The Sunny Kitchen - An Italian cook in Amsterdam

Summer lunch on the balcony - courgette flowers stuffed with lemon tagliolini

My mum is the BEST cook in the world, no doubt about it.
Don't ALL Italians say that? Well, I can assure you, in my case it's true. :)

Yesterday we had lunch on her balcony overlooking the lungomare (the beautiful promenade along the coast) of Bari to enjoy the little bit of available cool air and make the hot day more bearable.

She prepared a great primo piatto, delicate and yet very savoury: lovely zucchini flowers stuffed with lemon-flavoured tagliolini (the thinner version of the classic tagliatelle). An absolutely fantastic dish, perfect for that one-day-to-summer day.

After eating something like that we didn't need much more and had just a fresh caprese with oregano accompanied by some great porcini mushrooms in oil.

The wannabe sommelier chose a bottle of citrusy and bubbly Verduzzo-Prosecco frizzante delle Venezie IGT 2008 from Giordano that went perfectly well with the lemony taste of the tagliolini.
Ahem, "chose" is a big word. To tell the truth, nothing but the truth, it was the only bottle of wine my mum had in the fridge so it HAD to go perfectly well with the lemon pasta. ;)
The thing is... it actually did!

Here's the recipe, to be enjoyed as long as courgette flowers are available (which hopefully is going to be all summer long!).

Fiori di zucchina ripieni di tagliolini al limone

Serves 4

300 gr thin tagliolini
4-5 courgette flowers per person
40 gr. butter
2 big organic lemons
160 gr cream cheese or cooking cream
salt and black pepper

Wash the zucchini flowers briefly under the tap, open them delicately on one side so that they become strip-like, remove the fleshy pistils and lay the flowers on a clean kitchen cloth.

Melt the butter in a saucepan on a low fire but don't let it fry and get all golden brown.
Grate the lemon rind and mix it gently with the warm butter and the cream cheese in the saucepan. Set aside.

Cook the tagliolini in salted boiling water till only half cooked and drain.
Transfer the pasta in the saucepan and toss with the sauce. If you like, season with salt and black pepper to taste.

Take a forkful of tagliolini and roll it well on the fork. Use this little "nest" to stuff a courgette flower and proceed in the same way until all the flowers have been filled.
Enclose the little tagliolini rolls within each flower wrapping the flowers around the pasta. Lay the stuffed flowers in an oven dish and scatter a few pieces of butter all over them.

Cook for about 5 minutes in the pre-heated oven at 250°C and for 2 extra minutes under the grill.
Serve immediately.

 

 

Before going into the oven

 

  

Beautiful flowers

 

  

Miami or Bari? ;)

 

 

Me in my favourite type of mirror ;)

 

Bari, summer is already here...

Just arrived in Bari, Puglia.
We landed last night at 2.00 after a nice - and a bit delayed - flight with my friend Claudio, also living in Amsterdam and born in this beautiful southern Italian city to which I come back so often, lately.
My dog Mirtilla was sitting in a travel bag at my feet, panting a bit and looking a tad unhappy, but stoic enough to stay in the small bag for two hours without protesting, just looking at me from time to time to make sure I was still there.

This morning I got up early and took her out for a little walk along the shore - my mum is lucky enough to live in a beautiful apartment overlooking the famous (and sometimes infamous) "Pane e pomodoro" beach.
It's already soooo hot at eight in the morning that it's no good idea to take Mirtilla to the park to play with the ball, she would be panting and sweating after 2 minutes, so we'll wait till around sunset time.

At 8.30 the beach was already alive with people bathing, playing or just lying in the sun which, at this time, is already quite hot.
What a difference in temperature from the 15°C of Amsterdam yesterday evening when we left!
Here it's already summer and Mirtilla is not the only one who's panting now...

"Pane e pomodoro" beach this morning

 

 If you decide to drown after six it's your friggin' problem ;)

I DO like Mondays, the Boomtown Rats were WRONG big time (with BBQ sardines)

Since I started following the AIS sommelier course in Amsterdam my Monday evenings are sooo much nicer because there's always someone - one of my fellow students or moi - who organises some nice event: a dinner, a wine tasting or, like last Monday, a BBQ in a beautiful Amsterdam garden.

Iris invited us for a wonderful evening of eating good food, drinking excellent wines and being merry.

Victor was Master of The BBQ for the whole evening producing wonderfully juicy meat, Giovanni made grilled sardines (which I was too busy drinking wine to see how he made them so I'll give you my own personal recipe) and we all brought a bunch of GREAT bottles of wine to taste (doing a sommelier course you always have a great excuse to drink, haven't you?)

Thank you Iris! And yes, the Boomtown Rats were wrong.

Oh gawd, I'm dating myself. :)

 

 

 

Grilled sardines al limone

Serves 4

4 big sardines p.p.
A handful of garlic cloves
A small bunch of parsley
2 lemons
1-2 fresh red chilli peppers
Olive oil extra vergine
Salt and black pepper

Remove the heads of the sardines (if you do that with a movement from up to down as if you wanted to make them "nod" the guts will come off with the heads; at the same time, open the bellies with your thumb to make this easier).

Rinse the fish under cold tap water and marinate for half an hour with lemon juice, abundant olive oil, the finely chopped peppers and some peeled and sliced garlic cloves.
Fill the bellies with some parsley leaves and one garlic clove, remove the excess marinade and grill until nicely cooked.
If you want to protect the delicate meat of the smaller sardines (like the ones in the picture) put some tin foil between them and the grill.
Season with salt and pepper and serve hot.

Food, wine and the city: sommelier course and eating at Segugio

As I already said, I'm very glad to be back in Amsterdam and at the same time I would have loved to stay a few more days in Tuscany. They're both two of my favourite places on earth so most of the times it's very difficult to make a choice of where to be and for how long but, hey, I see it more as a privilege than a burden. :)
 
In a sense I HAD to come back immediately after my cooking holiday at Tuscan agriturismo Il cantastorie because last Monday we started the second level of the sommelier course organized by AIS (the Italian Sommelier Association) at the Amsterdam Hilton and if there's one thing I definitely want to avoid is missing some of the lessons. I just LOVE this course.

Our teacher during these first two days was Andrea Gori, a young sommelier from Florence who's already reached great levels of fame and professionality in the relatively short period that he's been working in the wine business. Andrea is an enthousiastic teacher and has a very interesting wine blog called Vino da Burde plus a restaurant in Florence called Trattoria da Burde that I hope to be visiting soon.

When he told me that he blogs what he's been doing, seeing and tasting mostly on the very night he's been to an event or has visited a new restaurant I felt a bit ashamed of my extremely slow "blogging pattern" and at the same time very inspired to - at least try and - do the same. So thank you Andrea for getting me here in front of my laptop so late at night sorting pictures and writing stuff I'll need to re-read in the morning 'cause I'm too sleepy to make some sense. ;)

After the first day of the course, dinner at Segugio with some of my fellow students followed.
Segugio is one of the best (and best known) Italian restaurants in Amsterdam, situated in the Utrechsestraat, one of my favourite Amsterdam streets for its many restaurants and original shops. The menu had been chosen for us by Emanuele Birtolo, studying to become AIS sommelier and working at Segugio.

The great kitchen staff guided by chef Fabio Ardu spoiled us with a crostino of self-made focaccia with buffalo mozzarella and a quite interesting bell pepper sauce, red mullet fillet on a bed of sea aster with baby fennel a butter-lemon sauce, a great - and very, very, VERY al dente - risotto with saffron and testùn (the lovely cheese from the Piedmont region), some temptingly sweet ravioli filled with home made sausage and served with a fresh tomato sauce, a wonderfully tender and juicy veal fillet with steamed vegetables in Parmigiano sauce and, dulcis in fundo, a GREAT dessert with a creamy, surprising and nicely spiced homemade clove ice-cream served with a very sexy and luscious little chocolate fondant. Even the raspberry that came with it was absolutely perfect: plump, moist and sweeter than sweet. A fantastic combination with the rich chocolate of the fondant...

Everything was accompanied by the wines chosen in "joint-venture" by Andrea and Emanuele. We've had some very good stuff like a Vernaccia di San Gimignano Montenidoli Carato 2005, a Teroldego Rotaliano Foradori 2005, a Montepulciano d'Abruzzo S. Martino Rosso Marina Cvetic (don't remember the year) and a nice and smooth Recioto della Valpolicella classico Venturini 2005 that came with the dessert.

It's been a great evening made of good food, good wines, nice conversation and a very cheerful, intelligent and inspiring company. Thanks to Andrea for explaining us so many things about the wines without making it feel like a "serious" lesson but ore like a breathtaking adventure - something he manages to do every time he's teaching.

An evening to be repeated soon, I hope. Seeing the enthousiasm and the eagerness to learn, to share and to be together of my fellow students and myself I have no doubt we'll have many more evenings like this one. Can't wait for the next occasion!

 

Segugio also means private eye in Italian...






 

 

 

 

Back to my beloved Amsterdam

Yesterday evening I took the usual flight from Pisa to Amsterdam with my dog Mirtilla a.k.a. Blondie, Biondina, Sweet Stinky Winky and Little Miss Sunshine. Everything went fine except for the usual pantomime that I have to assist to every time we arrive from Italy with her big travel bench: the taxi drivers at Schiphol Airport refuse to take us to our destination because they're afraid the bench is going to scratch the leather chairs of their luxurious Mercedeses, that Mirtilla is going to do something inappropriate in the car, that their religious beliefs do not allow carrying dogs etc. etc. Shortly, just a load of bull dung, to put it mildly. Or should I say dog dung?

The funny thing (actually it's not funny at all, but anyway) is that several of them first ignore me or just shake their heads in disdaining denial when I ask them if I can step in the taxi, but after a few seconds they usually lower the car window and ask me "where are you going?", which in Amsterdam taxi jargon usually means: "if you're going far enough and I can squeeze you like a lemon I'm gonna take you there", and which also means "if you're not going at least to Arnhem or Groningen you can friggin' forget it".
At that point I refuse to say where I want to go and to continue the discussion any further, which sometimes makes them mad (wait a second bro, WHO should be mad here???) because "they just wanted to help" and "I'm an ungrateful bitch".
Well, fuck them, excusez mon Français. I refuse to play this unfair blackmailing game.
And I wish I wouldn't have to say this because I'm a firm believer in the multicultural society - hell, I'm living in a foreign country myself, how could I think differently! - yet I'm saying it from experience: it's usually a Dutch native taxi driver that takes us home and never ever someone from another culture. :(

I've seen the same thing happen several times at the Central Station in Amsterdam with foreign tourists arriving late at night, with no idea of where their hotels are and how to get there in any way different than by taxi, being refused a ride because they aren't going far enough.
Well, I think the city council should do something about it.

Anyway, enough complaining for today, I'm glad to be home and I've already gone back to the usual, busy food and wine freak life I'm used to. :)
I just LOVE Amsterdam, cab drivers or no cab drivers (by the way, my heartfelt thanks to the very nice gentleman who took us home yesterday).

 Music: Herman Emmink, "Tulpen uit Amsterdam" :)

A happy Miss M. :)

 

Mirtilla on Tuscan grass :)



Meanwhile I listen to this wonderful woman, another Miss M... (click)

Culinary holiday - how to make panzanella (Tuscan bread salad)

Panzanella is the famous bread salad belonging to the rich Tuscan culinary tradition.
It's usually made with stale bread and fresh vegetables from the garden (in the rural areas of Tuscany like the one in which I'm now it seems like everybody's got an "orto", a vegetable garden full of tomatoes, bell peppers and cucumbers...), good extra vergine olive oil and a few more ingredients.
The reason why we use preferably old bread is because 1) it does not get all soggy and soft when sprinkled with the vinegar/tomato juice mixture and 2) you usually have some at home. :) The Toscani are masters at cooking with only what's available in the pantry and in the fridge.

We've been eating it during the lesson on the Tuscan cuisine. Lovely and fresh with its vinegary pungency, it is perfect for a warm summer day lunch. It fills you without making you feel heavy . :)
Here's my recipe. Buon appetito!

Panzanella del Valdarno

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:   

                                   600 gr ripe tomatoes

                                   3 garlic cloves

                                   fresh basil

                                   ½ Tuscan bread, diced (preferably stale bread)

                                   ½ a big cucumber or 1 small one

                                   1 red bell pepper

                                   1 yellow bell pepper

                                   50 gr. capers

                                   80 gr. black olives, pitted

                                   4 anchovy fillets in oil

                                   olive oil extra vergine

                                   1 dl wine vinegar

                                   salt

                                   black pepper

 

Cut a little cross (X) on the bottom of the tomatoes  bring some water to the boil and dip the tomatoes in it for about 30 seconds. Take them out of the water and leave them to cool off a bit. Remove their skins, halve them and remove the seeds. Keep their juice, possibily without seeds, in a big bowl for the dressing. Cut the tomatoes in big chunks (about four parts per tomato). Here some very good step-to-step information on how to skin tomatoes.

 

Add the peeled and finely chopped garlic, half of the basil, the vinegar and 2 dl. of olive oil to the tomato juice. Season with salt and pepper.

 

Cut the bread in chunks (not too big ones, about 1,5- 2  cm. each), put bread and tomatoes in the bowl, add the dressing, mix everything well and leave to rest for at least 15 minutes. If the bread is really stale it could need more juice to get softer. In this case add more olive oil and vinegar (but pay attention not to use too much vinegar or the salad will be too sour). Keep on tasting just to make sure.

Wash and peel the cucumber. Cut it in half, remove the seeds with a spoon and cut in thin slices. Add it to the tomatoes and bread.

Wash the peppers, cut them in halves and remove the green top and the seeds. Cut the peppers in thin strips and add them to the salad.

Halve the anchovies and the olives and add them to the salad together with the capers. Mix everything well and season with salt if necessary.

Leave the salad in the fridge to marinate for at least a couple of hours.

Serve cold during summer or at room temperature the rest of the year after garnishing with basil leaves.

 

Culinary holiday - the Tuscan cuisine

Photos of yesterday's cooking lesson over the Tuscan cuisine.

For the cantuccini recipe click on the link

 

 

Relax on the terrace before the lesson begins...

 

 

Making panzanella

 

Panzanella (Tuscan bread salad)

 

 

 Home made cantuccini

 

 

Dipping in vin santo... :)

Culinary holiday - Pistoia, Tuscany

Photos of the cooking holiday in Tuscany, May 2009

  

 The market

 

Lunch at Enoteca Baldo Vino

Vacanze pugliesi - 3 (with video recipe "onion calzone")

Subtitled: things to do when you're on holiday

If you have just one week of holidays and yet you love to cook so much that you think your work is great fun and that it's even more fun if done with your friends, you might want to shoot a cooking video.

That's one of the things I did during my short Apulian holiday at the end of January. My friend Valentina and I decided it was time for another video recipe - and for some serious laughing during the shoots which, lucky you, we're going to spare you.
It all resulted in the filming of a classic Apulian dish, the calzone di cipolla, made by a Genovese who grew up in Puglia. :)

I'm not going to tell you HOW MANY onions I had to peel, cut and fry to make this dish (if you ever decide to shoot a cooking video make sure you always have at least three times the necessary ingredients just in case something goes wrong and you have to do a shot all over again...), I'll just say that after the shooting I smelled like I had spent four days in a row frying onion rings in a fast-food restaurant (brrrr!). Not pleasant AT ALL. So now you know that, in case you were thinking of making 3 calzoni next weekend. :)
Oh, and don't forget to put a wet cloth under your chopping board while cutting the ingredients otherwise everything will inexorably slide away while you're working! ;D
And serve on beautiful dinnerware. Although this is a simple dish, it deserves the very best!

Here the video and the recipe.
My thanks to Valentina of Nikolaus Produzioni for filming,  (and for the good laugh), to Arno at helderfilm.nl for editing the video and adding all those cool special effects and to Gianni Ciardo for the beautiful jazz music!

How to make onion calzone (calzone di cipolla) from Nicoletta Tavella on Vimeo

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CALZONE DI CIPOLLA (onion calzone)

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

250 gr. of plain flour (possibly of the 00 type)
250 gr. of durum wheat flour
25 gr. of fresh yeast (or two teaspoons of dry granulated yeast)
1 teaspoon of sugar
2 teaspoons of salt for the dough
2 dl of lukewarm water
8 small sweet white onions (or 4 big ones)
5 anchovy fillets in oil
2 tablespoons of raisins
100 gr. of pitted green or black olives
50 gr of grated pecorino cheese (Sardinian, Roman or Sicilian)
1 ½ dl. of olive oil extravergine
coarse sea salt
black pepper

Mix the yeast with 2 dl. of lukewarm water and a teaspoon of sugar. Dissolve yeast and sugar properly. The sugar is going to boost the activation of the yeast.

Mix together the two types of flour (you can sieve the plain flour first to make sure you get no lumps). Add 2 teaspoons of salt and mix further. Add the water with sugar and yeast and then the the olive oil, mixing everything well.
Transfer the mixture on the table and kneed until the dough is compact and yet very elastic. Use some extra olive oil if the dough feels too dry and some extra flour if the dough sticks to the working top.

Divide the dough in 2 balls, one of which a bit bigger than the other one.
Cut a cross on top of each ball of dough using a knife and leave to rise under a wet kitchen cloth on a warm place for about 15 to 20 minutes (this calzone dough doesn’t really have to rise for a long time).

 Soak the raisins in warm water, rinse them and pat them dry with kitchen paper.

 Cut the pitted olives in rings and put them aside in a small bowl.

 Peel the sweet onions and cut them in rings. Fry the onions in olive oil until soft and glazy, and do that preferably on a low fire and with the lid on the pan so that they can get all soft in their own steam and caramelise a bit.

Season the onions with salt and pepper and leave them to cool off.

Mix well the onions with the soaked raisins, the grated pecorino cheese, and the anchovies cut in small pieces.

Flatten the two dough balls with a rolling pin.
Lay the bigger piece of dough on a previously greased oven dish.
Fill with the onion mixture. Cover with the smaller piece of flattened dough and seal the borders.

Grease the top side of the calzone with some olive oil, sprinkle with coarse sea salt and put in the pre-heated oven at 200°C for about 30 minutes.

Serve lukewarm with a good glass of wine, for example a good Locorotondo from Puglia, and buon appetito! :)