The Sunny Kitchen - An Italian cook in Amsterdam

Risotto with pancetta, cardamom and mascarpone

Of the many exotic, non typically Italian spices cardamom is definitely my favourite one. I must be in a cardamom phase, I seem to be putting it everywhere, from my meat dishes to my fruit salads.  I really love its delicate and yet very specific taste.
And as far as pancetta is concerned, I'm ALWAYS in a pancetta phase.

I cooked this risotto for my French friend Pascal a few days ago, accompanied by a simple rucola-tomato salad and a glass (or two, three.. euh... don't remember exactly...) of Prosecco.

I first prepared a very simple vegetarian stock with some carrots, a few celery stalks, some fresh flat-leaf parsley, a couple of whole peeled onions, a bay leaf, some coarse sea salt and, of course, 5-6 cardamom pods. I use a lot of stock because I like my risotto all'onda, as we call it in Italy meaning quite moist. Rice keeps on absorbing moisture and releasing starch also after removing it from the flame and so it tends to become a bit more compact after serving. That's also why I always make it a bit more moist than needed: before it's on the table it's absolutely perfect!

For the rest I used some good Carnaroli risotto rice and a little bit of mascarpone cheese at the very end to add some extra creaminess to the dish.

To tell you the truth, the result was quite good...

Risotto con pancetta, cardamomo e mascarpone

Serves 2 (main dish)

Ingredients:
170 gr. Carnaroli rice
120 gr. pancetta, diced
2 liters of good self-made stock
8 cardamom pods
1 small onion
a few rosemary twigs
a glass of white wine
butter
2 tablespoons of mascarpone cheese at room temperature

Melt a good dollop of butter in a deep pan on a low fire. Finely chop the onion and the rosemary leaves and fry them in the butter with the cardamom pods until the onion is soft, glazy and slightly golden.

Add the diced pancetta and let it cook for a few minutes.

Add the rice and stir it in the pan for about one minute until well covered in fat and a bit translucent.

Pour the wine on the rice and let the alcohol evaporate on a medium flame while stirring regularly.

Add a couple of big ladles of stock (the rice has to be covered with stock) and keep on stirring gently until the rice absorbs almost all the stock.

The most important thing to do while preparing risotto is to add stock constantly. As soon as the rice gets drier you have to add some stock.

Cook the rice until “al dente” and season further with salt and pepper if you wish.

Remove the pan from the fire and add the mascarpone, stirring gently.

Leave the rice to rest for 3-4 minutes with the lid on the pan and serve with grated parmigiano.

Music to go with this risotto, inspired by one of ComidaDeMama's last posts.

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?

Oven-baked peaches with almonds, macaroons and grappa

I have written before about Fairfood on my Dutch weblog. Fairfood is a Dutch organisation that supports and promotes "good" products, and that means ingredients which production causes less hunger and poverty in the developing countries than "standard" products, as they explain on the Fairfood website.

The recipe I developed for their site is a lovely summer dessert also called "pesche scaligere" in Veneto, the region my grandparents - from my mom's side - come from. In our family we make this dessert a lot. It can be served with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream and a glass of sweet Moscato dessert wine. Or a small glass of grappa, why not!

Tip: listening to Sergio Cammariere while you eat this improves the sweetness of the peaches ...

Pesche ripiene al forno (oven-baked peaches with almond, macaroons and grappa filling)

Ingredients:

Serves 4

• 2 ripe middle-sized peaches
• 35 gr. brown almonds
• 4 amaretti (Italian macaroons)
• 1 egg yolk
  
• 25 gr. honey
• 25 gr. brown sugar
  
• 1 teaspoon grappa
• butter
• vanilla ice-cream

 

Wash and halve the peaches. Remove the pits and a bit of the flesh around the hole to make some more space for the filling. Keep the removed fruit flesh for the filling.

Roast the almonds in a dry Teflon pan until they start to smell nice and let them cool off.

Pulverize the almonds with the sugar in the kitchen robot. Add the amaretti (macaroons), a bit of fruit flesh, the egg yolk, the honey and the grappa. Make sure that the mixture is not too thin and liquid. If that happens, add a bit more crumbled amaretti to absorb the excess liquid.

Fill the peaches with the mixture and lay them in a buttered oven dish.

Place the dish in the pre-heated oven (180°C) for about 15-20 minutes or until the filling is golden brown and looks crunchy.

Serve lukewarm with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream.

Click here for the Dutch recipe on the Fairdfood site

Eating together: lamb legs in the oven with honey, rosemary and garlic

Cooking together and eating together are two of my favourite things in life. Lots of friends at a big table, bubbles, laughter, several appetizers and one "important" dish.
Two lamb legs of about 3 kg per piece, boneless and simply seasoned with finely chopped rosemary, whole garlic cloves, salt and black pepper on the inside, honey on the outside.
A recipe from Gigi, a friend who's a fantastic cook and a big meat expert. Unluckily for us, he could not attend this dinner.

Once you've rolled the meat up and bound it with kitchen string, massage it with some honey and lay it on a big roasting tin with grill rack (this one from Ikea is fantastic). Lay the meat on the rack so that it gets evenly cooked all around.
Sprinkle the meat with some extra vergine olive oil and put them in the pre-heated oven - 100-110°C - for about 2,5 hrs. From time to time measure the internal temperature. When it reaches 55°C the lamb legs are ready, nice and juicy and rosé inside.
Let the meat rest for 10 minutes inside the roasting tin covered with tin foil and then carve thin or thick slices according to your personal preference.

I don't have a picture of the meat once ready because we were eating and because we had to carve it before it got cold.

Everybody, look surprised! :)

Crunchy red peppers strips au gratin

I love "eating colours" - lots of colourful vegetables and fruit - especially in the dark winter months.
I really believe that bright, shiny colours can enhance our mood not only when around us but also when "inside" of us.

Chromotherapy uses coloured lights to bring more balance in our personal energy and I think that brightly coloured food can do that too. After all, we are what we eat.

Think of lovely deep orange pumpkin, beautiful yellow and red bell peppers, sweet carrots and sunshiny oranges and youl'll understand what I mean. I get a happy feeling inside just looking at them. :)

One of my personal "chromotherapy recipes" is this very simple one including just a few ingredients: red (or yellow) bell peppers, made crunchy and savoury through the use of bread crumbs and good olive oil, plus a few capers in vinegar to contrast the sweetness of the peppers with their lovely tart taste.
Simple, fast and perfect as an appetizer or as a side dish!

Today's music comes from one of my favourite Italian singers, Ivan Segreto.

Peperoni gratinati con i capperi

Serves 4-6

4 red or yellow bell peppers
bread crumbs
olive oil extravergine
3 tablespoons of capers in vinegar, drained
salt
black pepper

Wash the peppers and cut them in halves.

Remove the stems and the seeds. Cut the pepper flesh in thin strips.

Lay the pepper strips, internal side up, on an oven dish covered with baking parchment.

Drizzle with olive oil and dust with abundant bread crumbs.

Season with salt and black pepper to taste and garnish with the capers, drained and rinsed with cold water.

Cook the peppers in the pre-heated oven (200°C) for about 20 minutes or until golden and crunchy.

An impressive pasta dish for a stylish beginning of the new year!

During the Christmas festivities Italians have a tendency to eat more than they normally do.
A lot, that is. Often too much, to be completely honest.
Christmas Eve, the two days after that, the evening of the 31st and then lunch on New Years Day are real over-eating feasts after which everybody immediately starts a diet. ;)

This wonderful dish is a recipe from my mom, Gabriella, and has been prepared and eaten with pleasure by la famiglia during one of these festive eating occasions.
The recipe is quite labour-intensive and yet not difficult to make, as it often is the case with Italian dishes.
A bit of creativity and some artistic disposition are a plus but even if you're not Michelangelo I'm sure you'll be able to concoct a beautiful pasta pie like this one. :)

The type of pasta Gabriella used is the tortiglioni but of course you can use any other type of short pasta, for example penne or rigatoni.
If you cannot find the scamorza affumicata (a kind of smoked cheese that resembles a drier, harder smokey mozzarella) you can also use any other type of smoked cheese or just plain mozzarella.

Buon appetito and my best wishes for a wonderful 2008!!! (e grazie alla Mamma per la fantastica ricetta!) :D

TIMBALLO DI TORTIGLIONI ALLE MELANZANE
(pasta pie with aubergine/eggplant and smoked scamorza cheese)

Serves 6-8

For the dough:

400 gr plain flour
200 gr butter
1 egg
1 egg yolk
salt

For the filling:

400 gr tortiglioni
1,5 kg good canned peeled tomatoes (with juice)
fresh basil leaves
1 big onion
a couple of garlic cloves
a couple of red chilli peppers, dried
2 medium sized aubergines/eggplant
olive oil extravergine
300 gr scamorza affumicata (Italian smoked cheese)
200 gr grated Parmesan cheese

Make the doug by mixing briefly flour, butter, 1 egg, 50 ml water and a pinch of salt in the kitchen robot until you get a coarse mixture (you can also do it by hand with a fork, of course).
Transfer this mixture on a working surface previously sprinkled with flour and kneed it (not too long so that the crust will stay crunchy) until you obtain a nice, smooth dough.
Leave the dough to rest under a clean kitchen towel until it's time to use it.

Prepare a classic tomato sauce (spicy version) by frying the finely chopped onion and garlic in abundant olive oil until soft - preferably on a low fire with the lid on the pan so that they can soften up gently in their own steam). Add the chopped peeled tomatoes and the chillies and leave the sauce to simmer on a low fire for some time until it thickens. Remove from the fire, add the shredded basil leaves and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Chop the aubergines in little pieces and fry them in olive oil until completely cooked and tender.

Cut the smoked scamorza cheese in chunks.

Cook the pasta very al dente (it will cook further in the oven!), then drain and mix well with the tomato sauce, the cooked aubergines, the parmesan cheese and the scamorza chunks.

Divide the dough in two parts, one of which twice as big as the other one (respectively 2 thirds and 1 third).
Roll out the dough giving both pieces a rounded shape and lay the biggest piece on a deep ovenproof dish, previously buttered and dusted with flour. Make sure you leave enough dough at the edge of the dish for folding and sealing the pasta pie.
Fill the oven dish with the pasta and sauce mixture and cover with the other piece of rolled out dough.
Roll the edges on top of eacht other to seal the pie, make a hole in the middle of the "lid" so that the excess humidity can escape leaving the crust crunchy and garnish, if you want, with some dough left overs (flowers, leaves, stars etc.).
Brush the top of the pie with some egg yolk and put the pie in the pre-heated oven (180°C) for about 30 minutes.

Let the pie cool off a bit, remove it carefully from the oven dish and serve sliced.

   

Vegetarian lasagne with ricotta and spinach for Mackenson

Oh man, have I been away for a long time. Far too long (seven months).
Lots of things have happened that needed my energy and my attention and blogging went to the background for a while.

Now I'm back to stay with renewed energy and lots of things to write about. For example one of the yummiest vegetarian dishes I know, the lasagne with ricotta cheese and spinach. :)

I've recently made them with "la famiglia", my little chosen family here in The Netherlands (if your real family is away you can always create a new one which includes your friends, their children, cats, dogs, rabbits and cavias, don't you think?) :D.

My chosen family is very important to me. That's why I try to be available every time I'm needed even if it's just driving them somewhere with my Ferrari red... Panda. :D
And if "helping" equals "cooking something nice" then I'm twice as happy to help. :)

Recently Claudia, an Italian friend of mine and beloved member of la famiglia, promised to cook something typically Italian for her son's school to be sold for a benefit during their yearly Open Day celebration.
Mackenson goes to the most fabulous school that I know, the European School in Bergen, The Netherlands, where children from all over the world learn that dealing with different languages, religions, skin colours and cultures is a very positive and exciting experience.

Since April 1st I have my very own professional kitchen (Kookstudio Oud-Zuid in Amsterdam) in which to give my cooking courses and prepare my caterings (finally a big space!) we decided to cook together - Mackenson, Camilla, Claudia, Simonetta and myself, and of course my little dog Mirtilla that came into the kitchen to check our work regularly - to prepare some lasagne vegetariane (vegetarian lasagna).
Twenty medium-sized and six smaller trays, to be precise, that were sold during the Open Day on Sunday the 3rd of June.
Ahum, not only sold, to be completely sincere, since we kept the smaller trays for ourselves and ate them on the evening of our cooking get-together at Simonetta's on her beautiful roof terrace with a view on the Amsterdam panorama (see pictures). A few more friends that received a last-minute invitation joined us and shared the pleasure.

What a fabulous way to end a fantastic day: eating lasagne and lots of other great stuff with your friends while enjoying the beautiful sunset and sipping a nice glass of wine.
La vita è davvero bellissima. :):):)

Here the recipe for lots and lots of lasagne. Of course you can wait until it's time to organize a big dinner, put part of the lasagne in the freezer for later use, halve the quantities or call the local homeless organisation to ask if they want to come to your place and pick up some. Lots of karma points, right? :)

Lasagne ricotta e spinaci

Ingredients:

1 box dry lasagne sheets, 500 gr/1,1 lb (we used the Barilla ones) that don't have to be pre-cooked

Filling:
1 kg/2,2 lb ricotta cheese
1 kg/2,2 lb frozen spinach, thawed
200 gr/0.44 lb grated Parmesan or Grana cheese
nutmeg
salt
black pepper

Béchamel sauce:
2 l/33.8 fl. oz. milk at room temperature
400 gr/0.88 lb plain flour
280 gr/0.61 lb butter
nutmeg
salt
black pepper

Tomato sauce:
2 kg/4,4 lb sieved tomatoes (passata di pomodoro)
4 garlic cloves
2 big onions
a handful basil leaves
extravergine olive oil
salt
black pepper

Plus:
A lot of extra grated Parmesan or Grana cheese

Preparation:
First prepare the tomato sauce and the béchamel because they're quite labour-intensive and need time.

For the tomato sauce: peel and finely chop the garlic. Fry it gently in with the chopped onions in 12 tablespoons of olive oil until soft and glazy. Add the sieved tomatoes and 5 dl/16.9 fl. oz. of water. Mix well.

Bring the sauce to a boil and let it thicken for about 10 minutes on a low flame (longer if the passata isn't very thick and concentrated).
Season with salt (optional if the passata is already salted).
Remove from the flame and add the hand shredded basil leaves and some freshly ground black pepper.

For the béchamel sauce: melt the butter in a pan, add the flour (through a fine sieve, to avoid lumps) and fry gently for about 1 minute. Add the milk (better if at room temperature) and slowly bring to a boil. Lower the flame and keep on mixing until the sauce gets a bit thicker (not too thick because béchamel, just like tomato sauce, has to be quite fluid so that the dry lasagna sheets have enough moisture to cook properly). Season with salt, pepper and some freshly grated nutmeg.

Leave the béchamel to cool off a bit.

Prepare the filling mixing ricotta, spinach (first remove the excess water squeezing the cooked spinach very well), a pinch of salt, the grated Parmesan of Grana cheese, a pinch of ground nutmeg and some black pepper in a big bowl. Of course you can also use fresh leaves instead of frozen ones (preferably wild spinach), the only thing is that you need a lot more than 1 kg. (2,2 lb) fresh leaves to obtain the right amount of cooked greens (about 2/3rds more).
Leave the filling to rest for a while and then mix half of it with the béchamel sauce. Put the other half aside.

Pour enough tomato sauce in a big oven dish so that you abundantly cover its surface. Lay enough lasagna sheets to cover the sauce - just one layer - and cover further with a good amount of ricotta-spinach filling. Sprinkle with grated cheese and lay one more layer of lasagna sheets over the filling. Cover with another layer of filling and some cheese.

Make a last layer of pasta sheets, tomato sauce and béchamel. Let the two sauces mix with one another and complete the dish with some grated cheese on top.

Put the oven dish in the pre-heated oven (180°C-356° F) for about 30 minutes or until the lasagne have a nice little crust.

Serve the lasagne only after they've been out of the oven for a while so that they can become nice and compact and are not too hot and fluid.

TIP: Lasagne taste even better if you make them one day in advance. You only need to warm them up very well before serving them!

LINGUISTIC TIP: the singular "lasagna" indicates just one sheet of pasta, while the plural "lasagne" indicates the complete dish.

Beautiful music for a wonderful lasagne-sunset

Fry onions and garlic...
  ...to prepare a delicious tomato sauce. Mackenson and Camilla make the filling


Mixing the filling with some béchamel Filling the oven dishes... ...and some more filling.

Future food blogger in action. :) Enjoying food, wine and company The beautiful sunset on the Amsterdam rooftops

Parmigiana di melanzane (aubergine/eggplant parmigiana)

La parmigiana is one of the classic Neapolitan dishes that has become all-round Italian. Everybody in Italy - Northener, "Centerner" or Southener - makes it, and everybody have their own "original" recipe.
The way it is traditionally made is with fried aubergines (eggplants for our American friends) which are wonderful but a little heavy. My version is a bit lighter since it's made with grilled aubergines.
The grilling process enhances the taste, I find, since those nice dark brown stripes you get when preparing the veggies on a grilling plate give the dish some extra zest and make it particularly yummie.

Parmigiana takes time and patience but the result is really rewarding. It's a perfect vegetarian dish that won't have you miss the meat proteins. Most of those who eat it during one of my workshops over the Neapolitan cuisine don't even notice they haven't eaten meat or fish at all!

Prepare the parmigiana at least a couple of hours before eating it: when it "sets" a bit it's much nicer and if it's too hot you won't be able to cut it as nicely as when it's just lukewarm.
Recipe and pictures (made by Per Jansson) come from my very own cookbook "Antipasti" published in the Netherlands by Veltman Uitgevers. Enjoy!

Parmigiana di melanzane

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:   
   3 big aubergines
   3 cans peeled tomatoes (400 gr/14.10 oz per can)
   olive oil
   2 medium-sized onions
   fresh basil
   3 mozzarellas, each of about 125 gr/0.27 lb
   100 gr/0.22 lb Parmesan or Grana Padano cheese, grated
   salt
   pepper

Prepare a basic tomato sauce by frying the finely chopped onions in a little olive oil until soft and transparent. Add the shredded tomatoes and let the sauce simmer on a low fire long enough to thicken it. Add salt, pepper and fresh basil leaves to taste and remove from the flame.

Cut the aubergines in thin slices (lengthwise), brush them lightly with olive oil and grill them on a hot grilling plate. Make sure they don’t get too brown and dry: they have to be well cooked and yet reasonably soft.

Lay a layer of grilled aubergines inside an oven dish sprinkled with olive oil (or covered with baking parchment). Slice the mozzarella.
Cover the aubergines with tomato sauce, some basil leaves, some mozzarella slices and grated parmesan or grana cheese. Season with salt and pepper.

Make as many layers as you can with all the ingredients that you have at your disposal (the last layer should be tomato sauce and parmesan/grana cheese without extra basil because its leaves would burn easily). Put the oven dish in the pre-heated oven (180° C/392° F) until the parmigiana is golden brown. Serve lukewarm.

Shrimp in kataifi dough with garlic/tarragon mayonnaise

Kataifi dough, also known as shredded dough, is a typical Greek and Turkish ingredient - in Turkey they call it kadayıf - made, just like fillo dough, with flour and water. If you want to see how it's prepared, take a look at this nice Turkish/American weblog.
Kataifi is made of long, very thin strands of dough, a bit like angel hair pasta. It's very often used for sweets, in combination with honey and pistachios. Here in Holland you can find it in Turkish shops, though the one I usually go to told me they sell it only before the Ramadan ends, which I think is a pity. Anyway, I'm lucky to have a pass for all the big food wholesalers here in Amsterdam and that's where I bought a packet of frozen kataifi to experiment a bit with this nice recipe I learnt at the Gambero Rosso cooking school in Rome, gamberoni in pasta kataifi.

In the Southern Italian region Puglia, which is practically opposite to Greece geographically speaking, kataifi dough is already quite popular. I tried my first shrimp in kataifi in the beautiful city of Trani at the Osteria Corteinfiore restaurant last May. There they fry the shrimp in peanut oil and serve the dish as an appetizer, while at the Gambero Rosso school I learnt how to prepare them in a slightly different way. A little less fat, with a nicer golden brown colour and as nice tasting as the deep-fried ones. The secret is shallow frying them in olive oil until they're nice and crunchy. Yummie.
The best shrimp you can use for this dish are the raw ones. I use the smallest size of Black Tiger prawns. I clean them one by one removing heads, shells and legs and then deveining them (removing the dark intestinal tract on their back). It's a lot of work but if you've cleaned a couple of them you get faster. And raw shrimp are much nicer than the pre-cooked ones. If you fry them in a kataifi crust they'll stay very moist and soft without getting rubbery like the pre-cooked ones.

I like eating them with a garlic/tarragon mayonnaise. First I pound these two ingredients to a paste with mortar and pestle, and then I add the paste to the self-made mayonnaise.
To make mayonnaise (in just a minute, btw) I use a Bamix hand-mixer with rotating beater - the one with little holes - but of course you can use any other mixer or, if you're not afraid of RSI, a whisk. :)
On the Gambero Rosso foto (above) you see an oyster mayonnaise. Since I don't like oysters, I came up with this herby-garlicy version which goes perfectly well with the crunchy shrimp.

Gamberi in kataifi con maionese all'aroma di aglio e dragoncello

Serves 4

16 small Black Tiger prawns or any other type of shrimp
1 package kataifi dough, frozen
salt
black pepper
olive oil extravergine

For the mayonnaise:

2 egg yolks (at room temperature)
2 teaspoons lemon juice (at room temperature)
2 dl. organic sunflower oil (at room temperature)
salt
pepper
2 small garlic cloves
a few tarragon leaves

Prepare the mayonnaise first: put egg yolks, lemon juice and a pinch of salt and pepper in a mixing bowl.
Slowly add the sunflower oil beating the mixture at the lowest stand of the mixer. Once the mayonnaise starts to get thicker, add the rest of the oil and keep on beating until it reaches the right thickness.
Pound the garlic and the tarragon leaves to a creamy mixture in a small mortar. Add to the mayonnaise stirring gently.

Clean the shrimp: carefully remove heads, shell and legs but leave the tails. Devein the shrimp and rinse under the tap. Pat dry with kitchen paper and season with a bit of pepper.

Defrost the kataifi dough and loosen the strings.
Wrap some kataifi around each shrimp.

Shallow-fry the shrimp in a non-stick frying pan with a little olive oil until golden brown and crunchy and serve immediately while still hot with the garlic mayonnaise.

The deep-fried shrimp at Osteria Corteinfiore in Trani

Culinary travel log: Rome, back to school, with recipe "anchovies in pistachio crust"

To me Rome is always one of the most beautiful, inspiring and interesting places to be, not only in general but also for her culinary appeal. I particularly love this city in spring and definitely during autum - my favourite season - when the streets smell of roasted chestnuts.

As far as I'm concerned, the Roman cuisine rules: very basic dishes and yet original and intense tastes due to the use of simple ingredients and not-so-complicated recipes.
Moreover, I just love real Romans because they usually have a big mouth and a big, big heart. :D
That's why I take any chance I can to fly to Rome, even if it's for just a few days. And these wonderful, warm and sunny October days (here they call them "le ottobrate romane") are definitely perfect for a short visit to "caput mundi". I'm staying at the apartment of a friend of mine, a beautiful Renaissance building with a view on the Campo de' Fiori, and in the morning I wake up with the busy noise of the market people preparing their stalls, loud and cheerful as only Romans can be. There's lots of vegetables, flowers and kitchen stuff for sale, and a couple of overprized, luxury stalls where only tourists and rich Romans buy their ingredients. In general, though, this still remains a cozy neighbourhood market even if it's right in the middle of touristic Rome. This is also one of the nicest characteristics of this great city: despite the hordes of visitors that invade her every day, Rome remains "property" of the Romans and keeps her popular character in most neighbourhoods. And this for me is the secret of her charme.
This time my visit to Rome also has a very specific purpose besides seeing some friends: a two-day cooking course at the Scuole del Gambero Rosso in the Città del Gusto, a huge complex including a cooking school, TV studios where the Rai Sat Gambero Rosso Channel cooking programs are recorded, a restaurant, a "cooking theater", a winebar with "wine theater", a roof garden and a little shop with the latest Gambero Rosso books and the most beautiful kitchen stuff. In a word: paradise. :D

The theme of this course is fish in all its aspects. Let's face it: if I'm here, it's with a reason. My knowledge of fish is not my strongest asset. I can clean and fillet it but there's more to cooking fish than this. That's why the cooking teacher - moi - is back on the school bench in this wonderful place where I've already followed a course on meat last February.
The teacher is chef Giulio Terrinoni, who after opening a fish restaurant four and a half months ago already received very positive critiques (according to a Roman food guide, Hostaria Acquolina is already "the best fish restaurant in Rome"). He tells us that very modestly and almost surprisedly during the second day of the course, right after hearing the news. Fish is a real passion for him. You can really tell he just loves what he's doing by observing the utterly respectful and careful way he handles what he uses. In his hands, even the simplest ingredients turn into spectacular and excellent dishes.

So today's recipe is logically one of chef Terrinoni's own creations. A heavenly one, as all the other dishes I've learnt to make during this course.
For this dish you'll need a bunch of fresh anchovies. Buy some very small ones, not the thick anchovies that are wonderful grilled on the BBQ (these are actually sardines). Most of all, you shouldn't be afraid of the "dirty work": cleaning the fish.
The first thing to do is to remove the head. While you're busy at it, gently push the belly open with a thumb: the guts will be easy to remove together with the head. Open the anchovies flattening them and carefully remove their backbones but not the little tails.
Wash the anchovies briefly under running water to make sure you don't loose too much taste in the process and pat them dry with some kitchen paper.
Now they're ready to be prepared as alici fritte in crosta di pistacchi (fried anchovies in pistachio crust).

Oh yes, before I forget: I visited the "Acquolina" restaurant after the cooking course with a fellow student to see with my own eyes and taste with my own buds how chef Terrinoni works in his own kitchen. What shall I say? Everything was simply fantastic: the chef who treated us like princesses, the great sommelier - the wine list is HUGE! - the very professional service and of course the food! Via Antonio Serra (mind you, there's another Via Serra in the Trastevere neighbourhood!) is not really in the centre of Rome but this restaurant is definitely worth the 20 euro taxi (total price from the center and back, taxis in Rome are quite cheap).

Alici fritte in crosta di pistacchi

Serves 4

16 little anchovies
150 gr. pistachio nuts, peeled and unsalted
8 slices of white sandwich bread
3 eggs
flour
peanut or sunflower oil for deep-frying
salt
black pepper

Clean the anchovies as explained above.

Crumble the bread slices (without crust) and the pistachio nuts a bit coarsley with the kitchen robot and mix well.

Beat the eggs with a bit of salt and pepper. Dust the anchovies with a bit of flour and dip them in the beaten eggs.
Lay them on the bread mix and press them gently so that the bread and pistachio crumbs stick to both sides of the fish.

Deep-fry the anchovies in hot oil until golden brown and crunchy, lay them on some kitchen paper to remove the excess fat, season with a bit of sea salt and serve on a bed of salad leaves, pomegranate grains and a dressing made with olive oil, salt and a balsamic vinegar reduction. Wonderful as a starter.
Buon appetito!