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February 7, 2013 by Giulietta
This recipe marks the end of my “once on shore we pray no more” serie, born to remember Christmas holidays, which now are just a distant memory.
Between the recipes I proposed starring Mr. Capon (with capital C), perhaps this one is the most holiday-related … sure, tortellini are no joke, but I think that you could eat tortellini any day of the year, while stuffed capon immediately recalls Christmas holiday. Stuffed capon is a sort of culinary party: how else you can call, in fact, a fat and tasty, when you stuff it with other delicious things?! It’s a party, there is no other definition.
For my stuffed capon I drew inspiration from this Piedmontese recipe, making some changes here and there.
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Category Capon, Christmas, Holidays, Meat, Piedmont, Regional Italian cooking, Second course | Tags: capon,chestnut,Christmas,dried prune,eggs,holidays,meat,minced meat,Piedmont,regional italian cuisine,sausages,second course,stuffed capon | 4 Comments
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January 25, 2013 by Giulietta
As promised, here I am with the second recipe to remember the Christmas holidays. The protagonist is Mr. Capon (again), this time in flesh and blood, not as a stock.
This recipe, in fact, is born to reuse the capon’s boiled meat once you made the stock for your tortellini.
I immediately thought of a salad, light and perfect as an appetizer or a delicious second course, and also immediately I decided to make it Sicily-scented, by adding oranges (slices and juice) and almonds.
Recipe doesn’t have doses: it goes to the taste.
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Category Appetizer and Finger food, Capon, Christmas, Citrus, Dried fruit, Fresh fruit, Holidays, Meat, Nuts, Second course | Tags: almond,appetizer and finger food,capon,Christmas,citrus fruits,dried fruit,fresh fruit,holidays,meat,nuts,orange,second course | 2 Comments
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November 1, 2012 by Giulietta
Maybe the title puzzled you.. wasn’t it “Friday fish“? Yes, but what can you do if I decided to make these rolls for a Thursday night?
I admit it… I don’t cook enough fish, so every time I feel the need to cook something that moved its flippers so swim is a good occasion.
And this time, the occasion was the combination between food and wine. The wine I talk about is the Erbaluce from Caluso, a dry white wine from Piedmont, very well known here. I was given the opportunity to taste some wines produced from Erbaluce grapes by Orsolani, and today I propose to you one of their wines in combination with an easy and yet very tasty fish dish: scabbardfish roll with green olives and capers, a “lighter” version of the Sicilian rolls, that often involve raisins and pine nuts.
I preferred, however, to eliminate these two sweet (or sweetish) elements, to obtain a stronger stuffing. The fish itself is very delicate, and it perfectly marries with with an intense and unequivocally savory stuffing, and it needs a wine so strong to bring out the contrasting qualities of the dish, but not so strong to cover the flavors, and “La Rustia”, Erbaluce from Caluso DOCG, proved up to the task, both during cooking and to accompany the dish.
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Category Fish, Italian cuisine, Second course, Wine | Tags: capers,cherry tomatoes,erbaluce from caluso,fish,green olives,italian cuisine,olives,orsolani,scabbardfish,second course,white wine,wine | 2 Comments
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July 18, 2012 by Giulietta
Yes, I admit it, I want to dry out in the sun (not in my garden, anymore), I want beach and seaside. But I don't want these things so much that I started to feel the smell or the sound of the sea in a bunch of zucchini .. I need a vacation, but not so badly! The scent of the sea (the Ligurian sea, to be accurate. But, given my revisions, it's the Ligurian side nearest to Piedmont) is in the stuffing of these zucchini.
In a few days I'll leave for my holidays (it's likely that the next post will be written from another place), in a few days I'll see the sea again: every year I feel nostalgic about the sea, and every year I look forward to seeing it again, excited like a child with his favourite toy. And passing the time while waiting, I comfort myself with these delicious stuffed zucchini that scent like summer and sea, and with Baudelaire's beautiful words about this blue mirror that
I love (and miss) so much.
Man And The Sea
Free man! the sea is to thee ever dear!
The sea is thy mirror, thou regardest thy soul
In its mighteous waves that unendingly roll,
And thy spirit is yet not a chasm less drear.
Thou delight'st to plunge deep in thine image down;
Thou tak'st it with eyes and with arms in embrace,
And at times thine own inward voice would'st efface
With the sound of its savage ungovernable moan.
You are both of you, sombre, secretive and deep:
Oh mortal, thy depths are foraye unexplored,
Oh sea–no one knoweth thy dazzling hoard,
You both are so jealous your secrets to keep!
And endless ages have wandered by,
Yet still without pity or mercy you fight,
So mighty in plunder and death your delight:
Oh wrestlers! so constant in enmity!
Charles Baudelaire, "Les fleurs du mal"
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Category Dried fruit, Herbs, Liguria, Regional Italian cooking, Second course, Vegetables | Tags: anchovy,capers,dried fruit,Liguria,mackerel,marjoram,pine nuts,regional italian cuisine,round zucchini,tuna,vegetables,zucchini | 5 Comments
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May 8, 2012 by Giulietta
In the last post I told you about spring, about sensations that this season full of life gives me and about cravings that arise in me during springtime. Well, meanwhile I satisfied the desire for a road trip .. 5 wonderful days on the roads of Provence and Camargue, many stages, so many beautiful places that still fill my eyes, so many colours and scents, so many steps I took and so many yet to be taken.
After all this, I admit it, the coming back to reality was very hard for me, and the desire to cook went to take a ride. But I definitely wanted something fresh and fragrant, something that could go with the season that just started and possibly give a boost to summer, so that it will come soon (inevitably making us feel nostalgic for autumn and winter… it's a spinning wheel, uh?). So, I had the idea of a swordfish carpaccio with a "pink" dressing, a tribute to the beautiful "La vie en rose" by Edith Piaf, a song that accompanied (along with a thousands other songs) my French trip. And the result, a recipe-non recipe with fresh intense and citrus scents.
But before leaving you the recipe (if you can call it that), I want you to realise the terrible post-holiday effect through an image, a set of photos that contains some of the fascinations of those fantastic days I spent in France.
How could I not be nostalgic? And I'm ready to leave again, next week, flying to Brussels (so if you have any advice/ suggestion/ idea, don't be shy, my ears are always wide open). There's nothing to do, my wanderer gene grows and grows every day.
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Category Appetizer and Finger food, Citrus, Cold dishes, Fish, Fresh fruit, Marinade, Second course | Tags: appetizer and finger food,citrus fruits,cold dishes,fish,marinade,pepper,pink pepper,pink-grapefruit,second course,swordfish | 3 Comments
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April 18, 2012 by Giulietta
Third (and fourth) and last buttery recipe (always for the Occelli butter contest), and this time the key word is not just "butter", but also "quick".
Thinking about quick and buttery recipes, the first thing that jumped to mind is the combination between butter and eggs, so I decided to propose two minor changes to this "theme".
I replaced chicken eggs with quail eggs and I paired them with brown butter; I also made an hard-boiled version (to serve as a finger food) and a sunny side up version (in Italy we call this "uovo all'occhio di bue" aka "beef's eye egg").
Two super-easy recipes, that can sort out a last minute dinner with elegance and easiness.
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Category Appetizer and Finger food, Contest, Cooking for dummies, Second course | Tags: appetizer and finger food,brown butter,butter,eggs,quail eggs,second course | 10 Comments
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April 15, 2012 by Giulietta
Prepare yourselves, 'cause this will be the first of 3 posts with a common ingredient, butter. I chose to title this series "not only butter", 'cause we certainly don't live only for butter (and I'm a real Italian, 'cause I definitely use more extra-virgin olive oil than butter), but in my opinion butter is a great discriminant in certain preparation, 'cause it's an added value, that accompanies flavors and enhances them.
These buttery thoughts arose from a contest dedicated to butter (binder butter): the challenge is to create and/or implement three recipes (an original one, a quick one and a traditional one) that have butter as a key ingredient.
I started from this key element and I tried to create (or re-create) dishes in which the butter is the binder, the ingredient that holds the flavors together and, at the same time, doesn't tower above them.
I hope you'll be pleased with these creations as I was of the results.
As for the original recipe, I made some beef turnovers filled with fresh spinach, walnuts and Parmigiano, cooked in butter and served with a walnut sauce. To create this recipe, I started from the assumption that beef cutlet cooked in butter is absolutely delicious, and I decided to add two more buttery notes: I sauteed spinach in butter and there's butter in the walnuts sauce (which is a quick recipe to keep in mind to dress a pasta dish).
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Category Beef, Contest, Dried fruit, Meat, Sauces, Second course, Vegetables | Tags: beef,butter,contest,dried fruit,meat,sauce,second course,spinach,turnovers,vegetables,walnut | 11 Comments
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January 31, 2012 by Giulietta
I am not a voracious meat eater, I don't stuff myself with steaks, stews, burgers, chickens and patties, and it's not because I don't like them (on the contrary), but simply because I eat many more vegetables than proteins or carbs. What can I do if I go crazy for every single vegetable?!
But (and I've already told you, there's always a but) I can't say no to a great piece of meat cooked like it deserves, aka not overcooked. I believe that, under the right conditions, I could kill for a Fiorentina, or a nice Frisona (a Piedmontese cow) T-Bone steak.
But I'd settle even for "less", for example a nice piece of sirloin, briefly and simply cooked. Here, if you're searching for a dish that has these two traits, the beef medallions hugged by lardo are just perfect.
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Category Beef, Cold cuts, Cooking for dummies, Meat, Second course | Tags: beef,cold cuts,cooking for dummies,lard,meat,medallions,second course,sirloin | 20 Comments
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January 19, 2012 by Giulietta
Two days ago I came back home late and I started thinking I should comb through all the new recipes posted on my favorite blogs, but then I found myself thinking that maybe I should update my own blog before thinking about the other ones … but, while I was combing through other people's blogs (I think one thing and then I do the exact opposite), I found out from Sigrid that December 17th was the Ossobuco alla Milanese World Day (every year the GVCI chose to dedicate a World Day to a specific dish of Italian Cuisine, and this year it was dedicated to the ossobuco alla Milanese).
Of course, this is not like forgetting your father's birthday, forgetting your car keys into the car or forgetting to take the gloves with you when outside it's freezing (and I forgot the last thing three times in three freezing days), but, since my ossobuco alla Milanese's recipe was waiting to be published for a while (I learned this recipe in the cooking class dedicated to meat dishes I attended a few months ago – but I already talked about it here) this seemed to me a great opportunity to write about this great winter comfort food.
And so, if you excuse me for my delay, I celebrate the marrowbones, too (and the "two days after" gives an apocalyptic twist, too).
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Category Beef, Herbs, Lombardy, Meat, Regional Italian cooking, Second course, Wine | Tags: beef,garlic,gremolada,herbs,lemon,Lombardy,marrowbone,meat,ossobuco,parsley,regional italian cuisine,second course,white wine,wine | 12 Comments
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November 30, 2011 by Giulietta
Just a few days ago I wrote that I would take a break from my blog, that I didn't know when I would come back, but that I hoped it would be soon. You might be surprised to see me again after such a short period, but in these days I understood some things. I understood, thanks to a lot of kind messages and comments from many of you, that in these blogging months I gave to you more than I imagined, and I couldn't be happier about it. I understood that food and cooking are soul (and not only body) nourishment, and that sometimes you have to rediscover those nourishment by abandoning yourself to slowness, calm and patience … so that we can find that lost (or maybe just forgotten) taste.
For my personal quest I chose to rediscover an elaborated dish, a slowly cooked one, enriched by a thousand flavors and smells … I indulged in a pot roast, a dish that you can find in many places, but that I made mine using a Piedmontese wine, a rich and full-bodied Barbera. I learned to prepare this dish in a recent cooking class about meat preparations, so I hope the procedure I followed is very meticulous. This is a slow preparation, so it will allow you to spend some time at home and dedicate yourself to something else, because you won't be sucked into the preparation, but in the end you'll have a great final dish, a dish that gives off the scent of the imminent holidays.
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Category Beef, Herbs, Meat, Piedmont, Regional Italian cooking, Second course, Spices, Vegetables, Wine | Tags: barbera,beef,braised,carrots,celery,herbs,meat,onions,Piedmont,red wine,regional italian cuisine,second course,spices,vegetables,wine | 20 Comments
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