The Sunny Kitchen - An Italian cook in Amsterdam

Cooking video: focaccia barese with tomatoes

 
My friend Claudio Varone, architect and artist, loves to cook.

No wonder, practically all of my friends love to cook, otherwise they wouldn't be my friends. ;)

You might remember Claudio as the author of my favourite spritz cocktail. He's also a great cook who loves to reproduce the dishes of his birth region, Puglia. He's a Barese (native of Bari), to be precise, and it's funny that we grew up in the same city having common friends but we never met until a lot later, when we were both already living in Amsterdam. 
In Bari we grew up with the typical focaccia with tomatoes that every school kid in Bari eats when coming out of school, hungry like a wolf. Some of the best panifici (bakeries) in town are strategically placed close to schools and I guess that's not by chance: the quantity of focaccia sold to young students is MASSIVE.

We had already been experimenting with focaccia al pomodoro twice, with growing satisfaction but not completely happy about the end results. A few days ago we gave it another try with a recipe from the book "Pane, pizze e focacce" written by Laura Ginapri changing only the type of flour used (half durum wheat and half "00" type instead of 100% "00" flour as in the original recipe) and the result really made us happy. Worth an immediate "memory lane" flash.
You can see the product of our efforts here in my newest video.
Long-time French friend Pascal helped Claudio in preparing the focaccia. We actually made two types of focaccia, one of which - the one Pascal worked at more intensively, with a mashed potato in it, a common ingredient in Bari's home-made focaccia's - ended up in a bit of a drama, as you can see on the right. Very tasty but still a sticky drama.

So from now on we prefer to stick to this one, an AMAZINGLY tasty focaccia with crunchy bits (usually the sides) and a softer center.
Make sure you spread the dough quite thinly in the oven dish, it's important that it doesn't get too thick.
All in all this focaccia comes out quite crunchy thanks to the abundant use of olive oil, something that characterizes the Apulian cuisine (just look at my Mom's tiella!).

Focaccia al pomodoro barese

Serves... just a few happy few, it's too good to eat with moderation :D

Ingredients:

200 gr. / 7 oz durum wheat flour
200 gr. / 7 oz type "00" flour
25 gr. / 0.8 oz. fresh brewer's yeast
300 ml/10.14 fl. oz lukewarm water
2 teaspoons of sea salt
1 tablespoon of milk
a can of good quality peeled tomatoes (we used Mutti)
a handful of black olives
dried oregano
salt
coarse sea salt
extra virgin olive oil

Mix the two types of flour in a big bowl.
Dilute the yeast completely in part of the lukewarm water and add it to the two flours mixing well. After a while - wait for about 4-5 minutes so that the yeast can do its work properly, salt inhibits its effects - add the salt, also diluted, and then the rest of the water. Mix and add the milk, mixing a bit further.
The dough has to be very soft and sticky.
Cover it with plastic foil and leave to raise for about an hour on a warm place.

Chop the canned tomatoes coarsely.

Spread the dough on a well-oiled oven dish (grease your fingers too to avoid sticking) and spread the chopped tomatoes on top of it.
Add the olives and season with oregano, a bit of coarse sea salt and plenty of olive oil.

Put in the pre-heated oven at 200°C /392°F for about 30-35 minutes and bake until golden brown.

Focaccia barese with tomato from Nicoletta Tavella on Vimeo.

Cooking video: tiella with rice, potatoes and mussels

My first culinary video as a "director" is one of the most typical dishes from Bari, in Puglia, and it's called tiella di riso, patate e cozze.

This is my Mum's version - the hands you see are hers :) - and she changes the original recipe a bit using shelled raw mussels instead of half shells (filled with mussels, of course) because the end result is then easier to cut (no hard stuff in between rice and potatoes to make cutting difficult). The positive aspect of using shells is that they fill with cooked rice grains that soak up the wonderful juices of the mussels and make it more fun to eat.

Use potatoes that stay nice and firm. Cut them with a mandoline to ensure very thin slices. You'll have to check from time to time if they are cooked inserting a knife to feel their texture. When they're ready it will be very easy to pierce them.

Gabriella uses about a kilo of shelled mussels but if you use the de-shelled ones one and a half kilo will do perfectly fine (they take more space inside the oven dish). The type of rice is Vialone Nano but Carnaroli is great too.

Use two handsful of grated pecorino romano cheese that will be mixed with a couple of finely chopped garlic cloves and a bunch of flat leaf parsley, also chopped. Some freshly ground black pepper is also nice. Use the mixture of cheese, garlic and parsley twice (two layers, also on top of the mussels) in between layers of other ingredients. 
The water you add before putting the dish in the oven has to be salted and very hot (almost boiling). Cover the tiella up to the rim and put in the pre-heated oven at 240°C - 464° F for about 20-25 minutes until well cooked and golden brown.

Enjoy this WONDERFUL Apulian dish! :)))





Tiella with rice, potatoes and mussels from Nicoletta Tavella on Vimeo.

Vacanze pugliesi - 3 (with video recipe "onion calzone")

Subtitled: things to do when you're on holiday

If you have just one week of holidays and yet you love to cook so much that you think your work is great fun and that it's even more fun if done with your friends, you might want to shoot a cooking video.

That's one of the things I did during my short Apulian holiday at the end of January. My friend Valentina and I decided it was time for another video recipe - and for some serious laughing during the shoots which, lucky you, we're going to spare you.
It all resulted in the filming of a classic Apulian dish, the calzone di cipolla, made by a Genovese who grew up in Puglia. :)

I'm not going to tell you HOW MANY onions I had to peel, cut and fry to make this dish (if you ever decide to shoot a cooking video make sure you always have at least three times the necessary ingredients just in case something goes wrong and you have to do a shot all over again...), I'll just say that after the shooting I smelled like I had spent four days in a row frying onion rings in a fast-food restaurant (brrrr!). Not pleasant AT ALL. So now you know that, in case you were thinking of making 3 calzoni next weekend. :)
Oh, and don't forget to put a wet cloth under your chopping board while cutting the ingredients otherwise everything will inexorably slide away while you're working! ;D
And serve on beautiful dinnerware. Although this is a simple dish, it deserves the very best!

Here the video and the recipe.
My thanks to Valentina of Nikolaus Produzioni for filming,  (and for the good laugh), to Arno at helderfilm.nl for editing the video and adding all those cool special effects and to Gianni Ciardo for the beautiful jazz music!

How to make onion calzone (calzone di cipolla) from Nicoletta Tavella on Vimeo

.

CALZONE DI CIPOLLA (onion calzone)

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

250 gr. of plain flour (possibly of the 00 type)
250 gr. of durum wheat flour
25 gr. of fresh yeast (or two teaspoons of dry granulated yeast)
1 teaspoon of sugar
2 teaspoons of salt for the dough
2 dl of lukewarm water
8 small sweet white onions (or 4 big ones)
5 anchovy fillets in oil
2 tablespoons of raisins
100 gr. of pitted green or black olives
50 gr of grated pecorino cheese (Sardinian, Roman or Sicilian)
1 ½ dl. of olive oil extravergine
coarse sea salt
black pepper

Mix the yeast with 2 dl. of lukewarm water and a teaspoon of sugar. Dissolve yeast and sugar properly. The sugar is going to boost the activation of the yeast.

Mix together the two types of flour (you can sieve the plain flour first to make sure you get no lumps). Add 2 teaspoons of salt and mix further. Add the water with sugar and yeast and then the the olive oil, mixing everything well.
Transfer the mixture on the table and kneed until the dough is compact and yet very elastic. Use some extra olive oil if the dough feels too dry and some extra flour if the dough sticks to the working top.

Divide the dough in 2 balls, one of which a bit bigger than the other one.
Cut a cross on top of each ball of dough using a knife and leave to rise under a wet kitchen cloth on a warm place for about 15 to 20 minutes (this calzone dough doesn’t really have to rise for a long time).

 Soak the raisins in warm water, rinse them and pat them dry with kitchen paper.

 Cut the pitted olives in rings and put them aside in a small bowl.

 Peel the sweet onions and cut them in rings. Fry the onions in olive oil until soft and glazy, and do that preferably on a low fire and with the lid on the pan so that they can get all soft in their own steam and caramelise a bit.

Season the onions with salt and pepper and leave them to cool off.

Mix well the onions with the soaked raisins, the grated pecorino cheese, and the anchovies cut in small pieces.

Flatten the two dough balls with a rolling pin.
Lay the bigger piece of dough on a previously greased oven dish.
Fill with the onion mixture. Cover with the smaller piece of flattened dough and seal the borders.

Grease the top side of the calzone with some olive oil, sprinkle with coarse sea salt and put in the pre-heated oven at 200°C for about 30 minutes.

Serve lukewarm with a good glass of wine, for example a good Locorotondo from Puglia, and buon appetito! :)

 

Video recipe: gnocchi with butter and sage

A classic dish, gnocchi di patate con burro e salvia (potato dumplings with butter and sage), easy to make and even easier to eat (I love gnocchi and tend to overeat them...).

Maybe the biggest fun was going to the wonderful market right behind my mom's block and buying all the stuff we needed for this and for the next - yes, there's gonna be a next - recipe, filming among the people who looked at us and commented in their witty and direct barese dialect (the only Italian dialect I speak almost fluently - almost).

The quality and abundance of produce of the markets in Bari are legendary. And the prices! Take a look at the price tags and be jealous of those who live there like I was while doing my shopping. 6 euros for a kilo of fresh red mullet (niente nada frozen, only the freshest stuff!), 1,30 for a kilo of bananas and 1 euro for a kilo of oranges! Plus I bought the most wonderful artichokes, 10 (10!!!) pieces for 3 euros! Thinking that here in Amsterdam they can cost about 1,25 A PIECE and they're not even remotely as good looking and tasting as the pugliesi I was almost moved to tears. ;)

Well, here's my video blog of a great a day with my friends, cooking and having lunch together.  Hope you enjoy it! :)

P.S. My heartfelt thank to Valentina and Daniela for the "direction", our friend Antonio Bellino of Nikolaus Produzioni for his wonderful knowledge and our friend Teresa for joyfully sharing the shooting, the fun and the meal with us!

P.S. nr. 2: we're looking for sponsors to make many more videos! :)

How to make gnocchi with butter and sage from Nicoletta Tavella on Vimeo.

Gnocchi with butter and sage

Serves... a lot!

Ingredients for the gnocchi:

1,5 kg. starchy potatoes, for ex. Doré or Red Star*
300 gr. flour
1 egg 
a pinch of salt

 Ingredients for the sauce:

250 gr. butter
a bunch of fresh sage leaves

PLUS: some freshly grated parmesan cheese

GNOCCHI: Wash the potatoes and boil them (with their skin so that they don’t absorb too much water) in plenty of salted water until thoroughly cooked. It's important that while cooking they're completely under water.

Drain the potatoes, peel them and mash them with a potato ricer while still very warm. Make sure the purée is quite smooth, with no big potato chunks in it, and leave it cool off a bit.

Add egg, flour and a pinch of salt to the puree. Kneed the potato dough gently on the working table (dust it first with some flour). Don’t kneed too energetically otherwise the dough will get sticky. It has to become soft and quite elastic.

Take a piece of dough, dust it with a bit of flour and roll it with your hands to make a little long “sausage”, about 2 cm thick. Cut this roll in little chunks a couple of centimeters long. Repeat this until all the dough has been rolled and cut in bite-size pieces.

Use a gnocchi board to shape each one of the gnocchi rolling them on the ribbed surface (you can also use a fork and press each gnocco gently against the tines of the fork). The grooves are important because they "catch" the sauce, just as the track left by your thumb on the other side does. Lay the gnocchi on a clean kitchen towel so that they don’t stick to the working surface.

SAUCE: Melt the butter in a little pan on a low flame. Let it gently simmer until it becomes transparent and add the sage leaves, cut in thin strips or whole. Leave them for one more minute to simmer and remove from the fire. Pour on the cooked gnocchi and garnish with some fresh sage. Serve immediately.

COOKING THE GNOCCHI: cook the gnocchi in boiling salted water. When they’re ready, they’ll come drifting to the surface (this usually takes just a couple of minutes).

Remove the gnocchi from the water with a skimmer and put them in a big bowl. Cover with the sauce, mix well and serve with grated Parmigiano cheese.

Added on Nov. 2nd, 08:

1) as my sister Francy suggested in the comments, the potatoes don't actually even need to be peeled. Putting them still piping hot in the ricer and mashing them will give you a wonderful fluffy puree while the skins stay in the ricer! Grazie sister! :)

2) *as the kind cooks at We Are Never Full suggested in the comments, the best potatoes for gnocchi in the States are the Yukon Gold ones. Thanks guys, I've never tried them but now I surely know what to use next time I'll make gnocchi in your beautiful country! :)