The Sunny Kitchen - An Italian cook in Amsterdam

Cotolette di finocchio (fried fennel "cutlets")

This is a very simple and yet extremely tasty side dish prepared with one of the most common and popular Italian vegetables.

The lovely, meaty, pure white fennel bulbs can be used in so many ways: from raw (wonderful in salads) to steamed, boiled, braised, sautéed and au gratin, for example with a simple béchamel sauce enriched with lots of nutmeg and melted, golden and bubbly Parmigiano. 
They're also absolutely perfect for frying. Fennel stimulates the digestive process so the heaviness of this preparation is gently compensated by the amazing qualities of this beautiful vegetable.

When cutting fennel to make "cutlets" you loose a bit of the bulbs, since not all of the slices manage to stay attached to the core. When that happens, it's no big deal: you can use the "loose bits" for salads, smoothies and other preparations like I do.

The nice, big slices are then cooked, dipped in beaten egg, coated with bread-crumbs and herbs and fried.
They're great just out of the frying pan, when they're still hot, but you can prepare them in advance and keep them warm in the oven at 90°C.

If you prefer to avoid deep-frying, shallow fry them in a bit of extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil or sunflower oil. Like this they turn out nice too.

Some of my music to go with this dish. :)

 

Cotolette di finocchio

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

3 fennel bulbs
2 eggs (3-4 if you use small organic eggs)
1 small bunch of fresh oregano (or marjoram) and sage (dried is OK too)
bread-crumbs
sunflower oil for deep frying or e.v. olive oil/coconut oil for shallow frying
salt and black pepper

Wash the fennel, remove the green stalks and cut the bulbs in slices. For this dish, use only the beautiful slices with all the leaves still attached to the core.

Cook the slices in boiling salted water and drain well.

Beat the eggs with salt, pepper and the chopped herbs (leaves only, no twigs).

Dip the slices of fennel in the beaten eggs and then roll them in the bread-crumbs.
Make sure that as many chopped herbs as possible stick to them too.

Deep-fry (or shallow fry in less oil) until golden brown and drain well on kitchen paper.

Enjoy!

Is it a cassata? Is it a tiramisù? No, it's a CASSAMISU'!

This dessert was born some time ago for a cooking class where I had to think about a gluten-free version of the cassata Siciliana (without sponge cake or - in the easiest version - lady's fingers).

Cassata is originally an Easter cake made ​​with ricotta, sponge cake (in Italian called pan di Spagna), candied citrus zests and delicious chocolate chips.
In the fridge of my cooking school I had just two cups of ricotta - not enough for the number of people who participated in the workshop - plus two cups of mascarpone, so I decided to have my "pupils" use a mixture of these two, what later appeared to be a very good decision. The dessert became creamier and... sexier because of that.

The slivered almonds I had chosen for this gluten-free dessert resulted in an exciting layer underneath the creamy mixture, like a very pleasant surprise after the first bite of soft, lushious cream.

Now I make it more often with lady's fingers dipped in liqueur as "base" and yet the gluten-free version is still the most exciting one. Try them both, I'd say.

Today's Italian music of choice is a wonderful classic from the Sixties, Nico Fidenco with  "Legata a un granello di sabbia". Nice and old fashioned!

 

Cassamisù

Serves 4-6
                  
3 egg whites
60 gr. sugar
250 gr. ricotta
250 gr. mascarpone
1 sachet of vanilla sugar
40 gr. dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
40 gr. candied orange peel, diced
3 tablespoons apricot jam
3 tablespoons liqueur (rum, maraschino or similar)
3-4 lady's fingers p.p.
additional liquor
unsweetened cocoa powder

Beat the egg whites with 60 gr. sugar until stiff. Use preferably an electric whisk.
Mix ricotta and mascarpone with the vanilla sugar.
Add the coarsely chopped chocolate and candied orange peel to the ricotta - mascarpone mixture.
Mix 3 tablespoons of apricot jam with 3 tablespoons of liqueur and brush 4-6 one-person bowls with this mixture using a kitchen brush.
Dip the lady's fingers in a mix of 50 % liquor and 50% cold water. They have to be soft and yet not mushy.
Put 3-4 lady fingers in each bowl.
Fold the beaten egg whites into the mascarpone / ricotta mixture and mix gently.
Fill each bowl with the mixture and leave the cassamisù to set in the fridge for a few hours.
Serve chilled, dusted with cocoa powder.

GLUTEN-FREE VERSION: use a thin layer of coarsely chopped blanched almonds instead of lady's fingers (no need to soak them in liqueur, of course).

Easter Monday Special: oven-baked salmon with honey and mustard

This is a very simple recipe I made with my experiments-in-the-kitchen partner Claudio Varone, a dear friend and a wonderful interior designer and artist, when we were spending a weekend together with some friends in a lovely house on the Dutch countryside.
It's his hands you see in the picture - I'm not THAT hairy ;) - and we prepared this dish in no time.

I'm going to make this on Easter Monday because I've decided to have a totally meat-free Easter. I'm eating a lot less meat in general since quite some time, and I try and buy only organic when I do. Moreover I have regular fish cravings and a nice piece of wild salmon is really perfect to satisfy them.

You'll only need a big piece of GOOD salmon (we chose the wild Alaskan one) and a few more ingredients among which some fresh herbs of your choice.
We used chives and oregano and since the lattest was flowering we added some of the flowers too for extra taste and texture (and beauty!).

You can serve this wonderfully aromatic salmon like we did, with boiled organic potatoes simply dressed with extra virgin olive oil and salt, and a colourful mixed salad.
Roasted potatoes with rosemary and garlic will be perfect too.

 

Salmone al forno con miele e senape

Serves 4

500 gr. fresh salmon in one big piece, or 4 chunks of about 125 gr each
juice of 1 big lemon
3 tablespoons of mustard
3 tablespoons of honey
a handful of mixed fresh herbs, coarsely chopped (chives and oregano)
salt and black pepper
extra virgin olive oil

 Preheat the oven at 180*C.

Mix lemon juice, mustard, honey, a bit of salt and pepper and three tablespoons of olive oil together making a nice, smooth emulsion.

Lay the salmon on a sheet of baking parchment big enough to easily wrap it all and "massage" it with the emulsion.
Spread the herbs on top of the salmon and wrap it well in the parchment.

Bake in the oven for about 20-25 minutes and serve immediately.

 

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Special Vegan Easter

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"

 

 

 

Cooking video: linguine with pesto genovese

I grew up with pesto. The first time I ate it was practically with my baby food. I guess being born in Genoa from Genovesi parents helped.
Pesto is in the Top 10 of my comfort foods: easy to make, easy to keep - not longer than a week in a glass jar in the fridge, covered with a thin layer of olive oil extra vergine or a couple of months in the freezer. I put practically nothing in the freezer (in general I don't like frozen food, not even if I made it myself) but some pesto in one or two persons portions always comes in handy for a quick plate of pasta when the fridge is empty.
Well, quick... Maybe not. You're not supposed to warm up pesto since it is at its best when very fresh and uncooked, and especially not in the microwave! You would then end up with a ball of cheese tasting of garlic and basil. Particularly if you use lots of cheese as I do. So even if frozen, it will stay slow food 'cause you'll need the patience to let is thaw with no external heat involved.
Some people freeze pesto in ice-cubes holders. Clever! Like that you have small portions that can be used for pasta and soup AND thaw quite fast.

The original use of pesto as in Genoa is purely as a pasta sauce and extra taste maker in the minestrone soup. Here in Holland, and I guess in the rest of the world, pesto gets misused and abused on practically everything: sandwiches, meat, green salads, caprese, you name it. Not exactly classic uses but I guess that says how popular and loved pesto is.

Linguine al pesto (ENG) from Nicoletta Tavella on Vimeo.

The best way to make it is with classic marble mortar and wooden pestle since these two materials are "basil friendly"and that's how my mom always made it since the arrival of the kitchen robot. From that moment on, pesto making was not a lengthy and a bit tiring operation anymore but a breeze...

I always make it with the kitchen robot even if the purists insist it's no good. As long as you don't mix too long - the ingredients would get warmed up and that would damage the wonderful structure of this almost totally raw sauce (only the cheeses are not exactly raw) - you can make wonderful pesto also with a kitchen robot. And fast! A few minutes and you have a fragrant, creamy sauce so good you can eat it with a spoon. After self-made pesto there's no turning back. No more awful pesto in a jar bought at the supermarket!

This version of mine is quite "cheesy". I love strong, very well defined tastes and the saltiness of pecorino cheese but of course you can experiment and choose to use less of it, if you like. The very classic recipe says you should use Sardinian pecorino but here I used romano and the result was quite good anyway.
I would definitely avoid using more garlic because it has a dominant character. In my family we also use a handful of walnuts to give extra "zest" to the pesto and a dollop of butter to smoothen it up even further. I love it like this.

Good pesto should have just a hint of garlic. So feel free to cut down on my six (reasonably little) cloves, also if you prefer less comments on your breath. ;)

This is the first video I made all by myself. Long live the tripod!
The song I chose as a "soundtrack" is possibly my favourite Italian song ever, "Mediterraneo" from Gino Paoli, another Genovese I'm very proud of (like all of the other fantastic cantautori that my beautiful city gave birth to). Every time I hear it I get tears in my eyes.
"Son nato in Mediterraneo", I was born on the Mediterranean... and that's how I feel, even after 24 years of living far from it.

Enjoy!

Courgette flowers stuffed with minced meat and macaroons

I never particularly liked summer because when I lived in Italy I always found it too hot - Southern Italy at 40°C is no fun AT ALL for me - but this year I kind of "woke up" and discovered that I actually DO love summer. OK, this season in Holland is very different from the Italian one and yet, it's been pretty hot in Amsterdam lately and despite the fact that I was working hard - first renovating my professional kitchen and then cooking for several caterings - I don't actually care that much for the hot weather. On the contrary, I'm actually quite enjoying it.
I guess it has to do with age, with getting a bit older every year and getting closer and closer to the "real me", as I call it. As the Beatles would say, it's getting better all the time.
Or maybe it's just that, after all, here it's not as hot as there. ;)
One of the things for which I've ALWAYS appreciated summer, though, is its produce: the fruits and vegetables that you normally could not get in any other season (I say "could not" because of course nowadays you can get just anything in any seasons, from peaches in the winter to pumpkin in spring) and that make this period of the year so special.
Take zucchini flowers, for example. OK, here in Amsterdam I can get them whenever I want, I only need to order them and they come straight from the importer who gets them in Israel, but I still stick to seasonal eating as much as I can. Hey, I'm not a member of Slow Food for nothing. :)
So courgette flowers for me are a typical summer product, and I wouldn't even think of eating them in any other season but this one.
This is a recipe from the Piemonte region, courgette flowers stuffed with a lovely, slightly sweet filling made with minced meat - it can be veal or beef - and amaretti, the great bittersweet Italian macaroons that according to one of my cooking bibles, Marco Guarnaschelli Gotti's "Grande enciclopedia illustrata della gastronomia", were very probably made for the first time in Venice during the Renaissance. I do associate these cookies a lot with Veneto, the region of which Venice  is the capoluogo and where my grandparents from mother's side come from, maybe because my grandma used to make lovely peaches filled with amaretti and almonds quite often. Nowadays, though, amaretti are made in many Italian regions, from Piemonte to Liguria and Abruzzo.
Anyway, this is a typical Piemontese dish made with zucchini flowers during summer and with blanched Savoy cabbage leaves in the winter. Great in both versions. The regional name is capunet, and there are several recipes that differ slightly from one another according to the part of Piemonte they come from. I really like this one for the unusual combination of macaroons and meat.
The ones you see on the picture - each with their very own little courgette attached to them - have been made by the students of my 4-week cooking course that started last week. All guys, ain't that great? :) The times that I used to have practically all women following my courses and workshops are definitely over: more and more men love to be in the kitchen and want to improve their cooking skills and I regularly have groups with more men than women.
Let me add that the flowers were absolutely delicious and cooked to perfection. I already had a clear penchant for Dutch and Spanish men (in the group there's a Spaniard too) and now even more! ;)

Capunet

Serves 4-6

8-12 courgette flowers
500 gr. lean minced beef of veal
2 garlic cloves
1 glass of milk
4 slices of white bread
1 egg
40 gr. of amaretti (Italian macaroons)
6 tablespoon of grated Parmigiano
1 tablespoon of finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
salt and pepper
olive oil

Carefully wash the zucchini flowers under tap water and remove their thick pistils.

Soak the bread in milk and finely chop the garlic cloves.

Mix the minced beef with the egg, the bread (well squeezed and mashed with your hands), the chopped garlic, the crumbled amaretti, the parsley and the Parmigiano.

Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Fill each flower carefully with a meatball and close the petals around the filling.

Pour some olive oil in a frying pan and carefully lay all the flowers in it.

Allow to cook on medium heat for about 20 minutes, first without lid and after a while with a lid, on a low heat.

Turn all the flowers at least once.

Add a pinch of salt and ground black pepper.

Serve hot.

Another pasta??? Linguine with slightly hot tomato & tuna sauce

                                     

Yes, another pasta.
It seems like I'm eating only pasta, recently, and that's pretty much true. It's summer, I'm going out a lot in the evenings and I don't really feel like making complicated dishes, so a plate of pasta is always good, fast and easy.
Yesterday evening it was time for yet another classic, a pasta al sugo di pomodoro con tonno, peperoncino e olive nere.

I have cravings, from time to time. Like everybody else, methinks.
Sometimes it's chocolate, sometimes meat, sometimes a certain type of vegetable. A clear sign that my body needs specific nutrients, I guess.
Recently I have a real craving for canned tuna (preserved in oil, I usually find the one in water too flaky and dry) and so I'm using it in salads with tomato and chickpeas, in sandwiches with basil and self made mayonnaise and of course in pasta dishes like this one, which is easy to make and a classic year-round recipe.
I like it a bit hot - but not too hot - and so I add a couple of dried chili peppers (the tiny, very mean ones from southern Italy). The special note is given by a generous splash of red wine where you probably would expect white, and that gives the sauce a nice, sturdy and slightly unexpected twist, supported by the flavour of the small taggiasche olives used instead of normal black olives.
To make the preparation even faster I use passata di pomodoro (strained crushed tomatoes) instead of peeled tomatoes because this speeds up the whole cooking process a lot.
I like to eat this with long, thick pasta (linguine, bavette, spaghettoni) but short pasta is perfectly OK too.
The music today is from Fiorella Mannoia and Tiziano Ferro.

Oh, a little lingui-ne-stic note for some of my English speaking friends: the right spelling is linguinE and not linguini.  ;)

Linguine al sugo di pomodoro con tonno, peperoncino e olive nere

Serves 3-4

300 gr. linguine
500 gr. passata di pomodoro (strained crushed tomatoes)
1 medium-sized onion
1 clove of garlic
200 gr. canned tuna
2-3 dried chili peppers
1 handful of black olives
a big pinch of dried oregano
1/2 dl. red wine
olive oil extra vergine
sea salt

Chop the onion and fry it in olive oil with the crushed chili peppers until soft and golden brown.
Add the garlic clove, the passata di pomodoro, the dried oregano and the olives and let everything cook for at least 10 minutes.
Remove the garlic clove and add the tuna in little chunks and the red wine. Mix well and let the sauce cook for another 2-3 minutes.
Add some salt if necessary and mix with the pasta cooked very al dente.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
       

 

My favourite breakfast - Smoothie Nr. 4

Smoothies are my usual breakfast unless I'm in Italy. Funny how old habits like drinking cappuccino with a cornetto instead of having a healthy smoothie as I do here in Holland creep back on you when you return to your native country...

A thick mixture of fluidized fruit - and sometimes spices and herbs  - is definitely my idea of a perfect breakfast.
With a HUGE mug of strong Dutch coffee after about half an hour, though, I don't want to make it too healthy. ;)

After trying this, this and this, this morning it was time for this (see below). How many "this" can a sentence like this contain?

Mix some thick pear juice with one banana, a handful of blueberries, the juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange, 1 golden kiwi and a dash of ready-made blueberry syrup (I used the one they sell at Ikea, a bit on the sweet side but nice).
Give everything a vigorous shake in the blender and drink slurping it until the last drop as I did. 
Possibly accompanied by some good Italian music.

A happy Miss M. :)

 

Mirtilla on Tuscan grass :)



Meanwhile I listen to this wonderful woman, another Miss M... (click)

Tonight, playing in Montecatini: The Vegetable Orchestra!

The most original orchestra in the world, the Vegetable Orchestra, is playing tonight in Montecatini Terme (Tuscany) at the Nuovo Teatro Verdi, starting at 21.30 hrs.

"The Vegetable Orchestra performs music solely on instruments made of vegetables. Using carrot flutes, pumpkin basses, leek violins, leek-zucchini-vibrators, cucumberphones and celery bongos, the orchestra creates its own extraordinary and vegetable sound universe." (from their site)

I won't be able to go to the concert since tonight I'm cooking and hosting the farewell dinner for my cooking students but here's a fantastic video on how they make their instruments and play their incredible music clapping aubergines, blowing into carrots and beating up pumpkins!