The Sunny Kitchen - An Italian cook in Amsterdam

Quinoa risotto with whisky, pollock and mixed vegetables

For this post in Italian click this

Another “Surf & Turf”.
Oh yes baby! Apparently the one I told you about in my previous post wasn’t enough and on top of all that this one is even a fusion experiment.

This is not exactly a Summer recipe but I made this last week when here in Amsterdam it was practically Autumn and I was feeling cold and in need of some warm and earthy comfort food.
I had never used quinoa before besides from boiling it and dressing is with olive oil as a side dish. Since I’m experimenting with cereals that are not the usual wheat and rice I’m having fun trying recipes with ingredients that are quite new for me.
This “quinotto“, a quinoa risotto that is, is the first result of my experiments.
I can say that I’m quite satisfied with it since it tasted really nice!

The magic touch was given by using for the risotto not the usual white wine but one of the “turfiest” Scotch whiskies on Earth, Ardbeg Ten Years Old (LUV it!). This divine liquid gives the dish such a wonderful and intense smoky flavour that just smelling it is a pleasure already. A classic Single Malt from Islay, the famous island called “the Queen of the Hebrides” with her fabulous whiskies, a place I definitely long to visit, hopefully very soon… 

Then there’s the porcini stock. You can make it yourselves by simply adding some dried porcini mushrooms to a home-made vegetable stock or you can use, as I did, the organic porcini stock from Vitam, which I find excellent (but I don’t know if it exists outside Holland and Germany…). I’d say dump the standard porcini stock cubes full of glutamate that would ruin the pureness of this dish, better to add some dried to porcini to a simple basic stock.
And of course we have the wonderful texture given by the quinoa that makes everything even more interesting.

The combination between this aromatic quinotto with the sauteed veggies and a humble fish like pollock, all piled up on top of each other thanks to my latest kitchen gadget (a food ring with pusher), is really an exceptional one.
But why should I keep on telling you about something that you’d better try yourselves?
And if you like, pair it with a little Ardbeg Ten Years Old mixed with some chilled water on a stormy winter night while sitting in front of the fireplace with someone special, pretending to be in Scotland. So romantic…

Quinoa risotto with whisky, pollock and mixed vegetables

Serves 2

1 big carrot
1 red onion
4 Spring onions, green parts included
2 small courgettes or 1/2 a big one
200 gr quinoa
vegetable porcini stock
1/2 dl. Ardbeg 10 yrs old Whisky
200 gr. pollock fillets
e.v. olive oil
salt
black pepper
1 dl white wine

Dice the carrot and the onion and keep them separated.
Fry the onion in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil until soft, then add the carrot cubes.
Cook the carrot until quite tenderized but still al dente and put aside.

Warm up a few spoons of olive oil in a big enough pan, without onion or anything else. Toast the quinoa in it for one minute while stirring, add some whisky, stir further and let the alcohol evaporate. After that, keep on cooking adding stock and stirring regularly.
Once the quinoa is about half cooked add some of the chopped Spring onions’ green leaves (wash them first and remove the toughest and wilted parts).
Quinoa tends to stay quite al dente. Let it dry well (if it’s too moist it cannot be pressed in shape correctly) and leave it to rest for three minutes off the flame and with the lid on the pan.

In the meantime fry the Spring onions (the white parts with about 3-4 cm stalk) in e.v. olive oil, season them with salt and set aside.

Cook the pollock in the same oil you used for the Spring onions and add the white wine. Let it evaporate and season with salt and black pepper, then break in chunks.

Grate the courgettes in the pan with the carrot and onion mixture and cook for half a minute. Remove from the flame, season with salt and pepper and keep warm.

Place the ring on a hot serving plate a fill it with quinotto by a third. Level well with the pusher and cover with some vegetables (another third).
Level the veggies too and add some fish, pressing well with the pusher. Lift the ring carefully to keep everything in place. I rinsed the ring with hot water between ingredients.
Garnish with two fried Spring onions.

 

Cooking video: oven dish with porcini mushrooms and potatoes

I’ve been on holiday, AT LAST.
In spite of the fact that I adore my job I was totally fed up with working – I’ve been working hard all Summer – and, horror of horrors, I hadn’t had a REAL holiday in the last four years.

So the REAL holiday I long dreamed finally became a reality at the end of October. I spent it in a lovely B&B in  Pontassieve (Florence) doing nothing but eating, drinking, sleeping, going to visit nice places and nice people and sitting in front of the fireplace with my belly full of wonderful stuff that I can only dream of when I’m home (in Amsterdam, that is). :)
Something like the twohundredfiftyfivemillions different types of Tuscan pecorino cheese (OMG they make so many here and they’re all wonderful!!!). Or the little wild boar salamis made in small-scale and free from additives unlike the mainstream ones. And really fresh porcini mushrooms. And what about fried artichokes the way my mum makes them? (I’m sooooo lucky, she’s was sharing this holiday with me so I was able to eat them again!).

Talking of my mum and of porcini mushrooms, , I thought of filming her during one of her cooking sessions here in Tuscany.
In this video she’s making one of her many  classics, porcini mushrooms and potatoes in the oven.

We found some wonderful porcini – this is the perfect season – and we decided to prepare this yummy side dish.
Red potatoes are amazing and stay perfectly firm so I really advise using them for this dish. If you like, you can also slice them a bit thicker and cook them a bit longer. If you’re a millionaire or related to a millionaire – porcini are quite pricey -you can build even more layers to make this dish even more luscious and sinful.

Mmmm, what a great taste, and with so little ingredients. Just porcini, potatoes, olive oil, salt and oregano. A bit of black pepper wouldn’t be bad idea at all, if you like it.

For the recipe and the video in Italian, click here.

 

Porcini mushrooms and potatoes in the oven from Amici in video on Vimeo.

 

 

 

Crab cakes my way

(Recipe in Italian here) I always wanted to try crab cakes "the American way" (I had already tasted a very spicy version in Thailand, simply fantastic) and I was finally able to eat them in the States in 2006 when my Tarot teacher, Christopher Beaver, made them one evening.
I was staying at his place in Telluride, Colorado, for a Tarot course. He loves to cook for his guests so when he said he was going to make them I jumped up and said 'Yessssss!'. They were really good and since then I simply ADORE them.
Too bad I never wrote down his recipe but I've recently come up with one that was inspired by the incredibly many versions that I've found online.
It's tasty, slightly spicy and quite lemony. In short: great!
I've used crab meat in tins since the fresh one - the very best - is not that easy to find here in Holland (what you can buy here is mostly frozen and often too wet and spongy).

I like to sauté my crab cakes in extra virgin olive oil and I've never tried them - yet - in a deep-fried versione because I don't like the smell of fried food AFTER having enjoyed it - it lingers in the house and sticks to my hair and clothes - but I'm definitely going to try this cooking technique in my professional kitchen one of these days. At least I don't live there and I can use the huge extractor hood to minimize the smell and the smoke. ;)
For the deep fried version I would definitely cover them with Panko, the flaky Japanese breadcrumbs, to make them crunchier. In this sautéed version I use Panko in the crab cakes mixture. Not too much because they're nicer when the mixture is quite moist but just enough to give it a bit more body and texture.

The pictures have been taken with my mobile phone while I was cooking at a friend's garden dinner party and they're not exactly high quality but I think they give a nice idea of how these crab cakes look like.

Crab cakes

Serves 4

Ingredients:

About 600 gr. crab meat, fresh, frozen or tinned
2 medium-sized eggs
Grated zest of 1 organic lemon
juice of half a lime
a big bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley
a few twigs of fresh thyme
1 or 2 red fresh hot chilli peppers
2 tablespoons of mayonnaise
2 handfuls of Panko breadcrumbs
salt and black pepper
e.v. olive oil

Remove the stem and seeds from the chilli peppers. Chop the cleaned chillies but not too finely, it's nice to see the little red chunks inside the crab cakes.

If you use tinned or frozen crab meat, press it well to squeeze out all the excess juice.

Mix the crab meat with the beaten eggs, the chillies, the finely chopped parsley, the Panko breadcrumbs, the thyme leaves, the grated lemon zest, some lime juice, the mayonnaise and some salt and pepper to taste.
Add a bit more Panko if the mixture is too wet but don't make it too firm either by overadding breadcrumbs.

Shape the mixture into eight patties the size of a small hamburger.

Fry the crab cakes in hot olive oil and serve immediately garnished with sliced lime and fresh flat-leaf parsley.

Frying the crab cakes





Crab cakes and salad, yum!



Three ladies at the table (Saskia's taking photographs), doggies on the side :)

Gnocchi with herb pesto - gnocchi con pesto alle erbe

Summer plus cooking is not always a great combination, especially when it's as hot as the last few days here in Amsterdam. That's why sometimes it's great to prepare something easy, fast and tasty like this herb pesto with almost no effort and totally no "real" cooking involved.
The only thing that needs to be cooked is pasta or, like in this case, the gnocchi.

Fresh herbs are abundant in this period and it's a good idea to make some extra pesto to put in the freezer in small portions that can be defrosted when needed.

I've recently discovered this pesto recipe in the Italian magazine "Cucina Moderna" and had it prepared by some of my cooking "pupils" in combination with self made gnocchi. To see how you can prepare gnocchi take a look at my gnocchi video.

The classic pesto alla genovese contains just basil (see my video recipe here) while for this version you can use other types of herbs. You can of course choose different herbs than the ones I use here but don't mix too many tastes otherwise you'll overdo it. Good pesto - and all other types of good food, i.m.h.o. - are better if you follow the golden Italian "less is more" rule.

TIP: use a lot of flat-leaf parsley as a base, the other herbs can be added in smaller quantities.

 

 


Pesto alle erbe

Serves 4

 

1 little shallot
a big bunch of fresh herbs (flat-leaf parsley, thyme, mint and oregano)
60 gr. walnut kernels plus a handful of extra walnuts for garnishing purposes
60 gr. grated Parmesan cheese
2 dl extra vergine olive oil
salt and pepper

Peel the shallot and chop it coarsely.

Wash the herbs, dry them with kitchen paper ad remove stems and stalks (use only the leaves, thus).

Chop the herbs in the mixer together with the walnuts, the cheese, the olive oil and the shallot.

Season with salt and pepper to taste (most of the times it's not necessary to do so) and serve on pasta or gnocchi with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and garnished with a few walnut kernels.











 

Citrus Love, my Summer 2010 cocktail

I adore all that is citrus and tend to use it a lot in my cooking.
I drink it a lot, too. Every morning I press a lime or a lemon, preferably organic, to blend it with other types of fresh fruit in my smoothie.
I'm kind of a citrus-addict. No wonder the only soft drink I drink more than twice a year - in general I tend to boycott soft drinks 'cause they're full of sugar and other not-so-healthy stuff - is Chinotto, a very old-fashioned Italian drink that now seems to enjoy a well-deserved comeback and is becoming quite popular again in my country.
I say "no wonder" because chinotto is not only a soft drink but a type of citrus. Its Latin name is Citrus Myrtifolia and in Italy this plant grows really well in the Liguria region and in Sicily.
The chinotto fruit is very bitter. So much that it's impossibile to eat it like an orange or a tangerine unless it's candied. One of my favourite treats on earth are the bitter chocolate covered chinotto's made by Domori, one of the finest Italian chocolate producers. A must if you love chocolate AND chinotto. While eating my first one I discovered the real meaning of "match made in heaven" and I need just one of those little plump candied fellas to be a happier person.

The soft drink that takes its name from this fruit originating in China is made by several Italian soft-drink producers and it's usually very pleasantly bitter-sweet. My favourite one is made by Lurisia and the San Pellegrino one is quite OK too.
These days I'm drinking it a lot "straight" and I thought it would be nice to combine it with some other ingredients in a cocktail, for a change.
So this is the result. My Citrus Love Italian cocktail.

You need 1/4 Bombay Sapphire gin, 3/4 Chinotto, preferably Lurisia, the juice of 1 lime, some crushed mint leaves, ice cubes and a slice of green lime to decorate.

Mix well and enjoy!

Handy tool for wine lovers

Seen yesterday at a wine tasting organized by Dutch importer Vinites: "My Wine Record", a cute and handy little wanna-have for everybody who wants to keep a journal of the good wines tasted during parties, meals at restaurants, drinks at wine bars et cetera.

It's a little black book with a cool and beautiful design (Dutch design!) and it contains special so-called Record Labels that allow you to remove bottle labels without having to soak them or steam them off.

You stick a transparent Record Label to the bottle label and after a short while both can be taken off the bottle together without tearing the wine label.
Then you can stick everything onto your "My Wine Record" booklet and have your "wine souvenir" for ever and ever!

With your "My Wine Record" you can record all details about your favourite wines: red, white or rosé, where and when, with whom, the dish you enjoyed it with, types of grape, year, price and so forth.
Like this you'll always be able to remember those easy-to-forget details and keep a good record of your tastings.

It sounds like pure genius! It would be, if it always worked fine... I've tried it once with a bottle of Pinot Noir from Framingham's and it tore off only part of the label.
I guess it has to do with the different types of glue used for the labels. Hopefully the makers - Rogier van Camp en Mark van Elk - will find a good solution for that shortly.

In any case, I find this little gadget quite nice. If you don't have the whole label you can at least write down your own personal tasting notes on a stylish little notebook.

Visit the "My Wine Record" site here.

Last of the winter veggies: kohlrabi

One of the vegetables I've learnt to love during the many years I've spent in Puglia is kohlrabi, in Italian cavolo rapa and in Bari inexplicably called "crapa d' muert", dead man's head.
It's a lovely green veggie with a wonderful texture when raw - I only eat it raw - which resembles that of a Granny Smith apple: crunchy and very juicy.

The taste is a bit like that of broccoli - same family of this popular vegetable - but sweeter and much more intense.

I love to eat it as a side dish instead of salad, very thinly sliced. To achieve that result I use a mandoline. It's then cut so thinly that the slices naturally bend into gracious curls.
I don't know if the Japanese eat it but taste, texture and curls really make me think of a great accompaniment to Japanese food...

I go for the simplest dressing ever so that I can enjoy the full taste of the kohlrabi at its best: good extra virgin olive oil, salt and black pepper.
That's it.
Less is more.

The best panna cotta ever with raspberry-lime coulis and a spiritual flavour :)

When my friends Claudia and Cristina gave me these for my birthday last year I had to smile my biggest smile. What a wonderful idea! Little pudding molds in the shape of a laughing Buddha as a symbol of earthly pleasures, happiness and abundance. Absolutely perfect to represent the joys of cooking and of sharing the food you prepare with your loved ones!

And what about the name? Buddino in Italian means 'little Buddha' but it also recalls "budino", the Italian word for pudding. If the copywriter who invented it is not a genius I don't know who is! :)

After forgetting the little Buddhas in a closet - still unused - for too long I rediscovered them while "space clearing" my kitchen - a very necessary operation seen the limited room in my cupboards and drawers and the huge quantity of culinary attributes and gadgets I own - too many!

Seeing the four happy little fellas smiling at me inspired me to experiment with cream and other ingredients so that I would find the great panna cotta recipe that I was looking for since a couple of years but was too lazy to concoct. Up to now I used a relatively satisfactory recipe with cornstarch instead of gelatin as thickening agent (I never liked gelatin since it's made with bones, skins, cartilage and other by-products of the meat industry) but I wasn't completely convinced about the fact that this combination of ingredients was the "final" one. I decided to substitute cornstarch with agar agar, made with tiny seaweed and thus perfectly suitable for my vegetarian clients and friends. Yes, this is a vegetarian panna cotta and now it's simply divine!

To tell you the truth, my first experiment was NOT a success. I used too much agar agar and the panna cotta had a pleasant taste but was too hard, not as nice and wobbly as it's supposed to be and with that lovely, smooth texture this dessert HAS to have.
A second try with a lot less agar agar (a little sachet goes a long way!) gave far better results and now I can definitely say I've found the panna cotta of my life.
Eating the little Buddha's head made me feel a little guilty (just a little!) but then I found THE perfect excuse for keeping on gobbling down the dessert: I thought that with every bite I would take in a tiny bit of the great Buddha's wisdom. Clever, huh? ;)

So here's the recipe. The combination of honey-sweet - but not too sweet - panna cotta and luscious, slightly tart and verrrry sexy raspberry-lime coulis is definitely a winning one. Try it and then you tell me.

Panna cotta with raspberry-lime coulis

For 4 big or 6 small portions

Ingredients for the panna cotta:
6 dl. whipping cream
40 gr. granulated sugar
1 teaspoon of powdered agar agar
1 tablespoon of honey
1 little pinch of vanilla powder or 1 tablespoons of vanilla essence

Ingredients for the coulis:
250 gr. raspberries
2 tablespoons of granulated sugar
2 tablespoons of lime juice
blueberries and raspberries to garnish


Pour cream and sugar in a medium-size saucepan and mix well with a whip or a wooden spoon.
Bring the mixture to a simmer and keep on stirring without letting it boil. The cream has to simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the flame and add the powdered agar agar stirring well until it's completely incorporated into the cream. Leave to rest for about 5 minutes.
Reheat the cream once again and let it gently simmer for a few more minutes stirring from time to time. Make sure the cream does not reach a boil.

Turn off the heat and wait until the cream is lukewarm. At this point you can add honey and vanilla powder and mix well.
Pass the mixture through a fine sieve using a wooden spoon to push down the agar agar that didn’t dissolve properly and mix again. If you use powdered agar agar instead of flakes you'll have less to sieve. I have tried both types and can definitely recommend the powdered version.

Pour the cream into four-six wet panna cotta molds (they have to be really wet so that the pudding will not stick to the mold), cover with cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for at least a couple of hours.
Serve with the coulis prepared blending together raspberries, sugar and lime juice and then passing this mixture through a fine sieve to smoothen it.
Garnish with a few fresh, plump berries.

************** ************** Music for cool little Buddhas (click) ************** **************




Isn't he cute?