The Sunny Kitchen - An Italian cook in Amsterdam

Less is more: sole fillet with baby peas and basil

Simplicity. That's what I'm looking for these days and that's what I'm putting on my plate.
Like tonight. A very simple yet delicious dinner. So simple that I don't even need to explain everything in grams and deciliters.

To make this dish even simpler I've used frozen baby peas, one of the few things I regularly have in the freezer. I don't like to keep left-overs or to use lots of frozen food but certain things come in handy when you need them. Fresh filled pasta to plunge in boiling water directly from the ice compartment for emergency lunches or dinners, the odd ciabatta bread, Alaska pollock for the cats when I forget to buy their food, and peas.

Italians love to use peas in lots of recipes even when it's not exactly the right season. They're practically indispensable in the minestrone, for example, and thus in Italy it's quite common to have them frozen and ready for use.
So get yourself some nice baby peas (fresh ones are even better, if you have them), a couple of fillets of sole, some fresh basil ed ecco fatto, you'll have a quick and easy to make Italian classic.

Gently fry a small onion or shallot in a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil until soft and glazy.
Add the peas with some hot water from the kettle.
Let them cook until almost tender, letting most of the water evaporate. Season with a bit of salt.
Lay the sole fillets on top of the peas and put the lid on the pan, leaving them to gently steam for a few minutes.
Season with salt, black pepper and fresh basil and serve immediately.

The music that goes with this dish is from Pierangelo Bertoli with Tazenda, "Spunta la luna dal monte"

 

 

 

Oriental Food and Wine tasting

Have you always thought that Oriental food and wine are an IMPOSSIBLE combination? Or do you keep on ordering the usual Gewürztraminer or beer with it? Get ready for a big surprise and join us in our combined Oriental Food and Wine tasting!

Rosie cooks her wonderful Singapore and Malay dishes and Nicoletta creates the most surprising, exclusive and exciting wine pairings for them that you’ve ever tried!

What did you think of a Sambal Goreng (mixed vegetables with tempeh, tofu and tamarind) served with an amazing Lambrusco amabile with a hint of sweetness from the best and most reputable Lambrusco wine house in Italy? Or a Chicken curry paired with a juicy, sexy and fabulously tasting Pinot Noir from New Zealand?
Come and try six wonderful food & wine combinations with us!
From starter, served with exclusive Italian rosé bubbles, to dessert we’ll conquer your taste buds and make you fall in love with our way of eating and drinking!  

Rosie is a chef and cooking teacher born and raised in Singapore. Previously, she owned the locally popular Rosie’s Nasi Padang, a Singapore outdoor hawker restaurant. Thanks to her mother, a great cook by profession and her mentor, she learned the ropes of cooking authentic Oriental dishes. Find out more about her on her website: www.flavoursofsingapore.nl

Nicoletta is a born and raised Italian who works as a chef, a cooking teacher and a sommelier with a great passion and enthusiasm for food and wine pairings. She’ll tell you about her wine choices and together with Rosie she will guide you through this unique tasting experience. Find out more about her on her website: www.cucinadelsole.nl

Rosie and Nicoletta have joined forces and created a delicious Oriental menu with original and unusual wine pairings.
Come and taste with us, and enjoy an evening of great food, great wines and very pleasant company!
For reservations: info@flavoursofsingapore.nl

Dates: August 20, September 18, October 16 2010
Hours: 19.00 – 23.00 hrs
Price: € 80,00 - for 6 courses and 6 different wines
Group size: 10-12 persons
Address: Jan van Zutphenstraat 63, 1069 RR Amsterdam

Torta salata con radicchio rosso e fontina

Before the winter goes - something that still seems quite far away seen the cold temperatures that are  putting our patience to the test - I want to post a few more winter recipes.
This one is vegetarian and terribly caloric but very tasty and perfect for cheese lovers like me.

The long red radicchio salad (chicory) I've used is a bit bitter. I really like bitter ingredients and have totally no problem with them but if you wish to reduce the bitterness you can add a little sugar or, better, honey - a teaspoon or so. Also remove its white lower part close to the roots to make it less bitter.

If you can't find the elongated type of radicchio I used you can also substitute it with "round" radicchio (the one more often used as salad).
Radicchio exists in different varieties, even light yellow with red dots, and it’s a vegetable coming originally from the Veneto region.

Instead of fontina cheese you can also use taleggio.

Torta salata con radicchio rosso e fontina

Serves 4-6

Puff pastry
2 big bunches of radicchio trevisano or 4 small ones
400 gr fontina cheese (or taleggio)
2 onions
olive oil extra vergine
½ glass white wine
honey or sugar
salt, black pepper and 1 egg yolk

Pre-heat the  oven at 180°-200° C.
Wash the radicchio and slice in thin rings. Peel the onions and slice them in rings. Fry the onions in olive oil until soft and sweet.
Add the wine, let evaporate and add the radicchio.
Keep on stirring until the radicchio is cooked (7-8 minutes). Season with salt and pepper and add a teaspoon of honey or sugar if you wish less bitterness.
Make sure this mixture is quite dry (that the excess water from the veggies has evaporated) so that the quiche doesn’t get wet.
Butter an oven dish and cover with some puff pastry. Use a fork to make little holes in the pastry to make sure this cooks evenly.
Fill with the radicchio-onion mixture and add the fontina cheese, cut in pieces.
Cover the quiche with extra puff pastry, seal it well, brush with egg yolk and put in the oven for about 25-30 minutes (check from time to time to make sure it doesn’t burn).
Serve lukewarm.

La Leopolda, a very good restaurant in Pisa

A meal with friends. Some very old ones (Vincenzo, whom I met in Amsterdam immediately after I went to live there, 24 years ago) and some new ones like Maria, Vincenzo's sister who offered me and my dog Mirtilla a beautiful and comfortable room in her home in Pisa, plus Cristiana, one of Maria's closest friends.
Three ladies and a Pisano - Vincenzo is a real pisano, very direct and sincere, qualities I really appreciate - in a wonderful restaurant run by women in Pisa (La Leopolda, Piazza Guerrazzi 11).
The location used to be a railway station and is now a warm, welcoming place where you can eat some of the very simple and yet great plates of the Tuscan tradition.
Think of a tortino di carciofi con lardo di Colonnata (an artichoke flan with cannellini beans and wonderful, thinly sliced pork fat from Colonnata - a delicacy even for those who normally remove the fat from the ham like I do). We ALL chose it and we ALL loved it till the last bit.

The choice at La Leopolda is quite simple: two starters (the one we don't try is the steak tartare of chianina meat with green apple), five primi (first courses), five secondi and six desserts. Simple and yet difficult: what's it going to be??? Everything sounds extremely appealing. We chose to share three primi: spaghettoni con puntarelle e alici (with chicory and anchovy, actually more of a Roman dish than a Tuscan one), pappardelle con la lepre (thick tagliatelle-like pasta with savoury a tomato-hare meat sauce) and the wonderful testaroli cacio e pepe. Testaroli is a dish served in Tuscany - mostly the Lunigiana region - and Liguria that consists of little squares cut from thick pancakes made mostly of spelt flour and then served with pesto or other sauces. Here we eat them
with a simple dressing of extra vergine olive oil, pecorino cheese and black pepper.

After that primi, we go on with sharing and choose for the coscio di cinta senese arrosto con le rape (a wonderful pork roast made from special Cinta senese pigs) and the peposo, a earthy, sturdy stew with lots  (and I mean LOTS) of black pepper and red wine, something so good you'll definitely want to eat again if you appreciate the strong flavors that often characterize the Tuscan cuisine. It was my first peposo and I immediately fell in love with it. What a dish! Impossible to ignore it because of the thick, dark, spicy sauce and the wonderfully tender meat slowly cooked in wine. This is real slow food!

Since in the afternoon Vincenzo and I have been visiting the village where his grandpa came from - Palaia - we chose a wine that comes from that area, a 2004 red Toscana IGT Rosso Sangervasio (80% Sangiovese, 20% Merlot and 10% Cabernet) that perfectly matches the strength of the peposo.
After that, no desserts are necessary anymore even though the choice is tempting, for example the chocolate and pear cake or the goat cheese bavarois with a port, raspberry and chocolate sauce and a mascarpone cheese and coffee cream. A simple, strong espresso (simply called caffè in Italian) is more than enough.

La Leopolda changes menu quite often and the prices are really good. The most expensive meat dish - the tagliata di chianina with rocket - costs 16.00 euros. The average price for a meat dish is 12.00 euros. Bread and self-made bubbly water are two euros per person.
The food is great and the atmosphere warm and pleasant, the ladies do their very best to make their clients full-bellied and happy and, last but not least, the hand-written wine list is rich and varied. Mostly Tuscan wines with - quite a peculiar detail - only French bubbles. The restaurant is also dog-friendly and that makes a big difference for people like me who like to take their four legged friends with them as often as they can.
Another big plus: you can find the wine list online with labels and grape types for most of the available wines!
Definitely a place worth coming back when is Pisa, thus.
A big cheer for the ladies at La Leopolda: complimenti, ragazze!

Spaghettoni with puntarelle and pecorino cheese

 

Pappardelle con la lepre

 

Coscio di Cinta senese con le rape

Funny lady with flowers :)

One night at the Dutch Design Hotel

Yesterday evening my friend Claudio Varone, architect, interior designer and artist, and his artistic partner Anneke Copier presented some of their wonderful felt carpets and wall tapestries at the Dutch Design Hotel in Amsterdam at the opening of the "PUUR" exhibition.
Claudio's and Anneke's work always manages to stun me with its beauty so I expected to be "hit" by it but what I didn't expect was the very interesting setting of the exhibition, the Dutch Design Hotel. The Hotel is just outside the "obvious" part of Amsterdam, I mean the one in which I live and work, and is situated right between the city centre and Schiphol Airport in an area that until 20 years ago was all green fields and empty spaces. Now it's an ever growing office and hotels area just like many others in this town.

It's an interesting building with modern and hip design and wall paintings - not all of them quite to my liking, I must admit - a spacious restaurant that I definitely want to try very soon and a wonderful terrace on the water where we sipped Italian wines in trendy design bottles and had sexy - I cannot define them in any other way -  nibbles until after dark.
I actually found all of the artists represented quite fascinating, especially Claudio and Anneke, of course, and Marloes Duyker of Naked Design.

Here some pictures of the evening. The "PUUR" (Pure) exhibition can be visited until November 25th.

With the artist :)








 



My favourite tapestry made by Claudio and Anneke.



Two more artworks by Claudio and Anneke






Another installation by Claudio and Anneke



Work from Naked Design



The restaurant with more Naked Design work



Aren't they gorgeous?



Luscious smoothie with blueberry (left) and white chocolate mousse with blueberry and other wild berries (right). Beautiful to the eye, sexy textures and fabulous to the palate. The crunchy bit is made with blue corn.



More Naked Design.



Puur written with watercress.



The Dutch Design Hotel, terrace side.



Lovely verrine with cauliflower mousse, diced beetroot and curried mayonnaise.



Anneke and Claudio in the "love seat". :)



Naked Design.

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...