Recipe Taster:

Top 24 recipes of 2011

2011-12-31T19:07:00.000+01:00

And this year is gone and it is almost my blogversary too! Many (but not too many) are the recipes I have proposed you across the past 12 months and it was very hard to choose some that have stuck in my flavors library.

After skimming my picture catalog I have reduced them to a Top 24. With one new recipe every two weeks may this list help you bringing a little more happiness into your 2012.

Top 24 of 2011

Risotto with broccoli, poached prawns, roasted sesame seeds oil and dark chocolate shavings

St. Valentine’s Ricotta mousse tower with sweet-&-nutty tomato jam and a milk-chocolate ganache

Citrusy-hot linguine on a bed of garlicky spinach served with seared salmon bits and garnished with crispy citrus zests

Ruffle my Feathers cake

Like-Cotton-Chiffon cake à la nage served with marinated apple slices

Ras Malai in a nutty creamy sauce served with ginger-cardamom glass noodles

Coconut cream scones with Parmesan and tarragon

Crispelle di riso di San Giuseppe (St. Joseph's sticky rice fritters)

Crispy Pork-Belly Gyros with fried eggplants in a potato-onion flatbread

Walnuts cinnamon bread-rolls

Deconstructed Pho au saveurs sucrées

Dark chocolate dome of sweet fried eggplant served over crispy brioche with a lime marinated strawberries and their coulis

Roasted corn muffins with green chili and Parmesan crust

Apricots-red tuna salad with celeriac greens, red-currant coulis, fresh oregano and a benzaldehyde-moscato wine vinaigrette

Aromatic peanut sauce over pasta with lemon melissa and pomegranate molasses

Healthy Sicilian spring-rolls

Tagliatelle with Walnuts and Pork sauce Sicilian style

Duck breast with caramelized onions & Sicilian orange sauce

http://recipetaster.blogspot.com/2011/11/pumpkin-seeds-pesto-over-salmon-rice.html
Pumpkin seeds-Parsley pesto over pan fried salmon, rice tagliatelle and white beans

Easy chocolate-mousse tarte with Amarena cherries

Roasted Onions stuffed with masala quinoa, amaranth and caramelized Brussels sprouts

Poached eggs with Lebkuchen-spiced butter over rice noodles in a cocoa-cardamom duck consommé

Coco-nutty Crepes cake à la Nelly

White and golden tea

2011-12-29T02:30:00.000+01:00

It all started few weeks ago, when my friend Jenn told me about a photographic competition hosted by the blog Culinographie. The challenge was to come up with a white & gold Christmasy composition.
I rarely shoot high-key compositions but I am esthetically attracted to them so I decided to give it a try.
Christmas goes very well with white naturally, think of flaky snow, powdery sugar or shining icing; white is as much Christmas as it is red. Still, I wanted to keep the color palette pretty basic and so I tried to concentrate my effort on choosing something golden to shoot as hero. Sweets were unfortunately out of the question but the necessity to have almost exclusively white props pushed me to choose tea as my main subject.
This isn't so far fetched, few things can better fill the long dark winter afternoons than a warm steaming cup of tea enjoyed while watching people freezing outside in the streets. One specific variety of tea comes to my mind when I need to pamper myself and that is the milk oolong tea.
Its scent is rich, thick and buttery, the taste lives up to expectations with sweet overtones of vanilla but still maintaining the aromatic notes typical of oolong teas. All together seems to be sipping a cup of feathers while wrapped in a warm cozy embrace.

The idea for the photography composition came to me while sipping some coffee actually: tea, teacup, steam, snow and feathers where the only props I needed but to push the golden theme I decided to use a golden spoon and few Christmasy decorations.

Styling the shoot was quite simple; I used some gum-paste feathers I have in my prop stash that I dangled in midair using kitchen twine passed through a rattan tray. The background was simply created using wax-paper placed in front of a white cardboard and some fake snow completed the set.
The most delicate part was to get the feathers in a good position from the start since they are quite fragile, the use of my preparatory sketch was quite handy in doing this.

As tea I actually use some loose milk-oolong tea that I have in my pantry but I let it stand for a while and oxidize till it turned golden in color. To enhance the theme I suspended some golden flakes in the tea itself, they also add few more points of interest to the central area.

As concerning the lights, I placed my big home-made white-balanced light on the left between 8 and 9 hours. A big silver bouncer was placed on the right completed by a little fill_light placed around 5 o'clock aimed low to lighten the dark side of the teacup and saucer. To ensure I didn't loose any light I placed a silver bouncer on the rattan tray so to bounce light back down into the composition.
To control the specular highlight in the spoon, I placed a sugar cube on it (thanks again to Jenn for suggesting this to me since I don't normally use sugar in my tea).

The most difficult part of the whole project was to stick some sparkling golden stars in the background where they would look right without damaging the feathers (or dropping them into the teacup).

As concerning the camera setting I went for a mid-depth f-stop of 6.3 on a 50mm lens, so to have the stars out of focus, and an ISO of 200.

The post processing consisted mostly on balancing the exposure in light and white balance, push up the clarity to get nice contrast in the details and blend in a larger f-stop exposure to bring back some sparkles into the stars.

While I was at it I couldn't help myself but shoot a composition using the steeped whole tea leaves and an array of white props: teapot, sugar cubes and a little dish.

Coco-nutty crepes cake for #NellysBigDay

2011-12-09T15:53:00.001+01:00

So it seems that the day has come... Nelly got hooked up. Nah it isn't for her endless ranting about the sprigs of mint over desserts and neither because of her magnificent contribution to the extintion of bananas
Murray finally asked her to be his lovely wife (blinkey-blinkey ring and all). But I bet you all know that by now, she was squeeking for DAYS! I had to use hamburger buns on my ears to avoid breaking my timpans.

Joke aside, Nelly is just on of the sweetest-jumping Dominican I have met so far. We know each other since 1 year but as all Twitter-relationships, we end up knowing each other more than we do our family. We do spend the best part of hour waking hours together after all.

Can't really get any suggestion on how to manage a mariage, haven't been there haven't done that but, dealing with two chefs, I would suggest leaving the knives fairly out of hand while arguing (whisks are ok as spatulas).
Food always bring love as it gives love. Keep on cooking for each other guys, life will show you the ripest ingredients. The perfect recipe comes with time, even burnt cookies can be useful (just keep a fireplace on handy).
Be prepared to extend the number of servings when new lovelies will come seat at your table. Teach them to cook, teach them to love.

Wish you all the best my friends, sunshine, happiness and prosperity! But now let's eat cake!

You see Nelly, you got what you wished for, a...

Coco-nutty Crepes cake à la Nelly

Ingredients (serve 6-8):

Crepes (make 16 crepes):

1 cup coconut milk
1 cup rice flour
2 tablespoon sugar
2 eggs
30g butter, melted

Sauce:

1/2 cup Sugar (for caramel)
1/2 cup coconut juice
1/4 cup Coconut cream
3 teaspoon Rum

Filling:

125g butter
1/2 cup coconut water
4 tablespoon sugar or to taste
3.5 tablespoon toasted almond flour ¹
1/16 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1teaspoon amaretto liqueur or to taste

1cup hazelnuts, roasted and chopped ²

Method:
Let's start by preparing the crepes batter; to do so simply combine all the ingredients, except the butter, in the bowl of a food processor and blitz until smooth. Pour the butter into the bowl and process till combined. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl since some of the rice flour might get stuck and process once more.
To cook the crepes warm up a 20cm/8" non-stick skillet over medium heat and then pour roughly 2 tablespoons of the mixture at a time in it. Tilt and shake the pan to uniformely distribute the batter and let cook. Once the borders will start to brown the crepe should be ready to be flipped over. Let cook on the other side until it will start to brown, then transfer to a plate.
Continue like this until all the batter is over.

While the crepes are cooling down, prepare the filling by combining all the ingredients, except the hazelnuts, in the bowl of a food processor and let it run until all nice and smooth.

To assemble the cake simply smear each crepe with a 2 teaspoons worth of the filling, sprinkle some of the hazelnuts over and cover with another crepe smoothing the underlying filling. Proceed like this until all the crepes will be over, put the last crepe with the nicest side facing up but do not smear it with filling.
While you are assembling the cake, prepare the caramel sauce.
In a small saucepan combine the sugar with the coconut juice and set over medium fire. Stir until the sugar will be dissolved and let it boil down to a dark amber caramel, stop the cooking by plunging the bottom of the saucepan into a bowl of cold water. Add the coconut cream to the caramel and whisk until well combined, scraping the bottom and side of the pan.
Let the sauce cool down to room temperature and add the rum whisking it in well.

¹ To toast almond flours, spread it evenly on a baking tray and place it in a 120C/250F for 5-8 minutes. Keep an eye on it cause it can burn easily.

² To toast whole hazelnuts, place them in a 150C/300F oven for 10-15 minutes.

Sourdough and the Creative life

2011-12-07T02:51:00.001+01:00

I have to apologize with Stephanie from Groundcherry blog for having missed my aim at this month's Secret Recipe Club http://secretrecipeclub.com/how-it-works/. This happens when you get on doing as many things at once as your computer can bare.
I got originally assigned with her blog but in the process of looking for a recipe through the days I stumbled on a tab that had Winnie's blog on it and so I thought that was my to-be source (since it was opened already for a few days).
You see, I have been using my browser window more like a pin-board with as many as 10-15 tabs opened simultaneously at each session (and hence inherited by the next one until I deem them worth retiring).

This seems to be a leitmotiv of my persona: throw it in, fish them out, throw them in once more to enrich the minestrone soup that is my mind. Given these premises, what do you think my day would end up looking like? You got it, a panettone loaf filled with as many candied fruits as to resemble more a fruitcake (and I do not like candied fruits that much).

To refine and finalize the recipe for the perfect day takes a long time (as my bank account and stress level can attest pretty faithfully). After working on it for more than 4 years, I feel that I barely got its outlook right.
Baking with wild yeast can produces delicious results but can also worn out the nerves of the baker who wants it done (fairly) quickly and to perfection.
Is he pretending too much from Nature? Probably...

If my day resembles a panettone loaf, I feel like a bowl of proofing mother-yeast, constantly in need of regular feeding. The quest for the perfect loaf is possibly an endless one; our taste-buds will fail us before we can call the recipe developing done.

Anyhow, in today's panettone finds its place a nice bowl of rice noodles with poached eggs and spices-butter, courtesy of Stephanie. When Amanda and Jane made me notice my Secret Recipe Club detour, I hurried to GroundCherry blog to look for something that could fit the tight schedule and my dietary restriction.
In her blog Stephanie gives us useful tips about how to have a yummy meal even when singles. Among her gluten-free recipes we can also find tips about gardening and more insight on sustainable living.
Sounds perfect to me! And among her suggestions I found these poached eggs with curried butter that successfully put eggs back into my dinner! And this is my interpretation:

Poached eggs with Lebkuchen-spiced butter over rice noodles in a cocoa-cardamom duck consommé

Ingredients (serve 2):

Duck consommé:

1cup duck stock
1tsp cocoa powder
1/4tsp grated orange zest
2 medium cardamom pods
1tsp rum
1/2tsp sugar or to taste

Spiced Butter:

25g butter
1/4tsp grated cinnamon
1/8tsp grated nutmeg
1 clove, grinded
1/4tsp black pepper, cracked

2 bundles dried rice noodles
2 Large eggs (or to taste)

Method:
Let's start with the duck consommé. In a little pan, combine the duck consommé with the cocoa powder, the cardamom pods and the orange zest; bring slowly to a simmer covered while you continue with the rest of the steps.

In a small pot melt half of the butter and let it cook until it will smell nutty. At this point, out of the fire, add the rest of the butter along with the spices. Let them infuse placing it back on the fire if the butter won't melt.

In the meantime soak the rice-noodles in salted boiling water and poach the eggs following your favorite method.

When ready to serve, taste the duck consommé for seasoning adding the rum and sugar. Drain the rice noodles and divide them among the plates, pour on them the broth (leaving the cardamom behind), place the poached egg on top of the noodles drizzling the butter through a fine sieve over the whole (remelt it over low fire if it has cooled down and solidified) and enjoy!

Roasted Onions stuffed with masala quinoa, amaranth and caramelized Brussel sprouts

2011-12-05T17:00:00.000+01:00

I am going through a period when I just do not feel the sparks sparkle. New dishes may come out and find their way to paper but they stop there, there is no drive into cooking them or is it perhaps the photo shoot that somehow scares me?
To create compelling pictures you need a driving idea, a theme that is going to diffuse into your pictures. Most of my works so far have been concentrated in shooting the bare food, isolating it rather than making it part of an organic context.
Treating the plated food as a sculpture, an object of beauty with its own right to shine has always attracted me but now it doesn't seem to be enough.

Lately I have posted a couple of articles where the photos somehow had more mood into them, they had a story and a context. They had more pregnancy and they were also more fun to shoot and edit.
You know when you finally get to taste that special something and you realize that there isn't going to be a way back? Probably I am at that crossroad of stylistic indecision.

Is there something brewing inside me? Hopefully so and I do hope that it is some sort of inspirational catalog from which to draw living lymph.
Books, magazines, the web are all sources that are supposed to help you in you creativity struggle and they surely help.

Adding to this creative struggle is the fact that recently I have been (self)diagnosed with a Candida overgrowth.
No news under the sun, this has been going on for 4 years at least without being able to corner it; this made me super frustrated and depressed. Names do have power!
When you know how to call the little devils inside you, you can curse them at every step of the fight and this time the battle field is the kitchen.
Defeating a yeast infection means in fact to absolutely avoid complex carbohydrates, hence no wheat products, potatoes and sugar of any kind. Fruits and certain root vegetables fall into the latter category since they contain sugars and so must be avoided. Another negative side is that almost all dairy and fermented products must be avoided (including vinegar, soy and fish sauce, tea, coffee etc).
Taking it from the positive side, I am exploring the world of vegetarian dishes and I am loving it (probably since I have been love-struck by rice noodles).
There is though, a real positive part of this anti-Candida diet: you HAVE TO eat lots and lots of garlic, onions and cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale etc). I am a happy camper!!

Choosing a new recipe to try, just to break the routine, I had to take into account all these limitations and I knew that I could find something for me at Winnie's table.
Winnie, author of Healthy Green Kitchen, is a naturopathic doctor who soon turned into a food writer always with a keen eye to good living. It was only matter of time that her list of daily chores expanded even further to include photography.
I had a great time browsing through her blog; her recipes always seemed fresh and appealing as do her photos.
After skipping on many of her tempting desserts (peanut butter and jam scones?? oh yeah, hard to resist), I stumbled on a recipe for stuffed onions that featured quinoa as carb and so they were perfect for me.

In my interpretation of her recipe that I propose you, I have combined the quinoa with amaranth so to slightly improve in nutritional values of the dish and give a different popping texture to the stuffing.
Since I can't have peppers, I have substituted them with caramelized Brussels sprouts and fixed the spices to tie the whole together.

Roasted Onions stuffed with masala quinoa, amaranth and caramelized Brussels sprouts
Ingredients (Serve 4 as appetizer):

4 medium yellow onions

1/2tbsp coconut oil
1cup shredded Brussels sprouts (roughly 6 of them)
2 big garlic cloves, minced
1/2tsp red chili flakes, optional

1/2tbsp coconut oil
1 cup chopped onions (out of the inside of the 3 up)
1/2tsp cumin seeds, grinded
1tsp powdered sage
1tsp garam masala
1/4cup amaranth
1/4cup quinoa
1tbsp chopped cilantro stems & root; reserve the leaves to decorate the dish at the end

1/3 cup chopped toasted walnuts and almonds

2-3 bay leaves
Extra-virgin olive oil

Method:
Peel the onions and cut a little slice out of the root end so they stand up. Bring a pot of water to a boil and gently drop the onions in it. Cook them for 20 minutes until the outer layer will have softened.
After this time, drop the par-cooked onions in a bowl of cold water and let them cool down for 10 minutes or so. Do not throw away the cooking water, you will use it to cook the quinoa and amaranth.

In the meantime sauté the Brussels sprouts. While you are slicing the sprouts, heat up a medium skillet; add 1/2 tablespoon of coconut oil to it followed by the Brussels sprouts. Cook them until nice and golden brown. Add the minced garlic and the chili flakes (if using) to the pan followed by a little water. Stir for a few seconds until you start smelling the garlic; season with salt and set aside in a bowl while you proceed with the rest of the stuffing.

The onions, by now, should have cooled down enough to be handled. Cut a slice out of their top so to expose the interior; with a sharp knife cut vertically through the first two-three layer on the side of each onion and carefully take out their core. Set the shells aside.

Chop the onion cores and sauté 1 cup worth of them in the same Brussels sprouts skillet using another 1/2 tablespoon of coconut oil. Cook the onions until they will start to brown and caramelize, add then the spices, the amaranth and 3/4 cup of the onions cooking water to the skillet. Stir well, bring to a boil, lower the heat and cook for 15 minutes covered.
At this point add the quinoa followed by the chopped coriander stems and root. Pour a further 3/4 cup of the onion cooking water, bring to a boil once more and cook for further 15 minutes covered and on low heat.

At the end of these 15 minutes, check the seeds for doneness and season with salt. If the seeds should still be too hard, add a little more water and let them cook a little bit more. At this point you can heat up your oven to 200C/400F.

Once the seeds are ready, mix in the sautéed Brussels sprouts and the nuts tasting for seasoning. Stuff the onion shells with the mixture and place them upright in a shallow baking dish placing the leftover chopped onion cores and few bay leaves around them.

Sprinkle some salt on the chopped onions, drizzle some olive oil on top of the baking dish and roast for 30 minutes.
Let the roasted onions cool a little before sprinkling the reserved cilantro leaves and serving.

Roasted Beets and Butternut-squash salad with rice-noodles and Buffalo mozzarella in an Oriental dressing

2011-11-15T01:46:00.001+01:00

Daily rhythms, recognised by ringing bells, chirping birds or simmering pots, are what shape our lives. Rhythms are inherently characterized by repetitions and so our days repeat one after the other often without an appreciable perturbation in their structure.
We do attribute time-milestone quality to activities that otherwise would be simply dictated by unpredictable Nature. Breakfast at 8am, Lunch at 1pm, Dinner by 8pm; they already define how your day will be arranged, its activities, its different paces and flavours.
A slow started morning soon metamorphoses in a sprint-running sequel of wash, tuck, buckle, open, close, run, run, run. Lunch gives us a breath of fresh air, when we do not choose to keep on running, this time on a tapis-roulant perhaps. The slope leading down to 5pm is on sight. Dinner needs to be planned or ordered and then... Writing? Reading? Loving? Sleeping?

It is easy to get caught in the whirlpool of actions day after day until something forces us to stop, think and get frustrated. We revert then to more natural rhythms, paced by our body talks, by its whispers, by its urges.

We often loose contact with the superior wisdom that inhabit our body's messages, too faint to overcome the outer noise that fills up our heads. Every now and then we get unexplained cravings for strawberries or broccoli, even when we aren't pregnant. The reasoning-source behind them is the same: our body calls for attention, it needs something!
The presence of an "unborn" child makes us simply more reverent toward these calls.
Cravings aren't always simply dictated by our gluttony and they often deserves to be heard and followed. And it is even worse when they scream: "Sleeeeeep!!!". We haven't got the time to lay down and sleep, our list of chores is simply too long or we just feel the need to continue doing stuff to give a reason to our day.

But what actually makes our day worth being lived?
Our to-do list helps us to get an idea for the day just passed by, but I still feel that the supreme moment when our daily-feather gets weighted in front of the Past and Future gods relies in those minutes when we lower our guards and slowly slide into sleep.
Lowering the guard of our rational thinking is all that it takes to start the dialogue with oneself and hopefully smile at the dreams world and at the new day.

From our daily merry-go-rounds is hard to keep track of the landscape, to stop for a moment and contemplate the bigger picture that is our life.

Often contemplating a photography can have this power. Its ability to focus and isolate a single moment from the cacophony that is the outside world, gives us the chance to abstract a single gesture into the realm of metaphors. These moments when we pierce the veil of daily routines are as precious as rare and they are not out of reach.
Also some cooking practices have this power of extraction, from the specific moment to the continuum of our life. Chopping a mountain of potatoes or carrots; waiting for them to roast in the hot embrace of the oven allowing us to get captured by the siren' song of their sizzling are examples of these special moments.

Autumn is then the perfect season when to experience what lies behind/beyond.
The way to the pot of gold is laid with pretty flowers, daunting monsters and powerful weapons; the rainbow is always on sight let's reach for it.

Roasted Beets and Butternut-squash salad with rice-noodles and Buffalo mozzarella in an Oriental dressing

Ingredients (serve 2):

400g red beets, peeled and cut into wedges
400g butternut-squash, peeled and cut into wedges

2 bundles of rice noodle, soaked in hot water or vegetable stock
1 buffalo mozzarella

Dressing:

1/2tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1/2tbsp sake
1tsp soy sauce
3tsp verjus
1/2 shallot, finely minced
1/2tsp Dijon mustard
few drops of roasted sesame oil

Method:
Preheat your oven to 220C/430F, toss the red-beets wedges with some olive oil and roast for 20 minutes; add then the butternut-squash wedges also tossed in a little olive oil and roast for another 20 minutes or until ready.

In the meantime prepare the dressing by whisking together all the ingredients and seasoning with salt and pepper if needed.
When the vegetable will be ready, take them out of the oven and let them cool down for a few minutes.

Toss then the rice noodles with the roasted vegetables and the dressing, place on serving plates with pieces of the buffalo mozzarella.

Lazy chocolate mousse tarte with Amarena Cherries

2011-11-10T11:41:00.001+01:00

Sometimes sleep seems to love you sooo much that doesn't let you go. A fuzzy embrace of promises of wishful thinking and premonitions, as enchanting as the sirens' song. Where is the main-mast when we need it? Navigating through our lives we get swept from shore to shore by the inclement weather, a sparkle of sun in the distance our aim.

When the clouds cover the sky and warm winds make the fallen autumn leaves billow in the lazy streets, all seems set for dreaming or just forgetting.
Nightmares often taunt us more in the waken hours than when the doors to oblivion are wide opened. A jumble of ghosts keeps our peripheral vision busy with shadow creatures while waving in front of our eyes masks of resistance and procrastination.

Tic, toc, tic, toc... it goes in us the clock of destiny charged by the spring of our free-will.
Resistance is futile, still we need to stay afloat. We will be washed out on our little sandy beach at one point or another. Will someone grab us and carry our life experiences with him as guide for new lands to be discovered?
Hope is our common Northern star.

And then there are those days when you wake up with a smile, the sun is shining through the venetian blinds and your life. Then you would like to go back to sleep to just bathe your dreams in the sunlight. And when you wake up again? Breakfast in bed? Don't mind if I do! The newspaper, a pot of warm coffee and a slice of my lazy chocolate mousse tarte are your best friends.

Easy chocolate-mousse tarte with Amarena cherries

Ingredients (make a 24cm/10" diameter tarte):

For the chocolate mousse filling:

500g heavy cream
1/2 vanilla bean, finely chopped
6g gelatin in sheets (roughly 3 sheets)
200g dark chocolate (use at least a 60% variety), finely chopped
1/2tbsp Chinese rice wine (optional)

For the pie dough:

180g all-purpose flour
1tbsp sugar
1/4tsp cinnamon, or to taste
1 pinch of salt
120g butter, cut into dices and frozen
60g ice-cold water

Candied Amarena cherries in heavy syrup (like those from Fabbri)
White chocolate

Method:
The day before the assembly of the tarte, prepare the chocolate ganache that will serve as base for the mousse.
To this aim, slowly bring to a simmer the cream with the vanilla bean. In the meantime soak the gelatin sheets in cold water and transfer the chocolate in a big enough bowl to contain also the cream.
The gelatin will need 5-10 minutes to fully hydrate and become soft, at this point the cream should have reached a simmer. Squeeze well the gelatin sheets to eliminate the excess water and stir it into the hot cream until well dissolved. Through a fine meshed sieve, pour the hot cream on top of the chopped chocolate and with a spatula work the two together until well combined.
Let the ganache cool slightly by slowly stirring it and seal the bowl using plastic wrap that will be in direct contact with the chocolate ganache (it will avoid a skin to form). If using, add the Chinese rice wine to the ganache right before sealing the bowl.
Refrigerate for at least 24h before use.

The pie dough can also be done the day before.
In the bowl of a food processor combine the flour, sugar, salt and cinnamon by pulsing them a few times. Add then the frozen dices of butter and pulse them until the whole mixture will assume a sandy appearance with still little pea-sized pieces of butter here and there. Always pulsing, drizzle in enough water to bind the dough. Be careful not to overwork it, it should not come into a ball but just in clumps that hold together by themselves or when pressed in your hand.
Dump the dough onto the kitchen counter, bring it together by gently kneading it and shape it into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and let rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

After the dough will have rested, transfer it onto the kitchen counter and roll it out between two sheets of plastic wrap into a disk large enough to cover your tarte mold. Every now and then loosen the plastic wrap from the dough while rolling.
To transfer the rolled dough onto the tarte tin, fold it in half and then in half again so to have a pointy quarter of a circle. Place the tip of the folded dough in the center of the tarte tin and unfold it. Gently ease the dough in pressing it against the sides of the mold, cut then the excess of dough or simply roll it on itself so to form a a thicker top rim for your tarte.
Cover the lined tarte tin with plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. The tarte mold can naturally be lined also the day before and kept in the fridge overnight tightly covered with plastic wrap.

When ready to bake your tarte, heat up your oven to 160C/320F; pierce the bottom of the tarte shell with a fork, cover it with wrinkled baking paper and then with dry beans/pie weights or the like. Bake for 25min then remove the pie weights with their baking paper and bake until golden brown (another 15-20min).
Transfer the tarte shell on a pastry grid and let cool completely before filling it.

To finish the chocolate mousse, transfer the gelled ganache in the bowl of a standing mixer and whip it up using the paddle for no more than 2-3 minutes at medium speed. Do not over whip it or the mousse with become grainy.
When the tarte shell will have cooled down, fill it up with the whipped chocolate ganache, the cherries (save some for the top decoration) and their syrup mixing them all together as you go.
Finish the top with some of the cherries and some shavings of white chocolate.

Refrigerate the tarte covered with plastic wrap for a few hours so the filling will have time to set.
The tarte is best served when at room temperature drizzled with some more of the amarena cherries heavy syrup.

Thanks to Albarock for sharing this technique for a chocolate-mousse:

Pumpkin-seeds pesto over Salmon, rice-noodles and white beans

2011-11-07T14:05:00.000+01:00

The Secret Recipe Club is back!
This time I got assigned Melissa's blog: A Fit and spicy Life. In here Melissa, tries to reconcile her love for good food with a healthy lifestyle made of stress-relieving cardio and weight-lifting sessions. Among the healthy and simple recipes Melissa proposes us, my eyes were caught by her Salmon with Pumpkin seeds pesto.

Pumpkin seeds are widely enjoyed both in Germany as back home in Sicily but I haven't cooked with them as yet.
As a kid, during our usual Sunday walk, we would always stop at the "calia e simenza" shop near the town cathedral. The neon lit, rustic stand was filled with baskets of dry fruits and freshly roasted nuts.

My all time favorite were the roasted chickpeas with their sandy texture and lovely crunch; I just shoveled them by the handful into my mouth. They were usually served in paper bag and dad would also buy some roasted pumpkin seeds as well as peanuts, but these both came with more work before I could eat them so I just left them to my parents.
Here in Germany I found them back.
The pumpkin seeds lace many of the succulent dark-bread loaves giving them a lovely crunch. My mother was also quite surprised in finding little bags of ready-shelled seeds in the grocery store shelves but this time I wasn't so lucky. I had to buy a bag of shell-on seeds since the shelled one were outrageously something like 3-times more expensive. I figured that, since I do like shelling pistachio nuts, I would also like doing it for them. Wroooong!!
The flesh-to-shell ratio of pistachios (as in every nut) is much larger! It took me almost 2 hours to shell 1/2cup worth of pumpkin seeds and no, I wasn't snacking on them in the meantime.
By the end my lips where swollen like a life-saving vest from all the salt on the shells. Worthless to say that it was well past dinner time and I had to fix something to quiet my rambling stomach while keeping still some space to taste the recipe I was supposed to prepare.
By the time I cooked it all and had it ready to shoot, it was past midnight...

The recipe I will propose you has been adapted from the original from "Bon Appetit". The original recipe was based on cilantro but since I do not really like it that much, I substituted it for flat-leaf parsley reckoning that its taste would go very well with salmon. Actually I wanted to use chervil for its light licorice taste but couldn't find any in the store and I only had dry tarragon home.
Honestly, in most of the pestos I have had, I rarely had found notes from the nuts used in them; and this time wasn't any different. I think that they provide mostly the bulk and baseline for the sauce flavor concealed under the herbs and garlic notes.
In my recipe I also left out the lime juice since I do not stand sour pestos (they remind me too much of the jarred version). Last but not least, I used Parmesan instead of only salt to flavour the sauce. How I served it to myself? With some rice tagliatelle dressed with a little pesto diluted in olive oil and some white beans.

Pumpkin seeds-Parsley pesto over pan fried salmon, rice tagliatelle and white beans (adapted from Bon Appetit )

Ingredients (serve 4):

1/2 cup toasted pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup parsley (about 5-6 stalks), chopped coarsely
1tsp coriander seeds, toasted and grinded
1/2 garlic clove, coarsely chopped
2tsp grated Parmesan, or to taste
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup water
Salt & Pepper to taste

4 medium salmon fillets
Vegetable oil

4 bundles dry rice tagliatelle
Vegetable stock, optional

1cup cooked white beans

Method:
For the pesto, gather all the dry ingredients and the olive oil in the bowl on a little food processor and pulse them till a coarse paste forms. Add the water little at a time to loosen up the pesto to the consistency you prefer. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

If using, bring the vegetable stock to a boil and pour it over the dry rice noodles; in alternative just use boiling water and salt to soak them.

Sprinkle the salmon fillets with a little salt on both sides and coat them lightly with vegetable oil. Warm up a skillet on medium fire and pan fry the salmon fillets on both sides, turning them over when the first side will have developed a nice crust. Set aside keeping them warm.
Pour a little water in the pan to loosen the juices, lower the fire and add the white beans to gently warm them up.

Drain well the rice noddle and dress them with some of the pesto, eventually loosened in some extra olive oil, add the beans and toss thoroughly.

Serve in deep bowls with the salmon fillets on top finishing by some of the pesto on the salmon.

Duck over toasted breadcrumbs and sweet-sour celery

2011-11-03T03:14:00.000+01:00

Bitter-sweet, sour-sweet, life has to be sweet one way or another. But what do you prefer to be coupled with it? bitterness or sourness? I'd say, give me some salt and I am happy with both.

I do like sour things, they give me a high. Have you ever sipped apple-cider vinegar (for health reason not just because there was nothing better to drink at home) when you are sleepy? You can almost feel your heart speed up. Sour things release Hydrogen ions in your body and that is like eating a battery; new electricity runs through your veins and make you buzz!
It isn't that you get electrocuted when you eat lot of ceviche in one day but I think it will contribute to keep you active for a while.

What else do you do to keep your buzz going? Even though buzz sounds almost like booze, it just make me sleepy; so I stick with coffee thank you.
Each morning I have to have my Arabic-mocha.

My little steel-pot on the electric hob, at close to the minimum power; few teaspoons of coffee powder go in and then it is a slow infusion. Often it takes up to half an hour to reach the simmering point!
To have it special (and traditional), add to it 1-2 cardamom pods crashed toward the end of the infusion process. Sometimes, when I feel in need of a special hug, I can slip in a little cocoa powder or some cumin seeds.
A simple/common beverage becomes this way a special brew!

I very rarely use sugar in my coffees, and usually that is coupled with milk. I'd rather use a little salt to tame a strong coffee bitterness than add sweetness to it. The latter seems to make it kinda too thick on the palate; the light aromatic broth is transformed is something totally different and not necessarily pleasant (don't get me started about warm milk with sugar ewwww).
Sugar is definitely overrated in our lives, I just keep in my pantry to use as baking ingredient for making caramel! The chemical transformation of something so boring when eat alone just transforms itself... Ahhh caramel.... That will be for a future post though, this time around I propose another duck recipe with a Sicilian flair (and a little sugar in it):

Pan-fried Duck breast over spiced toasted breadcrumbs and served with sweet-sour celery and raisins

Ingredients (serve 2):

300g Duck breast

For the sweet-sour celery:

1tbsp duck fat
red chili flakes, to taste
1 celery stalk, cut in 2" sticks
1tsp sugar
1tbsp wine vinegar
1tbsp dried raisins, soaked
salt

For the toasted breadcrumbs:

1/2tbsp duck fat
1tbsp breadcrumbs
1/4tsp cinnamon
1/8tsp nutmeg
salt & pepper

Method:

Score the duck-breast' skin with few slits not deeper than the skin itself. Place it, skin-side down, on a cold skillet and warm the whole on a medium fire. The fat will render and may start splatter, in this case transfer some of it in a small pot.
Fry the duck breast on the skin-side until it will become crisp and of a deep golden color. In the meantime warm up the oven to 200C/390F; if the skillet you are using is not oven-safe, place a cookie shit in the warming oven.
When the duck-breast skin will be crisp and of a nice golden color, turn it over and let it cook for 1-2 minutes or until the under side will have started to take on color. At this point either slide the skillet directly in the warm oven or transfer the duck breast on the hot cookie sheet. Cook the duck breast in the oven skin-side up for 6-8 minutes or until it will have reached the doneness of your liking. When ready, tent the breast loosely with aluminum paper and let it rest for further 5 minutes out of the oven.

In the meantime that the duck is cooking, let's work on the other components of the dish. In a skillet combine the duck fat and the breadcrumbs thoroughly and toast them over medium low fire until they turn a nice tan colour add then the spices, season with salt (be careful when tasting, they are scorching hot).
For the celery, sauté it with some olive oil and the chili flakes for 1-2 minutes. Add then the raisins and let them warm through. At this point add the sugar and, once it will have dissolved and start caramelising, the vinegar. Take out of the fire and season with salt and extra sugar or vinegar if needed.
To serve, warm up the breadcrumbs if they have cooled down too much and divide them on the serving plates; they will act as a sweet sandy bed for the duck-breast slices. Arrange the meat over the breadcrumbs followed by the sour sweet celery and raisins. Drizzle the extra sauce over the meat and enjoy.

Duck breast with caramelized onions & Sicilian orange sauce

2011-10-27T03:12:00.000+02:00

Does Photography really steal souls? Probably not steal but capture it. Capturing, stealing, what's the difference? Probably the fact that we can't capture the whole soul of a place but just bits and pieces of it. So when we go on a holiday, visit a new restaurant, bar or anything alike and take snapshots of it, do we really capture its soul or just what resonates with us, what we already know and are able to recognize. To me capturing through photography tends to be the harder and more isolating day after day I try doing it. Isolating in the sense that often I'd like to be invisible sitting on a bench or at a cafe so to be able to observe for as long as I need without causing concern (or being asked to pay the bill).
Probably this is what it's all about, snap and snippets of a place, of a history, of a soul.

Analyzing a place is an intricate matter of observation, experience, concentration and time. As an impressionist painter, we want to record Nature and its colorful shadows; the people that make it and its most remote corners that bear an incredible power of synthesis.

It took me many subsequent visits to Paris before I could feel allowed to take snapshots of it. Somehow I always feel like I need to be at "home" to let the juices flow unarmed by logistic worries.

By looking through the viewfinder, we have the rare opportunity to collapse the world outside in a two dimensional representation. It lets us focus onto a detail, forget the distractions around. Our eyes have to do the trick at the end, by using composition and bokeh to isolate and give the scene a raison d'etre. Then there is the post-processing, the room where memories and moods can resurface and be created tout-court.

Letting the spirit of the place invade us is what we need to do, is what we ask for; probably this is what lies behind the Stendhal' syndrome (LINK) attacks. The beauty and expressivity of a piece of art can struck cords that quickly transport us in new places inside ourselves. Can cooking be considered a form of artistic expression? When is a dish a piece of art? Does it have to arouse the souls of many to be called so or just 1 person is enough?

Let's not open this Pandora's box now, this is matter for another discussion...

Duck breast with caramelized onions & Sicilian orange sauce

Ingredients (serve 2):

300g duck breast

For the Caramelized Onions:

100g yellow onion, sliced
100g red onion, sliced
1/2tsp tomato paste
1tbsp white wine
salt

For the Orange sauce:

1/2tbsp duck fat
red chili flakes
2tbsp orange juice
1/2 tsp Orange zest loosely packed
1 green olive in brine, cut in wedges
1/2tsp green olive's brine
salt and pepper

Method:
Score the duck-breast' skin with few slits not deeper than the skin itself. Place it, skin-side down, on a cold skillet and warm the whole on a medium fire. The fat will render and may start splatter, in this case transfer some of it in a small pot.
Fry the duck breast on the skin-side until it will become crisp and of a deep golden color. In the meantime warm up the oven to 200C/390F; if the skillet you are using is not oven-safe, place a cookie sheet in the warming oven.
When the duck-breast skin will be crisp and of a nice golden color, turn it over and let it cook for 1-2 minutes or until the under side will have started to take on color. At this point ~~flip over the duck-breast and~~ either slide the skillet directly in the warm oven or transfer the duck breast on the hot cookie sheet. Cook the duck breast in the oven skin-side up for 6-8 minutes or until it will have reached the doneness of your liking. When ready, tent the breast loosely with aluminum paper and let it rest for further 5 minutes out of the oven.

While the duck is cooking, take care of the rest of the dish.

Pour some oil in a skillet and let it warm on medium fire; when it will start shimmering add the sliced onions and let them fry till a dark brown color. At the end add to the skillet the tomato paste diluted in the white wine, stir, season and take out of the fire. Keep warm.

For the sauce, pour the duck fat in a small saucepan and add the chili flakes; let them simmer for 30 seconds or so. Add the orange juice and zest to the saucepan and let the whole reduce of 1/3rd or until thickened. Toward the end season with the green olive wedges, its brine and if needed salt and pepper. Keep warm.

When the duck will have done resting, pour some of the leaked juices into the sauce and whisk together. Slice the duck breast into thick slices on a bias; divide the onions between the two plates, place the duck breast slices on them and drizzle the whole with the orange sauce.
Enjoy!

Mediterranean onion-squash and sausage soup

2011-10-21T02:39:00.002+02:00

Et voilà! A before and after shot....

What do I really want to talk about in this post, I still ask myself. I have been working on these pictures for the last days, a whole week actually, without really being satisfied with their appeal. I know I could have re-staged them but nah, that would be too easy nevertheless I ended up posting them here (not that I have any hope any of them will ever make its way on any of the food-porn sites we all know) but sometimes showing a failure can be more teaching than contemplating a perfect shot come out of Vogue's food section (if they ever had any that is). This pumpkin soup was as tasty as it can be, how can you go wrong when you include sausage in a meal, I ask myself. Though little chunks of crispy sautéed savory sausage meat in a bowl of sunset-orange pumpkin chunky-soup make the whole ensemble really look like dog food to your camera's eye. No cream swirl, no pretty scattering of whateva could really help here; the texture is what it is. It is homey, it is no fuss, it is cold-weather feel-good grub and it is good enough to share it with you all.
Nevertheless, being a perfectionist as I tend do be (a pain in the neck to myself at times) I had to try photoshopping in some parsley and actually it helped breaking a bit the dull texture.

Today, sitting here with my daily cup of coffee at my favorite coffee-shop, I was wondering whether I wanted to read any of the bunch of books I should go through, stare into the eyes of the people passing by scaring the hibi-gibis out of them or do something more productive.
So here I am writing a letter to my Santas; no you are not all growing flowing white beards as we speak (I hope at least), but you all are as tender loving as the old Claus is.

Haven't had much pumpkin soup growing up, mostly because mom doesn't like mushy things; it isn't the same for daddy though.
The kind of pumpkin we mostly get down there often tends to be just a big blob of orange water rather than a yummy veggie to play with. What mom usually did with it was slice it, pan fry it and then season it with garlic and vinegar; a rather yummy combination when the pumpkin turned out to be actually sweet.
Occasionally, in those "cold" Sicilian winter nights, daddy's wish for mushy things extended to pumpkin and then mom simply stew the watery stringy thing again with a hefty portion of sliced garlic and black olives. Again a revelation when the pumpkin had any flavor at all and a proper texture.

Since when I live in Germany I have grown accustomed to the variety of squashes and pumpkins we find around here, though not being so much the mushy-things person (except for chicken feet in a Dim Sum orgy) I do not eat/cook so many soups hence the scarcity of these warming delicacies around here.

Friends around here love to cook the Hokkaido/onion variety of winter squash, why? Cause you do not even have to peel it! An sufficiently good reason in my book for a vegetable with as tough an outer layer as grandpa Simpson's one (the seeds are also quite plump and perfect for being roasted). So I got myself one of these lantern shaped deep red-orange beauty and started having fun with it; for the records I have been having squash-soup lunches since 1 week and all from the same squash but not all the same soup naturally. This is just because the onion squash is a rather dry one so what you see is what you get and it thickens up beautifully any kind of soup without the need for an immersion blender to help in the process.
May it be duck fond, anchovy paste or tomato concentrate, all of them created a great satisfying lunch when paired with the orange squash and ... evaporated milk! Yes, those little cartons are really god sent. The tawny colored thick liquor they contain makes a great base for a soup with no risk of curdling or excess fattiness (you can always finish your soup with half-a-stick of butter or a gooood glug of extra-virgin olive oil to take care of this).

So here we are; the ode to the onion squash is over even because I am left with just the last wedge in my fridge for tomorrow's lunch; how will I cook it?? For the moment let's enjoy this warming soup fit also for meat lovers.

Mediterranean onion squash and sausage soup

Ingredients (serve 1 as entree):

250g sausage meat (2 sausages)
Butter, to taste
1 medium onion, minced
200g Onion/Hokkaido squash, chopped
1tsp tomato paste
3tbsp dry white wine
Vegetable stock
Pepper
2-3 tbsp evaporated milk or cream

Method:

Divide the sausage meat into small bite-sized pieces and sauté them in a hot pan. When nicely browned, add a nice chunk of butter and the onions. Let the onion sauté scraping the bottom of the pan of the meat fond and when it will have become translucent add the chopped squash.
Stir, let the whole warm up and add then the tomato paste diluted in the white wine. Let the wine evaporate almost completely and add enough hot vegetable stock to cover the whole.

Simmer the soup until the squash will be cooked. Season with salt and pepper and stir the soup to break some of the pumpkin and thicken the soup.

Finish with a little evaporated milk or cream and serve.

Tagliatelle with Walnuts and Pork sauce Sicilian style

2011-10-13T00:01:00.001+02:00

Free food... What is the power of food offered as a gift? Does it depends on the subtlety of the offer or is just linked with the food itself? Is our ability of evaluating a meal influenced when it is offered to us? Naturally it is different if a sibling, friend, colleague offers us a morsel of his/her sandwich as answer to our starving-puppy eyes or if the meal is offered by complete stranger. In this case, do we always approach food guided by our instinct of self-preservation? Food has deep power toward any living being. As rooted into our DNA, food inherently means life and we will always be grateful to anybody who offers us some (that doesn't make us sick). I have just finished to listen to an episode of the "Crimes Against Food" podcast on "Free Food" and it just resonated with me. As blogger, we are often offered goodies to sample or to review. Rare are the occasions nowadays when this offer comes honestly without any analytic or critical duty attached.

A baby would spot a cookie in the hand of anybody and would reach out to it; give it to them and they will lit-up with a smile that will fill your heart. I have already written a piece about "The Weight of a Foodie", there are situations where being a foodie can be a detriment to the experience; we may tend to ovecriticize at times.
Personally I am pretty forgiving regarding the flavors of a dish (as long as it is edible) but I am more strict toward the basics of the hospitality business. Butter should never be served fridge-cold when you are supposed to spread it on equally cold slices of stale bread; if you sell me a "Caramelized goat cheese tarte with basil pesto and salad" I surely do not expect to receive a "Sour-sweet onions and goat cheese phillo-tarte with basil pesto and plain greens".
You see, here there are two kinds of crimes to consider: the first is negligence and sloppiness the second might be verging toward false-publicity. The result of both is the same, you ability to appreciate the meal is drastically ruined.

To get back to free food and my trip to London; two were the occasions were such a kind gesture was able to change the direction of an evening so much that it was worth a specific folder on our special-memories drawer.
One night, to celebrate Sarka's boyfriend's birthday we went to a local Italian restaurant in their neighborhood; a tried and favored restaurant of theirs I should add. The food was just as it should be: simply well prepared, no fuss about it (how can it be bad when you start smelling wafts of nutty butter coming from the kitchen?).
All our dishes (a fresh Lemon sole, an entrecôte in pepper sauce and a pasta with broccoli) were fresh and true to their nature. By themselves they would have made the evening worth remembering if it wasn't that the owner, at the end of our meal, offered us a little bit of a very special liquor of his private stash.
It was home-made grappa, as it is used in the old country; thick with essential oils, velvety and rich in the mouth. The simple of gesture of leaving the whole bottle on our table giving us the possibility to even finish it, was what made us feel special. Naturally we wouldn't even remotely be able to finish such a nectar and still be able to stand on our two feet and roll uphill toward home (stopping for chips on the way). The pride in the offered gift and the consideration given us resulting from this simple offer of free booze, made the whole day.

The second special occasion of freebies wasn't about booze but about chocolate. On the day me and Sarka went to meet Hilda I got to know that in the neighborhood of our restaurant there was a Pierre Hermé shop. Need say no more. I had to drop by and gift my friends a box of his amazing bonbons au chocolat. That same night, after having spent the afternoon being chased by Hilda's papoose in the park, we sat to watch a movie when I started unwrapping the precious dark brown box from its fire-red leather thread. The eyes of my friends skeptically followed the operation until...they popped one bonbon in their mouth. The deep silence of critical appreciation left its place to a rumble of moans while eyes rolled as a sign of the ethereal experience taking place.
We stopped the movie player and finished the box of chocolate sharing each bonbon as well as high pitched screams of surprise for the new life-changing trouvaille (I hear that my friend went back to Pierre Hermé right on the day I left; they were hooked!).

Sharing is in us foodies, we do not want to be alone in our madness of ingredient haunting and crazy recipe martial-law regime; we want to bring other down the spiral. This is I am trying to do with all of you lately, sharing special recipes from my home land Sicily. Today is the turn of a pasta dish with walnuts. Despite the almost ubiquitous use of cream when dealing with walnuts and pasta, Sicilian cuisine has almost no cream in it. The fatty richness is usually provided by meat (pork, beef or veal) often cooked so its collagen transforms into moist gelatine. The use of different cut, even different kind of meats in a single recipe, is quite common; often these meats are even cooked separately. In the recipe I share with you today, I comply to these traditions to give the dish a variety in texture and sapidity that best highlights the crunchy goodness of roasted walnuts.

Pasta che nuci #1/Tagliatelle with walnuts and pork sauce Sicilian style

Ingredients (serve at least 2):

125g pork meat
125g sausage meat
25g of butter or so
1 medium onion, chopped
1tsp tomato paste (double-concentrate)
1/2tbsp muscat wine
2tbsp dry white wine
1 bay leaf

40g walnuts

Tagliatelle

Method:
Cut the pork meat in little dices (8mm/1/3") and crumble the sausage meat in similar sized bits; in the meantime heat a heavy bottom pan over medium fire.
When the pan will be nicely hot, transfer the meat in it and let it brown nicely on all sides. Set the meat aside on a bowl and melt the butter into the hot pan. When the butter will start to smell nutty, sauté the onions in it until translucent.
In a little cup, mix the tomato paste with both the wines and poor it on the onions scraping any browned juices on the bottom of the pan. When the wine will be almost completely evaporated, transfer the meat into the pan; add the bay leaf and cover with vegetable stock. Put the lid on the pan and let the sauce simmer gently for 30-40 minutes or until the meat is tender. Keep an eye on the sauce, it shouldn't dry up too much. If at the end of the cooking you will have too much water remaining, uncover the pan and let the sauce reduce.
Check the sauce for seasoning and add salt and black pepper and keep warm.

While you boil the water for the pasta, warm up the oven to 150C/300F. Spread the nuts on a baking tray and toast them in the oven for roughly 10 minutes; keep an eye on them.
When the tagliatelle will be ready, drain and toss them with the sauce, some of the toasted walnuts crumbled with your fingers and extra-virgin olive oil if needed to lubricate the pasta.
Crumble the rest of the walnuts directly over the service plates and enjoy.

Healthy Sicilian spring-rolls

2011-10-06T02:18:00.002+02:00

Two months have passed since I last shared something with you and last time it was actually Nelly who gave us a glimpse of her baker's (actually frier's in that case) creativity. In this period not much has happened except the visit of my family and a lovely trip to London. First things first, in August my family payed me a visit for almost the entire month while my sister was following a language course here in Bonn. We had a lovely time all together, sharing the daily rhythms. Between one shopping spree and a restaurant to visit, the days flew by fairly fast without much of the feared stress. All went smooth also because the weather was quite mild, though as every good Italian would do, we didn't stop complaining it was either too hot and wet or too wet tout-court and duvet worth.
I came to the conclusion that the smoothness of this family summer was because both my sister and I were both busy for most part of the day; my sister with the language course and me... Well, I was recipe developing with a pastry chef I met not so long ago. We were working on a set of new Italian inspired dessert to present to a customer.

This meant that I had to wake up at a human-time and spend most of the sunny hours in the pastry lab whipping, baking, soaking, glazing and tasting our experiments. It was a very enriching experience much so that I thought I would have loved getting an internship at the laboratory; there is something about the aesthetic appeal of pastry and the architectural work that goes into the flavor composition as well as the actual assembly of the piece that really speaks to me. I know I do not share many sweet recipes with you over this portal but that is mostly because I do not like to bake just for myself. My self indulgence treats are more toward the savory-braised side. I am sure that if I was sharing my flat with somebody who could appreciate sweet bites, you would have plenty of eye candy in here. So, who is gonna adopt me??

For a short time my dear friends Sarka and her boyfriend Pavel did so in their lovely house in south London. After my family had left back for Sicily, I deeply felt that I needed a holiday. One of those where you do not do anything else than meeting up with friends, sipping coffees, chit-chatting and fattening your soul and your body (and also those of your friends in my case). I met Sarka during the first FBC and once she moved to the new flat with her boyfriend I visited them again for a few days one year ago. The relaxed and vibrant atmosphere they are able to create around themselves coupled with the lovely sunny kitchen (and garden) made me long for another trip to London. Furthermore, most of my dearest friends on this side of the pond, resides around the big L and so I could couple my lazy recovery kitchen sessions with a full experience of the gastronomy of such a metropolis with special people.
Precious memories are build piece by piece, but they are just aseismic as the Great Pyramid, defying the sands of time waiting to be rediscovered when you think they have been lost forever. Furthermore, this time I had the great luck to have another dear friend from across the pond visiting UK (actually her visit was the event that triggered my decision for doing the trip). Asha was visiting UK with her husband and she would be in London for just a few days, enough for us to share one of those memory-building experience around a table full of rich food and bathed in the unexpected summery London sun. Sarka proposed us to lunch at a Turkish restaurant in London South-Bank area and we all agreed on it. Few minutes of walk from Victoria station we found Tas.

Hosted under the arcades of a bridge, the room had a lofty and rustic but elegant look typical of domed brick-wall spaces. The outside patio was embedded in a rich ensemble of palms, roses and other plants making up a little neighborhood garden. The food was rather nice (especially their self-baked pita bread and baked spicy black olives). The hummus left us a bit scratching our heads with its high content in tahini and no lemon juice in it but the rest of the mezze spread made up for it. Minty fresh tzatziki; fresh tabbouleh; rich roasted pepper, walnut, bulgur salad among others, just wet our appetite for the refreshing main courses. Of the five we shared, the crunchy fried calamari ring served with a spicy rose petals jam just struck my sweet-savory cord of remembrance. As has always happened so far when I have met a dear foodie-friend, the meal was a blast of vibrant energy and complicity; so far so that Asha's husband and cousin who were with us left a bit puzzled about how we seemed to be long time friends having an usual lunch-date.
I totally love this aspect of our community, we share food as we share our lives. We are there in each bite we give to each other through the virtual world, with every tweet or support over life's many obstacles. We are Oceans apart but still you can hear the clinking of glasses when we cheer with each other with some wine or any kind of booze actually. The sharing of experiences, of point of view, of tastes is what made up many of our cultures and local kitchens are just the best way to see and experience first hand these nuances.

The more time I spent in London with my friends, with myself, trying to focus my inner beacon so to get something accomplished in the near future; the more I realized that my Sicilian heritage is what shaped me, the ancient paved road barely visible under everyday distractions.
It just needs a bit of perspective, a higher point of view and somebody to point you out few unmistakably aligned stones down there. Now that I finally recognized it in all its magnificence, I just need to follow it and see where it will bring me. The recipe(s) I propose you today are an example of the power of limited-creativity.

Vietnamese spring-rolls Sicilian style

Ingredients (make 5 of each):

First:
Roasted Broccoli

250g Broccoli florets
Olive oil
Salt

Ricotta-nutmeg

100g ricotta
0.5g nutmeg
Salt or Parmesan

Garlic confit

1 big or 2 medium garlic cloves
2 tbsp olive oil

Second:
Oregano pickled Red-Onions

70ml vinegar
30ml water
1/2tbsp oregano
1/2 red onion, sliced into 3mm/1/8th" slices

Sour-sweet Celery

Olive Oil
1 pinch chili flakes or to taste
1 stick celery, sliced into 3mm/1/8th" slices
1.5tsp sugar
1tbsp vinegar

5 Black Olives pitted
Rice vermicelli soaked in vegetable broth (optional)

Third:
Tuna-Ajvar

1can tuna drained
1.5tbsp Ajvar (spicy Turkish paste made up of roasted peppers, eggplant and garlic)
0.5tbsp garlic olive-oil (from the garlic confit above)
salt

5 Black Olives pitted

Salmoriglio sauce

1tbsp lemon juice
2tbsp olive oil
1/2tsp fish sauce or to taste
1 pinch black pepper

15 rice paper sheets
Cold vegetable broth

Method:

To roast the broccoli florets, preheat the oven to 225C/437F. Cut the florets to bite sized pieces, coat with olive oil, sprinkle with some salt and roast them in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes until they start to brown. Let them cool down to room temperature before use.
To confit the garlic, julienne it into matchsticks and transfer it in a small pot containing the olive oil. Set the pot over low flame, bring the oil to a slow simmer and set aside until cooled to room temperature.
For the ricotta spread, mix the ricotta with the grated nutmeg; season with a little salt or Parmesan to taste and set aside.

For the tuna-ajvar filling, mix the tuna with the Ajvar, the garlic olive oil until well combined, season to taste.

To pickle the onions, combine the vinegar, water and oregano in a small pot; bring to a simmer and poor over the onions. Let the onions pickle until cooled to room temperature.
Let's do the sweet-sour celery now. In a skillet heat up the olive oil with the chili flakes until sizzling. Add the sliced celery and sweat it for a few minutes. Sprinkle the sugar and the vinegar on them. Stir until the sugar will be dissolved and taste for seasoning. Set aside until cooled down.

Last but not least the salmoriglio sauce. Combine all the ingredient in a little bowl and whisk until well combined. This sauce will separate and will need to be whisked often, you might avoid it by adding a little mustard to the dip.

When ready to serve, quickly dip the rice paper into the cold broth (I used a flat plate big enough to accommodate the rice paper), set it onto a flat surface and place some:
- Nutmeg ricotta, topped by some broccoli florets, few confit garlic matchsticks and a drizzle of their oil;
- Pickled red onions with some oregano, some sour-sweet spicy celery, some rice-vermicelli (if using) and one black olive torn into pieces;
- Tuna-ajvar mix and one black olive torn into pieces;
horizontally very close to the lower border of the rice-paper circle, fold the lower lip of rice paper over the filling followed by the two vertical ones on the side so to have a rectangular piece of rice-paper with the filling at the bottom. Roll the spring-roll into a tight bundle and set aside.

Serve the rolls with the salmoriglio sauce and the remaining garlic oil for dipping.

Avocado and Peach: Rich & Sexy

2011-07-24T13:00:00.001+02:00

Everybody meet Nelly author of Cooking With Books.

Writing from the Dominican Republic she keeps most of ours twitter sessions alive with tales of bananas, bacon, chocolate and baking (with the occasional pilates-sore-muscles rant).
You see, she has graduated from the CIA in New York as pastry chef so she is partial to anything that can be shoveled into a hot oven. This doesn't mean that she bakes only sweets, looks like that they are part of her mother's duties; at least this seems to be true for the daily tray of brownies that Nelly keeps beside her to make us more jealous.
Just because of this I asked her to bake some brownies for us but... well, she is unpredictable so let's read what she came up with.

Hello Recipe Taster readers! I'm Nelly, food blogger over at Cooking with Books. To say I am honored to be gracing the pages of Recipe Taster, would be an understatement. I met Alessio during one of the Chef2Chef chats this winter and of course had to start following immediately. His posts, always so well thought out, the words precise and the photography impeccable, at times intimidate me. He has a method, a vision for each of his posts (or so it seems!) and I, on the other hand, just like to throw things together and hope for the best! If you haven’t experienced Cooking with Books, head on over there after reading this post and see what I mean by “throwing things together”!

It took me a good two weeks to figure out what I wanted to guest post for Alessio. There was no way I could ever be as precise and analytical as my lovely Italian friend, but I did want to have one thing in common: great flavor. This post had to be bursting with flavors, layered upon in each coat. Thinking about layers made me somehow think of breading stations and how you’re supposed to season each step; this is how flavor is built. Seasoning, tasting and re-seasoning. Although a simple recipe, the following is a prime example of what a few basic, fresh ingredients can achieve.

Finally! Our Avocado trees have decided to grace us with their babies: plump, buttery avocados are now dangling from the braches, waiting to be picked. After tasting the first avocados of the season, I decided to take them to the next level, adding a crispy texture to them. Avocado fries aren’t a new thing, and were showcased on last seasons’ Top Chef; the rage for avocado fries started and now you can see them as side dishes, on sandwiches and fanned over salads.

Keeping with seasonality, but this time something that the Dominican Republic does not produce but imports from the US: peaches! They’re gorgeous gems that I wish we did produce, but sadly we don’t. Ultimately, I am jealous of everyone that’s picking a juicy peach of the tree. This didn’t keep me from trying to bring peaches into my home, no sir! I scored the grocery stores and markets, finally to find them! They smelled like summer and brought back memories; nothing is better than biting into a peach and having the juices run down your hands.

Avocados and Peaches, a love affair of the Caribbean and North American seasons, won over. Leave it to me to make something healthy into a deep-fried, indulgent snack or side dish. Sure, Avocados are nature’s butter, but imagine that butter deep fried with an outer shell of crispy panko? Imagine then dipping it in a sweet and spicy peach sauce. I’ll stop teasing, here’s the recipe:

Avocado Fries with Sweet & Spicy Peach Dipping Sauce

Ingredients

1 large avocado
½ cup flour
½ cup whole milk
½ cup panko
Vegetable oil, for deep frying
Salt and pepper

½ cup peach puree
2 tablespoons Sriracha (or your favorite hot sauce)
2 tablespoons honey

Method

Stir peach puree, sriracha and honey together. Season with salt and pepper and reserve.
In a medium saucepan, heat about 3 inches of oil. The oil should be 350F for ideal frying temperature.
Set up a breading station, placing flour in first bowl; in the second bowl whisk milk with salt; third bowl fill with panko. Season each step with salt and pepper! This is the order in which you will coat your avocado slices.
Cut avocado open and remove pit and skin. Slice to ½ to ¾ of an inch thick, depending on what size you want your fries to be. The thicker cut the better, as for more control and sturdiness as a “fry” and much easier to dip!
Dip slices into flour and coat; pass on to milk and finish coating with panko. Place on parchment-lined tray while you finish breading.
Carefully fry each avocado slice until golden brown; don’t crowd that pot with slices, frying only a few at a time to keep oil at ideal frying temperature. Drain the excess oil on paper towels.
Serve with a side of Spicy Peach Dipping Sauce and enjoy!

Peanuts on your pasta

2011-07-18T13:00:00.007+02:00

For this month Secret Recipe Club, I got to pick a recipe from Laura's blog "This is how we eat". Faithful to its name, her blog is pretty a straightforward account of family recipes that punctuate daily meals carried out with that touch of inventiveness that can make a little kid eat her veggies.
Going through her articles, I found a few that sounded particular interesting in terms of flavors and news to my repertoire. The one I chose sounds quite American in the essence and a perfect disguise for greens for your kids: peanut noodles.

In her intro, Laura warns us about how her husband found this recipe very peanuty and this was probably what actually drove me to try it.
Few months ago a dear friend from California, Pamela, brought me (in a loaded goodie bag) a jar of Trader Joe's Peanut Butter. It took a little time for me to find the right crave to shake it smooth and slather it over some warmed slices of brioche followed by a generous layer of my red-currant coulis. Oh what a late night treat...
Peanuts as many nuts, acquire a particular lusciousness when eaten full-handed style. They melt down in a rich creamy texture, with delightful roasted aromas that often makes us go back to our childhood.

Peanuts is actually a bean originary of South America (Bolivia or Peru). The plant has an awkward way to let the beans pod ripen. Once pollinated, the flower withers and the stem elongates at a pretty high speed burying the pod several inches underground. This habit inspired the botanical name of this plant Arachis Hypogaea, with hypogaea coming from the Greek for "under the earth". Probably also its popular name "groundnut" comes from the same inspirational source since the pods have to be dug out of the earth to be eaten.
Being it a bean, peanut seeds are rich in protein so that they are actually used to alleviate famine.
Historically, peanuts have been very important for the explorations of the Poles. Explorers had need for a highly caloric and proteic food that could be eaten on the spot, often also while walking. Peanut butter was then the perfect candidate.
The first record of peanut butter as we know it, dates back to 1884 when a U.S. patent was issued to Marcellus Gilmore Edson of Montreal, Canada for his machine producing what can nowadays be considered as more a nut paste. The first "peanut butters" where rather raw and bitter in taste, only after George Washington Carver sugar and molasses have been added to it (and other alimentary products) to make it more palatable.

In its origins, peanuts were used by Aztecs and Peruvians as an integral ingredient of their sauces. Simmered with the other ingredients, they were softened and then grinded so to obtain a final product where the roasted peanut flavor was well melded with the others.
For instance, in Peruvian cuisine the various ajis are particularly famous, that is boiled potatoes, chicken or seafood served with a sauce made of blended hot-peppers (aji), peanuts, roasted onions, garlic and oil.
Peanuts are also popular in many South Asian and Indian cuisines, where they are often added as such to, for instance, leafy green dishes (as in salads or curries) to provide a textural contrast to the final preparation.

Aside from their high proteic content, peanuts are quite good for you. They contain a considerable amount of antioxidants compounds and resveratrol (a compound under investigation for its anti-aging properties). Their high content of monounsaturated fats can also be useful in preventing cardiovascular disease. Still, beware of their high caloric intake! 100g (3.5 oz) of peanuts contain 570 kcal.

As inspirations for this dish I looked more at middle-eastern and south-asian traditions using nuts. I needed to bring the inherently sweet connotation that peanut butter has for me, more into the savory world so to be acceptable to serve it with pasta more than meats.
Laura suggests in her post to serve the pasta with plentiful of fresh coriander. This seemed a nice idea to introduce fresh herbal notes to lighten up the sauce. Still, I needed an interesting sour component to alleviate that mouth-gluing experience that peanut butter often has (I think that the same need was at the base of the PB&J sandwiches). Coupling it with a fruity-sour component makes peanut butter far more delectable.

Now, a very traditional and popular Iranian sauce usually served over meat, is based on walnuts and pomegranate molasses; so here we go, pomegranate molasses will have to come into the pasta one way or another. How? Read the recipe and find out.

Aromatic peanut sauce over pasta with lemon melissa and pomegranate molasses

Ingredients (serve 2):

2.5 tbsp roasted peanuts plus more for garnishing
2 garlic cloves, unpeeled
1/2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp minced shallots
3/4 tsp fish sauce
6-7 drops smocked hot-sauce
2.5 tbsp boiling water

1 tbsp pomegranate molasses
1/2 tsp brown sugar/fructose
1/2 tbsp water
1-2 drops of vanilla extract

few lemon melissa leaves, cut in chiffonade
red bird's eye chili

Pasta like fusilli

Method:
Warm the oven to 125C/260F and roast the nuts and garlic for 20-25 minutes or until the peanuts will be uniformly roasted and golden brown. Set the peanuts aside in a bowl, rise the oven temperature to 180C/360F and continue roasting the garlic cloves until fragrant and soft to the touch.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter and gently cook the shallots until they start to caramelize.
In a spice grinder, put 2.5 tablespoons of peanuts with the shallots and process until they form a butter; it doesn't need to be perfectly smooth at the moment. Add the fish sauce, the smocked hot-sauce, the garlic cloves and process until well combined.
Start incorporating the boiling water, 1-2 teaspoons at a time; what we are looking for is a smooth creamy golden brown sauce. If the sauce separate try adding 1 teaspoon of industrial peanut butter.
Taste and season with more fish sauce or hot-sauce if needed.
Keep the sauce warm.

For the pomegranate molasses sauce, combine all the ingredients in a small saucepan and reduce until syrupy.

Mix the sauce with the pasta, loosening it with a bit of cooking water if needed. Add the chiffonade of lemon melissa and plate. Before serving drip some pomegranate molasses on top of the pasta along with some more peanuts and thai chili to taste.

Apricots and tuna, the sun and the sea

2011-07-15T19:32:00.000+02:00

The past days have been again pretty devoided of any creativeness of sparkle.
Don't get me wrong, give me some nice ingredients, challenge me with a "I will never ever eat XX with YY" and I will be more than happy to try and change your mind creating a nice recipe for your palate. The hardest part I found these days to be writing the forewords to the recipe itself.

I have been made you used to have often almost a novel preceding the recipe itself. Being it a story telling or more often educational in nature, I like to have a deeper drive to my posts than simply "XX and YY go quite well together, try this recipe". This actually could be another nice series of pithy posts but I am not sure how you would receive them; leave me a comment and let me know please.

Call it the crazy weather, the lack of sun or of farmers’ market strolls, the result is that I haven't had any summer fruits till this week. Summer is the best fruit seasons for me. Peaches are above all my most beloved fruits of the whole year but they somehow need a warm weather, sun and breeze to be enjoyed at best.
This post is actually about apricots since I haven't find nice peaches out there yet.

I bought a nice basket of them at the local grocery store last day, and I was expecting them to be mostly sour and crunchy; instead I was surprised by their delicate sweetness and silky texture with a just a little bite to them.
Their bright orange color kissed on one side by a deep ruby blush just screamed summer, seaside, open air. It reminded me of Sicily and of those family lunches at our favorite fish restaurant by the sea in Acitrezza.

Incidentally I have had the luck to receive a series of products that a new and valuable little company based in Siracusa is producing.
Ominously called Mr. Corleone this company has focused their attention on traditional products either as ingredients or gastronomical preparations as in pasta sauces or preserves. When I opened the box they have sent me, I was pleasantly surprised by finding in it a jar of Sicilian red-tuna packed in olive oil.
I have already written about this delicacy of our seas as my mother is used to prepare it, smothered in a fresh sweet tomatoes and onion gravy. It is a very firm flesh fish, that flakes in big meaty chunks that are a pleasure to bite into.
The preserved tuna wasn't any different. Cut into planks, it offered a certain resistance when I tried to flake it. Lovely!

Once again the inspiration of coupling it with apricots stems from this association with sunny summer sweetness, even more traditional (in flavor not in pairing) is the use of the apricots kernels in the recipe.

Yes, apricots kernels, as peaches and bitter almonds contain cyanide glycoside compounds but the chemical molecule responsible of the almond-flavor (the benzaldehyde) is actually derived from a breakdown of amygdalin (from "amigdala" Latin for almond), one of these cyanide compounds especially abundant in apricot kernels. The bitterness instead comes from the other molecule resulting from this hydrolysis (break down in presence of water), the chunk actually containing the cyanide atoms.

I can already see the exclamation marks lighting over your head signaling Danger!

As in everything, all is in the quantities. If you drink too much water or eat too much salt, they can also kill you.
The lowest reported lethal oral dose of cyanide in humans has been of 0.56 mg per kg of body weight (Gettler and Baine, 1938). This means that and average adult of 75kg would have to ingest a total of 42mg of cyanide to die from it.
If we assume that the concentration of cyanide in apricots kernels is 3 mg per g of kernels, that same guy would have to eat 14g of kernels and that is an average of 28-30 kernels in one go (for kids this threshold goes down to roughly 6-7 kernels).
Considering how powerful apricots kernels are in terms of flavor (and bitterness), you would rarely use more than 1-2 per serving so we are all safe. Just be careful when you buy them in bag as snack.

The origins of apricots can be traced back to Turkey (that is also one of the biggest producers nowadays). The botanical name for the apricot tree Prunus Armenica acknowledge the first of these traditions, though there are stories dating back to the 4th century BC that place this fruit in ancient China as a very highly regarded tree for traditional medicine. Still nowadays physicians are referred to in Chinese as the "Expert of the Apricot Grove" as a reference to Dong Feng, a physicians who lived during the Three Kingdoms period who was used to ask as compensation from his patients just that they planted an apricot tree in their garden once healed; hence the grove.

But where does the common name for this fruit come from? It is believed that all started with Pliny. He called this variety of "peaches" as praecocia because they ripened earlier than other varieties (the word praecocia comes from the Latin of "cooked/ripened earlier" and it still lives in the Italian precoce). Furthermore, the Sicilian dialect word for apricots is Pericoca that seems to support this theory. The French abricot and the Italian albicocca most probably comes from the Arabic al-barquq through the Spanish albaricoque.

I hope you are now hungry for a nice break al-fresco with my:

Apricots-red tuna salad with celeriac greens, red-currant coulis, fresh oregano and a benzaldehyde-moscato wine vinaigrette
Ingredients (serve 2)

4 apricots
100g red-tuna packed in oil
1tbsp sliced celeriac or celery stalk

1tsp Extra-virgin olive roil
1/2-1tsp dry moscato wine
3 apricot seeds
Lemon juice, to taste

Cracked black pepper
Fresh oregano leaves
red-currant coulis (recipe follows)

Method:
This is a rather straightforward salad. The only ingredients that actually needs to be prepared is the vinaigrette. To do so crack open 3 apricots kernels and extract the seeds. Peel the apricot seeds from their dark skin and pound them to paste with a mortar and pestle. Continuing pounding, mix in the olive oil and the moscato wine. Season with a little bit of salt and lemon juice if needed.
To assemble the salad, cut each apricot in 12 segments and divide them between the serving plates, leaving a little recess in its center. Crumble the tuna on the center of the plate. Scatter the sliced celeriac stalk across the plate.
Drizzle 1-2 tsp of the vinaigrette on top of the apricots and dab a little of the red-currants coulis here and there for a total of again 2tsp ca.
Sprinkle the cracked black pepper all over and decorate with the fresh oregano leaves.

Red-Currant coulis with Moscato wine
Ingredients:

120g red currants
1.5tbsp fructose
1tbsp dry moscato wine
1/2tsp Chinese rice wine

Method:
Place the red-currants in a pot with the fructose and a little water. Heat them on medium fire stirring every now and then, until all the fruits will have popped open and the sauce will start to thicken.
Pass the currants through a fine sieve pressing them down toward the end so to extract all the pulp. Place the pulp and seeds left in the sieve in a little bowl and dilute them with the moscato wine.
Place the currants back into the sieve and extract as much as possible.

Clean the pot from possible seeds and transfer the currants juice in it. Place back over medium fire, add the Chinese rice wine and bring to a simmer to evaporate the harshness of the wine.

Taste and season with extra fructose if needed.

Meatloaf o the Rant

2011-07-02T01:19:00.000+02:00

Time passes by faster than we realize and it is July already.

Half year has slipped through my fingers with probably nothing concrete to show that I have made the most of it. The past days have been pretty gloomy in this side of the world. Weather has turned itself into November mood as did I.
Closed as a clam shell, surrounded by a silent and quiet sea of apathy I find myself cornered in dark places. It is hard to escape reaching for the surface. No baits or fisherman plunging his hands into these waters to bring me to a different future and I can't swim.
In these days of senseless sadness I just wish to retire under the blankets and sleep, hoping for dreams depicting a better reality, a more meaningful one perhaps.
Eventually the sun comes lurking out of the clouds warming up our bodies and hearts.
Today the sun is out.
No dreams the past night, just a heart full of wishes and hope; the same one that woke up to a better day. What does make it better then? If only I knew... All is the same, the routine, the air, the places, the people. All seems repetitive and at times pointless. Nevertheless we must go forward to find better things, to find any-things.
For as much commitment and dedication you can have, one alone is not enough.

I often think that personal relationships have something of cannibalistic. We feed on the other energies, inspirations, aspirations to reset the stale batteries of our soul.
Creative jobs require this process the most. To create from oneself for oneself is a sterile and pointless activity; we need inspiration, we need to inspire.

Sometimes I wonder how those destructive artistic figures of the past like Caravaggio or Michelangelo, or as reclusive as Leonardo could have gone on day after day powered only by their own inner fire.
Was it curiosity? Need to affirm themselves? Need to demonstrate to the world their values? They had something more but all of them ended up dying alone...

Probably that is the demon that every now and again comes to torture my days, the dark veil over my eyes, the fumes that obnubilate my cognitive abilities: the fear of living a lonely and pointless existence.

Time passes and nothing changes, or does it? Are we really able to perceive and recognize the changes that punctuate our life on a short-term basis? The daily routine often engulfs our perception to the point that we wished we were able to unplug our brain and fall onto the floor e/motionless, enjoying the complete stillness of thoughts and actions.

Despite everything we reach the end of the day and want to treat ourselves to something worth the effort.
“Soul food” was made for this.
Meatloaf is one of the food items that can either be dreadful or evocative. It is simple, straightforward, no bothers to the mind and a dinner savior.
Meat gives you something to chew, to work on and the endless combination of herbs, spices and side dishes you can serve it with make you interested.
And a little smile starts to appear on your lips.

The version I am proposing you today, doesn't even need any side dish since they are already in it and it is also gluten-free.
It is good for your body as it is for your soul.

"Don't ask don't tell" Meatloaf

Ingredients (serve 4-6):

125g bacon/speck dices
250g mushrooms, diced

500g celery, onions, carrots
3-4 garlic cloves
1tbsp corn flour

500g ground meat
1/2tbsp black peppercorns, grinded
1/2tsp salt
1 medium egg
1tbsp corn flour
2 handfuls of mint, minced (roughly 2tbsp) or to taste

125g feta, diced
1tsp herbes de Provence, grinded
1/2tsp corn flour

Parmesan, grated.

Method:
To start we want to prepare all those ingredients that need a pre-cooking and that is the bacon and the mushrooms.
Start with the bacon dices; let them crisp up slightly in a skillet placed over medium fire. Transfer them into a bowl and let cool down. In the same skillet sauté the mushroom dices over medium-high fire in the bacon fat (add a little vegetable oil if your bacon was particularly lean). Once they will be browned but not completely dried up, transfer them with the bacon dices and let cool down.

In the meantime process the mirepoix (onion, carrots and celery) in a kitchen robot so to have them finely minced. Add the corn flour and pulse a few extra times to combine.

Warm up the oven to 180C/360F.

In the bowl of your standing mixer (equipped with the paddle attachment) combine the ground meat with the black pepper, salt, egg, corn flour and minced mint. Add the minced mirepoix, sautéed bacon and mushrooms and combine thoroughly.
To test for seasoning, take a little dollop of the meatloaf mixture (1tsp or so) and cook it as a miniature hamburger in a warm skillet.

For the filling, in a bowl combine the diced feta cheese with the pulverized herbes de Provence and the corn flour.

Oil slightly a baking tray and spread half of the meatloaf mixture so to form a rectangle of roughly 1cm/0.5" in thickness. Place the feta filling in the center, leaving a margin of at least 1cm/0.5" all around. Cover with the rest of the meatloaf mixture and seal properly with the base sheet.
Give the meatloaf a rounded top or a flat one to your liking and sprinkle it generously with grated Parmesan.
Bake it for 30-40min or until a thermometer inserted in the meatiest part registers 70C/160F. If the top hasn't developed a crust yet, turn on the grill to its maximum setting, move the meatloaf pan closer to it and let glaze for few minutes.
Let the meatloaf cool down slightly before serving.

This meatloaf is best served with a basil tomato sauce livened up with some lime juice.

Article first published as Don't Ask Don't Tell Meatloaf on Blogcritics.

Buttery secret muffins for a chilly evening

2011-06-13T13:00:00.002+02:00

This month Secret Recipe Club has been brought you by Robin of Penny-Pinching Provisions.
When I got assigned Robin's blog as my monthly virtual cookbook, I started going through her posts to look for something that would make me want to cook right away. Can't deny that her Babka's recipes were pretty tempting (what about this Nutella Babka for instance??).

But the time went by, days after days and I had to plan the recipe in my weekly schedule. Still Babka was the choice, until a friend reminded me of a long forgotten video-game... I guess I am about to melt with my chair from the amount of hours I'm spending on it.
These are the occasions when I am really thankful for my pressure cooker. Man I do love that pot! The weather got quite fresh during the latter days too so I prepared myself a lovely meat stew that was worth at least 3 meals; the Babka project was slipping away...
What would go best with the stew? Corn muffins!

I remembered having seen a recipe for them in Robin's blog so as fast as 1 2 3, I had steaming buttery muffins for my fragrant stew. The best part is that you too can now bake them for yourself (I mean right away!).
Compared to Robin's recipe I added a few extra kicks to my muffins. I remembered having seen among my Stumbles a recipe featuring roasted sweet-corn kernels so they had to go in the muffins, and what about some real kick? As in Green Thai chili? You can bet on it! A little cheese too? Why not...

Roasted corn muffins with green chili and Parmesan crust

Ingredients (make 6 muffins):

120g milk, room temperature or lukewarm
50g butter, melted
1tbsp canola oil
1 egg, medium

3 tbsp sweet-corn kernels
1 medium garlic clove, unpeeled
1 Thai green chili, minced

80g cornmeal
50g all-purpose flour
25g sugar
3/4tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Parmesan

Method:
Heat up a skillet on a medium-low fire, add the sweet-corn and the garlic clove to it and roast them until they will start to caramelize.
In the meantime, combine in two separate bowls the dry and wet ingredients. Mix the dry ingredients with a fork or a whisk to ensure a uniform dispersion of the baking powder.
Preheat the oven to 200C/400F.

When the corn and garlic will be roasted, mash the garlic through a garlic press and add it with the corn to the dry ingredients followed by the minced green chili; mix thoroughly.
Mix the wet with the dry ingredients until nicely combined and spoon the batter into a paper-lined muffin pan. Sprinkle the top of each muffin with some grated Parmesan and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Chocolate, Butter, Strawberries and an unexpected guest

2011-06-10T02:23:00.000+02:00

It/we are back!! Who? The Paperchefs naturally.
It has been quite some time since the last challenge was announced on the dedicated blog but as often happens, a temporary hiatus is a positive experience and something not to be feared. It helps clear up our minds and focus on part of our life that often we only perceive out of the corner of our eyes.

If you are new to this challenge, it is one of the nicest out there (except the Velveteers' one naturally). Out of a list of more than 100 ingredients, a random quartet is drawn and assigned for the monthly round. The creative time allotted for each challenge is rather short, from a weekend to up to a week on rare occasions. Thankfully this was one of the latter.
I have taken part to a few rounds and I can assure you that it is a lot of fun!
I caught the news about a new Paperchef challenge via the Facebook account of a dear friend of mine and host, Ilva.
My reason why to look forward to this monthly event is the chance to put together a weird looking group of ingredients in something edible and hopefully yummy.
The actors on stage at this round weren't unknown to each other and probably this was what discouraged me at the beginning.
See for yourself if they don't look like a well assorted group to you:

Berries
Bread
Chocolate
Lime

Ok the lime can be a bit off-putting with the chocolate in there and that was actually my first concern. At the opposite ends of the richness' spectrum, this two ingredients like each other but at a certain distance. They need a mediator if they have to stay in a small room for a long time.

The ingredients that made everything a bit too ordinary for me were the berries.
Seasonal, yummy, refreshing; they are a perfect accompaniment for a chocolaty snack. A bit too perfect perhaps... I didn't want to fall into conventional dishes at this round, I needed something more inspiring to get my juice going; but then I thought: berries, aren't there vegetables that are actual botanical berries?? In effect there are plenty and the one that popped up into my mind first was eggplant! As part of the Solanaceae (nightshade) family this alongside with tomatoes, peppers (chilies too then) and tomatillos these are all berries.

The spongy veggie seems to be a leitmotiv for my latter posts; well I do love the purply oblong globe!

But eggplant and chocolate?? It turns out that there is a traditional dish of Neaples area, or more generally in the Campania region in Italy, that features these two strangers. No wonders; the "petronciana" (eggplant) was introduced in Italy through the south thanks to the Arab influence we had during the years. There was a time when the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was actually part of the Spanish and then French empire (in the 15-18th century and 19th onward respectively); hence chocolate!

I was first introduced to this dish by a friend of mine during one of those lovely nights you spend with friends watching movies while filling your bellies with yummy home-made food. I had never heard before of it and it tasted quite nice actually, I could really see how eggplant (fried of course) could marry well with deep-dark chocolate. Here and there were also sparkles of nuts and candied orange peel to freshen up the palate with their crunch and light fruity aromas.

The frame was then set, I just needed to compose the picture in a way that was true to my style; a little nap helped in figuring that out and a new dish was born!

Dark chocolate dome of sweet fried eggplant served over crispy brioche with a lime marinated strawberries and their coulis

Ingredients (make 2 servings):

600g eggplant
2tbsp sugar
water

Ganache:

50g dark chocolate, chopped
25g heavy cream
2tsp chopped hazelnuts, roasted

1/2tsp grated orange zest

Marinated Strawberries:

1cup sliced strawberries
1tsp fructose
1tsp fresh lime juice
1/2tsp grated lime zest
1/4tsp Cornstarch

2 slices of brioche cut out into disks

Method:
Cut the eggplant in cubes of roughly 1cm-1/2" of side, sprinkle with the sugar and cover with cold water. Stir to melt the sugar, cover then the eggplant with a piece of aluminum paper weighted down and let them brine for 30m or so.
When ready to fry, pat them dry using some paper towels and on a skillet melt a generous dollop of butter with some vegetable oil. When the foam will start to subside, trasfer the eggplant to the skillet and gently fry them until golden brown. Transfer the eggplants onto some paper towel and let them drain of the excess fat.

In the meantime transfer the chocolate and the cream in a little saucepan and place it in a bowl of warm tap-water. Let the chocolate melt slowly and stir it from time to time. When it will be all nicely melted take the saucepan out of the water bath and add the toasted hazelnuts. Stir and let coll down slightly.

Now combine the fried eggplant with the orange zest and the chocolate ganache. In a separate bowl mix the sliced strawberries with the fructose, the lime juice and the lime zest; stir and let marinate for 15min or so.

When ready to serve, drain the juices of the marinating strawberries into a little saucepan; add then the cornstarch and 4-5 slices of strawberries to it. Place the saucepan on a low fire and heat up while mashing the strawberries in the sauce with a fork. Let it come to a simmer to thicken properly and then pass the coulis through a fine meshed sieve.

In a skillet melt some butter and fry the brioche disks in it (you may want to butter slightly each of its sides and sprinkle them with sugar).

Place one disk on each plate, top with some eggplant-chocolate mixture and place some marinated strawberries on the side and some of the coulis.

Note: You can mold the eggplant-chocolate mixture by lightly pressing it into rounded bowls lined with plastic wrap. While cooling they will harden and be easy to unmold.

Sweet, Sweet Awards

2011-06-08T00:21:00.004+02:00

Sugar; we all know this fella, don't we?
A mysterious substance able to give us pleasure; not guilt free unfortunately.
Coming in all the shades of brown, tawny to sparkling white we are used to sprinkle it on many of our food items to enhance their flavors. Present in many natural products it represents the way nature is able to store easily accessible energies; it won't come to any surprise then that it is made of just about the most abundant chemical elements present on Earth: Carbon, Oxygen and Hydrogen.
Since few years we have been coming accustomed to choose among different varieties of sugars. Being them of natural origins or artificial, the main reason driving research in this field is the delivery of guilt-free low caloric substitutes for saccharose.

If from one side we restrict our kids' sugar intake, we as society have been over-exposed to sweetness for the last century or so; the result is a sort of dependency on this chemical.
"A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down!" sang Mary Poppins to the whining kids and that's what we tell to ourselves often and again.

Variety of offers results though in a difficulty of choice.
Till few decades ago most of the sugar substitutes (aspartame, saccharin etc) were available only to industries to perfect their low caloric but still sweet products. Now we find them on our supermarket shelves tempting us.
This sugar revolution is still ongoing, new products have been made available to the final customers to enrich their sweet pantry.

In this optic of events, last year the new round of the "Rencontres Science, Art et Cuisine" were dedicated to sugars. Using the different physical and gustatory properties of various sugary-compounds, we were asked to create something that could underline their qualities being it a dish or a cocktail.
This couldn't have come at a better moment for me; since some time I was in effect thinking about experimenting with sugars (mostly to reduce the sweetness of certain baked goods).
Thanks to the event sponsors, we were given samples of isomalt, oligofructose and rebaudioside (Stevia derived sugar).

These sugars spanned the vast spectrum of physic-chemical properties of sweet molecules.
- Isomalt is the least sweet of them all, with the equivalent of half the sweetness as regular table-sugar (saccharose), isomalt is mostly used as bulking ingredient in confectionery. Compared to regular sugar, it also melts at a lower temperature (145-150°C/290-300F while sucrose melts at 186°C/367F) and, strangely enough, it is a hydrophobic substance. This means that it isn't so easy to dissolve in water, especially at room temperature when its solubility is of roughly 20% but it increases with water temperature. Because of these properties it is nowadays the go-to sugar for sugar artists working with pulled or melted sugars. As a molecule, it is a sugar alcohol so our body is not able to process it properly; it is more treated like fiber by the stomach and it is partially broken down in the large intestines (with associated possible socially harmful side-effects).

- Oligofructose is a derivative of fruits' sugar fructose. Opposite to isomalt, this one is highly hydrophilic; it is actually ravenously attracted to water! As fructose, this is a pretty sweet compound but also with quite a complex flavor reminiscent of spun sugar. Its hydrophilicity makes it a little tacky to your teeth, enhancing the feeling of been eating spun sugar. This sugar is mostly used in cold preparation as in isotonic drinks also because of its low glycemic index.

- Rebaudioside A or Stevia sugar is a natural compound extracted from the Stevia plant. It is highly sweet (30.000 times more than regular sugar) and with a more pronounced flavor than fructose. Its sweetness is perceived slowly by the tongue so it may be difficult to dose at a glance and leave a persistent herbal, licorice-like aftertaste. Because of this characteristic and also because it is still outlawed in some countries this compound is mostly used in conjunction of other fast active sugar and with strong flavors so to conceal its aftertaste.

Initially I sat off by wanting to use the Stevia-sugar just because of its aftertaste (I kind of hate table sugar for its chalky-blandness) but once started with brainstorming recipes, it slipped off the palette. Its place was taken by Isomalt; its mild sweetness was quite appealing to me. And what is the sweetest element by excellence that most of us would love to have just less "in your face"?
Yes, exactly, French macarons!

These little colorful buttons can easily be overly sweet (to the limit of being internally caramelized, as it happened to me in a local bar) with their delicate flavors barely passing through. The idea of making a savory macaron that would also be just enough sweet passed through my mind, and actually stayed in there.
The project was set now I had just to find something that could be rendered in a creamy consistency so to be used as filling for the meringue shells.
Two ideas lit up: Canard à l'Orange and Pho. I went for the latter...

This complex Vietnamese soup has the complexity, the layering and enough of European tradition to make it fit for a gastronomical contest in France.
This soup is more than what catches the eyes: a base of rich beefy broth winking at Escoffier but spiced up with what I call "brown spices", cinnamon, star anise, black pepper and the oriental touch of the zesty ginger (sometimes charred) is made more challenging by the addition of a beef escalope, rice noodles, crunchy fresh bean sprouts, the omnipresent fresh coriander and mint leaves to be topped by a squirt of vibrant lime. A really DIY soup, make it more a pasta dish or a veggie soup; it is all in your hands.
I don't know but probably some bells a ringing in your head by now (no, not the one coming from your tummy).
The dish I devised can be thought of consisting of 3 parts: a broth-equivalent, the meaty part and the fresh garnishes.

The macarons shells were the perfect ambassadors to convey the broth rich spiciness; the filling would be the meaty part instead. Do I hear those bells ringing now??
Matter of fact, I have already shared with you both these components as my Masala Digestive Cookies and Gingery Chicken Mousse.
Now we just need to play the construction game and put everything together, but first let’s complete the story telling part.
You might remember my Paris visit in March? That was the award presentation ceremony.

This was the first time I had to talk in public in French and I was quite worried about it. Have you heard my English accent? I sound Indian! I feared what I could sound in French; furthermore I had to hold a microphone.
I asked my friend Yolanda to join me at the presentation and poor thing had to tolerate my ranting about each and every presentation before mine (we were divided between group/school participants and individual ones so it took more than two hours before my turn, two hours of ranting). Finally it came my turn and thankfully the allotted time wasn't so strict so I could try and overcome my vocabulary limitations.
Despite everything, I think it went quite well.

It turned out I got the 3rd place among the individual participants and this was my prize another stunning Larousse publication: The Larousse of Cocktails.

While we are talking about competitions, do you remember the "Ruffle my Feathers" cake I submitted for Priya's event? Anita Gupta, the judge, awarded me the Best Cake Decoration Award!!

Deconstructed Pho au saveurs sucrées

Ingredients (per serving) :

Lime Jelly:

Juice of one lime
1.5 Sheet of gelatin, softened in water
Green food coloring (optional)
Wide, flat shallow glass or plastic container
Vegetable oil, enough to fill the aforementioned container, very cold

Crystallized Coriander:

3 fresh coriander leaves
Oligofructose

1 Masala digestive cookie
1tbsp Ginger chicken mousse
Table sugar caramel
3 chicken cracklings (butter fried chicken skin)

Procedure:
In a little saucepan or a metal ladle, gently melt the softened gelatin on low fire. Combine it with the lime juice and add few drops of green food coloring (if using).
Since the lime juice is very sour and gelatin is weakened in sour environment, I would suggest you to check the strength of your by simply dripping some gelatin mixture into a little bowl set over ice water. If the lime-jelly doesn't set put some more gelatin sheet to soften in water and add it to the jelly as above.
Let the gelatin cool down until it will be almost set.
At this point fill the thin-tall container with the very cold oil and gently drip the lime gelatin mixture into it. You want to produce little jelly droplets of roughly 5mm/1/4" in diameter. Let the jelly set in the oil at room temperature for 1h or so and then transfer it into the fridge until properly set or ready to use.

Now let's prepare the chicken mousse for serving. Scoop 1tbsp of cold mousse into your lightly wet hands and roll it until you get a sphere. Set it on a toothpick on then pierce it on a sponge, orange or alike. You want your mousse balls to be well chilled before the next step so place them into the fridge for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Prepare the sugar caramel by melting sugar on a medium flame. When it will achieve a nice amber color shock the bottom of the pan in a bowl of cold water to stop the caramel from further cooking.
Retrieve the mousse balls from the fridge and dribble some caramel on each of them in a decorative fashion. This step is better done shortly before serving because, over time, the caramel will melt in contact with the mousse.
To crystallize the coriander leaves simply wet their upward side with a little water using a brush. Be careful not to create water droplets, in case use some kitchen paper to wipe off the excess water. Dust then the wet side with the oligofructose and let stand for 5 minutes or so, do not let them stand too much or the sugar will melt down.
To assemble the dish, place one cookie dome-side up on the serving plate. Place on top a ball of chicken mousse gluing it on place using a little extra dab of mousse. Surround it with three crystallized coriander leaves, three chicken cracklings; add few lime jelly droplets and serve.

Walnuts cinnamon bread-rolls for a breakfast oversea

2011-06-05T03:24:00.001+02:00

This is being a year full of lovely friends and travels.
All started in April when I had the chance to meet sweet Pamela of My Man's Belly and hubby. Luckily enough they were in Düsseldorf for some business and that means below 1h of train of distance from me.

After convincing them in meeting up in Bonn instead of Cologne, we enjoyed a very lovely day coffee hopping and belly filling; usual routine for when foodies get together, right? You might say that only one thing might be missing from the foodie-madness picture and that is actually the picture taking itself; do not despair we did also that! You see, one of the reasons (or baits) I used to lure them into my German lair were the lovely Japanese cherry trees planted along my street that were in full bloom in that period.

The weather wasn't perfect, we actually escaped quite a few strong showers while prophetically sipping on some coffee but the sun pierced through the thick layer of clouds and we got some pretty nice shots of the pinkiness around us.

It didn't take long for us to start eating, barely 10m from meeting up...
I brought them to my favorite espresso bar and I unveiled to them some special bread-rolls I have made expressly for our breakfast.

A spin on Laugenbroetchen, they were based on Pretzel bread dough with few extra additions: roasted walnuts and cinnamon, a light sugary glaze made them even daintier but let's head to Pamela's for the rest of the story.

Crispy pork belly gyros of many traditions

2011-06-01T17:11:00.000+02:00

I guess somebody was in a street food mood lately, yeah I think so.

This round of Velveteers has been brought us by the eclectic mind of Asha from Fork Spoon Knife. Amidst her blog birthday and the plethora of guest posts she managed to put together for the occasion, she came up with the idea of challenging us in making Gyros ourselves....
What is Gyros? Come on, you know that! Oh wait, you might know it as Doner Kebab perhaps. In effect they are essentially the same thing and that is a huge conical pillar of meat roasted vertically on a skewer.
If you didn't know that Germany is famous for its sausages and sauerkraut, you would call Doner (contraction from Doener Kebab) the national dish. You find a "Doener Haus" almost every second corner around here and I would bet that 1/3 of the middle-aged to young part of the population almost entirely survives on it. If well done this fast-food item can be in effect quite a balanced meal.

How is it served? The roasting spit of meat is shaved with a special tool that let the meat flakes drop on the bottom tray were all the meat juices and fat collect and give the meat that extra crispiness. Placed on a flat bread of sort, the meat is accompanied with shredded lettuce, fresh onions, tzatziki and harissa. At least this is how Doner is served, Gyros uses the same cooking technique but it is usually served just with fresh onions, French fries and tzatziki.

What are the origins of this fast food dish? Most probably Turkish (get the connection with the German national dish?) the roasting technique seems to relate with the soldiers' practice of roasting meat skewed on their swords. The roasting was then performed mostly horizontally until in the 19th century Iskender Efendi is said to have thought of putting it vertically.

The huge piece of meat whirling around is not actually whole but composed of a stack of meat slices that have been marinating in herbs like oregano, paprika, cloves, onions and so forth. The lean meat is often intermingled with pieces of fat that melt down while roasting and dripping down, baste the lower end of the meat cone. The result product, gives shaves of juicy meat with a crispy side balanced perfectly by the tangy dairy sauces and the fresh vegetables they are served with.
Originating from a Muslim country, Doner it is most widely made of lamb meat but nowadays you can as easily find chicken as another meat choice.

Doener Kebab has been introduced into Greece through Tessaloniki (the second largest city in Greece after Athens) around the 1950-70 and, not being anymore obliged to follow religious constrains, it started to be made also from pork meat.
The similarity of the dish is also reflected by their name; both words Gyros and Doner refer in fact to the "turning, rotating" of the roasting meat.

I couldn't resist the porky call and, naturally, what is the pork cut by excellence if not Pork-belly? The only trouble of this cut of meat is that it requires a long and slow cook to be nicely juicy and tender. Braising is often the way to go when you are too lazy to slow roast it, as I am.
Traditions will dictate what to use to flavour the meat and the stock. Garlic is a must with pork as are onions for Gyros, oregano is another must. Other spices commonly used include paprika and allspice but I wasn't so much keen on having a red hue on the meat so I left the paprika aside.
For this kind of cooking, a pressure cooker is a great kitchen asset. Shove everything in, put it on the fire, cook for 1/3 of the time usually required and enjoy your meal.
In this case though, we want something crispy so the cooking will have to be double fold.

As mentioned Gyros is usually served with French fries but I wasn't in the mood for them so, as a delicate call to my Sicilian roots (and to Gyros' Turkish origins) I decided to use fried eggplants; still, potatoes where in my head; I had to include them in the dish somehow.

Asha, in disclosing the monthly challenge, specified that we had to prepare the bread ourselves too; so here we go, a potato flatbread spiked with fresh onions!
As for the sauce? A traditional tangy, spicy, garlicky tzatziki seemed fit for the task.

Without further ado, it is time to give you my:

Crispy Pork-Belly Gyros with fried eggplants in a potato-onion flatbread

Ingredients: (enough for 5-6 sandwiches)

700g whole fresh pork belly with skin
1.5tsp each of black peppercorns,

fennel seeds
allspice
oregano

3 bay leaves
4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
1/2tsp salt
150g onion, chopped
1/2cup dry white wine (optional)
1.5l water or enough to cover the pork belly

Potato flatbread (makes 5-6 medium sized ones)

150g cooked potatoes, passed through a ricer
1/2cup semolina flour
1 medium onions, diced
1/2tbsp of water or as needed
salt

Tzatziki

100g seeded cucumber, diced
125g quark (20% fat) or thick yogurt
1-2 small garlic clove2, pureed
4-5 mint leaves, chopped
salt

Fried eggplant slices
Vegetable oil for frying

Method:
Cut the pork belly across the longest of its sides, in strips 5cm/2" wide and place in a pressure cooker, or Dutch oven. Add all the rest of the ingredients, cover and bring to the highest pressure setting; cook for 1.5h over moderate fire, just enough to maintain the pressure in the pot.
If you are using a Dutch oven, braise the pork belly over medium/low fire until very tender. Try not to let the broth boil of it may become too fatty.
Once the meat will be cooked, let it cool undisturbed in the braising liquid before transferring it, gently, in a bowl and refrigerate (at this point you may want to discard the bay leaves). This will ensure that the porkbelly wont fall apart while you are trying to lift it up.
Let the braise cool down until the rendered fat will solidify (4h to overnight). Remove the fat and reserve to use as a spread. It will be wonderfully enriched by all the spices used in the cooking process.
The rich stock will have jellified too so before straining it, transfer as much of it as you can on a saucepan; be careful not to break the meat too much.
Place the saucepan over medium fire and stir until the stock will have completely liquefied. To scrape the rest of the juices from the meat, place it over a plate and into a very low preheated oven until they will have liquefied; pour them in the saucepan.
Strain the stock through a fine mousseline pressing well all the tidbits. Return the stock to the saucepan and let it reduce over medium-low fire to 1/3rd of its original volume; reserve. This will make the sauce for the gyros.
In the meantime that the stock is reducing, place the diced cucumber in a fine-mesh strainer, salt them and let them drain. This way you will get most of the water out of them before assembling your tzatziki and they will acquire a pleasing green hue and crunchy texture.

To make the potato flatbreads, gather the finely chopped onions in a mousseline gently sprinkle with salt and squeeze them over a bowl to gather their juices. In a big bowl, combine the cooked potatoes, onions, onion juices, salt and semolina flour and knead gently until you get a malleable dough. Let the dough rest for 10min. Upon standing the dough might get sticky, in this case knead in a little extra flour.
To form the flatbread you will need a nonstick surface, some oiled plastic wrap will do the trick. Spoon some of the dough on the oiled surface, oil the top of the dough and shape it onto a flat round. In the meantime have a flat skillet warming up over medium-low fire. Slightly oil both the pan and on of your hands, lift the flatbread onto your oiled hand and carefully place it onto the skillet. The flatbread may wrinkly on the transfer, use a flat spatula to gently redistribute the dough.
Cook the flatbread on one side until the raw dough appearance will have disappeared, flip it and cook for another couple of minutes. Reserve the cooked flatbreads in an insulted container or a warm oven. Continue cooking the bread until the dough will be finished.

In the meantime that the breads are cooking take the skin out of the pork belly pieces and carefully slice them across the longest axis into 5mm-1/4" thick slices.
When the flatbread will all be cooked, add a little vegetable oil in the skillet and turn the fire up to medium. Gently transfer the pork belly slices on the skillet to crisp up just from one side. Reserve on a warm plate ready for assemble.
Assemble the tzatziki by simple combining the quark (or yogurt) with the diced cucumber, the mashed garlic and the mint leaves; season with salt if needed.
To assemble your gyros sandwich place some tzatziki, fried eggplant slices and crispy pork belly onto a flatbread; drizzle with the reduced braising sauce (if in the meantime it has jellified, lightly warm it up) and enjoy either as a wrap or as a sandwich by covering it with another potato flatbread.

The 4 Velveteers was started by Alessio, Aparna, Asha and Pamela, who are passionate about different cuisines and food in general. Each month, we will attempt a new dish and share our experiences and the recipes we used. If you're interested in joining the Velveteers, please feel free to drop by our Facebook group.
Check out what the other Velveteers have come up with this month:

Aparna's Vegetarian version of Gyros
Rajani's Veggies Jai-ros
Sarah's Lamb kebabs and pita bread

From the streets of Sicily a sticky and sweet comfort food

2011-05-19T21:00:00.001+02:00

My dear friend Asha some time ago asked me if I was willing to participate to her street-food month to celebrate her blog anniversary.
No doubts I wanted to be part of such fun and deserved celebrations though I was a bit doubtful about venturing into German street food. You see, what passes for street food here is mostly grilled sausages in a bun, with French fries or with a curried ketchup sauce. Not really my cup of tea as concerning experimentation.
Sicilian street food was the way to go.

Lately I have seen quite a number of Arancini posts around the blogospheres so I thought I should give it a try but in one of those blissful moment of inspiration I remembered of another street food that I simply adore:

Crispelle di riso di San Giuseppe (St. Joseph's sticky rice fritters)

For the recipe let's head over to Asha's.

Sweet savoury secret scones

2011-05-16T13:00:00.008+02:00

It is time for the second round of the Secret Recipe Club. Already one month has passed since we opened the doors of this respectable and young establishment to all of you.
What is it about? Shall I repeat it? Yeah let's do it.
Amanda (LINK) during one of her many creative surges came up with the idea of opening a Club of bloggers that would love to do recipe hopping. This gives us the chance to try one of the recipes posted by another member of the group.
Last month I had the opportunity of browsing through Avanika's recipes and picked up this fabulously soft and airy cake. Naturally we are granted creative rights on the original recipe so I came up with my own version that I also served for my birthday party; worthless to say that I had a real hard time keeping the sticky fingers of my friends from snatching a whole quart of the cake for themselves.

This month I got assigned Jane's blog The Heritage Cook and also this time I picked up a sweet item to prepare.
I have been meaning to try and making them for a long time, since I first discovered them during one of my visits to London. These flaky and delicate pastries are actually pretty versatile and when served as sweet they are to die for with clotted cream and jam. Yes, I am talking about British scones; isn't your mouth already watering?
Scones are actually a very straightforward product belonging to the quick-bread category. They are made with grain flour or oats and raised thanks to baking powder. Their typical short (crumbly) texture is due to the way the fat is mixed into the flour.
The choice of the fat to use mainly distinguishes the British version from the American one. The first use butter while the second rely mostly on vegetable or animal shortening. This has naturally an influence on their texture since shortening melts at a higher temperature than butter producing a somewhat drier product.
British scones are often lightly sweetened and served either with coffee or tea. The somewhat neutral nature of scones can easily be brought into the savory realm with the addition of cheese in the dough. Dried fruits are instead a classical addition for the sweet ones.
The cooking method classically employed is baking but scones can also be cooked on a grilled (as are some of the Scottish ones) or even fried (particularly popular in New Zealand and Australia).

Given the freedom, I couldn't help myself but to try a lightly savory interpretation of cream scones.
Cream, milk, cow, right? Sure but why do we use cream and not milk or water? Cause we want a flaky product and not a door stopper. Cream has up to 30% of fat content so reducing the chances of creating gluten when mixed with the flour.
So this means that the essential ingredient we need is fat, why not use vegetable fat then? What about coconut? A flaky buttery pastry with coconut overtones, doesn't that sound good already?
And what if we acknowledge the good work of our grazing cows and add some Parmesan to them? Not much, just to give a light savoriness to the product.
So far we have dealt with somehow heavy fatty notes; we need to lift up the flavor profiles somehow. We could go citrus zests and this will produce a sweeter scone, what if we used herbs instead? Since we need something light, with the flavors already present we can choose essentially among dill, thyme, rosemary, parsley, chervil and... tarragon.
So here we go:

Coconut cream scones with Parmesan and tarragon

Ingredients (make a ca 26cm loaf):

260g all-purpose flour
2.5tbsp grated Parmesan
1.5tbsp sugar
1/2tsp black peppercorns, crushed
1/4tsp salt
2.5tsp baking powder
1/2tsp salt
1tbsp finely chopped tarragon, 4-5 sprigs
115g ice-cold, unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 egg
245g coconut cream

Method:
While you prepare the dough, warm up you oven to 190C/175F.
Combine the dry ingredients in the bowl of a mixer with the steel blade in and blitz around 10 times to mix them together. Add the chopped tarragon and pulse to combine with the other dry ingredients. Add the cubed ice-cold butter to the mixer bowl and pulse it until the mixture resemble coarse cornmeal/couscous, if you still see little chunks of butter here and there that is fine.
Whisk together the coconut cream and the egg.
Transfer the buttered flour mixture into a bowl, make a hole in the middle and pour in the coconut-egg mixture. Gently mix with a work until nicely combined, drop the dough onto a cookie sheet layered with wax-paper forming a round wheel smaller than 26cm/10in in diameters. To guide your hand you can use the bottom part of a 26cm/10in springform instead of a cookie sheet.
Bake in the hot oven for 25 minutes. Place the baked scone on the counter to cool down for 10minutes before cutting it into wedges.

These cross-boundary scones are perfect as a sweet or savory item. Enjoy them lukewarm or at room temperature either with butter and jam of with cheese and ham. By themselves they will shine with their buttery notes and nutty aromas.

The simple French pleasures: Autour du Pho Part II

2011-05-06T03:47:00.004+02:00

Often simple pleasures are those that can reach deeper into our hearts. May it be the right piece of music at the right moment, that subtle breeze that caresses our cheeks in a sunny spring day, the smell of somebody's home-cooking while coming back home from work; these light feathers of emotions are able to make our day.
As a foodie I tend to gravitate toward food in one form or another, to support me, to beat the time of my day and relieve me from the sudden dips and trenches were my energy could have fallen.

We all have a nest, a place where we can recharge our batteries, where to let our thoughts go wild or simply shut them off tout-court. From some of my past writings you might have guessed that Paris is able to work this magic on me and my chaotic brain activity.
After almost two years I finally managed to get back to my little paradise of streets, corner, trees and beautiful people.

Few weeks ago, after an almost sleepless night, I set myself on the move toward Cologne to fetch the burgundy train to the city of lights. The trip was smooth and uneventful, just what I needed to start resting my brain and switch my language selector into French.

Once arrived at the Gare du Nord, I just had to rent a locker for my suitcase (and answer the suspicious security officer about the knives I was carrying with me) before hitting the town with that placid and kind of idiotic smile that says "I am finally alright". You have to know that Paris isn't just Bistros, Restaurants, Parks and benches for me; totally the opposite actually. For as much as I love Parisian gardens, with their true atmosphere and the small number of tourists that, rushing through their scheduled "must-see", take a moment to enjoy such beauties; I do prefer to walk and walk and walk through cities streets. I guess you can call it an aerobic-vacation.
Paris is quite a welcoming city, inviting its guests to enjoy each other companies free of worries and plans. To get lost is quite a difficult task but it is also something to look forward to. Like a treasure hunt you will find daisies to add to you crown, precious sea-shells for your collections, pearls to admire and diamonds to revere in the most unexpected places.

The Gare du Nord is quite north respect to the geographical center of the city and in my case I had actually to cross it to go south to meet my host for few nights and on the way I had to fetch my friend Yolanda after her photography class in the Ile St. Louis. I had all the time to stroll around, without much thinking just trying to go south.
In this random wondering I also rediscovered places lost in my memories (and in the meanders of Parisians streets); the Picasso Museum was one of them.
Once I had the luck to be in Paris during the first Sunday of the month, day in which I discovered that most of the museums offer free admittance. It was also my last day in the city and while strolling around before getting on my train, I run into this museum located somewhere in the Marais area and so decided to give it a try. It is indeed worth visiting if you are around.

Another pro of this museum is that it is placed quite close by Place des Vosges; another iconic place of the old Paris with its wonderful and ample arcades punctuated with bistros and art galleries. Do not let you be deceived by its name though, despite the fact of being actually square, this square is almost an enclosure delimited by austere red-bricked buildings (among which it is also Victor Hugo's house).

The square has three access points: two at the opposite ends of one street marking one of its sides and a small alley developing opposite to this street at the middle point of the building blocks. You miss these entrances and you will be wondering around the whole area looking for this lovely green patch of peace and serenity.
The centre of this square holds another of the preciouses Parisians gardens where you will be most likely to find students arranged on the green grass carpet (pelouse in French) as sun-drying sardines catching the first glimpses of the spring sun.

With my camera on handy, I sat down to catch some due rest and to try my luck. Luck at what you might say, at spotting Italian tourists. Not just because I was homesick but mostly because each time I went and sit down in one of the benches in Place des Vosges, Italian tourists came to sit around me somewhere. This time instead, two young ladies came to sit behind me and they were actually German; whatever...
I know, I know, that was quite a silly thing to do but I was with just two hours of sleep behind me and my brain was in Paris mode.

The walk brought me finally to the little Ile St Louis (the island mostly known for its ice cream parlors) and for the first time I spotted the actual church of St. Louis (Louis the 9th king of France). While I was waiting for Yolanda to come out of one of the doors in the same street, I enjoyed a quiet visit in this surprising church illuminated by the sun piercing through its stained glasses.
A fresh, calm and colorful breeze of emotions that caught me by surprise even more when I realized the unique way in which the church's oldest pieces of art were displayed: encased in the wood panels covering its walls.
This island was once the heart of medieval Paris, it was actually part of the first settlement in the area and Louis the IXth was king of France around the year 1200 (the one who lost the head was Louis the XVIth, so you make the math). In those years, the beatification process was fast and furious and so the apparent young age of the church might take by surprise but only till when you remember that during the French Revolution most places of cult were devastated. To wrap this little digression up, in the lovely church of St. Louis you will find work of art dating as back as the XIIIth century: Gothic golden-sky paintings, terra cottas from Limoges or the Rhine area and other little gems that make this church a museum in a museum; definitely worth a visit (after or before taking an ice-cream at Berthillon).

When Yolanda came out of her class, we headed back to the Marais for a dish of falafels and a nice chat. On the way I had the unfortunate opportunity to be reminded of the bitter truth of nowadays economy when I saw that one of the iconic bars of the area, the Amnesia, had closed with all its wooden facade and green ivy. Oh well, life goes by....

More about my Parisian visit in future posts in the meantime I propose you a simple classic that will surely bring happiness in your tummy.

Chicken mousse with ginger

Ingredients:

500g chicken wings, skinned
1/2cup white wine
1inch ginger, peeled and chopped coarsely
1tsp black peppercorns
120g celeriac, peeled and chopped
3 garlic cloves, smashed
3 parsley branches

For the Glace de Volaille:

2tbsp celeriac, fine diced
1tbsp ginger, fine diced
1/2 sheet gelatine, soaked in cold water and squeezed

To finish:

20g fresh butter
1-2tsp ginger in brunoise (very fine dices)
Salt and Pepper

Method:
In a wide enough pot, place the chicken wings without their skin followed by all the vegetables and aromatics; add the wine and enough cold water to cover. Season with a scant pinch of salt and bring to a simmer. Cook the chicken wings at a slow simmer until falling off the bone (I used my loyal pressure cooker for this and 15-20 minutes of cooking time were just right) and let them come to room temperature in the stock.
When the chicken wings will be cold enough to not fall apart when picked up, transfer them into the cutting board and remove the flesh from the bones and cartilages.
Strain the chicken stock through a fine cheesecloth squeezing all the flavorful liquid from the vegetables. On a low to medium fire, reduce this stock to roughly 1 tablespoon worth of liquid adding to it the fine diced celeriac and ginger midway of the process. Once reduced, you should obtain a flavorful, sticky, gelatinous glace de volaille (chicken in this case); strain and reserve.
Chop the chicken flesh with your knife and transfer it into the bowl of a small mixer; pulse it until you obtain a fine purée, you might have to scrape the bowl using a spoon a few time.
Warm up the by-now congealed chicken glace with the extra half sheet of gelatine so to just melt them.
Mix the cold butter into the pureed chicken and add the liquefied lukewarm glace de volaille.
Transfer the mousse into a bowl, mix in the brunoise of ginger and season with salt and pepper. Cover with some plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Enjoy the mousse over some nice toasted bread or crusty baguette with a glass of well chilled red wine and a fiery sunset.

Variation:
To make the mousse a little more special, along with the brunoise of ginger you may add to it some chopped tarragon. In this case I would suggest a romantic candle light dinner as the perfect background for this little life's pleasure.