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‘Leavened’ Category

  1. Finishing 2012/starting 2013 with a bang: gastronomic panettone

    January 10, 2013 by Giulietta

    I published this recipe on my Italian blog on New Year’s Eve: in fact, this was my contribution to a New Year’s Eve dinner with friend.

    A few days before the 31st I decided that I wanted to end 2012 with a bang, astonishing my dining companions, and so I made my attempt with a gastronomic panettone (a semi-savoury panettone, stuffed with anything you can think of).

    Of course, my panettone wasn’t perfect (it resembled an alien -at least an alien in the ’80 filmography’s stereotype), but for me it was simply beautiful.

    The recipe came from Adriano of Profumo di Lievito, a real expert on leavened preparations. As for the filling, you can find my choices in the recipe’s notes, but you can use everything you like.

    This panettone is my little gift for you, and with it I wish you all a GREAT 2013!

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    Category Appetizer and Finger food, Holidays, Leavened, New Year's Eve, Party, Senza categoria | Tags: ,,,, | 6 Comments

  2. Experimenting with pizza stone – pizza with poolish method

    September 26, 2012 by Giulietta

    My dear friend MJ of Mj’s kitchen asked me a little time ago to write a guest post for her while she waits her kitchen’s remodeling. She asked me if I could write an Italian post, so I thought: what’s more Italian than… pizza?!

    And so here I am, talking about home-made pizza and pizza stone.

    Read my post over at MJ (visit her blog, anyway.. pay a visit, come on!) or here.

    This is not the first (nor the last) time I talk about pizza, one of the Great Italic Loves (with capital letters): we can fight as much as we want the stereotypes about Italians, pizza, pasta and mandolin, but I candidly admit that I couldn’t give pizza up. A little time ago I told you about Gabriele Bonci’s pizza (and I didn’t finish with it: I have a lot of seasonal combination to try), a high hydration pizza to prepare in a pan.

    But I’m always looking for new pizza recipes to try.

    Then, on my birthday, arrived unexpectedly a pizza stone, object of desire for a very long time: so I immediately started looking for a recipe expressly created to use my brand new pizza stone (which is nothing more than a refractory stone/brick, available in any building materials store)!
    Of course, we came close to drama when we found out, a few hours before the first experiment, that the stone didn’t allow the oven to close properly, but thanks to MacGyver‘s intervention (aka my father) we managed to avoid the crisis. Who would stop me now?

    The recipe I propose you came from Adriano of Profumo di lievito, a recipe that I have seen so many times around the net, and now I can confirm its magnificence. I’ll continue to experiment, but with this exciting beginning, I can only improve!

    ATTENTION: for this preparation you’ll need a full day: the process starts the evening before (otherwise you could prepare some dough in advance and freeze it: for the freezing solution, look at the bottom of the recipe).

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    Category Breads and pizzas, Italian cuisine, Leavened, Single course | Tags: ,,,, | 10 Comments

  3. Fly, white dove, fly: Easter Colomba (dove) with brewer’s yeast

    April 5, 2012 by Giulietta

    A year of great success with leavened dough. And, if Christmas in Italy means Panettone, Easter means Colomba (Italian for dove).
    At this point I could talk you about the Christian meaning of the dove, I could talk about peace and olive branches .. but let's be honest, these things are not for me, since my religiosity and my closeness to the Christian religion in particular are very thin. Therefore, I face Easter like any other holiday, in a very secular and festive way, the one that rejoice over a few days home from work, some relax, some movies to see, some hours to spend with friends, some time available for cooking and baking.

    So, when I hear the word "dove" I don't think about a symbol of Christianity (I hope nobody feels offended by my spirit, or lack of spirit, depending on your point of view), but I think about this old Italian song (despite this reference to the 50s, I swear that I am not 80 years old … and anyway, if I was 80, I would be a hell of an eighty-year-old) and I think about this Italian Easter dessert.

    Therefore, because of the same secular and festive spirit above, for me celebrate Easter was about taking a weekend off, shopping and then locking myself in the kitchen with a good friend to prepare the Colomba, between a laugh, a look at some cookbook, a chat and a few other trials (between risings we made some delicious pitas, but I'll talk about them some other time), even managing to carve out some time for a beer in the evening. And, unlike the making of Panettone, we didn't even cursed so much .. perhaps, somehow, the Easter spirit manifested itself, for sure in the miracle of this dove, which is simply amazing.

    I am posting the recipe today (instead of my usual post on Saturday), so you're gonna make it for Easter Sunday, if you want to try it.

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    Category Dessert and Sweets, Easter, Holidays, Leavened | Tags: ,,,,,, | 10 Comments

  4. Danubio: from wherever you came from, you’re perfect just the way you are

    January 8, 2012 by Giulietta

    As I already told you some time ago, I have the "ear" mania (aka when I read a cook book or a magazine, I dog ear every interesting page), or I write down memos on loose sheets of paper (which inevitably accumulate and mix with other memos scattered around the desk) an endless list of dishes that sooner or later I will definitely have to try in my life. Since I added in Google Reader the feeds of my favorite blogs, I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel … there are more stars (bookmark simbols) in my reader than in the Milky Way.

    Among the recipes in my culinary wish list from time out of mind there's the Danubio (Danube), which is everything, except a dish of northern origins (as the name would suggest): in fact, it seems that this name was given in honor of Mario Scaturchio's (a Neapolitan pastry chef) Austrian aunt, inventor of this recipe. There are also two other stories related to this name: the first says that this name came from its shape, similar to a watery surface rippled by the waves (romantic version); the other one sees in this name a reference to the arrival of Viennese cooks in Naples as Bourbons' retinue in the second half of the XVIII century (historic version, a little less charming, but perhaps more accurate). Name aside, this is a great Southern recipe, from Campania, one of those rich, magnificent (do you remember the babà rustico, right?) recipe, completely customizable to your every taste and preference (there's also a sweet Danubio).

    But, that's for sure, this dish is perfect for a dinner with friends, where each guest can take his/her roll from the Danubio and eat it with his/her hands (the kind of finger food that everyone loves), drinking some Prosecco, a good beer or what he/she prefers with it. I made the Danubio (indeed, two Danubi) on New Year's Eve, and I must say that he didn't disappoint anyone.. maybe it's because I followed Tery's infallible recipe?!

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    Category Appetizer and Finger food, Campania, Cheese, Cold cuts, Holidays, Leavened, New Year's Eve, Regional Italian cooking | Tags: ,,,,,,,,,,, | 30 Comments

  5. Panettone… and Merry Christmas

    December 25, 2011 by Giulietta

    What can I say about Panettone, except that it's the Italian Christmas dessert par excellence (for me Panettone is way way better than Pandoro)?! That I think that the scent could revive dead persons? That its softness could melt even the most hard-hearted?

    No, I prefer to say that this year I wanted to allow myself this experiment, repeated twice: the first time I failed (a wrong and too long rising, which led to a very good Panettone, but drier than it should be),  while the second Panettone was phenomenal, also thanks to Morena from Menta e Cioccolato, this recipe's mom and the one who suggested me not to give up and who gave me some successful tips.

    With this Panettone (which will cut itself by magic in exact the number of slices needed for all of you) I wish you to spend a happy and peaceful Christmas, reveling surrounded by your loved ones (I have to wish you something food-related). And I wish you that this Christmas will bring you everything that you want.

    And, last but not least, I want to thank you all for your patience in reading my rigmarole, for the affection, attention and support I feel in your every comment and every e-mail. Thank you all and, sincerely, Merry Christmas.

    … don't worry, now I leave you the recipe!
     

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    Category Christmas, Dessert and Sweets, Holidays, Home-made is better, Leavened, Lombardy, Regional Italian cooking | Tags: ,,,,,,,,,, | 33 Comments

  6. Pizza Party, featuring Gabriele Bonci’s pizza

    October 30, 2011 by Giulietta

    Hands up who doesn't love pizza! I bet no one raised his/her hand … let's face it, it's impossible not to love pizza, and not just 'cause I'm Italian, but 'cause I'm a human being with stomach and taste buds.

    Pizza is one of the wonders of the world, one of those things that everybody love, since it's incredibly versatile. This has always been my thought, but I've had further confirmation since I discovered Gabriele Bonci's pizza (discovered through my ​​friend Elisa, aka Kitty's Kitchen), a famous Roman pizza maker, whose pizza is now a true legend. Unfortunately I haven't had the pleasure of tasting his pizza, yet, but I plan to do that the next time I'll go to Rome (maybe sooner than later).

    However, thanks to some excellent videos I found on Dissapore web site and thanks to the advices of some fellow food bloggers, I was able to try and make His pizza, and the fact that I never tasted the original one could be an advantage… so I can't tell the differences. Having said that, I simply fell in love with this pizza, very hydrated (as you'll see, it contains a very high percentage of water), very well leavened (very slowly) and very, very light. So you won't feel guilty when you'll eat a slice more … and believe me, you will definitely do that, don't fight it!

    But do as I did, throw a nice pizza party, so you can share the guilt.
    My pizza party is also featured in this month 24×24 on Foodbuzz.

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    Category Breads and pizzas, Cheese, Cold cuts, Leavened, Party, Single course, Vegetables | Tags: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, | 27 Comments

  7. Do-it-yourself Oktoberfest: pretzels

    September 26, 2011 by Giulietta

    This is the active period of the famous Munich Oktoberfest: someone goes there, someone craves for it, someone thinks, deep down, that he could survive without it, someone content himself with one of the many Oktoberfest that, in recent years, take place in almost every Italian city.

    Now I stand in the ranks of those who, deep down, could also live without the Oktoberfest … let's be clear: I want to go there at least once in my life, but I don't make myself ill about it and certainly I don't consider it a matter of life or death.

    The real deal for me is trying to have at my fingertips those things that for me represent the essence of Bavaria or, more generally, Germany, so that I can enjoy a little Oktoberfest when I want to.

    These things are mainly three:

    1. A nice beer, possibly a Weissbier (wheat beer, my favorite among the German ones and typical of Bavaria):fortunately, I find a very good one at a local discount store.
    2. Pickled cucumbers. They are one of my manias: when I see them on the shelves I can't help myself and I have to take them, they remain attached to my hands. And if you ever entered a discount store, you know very well how many pickles jars look at you, and how good they are.
    3. Pretzels (in Italian brezel, in Bavarian bretzn), a bread crispy on the outside and soft inside, an absolute and  delicious German must (especially if cut in half and spread with butter). Sold in every street corner in Germany (do you remember the man who carries the pretzels in my Berlin picture?), but very hard to find in Italy. What if there was a way to circumvent this problem?!

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    Category Appetizer and Finger food, Breads and pizzas, German cuisine, Leavened | Tags: ,,, | 44 Comments

  8. Giorgio’s, Federico’s and Sigrid’s classic focaccia

    February 25, 2011 by Giulietta

    Today I start a new class of recipes, called "cooking for dummies": I hope it will last long and be helpful to some of my readers. I called it "cooking for dummies" not because my audience is foolish, but because the recipes that I'll present you are dumb-proof; besides, all these recipes will be equipped with photos of middle passages.

    Having said that (I never would someone accuse me to call him/her a dumb), let's talk about credits. Giorgio, Federico and Sigrid aren't my friends, but they are (in order) a cook, a baker and famous foodblogger, responsible for this recipe. Giorgio is Giorgio Locatelli, chef of the Locanda Locatelli in London and author of Made in Italy: Food and Stories, the book containing the focaccia recipe; Federico is Federico Turri, the baker of the Locanda Locatelli, while Sigrid is Sigrid Verbert, aka "the Brussels sprout", a well known and great (IMHO) foodblogger and photographer. Thus, I invite you all to visit her blog, a great source of inspiration for me.

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    Category Appetizer and Finger food, Cooking for dummies, Leavened, Liguria, Regional Italian cooking | Tags: ,,,, | 2 Comments

  9. Ode to friendship: His Majesty the “Babà Rustico”

    February 22, 2011 by Giulietta

    Picture taken by Siamo Donne

    I decided from the first moment that this recipe would be the first to appear on my blog, because for me it really represents an ode to friendship (just to paraphrase some poems by Pablo Neruda, maybe my favorite poet).

    It's an ode to friendship, because you can't eat a "babà  rustico" all by yourself (but 3 o 4 people definitely can eat it -I've proofs-, if they're particularly committed to this mission, code name "to be a greedy pig"), because its taste gets even better (is it possible?!) when it is sliced and shared with the people you love (and you can also share with them its calories), because this recipe makes everyone happy (you can't love the rustic babà , unless you have something against one of the ingredients), because you'll be at peace with the world while sinking you teeth into its soft dough.

    What a responsability for a poor babà !

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    Category Appetizer and Finger food, Campania, Leavened, Regional Italian cooking | Tags: ,,,, | 5 Comments