briciole

cannolo

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, cannolo (cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

In a previous post, I have briefly told the story of how I chanced to eat my first cannolo siciliano. Were it not for Daring Bakers, I don't think I would have tried to make this kind of cannoli at home. I know what a cannolo tastes like and knew from the beginning that I would not be able to come close to my memories, the best one being of eating countless miniature cannoli, where the ricotta filling was delicate, without candied fruit, the flavor of ricotta heavenly. That was a long time ago, during my first visit to Sicily. 

What I was not prepared for was disaster, in the form of my thermometer sliding into the 375 F-oil, which required the disposal of all of the oil as contaminated material. I am a notorious destroyer of thermometers. The one that ended up in the oil was a candy thermometer that I had broken open at the top. It still worked, except that when it slid into the pan, the hot oil penetrated inside and melted the measuring core. I decided not to give up: I went to the grocery store and got a new bottle of oil and a new thermometer.

In the meantime, the dough and I were not getting along. It was easy to roll and cut, but each piece sprang back to pre-rolled dimensions as soon as I let go of it. That was a problem, because I needed to shape the cannoli. I managed to get a couple of cannoli that reached the frying stage in decent shape. Frying (friggere) was not plain sailing either: before one minute was over, my first cannolo was burnt (leftmost in the photo). By reaction, the second cannolo ended up on the other side of the spectrum, called undercooked, and it puffed up beyond belief, because the dough was too thick, due to problem #1, about the dough, explained about (center in the photo).

I decided I would give it one more try. I shaped and fried an acceptable (give my lowered expectations) cannolo, filled it with my ricotta cream (more on this shortly), took a photo and served it to my husband. "The filling is good." What a sweet quality assurance professional he is! Of course, the filling was good: the homemade ricotta was freshly made (with milk as main ingredient, according to a recipe in the book The Home Creamery by Kathy Farrell-Kingsley, as mentioned in this post) and the candied orange peel was also of my own making, plus I used very good dark chocolate.

It was clear that the dough and I were not meant for each other. It was a sad farewell, because I didn't know what had not worked between us. Still disappointed by the unhappy ending of my adventure, I thought: "maybe this is a good time to try and make the other cannoli." Also called cannoncini (literally, small cannons), they are composed of a puff pastry shell filled with pastry or whipped cream, or variations thereof. I had my own puff pastry in the freezer, so it was easy to act upon my idea. I thawed a piece of the batch and implemented plan B. I cut a 12-inch long and 1-inch wide strip and rolled it around an oiled cannolo form, baked it at 375 F until golden, let cool, slid off the form and filled it with ricotta. I called it fusion dessert: cannolo siciliano filling in a cannolo shell. My husband smiled. He was not ecstatic, but happier than during the previous tasting.

I then made a couple of shells more in the cannolo siciliano shape, cutting a rectangle and uniting two opposing corners to close the loop. Finally, I made a few circles and prepared a sort of millefoglie. I split the baked circles in half to obtain six thinner circles and made two millefoglie out of three layers each, with some ricotta cream spread in between each layer. I know, it was a digression, but at least I can say that overall the exploration was not a total disaster.

You will find the recipe for the dough here. The recipe for puff pastry used in a previous edition of Daring Bakers is here. The recipe I used to make ricotta is described at the end of this post: it uses cultured buttermilk to acidify the milk and I used low-fat milk in it. This is not traditional ricotta, but I did not have time to make cheese before making cannoli to have the whey to make traditional ricotta. I drained the ricotta for two hours, then placed it in a bowl lined with some cloth to obtain a drier than usual consistency. The candied orange peel I made is not ready for prime time, so I defer discussion to a future post.

For the ricotta filling, I loosely followed the recipe here. I had 9.5 oz. of ricotta and sweetened it with 1 oz. of vanilla powdered sugar (zucchero vanigliato) and a tablespoon of agave nectar. I then added a scant tablespoon of candied orange peel, diced, and a tablespoon of finely chopped dark chocolate. I also added a dash of orange blossom water. I mixed all the ingredients well with a fork to achieve a creamy texture. 

A special thank you goes to our host for her choice and her efforts. Regardless of the bumps on the road, it was a valuable learning experience. I hope you will take the time to go around and look at the gorgeous creations of my talented fellow Daring Bakers.

Hear me pronounce the words on the cannolo audio file [mp3] or go to the cannolo audio page for more listening options.

cartolina da Perugia

postcard from Perugia

I have some more photos from my recent trip to Italy to share on this venue. We spent six days in my home town, Perugia, which is located in Umbria, the region sometimes referred to as "the green heart of Italy." Perugia is an incredibly beautiful city, and has a lot to offer to visitors. Even though I have walked around the downtown area ever since I could walk, I am not yet tired of doing so and of admiring the streets, the buildings, the works of art. Perugia's main square is called Piazza IV Novembre. At its center there is the Fontana Maggiore (XIII century, photo under the title), the most beautiful medieval fountain there is — a very personal opinion and you can quote me on this. The fountain has three basins and is decorated with beautiful sculptures and reliefs. The latter decorate the lower basin and come in pairs. Here you can see two of them. The one above shows the lion and the griffin (leone e grifone), the symbols of the city, which are echoed, so to speak, over the Gothic portal that provides access to the Sala dei Notari in the Palazzo dei Priori across from the fountain (photo on the left — this portion of the building dates back to the end of the XIII century). The pair on the right shows Romulus and Remus (Romolo e Remo), the brothers protagonists of Rome's foundation myth.

In the III century BC, the Etruscans built a boundary wall (le mura) all around the city: "three kilometers of travertine winding up and down across the steep sides of the hill. Rows of rectangular rough stone blocks laid without mortar form its characteristic structure, and long stretches are still visible." One of the gates is the Etruscan Arch (arco etrusco, photo above).

In the photo on the left, I am showing an example of a narrow and steep street in the downtown area.

From Piazza IV Novembre you can walk along Corso Vannucci, the city's main thoroughfare (pedestrian-only). When you reach the other end, Piazza Italia, you turn around and retrace your steps, all the time enjoying the people, the buildings, the shops, the atmosphere.  

One of the people on Corso Vannucci was a figure typical of this time of the year, il caldarrostaio, i.e., the seller of roasted chestnuts (caldarroste). The temperature having dropped suddenly and substantially (we went from summer to winter in a mere couple of days), he was doing well in terms of business. Roasted chestnuts warm not only your body but also your hands.

On the street parallel to Corso Vannucci, called Via Baglioni, there is a store I loved as a child and teenager, the latteria, where I used to buy fresh whipped cream to top pesche sciroppate (peaches in syrup, made by mother) or, when in season, fragole (strawberries) for our Sunday lunch dessert, and maritozzo con la panna for a sumptuous snack.

If you are interested in learning more about Perugia, on this page of the city's web site you will find a downloadable guidebook in several languages. Look also at the list of links on the left panel. Though the titles are only in Italian, on some of the relevant pages, you can find information in English as well. For example, the link Perugia nascosta (hidden Perugia) contains proposals for themed walks around the city.  

Hear me pronounce the words on the cartolina da Perugia audio file [mp3] or go to the cartolina da Perugia audio page for more listening options.

zucchina trombetta

summer squash "Trombetta"
If you see a vegetable of this lovely color and interesting shape, you must get it, right? And that is what I did. I am not referring to the eggplant (melanzana), but to the zucchina embracing it. Once I had it in my basket, I knew I would cook some of it with the eggplant and make a soup with the rest. I read that zucchina trombetta (or zucca trombetta) belongs to the species Cucurbita moschata (as does butternut squash).

The following week, I eagerly sought another specimen of zucchina trombetta, but had to wait another week for my provider to have two more zucchine to bring to the market, one of them elegantly shaped like a letter S. They were so pretty it was almost a pity to slice them and cook them. But cook them I did, and another pot of soup was the result.

The lady who grew the zucchine is happy with the result of her experiment, so I am hoping there will be more zucchine trombetta next year, as in any case, this is the end of the season. She and I have been talking also about other interesting kinds of squash, like the zucchina lunga typical of Sicily.

The zucchina trombetta is typical of Liguria (Albenga, to be precise). Its light and bright green color is a pleasure to the eyes. The flesh is pale in color and firm in texture, without seeds. I am sure it is great in many dishes, but probably because the weather turned cold and rainy, soup was what captured my imagination.

I wanted to taste the zucchina's flavor as much as possible, so I kept other ingredients to a minimum. I chopped half of a rather large red onion (cipolla rossa) and cooked it in a bit of warm olive oil while I was slicing the zucchine (about 1.5 lbs out of the total weight). I added four cups of liquid, which included a bit more than a cup of homemade vegetable stock and the liquid leftover from cooking some beans (about half a cup). The rest was water. As I mentioned before, I like my soups quite dense, so I tend to hold the liquid at this stage and add more, if needed, after I have puréed the vegetables. I brought the soup to a boil and then cooked for half an hour, until the vegetable were soft. At this point I added the leaves of a twig of fresh marjoram (maggiorana) and salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste and stirred.

I puréed the soup with my immersion blender and when I tasted it to adjust the seasoning, I was very pleased with the result, in terms of flavor, texture and color. I served it once with some whole-grain Ethiopian barley cooked in my pressure cooker (more on this in an upcoming post) and another time with slices of my homemade bread, lightly toasted.

This is my contribution to edition #209 of Weekend Herb Blogging, an event started by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen, now administered by Haalo of Cook (Almost) Anything At Least Once and hosted this week by Astrid of Paulchen's Foodblog.

Here is the roundup of the event.

Hear me pronounce the words on the zucchina trombetta audio file [mp3] or go to the zucchina trombetta audio page for more listening options.

Novel Food #9: the finale (one serving)

We've "fallen back" more than a week ago, had some rain and watched furious waves crash ashore on Saturday. This all means winter is fast approaching on our hemisphere, bringing with it chilly evenings, when it is wonderful to curl up on the couch, wrapped in a warm blanket, in the company of a good book. If your reading list could use some new entries, here we are to provide you interesting suggestions. Each of the titles featured here has inspired the preparation of a dish: isn't that by itself a great recommendation?

Lisa of Champaign Taste and I started Novel Food as a literary/culinary event two years ago and we had fun organizing another edition. This time, it is going to be a cozy getting together around a fireplace, where we talk literature and food. Without further ado, I will introduce half of the contributions, while Lisa will present the other half. Sit down, relax, and enjoy this fireside chat about books and food.

Ruhama of rumahama carries us in the special world of literature for children. The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner "is great for elementary aged kids (and perfect for a read-aloud, making it good for preschoolers, too)." Four children run away, "find an abandoned boxcar on an unused portion of tracks in the woods and turn it into their home." The children show a good dose of creativity in making use of limited resources to organize their life, including meals: "Henry makes a meal out of thinnings from the doctor's garden, and when I started pulling up carrots from our garden, I knew immediately I had to incorporate them somehow with this novel."

Ruhama's carrots look adorable and they end up in a beautiful Pistou Soup. Visit her blog to read more details about the book and the soup and to see more photos, then come back here for the next morsel.

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With Sandi of Whistlestop Cage Cooking we are transported in the world of Fannie Flagg, the beloved southern writer who "paints a picture of every sleepy southern town." In Redbird Christmas, we learn about Little River "just in time for the holidays." The pie Sandi was inspired to make, Mildred's Key Lime Pie, is not a predictable holiday pie, because "with Mildred you never knew which way she was going to jump from one minute to the next."

I don't know about you, but I think key lime pie is excellent any time of the year, so hop over to Sandi's blog to take a close look at her post, then come back here for the next bit.

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Food rationing going during World War II made cakes the subject of dreams. For Arthur Rowe, protagonist of Graham Greene's The Ministry of Fear, the dream comes true when he wins a "magnificent cake" at a fund-raising fair. And Susan, The Well-Seasoned Cook, was inspired by Rowe's magnificent cake to make a dream of a Dundee Cake, rich in spices and dried fruit. "Life, unfortunately for Arthur Rowe, was never wistfully sweeter than during the brief respite of a seemingly innocent cake in an era when loyalty and love were especially unkind."

Go over to Susan's blog to read more about Greene's novel and get the details of the special cake, then come back here for another sample.

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Simona of briciole, co-host of the event (that would be me), was inspired by a recipe (without quantities) in the novel Tattoo by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán to prepare la caldeirada di Pepe Carvalho (Pepe Carvalho's caldeirada), a personal rendition of Portuguese fish stew. The novel describes Carvalho first shopping for the ingredients and then preparing the dish for a solitary, fireside dinner devoted to meditation on recent events. 

Navigate to the post to learn a bit more about Carvalho and his author and the details of the recipe (to which I added my personal touch of gougères) then come back here for another taste.

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My partner in the event, Lisa of Champaign Taste was inspired by Jeannette Walls' Half Broke Horses, a "true-life novel," as the author describes it. "The book is a lightly fictionalized account of the life of Walls' grandmother, Lily Casey Smith," who was born in West Texas in 1901. Later, she moved to New Mexico and then Arizona. The story is told in first person and is full of adventures.

Lisa enjoyed the novel, which inspired her to prepare "the classic Mexican breakfast": huevos rancheros ("ranch-style" or "country-style" eggs). I didn't know that "Ranchero sauce is the cowboys' ketchup."

You have not one, but two reasons to go over to Lisa's blog now: to read the details of her dish and the book that inspired its making, and to enjoy the other portion of the roundup. When you are done enjoying the offerings there, come back here for some parting words.

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I hope you had fun reading the two portions of the roundup of this edition of Novel Food. Many thanks to all who contributed to our event and to my partner Lisa.

The next edition of our event will be in the spring: we will announce it on our blogs and on other venues, so stay tuned. In the meantime, read good books (maybe with the next Novel Food in mind), cook good dishes, and otherwise enjoy the time of the year.

Novel Food #9: la caldeirada di Pepe Carvalho

Pepe Carvalho's caldeirada

I am not sure why it has taken me so long to read a novel by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán featuring Pepe Carvalho, but recently, I finally did it. I have known for a while the connection between Montalbano and Montalbán, though it was only when I started writing this post that I learned the details. In this interview (in Italian), Camilleri explains (my translation of the transcript):

I came up with the protagonist's name, because while I was writing the novel, I was reading a novel by Vázquez Montalbán, The Pianist. The structure of that novel gave me the intuition of how to restructure The Brewer from Preston. I started to work like crazy: on one side I was writing the Montalbano novel and on the other, I was restructuring The Brewer knowing that it was the right way to go. And so, to show my gratitude, I called my protagonist, who at that point still had no name, Montalbano, which by the way is a Sicilian last name.

(Note: The Pianist does not feature Pepe Carvalho. The first Montalbano novel is The Shape of Water.)  Camilleri and Montalbán knew each other and they knew Jean-Claude Izzo (whom I am reading and enjoying as I write). Here's an excerpt from an article on Camilleri in the LA Times:

Camilleri has plenty of ideas and a dozen manuscripts in the pipeline. The last installment of the Montalbano series is ready for publication upon the author's demise or incapacitation.

Camilleri wrote it as the result of a conversation in Paris years ago with two fellow mystery writers: Manuel Vázquez Montalbán of Spain and Jean-Claude Izzo of France. The three old friends amused themselves discussing how they would do away with their sleuths one day. Vázquez Montalbán and Izzo have since passed away.

While I was in Italy last month, I decided it was high time I met Carvalho and so, during a visit to a bookstore, I purchased Tatuaggio (Italian translation of the original Tatuaje, Tattoo in English), the 1976 novel where the famous detective is introduced. (I read here that Montalbán had used the name in an earlier novel, but it is in Tattoo that Carvalho takes on a rounded personality.) Note: the quotes from the book that follow are my translation into English of the Italian translation I read (I have no real knowledge of Spanish). The one exception is noted.

Carvalho lives in Barcelona, a city I have never visited, though now I feel I have seen it a bit through the detective's wanderings around some of the city's neighborhoods. Carvalho likes to eat good food, drink good wine and he also cooks. One could draw a comparison between Carvalho and Montalbano in terms of their attitude towards food, but I didn't. I actually never thought about Montalbano while I was reading Carvalho's adventure. The story completely engaged my attention and I enjoyed Montalbán's writing style a lot. I am looking forward to reading another one of the Carvalho's books soon.

Back to Tattoo, the title of the novel refers to a peculiar tattoo on the body of a man pulled out of the sea, which says "born to raise hell in hell" (in Italian: sono nato per rivoluzionare l'inferno). The man's face is so badly destroyed that the tattoo provides the only clue for identifying him. Carvalho follows the tattoo thread and the reader follows him in his voyage of discovery, which at some point brings him away from his Barcelona to Amsterdam and Rotterdam. In the process, we learn about Carvalho's heritage, some of his work experience, his current way of living and his philosophy of life.

Early on in the novel, Carvalho cooks (for himself only) some caldeirada, and I decided to follow his example to the letter, i.e., to cook the dish strictly according to the words in my copy of the book, without consulting any other source. It was not a straightforward task, considering that Carvalho completely overlooks details such as quantity of the ingredients, and is very sparse in his description of the cooking procedure.

The only thing I looked up was the name of the dish, and in so doing I discovered that caldeirada is a traditional Portuguese fish stew (zuppa di pesce). Montalbán introduces the dish as la particolare caldeirada di Pepe Carvalho (Pepe Carvalho's special caldeirada), indicating that what follows is Carvalho's personal variation on the theme of caldeirada.

In preparation for the meal, Carvalho shops at the Boqueria Market and buys some fresh monkfish and hake (coda di rospo e merluzzo freschi) and some prawns (gamberoni). He also purchases "a handful of clams ad mussels," but then he does not use them in making caldeirada. Based on what was available at the store, I bought sturgeon, true cod and prawns. I made the recipe twice. The first time I made fish stock (more on this shortly) and used certain quantities of the ingredients. The result was good, but could use some improvements, so I made it again with the changes I thought would improve the end result, and I obtained a very nice dinner entrée.

The recipe as given in the book starts with the preparation of fish stock:

He cleaned the fish and peeled the prawns. He boiled the fish bones and red shells together with an onion, a tomato, some garlic, a ñora, a celery rib and a bit of leek. Fish stock was essential to make Pepe Carvalho's special caldeirada.

While writing this post, I found this quote of the recipe¹ and decided to mention ñora, which, according to online sources, is a sun-dried red pepper (of variety bola) with a characteristic flavor. The Italian text says peperoncino rosso piccante (red hot chili pepper), and that is what I used (I had some from Italy), in small quantity. If I find some ñora, I will be able to evaluate how the result differs.

Back to the recipe, the question here is: how much water did he use? And for how long did he boil the stock? I decided that since I was making fish stock, I would make a bunch and freeze it for later use. Carvalho adds a ladleful of the stock to his caldeirada, but I think that he must have made more than that, as a ladleful of water is not enough to cover the vegetables he lists. In thee end, I used six cups of water and, after bringing to a boil, I simmered the prawn shells and vegetables (a tomato, half a medium onion, 2 cloves of garlic, a very small red chili pepper cut into 3 pieces, a celery rib, a piece of leek, sliced), uncovered, for close to one hour, as I was preparing the ingredients for the dish and then cooking them. My fish was already clean, so I only used the prawns' shells. I actually asked the fishmonger for some fish bones and was told that they get the fish already cleaned.  

To realize the caldeirada, I made more executive decisions. These are the ingredients I used:

• half a medium onion (4 oz.), sliced thin using a mandoline
• a very small red hot chili pepper (peperoncino rosso piccante), cut into 3 pieces
• 1 lb tomatoes, San Marzano-like, diced
• two Devina potatoes (8 oz.), unpeeled, diced small (Yukon can be substituted)
• four prawns, peeled and de-veined
• a bit less than 2/3 lb true cod fillet, cut into large cubes
• a bit more than 1/3 lb sturgeon fillet, cut into large cubes
• a ladleful of fish stock (prepared as described above)
• salt, to taste

While the stock was simmering, Carvalho prepared a sofrito with tomatoes, onion and ñora. When the sofrito had acquired the right consistency, he stewed in it the potatoes. Then added the prawns to the pot, the monkfish and finally the hake. The fish browned slightly, released some water that mixed itself with the sofrito. At that point Carvalho added a ladleful of fish stock. Within ten minutes, the caldeirada was ready.

Carvalho proceeds to eat it straight out of the pot, sitting in front of the fireplace (where he has previously lit a fire using a book taken out of his library, because he could not find a newspaper around his house), drinking chilled Fefiñanes with it.

I followed Carvalho's recipe, improvising a bit as I went along. I used a deep sauté pan, where I let the onion and chili pepper cook in warm olive oil for a couple of minutes, while I diced the tomatoes. I let the vegetables cook for 5 minutes, covered, then added the potatoes. After 10 minutes, I added the prawns, then after a minute the sturgeon and, after another minute, the cod. Soon after, I poured over the stew a ladleful of the hot fish stock. Once the fish was ready (in my case, in less than 10 minutes), I added salt to taste and served immediately.

I think some country-style bread is a required accompaniment for caldeirada (and fish stew in general). The second time I made it, I served it with a couple of my own gougères as topping. Would Carvalho have liked my rendition of his recipe? I don't know, but my husband and I certainly did and I am sure we will have la caldeirada di Pepe Carvalho again on our dinner table.

Parting note: After dinner, Carvalho drinks a cup of coffee, prepared the way he had learned in the United States. I served homemade gelato al caffè for dessert. I am afraid, dear Pepe, that there is no contest for this part of the meal.

This is my contribution to the ninth edition of Novel Food, the literary/culinary event that Lisa of Champaign Taste and have been co-hosting for some time. A conversation on the food in Montalbano's novels gave us the idea of marrying literature and food in a blog event.

The deadline for sending us your literary-inspired culinary creation is tomorrow, Saturday, November 7, 2009, midnight (Pacific Time).

My portion of the roundup is here.

¹ The post referenced states that the excerpt comes from the book Las Recetas de Carvalho (Carvalho's recipes), which appears to quote verbatim the passage in Tatuaje that is the subject of my post.

Hear me pronounce the words on the la caldeirada di Pepe Carvalho audio file [mp3] or go to the la caldeirada di Pepe Carvalho audio page for more listening options.

gougères al gouda

gouda gougères (cheese puffs)
[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano]

The immediate inspiration for making gougères was a mention in Peter Mayle’s French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork and Corkscrew, the book chosen for the current edition of Cook the Books. In the chapter devoted to tasting wine in Burgundy, I read the following:

Our host took pity on us and led us upstairs to the tasting room, where bottles and glasses were laid out next to plates of gougères. These are small, light, delicious nuggets of cheese-flavored puff pastry that have the effect of softening and thus improving the taste of young wine in the mouth. They are also salty enough to encourage a healthy thirst.

Though the "delicious nuggets" Mayle describes are made of puff pastry, gougères are made with choux pastry. Here's the definition of gougère that I found in the online Larousse dictionary: Pâtisserie en pâte à chou salée, additionnée d'œuf et de gruyère et cuite au four.

I don't drink wine (regrettably, I don't have a palate for it) and what came before and after the gougères did not make a lasting impression on me. But the word gougères printed on the page reminded me that I had wanted to try to make them for some time. A while ago, a recipe by David Lebovitz had allowed me to produce very nice bignè (cream puffs), so I looked at the same source for help in the savory realm and I found the desired recipe (thank you, David!), for what in Italian can be described as piccoli bignè salati al formaggio (small, cheese-flavored savory puffs).

I made the recipe three times, always using my homemade cheese (formaggio fatto in casa). The first time, I used colby cheese, because that was the one I had on hand, and it worked well. The second and third time, I wanted the gougères to go with Roasted Pumpkin-Apple Soup (a bowl of which is featured in the photo), so a sweet Gouda cheese seemed perfect. I think it was a good choice.

Gouda was the first hard cheese I made in early September, after taking a little break from that activity during the summer. (I did make soft cheese, though, like fromage blanc.) Gouda is a washed-curd cheese, meaning that during the period when the curds are slowly heated, some of the whey is removed and substituted with water. I aged my little wheel of Gouda cheese for six weeks. (The photo on the right shows the drying Gouda cheese.)

I made a couple of changes to the original recipe:

• I weighed the grated Gouda cheese after grating it (with my beloved grattugia) and used 2.5 oz. 
• I did not sprinkle cheese on top of the gougères (only added it to the batter).
• I used four (quite long) fresh chives (erba cipollina) from my herb garden, instead of 12, as I was afraid they would provide too strong a taste (as I said above, my Gouda cheese is rather delicate in flavor).

I was very satisfied with both the texture and the special flavor imparted by my homemade cheese to this savory French finger food, so much so that I decided to pair gouda gougères with another dish, but that's a story for another day. 

This is my contribution to the fifth edition of Cook the Books, hosted by Jo of Food Junkie Not Junk Food. You can find the guidelines for participating in the event here, and here is the announcement of the current edition.

You will find the roundup of the event here.

Hear me pronounce the words on the gougères al gouda audio file [mp3] or go to the gougères al gouda audio page for more listening options.

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Per i lettori italiani. L'ispirazione a preparare le gougères è stata la menzione che ne fa Peter Mayle nel suo libro Lezioni di francese. Avventure con coltello, forchetta e flûte (interessante notare come il cavatappi del titolo originale sia diventato flûte in quello della versione italiana), il libro scelto per l'attuale edizione dell'evento Cook the Books. Nel capitolo dedicato all'assaggio di vino in Borgogna, Mayle menziona vassoi di gougères, "piccoli e leggeri bocconcini di pasta sfoglia con formaggio." I "bocconcini" che Mayle descrive sono fatti con la pasta sfoglia, ma di fatto le gougères sono piccoli bignè salati al formaggio e quindi sono fatte con quella che in francese si chiama pâte à chou. Questa è la definizione che ho trovato nel dizionario Larousse online: Pâtisserie en pâte à chou salée, additionnée d'œuf et de gruyère et cuite au four.

Non bevo vino (purtroppo, il mio palato non lo apprezza) e quello che nel capitolo viene prima e dopo le gougères non ha lasciato alcun segno nella mia memoria. Ma la parola gougères stampata sulla pagina mi ha ricordato che da tempo volevo preparare questi bignè salati al formaggio. Qualche tempo fa, una ricetta di David Lebovitz ha dato come risultato degli ottimi bignè che poi ho riempito di crema, così ho consultato lo stesso blog per ottenere aiuto in ambito salato e ho trovato la ricetta che cercavo (grazie infinite, David!).

Ho fatto le gougères tre volte, sempre usando il mio formaggio fatto in casa. La prima volta ho usato del colby, perché era ciò che avevo disponibile, e ha funzionato bene. La seconda e terza volta volevo servire le gougères con Roasted Pumpkin-Apple Soup (crema di zucca e mele cotte al forno, ritratta nella foto a sinistra) e il dolce gouda mi sembrava la scelta giusta. Questa formetta di gouda è il primo formaggio a pasta dura che ho fatto, all'inizio di settembre, dopo aver interrotto brevemente tale attività durante il periodo estivo. (Ho continuato a fare formaggi freschi come fromage blanc.) La mia formetta di gouda l'ho lasciata invecchiare 6 settimane. (Nella foto si vede la forma durante il periodo di asciugatura.)

Ho apportato un paio di piccole modifiche alla ricetta originale:

• Ho pesato il gouda grattugiato e ne ho utilizzato 70 g.
• Non ho messo il formaggio sulla superficie delle gougères, ma solo nell'impasto.
  
• Ho usato 4 fili (piuttosto lunghi) di erba cipollina dal mio orticello, invece di 12, perché temevo un sapore troppo forte insieme al mio gouda delicato.

Sono molto soddisfatta del risultato ottenuto, sia in termini di struttura dei piccoli bignè salati sia del sapore impartito loro dal mio formaggio fatto in casa, tanto è vero che ho scelto le gougères al gouda per accompagnare anche un altro piatto, ma è questa una storia per un altro giorno.