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 ;)

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! :)

 

Vacanze pugliesi - 2

When Valentina and I were at the beautiful agriturismo called Il Frantoio near Fasano where we had a fantastic dinner prepared with the freshest vegetables and herbs from their own land - they have lots of olive trees, a beautiful citrus garden protected from the colder winds of the winter, other fruit trees and a rich production of vegetables they use to prepare the meals for the guests and wonderful preserves in lovely glass jars- we shot a lot of pictures and enjoyed the food and the wine with some of the other guests, a group of actors that where in Puglia to play Shakespeare's  "Much ado about nothing" in the nearby Brindisi.
The appetizer they gave us was a simple and yet so tasty little something, as tasty as everything else in Puglia: the fave fritte (fried fava beans), extremely easy to make (see picture and recipe below).You can find dried, peeled fava (broad) beans in Middle Eastern stores. In Puglia they're also used to make the wonderful purée eaten with cicorie, a slightly bitter type of greens that grow abundantly on the Apulian land, and lot of olive oil extra vergine.
The fave fritte can be eaten with the aperitivo.

In the afternoon we also went to Alberobello with its typical trulli, the lovely buildings with their cone-shaped roof that make this Apulian town so characteristic.

Valentina made a showreel with some of the pictures we've taken during our little trip. The beautiful jazz music is from Gianni Ciardo, a comedian, actor and musician from Bari.

Sentimental Journey: Apulia from Nicoletta Tavella on Vimeo.

Fave fritte

Serves: a lot

250 gr. dried, peeled fava beans (broad beans)
sunflower oil for frying
salt

Fry the dried fava beans in abundant hot oil until crunchy and golden brown, sprinkle with sea salt and serve immediately.

Images (Il Frantoio, Alberobello and fried broad beans): Valentina Prencipe

Vacanze pugliesi - 1

After the very, VERY busy November and December months - so busy I didn't feel like writing anything on my blogs neither did I really have the time and energy to do it - it was high time I had a little holiday to recharge my batteries that were pretty depleted.
What better way to do that than going South, to Bari in the beautiful Apulia region where I grew up, to get a bit spoiled by Mum and Dad, to spend quality time with family and friends and to overeat as I usually do when I'm there?
My friend Valentina says that when she's with me we always get some food, one way or the other. I wonder why. :D

We got dined and wined alright, the two of us. We went roaming around Puglia (the Italian name for Apulia) in her cool black Volvo - funnily enough most Italians seem to prefer cars that are NOT Italian even though that does not include me, the 3 cars I've owned were and are all made by FIAT - for great food and beautiful places, something of a passion we both share, and got ourselves interacting with some fabulous chefs and great producers that were more than happy to let us try the results of their culinary talents. All of them where, of course, kind of  "twist my arm!" occasions. ;D

On our way to stunningly beautiful Masseria Il Frantoio in the vicinity of Ostuni where we had dined the evening before (more about it later) we visited a fantastic caseificio (a cheese maker) in Speziale di Fasano, a little village, and bought all sorts of cheeses for our little colazione al sacco (packed lunch), from wonderful, juicy nodini (little mozzarella's in the shape of a knot, nodo in Italian) to lovely fresh ricotta and giuncata (soft, fresh and delicate cheese, better eaten on the very same day), smoked cacioricotta (a harder, ripened ricotta made from a mixture of cow's and sheep's milk) and a yummie caciocavallo ripened in the local Primitivo wine. Of course when lunch time arrived Valentina and I couldn't resist the temptation of eating the nodini with our hands right out of the plastic bag accompanied by some wonderful crunchy tarallini, the little ring-shaped bread sticks typical of this region, and that while still driving!
I guess there's really nothing that can stop us from getting food into our mouths...

Freshly made mozzarella is too good to resist...

At home, after our tour, tarallini and smoked cacioricotta with a good glass of wine

Happiness is...

   

...eating figs right off the tree.
Still warm from the pale October sun.
So sweet and overripe it's like eating fig jam.

And yes, I desperately need a manicure. :)

A great little dessert: orange-thyme parfait

A lovely, not too sweet orange dessert scented with fresh thyme: another one of our "creations" during this cooking holiday here in Tuscany.

You can prepare it a couple of days in advance, make sure you cover each portion with a little plastic foil.
Remember to take it out of the freezer at least ten minutes before serving otherwise it will be too hard.

If you like, accompany with a glass of chilled limoncello, the intense Italian lemon liqueur, or arancello, its orangey version.

Semifreddo in Italian means literally "half cold". It's almost like making ice cream but you don't need to stir it from time to time like you would do with  gelato, which makes this dessert less work than real ice cream and yet a lovely, creamy taste experience.

Semifreddo all'arancia e timo

Serves 10-12

Ingredients:         
10 egg yolks
150 gr. fluid honey
3 organic oranges
8 dl. whipping cream
fresh thyme leaves
sugar
6 spoons rum or another liquor

Beat the egg yolks with the honey in a big enough bowl until frothy.

Grate the zest of two oranges and add it to the egg yolks together with some thyme leaves.

Leave this mixture to rest for 10 minutes and whip the cream in between.

Add the whipped cream to the egg yolks and mix everything delicately from top to bottom so that the whipped cream stays quite stiff.

Pour the mixture in the silicone molds or porcelain ramequins and put in the freezer for at least 2 hours.

Remove the peel of one orange for garnishing the dessert. Cut the peel in thin strips and cook them for 10 minutes in boiling water. Throw away the water, replace it with fresh water and bring the orange peel to the boil again (this is to remove the bitterness). Throw away the water one more time and pat dry the orange peel with kitchen paper. Weigh the peels and put them in a steel pan together with the equivalent of their weight in sugar and 4 spoons of water. Leave the sugar to melt on a low fire and simmer for a while until the peel is caramelised. Remove from the pan and lay on a sheet of baking parchment to dry.

Squeeze the juice of the two oranges, mix with 4 tablespoons of sugar and the rum and put in a little pan on low fire to thicken, stirring from time to time. Remove from the fire and leave to cool off.

Serve the little parfaits with a tablespoon of orange sauce and garnish with the caramelised orange peels and a little thyme twig.