Archive for March, 2009
Zucchini Recipes: zucchini, prawns and cherry tomatoes pasta
Posted on Mar 29, 2009 10:17:02 PM
I’ve finally made it with the quickest of the zucchini recipes with pasta. By “finally” I mean that Italians abroad are not big pasta eaters, at least in my experience, and in our household we’re no different. Pasta is lunch, not dinner food, and it’s not the best thing to have in the lunch box, as it should be eaten straightway.
This zucchini recipe was improvised with what we had in the fridge and my darling Claudia (a better cook than me when she wants) did the miracle. This picture is not good enough (like many of this blog. Will I ever improve?), but zucchini, prawns and tomatoes make a very colorful pasta sauce.
This pasta zucchini recipe is for two:
- 170g (6 oz) long pasta (tagliatelle or spaghetti)
- one chopped zucchini
- 100g (3 ½ oz) prawns
- 10 halved cherry tomatoes
- extra virgin olive oil
- ½ chopped onion
- 2/3 glass of white wine
- a clove of garlic
- salt and pepper
- a sprinkle of lemon juice (optional)
Let the shrimps thaw in boiling water if frozen. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan with the garlic and add the shrimps, half of the wine, and a sprinkle of lemon juice. Season and let it simmer until there’s little cooking liquid left.
Put the shrimps aside, rinse the frying pan and put it back on the fire with some more olive oil and the onion. Let it sauté at low heat until the onion is lucid, then turn up to medium heat and add the courgette and the rest of the wine.
Let the courgettes simmer until they start to become tender, then add the shrimps and the tomatoes. Cook for about five more minutes. The most important thing here is to take the pan off the stove when there’s still some liquid left. If the courgettes are still a bit raw it doesn’t matter.
Cook the pasta following the packet instructions, drain and transfer it to the pan. Stir all together at medium heat for 1-2 minutes and serve.
A final note on lemon. On the one hand it’s not a perfect match with zucchini and tomatoes, but on the other it gives a very interesting note. If you’re bold enough give it a try, otherwise this zucchini recipe can live without it.
More pasta recipes, more pasta sauces, and some tips on how to cook pasta properly
Eggplant Recipes: Eggplant Parmesan
Posted on Mar 25, 2009 10:34:27 PM
Let’s go back to a classic: eggplant parmesan. This indeed is a lighter version, as the eggplant is grilled and not fried (speaking of grilling eggplants, if you are more keen on even lighter eggplant recipes, try the grilled eggplant).
Interesting historical note. Traditionally, the name of the dish is explained as Eggplant Parma-style, “parmigiana” (parmesana in old Italian) being the adjective for the city of Parma. According to another interesting theory though, the name comes from parma = shield, which would recall the layers that compose the eggplant parmesan dish.
This eggplant recipe for Parmigiana is for two people:
- 2 eggplants
- 400g (about 1 pound) tin of chopped tomatoes
- 1 ball of mozzarella cheese
- 4 leaves of basil
- extra virgin olive oil,
- salt and pepper
- 2 cloves of garlic
- red wine vinegar and a pinch of sugar (optional)
- Parmesan cheese
After cutting the eggplants into ½ cm (0.2 in) slices we need to get the water out. Put a colander in the basin, rub some salt on each slice and lay them in the colander, one on top of the other in two piles. Place a dish on top of the piles and, on it, whatever is heavy enough to push down, like two packets of pasta. Leave gravity do its job for 30 minutes.
In the meantime prepare the sauce for the eggplant parmesan layers. This is not the real conserva sauce, as it should be, but a quicker version (these are hectic days with lot of work and no fun). Heat a frying pan and add some extra virgin olive oil. When it’s hot, add the cloves of garlic and the basil leaves. When they start to shrink, pour the chopped tomatoes and let it simmer until the liquid is absorbed. Adjust salt and pepper and add just a little bit of sugar if you find it too acid, and a little bit of vinegar to give it a weird twist.
After the 30 minutes have passed, preheat a grill or a non stick pan, no need to use oil. Now the eggplant slices should be wet, get some kitchen paper, pat dry each slice, grill them, and put them aside when they are brownish.
When the last eggplant slice has cooled down, preheat the oven at 180°. Take a not too big oven proof pan and start building your shield. It goes like this: a layer of eggplants, a ladle of tomato sauce, a sprinkle of Parmesan, two or three pieces of mozzarella. And so on, until the slices are finished. The top layer should be only tomato sauce and Parmesan.
Cook the eggplant parmesan in the oven for 30 minutes or until the top is golden.
Pimp my tomato sauce II
Posted on Mar 22, 2009 09:26:47 AM
Another pimped tomato sauce. More than a week without a post: it had to happen sooner or later. The thing is, last week-end I traded the cooking frenzy with a relaxing spa break in Donegal, and this has been St Patrick’s week, and the next is quarter end, which usually means doing a lot of hours of overtime and having a more intense relationship with SAP than with my oven.
Anyway, with very little time to cook, and in an effort to make a virtue out of necessity (fare di necessità virtù, we would say), the only possible outcome could be a second pasta sauce pimping, which means, taking a regular tomato sauce and adding some flavour.
The recipe is like the one for the basic pimp my sauce, but with some salami sausage. I used the German one coated in pepper they sell at Lidl.
Dice 4-5 slices of this salami, and add it to the leek at the beginning. The taste of this sauce is a bit stronger, you’ll love it.
Chocolate Cake Recipe: chocolate salami (salame al cioccolato)
Posted on Mar 13, 2009 07:28:43 AM
This chocolate cake may not be “traditional” Italian, but it’s the chocolate cake from my childhood and I couldn’t leave it out. In Italy you have a different version of this recipe in every family, and everyone swears that “my mom’s is the best.”
- 100g (½ cup) butter
- 200g (7 oz) sugar
- 2 eggs
- 200g (7 oz) rich tea biscuits.
- one shot of coffee
- 150g (5 oz) dark chocolate, 60% cocoa minimum
Melt the butter in the microwave and whisk it with the sugar and the eggs.
Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie, add it to the mixture and stir a little more.
Now break the biscuits in 1 cm pieces and add them. Break them in a separate bowl first, so the crumbles won’t end up in the mix.
DON’T preheat the oven at 220°, it’s a cold chocolate cake.
Add the biscuits, and stir gently with a wooden spoon, coat them with the chocolate mixture making sure not to break them and form crumbles.
Make a single cup coffee with a coffee maker, add half of it and stir gently. Add some more if you like, but the trick here is to give the coffee flavour to the chocolate cake without making it too liquid.
Now the mix for the chocolate cake has to be wrapped in tinfoil and put in the fridge. You’re probably better off making two salamis. Rip a 60cm of tin foil, double it and place half of the mix on it widthwise, giving it a salami shape. Wrap it and roll it gently on the working surface to give a rounded shape. Repeat the operation with the other half of the mix.
If it’s still warm wait for 30 minutes to put it in the fridge. Serve this chocolate cake cold.
The last step, if you don’t want to spoil this delicious chocolate salami, is to lick the chocolate mix off the bowl before washing it.
Oh, and by the way, this chocolate cake’s recipe is my mom’s and it’s the best.
Campagnole homemade biscuits
Posted on Mar 6, 2009 11:02:28 PM
There you go Campagnole homemade biscuits: this is my contribution to the Eating your own words contest. From Andrea’s little bakery, with Claudia as art director, a long hello to Jennifer at Savor the Thyme and Tangled Noodle, with smarties and stars included.
This biscuits recipe is taken from Mulino Bianco’s breakfast biscuits called Campagnole (a very bad translation would be countryman biscuits). Mulino Bianco is the bakery brand of Barilla, more famous abroad for pasta. Probably there’s much more marketing than tradition behind this biscuits name, but they taste very good anyway and with this recipe you’ll have a supply of breakfast biscuits for one week. And when the supply is over, you can move to other breakfast biscuits and cakes.
This biscuits recipe was on the back of the packet.
- 120g (½ cup) margarine
- 30g (1 oz) butter
- 220g (1 ½ cups )sugar
- 160g ( 5 ½ fl oz )milk
- 1 egg
- 500g (4 cups) all-purpose flour
- 40g (1/3 cup ) rice flour
- a tablespoon of baking powder
- a pinch of salt
Put the butter and the margarine to soften in the microwave, then mix together with the sugar, the egg and the milk.
In a separate bowl, mix the flours, the salt and the baking powder, then add them to the liquid ingredients. Rub everything together and form a ball.
At this point the biscuits dough it’s probably too soft to be worked properly, so stick it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Take the dough out of the fridge and preheat the oven at 180° (350F). With a rolling pin make it about 7mm thick. Cut the dough into funny or regular biscuits shapes and bake it for 15-20 minutes or until the outside edges are lightly golden.
RANT STARTS: Mulino Bianco biscuits are very well known abroad (it’s a Barilla’s brand). Here in Dublin you can pay up to 4.50€ for a small packet of their chocolate biscuits, which are sold at 1.80€ in my hometown supermarket. Why? Why so overpriced? RANT ENDS (thanks for bearing with me).
Liked these homemade biscuits? Try more cakes
Pork chops with sage (costolette di maiale con salvia)
Posted on Mar 4, 2009 08:52:12 PM
Time for pork chops. Pork meat from time to time is a treat (well, for me at least). This one is taken from Jamie’s Italy (Jamie’s Italy for readers from Europe). He claims he saw them in a trattoria in Florence.
This is one of the pork chops recipes, where at the end you’ll have both panfried and baked pork chops, and if your guests are not scared off by pork meat, you can surprise them with a hidden pocket with stuffing in it. And if you want to go lighter there’s always the Hunter’s chicken from the good ole Jamie.
The original pork chop recipe is for 4 people, but all the ingredients are in an even number, so you can easily divide them by two, like I did:
- 250-400g (½ – 0.75 pounds) potatoes (it’s 500g in the original recipe, but 250g per person is a lot of spuds!)
- salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil
- 2 pork chops with the bone
- 8 fresh sage leaves
- flour to dust
- 3 rashers of smoked bacon
For the stuffing of the pork chops:
- 4 sage leaves
- 1 clove of garlic
- 2 large slices of ham
- 25g (1 oz) butter
- 2 dried apricots
Ok, the first part is tricky, but not impossible. You need to create a pocket for the stuffing inside the pork chops. To do it, insert a knife horizontally, being careful not to cut the meat from side to side, but just in the middle.
Dice the potatoes and put them in a pan with salted water. Leave them 5 minutes in boiling water, than drain and let them cool.
Now preheat the oven at 220° (430F).
Grind the ingredients for the stuffing in the food processor and press them into the pockets in the pork chops, push, push and push until there’s no room left.
Take 4 sage leaves, dress them with olive oil and press them on the flour on one side only of the pork chops. Stick them on each side of the chops, flour side down.
Cut the bacon in strips and put them in a roasting tray, with the remaining sage leaves, the garlic, and the potatoes and a bit of olive oil. Put the tray in the oven.
After 10 minutes, heat a frying pan, then add a little olive oil and fry the chops for 10 minutes until brown.
Put the pork chops on top of the potatoes and continue cooking in the oven for 10-15 minutes more.
The sage on the pork chops is not only for decoration, you’re supposed to eat them too.
More pork chop recipes