Le Ricette

Le Ricette
Zuppa di pesce Partenopea
Porcedduzzi al miele
Zuppa di patate e gamberi
Rigatoni e seppioline,
Zucca al forno
Red Pepper Jelly
Scottiglia
Agnello brodettato Abruzzi
Gamberi coi cannellini
Cotolette di maiale con capperi e pere
Agnolotti al vino
Cavolfiore fritto
Pizza di Patate
Acquacotta
Sformato di zucca, pumpkin flan
Apricot jam
Coniglio con le olive / Rabbit with olives
Zuppa di pesce Partenopea (Fish soup Naples style) as featured in the 4 March programme with
Olga Hanson of "What a Catch".
300g deep sea cod
200g conger eel
100g cuttlefish
100g prawns, shelled
200g mussels, with well washed shells on
200g clams, with well washed shells on
Half ladle raw tomato puree
1 garlic clove
1 fresh chili
2 TBSP Italian broadleaf parsley, finely shredded
5 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
60g croutons
Put in a pan the extra virgin olive oil, with garlic clove and chopped chili. Soften on medium fire. Add
fish, starting from cuttlefish and conger, later on add those who require a shorter time to cook, ending with
mussels and clams. After a few minutes add the tomato puree. When all the fish is cooked add parsley,
croutons and serve hot.
Porcedduzzi al miele (honeyed piglets), Cartolina n. 258 - 24, 31 December 2008
In spite of its name, this is a dessert, traditionally
prepared at Christmas time in Apulia. It's basically
small pieces of dough, fried and honey-dipped.
To make the piglets, you need 100 g flour, 1 TBSP
extra virgin olive oil, 2 TBSP white wine, finely
ground lemon zest, plus enough water; knead until
you have a soft and elastic mix.
Make cylinders one centimeter thick, then cut into
squares. Now work each piece on the outside of a
fork, rolling it gently but firmly with your thumb, from
top to bottom of the prongs. Of course, these quantities should be doubled or trebled or more, accordingly to the size of your table, just keep the proportions.
In a wok put enough grape seed oil, and bring it to high temperature: keep a few stripes of lemon and orange zest at hand, and try dipping them in the oil: the temperature will be right when the zest browns immediately. Leave the zest in the oil. Fry the piglets all together, remove them when lightly brown and put
them on kitchen paper to dry.
Now you need enough honey: heat it gently in a double boiler, then put the piglets in and stir. Drain them
with a slotted spoon and arrange them on a serving plate. Traditionally, they are arranged into a crown,
and decorated with some sugar and cinnamon, plus hundreds and thousands, chocolate chips, pine nuts,
almonds, whatever. You can bring the plate to the table with a Christmas decoration in the centre, or a
candle. Buon Natale!
Zuppa di patate e gamberi (potato and prawn soup), Cartolina n. 256, 26 November 2008
Ingredients for two. You'll need around half kilo king prawns or
scampi, or even better, a mix of both. Shell the prawns and use
the shells to make a broth, adding 1 liter water, half a fish stock
cube and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain and keep aside. (You
can choose the easy option, and go for a full fish stock cube
and use already shelled prawns, but it won't be the same).
Dice very finely three garlic cloves and soften in 4 TBSP extra
virgin olive oil on low fire. Add 1 glass dry white wine, let
evaporate. Add 1 can peeled tomatoes, drained and quartered,
and 1 TBSP tomato paste. Cook on very low fire for a few minutes. Add the fish stock, two diced potatoes and a lot of shredded broadleaf parsley. Simmer until the potato is cooked. Add
the prawns, cook 1 minute and turn the fire off. In the meanwhile cook separately 100 g short pasta,
drain and add to the soup..Serve hot and optionally add freshly ground black pepper. This is an original
recipe from my household, delicate in flavour and nutritious; you'll see how well all ingredients combine.
Buon appetito!
Rigatoni e seppioline, (short pasta with baby squid) Cartolina n. 253, 15 October 2008
You'll easily find frozen baby squid, that can be thawed leaving them in cold water for one hour; you'll
need 350 g. Prepare the other ingredients.
Finely dice 1 onion and 4 garlic cloves. Drain peeled tomatoes from a small can and divide into quarters.Have a good handful of fresh spinach leaves ready, or a few frozen ones. Let's start. In a non-stick
fry pan, bring two TBSP of extra virgin olive oil to high temperature, then brown the squids. Add onion
and garlic, cover and cook until soft. Now add 100 ml dry white wine, the spinach and tomatoes. Cook
10 more minutes and keep aside. Now cook al dente 180 g rigatoni (and please choose a good Italian
brand, or they will melt!), add to the sauce with squid, return to the fire and toss briefly. Serve hot, passing some freshly grated parmesan cheese or one dollop of mascarpone for extra decadence� This is a
good example of piatto unico all'italiana (a meal in a plate). Buon appetito!
Zucca al forno, (baked pumpkin) Cartolina n. 247, 23 July 2008
You need: 1 kg pumpkin pieces, 2 leeks, 200 grams soft cheese, like brie,
a big enough bread loaf, sliced and toasted, half liter vegetable stock, 200
ml cream, plus salt, black pepper, extra virgin olive oil.
Cut the pumpkin into big chunks, put into a baking dish with salt, pepper
and a dash of oil. Bake at 180 deg for 20 min or until soft.In the meanwhile, slice thinly the white part of the leeks, put into a frying pan coated
with oil, let tenderize on low fire for a few minutes.Now process in a
blender pumpkin and leeks. Put the mixture into a pan with the stock, bring
to boil, reduce the fire and cook for 15 minutes. Retrieve from the fire and
add the cream.Prepare the ingredients for baking, layering them in an
oven dish: bread, pumpkin mixture, thin slices of cheese. Make two or
three layers. Bake at 180 deg for 20 min, than serve hot.This preparation
makes a full meal in its own, or, in small quantity, can accompany any
other dish.There is a deluxe version of this recipe, that calls for a full round
pumpkin, with the top cut out and the flesh removed. Then the preparation is the same, only the layers
are made inside the pumpkin itself and then baked. The pumpkin is taken to the table as a tureen, from
Red Pepper Jelly (Cartolina, 25 June 2008) This recipe comes directly from Catherine Newman's
mum's kitchen in Canada. If you can't find red peppers now, hold on to the recipe
until next summer! Ingredients for 2 or 3 250 ml jars:
1 cup finely chopped red peppers
optionally 1 jalapeno pepper, minced
Less than 1 cup cider vinegar
1 tsp tabasco sauce or just a bit of hot red chilli pepper flakes
3 cups sugar
1 pouche (85 ml) liquid pectin
In a large heavy-bottomed pot, stir together peppers, vinegar, tabasco and sugar. Bring to full boil over
medium heat, stirring constantly; boil gently for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, let stand for 20 minutes,
stirring occasionally. Return to full boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Immediately stir in pectin; return
to full boil. Boil hard 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; skim off any foam. Stir for 5 to 8 minutes to prevent floating peppers (very important to have no floaters!!). Ladle into prepared jars to within 1
cm of rim; wipe rims. Apply lids; tighten just until fingertip tight.. Now you must process jars in boiling water
for 5 minutes. You can use a large pot with rack on bottom, as the jars should not sit directly on the bottom
of the pot; another way is to line the bottom with a tea towel folded a few times. I also put tea towels between the jars so that they don�t bang into each other when they boil. The water must fully cover the
jars.. Let rest at room temperature until set. Check the seals. (2.30)
Scottiglia (Cartolina, 28 May 2008)
Scottiglia is an untranslatable word for a Tuscan stew
made with plenty of farmyard meats. Failing the farmyard,
you'll have to buy: 200 g chicken breast, 200 g rabbit meat,
and 100 g of each of the following: lamb, pork, guinea-fowl
and pigeon. All meats boned and diced stew size.
Now, cut thinly 1 onion, 1 celery stalk and plenty of broadleaf
Italian parsley. Heat extra virgin olive oil in your favourite pan, put the herbs in and saute for a few minutes. Add the meats, brown thoroughly. Now add half a glass of white wine, let evaporate. Last additions:
300 g tomato puree, salt and pepper, and half a ladle of hot stock. Cover and cook on low fire for one hour.
When it�s the moment to serve, toast slices of Tuscan bread, or similar, provided it�s well baked and
crusty, brush with garlic and lay in each plate. Pour the scottiglia and� buon appetito!
Agnello brodettato Abruzzi style (lamb with a lemon and egg sauce). (Cartolina, 16 Apr. 2008)
You need a thick slice of prosciutto, to dice with one small onion and
two garlic cloves. Heat enough extra virgin olive oil in a fry pan and
add the mix, cook until tender. Cut your lamb into big chunks, coat in
flour and brown them in the mixture. Add salt, nutmeg and ground
black pepper. Add half a glass of dry white wine, let evaporate. Add
half a glass of stock and cook on low fire, covered, for one hour. When
cooked, put the lamb pieces onto a serving dish and quickly prepare
the sauce, using the lamb sauce, 3 TBSP lemon juice, 1 egg. Beat
well with a fork, cover the lamb pieces and serve hot.
Gamberi coi cannellini (prawns with cannellini beans). (Cartolina, 19 Mar. 2008)
This recipe is an adaptation, from 'One pot Italian cooking',
a wonderful cooking book by Italian chef Massimo Capra,
who co-owns the restaurant Mistura in Toronto, Canada.You need: half kilo king prawns, shelled, 1 tin cannellini
beans, two red capsicums, 2 shallots, one teaspoon fennel
seeds, and white wine, balsamic vinegar, aceto balsamico
of Modena, broad leaf parsley.
I prepare this recipe not really in a pot, but in a wok. Start
with putting two TBSP extra virgin olive oil, warm up and
add the fennel seeds. When they are almost toasted, add
the shallots, finely diced, and cook until soft. Now add the
capsicum, cut into thin stripes, with half a glass of white
wine and 1 tsp aceto balsamico. Salt to taste. When the capsicum is cooked, add the cannellini beans, stir
well until hot, than add the prawns with shredded parsley. Cook until the prawns are just ready, and
serve.This is a very quick preparation, of great effect. Serve on its own as a main, or add a side of rice,
polenta or just bread, to make into a full meal. Buon appetito!
Cotolette di maiale con capperi e pere (Pork cutlets with capers and pear) (Cartolina n.
232 - 26 December 2007)
Two pork cutlets, or also butterfly steaks, one ripe tomato, 1 tsp capers in vinegar, unsalted butter
and a fleshy, non-grainy pear, like Danjou, and half a glass of
dry white wine.
Dice the tomato, put it into a fry pan with butter and capers, cook
briefly then add the cutlets. Cook on moderate fire on one side.
When you turn them, add the pear, peeled, cored and cut into 1
cm thick slices. When the meat is cooked, retrieve it from the pan,
add the wine and let evaporate briefly on high fire. Pour the sauce
on top of the meat and serve. Total time: 15 minutes. Result: incredible!
Agnolotti al vino (Cartolina n. 230 - 28 November 2007),
courtesy of Dr Mario Leonti
Agnolotti are similar to tortellini, but with a different shape, and in
this recipe the sauce is made of vino, that is: wine. To make the pastry dough, you need 250 g white
flour and 3 eggs. To make the filling, you need: 100 g beef, 100g pork, 100 g savoy cabbage, 2 garlic
cloves, a rosemary sprig, 1 egg, 80 g dry breadcrumbs (but you can
use instead boiled rice or risotto leftovers), 25 g grated parmesan
cheese, 1 ladle of broth, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper.
Start with the filling. Coat in oil the bottom of a small pan, brown the
meats with 1 garlic clove, rosemary, salt and pepper for 10 minutes,
then reduce the fire and cook for one hour, adding broth to keep
moist. Retrieve from the fire and let cool. Then cut finely either with a
mezzaluna or briefly in a food processor.In the meanwhile blanch the
cabbage, drain well and cook briefly with oil and the second garlic
clove. Then cut finely. Now mix in a bowl meats, cabbage, breadcrumbs (or rice if you prefer), parmesan cheese, the egg. The filling
is ready. Now prepare the pastry, mixing the flour with 1 full egg and two yolks. Knead well. Cut the dough
into chunks and work on each one at a time, making a very thin sheet, either with a rolling pin or with the
pasta machine. Put small amounts of the filling onto the pastry sheet, one centimeter a part. Fold the pastry lengthwise, and press with your fingers, to push the air out and to seal between each mounds and
along the edges.With a ravioli cutter, separate each agnolotto. They must appear square, with sides of
about 1 cm, with a bulge in the centre. The best preparation is for smaller, paunchier ones with the thinnest
pastry. There you go, you just need practice.
Let the agnolotti rest for a couple of hours in a cool place. (you may need to do the same)Bring plenty of
water to boil, add some salt, then gently put in the agnolotti. As soon as the boil resumes, reduce the fire
and cook until the pastry is al dente. Drain, always gently, and serve.
As a sauce, you have many choices: you can use the sauce from the roasted meats, or you can melt
some unsalted butter with sage leaves. You can also grill or BBQ the row ones, turning them often, and
have as an entree. However, the connoisseurs enjoy their agnolotti nature as they come from the boiling
pot, or they do as the older people do, pouring red wine on top. Suggested wine: Barbera d'Alba.
Buon appetito
Cavolfiore fritto (fried cauliflower) Cartolina n. 226, 3 October 2007
This is a simple recipe, that gives a great result.You need a fresh and compact cauliflower, grape
seed oil and flour.
Start preparing the batter: put 100 grams flour into a small
bowl, with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add cold
water a bit at a time, stirring with a fork or a little whisk,
until you have a dense but runny mixture. Cover with cling
film and let rest. Remove all outer leaves from the cauliflower, put it straight up into a pot, sprinkle with salt, cover
with water only up to half its height, and lightly boil. When
it's still crunchy, retrieve from the fire, drain, let cool, and
cut the single florets out. Discard the leaves
Pour plenty of grape seed oil in a wok (you know the rule:
the more the oil, the more constant its temperature remains, with a better frying effect). The oil must be very hot, but must not make any fumes. Dip each cauli
floret into the batter, turn it a couple of times with a fork, then drain it and plunge it into the frying oil. Turn
a couple of times and, when the butter is nice and golden, drain the floret and put it onto some kitchen
paper. Serve the florets hot, with a slice of lemon, as a side to any main dish.
This is the basic preparation, that you can apply also to zucchini, kumara, pumpkin, apple, small fish well
basically anything. If you serve different thing together, you can call it 'Fritto misto all'Italiana' (mixed fried,
It. Style).
Pizza di Patate (Cartolina n. 221 - 25 July 2007)
You need 1 kilo soft potatoes, like Nadine, 1 egg, cheese.
Put the potatoes, skin on, into a pot, cover with cold water,
bring to a gentle boil and drain when cooked. Peal and mash
thoroughly. In a bowl, mix the mashed potato with 1 egg, a
pinch of salt, freshly ground black pepper, a dash of milk. Add
handfuls of grated mozzarella cheese, and all those bits of
cheese that have been languishing in the fridge, all diced thinly.
tionally, you can add small dices of bacon (lightly fried beforehand) or sliced mushrooms.
two
Op-
Mix well, than pour the mixture into an oven dish, coated in oil. Level the top surface, sprinkle generously
with grated parmesan cheese, garnish with tiny bits of butter. Bake at 200 degrees for half an hour, until a
light crust forms.
Serve as a robust side dish, or as a main in its own right. Buon appetito!
Acquacotta (Cartolina n. 219 - 27 June 2007)
This is a recipe from Tuscany, a winter soup by the intriguing name acquacotta (cooked water).
You need: 400 g fresh porcini, or a handful of dry porcini, revived in lukewarm water, all cut into half centimeter slices; 1
and a half litres of good stock, 1 TBSP Italian broadleaf parsley, finely shredded, 1 garlic clove, 2 eggs, 1 ladleful tomato
sauce, small slices of yesterday's bread, toasted, possibly a
Tuscan bread, or ciabatta. Plus, extra virgin olive oil, grated
parmesan cheese, salt and black pepper.
Coat a big enough pan in extra virgin olive oil, add the garlic and let it brown gently; then add the porcini
and let them brown. Add salt and pepper, stir, remove from the fire, cover with a lid, and let rest for 5
minutes. Now add the tomato sauce and the broth, return to the fire and cook for no more than 10 minutes. In a bowl beat the eggs, add and mix parmesan and parsley. Add all the mixture into the soup.
Prepare one or two slices of bread in each plate, pour the soup on top, and finish with a bit of olive oil
and more black pepper. What a wonderful way of keeping warm in winter!!!
Sformato di zucca, pumpkin flan. (Cartolina n. 216 - 16 May 2007)
Autumn is the season of pumpkin: it brings colour to the table in many different ways.
You need: 300g of peeled pumpkin, 2 eggs, 70g unsalted butter, 50g flour, 300ml milk (or more if necessary), 100g grated
gruyere cheese.
Cut the pumpkin into small pieces, boil them in salty water for
15 minutes. Drain and reduce to mush.Use butter, flour and
milk to prepare a b�chamel sauce in this way. Heat the milk
and keep it ready. In a small stainless steel pot melt butter with
flour on medium fire, then add the milk a bit at a time, always
stirring gently. The b�chamel must be quite consistent, but not
hard, so you'll have to decide on how much more milk you
need to add. At the end, retrieve from the fire, add a pinch of
salt, the gruyere, and mix well. Mix the b�chamel sauce with
the pumpkin, and let cool a bit, then add the two egg yolks, one
at a time. Now beat the two egg whites until stiff peaks form, and gently fold them into the mixture. Preheat the oven at 180 degrees, grease an oven pan with butter, pour the mixture and bake for 40 minutes.
This flan can be used as you prefer: as entree, as a side to a main, or as a 'piatto di mezzo', a dish in
between other ones; something to refresh your mouth with.
Apricot jam (Cartolina n. 212 - 21 March 2007)
Halve the apricots, discard the pips, weight the fruit. Cook the fruit in a stainless steel pot with one glass
of water for every kilogram of fruit, on low heat, mixing every so often.
When it's all soft, add HALF the weight in sugar, stir well, and keep cooking on very low fire, stirring, until
it gets the right consistency: it must drip from the spoon in a runny but continuous way.
Put the jam, still hot, into clean glass jars, close the lid and keep in a cold and dark place.
Coniglio con le olive / Rabbit with olives. (Cartolina n. 213 - 4 April 2007)
This is a traditional recipe from Liguria.
You need a rabbit, cut into pieces, a good handful of black
pitted olives, one peeled tomato, 2 garlic cloves, one rosemary sprig, half a glass of white wine, extra virgin olive oil,
salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Brown the rabbit pieces on all sides in extra virgin olive oil, on
medium fire. Cut finely (the mezzaluna is perfect) the garlic
cloves and the rosemary, add it to the rabbit, add the wine,
season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook for 15 minutes.
Dice the tomato and add it to the pot, with the olives. Cover
and cook 15 to 20 minutes. Serve the rabbit hot, as a main, accompanied by some polenta or roasted
veggies. If you accompany with salad, serve it in a separate plate. Buon appetito!