The Sunny Kitchen - An Italian cook in Amsterdam

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?

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.