Lasagnette With White Asparagus

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 Cooks Challenge May 2009 - Gnocchi di Ricotta

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

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.

Classic Carbonara

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.