I prefer trout over salmon because I think it has more flavor. Although I do think that salmon is more versatile just because its flavor is more subtle. A perfect way to enjoy trout is by grilling it. You can grill the whole fish, or just trout fillets which are more convenient.

Ingredients
4 trout fillets
Parsley, roughly chopped
Dill, roughly chopped
1 big lemon
1 garlic clove, minced
Olive oil
Salt, pepper

Brush the trout fillets with olive oil. Add some salt and pepper and grill over medium heat, about 4 to 5 minutes per side. Meanwhile, extract the juice of 1 lemon and mix it with the chopped herbs. Add about 1 Tbsp of olive oil and the minced garlic. When the fish is ready, serve it with the herbs and lemon juice mixture on top.

Tips

In Italian we call trota salmonata (salmon-like trout) the trout that have been nourished to get flesh that has a salmon pink color.

The trout that we usually eat was introduced to Italy from North America around 1880. Around the same time, trout was also introduced to the coolest parts of the southern hemisphere: New Zealand, some parts of Australia, southern Chile and southern Argentina. One of the best trout I’ve ever had was in the restaurant of the Chilean-German Club Zur Wassermühle in the Chilean Lake District.

Guilt-free gnocchi alla bava

2009-03-20T21:39:00.003-04:00

Snow on the ground: 1 meter/3.3 feet... Temperature: -8C/18F... welcome to spring in Quebec City! However, the good thing of the winter-like spring in this part of the world is that here you can still enjoy winter comfort food in spring time! Like my gnocchi alla bava. Gnocchi alla bava is a traditional recipe from Valle d’Aosta, one of my favorite regions in Italy. This recipe combines exquisitely fresh pasta, a very northern Italian thing, with fonduta or fondue, a very Alpine thing… and Valle d’Aosta is in northern Italy right in the Italian Alps! This is a very rich dish, I can’t think of something more ideal for après-ski! So, after spending your day skiing in, let’s say, Mont-Tremblant, prepare a good cup of hot chocolate and some gnocchi alla bava: it’s quick, it’s cheesy and it’s extremely comforting! And if you want to feel less guilty about it, do the same trick I did: use whole wheat gnocchi!

Ingredients
1 lb whole wheat potato gnocchi (storebought is fine)
7 oz Italian fontina cheese, diced
6 Tbsp unsalted butter
2 Tbsp milk
4 Tbsp grana cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano)
1 garlic clove

Melt the butter in a saucepan, over medium heat. Add one garlic clove, peeled. Cook the gnocchi in salted boiling water, for about 2 minutes. Meanwhile, take the garlic clove out of the saucepan and add the cheese and the milk. Stir to gently incorporate the cheese with the melted butter. When the gnocchi are ready, they’ll be floating on top of the boiling water. Drain the gnocchi, and toss them over the cheese fonduta. Add some grated grana cheese, give a quick little stir, and your gnocchi alla bava will be ready! If you want, add some ground black pepper and some sage leaves.

Tips
You can also find gnocchi alla bava in Piemonte.

I’m not sure if you want to know what 'alla bava' means. Let's say gnocchi alla bava is Italian for mouthwatering gnocchi (ok, the real meaning is drooling gnocchi).

Actually this year spring was welcomed with snowfalls in southern Italy: Reggio Calabria, Molise, Puglia… all covered with snow! So, what’s the difference? There everything will melt by tomorrow, and then nice weather will be there to stay all summer long!

Branching out
Thick hot chocolate
Gnocchi à la cassonade

Because only Italians take the shoe obsession to the next level

2009-03-18T21:00:00.006-04:00

I didn’t notice the Italian obsession for shoes until one day I was watching Italian TV with some American friends around. It was a cooking show (la prova del cuoco), and when the host appeared the first thing was a close up of her shoes. To me, it seemed normal. Then another show started, this time a show about legal procedures, immigration and citizenship (Sportello Italia); then my friends, who don’t speak Italian so they didn’t care about what was being said, noticed that every 30 seconds the camera made a close up of the host’s shoes. That time I agreed it was a bit strange, albeit a very Italian thing.

SO Italian, and yet even I was surprised when I went to the Italian-themed 2009 Philadelphia Flower Show just some days ago. Not only magnificent flowers (amazing tulips by the way) but also shoes everywhere! OK, the shoes were made of and/or decorated with flowers or things you normally find in a garden… but everyone must agree with the fact that you can find shoes only in an Italian-themed flower show! In fact, the Milan setting was all about clothes, accessories, and shoes! It was FABULOUS!!! However, at first glance it wasn’t that obvious it was a display for a flower show. Alta moda was the name of the Milan theme, which means high fashion in Italian.

Of course, there was another recurrent subject in the show. Can you guess? Food and wine, of course!!! Fashion and food, arts and beauty… you just can’t get more Italian than this! So, every part of the show had some food-related arrangements. There was even a part fully dedicated to various gorgeous Italian tablescapes!

The Bella Italia 2009 Philadelphia flower show was really nice. Sometimes embracing some stereotypes, but that’s part of the show, right? Even so, the central theme, which was all about Rome, was a bit tacky. I liked the Roman gardens though. The Venice theme was spectacular, very baroque. It even had a gondola and a bridge over a Venetian canal. The lake region theme was incredibly pretty. The San Remo theme was glamorous and chic. In the Tuscany theme there was a tablescape with real salame and Italian cheese (I must confess I almost jumped into the exhibit to eat it)! But again, the Milan theme was just stunning.

Tips
They had olive oil tasting, wine tasting… you were able even to buy Italian furniture or a Vespa!
Oh, and Danny DeVito was there signing his Limoncello bottles for his Italian American fans from New Jersey.

‘Bloody’ Happy Cherimoya or Anona Molto Felice anche se un po’ insanguinata

2009-03-16T21:26:00.011-04:00

Have you ever seen this exotic fruit in your local grocery store? If you have, chances are that you don’t have any idea what to make of it. Cherimoyas aren’t very good for marketing; they just don’t look very appealing. But trust me; you don’t know what you have been missing! Cherimoyas have engaged some prominent spokesmen such as Thaddäus Haenke, a 19th century explorer, who called cherimoyas a ‘masterpiece of nature’. Even Mark Twain described cherimoyas as ‘deliciousness itself’ and ‘the most delicious fruit known to men’. And yet, cherimoyas remain as the Andean best kept secret. Cherimoyas originally come from Peru and Ecuador. People in those countries say that cherimoyas don’t like to touch the snow but they like to see the snow in the distance. That’s why this fruit adapts pretty well to Mediterranean climates with cool but temperate winters. I’m familiar with cherimoyas because in Chile, where I lived, cherimoyas are considered the national fruit. Everybody loves cherimoyas in Chile, and cherimoya is one of the most preferred flavors of Chilean yoghurt and ice cream! If cherimoyas like to see the snow in the distance, I can understand why they grow so happily in Chile. I’ve never seen a more impressive view of snow capped mountains in an urban environment than in Santiago. Just take a glance of the view of the mountains near my parents’ house there:

Cherimoyas have a green skin and white flesh. Usually, when the skin is brown it means that the fruit was frozen, with a terrible impact on quality (remember? Cherimoyas don’t like to touch the snow!... however, some cultivars do have a brown skin). The flesh is soft, creamy and extremely fragrant. The exquisite flavor of cherimoyas recalls pears, bananas, strawberries and pineapple. All over the inside of the fruit you’ll find big black seeds that you have to discard – they are really big. You can tell if the cherimoyas are ripe by touching them. Like an avocado, a ripe cherimoya will be soft and tender, but not too much. Then, smell the cherimoya: it has to have a very pleasant and fragrant aroma.

In Chile, there is a dessert called chirimoya alegre or happy cherimoya, which is cherimoya with freshly squeezed orange juice. The Peruvian version of chirimoya alegre has more ingredients, but I like the simplicity of Chilean cuisine, because simplicity is also an attribute of Italian cuisine. If you want to go totally exotic, then you can try a happy cherimoya with an Italian twist! Of course, I’m talking about blood oranges! A fruit that tastes like sweet orange, grapefruit and raspberry is the perfect match for a fruit that tastes like pear, banana, strawberry, and pineapple!

‘Bloody’ Happy Cherimoya or Anona Molto Felice

Ingredients
Cherimoya flesh
Freshly squeezed blood orange juice
Sugar to taste

Peel the cherimoyas and separate the flesh from the seeds. In doing so, you’ll have little pieces of cherimoya that you can put in a bowl. Squeeze the blood oranges and add the juice to the cherimoya. You want to cover the little pieces of cherimoya with juice. About 5 oranges are enough for 2 medium sized cherimoyas. Add some sugar if you want and put it in the fridge. Let it rest at least 20 minutes and serve cool.

Tips

In Italy, cherimoyas (anona in Italian) are grown in the Reggio Calabria area. However, they are considered an exotic and utterly expensive delicacy. In North America, cherimoyas are grown in California.

Italian Brownie Muffins

2009-03-12T20:37:00.004-04:00

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 cup olive oil
1 ½ cup sugar (up to 2 cups if you want it sweeter)
1 cup milk
1 tsp orange essence
2 large eggs
Orange zest
¼ cup coffee
1 cup cocoa
Pearl sugar
Pinch of salt

Mix the dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. In a cup, mix the olive oil and cocoa. Add the wet ingredients – including the eggs and the cocoa mixture – to the dry ingredients. Mix until everything is incorporated. Preheat the oven to 350F. Use some cooking spray on your muffin pan, and then scoop the batter into the pan. Put some pearl sugar on top. Bake for about 25 minutes. Do you want to give your cupcakes a kick? Brush the bottom parts with some Grand Marnier mixed with a touch of sugar!

A really quick salad… with Lima beans!

2009-03-10T21:40:00.001-04:00

Ingredients
Mixed greens: mâche, radicchio and arugula
Lima beans, drained
Red onion, chopped
Italian parsley and basil, chopped

Just mix everything and serve! What about the dressing? Go for the quick Italian way: lots of freshly squeezed lemon juice, some salt and olive oil… and you’re all set!

Hearty chiocciole with rapini fritti

2009-03-06T10:43:00.005-05:00

Chiocciola is the cute word in Italian for snail. Nowadays you say ‘chiocciola’ in Italian a lot. Far more often than, let’s say, 15 years ago. I’m sure you are wondering why. I’ll give you an example of when we use ‘chiocciola’ in Italian, and then you will have a clue… even if you don’t speak Italian. If I say something like ‘daziano chiocciola mymail punto com’… does this tell you something? Well, we say chiocciola for @! Maybe this is the first time you actually realized that @ does look like a snail!!!

The other day I found some organic whole durum wheat chiocciole (a kind of large elbow macaroni, known as pipe rigate or lumache in Italy – lumaca is another word for snail). This chiocciole pasta is very flavorful with a perfect texture when cooked al dente and, of course, entirely wholesome! So, a perfect match for this hearty pasta is rapini fritti (sautéed broccoli rabe)!

Ingredients
1 lb chiocciole pasta
1 big bunch of broccoli rabe or rapini (or cime di rape)
1 garlic clove
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Pecorino toscano cheese

Wash the broccoli rabe and discard the stems. Then soak the broccoli rabe in salted water for about 1 hour. Drain the broccoli rabe and pat it dry. Chop the broccoli rabe and sauté it in a saucepan with olive oil. Add the garlic, some salt and pepper and continue sautéing for about 15 minutes over medium heat. Boil the pasta. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and toss the pasta over the sautéed broccoli rabe. Add a nice touch of olive oil and give a quick stir. Serve with grated pecorino toscano cheese!

Tips

Chiocciole is pronounced /ˈkjɔttʃole/ something like ‘key-aw + cho-lay’

The name I knew for this kind of pasta was lumache. Apparently, chiocciole is the name chosen for the North American market.

This is also an entry for the 2nd Annual "Festa Italiana" hosted by Maryann of Finding La Dolce Vita and Marie of Proud Italian Cook! We expect you to come in large numbers!

Protein-rich blueberry sorbet

2009-02-27T19:14:00.004-05:00

I love blueberries. Since we are far away from blueberry season, you have two possibilities. You can go for frozen berries, which are pretty good, or you can splurge on imported blueberries. In the southern hemisphere they are enjoying summer, so they share with us their fresh produce. The Chilean fresh blueberries you can enjoy in winter come from places like this one:

Isn’t that quaint? Here you can have a look at some more pictures of the Chilean lake district, part of my after holiday escape!:

In addition, I’m one of those people who love to have ice cream in freezing weather. This protein-rich sorbetto di mirtilli (blueberry sorbet) is incredibly good, refreshing, light and fluffy! The addition of egg white not only contributes to the protein content, but also helps the sorbet to preserve a fantastic texture. You won’t even need to wait because you can enjoy it right from the freezer!

Ingredients
2 cups blueberries
1 cup sugar
1 ¾ cup water
1 egg white
1 Tbsp martini bianco (or blueberry vodka)

In a saucepan dissolve 1 cup of sugar with 1¾ cup of water over medium heat. Add the blueberries and bring it to a simmer for a couple of minutes, until the blueberries pop and the water turns into a blueberry sauce. When the sauce is cool, blend it at high speed in an electric blender. Pour this blueberry puree into your ice cream maker (you can use a sieve if you like). While your machine is working, pour in the martini bianco and the egg white. After about 20 minutes you’ll be enjoying a perfectly delectable dessert!

Branching Out
Blueberry picking
Express blueberry jam
Blueberry gelato
Tarte aux bleuets
The Chilean lake district

Wholesome penne with mushroom soffritto

2009-02-19T22:19:00.003-05:00

A lot of Italian dishes begin with a soffritto, which is made by sautéing different vegetables. The ultimate Italian soffritto contains onion, celery and carrots. In this recipe I’ll use sweet potatoes instead of carrots. If you ask any Italian about sweet potatoes, he or she will tell you that sweet potatoes produce wonderful flowers, but at the same time he or she will admit not knowing how to cook with sweet potatoes. As you can infer, sweet potato is not a very well known ingredient in Italy. Veneto is the only Italian region I know where people do cook with sweet potatoes. However, Italians should begin to cook more with sweet potatoes because they are super healthful! They are packed with fiber, vitamin A, vitamin B6, vitamin C, manganese, copper, potassium, iron and proteins with antioxidant properties!

Ingredients
1 lb whole wheat penne
10 oz mushrooms, chopped
1 small sweet potato, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
½ onion, diced
1/3 yellow pepper, diced
1/3 green pepper, diced
1/3 red pepper, diced
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp butter
½ cup white wine
Salt and pepper, peperoncino

In a saucepan over medium high heat, melt 1 tablespoon of butter and add the olive oil. Sauté the mushrooms and the onions for about 7 minutes until golden. Add the sweet potatoes, a touch of peperoncino, and some salt. Give a quick stir. Add the celery, the green, yellow and red pepper, and an additional tablespoon of butter. After a couple of minutes, add the white wine. Stir. Let the alcohol evaporate and then, covering the saucepan with a lid, let the soffritto cook. Set the heat to medium low. Boil the penne in salted water until al dente. When the pasta is ready, drain it and toss it over the soffritto. Add the last tablespoon of butter and some black pepper. Give a quick little stir and serve.

February Indulgence: A masqued ball for Valentine's day

2009-02-13T20:35:00.005-05:00

February is the month of carnivals all around the world. You have the big carnival in Rio, mardi gras in New Orleans, the winter carnival in Quebec City, and the masqued carnival of Venice. Is this a mere coincidence? Of course not! Carnivals always end before Lent starts. If you’re catholic you know what Lent means: no party, prayer and penitence, fasting and abstinence. So, if you know that Lent is coming, then the carnival season is your last chance for partying!

The carnevale di Venezia was first mentioned in an official document as early as 1094, and it was officially established in 1296. Back in those times, the carnival lasted from Christmas until the day before Ash Wednesday (Shrove Tuesday or mardi gras... mardi means Tuesday in French). Because the idea was to have a holiday where everything was allowed, the use of masks became extremely popular. If you’re disguised, no one knows who you are, or what is your social status, political views, religion or gender. The masters could be servants. And the servants could be masters. However, the masks gave people a little too much freedom. It wasn’t unusual for men to dress like nuns, so they could enter convents and play with the poor sisters. The carnival of Venice has been from the beginning a big theater, where every person in Venice becomes a protagonist in the most extravagant play. A play, with the most splendorous scene: piazza San Marco. However Casanova is the only A-listed star of this play. Casanova made the carnival of Venice an international event, because the carnival was the ultimate expression of his extremely passionate adventures. Not long after Casanova’s time, Napoleon took Venice and put an end to the carnival, in part because Napoleon wanted to avoid disguised spies. It wasn’t until 1979 that the carnival experienced its glamorous revival.

Although – and at the same time because of – the lavish balls, excessive behavior, furtive romances and sinful encounters, Venice is probably one of the most romantic cities in the world. And the fact that the carnival of Venice is celebrated every February makes Venice the perfect destination for a very romantic Valentine’s Day escape… if you can afford it, because during carnival everything is booked, and overpriced! It was totally by chance that the first time I was in Venice was for carnival. I was there in February and I knew that carnival was held in that month, but I didn’t know it was starting on the day after I came! It was such a wonderful experience! However my hotel was frugal, I had to share my gondola ride with 6 Japanese girls because of the price of the ride, and my ‘excesses’ were extremely parsimonious. Still, it was full of magic!

Tips

What do Italians eat for the abstinence-free carnival season? The answer is quite obvious once you know it. Italians indulge themselves in sinfully deep-fried food! You can try my castagnole recipe!

Blood orange sorbet – the best sorbet you can ever have!

2009-02-05T21:16:00.003-05:00

This is a magnificent recipe for an extremely refreshing sorbet. The blood orange – arancia rossa in Italian – has an attractive and unique red flesh. The color is a very intense ruby shade that reminds you of the color of blood (or red wine). The flavor is intense and tart but sweet at the same time: think of the sweetest freshly squeezed orange juice with a nice touch of grapefruit and raspberry juice!

In Italy, the arancie rosse are cultivated throughout Sicily, namely on the east side of the island in the provinces of Catania, Siracusa, Enna and Ragusa. There are three cultivars: tarocco, sanguinella (sangue means blood in Italian) and moro (the most intense in color). Blood oranges that come from these regions are regulated under the name arancia rossa di Sicilia. Arance rosse di Sicilia are without doubt the best you can have. However, they are impossible to find outside of Italy. Nowadays, the production of blood oranges has extended to places with nice Mediterranean weather, like New Zealand and… California! The Californian blood orange is not Sicilian, but it is actually pretty good. Although the trees grown in California come from Sicily, the fertility of the soil around Mount Etna and the Mediterranean sun are hard to compete with.

Ingredients
2 cups blood orange juice, freshly squeezed
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbsp Martini Rosso

Dissolve the sugar into the freshly squeezed blood orange juice. Pour the juice into your ice cream maker. After a couple of minutes, add the martini rosso and let the machine continue its work. Enjoy your blood orange sorbet right after it is ready! Usually sorbets don’t freeze well – or maybe they freeze too well – so it’s never a good idea to keep them in the freezer for a long time. The alcohol helps to break the ice crystals, and so does the sugar. However, homemade sorbets always have the best texture when they come right from the ice cream maker.

Tips

The tarocco cultivar is the orange with the highest content of vitamin C in the whole world!

Blood oranges go very well in cocktails and soft drinks! You surely have seen reddish Italian soda around. In Italy you can even have blood-orange flavored Fanta! It’s called Fanta Red Emotion (please read it trilling the R). And yes, Fanta is way better in Italy than in the US.

Watching tourists asking for an orange juice or spremuta d’arancia in Italy is a fun thing to do. The waiter comes proudly with freshly squeezed blood orange juice and the customer – looking at the color of the beverage being brought – thinks that the waiter didn’t understand what he really wants. What follows is a discussion in pseudo and unintelligible Italian on the part of the costumer (sometimes just in plain English – or whatever the costumer’s native language is). At the same time the discussion is held in an incomprehensible Italian-for-foreigners mixed with some words in pseudo English on the part of the waiter (usually lots of hand gestures included). OK, I’m stereotyping a bit but it really happens. And when this happens it’s so funny!

Salmon insalata mista

2009-02-02T20:32:00.002-05:00

When you go to an Italian restaurant, you will always see insalata mista among the contorni or side dishes. Insalata mista is nothing other than a garden salad, where different greens and other vegetables are mixed together. In this salad I combine two of my favorite Italian greens: arugula and radicchio. Add some oven-baked salmon to this insalata mista and you’ll have a complete light meal!

Ingredients
4 salmon filets (1 inch thick)
4 tsp mustard
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
Arugula
Radicchio
Olive oil

Dressing
½ cup store-bought balsamic dressing
2 Tbsp mustard
2 Tbsp lemon juice

Mix the balsamic vinegar with 4 tsp mustard. Brush the salmon filets with this marinade. Drizzle the salmon filets with some olive oil and bake them in a 450F preheated oven for about 15 minutes. Mix the arugula with the shredded radicchio and put the greens onto a serving plate. On top set the salmon, cut into bite-size pieces. For the dressing of this salad, just go the quick and simple way: mix your favorite store-bought balsamic dressing with some mustard and lemon juice!

Grilled Scamorza cheese with crunchy prosciutto

2009-01-30T20:36:00.003-05:00

This is a wonderful starter. It is incredibly easy to prepare and the WOW-factor is guaranteed! Scamorza is a funny pear-shaped cow-milk cheese from the Campania region around Naples. It is also produced in Abruzzo and Molise. In Puglia, scamorza is made from sheep-milk. Scamorza is similar to mozzarella, but scamorza cheese is a bit firmer and it has more flavor so it is getting a lot of attention worldwide.

There’s plain and smoked scamorza cheese and both have a nice texture that only gets better when melted. If you’re planning to grill your cheese using a real grill you can use plain scamorza. If you’re using an electric grill or a pan, go for the smoked one.

Ingredients
2 pieces of smoked scamorza cheese (8 oz each)
About 4 or 6 slices of prosciutto crudo
Olive oil

Cut the cheese in half, lengthwise. If you’re using your panini grill to make this dish, you can spray the grill with a little oil and then turn the grill on. When the grill is ready, set the cheese halves cut-side up. Put some prosciutto on top of each half. Grill for about 1 or 2 minutes, then open the panini grill and continue grilling until a nice crust forms on the bottom side (about 5 minutes). Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and toasted ciabatta bread.

Tip

Scamorza is the cheese that was featured in one episode of Ugly Betty. Betty made the impossible to get a piece for her friend Gio.

Italialicious Bananattone

2008-12-17T22:01:00.006-05:00

I know this is not the traditional recipe you might have been expecting, however it’s very original and full of flavor! Also, making traditional panettone is a long process, and then you have to wait for the panettone to mature. On the other hand, my bananattone needs less yeast expertise, and you can both bake it and enjoy it on Christmas day (although it does require 1 overnight rising process)!

Ingredients (makes 2 loaves)
4 very ripe bananas, mashed
5 ¼ cups bread flour
9 Tbsp honey
¾ cup milk
2 ½ tsp yeast
2 cups walnuts, raisins and candied orange and lemon peel
2 large eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp orange essence (or orange blossom water)
½ cup olive oil
½ cup sugar
1/4 milk and 1 tsp sugar to brush your loaves

On Christmas Eve

Dissolve 2 Tbsp honey in a cup of warm milk. Add the yeast and stir. Let it rise for a couple of minutes in a warm place. Meanwhile, mix the dry ingredients: flour and sugar. Mix the mashed bananas with about 7 Tbsp honey (I’m sure 7 Tbsp honey has an equivalent in cups, but Tbsp is what I used, so…). Add the vanilla extract and the orange essence to the banana mixture (you can also use 1 ½ tsp of fiori di Sicilia extract). Reserve the banana mixture. Add the two eggs to the flour and sugar mixture and beat it using a stand mixer. While beating this flour mixture, add the eggs. Beat until little crumbs form. Now it’s time to add the active yeast to the flour. Add olive oil and, finally, the banana mixture. Beat until everything is incorporated and you get a nice dough. Let it rise for about 1 ½ hours.

After wrapping your presents ;) , punch the dough down. Sprinkle the nuts and fruit with a couple of tablespoons of flour. Add the nuts and fruit to the dough. Add a pinch of salt. With a stand mixer, knead the dough for at least 25 minutes. Put the dough in two bread molds – or several muffin molds, if you want bananattone muffins – and brush the top with sugared milk (add a touch of orange essence to the milk too). Let it rise in the fridge overnight.

On Christmas day

Brush your bananattoni (plural) with warm sugared milk (again, with a nice touch of orange essence). Let the bananattoni rest at room temperature for about 1 hour. Then bake in a 375F preheated oven for about 30-35 minutes until nice and golden brown. And that’s it! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

Tips

When putting the dough into the molds, you should do it until you reach half the height of the mold. Before baking, your bread should have risen all the way to the height of the mold.

I’m very fond of the texture you get with my recipe. It’s fluffy and you get a really good substitute for real panettone. So, it was a smart idea! The cost you pay is a loss of aroma, because bananattone smells like bananas!

Finally, I must say I got inspired by Annie Brocoli and her Nanas Bananas!

In search for a crèche and starting a Christmas tradition

2008-12-15T08:55:00.007-05:00

Once upon a time, Christmas Eve dinner in Italy was very light, people went to the Midnight Mass, and then when they came home they exchanged gifts. A traditional Christmas in Italy nowadays involves the cenone di natale or huge Christmas Eve dinner with your family. You wait until midnight, and when midnight arrives the first thing you do is to put Gesù Bambino (Baby Jesus) in your crèche. Then, you exchange gifts with your family. And then, you continue eating! On Christmas day you don’t stop eating: now it’s time for friends to come over and have a huge lunch together – il pranzo di Natale!

Crèche or Nativity scenes (presepe or presepio in Italian) are a deep Italian tradition for Christmas. In fact, one can say it’s the most Italian among Christmas traditions since it was Saint Francis of Assisi who was the first to think of recreating the birth of baby Jesus (even though Neapolitans claim they had the first presepe about 250 years before Saint Francis’ one… well, in any case everything is connected to the Roman and Etruscan tradition of lares). Then, each region developed its very own tradition: wooden presepi in the northern regions (namely around Genoa), finely sculpted presepi in Bologna, ornate presepi with local products in Sicilia, and the complex and extremely realistic presepi in Naples. Presepi viventi (living crèches), where costumed people recreate the Nativity scene, are found all around Italy too: I played Saint Joseph when I was a kid!

I spent my first Christmas in North America in Philadelphia, and since the presepe was so important to me I needed to have one. But I wasn’t aware how difficult it was to get one. Before coming to North America, I lived in Chile where some traditions are very close to the ones you can find in Italy. In Chile, you have a huge dinner on Christmas Eve with your family, then you have a huge lunch on Christmas day using leftovers from the night before, and you always have a pesebre or crèche next to the Christmas tree. And you can buy these Nativity scenes all around the city; you can even buy one from street vendors in the markets. Well, getting one in Philadelphia wasn’t easy at all. First, I was surprised that in English you use the French word crèche to describe it. That was the first piece of evidence that it wasn’t a very American thing. Then we visited like 5 different Christmas stores. They didn’t have it. The last store we visited actually had one: a huge inflatable crèche. And a cold air balloon wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. Then we expanded our search limits and we went to the suburbs. And a crèche we did find, imported directly from Italy, of course. But it was too expensive, I mean extremely expensive. Christmas was coming and I didn’t have a crèche! Then one friend told us to ask a friend of his. She was an Irish Catholic girl, married to an Italian guy (that’s another thing I discovered here: Italians and Irish get along very well!). And she told us about the right place to go! And so we finally got a crèche!

Since Americans usually don’t do anything for Christmas Eve, I started a personal tradition of preparing a huge dinner to share with friends – and then we spend Christmas day with the family. It’s a late dinner because we wait until midnight. But it’s not a hard wait, because we have several antipasti, pasta as a starter, a comforting entrée and dessert. At midnight we put Baby Jesus in his manger, and we exchange gifts. I love to have a special gift for every guest, like a cute Nutcracker, and I always have some panettone to give! After that, we have a good cup of espresso, panettone, panforte and torrone! As you can see, I simply love Christmas! Of course, the first year we invited the Irish-Italian couple who told us where to find our crèche. And they loved our dinner so much that now they started their own tradition of a Christmas Eve dinner with friends.

There ain’t no ‘feast of the seven fishes’ in Italy

2008-12-10T17:50:00.003-05:00

On my first Christmas in America, my neighbor told me that the feast of the seven fishes was being held in an Italian restaurant next to us. She was really excited about it, but I had no idea what on earth she was talking about. So, I was like ‘Uh?’ and I guess she totally perceived my un-excitement, because she repeated once again her sentence, and now with greater excitement and joy. Then she was really surprised when she had to explain to me that the ‘seven fishes’ was an Italian tradition. And yet it was the very first time in my entire life I had heard about it. After that experience, I found books about the feast of seven fishes with recipes from the Italian market in Philly, I saw signs inviting you to go to the ‘seven fishes’ in churches all around Italian-American neighborhoods in New Jersey, and I even read about it in Wikipedia (even though you should get suspicious when you notice there’s no link for an article in Italian)… So I discovered that for Americans the feast of the seven fishes is supposed to be THE ultimate Italian tradition for Christmas.

Is it really? Well, the true answer is no, it’s not. I tried to be nice and polite with my neighbor so I told her that maybe it was a regional tradition I didn’t know. But the true answer is still the same: there’s no such thing as ‘feast of the seven fishes’ in Italy. Hard to believe for Americans, I know. It’s even hard to believe for Italian-Americans.

So, where did the whole idea come from? I really don’t know. In Italy, every region has its own traditions for Christmas. However, it was pretty general once that on Christmas Eve Italians had a light dinner before going to Church for the Mass of the Vigil at midnight. Strictly speaking, Christmas Eve is supposed to be a fast day for Catholics, but every single Italian thought of ‘la cena di magro’ (the dinner without meat) as a way to prepare for the huge lunch on Christmas day. I know you’re thinking ‘Aha!… so Italians do have a dinner without meat for Christmas Eve after all’. You’re right, but a dinner without meat doesn’t necessarily imply a dinner with fish (and the seven-different-fish-dishes idea is completely strange to me and totally absent in Italy). On the one hand, it is true that fish is perfectly suitable for a dinner without meat: a starter made of smoked salmon or an eel entrée are two popular dishes for Italian cena di magro. But on the other hand, cheese and vegetables are perfectly suitable for a dinner without meat too. In fact, tortellini in brodo (a kind of soup made with tortellini pasta filled with cheese and vegetables) is pretty popular for Christmas Eve in northern Italy. Also this light dinner is a tradition that is disappearing in Italy. Nowadays nobody goes to church anymore (or at least not as it used to be), and the cenone di Natale (huge Christmas dinner) is becoming the new tradition. And for the cenone di Natale all the abundance of the traditional Christmas lunch is permitted: filled capon, pork, lamb, ham and even turkey!

Thanksgiving gnocchi à la cassonade

2008-11-26T15:08:00.006-05:00

Well, I have to tell you I’m not the first to think of sweet potato gnocchi as the perfect starter for Thanksgiving. In fact, I got inspired by my fav star chef: Giada De Laurentiis. I totally love Giada! We have the same style of Italian cooking! I mean it’s really impressive. Sometimes I’m watching her show on the Food Network and I’m like: Gosh, that’s exactly how I cook! Giada has an (almost ;) ) unique style which blends authentic Italian cuisine and the American convenience concept, together with a nice Californian touch and a French approach in her techniques. And I cook Italian, with recipes I learned from my Italian family, I lived in Chile (and Santiago looks exactly like a Californian city… with a nice French appeal!) and now I live in North America so I got the French connection à la québécoise!

That being said, and despite my unconditional love for Giada, I must say her gnocchi recipe got some mixed reviews (apparently the gnocchi turn a bit soggy)… so why not give my Thanksgiving gnocchi recipe a try? ;)

Ingredients
2 lbs sweet potatoes
1 Tbsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten
1 ½ to 2 cups all purpose flour

Sauce
6 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp brown sugar
Salt and pepper

Making gnocchi is quite easy. Roast, microwave or boil the sweet potatoes until tender. Peel the sweet potatoes and mash them. Knead the mashed sweet potatoes with the egg yolk, 1½ cup flour, cinnamon and salt. Stop kneading when the dough comes together. Add more flour only if the dough is wet and too sticky. Roll the dough into a ball, and then cut it into pieces. Roll each piece into long ‘snakes’ about ½-inch thick. Cut the snakes into ½-inch pieces. Sprinkle with flour, and shape the gnocchi using a fork or a gnocchi paddle (rigagnocchi). Set the gnocchi on a floured kitchen towel. To make the sauce, melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the sugar, a bit of salt and pepper, and stir.

Drop the gnocchi into salted boiling water. The gnocchi are ready when they start to rise and float to the surface (about 1 minute or so). Remove the gnocchi from the pot with a slotted spoon and transfer them to the skillet with the sauce. Serve and impress your guests!

Happy American Thanksgiving!

Tip
Gnocchi must be cooked right after shaping them – or they can be frozen.

A couple of ideas for Thanksgiving side dishes

2008-11-24T22:06:00.003-05:00

Zesty roasted asparagus
1 bunch asparagus
3 Tbsp Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
2 Tbsp olive oil
Lemon zest
Freshly squeezed lemon juice
Salt and pepper

Clean the asparagus, discard the tough stem ends. Peel the bottom part of the asparagus if the stems are too thick. Drizzle the asparagus with olive oil and put them in a single layer on a sheet pan. Sprinkle some freshly ground black pepper and just a touch of salt on top. Roast the asparagus in a 400F preheated oven for about 12 minutes. Take out of the oven, sprinkle with the lemon zest and the cheese. Return the asparagus to the oven and roast for a couple of minutes until the cheese turns nice and golden. Drizzle with freshly squeezed lemon juice before serving.

Rustic mashed sweet potatoes with ricotta cheese
2 lbs sweet potatoes
1 ½ cup ricotta cheese
2/3 cup milk
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp olive oil
Salt, pepper

Roast, microwave or boil the sweet potatoes until tender. When the sweet potatoes are ready, mash them roughly. In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter, add the ricotta cheese and the milk, and stir. When the ricotta gets warm, add the mashed sweet potatoes, the pumpkin puree, salt and pepper. Pour in some olive oil, give a quick stir and serve!

Italian-American Thanksgiving pumpkin biscuits

2008-11-21T21:52:00.005-05:00

My pumpkin biscuits are perfect for an Italian-American Thanksgiving feast!

Ingredients
1 cup pumpkin purée
1 cup brown sugar
2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp baking soda
¾ cup ricotta cheese
2 eggs
½ cup olive oil
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp orange essence
Orange zest
1 cup golden raisins (soaked in 2 Tbsp rum)
2 Tbsp maple syrup
Pinch of salt

Mix the dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Add the pumpkin purée (I used homemade pumpkin puree, but you can certainly use store-bought). Then add the eggs one by one and stir. Add one cup of brown sugar, the olive oil, the ricotta cheese, the orange essence and orange zest, the cinnamon, the maple syrup and a pinch of salt. Finally add the raisins. Stir to incorporate everything (I used my pretty apple-green stand mixer). Preheat the oven to 350F. Put some cooking spray on your muffin pan, and then scoop the batter into the pan. Sprinkle some more brown sugar on top. Bake for about 30 to 35 minutes, until the biscuits turn golden. Serve warm and, of course, devour them with some butter!

Wine of the year

2008-11-18T21:41:00.009-05:00

Each year, Wine Spectator makes a list of the 100 most exciting wines of the year. This year, the winner is a Chilean wine! Chilean wines, especially the red ones, are world renowned because of their quality and attractive prices. In the last few years, Chilean wines have been spotted among the top 10, but this is the first time a Chilean wine tops the list as the best one.

The winner, Casa Lapostolle’s Clos Apalta 2005, is a vintage wine made of a blend of Merlot (26%), Cabernet Sauvignon (28%), aromatic Petit Verdot (4%) and Chilean distinctive Carmenère (42%). This blend was originally made in Bordeaux, France. However, in 1867 a plague attacked all the vineyards in Europe, and Carmenère – the Bordeaux variety hardest to grow – virtually disappeared. At least that was what people thought.

Chile has a long history of wine production. Because of the wonderful dry Mediterranean climate in its central valley, the conquistadors realized they could bring wine grapes to Chile and began to produce wine around Santiago. It wasn’t a particularly good wine, partly because it was made for use in the Mass. However in the 19th century, Chile adopted France as a role model (you can experience the French feeling in Chile looking at some interesting architectural corners in Santiago and around the vineyards). Because of the French connection, Chile changed its production of wine. They imported cuttings from Bordeaux, and among them they brought Carmenère. Without knowing, Chilean producers continued to grow this wine grape thinking it was Merlot. Only in 1994 a French specialist confirmed that it was Carmenère! Since then, this lost grape has become a staple among Chilean wines. I personally believe Carmenère is the most interesting wine from Chile since it has a unique and very intriguing flavor. So, it doesn’t surprise me that the most exciting wine in the world has Carmenère as its main grape!

Tip

The year 2005 was particularly good for every Chilean wine!

Turkey milanesas with cranberry sauce

2008-11-14T21:05:00.007-05:00

Milanesas are a creation of Italian immigrants in Argentina. After a piece of tango and a hot sip of mate, they mixed two Milanese dishes: cotolette and scaloppine. In Argentina, milanesas are usually made with beef or veal. However, you can easily transform this Italian-Argentine dish into a holiday recipe by using turkey cutlets! I made this for Canadian Thanksgiving and it was a big hit, so why not give it a try for American Thanksgiving? It’s the perfect recipe for an easy turkey dinner!

Ingredients
1 pound turkey cutlets
2 eggs
1 Tbsp cold water
1¼ cup bread crumbs
¾ cup flour
Salt, pepper
Butter for sautéing (about 4 Tbsp)

Set flour, eggs and breadcrumbs separately in three shallow bowls. Add water to the eggs and beat this mixture slightly to obtain an egg wash. Season the flour with some salt and pepper (if you’re using seasoned bread crumbs just add a little touch of salt and pepper). Pound each cutlet gently to get thin and tender milanesas. Then, start a standard breading procedure: cutlets in flour first, then egg wash. After the egg wash dipping, put your cutlets in a colander. The extra egg will drain, and you’ll be able to wash your hands to continue. Dip the cutlets into the bread crumbs, and sauté the milanesas in a preheated saucepan with butter. Over medium-high heat, it won’t take more than 5 or 6 minutes to be ready. Drain the cutlets on paper towels, and serve with my French Canadian cranberry sauce.

Branching out
Buenos Aires shrimp muzarella pizza

French Canadian cranberry sauce - sauce aux canneberges

2008-11-11T21:24:00.003-05:00

Ok. I know it might be a little weird to pretend to teach you how to make cranberry sauce. We don’t even have cranberries in Italy. In fact, I had to consult Wikipedia to discover that in Italian there’s the word ossicocco for cranberry. And I’m telling you, I had no idea of the existence of that word until now.

Anyhow, since my blog is like my public recipe book that I consult myself whenever I want to make something I did before, here’s the recipe for my French Canadian cranberry sauce. Why is it French Canadian? Well, I cook Italian but I’ve learned some culinary customs from around here. So I decided to use maple syrup (is there anything more Canadian than maple syrup? And Quebec is the biggest producer in the world). I also used brown sugar, a very northern France ingredient for me, and very popular in Quebec too (the French connection!).

Ingredients
3 cups fresh cranberries
1 cup water
1/3 cup maple syrup
2/3 cup brown sugar

Dissolve the sugar in the water. Add the maple syrup. In a saucepan over medium high heat, bring this mixture to a boil for a couple of minutes. Add the cranberries. Stir often. When the cranberries begin to pop, reduce the heat to medium. Let the sauce simmer for about 5 or 6 minutes. After that, it’s ready to serve! How about on top of some polenta?

Tastes of Italia

2008-11-08T21:12:00.003-05:00

Hi! I’ve been busy traveling, celebrating Obama’s victory, planning my holiday trip, writing my dissertation proposal and also working on a paper that eventually I’ll present in England next year. But don’t worry. I haven’t stopped cooking. In fact, I have some nice ideas for the holiday season. Also, for my B-day I got a stand mixer! And I’ve already baked some panettone!

In addition, and while I find time to post some recipes, I have to tell you that my Italian clam chowder (which I made for last Christmas) is on the Nov/Dec issue of Tastes of Italia magazine. You’ll find it among the readers’ favorite recipes. And mine was selected as the featured one!

Fresh and tangy shrimp, olive and arugula salad

2008-10-27T19:44:00.001-04:00

This is another extremely simple idea for a salad.

Ingredients
Fresh shrimp, cleaned
Stuffed green olives
Baby Arugula
Freshly squeezed lemon juice
Olive oil
Salt

Cook the shrimp in salted boiling water over medium heat for about 3 minutes until the shrimp turn pink. Let the shrimp cool. To create your salad, just mix the cooled shrimp with olives and arugula. Add a touch of coarse salt, and drizzle with a nice quantity of olive oil and lots of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Tip
Stuffed green olives are a very common snack in Italy and Spain. Usually they are stuffed with red peppers, almonds or anchovies!

Luxurious duck and chickpea salad

2008-10-23T18:12:00.001-04:00

This is an incredibly chic salad that’s ready in no time. Preparing duck is very easy, but you have to eat it rare or medium rare. I know how afraid North Americans get when it comes to eating nearly raw food. But trust me, you’ll just love duck!

Ingredients
2 duck breasts
2 cups mixed mushrooms (crimini and oyster)
1 can chickpeas
Freshly squeezed lemon juice
Olive oil
Thyme, salt and pepper

Before cooking the duck, with a sharp knife cut the duck breasts on the skin side in a crisscross pattern. Your cuts must be deep enough to almost get into the meat, taking care to not actually touch the meat. We want the duck to lose the fat in the skin while it’s cooking, but we don’t want to lose the juices. Sprinkle the skin side of the duck with some coarse salt and pepper. In a skillet, sauté the duck with a light touch of olive oil for about 3 minutes over medium-high heat, on the skin side first. When the skin is nice, golden and crunchy, sprinkle some salt on the meat side and turn the duck. Sauté the duck breasts for about 7 minutes over medium heat. In the meantime, drain and wash the chickpeas. To warm them up, use your microwave oven or quickly sauté them in a skillet (you can even rinse them using hot water).

When the duck is ready, take it out of the skillet and wait for about 2 minutes before cutting. Use the same skillet to sauté the mushrooms until nice and golden brown. Cut the duck into nice chunks, and put these on top of the chickpeas and mushrooms. Drizzle with a generous quantity of olive oil and lemon juice, and some salt and fresh thyme.

Tip
Even though you could eat this salad cold, you can appreciate the flavors better when it’s eaten warm.

Piquant prosciutto crudo, ricotta, limone candito e rucola panini

2008-10-20T21:19:00.002-04:00

French baguette is an all time classic for a sandwich, even in Italy. But if you’re using classic bread, a nice idea is to let your creativity work on choosing what to put inside. Prosciutto crudo (simply called prosciutto in North America) has a savory quality that pairs well with creamy ricotta cheese. Arugula gives freshness and peppery flavor. Finally, canditi di limone or Italian candied lemon peel completes the sandwich with an interesting zing.

Ingredients (for 2 sandwiches)
1 medium sized baguette
6 paper-thin slices prosciutto
1/3 cup ricotta cheese
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp candied lemon peel

Slice the baguette in half lengthwise. Mix the ricotta cheese with the olive oil and candied lemon peel. Simply put the slices of prosciutto on one half of the baguette. On top, spread the ricotta mixture. Add the arugula and a touch of coarse salt. Close your sandwich.

Italian-Canadian picnic

2008-10-17T21:32:00.006-04:00

When fall colors are at their best and you’re lucky enough to have a sunny day, you then have the perfect setting for an Italian-Canadian picnic. We went to gorgeous Parc National de la Mauricie in Quebec, about an hour and a half from both Montreal and Quebec City.

So, what are the staples for an Italian-Canadian picnic? Please take note:

Fresh and tangy shrimp, olive and arugula salad
Luxurious duck and chickpea salad
Piquant prosciutto crudo, ricotta, limone candito e rucola panini
Wholesome prosciutto cotto e formaggio panini
Bright and pungent crostini with black olive tapenade
Crostini with melt-in-your-mouth French paté de foie
Luscious French brioche bread with strawberry and blueberry jam
At least 3 different kinds of cheese
A whole salame, salty almonds, hazelnuts and Italian chips
Decadent and chocolaty crostata al cioccolato
Smooth, full-bodied and fruity French-Canadian ice cider

Whole wheat penne alla boscaiola, Lombardy style

2008-10-15T21:32:00.005-04:00

In Italy, fall is a synonym for fresh mushrooms. In the forest, under the falling leaves, the best mushrooms – usually Porcini mushrooms, the ones that we can find dried in North America – are waiting to be picked and eaten. When you use mushrooms in a sauce, in Italian we call it boscaiola, because it reminds you of the bosco or the gorgeous northern Italian forests.

Ingredients
1 pound whole wheat penne
4 cups crimini mushrooms
2 cups fresh cherry tomatoes
2 shallots
1 garlic clove
1 bunch fresh rosemary
½ cup red wine
Olive oil
Salt, pepper
Grana Padano cheese

Clean and quarter the mushrooms. Mince the shallots. In a saucepan with olive oil over medium heat, sauté the shallots for a couple of minutes. Add the garlic clove, minced. Add the mushrooms and sauté them for about 5 minutes until nice and brown. Pour the wine into the sauce. Add the tomatoes. Season the sauce with salt, pepper and the rosemary. Let the sauce simmer for about 20 minutes. Cook the pasta. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and toss into the saucepan. Serve with Grana Padano cheese.

Traditional Panzanella salad

2008-10-05T20:56:00.009-04:00

So, what do our beloved Queen of Canada and Italian cuisine have in common? Well, in Italian cuisine we hate to throw things away, just as HCM Elizabeth does (or as she commands – have you ever heard about how lovely she finds it when new dishes are created using leftovers in Her royal kitchen?). So, did you roast a chicken? Use the bones to make chicken broth! Do you have leftover risotto? Make arancine! Do you have stale bread? Make a Tuscan panzanella salad!

Ingredients
About 4 thick slices of old bread
½ red onion, sliced
2 large ripe tomatoes
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 cucumber, sliced
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
1 garlic clove (optional)
Basil
Olive oil
Salt, pepper

Traditionally, the bread is soaked in water for about 20 or 30 minutes (a step you could skip if your bread is just 1 day old). I personally don’t like that, since I don’t like the idea of tasting water in my salad. So, I prefer to quickly moisten the bread under running water. Then the bread will wonderfully absorb all the flavors of all the different ingredients, especially the tomatoes and the olive oil.

Using your hands, crumble the softened bread and put it in a bowl. Over the bread put the tomatoes, cut in wedges. Add some salt and the vinegar, and stir. Add the sliced cucumber, onion and celery. Add olive oil, and a touch of salt and pepper. Stir and put the salad in the fridge for about 20 minutes. Serve with basil.

Tips
I used a nice basil and parmesan bread. It gave more flavor.

Branching out
Fancy panzanella salad

PS

Please note there's one more thing in common. HCM stands for Her Canadian Majesty. And me, I write about HCM in my dissertation... however, my HCM stands for Hybrid Choice Models... God save the Queen!

Pesto alla Genovese

2008-10-03T21:34:00.004-04:00

There’s nothing more Genovese than pesto. This specialty from Liguria calls for sweet basil, spicy garlic, strong tasty pecorino cheese, nutty parmigiano cheese and crunchy pine nuts. Then, every ingredient is carefully pounded in a mortar (pestare in Italian means to pound) and emulsified with fruity olive oil. The Italian Consorzio del pesto Genovese is fighting to obtain the DOP label for pesto. They decree the rules for pesto Genovese, which include DOP Genovese basil (especially the one cultivated in Pra’ – a neighborhood in Genoa), Ligurian olive oil (olive oil from neighboring regions is also OK), DOP cheeses (Grana Padano or Parmigiano Reggiano, and Pecorino Sardo, Romano, Toscano or Siciliano), and Mediterranean pine nuts. A pesto which doesn’t follow the rules exactly should not be referred to as pesto Genovese, but it could be called pesto alla Genovese (pesto in the style of Genoa).

Following the official traditional recipe, here’s my pesto alla Genovese

Ingredients
3 cups fresh small-leaved basil
3 Tbsp Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, grated
3 Tbsp Pecorino Sardo cheese, grated
2 cloves of garlic 1 Tbsp pine nuts
½ - ¾ cup olive oil
Pinch of coarse salt

In a marble mortar, crush one garlic clove using a pestle. Add some coarse salt and continue crushing until creamy. Add about 1 handful of the basil, and pound the pesto with careful circular movements. Add the second clove of garlic, crush it, and then add another handful of the basil. Continue pounding and adding the basil by handfuls. When the basil gets a vivid green color, add the pine nuts. Once the pine nuts are incorporated into the pesto, add the grated cheeses and stir with a wooden spoon. Add the olive oil in a thin steady stream and continue stirring.

I know that in Liguria each casalinga (housewife) has her own recipe of pesto. So the proportions of cheese, pine nuts and garlic vary from one house to another. The same thing happens with some of the techniques. However, based on the DOP standards, I’ll write some facts about pesto that will destroy common misleading conceptions:

1. Too much garlic is not OK. I’d say this is the most common error when people prepare their own pesto, and it’s also true for the pesto made by many store brands and Italian-American restaurants. Pesto is above all a basil-based sauce. Garlic should be there, but it shouldn’t be the protagonist of this story.
2. Other-herbs-pesto pesto-like sauces are not real pesto. Spinach pesto? Parsley pesto? Sun dried tomato pesto (very common nowadays in America)? None of them are known in Liguria, and none of them would be named pesto in Italy. I’m not saying they aren’t good, because they are. But they are not pesto, but rather pesto-like sauces.
3. Pesto does not call for toasted pine nuts. It’s true that by toasting the pine nuts you enhance the flavor: but this is exactly the problem. You don’t want to enhance this nutty flavor; you want to add texture and the delicate taste of untoasted pine nuts, which will soften and neutralize the strong taste of garlic.
4. Pesto is a cold sauce for hot or warm dishes. Pesto should always be served cold on hot dishes. The heat of the pasta or soup will activate the aromas present in the basil and cheese (and will partially melt the cheese, resulting in an even creamier texture). Traditional pesto can be strong, garlicky, oily and slightly bitter if it is eaten cold, and you don’t want that.
5. Lemon juice on pesto?! Sometimes people outside Italy do that, especially in a salad. This step is not necessary because pesto should be eaten warmed (not cooked), as stated before.
6. Not every basil is suitable for pesto. The traditional recipe calls for DOP Genovese Basil, which grows under certain conditions (of the soil, of the humidity that comes from the shore, and of the Mediterranean sun) and has particular chemical properties. You should avoid basil with leaves that are too big, but above all avoid mint-tasting basil!
7. Pesto is made combining grana cheese (like Parmigiano Reggiano) and pecorino (sheep) cheese. Some recipes of non-Italian chefs suggest using only Parmigiano Reggiano, as if it were the only Italian cheese. But people from Liguria, who were sailors, had commercial contacts with the island of Sardinia, so they brought Pecorino Sardo cheese from Sardinia to Genoa for centuries. So the addition of pecorino cheese has both historical and practical implications. The strong salty flavor of Pecorino Sardo will mix very well with the nutty flavor of Parmigiano Reggiano, resulting in a perfect pesto.

Tips

If you use your food processor, use just a few pulses because if you warm up the basil it will cause oxidation and the basil will taste bitter, and we don’t want that.

DOP and DOC what?

2008-10-03T21:27:00.002-04:00

In Italy, now there’s a tendency to define the original and true recipe of Italian staples: the original recipe of pesto Genovese, the true and only one ragù alla Bolognese recipe, the ultimate Neapolitan pizza, and so on. In its very conception, this search is a contradiction with the soul of Italian cuisine. In fact, it’s impossible to choose only one recipe because in Italy each region, each town, each village and each mamma has their very own recipes.

However, and as an undesirable consequence of its globalization, Italian cuisine has suffered immensely from the worldwide appearance of veritable impostors that don’t do any justice to the real McCoy. As a way to respond to this deterioration that harms the reputation and – more important – the taste of Italian traditional recipes, some groups claim they have the original and unique recipe and they fight to impose this way of producing as being the only one. When this happens, you’ll see the famous Italian labels DOP and DOC. DOP means Denominazione di Origine Protetta (Protected Designation of Origin, mostly used for local produce of a specific region as well as for traditional processed products), while DOC stands for Denominazione di Origine Controllata (Controlled Designation of Origin, which is used mostly for wines).

What I like about this idea is that they do indeed set the standards for industrial production, ensuring that even if you’re in America, Canada or anywhere else outside Italy, you can be sure you’ll be purchasing something that’s very close to the thing that mamma Giuseppa and aunt Ernestina prepare following their own traditions, and that uncle Carmelo grows in his garden.

Some DOP Italian products:

Modena Balsamic vinegar, Emilia Romagna
Genovese Basil, Liguria
Chianti Classico Olive Oil, Tuscany
Gorgonzola cheese, Piemonte and Lombardy
Mozzarella di Bufala Campana, Campania and Lazio
San Marzano Tomatoes, Campania
Prosciutto di Parma, Emilia Romagna
Parmigiano Romano Cheese, Emilia Romagna and Lombardy
Pecorino Romano Cheese, Tuscany, Lazio and Sardinia

Mozzarella and Neapolitan pizza are both considered STG (specialità tradizionale garantita or guaranteed traditional specialty), which sets traditional standards for a product that are associated with a specific region, while the production itself is not restricted to that region.

The Consorzio del pesto Genovese is fighting to obtain the DOP label for pesto.

Tip
There’s also DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita – Guaranteed Controlled Designation of Origin) which has higher standards than DOC. I know it’s complicated.

Lac Saint-Jean and the Saguenay fjord

2008-09-30T21:07:00.007-04:00

A wonderful region to visit in Quebec is Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, with its wonderful lake and the magnificent fjord which connects the lake with the Saint Lawrence river. A couple of weeks ago we had a quick getaway to this area, which is not terribly far from Quebec City. Driving up about 3 hours from Quebec City, and after taking a free ride in a ferry crossing the Saguenay river, you get to the nice town of Tadoussac. Once in Tadoussac you can take different cruises, either through the fjord or to watch whales if you prefer!

The whole area has plenty of attractions, but as I told you (and you can read about this here) this region is famous for its blueberries! And it’s also famous for the early 20th century and ultimate Québécois novel ‘Maria Chapdelaine – A Tale of the Lake St. John Country’ written by French author Louis Hémon:

“The forests of Quebec are rich in wild berries; cranberries, Indian pears, black currants, sarsaparilla spring up freely in the wake of the great fires, but the blueberry, the bilberry or whortleberry of France, is of all the most abundant and delicious. The gathering of them, from July to September, is an industry of many families who spend the whole day in the woods; strings of children down to the tiniest go swinging their tin pails, empty in the morning, full and heavy by evening. Others only gather the blueberries for their own use, either to make jam or the famous pies national to French Canada” wrote Hémon in his book. So, what better way could you think of to experience Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean than by baking one of these famous pies?

PS
Incredibly enough, it was my first time sailing through a fjord. Why is that so incredible? Well, because I grew up in Chile, which has plenty of fjords in its southern part. In fact, Chilean Patagonia is just one fjord after another, just like Norway!

Maria Chapdelaine’s tarte aux bleuets

2008-09-30T21:01:00.004-04:00

This is the ultimate Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean blueberry pie (or traditional tarte aux bleuets in French). Easy to make, wonderful to taste!

Ingredients
4 cups blueberries
½ cup sugar
2 Tbsp flour
2 Tbsp butter
Pie dough (enough for one double crust pie)

Roll out just a little bit more than half of the dough over a pie mold enough to make a pie shell. Fill the shell with the blueberries. Sprinkle with the sugar and flour, and place some cubes of butter on top. Cover with the rest of the dough, making about 3 holes in the top of the pie. Bake in a 400F preheated oven for about 50 minutes or until the pie turns nice and golden brown.

Tip
This is a traditional Québécois recipe, but I’m sure people from Alto Adige in Italy would love my crostata ai mirtilli!

Sword fish, oven roasted beets and sautéed beet greens

2008-09-28T20:33:00.002-04:00

Ok. I know some people hate beets because they think beets taste just like dirt. If you’re one of these people, skip this recipe.

Ingredients
4 big sword fish steaks (about 1” thick)
4 large beets
1 handful fresh rosemary
1 Tbsp butter Olive oil (about 3 Tbsp)
Italian parsley
Salt, pepper
2 lemons

Scrub the beets to clean them. Remove both ends, and cut the bulbs into wedges (about 6). Put the beets on aluminum foil. Drizzle with olive oil (about 1 Tbsp). Add salt, pepper and fresh rosemary. Wrap with aluminum foil and bake in a preheated 400F oven for about 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until soft. During the last 10 minutes you can open the aluminum foil and put the beets under the broiler until caramelized. Once ready, peel the beets.

Wash the beet greens, dry them well and chop. About an hour after you put the beets in the oven, sauté the chopped greens with melted butter (1 Tbsp) and olive oil (1 Tbsp). Add salt and pepper.

To prepare the swordfish, season it with salt and pepper. In a saucepan with olive oil, sauté the fish over medium heat about 7 minutes per side. Mix the beets and beet greens. Cut the fish into cubes and put the cubes over the beets. Drizzle with lots of lemon juice and a nice touch of olive oil. You can add some chopped parsley if you like.

No sugar added golden honeydew melon yogurt gelato

2008-09-25T21:26:00.001-04:00

A long name for a fabulous treat! Honeydew melons are so sweet and juicy I think you don’t need to add any sugar. Of course you can taste it and if you prefer you could sweeten this gelato just a bit.

Ingredients
3 cups golden honeydew melon
2 cups plain yogurt

Combine the melon with the yogurt using an electric blender. Then pour the mixture into your ice cream machine and let the machine do its work. Wait… that’s it? Sure! It can’t get any easier than this!

Tortellini al ragù express

2008-09-24T21:18:00.002-04:00

This one is a quick and easy recipe to get closer to pasta the real Bolognese way. In Bologna, fresh pasta is always accompanied with a rich and thick sauce called ragù in Italian, which in a way is more like a stew than a sauce. In this recipe, I’ll use an Italian secret to prepare a wonderful meal: we’ll use the meat of Italian sausages instead of ground meat. What’s the deal? The sausage contains spices which give a lot of flavor without the fuss!

Ingredients
1 pound tortellini (I used spinach tortellini)
1 cup celery, chopped
1 cup carrots, chopped
1 ½ - 2 cups unpeeled Italian sausages (veal and pork would be great)
½ red onion, chopped
½ cup red wine
2 ripe tomatoes, cubed
1 small can San Marzano tomatoes (about 13 oz), crushed
Salt, pepper, peperoncino
Olive oil (about 1 Tbsp)
Grana Padano cheese, grated for serving

First, peel the Italian sausages: we want what’s inside them. In a saucepan, sauté the sausage meat until slightly brown. Remove the meat but keep in the saucepan the grease that came out of the meat while it was sautéed. Sauté the onion, the celery and the carrots, making a soffritto. Add salt, pepper, and some peperoncino (you could use hot Italian sausages, but if you use the mild ones, you can control how spicy you make your ragù by adding peperoncino or Italian red pepper flakes). Put the sautéed meat back in the saucepan. Stir, and after a couple of minutes add the red wine. Add the tomatoes. Simmer for about 15 minutes and then add the crushed San Marzano tomatoes. Cook for about 30 minutes over medium heat and stirring occasionally.

Boil the tortellini in salted boiling water until al dente (about 5 minutes for fresh tortellini). Drain the tortellini and pour them into the saucepan with the ragù. Give a quick stir and serve with Grana Padano cheese.

Tips
When cooking with celery, always add a bit of the celery leaves, chopped. It adds more flavor. In this recipe I even put some chopped leaves on top!

Why did I call this my express ragù if it’s not ready in less than 30 minutes? Well, everything will be ready in less than 1 hour. And real Bolognese ragù takes about 4 hours!

Crostini capresi

2008-09-23T20:41:00.001-04:00

Why is it that the combination tomato-basil-mozzarella is so recurrent in Italian cuisine? Because it’s like the perfect abstract of the Italian approach: simplicity tastes awesome! You can find this combination cold – as in a traditional caprese salad – or hot – as in a traditional pizza margherita. Hot or cold, it always recalls Campania and the Neapolitan love for tomatoes. And with such a simple combination, you’ll never forget another lesson: Italian cuisine calls for the best ingredients. Use finest and sweetest fresh ripe tomatoes, fresh and creamy mozzarella di bufala campana, sweet small-leaved basil and high quality Italian extra-virgin olive oil and you’ll taste a piece of heaven. Use bad ingredients, and you’ll be condemned to taste plain mediocrity.

An excellent way to make a twist on caprese salad, is by preparing my crostini capresi.

Ingredients
1 loaf of a nice bread, like a basil and parmigiano sourdough bread
Ripe grape and cherry tomatoes, different colors and sizes
Fresh mozzarella di bufala campana cheese
Basil
1 garlic clove
Olive oil

Slice the bread into ½ - 1/3 inch slices. To make your Italian toasts (called crostini), drizzle the slices with a nice touch of olive oil and grill or bake until the bread turns nice and golden brown (about 8 minutes in a 400F oven – I used my Panini grill for about 5 minutes). Meanwhile, quarter the tomatoes, cut the mozzarella cheese into cubes, and mix them both with some basil leaves. Add a nice amount of olive oil, salt and pepper to this caprese salad. When the bread is ready, rub the garlic on the bread. Put the crostini on a serving plate and then put the caprese salad on top. With a fork (or your hand), slightly crush the tomatoes over the crostini: we want the crostini to absorb the tomato juices and the olive oil. Enjoy!

Italian hotdog

2008-09-17T21:24:00.003-04:00

Is there such thing as an Italian hotdog? I’m sure your answer will be something like “no way”. Then I have to tell you that in Northern Italy, especially around Bolzano in Alto Adige, you can find German Italians. And they love their Würstel, which are German hotdog sausages. In any piazza in Alto Adige you’ll always find a kiosk with a grill selling grilled Würstel, sometimes in a bun especially made so you can insert the sausage without cutting the bread! And mustard and sauerkraut are always the best companions for a Würstel.

So I was thinking about a revisited version of the Würstel you can find in Bolzano. First, instead of a hotdog or frankfurter, what could be better than an Italian pork and veal sausage!? Choose hot or sweet, and try the very long ones for a super hotdog. Grill your sausage to perfection (for about 10-12 minutes). For the bread, find a sourdough baguette, which you’ll open and grill for a couple of minutes. Moisten, rubbing it with halved tomatoes.

And substitute radicchio for sauerkraut. Serve with mustard and a grilled peach and plum salad!

Grilled radicchio
2 small heads of radicchio, quartered
Red wine vinegar (about 4 Tbsp)
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Brush the quarters of radicchio with some olive oil and grill for about 2 or 3 minutes. Shred the radicchio and let it cool in the vinegar.

Grilled peach and plum salad
Fresh picked peaches and plums, halved or quartered
Your favorite greens

Grill the peaches and plums on each side for about 3 minutes. Serve warm over the greens, together with a mustard-based vinaigrette.

Vinaigrette
3 Tbsp wine vinegar
1 tsp honey
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp mustard
¼ cup olive oil
Salt and pepper

Tips

Interestingly enough, in Chile they have their own Italian hotdog, which has mashed avocado, tomato and mayonnaise. So, why is it Italian? Is it the tomatoes? Well, not quite... avocado is green, tomatoes are red, mayo is white (kind of)... Got it? It’s because of the colors of the Italian flag! A regular Chilean hotdog has sauerkraut and beer mustard (again the German influence).

Frutti di bosco jam – or how to make raspberry jam without pectin

2008-09-13T20:46:00.003-04:00

I told you that in Italy people don’t add pectin to their jams, because fruits have their own pectin that will naturally thicken your jam. But you can’t do that with raspberries. Don’t ask me why, because I have no idea why. At least I know that if you try to make raspberry jam the Italian way, you’ll finish with raspberry syrup. However, one lovely way to make raspberry jam without pectin is to use raspberries combined with other fruits. Brilliant, isn’t it? Plus, you’ll have Italian frutti di bosco jam!

Ingredients
7-8 cups of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries
3 cups sugar

For this jam use about 2½ cups of raspberries and any combination you like of strawberries and blueberries until you reach about 7 cups in total. In a bowl, put the blueberries, then the raspberries and finally quartered strawberries. Add the sugar and put in the fridge overnight. The next day, gently stir the fruit and you’ll see that the natural juices are dissolving the sugar. And without any water added!

Pour the mixture in a saucepan over medium heat, and let it simmer for about 30 minutes or until the desired consistency is reached. Transfer to a sterilized jar and let it cool.

Crostata di fragole

2008-09-11T20:56:00.004-04:00

This strawberry crostata is one of the simplest pies you can make!

Ingredients
Crostata dough enough for 1 pie shell
1 ½ cup amaretti cookies, crushed
2 cups strawberries, halved
2 Tbsp sugar

Roll out the dough over a pie mold. Crush the amaretti cookies with your hands and fill the pie with them. Set the strawberries on top of the cookie layer. Sprinkle with sugar and bake in a 375F oven for about 45 minutes or until the edges of the pie become nice and golden. The strawberry juices fill be absorbed by the cookies, so the strawberries might look a bit dry. If that happens, you could brush them with a bit of strawberry jam dissolved in a little bit of warm water.

Italian Cheese Kuchen

2008-09-07T21:36:00.004-04:00

I told you that in Chile there’s a long tradition of German pies or Kuchen. Well, in Southern Chile there’s a cheesecake called “Kuchen de quesillo” in Spanish, which is the Chilean version of the German Käsekuchen. So, even if in North America you really know how to make luscious cheesecakes, I wanted to create my own version of the German-Chilean cheesecake, adding that extra Italian touch I love. What you finally get is an Italian-German-Chilean cheesecake, or Italian-American-Chilean Käsekuchen… or Italian Cheese Kuchen… or put simply, a scrumptious treat!

Ingredients
1 graham cracker pie shell
8 oz mascarpone cheese
½ cup blackberry jam
1 can condensed milk
2 egg yolks
1 egg

In a bowl, beat the mascarpone cheese until creamy. Add the condensed milk and stir well. Add the egg and the egg yolks. Stir until everything is incorporated. Add the blackberry jam and give a quick stir. Pour the mixture into the crust. Bake in a 350F preheated oven for about 45 minutes. Broil for a couple of minutes until the top of the Kuchen turns golden brown. Enjoy!

Blackberry Jam

2008-09-07T21:00:00.000-04:00

For an express blackberry jam, follow the same instructions as for making my express blueberry jam, but substitute blackberries for blueberries. If you use the blackberry jam for my Italian Cheese Kuchen, I suggest you use 3 cups of sugar.

Fiori di zucca

2008-09-06T20:28:00.004-04:00

Zucchini flowers are not just pretty. They are so incredibly pretty that some Italian thought we should eat them. And he or she was totally right: these flowers are gorgeous and edible! And their flavor is awesome. Since Italians love fried food, one of the best ways to eat zucchini flowers is by sautéing them in a generous quantity of oil. You can use an egg-based batter, but I think they get even crispier when using only flour!

Ingredients
Zucchini flowers (3 or 4 per person is a good number)
Flour
Coarse salt
Olive oil (about ½ cup for 12 flowers)

Wash the flowers and without drying them put the flowers directly into the flour. Roll to coat. In a frying pan with the olive oil, sauté the flowers in batches, 3 or 4 at a time. Fry for about 1 minute or until golden. Let them dry over paper towels and sprinkle with salt.

La crema poverina: true and fake espresso

2008-09-02T20:40:00.006-04:00

It is always easy for an Italian to recognize a good espresso. It has to be full of flavor and aroma (aroma, corpo, gusto and retrogusto), and it has to have hazelnut-colored foam on top. This foam is called crema in Italian. When your espresso has crema, it means that the barista (the guy who works in an Italian bar with the necessary skills to make a flawless coffee) did a good job: the temperature and pressure on the espresso machine was set in order to perfectly extract the natural oils present in the coffee beans. These oils are extracted only with the right high pressure and temperature combo, which ensures emulsification of the coffee in a very quick brewing process. And these oils are the real difference between espresso and a regular cup of coffee. It’s not how concentrated it is, or how tiny the shot is: it’s all about the oils. And when the oils are present, the crema is there too!

I’m always surprised when I see that some corporate cafés in America offer espresso that are huge and – worse – without crema!

Well, all these things being said, I already told you that nobody in Italy has a huge and expensive espresso machine in their homes (well, maybe some do), but Italians always have their moka pots! One of the FAQs about moka pots is how to obtain crema in your espresso. And I told you. You can’t. Some people have tried everything: hot water instead of cold water, mineral water, pressing the coffee in the funnel, more coffee in the funnel, less coffee in the funnel… And no, you can’t. I know it can be very frustrating. Above all, because when the coffee is coming out, you can actually see some crema coming out. But this crema is too weak to survive, poverina!

So, you have to learn to live with the fact that stovetop espresso doesn’t have crema… OR you can use a little Italian trick to trick yourself. In an espresso cup put some sugar (about 6 tsp for 4 shots of espresso). Use the first drops of coffee that begin to come out in your moka pot. Pour a couple of drops in the cup with the sugar. Stir quickly until a dense caramel-colored cream forms (the sugar has to partly dissolve, use another couple of drops of coffee if you need to). When your coffee is ready, use this cream to sweeten your coffee and to give a nice touch of fake crema!

Grilled tuna with mâche salad

2008-08-30T21:06:00.003-04:00

A nice way to celebrate this Labor Day weekend is by hitting the grill one more time before the end of summer. Tuna is perfect for grilling, and it takes almost no time to prepare.

Ingredients
4 Tuna steaks
Juice of 1 lemon
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 Tbsp Olive oil
1 lemon, cut into quarters
Italian parsley
Salt, pepper

Wash and dry the tuna steaks. Prepare a quick marinade using the lemon juice, olive oil and garlic. Let the tuna steak marinate for about 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper, and grill the tuna for about 2 minutes per side if you like it rare. Serve with a grilled lemon wedge and chopped Italian parsley. You can use the lemon quarters to add fresh juice over your tuna steaks.

You can serve it with a grilled watermelon and mâche salad. Mâche is a very popular green in France. In fact, it was king Louis XIV who loved it and made it a must in French cuisine. For this salad, grill some nice watermelon chunks for a couple of minutes, and then put the warm watermelon on top of the mâche. Dress simply by adding lemon juice and olive oil.

Tip
Tuna is very popular in the islands of Sicily and Sardinia.

Peach yogurt gelato

2008-08-28T20:37:00.003-04:00

This recipe is incredibly tasty, and so easy to make! In fact, you don’t have to cook anything!

Ingredients
3 cups sliced peaches
1 cup almond syrup
2 cups yogurt

Slice 3 nice fresh peaches. In an electric blender put the yogurt, 1 cup of orzata or Italian almond syrup, and the sliced peaches. Blend for just a couple of seconds. Then make the yogurt gelato using your ice cream machine! A nice serving idea is to put a dollop over a peach or apricot ciambella or Italian doughnut.

Almonds pair exceptionally well with the flavor of peaches or apricots. The reason is simple. Have you ever seen an almond tree or the fruit from where almonds are extracted? Maybe you’ve seen the nut-like thing that you can find inside the pit of an apricot or peach – or maybe you’ve heard of apricot kernels… Well, almonds, peaches and apricots are extremely closely related because they are all part of the same botanical family. But in the case of almonds we want to eat the nut, which is not really a nut, and in the case of apricots and peaches we want to eat the fruit.

Tip
Look for orzata and ciambelle in your local Italian store.

The Chilean lake district

2008-08-19T21:50:00.005-04:00

If you ever visit Chile, one of the things you have to do is go south. One of the most impressive parts of Chile is Patagonia, and the gate to Patagonia is the Chilean lake district. Germans were the first Europeans to settle in the lake region in southern Chile around 1850. They transformed this wild area – covered by a dense temperate rainforest – into a very productive land, where dairy products became a staple. The weather is like Seattle or Vancouver, and the landscape reminds you a bit of Switzerland: there are gorgeous mountains, majestic lakes, cute German-like towns… and snow-capped volcanoes! There are plenty of things to do, especially outdoor activities – hiking, trekking, kayaking… – because an important part of the temperate rainforest is still there, and it’s the only place in South America where you can find that!

And if it’s raining, a very likely event to happen (just ask someone from Vancouver), the best thing you can do is to have some Kuchen. I love Kuchen, which is like the Chilean crostata or pie. If you know some German you surely know that Kuchen means cake in German, so it’s kind of funny that the ultimate Chilean cake has a German name. Kuchen is so popular you can find it everywhere in Chile, even in every supermarket and of course in every bakery. But if you want to have the real thing you must eat it in places like Frutillar, Nueva Braunau, or Puerto Octay, where the historic houses still evoke the German colonization.

Tips

Another thing you have to know is that when it’s summer here in the northern hemisphere, it’s winter down there. Pretty obvious, but just in case…

Branching Out
Italian-Chilean peach Kuchen

Italian-Chilean Peach Kuchen

2008-08-19T21:29:00.002-04:00

You can experience the tradition of Chilean Kuchen with this recipe, which is based on an Italian filling for crostata.

Ingredients
1 pie shell

Filling
4 cups sliced peaches
1 stick butter, room temperature
½ cup flour
2 Tbsp corn starch
½ cup + 2 Tbsp sugar
1 egg
2 egg yolks

Beat the butter with the sugar. Add the egg and egg yolks and mix until everything is incorporated. Add the flour and the corn starch and mix well. Pour this batter into the pie shell. Add the peaches and bake in a 325F pre-heated oven for about 35 minutes or until golden brown. Chileans always eat Kuchen cold, but you also can eat it warm and with ice cream!

Peach picking

2008-08-15T22:03:00.006-04:00

OK. Blueberry picking is fun, but a couple of weeks ago I was in Virginia and I went peach picking. This brings back so many memories to me. When I was a child, we had an enormous peach tree in our garden. My mom and I used to put a ladder next to the tree and we climbed together to select the ripe peaches and cook a lot of good stuff: jams and preserves, pies, fruit salads, smoothies... And we ate peaches all summer long, and we had so many peaches – because our tree was so big – that we were able to give boxes full of peaches to our neighbors. So for me nothing says more the-peak-of-summer than peaches!

It’s also nice to write about this today, because today is ferragosto (the August holiday, or the fairs of Augustus from Latin feriæ Augusti), the peak of summer in Italy, when the church celebrates the assumption of the Virgin, and Italians empty the cities and crowd the beaches. While for the Catholic Church this date commemorates when Mary fell asleep and then the angels took her into Heaven, for Italians this date marks the end of hard labor in the fields – like peach picking – and the time to have a getaway, swimsuit always included.

Branching Out
Italian-Chilean peach Kuchen
Peach yogurt gelato

Ricotta blueberry muffins

2008-08-13T22:26:00.003-04:00

Have you ever had ricotta muffins? Ricotta is a cheese, but ricotta muffins aren’t cheesy at all. They are moist, soft and tender. And ricotta is a very good match for blueberries, so why not give my ricotta blueberry muffins a try?

Ingredients
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp baking soda
¾ cup ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1 stick of butter, room temperature
2 tsp orange blossom water
Lemon and orange zest
Pinch of salt

Mix the dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. In another bowl, make a batter with the sugar and the butter. Add the eggs to the batter one by one, and then add the ricotta, the lemon and orange zest, and the orange blossom water. Mix the flour and the batter together. Add the blueberries and mix with care: we don’t want to turn our batter blue by mashing the blueberries. Preheat the oven to 350F. Use some cooking spray on your muffin pan, and then scoop the batter into the pan. Sprinkle some sugar on top. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, until the muffins turn golden.

Blueberry picking

2008-08-10T11:57:00.007-04:00

It’s not news that I love blueberries. And by an odd coincidence I moved from the largest producer in the southern hemisphere – Chile, to one of the largest producers in the world – Quebec. Quebec as a whole is the largest producer of wild blueberries, while Maine holds first place as the largest world producer. The “problem” with Quebec is that fruit season comes really late. But, the further south you go from Quebec city, the sooner you can pick blueberries. In fact, I picked some nice blueberries in Vermont at the very beginning of July, about a month before the blueberry festival in Dolbeau-Mistassini, QC. This latter city, which is located in the Lac Saint-Jean area north of Quebec City, is known in the province of Quebec as the blueberry capital of the world. In fact, people from that region are known as bleuets, which is the word in Canadian French for blueberries. The lac Saint-Jean area is just gorgeous, and the impressive lake is connected to the Saint-Lawrence river through the Saguenay fjord. The area became prominent in blueberry production because of an accident. There was a big fire that destroyed the trees. But after the fire, blueberries bushes – which grow very fast – appeared everywhere around the lake. So, wild blueberries became the staple of the region’s economy.

Blueberries are called mirtilli in Italian, and people in the north of Italy (especially in Trentino Alto Adige, Friuli, and Valle d’Aosta) use mirtilli in jams and preserves, usually mixed with other berries in what Italians call “frutti del bosco” (forest fruits).

Branching out
Blueberry jam
Blueberry gelato
Ricotta blueberry muffins
Crostata ai mirtilli
Frutti di bosco jam

Express blueberry jam

2008-08-10T11:36:00.004-04:00

In Italy, jams are widely known as marmellate, and they are not quite the same as what you find in America. Here in America, jams always – or at least very very often – have a jello texture to me. I found out that usually you make jam adding more pectin than the fruit naturally has. We don’t do that in Italy. We just mix fruit and sugar (often in a 1:1 relationship!), and let the natural pectin in the fruit work. The result is more intense and richer, and often more sweet, than standard American jam.

Ingredients
7 cups blueberries
4 cups sugar (3 cups if you want a less sweet version)
1/3 cup water

Put the water and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat and stir. Cook for 5-10 minutes or until a very subtle golden caramel is obtained. Add the blueberries and cook for at least 30 minutes. Usually Italian jams don’t use water, but you have to mix the sugar and fruit together and let the sugar dissolve into the natural juices of the fruit. With blueberries you have to crush the fruit and let the sugar act overnight. Once you’ve done that, cook for about 30 to 40 minutes over medium heat. Since I used water, I was able to make the jam right away – that’s why I called it my express blueberry jam. You can also add lemon juice instead of water. To test the jam, put a dollop on a cold plate. If the jam doesn’t spread and it gels, it’s ready.

Today, you can read the Italian word confettura on imported labels, which also means ‘jam’. There is no difference between confettura and marmellata. Marmellata was widely used, but today according to artificial European Union standards marmellata (marmalade) is made of citrus fruits (like orange marmalade), while confettura is reserved for other kinds of fruit.