Kitchenlander

Challenging myself

2009-10-27T10:32:00.006+01:00

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S.
She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

I had very mixed feelings about this challenge.
I was curious to see what the fuss was all about with macarons, I wanted to see if they were really so hard to make and so delicious to taste.
But I couldn't fight reality, which is that my interest was all rational and I'm not quite attracted to these kind of sweets, so I ended up baking just the last day of the challenge month.

I'm so unfamiliar with them that I don't even know how close to the real deal mine turned out.

Given all this, of course I kept to the basics.
I went with 2/5 of the given recipe and made pinkies with white and dark chocolate ganache.

Next time I have the occasion to taste a professional one I will make sure to do that, to have an idea.

In the meantime, check for some more enthusiastic Daring Bakers in the DK Blogroll

The Black Tart

2009-10-18T17:32:00.006+02:00

It's been a while since my last post.

Maybe for the revamped relationship with my treadmill, that gives me less motivation to bake, maybe for the limping relationship with my new oven. Don't get me wrong, it is a perfectly fine oven, but once you get used with the timing of an inefficient gas oven, baking with a new convection one often leaves you with overcooked and mgnah stuff. We're getting there.

Anyway. I've been wanting to try a couple of things for quite a while, one being a chocolate tart dough, the other a banana jam.

The chocolate dough recipe came from the baking lessons I took last spring:

- 2 cups flour (250gr)
- 3/4 cup sugar (150gr)
- 1 stick + 6 tbsp butter (200gr)
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa (50gr)
- pinch of salt
- 1 egg

Process in a mixer all the dry ingredients and butter, then add the egg. Form a ball and refrigerate for at least an hour or overnight before rolling it out.

As for the banana jam I had made kind of an approach mixing it with raspberries, but as much as you could taste it in there, it was not *only banana* jam.

So I followed this recipe, from a booklet found on the remainders' shelf at the supermarket, mixing and cooking

- 6 medium size bananas
- 1/2 rennet apple
- 1 cup sugar
- juice from 2 lemons

Only recently I was aware of the notion that not everyone madly loves bananas.
The concept can't quite sink in my head, really.
How can you not love bananas?

And, as for everything I love, it just gets better if paired with chocolate.
It's to be tasted in moderation: both the dough and the jam are a concentrate of their respective tastes, one small piece and your tastebuds have quite a party!

Great Expectations

2009-10-06T21:40:00.004+02:00

These Dark Chocolate Muffins were the opening of my new oven (electric, with fan).
Or should I say ovenwarming, as in housewarming?
Anyway, it was about time, hope this is the begininning of a productive collaboration!

Balance is hard

2009-09-29T17:20:00.010+02:00

A friend of mine who lives in NYC was telling me that she was going to Felidia, one of Lydia Bastianich's restaurants in New York, for a family celebration.
I always like to give a look to Italian restaurants abroad.

Checking on the online menu, an antipasto caught my eye: Le Barbabietole, marinated beets, goat cheese, peach, watercress, balsamic vinaigrette.
I've never been a fan of beets, until this summer, when I felt the urge to buy some and I actually ate them!
So, instantly, I needed to know how a similar combination would taste.

I took some of the last peaches around, some beets, goat cheese, basil instead of watercress.
Goat cheese here in Italy is not as tangy as the one you normally find in the US, so I should have known that the balance came all down on the vinaigrette.
But for some reason, I decided to divert from the balsamic vinaigrette and put together something that could probably be called a "Bellini Vinaigrette": champagne vinegar, a hint of peach syrup (home made), olive oil, a dash of salt, pepper and Dijon mustard.

I had to work on that dash and on the proportions of the vinaigrette quite a lot, because all the other ingredients were on the sweet side.

The result wasn't too bad, but not exciting either, that's probably why my name is not Lydia.
I think I'll try that vinaigrette on something more appropriate.

But as for now, I'm still curious to know how those "Le Barbabietole" taste.

Zol-au-Vent and Vol-au-Rocher

2009-09-27T12:45:00.009+02:00

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

This was a nice challenge, but I had an accidental shortcut to it.
September has been pretty hot here, not exactly the right climate to make puff pastry.
BUT!

I had in the freezer some I had made in late spring. I kept it there as a last resort, waiting until the last moment to see if I had a cold day to document the entire challenge, but the cold day never came (and I can't say I'm sorry for that), so I hope that my word on being the maker of the pastry is valid enough as for the accomplishment of the challenge.
It must be, because if I had bought it, it sure would have risen much better!

Vol-au-vents are tricky to eat: the puff pastry crumbles a lot (at least, you hope it does!) and when they are big you risk The Big Splash Of Content.
That's why I went for bite-size.
Maybe too much, but in my opinion this is a case where smaller is better.

I made an appetizer and a dessert.
The appetizer involves one of my family's all time favourites: gorgonzola, which was paired with pears.

Nothing else: the pears were ripe and juicy enough to give out the right amount of liquid and only a few seconds of heat were needed to melt the zola in order to mix the two.

The dessert was a reinterpretation of a Ferrero Rocher, the puff pastry playing the part of the wafer.

A quick ganache with Nutella and whipped cream, added with ground hazelnuts.

In my intentions, a whole hazelnut was to be in the center of the vol-au-vent, but a whole hazelnut didn't fit in the bitesize structure without pulling the balance with chocolate too much.

I wish my husband took some classes of creative food writing: asking for an opinion and just getting "MMMMHHHH!" for an answer, as much as participated it is, is starting not to be enough for me.

To Arthur!

2009-09-24T10:37:00.015+02:00

Today is the 250th birthday of Guinness.
250 years.
A quarter of a MILLENNIUM!
That's a lot.

Of course I have some connection to Guinness and to Ireland in general.
Ireland was my first destination when I started to travel, I went there two summers in a row as a student to attend English classes and it was the first gateway through which I saw what was in the world other than my neighborhood.
A few years later, when I was 23, a series of events led me to go there for a month by myself, I went wherever my nose led me and learned how to muddle through public transportation, B&Bs reservations and unforeseen events with noone's help.
I felt truly at peace for I think the first time in my life sitting on a bench in Galway, looking at the ocean.
It has been such a rewarding experience!

The family that hosted me the first time I went to Dublin was so young and funny that we kept in touch for some years to follow. The guy was a baker, known in the area for a very special brown bread, the recipe coming from the wife's family.
I miss them a lot, and I miss that bread.

When I got married I picked Ireland as a honeymoon destination because I wanted my husband to see the places and meet the people that had meant so much to me, I felt like he couldn't fully know me if he didn't go there.
And in our honeymoon, being finally not alone and of age, Guinness played quite a part. Above all, I learned that it's true what they say, a pint tastes different depending on the pub in which you're drinking it.

Oh, and now I really wish I could hop on a plane and go there once again!

Anyway.
To celebrate Sir Arthur Guinness, I baked two desserts, one from a cookbook I bought in Ireland and one I spotted on a blog a few months ago but kept for the occasion.

The first is a Guinness cake, it resemble a lot one of those British puddings, it envolves melting butter and brown sugar in some beer

then adding a ton of fruit peel and pinenuts and mixing with flour

It's not something you can do one day for another: after the cake is baked, it has to be kept in aluminum foil and for 3-4 days it will be washed down with a few spoonfuls of THE dark beer.

In the end you get this fully flavoured pudding cake that will spin your head at the first taste:

Maybe even too fully flavoured: we are not afraid of a good glass of beer, but a full slice of it really goes straight to your brain. So what I did was to cut it in big french fries size pieces and roll them in a mix of sugar and cinnamon.

The second baking tribute were some Guinness cupcakes I found on the Big City, Little Kitchen blog, an adaptation of a Nigella's recipe.
I just had to twist slightly the recipe using whole yogurt instead of sour cream, but as for the rest I followed it.

Unlike the pudding/cake, these are not at all strong, you barely taste the beer in there (there's so much cocoa!), and they are soft and smooth like few cupcakes I've had before.

Now, my 6yo was a bit disappointed he wasn't getting the usual muffin for his snack at school.
He kept asking why on Earth did I put beer in it, so that he couldn't have it.
And actually all this celebration isn't all that family friendly, we'll probably have to wait after bedtime. The fact that my kids are good in not pushing for what they know is seriously not for them doesn't mean that we have to wave and display the stuff under their nose.

But you'll have time, son, your time will come even too soon!

Dare to confine

2009-09-15T10:44:00.013+02:00

This month's Daring Cooks Challenge is hosted by Debyi of healthyvegankitchen.com. She chose Indian Dosas from the refresh cookbook by Ruth Tal, and you will find the detailed recipe and procedure on her website. I'll just say here that they have a chickpeas filling and a coconut-curry sauce.

Dosas weren't that hard to cook, but the challenge was to go and see how you can have a delicious meal while going vegan. And lactose free. Am I forgetting something? Oh, yes, about 99% oil free, considered that you will need some oil to grease the pan while preparing the dosas.

The dosas were very quick to prepare, and not harder than panning crepes.

What I loved most of going into this challenge was the mise en place.

I find it very relaxing to prepare all the things I will need to cook or bake something, the more the better. I love checking the ingredients on the recipe and marking them off, lining up all the bowls, even washing them afterwards (if anyone living with me is reading, he's invited not to comment the last one).

Besides, what's not to love in handling such vivid colors in a late summer Sunday morning?

I do not like it when garlic's flavour is too strong, so I leave the whole cloves in my recipes while they're cooking, then pull them out in the end, so that there's just a hint and I don't pay it forward too much.

All the colors melt in a golden and fragrant concoction of mildly spicy and tangy fragrances:

Coconut milk was required to prepare the sauce, which usually I find here, but not the morning I decided to take the challenge.
Did it stop me?

I'm afraid the coconut's are the only pics of the saucy part.

When it came to assemble the dosas with filling and sauce, I made what I often do with normal crepes: pile them up.
Maybe it was the Dobos Torte of teh last Daring Bakers Challenge that wasn't letting me go.

This configuration was very convenient when it became clear that I would be the only consumer of my hard work.
I should know by now that my husband has a very low spicy-ness threshold: the first meal I cooked after getting married was a pretty hot chicken curry. After 3 bites he politely asked if he could stop eating; he was all red in the face and some tears were rising in his eyes. I couldn't swear it but I clearly remember some smoke coming out of his ears.
The kids were not that enticed, either.

And that's how I ended having my own Indian week!

(Thanks Lisa Michele for kicking my butt! It was the first day of school yesterday, and with all the excitement I was forgetting to post this!)

Fresh from my replicator

2009-09-06T17:44:00.012+02:00

Star Trek has always been a continuous and subtle presence in my life.
I wouldn't miss a single episode when I was a child, I was fascinated by Mr. Spock's logic, and tried ever since to be as logic and rational as he was.
Sometimes it works.
Of course the side effect is that my mood wrecks havoc in the other 23 hours of the day, but hey, I'm only human!

When I got to work in Pharmacy retail, my boss' husband had his own "ship", he organized themed meetings, had a newsletter about the group activities, produced some merchandise.
I never ranked higher than Ensign, and it all ended on some question about Wesley Crusher's IQ.

When the guy-that-would-become-my-husband asked me out formally for the first time, it was to go to a Convention of Star Trek. We never got there, and to this day I don't know if there actually was such a Convention that day.
It wasn't until six months later that we actually got together, but I remember quite a few long phone calls that summer, late at night, right after reruns of Deep Space 9, my favourite of all series, while he's totally faithful to the Next Generation.
Today is our 12th anniversary, which brought me to this nostalgic-futuristic post.

The first time we went to Vegas, we spent a full afternoon at the ST Experience that was at the LVHilton. In the gift shop I found this:

Guess what, I bought it.

It's not an easy book to consult.
It has a section for every series, and then the chapters are about the members of the crew of that series, the recipes organized with the only criteria of being the favourite of some character.
You don't want to look for "a dessert" or "an appetizer", there. You will look for Mr. Tuvok's favourite dishes. Or someone else's.
And the only pictures are shots taken on the set, so you don't even have that visual help; quite a challenge for my TIMOC #4

I went to the Deep Space 9 section, looking for my favourite character's dishes. Comes out that Jadzia Dax and I don't share the same taste at the table (or about men, as it is).
So I picked an Icoberry Torte, Captain Sisko's favourite dessert at Quark's.
Icoberries are not easily found on Earth, but we're allowed to substitute raspberries for them.

1 cup/100gr ground almonds
1/2 whole wheat breadcrumbs (I used white)
6 eggs
1 cup light brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1/2 teaspoon orange extract
1 cup raspberry preserve
confectioners' sugar

Beat the yolks with sugar, add the cinnamon, the lemon and orange extract, then the dry ingredients, then delicately incorporate the whipped egg whites.
Bake at 350F/180C for 45 minutes.
When it is cooled, spread it with raspberry preserve (well, I had some!) and then sprinkle with confectioners' sugar.
You can add whipped cream, too.

There is also an Icoberry Drink, consisting of icoberry sauce in apple juice; I still had some raspberry pulp frozen in iced cubes, it was a no brainer.

Do you feel 24th century-ish, yet?

Filling the blanks - Award(s)

2009-08-31T01:27:00.008+02:00

So, I had told you about my cooking teacher coming for dinner.
That was the day after the Berry Fair so, foreseeable enough, I put together a mainly-berry-themed menu.
If you have read me this month, you have seen pretty much all I served that night:

- Rasperry/Blueberry and Lard Crostini
- Blueberry Cjarsons
- Roastbeef and Yogurt Nests
- Raspberry mousse

Appetizers, first course and dessert were berry based. I didn't want to go all the way with it, and the second course was a light and fruit-free dish.
It was the easiest to put together, and as sometimes happens, was the most appreciated.

These are Roastbeef and Yogurt Nests, I found the recipe in a special issue of La Cucina Italiana (Italian edition); 4 times a years they print a monographic issue, could be about eggs, potatoes, chocolate, pasta... this was focused on healthy food.
They are basically rolls of a very light potato salad and roastbeef.

For 4 servings, you need 12 slices of roastbeef (store bought, they have to be thin).
For the filling:
- 2 medium sized potatoes, boiled
- 4 pickles
- 4 tablespoons of greek yogurt
- parsley

I put a lot more than 4 tbsp of yogurt, about 3/4 cup, and added a good 1/4 of minced chives.
Dice the potatoes and the pickles, mix the vegetables with all the other ingredients and then roll about 1 tablespoon in a roastbeef slice.
They are called "nests", so I made a base on one side of the roll and stuck a toothpick in it to keep it in shape, then served them on a bed of green salad and cherry tomatoes.

Quick, easy, and really, really appreciated!

Now, the award(s).
I actually got two in the last two weeks, and I was really surprised, amused and flattered.
When you get an award you're supposed to spread the joy and pass it to other people you think deserve it.
The problem is that, as it often happens to me, I took things backwards with this blog thing.
I opened this blog to be able to join the Daring Kitchen Challenges, then I ran away with it and THEN became involved in reading other blogs.
So I didn't open a blog because I was enjoying the blogosphere, but it was the other way round for me.
Being still a newbie, I feel like I'm still opening a thousand doors a day, with all the remarkable blogs out there, but still feel a little lost and have a hard time remembering who wrote what.

That's why when Jill from JilliciousDiscoveries awarded me with the "One Lovely Blog" award I was quite overwhelmed to see that I had to pass it on to 13 other people, with all that she was already awarding 90% of the blogs that I knew!

This is to thank Jill very much, it's not that I didn't appreciate your gift!

I was thinking and researching for the list, when Laura of Tiramisu gave me another award. But this time I would have to nominate only 7 blogs, so thank you Laura, and here I am to spread the joy of the Kreative Blogger Award.

The rules, copied a pasted from Laura's blog are the following:

1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.

7 things about me:

- My weight at birth was 10lbs sharp (4.550kg).
- I stay up late for no reason, I'm just one of those kids who never wants to go to bed, I easily stay up until 2 or 3 am. I repent every morning, then every night is the same old story.
- I never wanted to study history at school. Obviously, for the Law of Large Numbers, I married a guy who is totally into history and tries to pull me into conversations where I just smile and try to divert the topic.
- Said guy first held my hand while we were visiting a Museum of Torture. We are oh, so romantic!
- My Italian teachers were never that thrilled about my essays (keep in mind I ended up studying Chemistry, I wasn't a total failure at school!); which is funny, considering that now I'm taking so much fun writing this mini essays in a language that's not even mine. I told you, I hardly take things the easy way!
- I'm a procrastinator.
- I'm the only woman on the planet who thinks that shoes are just something you use to protect your feet.

And now, the 7 blogs (some of them are in Italian, and they are worth the use of an automatic translator):

- Audax of Audax Artifex: he blogs mostly about his Daring Kitchen Challenges, but he treats the given theme in so many different ways, it just blows my mind!
- Alex of Ombra nel Portico.
- Julia of Melanger to mix: I love the way she looks at things.

The next 4 I find connected, in some way; they are assertions, on how applying a principle (healthy diet, intolerance to gluten, or having to go most locally possible because of a remote residence) do not necessarily stop you from living a full and enjoyable life.

- Angela of Isolated Foodie
- Em of Kitchen M; she's a dietitian and food photographer.
- Jeanine of The Baking Beauties
- Petula of La Cuoca Petulante, a macrobiotic blog. I'm particularly grateful to her because it was through her blog that back in 2007 I discovered anobii.com . I have never told her, now she knows.

That's all, folks!

Daring Bakers August 2009 - Dobos Torte

2009-08-27T12:31:00.009+02:00

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.
You will find the detailed recipe at their blogs.

Boy, you do have to love eggs, when you have this torte!!
Between the dough and the buttercream you will find 10 whole eggs. And little else: this dessert, despite the rich appearance has a lot to do with fluffy stuff and incorporating air.

The fun thing about this cake is that the layers are not cut from a one cake, but are baked separately, oven-pancake style, and then trimmed to the same size and shape to be assembled with the buttercream.
This scared me a lot, every layer has to be baked just a few minutes, so you basically have to stay around the oven for about an hour. Not exactly thrilling when the weather is hot and humid and the thermometer scores 43C/110F! I took advantage of one afternoon when it "chilled" down to 39C/102F and did my duty of Daring Baker.

The weakest link for me in this recipe was the caramel part. I suck at caramelizing, I always seem to miss the right moment (or never get there, that is).
This time it was not so bad. Not perfect, I could have waited a little longer because the sugar was a little too liquid and soaked in the cake instead of building a layer of its own on top, but it's good enough for me!
By the way, I have to thank Angela for the suggestion of cutting the top layer before pouring caramel: as things went, I would have never been able to have those nice triangles!

I hadn't any whole hazelnuts at hand, so I used bits of chocolate as (not quite) hidden support.

The only problem is, my kids are a bit disoriented; they keep asking whose birthday is it, and won't accept a "Nobody's" for an answer.
They have cut about 20 construction paper sheet into confetti, and are waiting for daddy to come home to start the party.

You will find a lot of other Dobos torte and lot of rivisitations at the Daring Kitchen website.

What happened to the Blueberries

2009-08-25T14:10:00.015+02:00

And now, here's what happened to those 5lbs of blueberries.
Let's get out of the way the classic stuff:

a handful of blueberries, a banana and 3/4 cup of milk became a much appreciated and colorful fresh smoothie.

A couple of breakfasts were cheered up by blueberry pancakes, "with the happy face!" as a long time favourite of my kids, "Curious George makes pancakes" teaches to do:

Besides, I had still some buttermilk that I had bought in Germany (can't find it here), so those pancakes were really a hit!

We didn't go without some blueberry muffins and minimuffins (with the recipe from Shirley Corriher's "Bakewise" ):

Which were also well liked.

In the "Oh Berry Day" post, I mentioned the blueberry cjarsons, a kind of savoury wraps/ravioli with a blueberry filling. That day at the fair there was a kiosk serving them, but by the time we wanted to have lunch, they were momentarily unavailable, and we didn't want to wait too much, with two hungry kids under a hot hot hot sun. So we went for something less typical, and I came home with no idea of how blueberry cjarsons were made.

Did it stop me? Nope.

Knowing a little of the local cuisine, I knew that they couldn't be ALL that exotic, so I decided to improvise and make my own filling with ingredients that made sense:

3oz/100gr blueberries
12oz/350gr mashed potatoes
7oz/200gr ricotta
1 or 2 tbsp breadcrumbs
salt
pepper
nutmeg

I first whisked blueberries alone, than mix them with the potatoes and breadcrumbs, then whisked the ricotta in the unwashed blender, so that I could take the most of blueberries, that's why you see different tones of purple.

As for the wrap, I decided for a touch of fusion, and went back to a tecnique learned through a Daring Cooks Challenge, making potstickers...

... which were served with butter and poppyseeds.

Despite of all the salt that I had put in the filling, these potstickers were really too sweet to be a savoury dish.
Beside that, I still had a lot of leftover filling, having used barely 1/6 of it, so I had to think of a way to use it.
I decided to convert it in gnocchetti (small gnocchi).

I took what was left of the filling, added two eggs, 3 tbsp of flour, put all in a pastry bag, and as they were showing in that video I had linked, cut the gnocchetti into a pot of boiling (and SALTED, that made the difference!) water, waited for them to come to the surface, and served with butter and some parmigiano.

This time the savoury-sweet balance was alright, though the color may not be.
Nobody's perfect!

And after all this, came the round of jams.

Again, I didn't want to stop at "only blueberries", so I picked these combinings:

pineapple, redcurrant and yellow kiwi.
Plus one, not portrayed, with pure frozen maracuja pulp.

Again, as with the raspberries, I made a big batch of blueberry jam and at the same time small batches of fruit jam, always keeping a sugar/fruit ratio of 0.6/0.7.

Just two handfuls of berries were saved for freezing.
Frozen blueberries is another thing you don't find easily here, so I hoped to save a little more for the hard winter, but I guess we will have to do with our jams.

And now you know what happened to the berries.

What happened to the Raspberries

2009-08-22T16:39:00.010+02:00

This is the chronicle of what happened to those raspberries I bought at the Blueberry/Raspberry Fair.

I won't be long on how much I love raspberries, just long enough to explain that many were eaten as they were, those plumpy, tangy, fragrant, luscious rubies.

Some were used as appetizers, on a toasted little square of bread with some mildly heated lard

About 1 lb went for a raspberry mousse, which is very similar to a Bavarese, only without gelatine.

There are a lot of recipes for a raspberry mousse on the Internet. They are basically all the same, only with varied proportions of ingredients. So I went with my own doses, according to what I like and what I had at hand.

500gr /1.1 lbs raspberries
3 egg whites
120 /4 oz sugar
500ml /2 cups heavy whipping cream

Blend the raspberries with the sugar,
whip the cream,
whip the egg whites.
Incorporate the cream and then the egg whites in the raspberry sauce.
Keep in the freezer. This does not contain gelatine, so it can (and it should) be frozen.
About 30 - 40 minutes before serving, pull it out of the freezer.

I added some shaved chocolate for a raspberry-stracciatella

It was good, and everybody loved it.
Yet, feel free to half the doses, because good as it is, I still have a lot of that in the freezer, and I would like to use that space without putting on 10lbs!

The rest (about 1kg/ 2.2 lbs) went for jams.
I can buy a plain raspberry jam every day, so when I make one, I like to match different tastes.

I chose fox grape, peaches and banana (this last just because of a silly Italian song that was very popular in the '90s).

What I did was cook the big batch of raspberry jam and small separate batches (about 1 cup, which came from 5oz of fruit and 3 oz of sugar) of other fruits' jam. Then I would take 1 cup of the raspberry jam and cook it 5 to 10 minutes together with its "mate jam".
Of course I kept some raspberyy-only jam.

And that was it.
I had some sad and crashed leftover berries, which were blended and frozen, for one or two future endeavours (looks more like one than two, I got only 7 icecubes)

Coming up - What happened to the Blueberries.

Oh, Berry Day!

2009-08-16T18:31:00.009+02:00

In these days between the Big Holiday Trip and the beginning of school, we are enjoying sleeping till late, a lot of do-nothing and quite a few daytrips.

Today, we went to a tiny town, Avasinis, about 30 miles from where we live. Even if it is pretty near, no wonder we had never heard of it before (please note we've been living here for less than a year!): the place counts only about 350 inhabitants, and it sits in a narrow corner of a narrow valley in a group of high mountains.
The reason why we were there today is a fair they hold annually, the Fair of Raspberries and Blueberries.

(Welcome to the town of Raspberries and Blueberries)

You could taste a lot of dishes made with these gems in the kiosks spreaded on the main (and only) street: blueberry gnocchi, blueberry cjarsons (a kind of local ravioli), raspberry beer and a whole parade of desserts.

And if you are not impressed by this, just think that they are all wild!
In the week prior the fair, about 40 people climb the side of the mountains around, which is forbidden to non residents. The area is so rich of berries that the loot is enough to provide refreshment for a three days' celebration. This year they were expecting 30 thousand visitors!

Of course, you could buy the bare berries, which I did.
Being a girl with no half-measures, I am now the proud owner of 5lbs of raspberries and 5 lbs of blueberries!

Tomorrow my 3 men will be visiting grandpa and grandma the whole day, my Ipod is already charged and filled with the backlist of "This American Life" and "Stuff You Should Know" podcasts, and I'll be spending the whole day jamming, baking, freezing and cooking to try and make some of the summer taste last for a good part of the next cold season.

Oh, and tomorrow night my cooking teacher will be here for dinner, so wish me luck, and I'll keep you posted on the outcomes!

Daring Bakers July 2009 - Marshmallow Cookies

2009-08-01T10:33:00.014+02:00

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

I will send you to her for instructions, because in this moment I'm on vacation, touring Europe on an RV, with little time to spend writing, I'll merely upload the pics of my marshmallow cookies, to show that I met the challenge.
July has been a very busy month, but it was just my luck that the challenge was considered complete with just on kind of cooky baked.

Having no light corn syrup in Italy, I used this recipe for a substitute, as suggested by the almighty Audax Artifex:

* 2 cups granulated sugar
* 3/4 cup Water
* 1/4 tsp. Cream of Tartar
* dash of salt

Directions
Combine all ingredients in a heavy, large pan (stainless). Stir and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and put cover on it for 3 minutes to get sugar crystals off the sides of the pan. Uncover and cook until it reaches soft ball stage, 238 -240 degrees F.

Cool syrup and store in a covered container at room temperature. It will keep for about 2 months.

Also, I substituted two tbsp of rose water for the same amount of cold water in the recipe.

Here we go with the pic parade:

As for the Milano cookies, as I said July has been a very busy month, and I didn't make it.
The funny thing is that Milano is my hometown, and in all the things I did in July, one was to go there to visit my parents.
So I'm posting a couple of pictures of our recently restaurated cathedral, the Duomo, because it's kind of in topic ;-)

Milan's coat of arms, in a mosaic on the floor of our beautiful covered Galleria:

TIMOC #3: Savory Apple Crepes

2009-07-20T23:27:00.011+02:00

(to know what TIMOC means, read here)

Third book from the right on my top shelf, is this book that Costco was giving away to every customer one Saturday morning, a couple of years ago.
It may break the pattern of International and travel books, but in a sort of way it doesn't: the nearest Costco is about a thousand miles from here, so what was once a regular place of shopping for us, sounds now quite exotic! ;-)

Of course I didn't do my shopping there for the recipe I'm about to show: Savory Apple Crepes.
It is in the Breakfast section, but we had the crepes for a light lunch.

The recipe called for ready made crepes, but it takes 20 minutes to make them, so I always prefer to cook them from scratch.

My recipe (don't ask me where I got it, can't remember at all) asks for 1.5 tbsp of butter, melted, 3 eggs, 2 cups of flour, 2 cups of milk and a pinch of salt.

As for the filling, it's
4 tbsp butter,
2 tbsp shallots (I used green onion),
4 apples (I chose Granny Smith), peeled and diced,
1/3 golden raisins
(in a)
1/4 cup white wine,
2 tsp flour,
1 tsp curry powder,
1/3 whipping cream,
some slices of manchego cheese (I used local cheese, manchego is impossible to find here).

Melt the butter in a skillet, add the ingredients one at a time in the given order (hold the cheese).
10 minutes is all you need to have the apples cooked at the right point in a creamy sauce.

Place the filling on a crepes, and put the cheese on top, it will melt deliciously once you roll the crepe.

Voilà!

Jammin' and Jellin'

2009-07-14T07:33:00.013+02:00

Last week I jammed.
Being no musician, that merely means I took some fruit and made jam of it.

It all started a couple of weeks ago, with blackcurrant, then last week I put other four jam/gels under my belt (metaphorically and physically).

First came peaches; Fiumicello is a large municipality/territory yards away from the Italian Northeastern lagoon and is famous for its huge, succulent, peaches, with an intense yellow pulp that turns to red when fully mature.
I jammed them with blueberries.

Then came lemons: peel away just the rind (no white) of a lemon, boil it for 10 minutes, wash it, then cut it in teeny tiny strips and boil them again for another 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, peel the lemons (I used three lemons, and the peel of just one) well and jam them with sugar.
I usually calculate the dose of sugar as 70% of fruit weight, more or less (less for the peaches, a little more for lemons).
Cook for about 30 minutes, then add the lemon peel and 2 tablespoons of almond flour.
Even if I used the rind of just one lemon, the jam was really strong and tangy; try more peel at your own risk!

The last jam was Pear Williams' (just one pear, I was running out of jars!) with fresh grated ginger (about 1.5 tbsp) and some poppy seeds.

Then I made a gel of the same Fiumicello peaches about which I already told and some mango pulp, with a hint of Dijon mustard.
The gel was hard enough to be cut in cubes (sorry, no individual pic available).

Now, what did I do with all these wondrous wonders??
I set a platter with cheese pairings:

Clockwise, starting from top, are blackcurrant/green tea/lime, pear/ginger/poppyseed, peach/blueberries, lemon/almond, and the cubes at the immediate left of lemon are the cubes of peach and mango.

The cheese paired to each is the one at the left of the tip of each bowl(considering the tip pointing up, of course).

Lemon jam and blackcurrant jam were paired with the same cheese, only at a different stage of aging. Here they call it "Latteria" (which literally means "Milk store") and it's a cheddar-like cheese.
Now, most of the Italians would shiver about a comparison with cheddar, but I'm positive that's because they've never tasted good artisan cheddar, some like the ones those guys at Beehive Cheese in Northern Utah make.
At least, that's what happened to me: I rolled my eyes the first time I walked into their shop and they offered me *cheddar*, but after trusting them that first time, I became a regular customer (until I could, at least!).

Blackcurrant was paired with a 6 months aged Latteria, while the 2 months was smooth enough to balance the almost aggressive lemon jam.

Pear jam was paired with a Parmigiano of 24 months of age and peaches/blueberries went with Formadi Frant, a cheese with a strong, spicy taste (there's pepper in it and you'll find more info about that here)

As for the last pair, I played with textures and to the solid fruit taste I gave a spreadable goat cheese, with a little of oil and pepper.

I was already in the mood, so I planned a jelly dessert, too. I took the recipe in a Costco book, which will be my next TIMOC instalment.

Dissolve 5tsp of gelatin powder in one cup of hot water, then 1.5 cups of sugar-

When the mix is at room temperature, add 2 cups of cold dry champagne, then pour over pitted cherries and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

The kids and I couldn't pick a picture between the two we liked most, so I'm putting on both of them, and that's it, cherries on top!

TIMOC #2: Salzburger Bierfleisch

2009-07-07T07:50:00.012+02:00

Got myself my own acronym, ha!
For the second instalment of Traveling In My Own Cookbooks we make a trip to Austria.
If you have read me before it will not sound new.
Yes, I bought the book during my recent trip to Salzburg, and I don't know exactly why I put it up there on the top shelf, so that it became the second book to be examined.
If you consider that during last week I was reading a biography of Mozart's, you will see how Austria is not letting me go.
Think of it as making the best of my trip, it's like it lasted a little more.

Anyway, Salzburger Bierfliesch is meat cooked in a beer sauce.

Main ingredient of course is meat, of tender beef, 600gr, about 1lb 5oz.

Then starting from the top, clockwise:

100gr/3oz onion
150gr/5oz smoked pancetta
1 slice rye bread
40gr/2tbsp flour
250ml/1cup dark beer
2 slices speck
20gr/1tbsp tomato paste
4tbsp pickled onions
80gr/3oz strutto
750ml/3cups beef broth (not portrayed)

Now, as for strutto: I find that the English word is "lard", only it's not the same as solid lard, the one you can slice.
You put that solid lard in a pan, heat it and you will see that it releases fat. That liquid fat, taken, filtered and cooled is strutto. Most of the time it's substituted with butter, but of course it's not exactly the same.
I must say that the concept of strutto makes me and my arteries a little uncomfortable and that this was the first time I talked myself into using it, for the sake of discovery and of some kind of return to the roots.
I understand the sense it makes in a recipe, yet it's really a concentrate of pure fat, they're making sure not a single molecule of water, not a single fiber is left in.

Dice the meat, cherish it with salt and pepper and put it into the pan where you will have melted your fat (at least, it will be yours soon!)

Cook it one every side, then set the meat apart and in the same pan fry onion and pancetta, both finely diced

Let them take some color, thicken with flour then dilute with beer

Pour the beef broth in, adjust with salt, pepper, and thyme and marjoram if you like, add the meat, cover and let it cook completely (about 15 minutes)

To garnish, stir fry in a little oil the diced bread with shredded speck and pickled onions

You will put this mix on the finished plate.

Talking of "finished plate", I wasn't completely satisfied, I had to make an appropriate side, so I ended cooking two recipes from this book, too.
The choice was quite obliged, I picked the Kartoffelknodel (Potato Dumplings) I was served at Gablerbrau.

500gr/1lb 2 oz potatoes
50gr/2 oz semolina flour
150gr/5 oz flour
2 egg yolks
30gr/1oz butter
salt

Boil and mash the potatoes

Work them with all the ingredients, one at a time, then let it rest.

Form the dumplings and boil them (I'd say 6/7 minutes, the book is not clear with times of cooking).

Put your two pieces of work together, and enjoy your taste of Austria

Daring Bakers Challenge June 2009 - Bakewell tart... er... pudding

2009-06-27T00:21:00.016+02:00

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

Make sure to check their blog out for the interesting story of how this dessert was born.

In a nutshell:

1 - a shell of sweet shortcrust pastry
2 - a layer of jam
3 - a layer of frangipane

It was not something completely new for me, I remember my mother making something like this for a few years when I was a teenager, only with a sponge instead of frangipane. That was a bit dry, though.

The Shortcrust

225g (8oz) all purpose flour
30g (1oz) sugar
2.5ml (½ tsp) salt
110g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)
2 (2) egg yolks
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract (optional)
15-30ml (1-2 Tbsp) cold water

Rub the (cold) butter into the flour, mix the dry ingredients, add the liquid ingredients, don't sweat it too much, make a ball, let it rest in the fridge.

The Jam

Posted already

The Frangipane

125g (4.5oz) unsalted butter, softened
125g (4.5oz) icing sugar
3 (3) eggs
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract
125g (4.5oz) ground almonds
30g (1oz) all purpose flour

Cream the butter with sugar, add the eggs (one at a time), the almond extract, then spoon the flours in.

The threesome is ready to be assembled:

Now spread:

Now pour:

Aaaand level:

Bake it at 200°C/400°F for about half an hour.

Serve with creme fraiche.

We had a slice a few hours after baking it, and we had different opinions in the house: while my husband thought the jam was way too tangy and predominant, I thought the exact opposite and could taste only the almonds in the frangipane. Either way, it didn't seem a good pair (the kids just gobbled it down and off they went towards new adventures).
That all went away the day after, and it was even better the third day, when the tastes melted together and rounded off, thus giving a good and well chosen combination.

Inspired by other Daring Bakers, who always try to give a savoury version of a sweet recipe and vice versa, I thought of the classic pairing between gorgonzola and walnuts.

I skipped sugar in both the shortcrust and the frangipane, and substituted walnut flour for the almond's. In the jam's place was a mix of gorgonzola and cream cheese.

Good thing I made tartelettes, because the taste is so strong it saturates all your taste buds in a sec.
I had served it with acacia honey just because I thought it was a cute add, but honey is really essential to balance and dilute the strenght of it.

The unexpected currant

2009-06-26T23:50:00.009+02:00

We were at my in-laws one Sunday afternoon.
While going around in their vegetable plot, I spotted this huge blackcurrant plant.
"Go ahead!" they told me "A friend brought that plant as a present, it keeps growing and bearing fruits, but we're not making much of it, so if you're interested..."
One minute after I was already in the plot with a ziploc. I must say, I took them on their word, and I didn't leave much behind me: once cleaned, the loot was 1.5lbs of freshly picked, amazingly perfumed blackcurrant.

I let it rest overnight with 1 1/2 cup of sugar (don't like too sweet a jam), the juice of one lime and the rind of half a lime. The overnight thing is just because I didn't want to stay up in the wee hours on a stove, but I also thought it would help to let it macerate a little. Apparently it's not worth it; I thought that the currants would behave like berries and release some liquid, but they didn't. Whatever.

I added one cup of freshly brewed green tea, and cooked about 30 minutes.
Do not cook it too long: blackcurrant is rich in pectin so, especially if you're working with little liquid, its setting could be too firm. For the same reason, there's no need to add apple slices or pectin powder.

The result is a sweet and sour, tart and tangy jam, it goes well in tarts, pies, over pancakes or paired with cheese.
In my case, it was just what I needed for my Bakewell tart... er... pudding .

A Kitchenlander day in Munich, Bavaria, Germany

2009-06-21T10:41:00.020+02:00

Or München, that is.

It was the same weekend of our Salzburg day, the two cities are so close, that it made sense to cross another border and see.

We arrived late in the morning, found a hotel a little out of the center, where fares were prohibitive, we relied on old, good Best Western.

The day before the kids had been really good, not questioning too much the fact that we had walked all day and had been to castles and museums, so we decided to take a boyish look at the city.

That means that we only took a quick look at the city center, and by the way, little did we know that they take Whit Sunday so seriously there, so all the shops and the ViktualienMarkt were closed.

As for meals, we decided to make a minitour of local breweries. Which are local, but also very well known out of town because as you know, the Bavarians know a lot about beer and make sure that the world knows they know.

A lot of beer factories have their own little restaurant (Biergarten), with a choice of a few dishes that complement the beer they produce and serve.

Our first stop was on the way from the hotel to the center, and it was Löwenbräu. A nice garden, a beautiful day, we decided to eat outside.

They will tell you to sit at a table provided with tablecloth. I discovered later that you can also bring your own food and use a table without cloth, as long as you order your drinks.

The food is simple and typical, mainly pork meat, wieners and different kinds of sausages

And that's what we had, a "Löwenbräu Classics" for me

which is a crispy roasted pork belly with potato-cucumber salad and dark beer sauce

and some "Sausage Specialities" for my men

a platter with a variation of sausage specialities with sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and horseradish.
Goes without saying, we shared a bit of everything.

I loved the presentation of their mustard

At the end of the meal we ordered one portion of apple strudel, always because I was just done with the Strudel Challenge.

Better than the one I had in Salzburg, yet not completely satisfying. Maybe because it was drowning in that vanilla sauce.

One funny thing (at least to us, it's probably normal) is the closet where the pitches of regular customers are held

A note about the beer: it's very light indeed, and pleasant to drink; I usually feel the buzz in a short time, with this I didn't. I bet they don't want loads of drunk people walking around in the middle of the day!

We spent the afternoon at the Olympiapark, visiting the stadium and enjoying the view from the Tower:

For dinner, we headed to the Augustiner Brewery

The place was packed with people, it took a while to even ask someone if we could sit. We sat at a table with another family, and took in all the festive atmosphere that was in there. The 6yo didn't like the noise too much, but the 4yo... oh! he absolutely loved the place, the waitresses in their dirndls, the brass band playing

He could only stand up and dance! Oh, and he would also steal the notepad from every waiter's pocket he could see, thus messing the orders up.
We are not telling him about the existence of something like that, only multiplied for 10.000, just because I don't think it would be nice to bring a 4yo at the Oktoberfest!

It was a bit late to have a real dinner, though, just some cheese and snack, but very funny indeed!

The morning after we went for a visit at the BMW Welt

What wouldn't I do for my kids!

Well, they had fun.

On our way back home, we thought we would have something on the road.

But then we saw the Paulaner Brewery and well...

This was by far the best beer we had in the weekend, unfiltered, complex in taste, enjoayable, really good. We're actually buying it regularly at the supermarket, now.

I had a vegetable strudel

with broccoli, turnips, carrots, cheese in a sauce of cauliflower and chives and topped with fried arugula. I must say, this time I was really satisfied, it was tasty, filling yet light.

Hubby wasn't so light, going for a Braten G'Rosti

Pan fried meat with knodeln, onions and eggs.

As for the kids

They would live out of cold cuts, so they are easy to please.

And that was the end of it, our last Bavarian meal was indeed the best. It's always nice to close a holiday this way, we'll be back for sure!

To the next trip!

Traveling in my own cookbooks #1

2009-06-19T10:29:00.017+02:00

One of the things I always try to bring back from a trip/journey/vacation is a local cookbook, just because.
This started way back, as soon as I started to travel without my parents, when I still didn't even approach a stove.

I realized years ago that I never get to actually use them, but still that's something I have to bring home with me.
I seldom get to actually open these books other than for looking at the pictures, even if I carefully moved them around Italy and the world everytime I moved. Thing is, most of the time I'm more lured by recipes in magazines, or from some friends, and more recently from the Internet, of course. And also, something always seemed to go wrong; I would blame myself for my inexperience, but that was before discovering the concept of badly written cookbooks.
I thought that just because something was written in a book, it had to be right and thoroughly proved, but I've been questioning this idea for awhile, now.

Well, this is the time, I will pick every cookbook I own, starting from the first on the left at the top shelf, choose a recipe from each and share the outcome.
It's not an original idea, I know, I saw that there was a community with a similar cookbook challenge, but they stopped. So, if you know of some other group bringing on something like this, let me know. Or if you want to join me, you will be more than welcome.

First book is "Cocina Aragonesa": I bought it during a vacation through Spain and Portugal when I was 24. There were 10 of us, friends from University, just driving around from Barcelona to Madrid, to Lisbon, To Algarve and back on the South coast.
Beautiful, I would do that all over tomorrow! Except maybe for the part where I put my life at risk, 2 or 3 times, but I was young and free, and probably that was my wildest holiday.
Anyway, I remember that 4 or 5 of us got together and decided to buy one specific region cookbook each, so we could trade them during the years to follow.
Of course, that never happened.

I would have liked to make something savoury, but everything I set my eyes on had tons of garlic, or was about eels, and I needed a softer start, so I headed to the dessert pages.

The one I picked was called "Yemas de Coco" (Coconut Buds).

Looked pretty simple: make a syrup with one glass (3/4 cup) of water and 1 1/2 cup of sugar (if you're wondering about the quantities in the pictures, I made half batch),

Then add 3 cups of grated coconut,

then leave the mix in the fridge overnight.
The subsequent passage would be to form buds by hand and roll them in melted chocolate.

At this point I thought "Wow, how will this simple mix aggregate? How will I be able to form those little balls that keep together in melted chocolate?"
I wasn't.
The mix didn't hold together.
I tried to wet the mix, I tried to dry the mix, but no.

So, in the end I made layers and refrigerated, and found myself with a home version of a Bounty bar.

Nice, healthy and everything, but still too much fuss for the result.

I probably should have made the buds, frozen them, and then rolled them in the chocolate.

Mmh.

I decided to give the book another try, there and then, and I picked the recipe soon after: "Leche Frita" (Fried Milk)

Put 1 liter/1 quart of milk and a pinch of cinnamon on a stove, and when it starts to boil add 4 tbsp of flour and 4 egg yolks, always beating in the meantime.

Pour in a dish and refrigerate overnight (this overnight refrigeration seems recurring).
The day after you should have this unsweetened pudding

that has to be cut in pieces, rolled in a mix of one yolk and two eggwhites, then in flour, then fried in hot vegetable oil.

At this point, I had the feeling I was in front of a book meant for tourists, printed in a time when cooking wasn't really much of a hobby.
Either that, or I suddenly have an issue with aggregation, because the 4 tbsp of flour were not at all enough to make the pudding dense enough to handle it with ease.
I made it, but another time I will use 4 tbsp of corn starch (the book said I could use corn starch instead of the flour, but only 2 tbsp).
This should also reduce the ratio between fried surface and fresh content.
Dust with sugar and serve.

They were pretty good, actually, it's just a matter of texture, not of taste.

I have a feeling that this project, started just for fun, will help me understand a few things about cookbooks. I'm looking forward to discovering the differences between one book and another, old and new, small and big, with a theme or not.

Daring Cooks Challenge June 2009 - Chinese Dumplings and Potstickers

2009-06-14T11:19:00.010+02:00

The June Cooks' Challenge was hosted by Jen of userealbutter. She chose Chinese dumplings/potsticks, and the recipe she provided was based on her family recipe.
As always, we were incouraged to be creative with fillings and interpretations of the basic recipe.
The dough (two cups of flour and 1/2 cup of water, then adjust) was very easy to handle and stretch. As for the filling I chose sausage, white mushrooms and red radicchio

(leftover of a risotto I made the night before)

With the dough form some circles and place some filling on it

then fold and pinch,

then go on with the pleats

As often happens, as you go on you'll find yourself able to make the dough thinner and the dumplings smaller.

I decided to use the method illustrated by Jen, first pan fry them

and then pour some water, to complete the cooking (lid on until the water boils, lid off after that).

Served on a bed of red radicchio and dill.

Sorry, just forks, no sticks.

A Kitchenlander day in ... Salzburg, Austria.

2009-06-12T09:57:00.024+02:00

This is the Kitchenlandish side of a day in Salzburg, Austria.

We arrived late in the afternoon, after a rather adventurous journey, with weather spanning from unbearable heat to snow! In June! So we stayed in the hotel for dinner.
Maybe not very typical, but I got a nice and light meal with spinach palachinkas (kind of crepes) in a gorgonzola sauce:

I wouldn't be bothering to write about this if I didn't find the pairing very well chosen, and it's something quick and easy to make at home.

The day after, we were fresh and ready to discover the city.
Salzburg is Mozart's hometown, and you can never forget it: almost everything is about Mozart here (which is why we went, my 6yo can't quite get over the fact that the composer is dead).

So, one stop was at Mozart's birth house (Gebursthaus); deep inside I kind of questioned my recent buyings of nice kitchen tools, thinking that the meals that Wolfie had for the first seven years of his life were cooked in here

If a kitchen like that produced such genius, you don't want to know what will be of my two messy sprouts (I'm aware that Bree van deKamp should have taught me something!!).

The tour went on, there's another house, the one where the Mozart family moved when Wolfgang was seven, then we wandered around the city center.

Passing in front of a shop window, my eyes caught this cutie

"Hey, look at how they decorated this egg shell!"

"But hey, wait, there's more!"

"But we're in June, why did they have to make an Halloween themed window?"

As we lifted our eyes and got a more global view of the shop we were in front of, we realized that there was more

and more

The only thing the shop was selling were these real egg shells, painted, dressed and decorated with a patience that I won't have in 20 lives!
The massive quantity was really hard to register: I had never imagined to see so many eggs all together, let alone thinking of each one of those eggs being emptied and handled to produce that result! The price of the ones we checked spanned between 3 and 6.50 Euros (say between 5 and 11 USD), each.

So you can imagine my heart rate when I realized that these two

were actually those two!

Off we went, and for the first time since the kids are around we didn't stop for lunch, but hung out in a nice and tidy market, picking brezen and speck sandwiches

As for dessert, we were not far (well, the city center is pretty tiny, you are never far from anything) from the Stranz and Scio restaurant, which is famous for its "Capezzoli di Venere" (Nipples of Venus)

If you have seen the movie "Amadeus" (and if you have not, go see it! I mean, right now, I can wait!) these are the pralines that Salieri uses to convince Constanza to show him some of her husband's music sheets.
Their filling is of chestnut and nougat cream, with a drop of tart cherries jam and cognac.
They. Are. Goooood.

We spent the afternoon in the Hohensalzburg Castle, that overlooks the city, an impressive view and tour.

At night we had dinner at Gablerbrau, where the 6yo found a cutie 7yo girl from Kentucky to relieve the bore of waiting for dinner.

At Gablerbrau they have their own beer, like it often happens around there.

They like it unfiltered and they're quite right!

It seemed appropriate to order something that had the word "Salzburg" in it, so I went for a Salzburger Bierbrauerpfandl, that is "Salzburg beer brewer pan with roasted pork, farmer sausage, black pudding, sauerkraut, dumpling".

If only I didn't know how they make black pudding I would have probably eaten that, too, but I did, so I was content with the rest of the dish, cooked to perfection and with the right aromas.

My men went with wieners and fries

Just a few days before all this, the reveal day for Daring Bakers Challenge's Strudel had occurred; having seen all kinds of strudels from around the world, it was a no brainer to have it here.
I must say I wasn't completely satisfied, I wish it was cooked longer and less "robust".

We couldn't leave Salzburg without bringing with us a certain amount of Mozartkugeln, Mozart's balls. Not that you are at risk of forgetting, they are literally everywhere, even at greengrocers' shops.
In a spherical shell of chocolate you find a mix of praline creme, marzipan and pistachios, with different proportions according to the manifacturer.

They were invented by Paul Fürst in 1890, that is way after Mozart was gone.

The konditorei is still run by the Fürst family, and the kugeln are still hand made.

As it often happens, there are other versions, good as well even if industrially produced, as is the case of Mirabell Mozartkugeln, which are the most easy to find, popular even out of Austria, or Victor Schmidt's ones.

From left to right: Fürst's kugel, delicate and with a hint of marzipan, Mirabell's kugel, with a harder chocolate shell and a good balance of all flavours, Victor Schmidt's one, where marzipan is dominant.

If you have issues with spheres, Mirabell made it flat, too:

And after all this meat and chocolate bliss, may I offer you some digestive drink?

Chocolate cream, cocoa infusion and white chocolate liquors.

To the next trip!

Flowers, flowers everywhere!

2009-06-06T10:19:00.013+02:00

My cyberfriend Jill is enjoying her amazing blooming garden; as for me, I'm thinking about the roses and bulbs that I left almost a year ago in my beloved Utah, I miss gardening so much!
In these days I live in an apartment, and the fact that all the city smells like jasmine isn't enough to fill the void.

Waiting for some other lawn to mown (for Mr. Kitchenlander, that is), I turn to some other kind of flowers.

Zucchini flower are an instant cheer up when you spot them at the market. You can't resist their color, their delicacy, even the cuteness of those teeny tiny zucchini.

Bring them home, wash them lightly and quickly outside and inside, cut away pistils and set aside.

Cut some little cubes of mozzarella and have some anchovies embrace them and place every paired couple in a flower.

Prepare a batter with flour and beer (or sparkling water, if there are alcohol issues, but keep in mind that cooking makes the alcohol go away).

And pluff the flowers in.
Then deep fry them for a few seconds and you got yourself a nice hors d'oeuvres.

I'm pretty sure Jill can't do that with her flowers, ha!

Lasagnette With White Asparagus

2009-06-02T11:22:00.008+02:00

How is it to eat a botanical book?

There are things and ingredients that seem so nice and cute that you would really want to be inspired and enhance them properly.
Of course, when you want to have an idea you can watch out of your real or mental window and go on for months just blabbering inside.

This was the case for me with parsley-decorated lasagne, a concept I had seen flipping through some Martha Stewart's book: just before the final roll out of your pasta, when folding for the last time, add some leaves of parsley and those teeny tiny leaves of basil as a middle layer and you will find yourself with some of cutest vintage looking sheets of pasta.

In this case pasta was made with plain (AP) wheat flour, as rustic texture is not needed.
You will have to work with small pieces and roll them in different directions if you'd like the leaves to hold the right proportions.

Thing is, usually lasagne come with heavy and colorful dressing and sauces that hide all the magic, and I never made it other than for my personal pleasure.

But then, another ingredient comes over, another one of those you're not too sure about.

White asparagus are all the rage in North Eastern Italy during the month of May. Very subtle in flavour, people seem to be able to say if a particular kind is from a specific town or from a village 2 miles away. I didn't want to blog about the usual pairing with eggs or with salt and vinegar, and that's when the two odds paired in my mind.
The pale and delicate shades of asparagus would complement and go well together the fairy design of herbed lasagne.

To give flavour without disturbing the palette, pesto was the answer.

Cut the lasagne in squares, boil them individually for about 90 seconds and steam the cleaned asparagus (or place them in a microwave-proof dish with half an inch of water and nuke them for 5 minutes).

Lay one square on the plate, place an asparagus layer and brush with some pesto, previously diluted with one or two tablespoons of the hot and starchy water where you boiled the pasta.

Repeat, repeat, repeat, enjoy.

Daring Bakers Challenge May 2009 - Apple Strudel

2009-05-27T00:08:00.010+02:00

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

To complete this challenge, I waited a few weeks on purpose. The reason was that last month I attended a series of pastry classes, so I waited for the teacher to cover the topic before trying.

The dough was indeed very easy to make: mix together 1 1/3 cups (200 g) unbleached flour, 1/8 teaspoon salt, 7 tablespoons (105 ml) water, plus more if needed,
2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough,
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar (instead of vinegar, I used white wine, a couple of tbsp), and work it very hard.
By "very hard" they mean "feel free to use violence!": taking the dough and throwing it on the table as it had provoked me was fun, especially for my kids, who were startled at first, looking at me as if I had gone nuts, and laughing their bellies out when they saw that mom was just playing (?) silly and nobody was getting hurt.
After a good 10 minutes of this workout, put the dough under a hot bowl and let it rest for half an hour.

In the meantime, find yourself a 6yo and a 4yo and when they ask you if they can play with the flour left on the table, tell them yes.
In a few minutes, you should get a similar result:

In the meantime(2), get together what you'll need for the filling.
My teacher was very passionate in saying that a strudel ought to be made only with rennet apples, but it's too hard to find them at this time of the year, so I went with plain golden apples, 2lbs/900gr, diced, and all the portrayed guest stars:

3-4 oz /100-120gr sugar with a spoonful of cinnamon, 1 oz/30gr pine nuts, 2 oz/50gr bread crumbs, 3oz/80-90gr butter, 2 oz/50 gr raisins, 1 oz/30gr crushed nuts.

Toast the pine nuts in some of the butter, think you can do something else in the meantime, burn them, throw them away, take another oz/30 gr pine nuts, toast them properly, set aside.
Toast the bread crumbs in another tablespoon of butter (no burning step needed), set aside.

The dough is really really easy to stretch thin, wine-drunk and beaten up as it is! Of course I didn't bother taking a picture of it (was I clumsy, this time around!!).
Spread all the fillings (what's left of butter should be melted) on all the surface of the less than paper-thin dough, keeping a sort of free frame

Now, only because you were so nice to read this so far, I want to be honest and tell you about the silly mistake I made.
The rolling should be done on the long side of the rectangle you're facing.
Don't ask me why, I started to roll the short side.
I realized my mistake at the first turn, but it was too late already.
So I went on, building the biggest, fattest strudel ever seen.
I left it in the oven 15 minutes more than the recipe required, to cook it evenly, and when it came out it was clear that to have a regular portion I would need to cut a slice in half, or the proportion and size of the serving would be ridicolous.

The taste was great! I can't wait for next autumn, when I'll be able to use rennet apples!

Strawberry and cream forever

2009-05-21T14:57:00.009+02:00

It's hard to turn an oven on, in these days, but there are lots of desserts that can be done without baking.
Bavarese is one of them.

Fruit and cream are the main actors with just a spoonful of sugar (well, a little more than a spoonful - so many quotations, today I woke up a songbird!) and a bit of gelatine to help the structure.

My choice today is on cherries and strawberries.
Puree 1.1 lb/500gr of fresh fruit in a blender, add juice from one lemon, 3-4 oz /100-120gr of sugar and put all on a mild heat.

When it is gently boiling, add 1/2oz /12-15 gr of gelatine. The gelatine part is a bit tricky, because there are a lot of different gelatines out there. Here the most common is one that comes in small transparent sheets, in the US my first try would be Knox gelatine.

Anyway, any gelatine in a dose fit to gel 500ml of water will do.

After adding the gelatine let simmer for 1 or 2 minutes. The simmering part is important to properly dissolve the gelatine and to inactivate enzymes in fruit like pineapple, kiwi or papaya that would prevent gelatine to set.

In the meantime, whip 2 cups /500ml of heavy cream.

Add the whipped cream to the fruit mixture and place in molds. Let rest in the fridge for at least 3 hours.

Bavarese cannot be frozen: thawing would kill the gel.

Daring Cooks Challenge May 2009 - Gnocchi di Ricotta

2009-05-13T12:41:00.025+02:00

This is the first ever Daring Cooks Challenge, and it feels good to have joined the Daring Kitchen community just in time to participate!

The recipe of Gnocchi di Ricotta was brought by Ivonne of Creampuffs in Venice and Lisa of La Mia Cucina, the two founders of the Daring Bakers Challenge.

They picked it in The Zuni Cafè Cookbook .

The recipe itself is very simple: take 1lb/450gr of ricotta, mix it with 2 large cold eggs, 1tbsp/15gr of butter and 1/2oz/about 15gr of grated Parmigiano. Spices, herbs and/or lemon zest are optional.

Form the gnocchi on a bed of flour (they're very delicate and need to be handled very lightly), boil them for a few minutes and then you can use them straight away or sautè them in a sauce of your choice.

We were incouraged to make our own ricotta, but spoiled as I am, I have a lot of cheese factories nearby, so ricotta is great tasting, available and cheap. By the way, ricotta isn't technically a cheese, because it doesn't come from milk directly, but from whey, the residue of production of some other, non acidic, cheese.

Ready as it is, it still has to be dried, or you will fail miserably and find yourself with the mess of the Big Frittata Of Ricotta (been there, done that). So it's better to leave the ricotta on a cheesecloth or on a strainer in the fridge, overnight.

After mixing, I preferred to form the gnocchi not by hand, but using a decorating bag to lay down those "worms" and then cut them with a serrated knife. It helps if you leave the ready and filled bag in the fridge for awhile.

After boiling them I left them apart while preparing the Parmigiano&Saffran coupelles in which I meant to serve them.

I had always read about how easy it is to make them, how you're just supposed to sprinkle two tablespoons of grated cheese in a pan and Voilà!, the coupelle is ready to be formed!

Mine were not made by themselves: if I used a spatula or some palette knife to take them up, they would just curl up like a vampire under the sun. If I took them with my fingers (I take the *Daring* part very literally!) I would feel a lot of pain (who guessed?).

Until it just dawned on me that parchment paper is such a good thing that if you just put a piece of it on the pan, and the cheese on that, you are done in a matter of seconds.

Gnocchi were sautèd in some butter with asparagus and ham, placed in the Parmigiano coupelles and that was the end of it.

As I did this early in the month, I kept thinking of some other version, and I came up with two variations using spinach and saffran, that would have to be matched with saffran and spinach butter, respectively.

I had the idea of styling it as a positive/negative photography, I've had the image on my mind for weeks.
Thing is, butter turns out to get a very different texture if you mix it with saffran rather than with spinach, so my idea didn't see the light.

Not too bad for a blooper, though.

Black ink fettuccine

2009-05-10T14:40:00.016+02:00

Or “The Pirates’ Pasta”, as my 6yo calls it.
The 4yo calls it “The Really Really Ugly Pasta, And Why On Earth Did You Have To Make It??”.
What’s in a name?

Black ink pasta is something I love to do for special occasions, but until this time I never tried to complement it with something more than a simple oil and lemon dressing.
But this is the time to look for something different and nice to portray, and in this spring-y air that brings ideas and inspiration, I’m taking advantage of living in a diversified region that has both harsh mountains and rich sea, and where you can find mature cheese, artisan cured meats and fresh seafood at the same farmers’ market.
Today is the time for fresh seafood.

While my husband went to the market to look for the perfect octopus, I stayed at home to make black ink pasta, which can be found ready made in Italian food stores, but I like to make it for myself when I can.

3 beaten eggs

Plus black ink

Equals black beaten eggs (actually they are on the greenish side because my yolks were deep orange).

Black beaten eggs plus two cups semolina flour (which gives a more “rustic” texture than AP flour) make…

SCREAM!!!

Semolina flour is also harder to knead than soft wheat flour, but thanks to the science of stand mixer that’s not my problem any more.

When it comes to octopus, they say you should cook it really fast or really slow, if you don’t want to have a gummy meal.
This time I went with *really fast*, sautéing it for 4-5 minutes in hot extra-virgin olive oil, a bunch of halved cherry tomatoes and paper-thin lemon slices.
If I had it at hand, I would have gladly given it a splash of vodka, at least for adult portions.

Lemon and sage just go so well together, that a sprinkle of freshly minced sage was an appropriate final touch.

Now that I look at it, it looks more like a Lego pasta, but apparently Pirates won.

It's getting warmer!

2009-05-04T10:23:00.009+02:00

Nothing speaks like summer for me as chicken aspic.
This is what my mom would cook as soon as two hot days came along in a row, and just as I wanted to be all different, this is what I find myself doing without even thinking of it!
Just when my husband thinks of turning the grill on for the first time in the year, there I am, with my beautiful and loved “chicken under glass”.

It requires a little thinking in advance, of course, but it’s ideal for picnics, or even better for when you know you’ll be out the whole day, the whole HOT day, and you know that once you’ll be at home you won’t be able to put together something that makes sense for dinner and will just gobble down whatever comes your way.
Or, in my case, when I have my night out and I don’t want to give too many instructions to those I’m leaving home.

It is light, fresh and nutritious, and I just can’t stop eating it when I start.

Am I passing on some enthusiasm??

It is quite easy, too!
Just dice a little chicken breast, cooked.
I like mine steamed, because I think that a subtle flavor goes better with the pickles and seasoned vegetables I’m putting in, but I guess that sautee-ing it works just fine.

Then cut whatever suits you: I never skip olives, pickles, seasoned red peppers, little onions.
The possibilities are endless, you can go with hard boiled eggs, mushrooms, cheese and ham cubes, leftovers, you get the idea.
Boil some gelatin powder with a consommé (I usually go for a quart/a litre, it all depends on how much stuff you are putting in) and fill the mold with your chicken salad and the gelatin. Shove it in the fridge and patiently wait.

If you have 2 minutes to spare, making the first layer a little tidy is a decoration itself.

Daring Bakers Challenge April 2009 - Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake

2009-04-27T00:29:00.014+02:00

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

This was my first Daring Bakers Challenge, and my very first cheesecake to make (I’ve had it once or twice before, though).
The recipe called for graham crackers for the crust, and they are nowhere to be found in Italy, where I live.
So, I checked in my teenage memories, back when my exotic bake researches stretched as far as United Kingdom and Ireland. I remember that cheesecakes there and then were made with a crust of Digestives, and as they have been my favorite cookies for a very long time, it was natural for me to use them.

So I mixed 12 crumbled cookies with 4oz (115gr) of butter and two tablespoons of sugar.

As for the actual cheese part, it went on pretty easily: I just mixed the cream cheese (24 oz/ 720gr) with 1 cup of sugar (200gr), 3 large eggs, 1 cup (240 ml) of heavy cream.
When it came to the flavor, there was no doubt: a few weeks ago I opened a rose water bottle, one that I had found last year in an International Food store in Las Vegas and that I was keeping as a big treasure, being it so difficult to find here.

The point is, how precious can a thing be, if you don’t use and enjoy it? And so now, we smell and taste a lot of rose, in this house!
I skipped the liquor that was in the original recipe, I kept a tablespoon of lemon juice, because lemon scent takes out rose’s one best, and went with 1.5 tbsp of rose water.

The baking was to be made in a water bath, but I didn’t trust my springform pan, so I followed a suggestion by Jill of Jillicious Desserts that I read on the Daring Kitchen forum. I used a normal pan, and after the cake cooled, I froze it. Once the cake was frozen, it was easy to pop it out of the pan (although it was not completely solid, even if it had stayed in the freezer overnight).

As a decoration I used non-treated roses and petals. This was a lot of fun for my kids, for when they saw me spreading petals around, thought that if Mommy was doing it, it must have been the right thing to do and “helped”.
The cake was very good, and the taste of roses was much stronger the day after the baking.

I know that many other Daring Bakers went down the monoportion/cupcakes path. It is a very good idea, and I wish I had it. I’ll keep it in mind for the next times.

Classic Carbonara

2009-04-23T08:47:00.010+02:00

In these last few days I’ve been brainstorming about this blog: should I keep it just for the Daring Kitchen Challenges? Should I stretch for something more? What would I put in it? Oh, my gosh I have to buy new plates! A new lens! Tablecloth! Open up a new window, this kitchen is way too dark!
Something like that.
Then last night my men asked me a Carbonara for dinner, and I thought that way back, when my husband and I met, I could barely fry an egg. And as the relationship went on, and I came to ask him what his favorite dish was, carbonara was the answer.

Now, Italy is famous in the entire world for its cooking.
The truth is that once you are in Italy, Italian cooking doesn’t exist anymore, and you go deep into regional cooking. I’m from Milan, and I have some friends in Rome that consider polenta an exotic dish. My father wouldn’t be caught dead eating a pizza.

Carbonara is from Rome and I had never considered it as something that I could actually eat, I didn’t even know what WAS in it! So that was the first recipe that I looked for in my adult life, I remember the sense of discovery, and it makes sense for it to be my first post.

So, you would need a half pound of guanciale. It is the cheek of the pig, whereas lard comes from the back and pancetta and bacon from the belly, and its fat is a little harder and valuable that the other two, but it’s very common to use pancetta, just don’t tell it to the Romans.
There is a vegetarian version, substituting zucchini for the guanciale.
While living in the States, I used smoked bacon more than once. It wasn’t the original taste, but flying out of the State in the quest for the right ingredient would have been unpractical, and we got used to that.

Dice it and heat it softly, so that it releases its fat in the pan (which by the way is a whole recipe on its own, and I will talk about that in the future).

In the meantime, put a pot of water to the boil and go on cooking your pasta (I’m not passionate about spaghetti, and prefer to use bavette or fettuccine).
Beat 4 eggs in a bowl; add salt and pepper to the taste and 2 oz of grated cheese.
Again, you should go for Pecorino, a seasoned sheep cheese, but Parmigiano does the job.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain it and put it back in the pot. Pour the egg/cheese mix on the pasta and mix well, while the heat from the pasta cooks the eggs, leaving them soft.

Then, add all the content of the “fat” pan: the liquid part will act as a dressing, the solid bits will be good to taste in there.

Sprinkle some more pepper if you like, and serve.

For 6 servings:
1 lbs/450gr of long pasta (spaghetti, bavette, fettuccine)
½ lbs/220gr of guanciale (pancetta, bacon, zucchini for the vegetarian version)
4 eggs
2oz/60 grams of pecorino cheese (parmigiano)
Salt
Pepper

You will need the recipe just the first time, after that, you're ready to eyeball it.

Warm up

2009-04-17T22:59:00.000+02:00

First time around.

I'm putting up this blog because I found something that seems so funny I definitely wanted to join and enjoy, that is the Daring Bakers (and Cooks) Challenge.

So, before the posting day comes, I might as well figure out how blogging works... how to hyperlink, for one.