briciole

zuppa di zucca e carote

winter squash and carrot soup

I told you I still have some winter squashes in my storage room, so here is another great soup I made with them and with carrots, of which I bought a bunch, greens and all, from the Temescal farmers' market in Oakland, a relatively small market that has interesting vendors and, most importantly, runs year-round.

I actually made this soup twice. The first time (photo above), I used a butternut squash, but did not weigh any of the ingredients, which is not a problem until you want to share the recipe. I liked the soup a lot, so it was easy to decide to make it again and do so with the scales ready. For the second rendition, I picked a different squash and should have photographed it before roasting it, because it was really a sight. Fortunately, I found a good image on this page, where its name is also given: Black Futsu. Don't let its rough surface intimidate you: Black Futsu squash has a flavorful flesh under those ribs.

The flesh is golden color and has the rich taste of hazelnuts... The black fruit will turn a rich chestnut color in storage. It is a particularly long keeper (up to 8 months). This heirloom variety originally from Japan has a high yield, a unique appearance and an uncommon flavor.

Printer-friendly version of briciole's recipe for zuppa di zucca e carote

Ingredients:

• a winter squash of your choice, yielding 2.5 lbs cooked squash
• 3/4 lb carrots
• 4-5 garlic cloves, unpeeled
• olive oil
  
• 6 oz. onion (cipolla), chopped
  
• 1 celery rib (leaves included, if present), chopped
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin (possibly from freshly toasted and ground seeds)
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves (chiodi digarofano)
  
• 3 cups homemade light chicken stock or vegetable stock
• 2.5-3 cups water, plus as needed to bring the soup to the desired consistency
• salt (sale) and freshly ground black pepper (pepe nero), to taste

Heat the oven to 375 F. Pierce the squash with a blade in a few places, place it on a baking sheet lined with a silicone baking mat, and bake it for 15 minutes. This makes it easier to cut it in half. Let the squash cool slightly, cut it in half lengthwise and remove the seeds (a grapefruit spoon is my preferred tool for this task). Put the garlic cloves into the cavity of one of the two squash halves and place both halves on the silicone baking mat, cut side down. (I learned to bake garlic with squash this way from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.) Put back in the oven and bake for 10 minutes.

In the meantime, prepare the carrots. I don't peel them, but simply scrub them well, scrape off the thin skin with a knife, then rinse them. Cut carrots into 1/4"-thick slices and spray a bit of olive oil on them. Take the baking sheet with the squash out of the oven and distribute the carrots on it, if there is space. Otherwise, use another baking sheet, but try to bake all the vegetables at the same time, for energy efficiency's sake. Take the carrots out of the oven after 30 minutes. At that time, check the squash and, if necessary, bake it longer, until you can easily pierce it with a knife. Let the squash cool and then scrape the flesh off the skin, again using a grapefruit spoon. Peel the garlic cloves and set them aside.

Warm up some olive oil in a soup pot and add onion and celery. After 3-4 minutes, cover the pot and let the vegetables cook for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Add cumin, smoked paprika and cloves to onion and celery, stir, then add squash, carrots, stock, and water to cover the vegetables. Cover the pot, bring to a boil and cook for 25 minutes. Add the garlic cloves, then purée with an immersion blender. Add more water, if needed, to make the soup reach the desired consistency. Adjust salt and pepper to your taste.

I have found that this soup profits from some rest, so I suggest you make it a few hours ahead, then reheat it. Serve with homemade bread and/or cheese crisps. The ones in the photo were made with my homemade Tilsit, which worked nicely.

To make the cheese crisps, heat the oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat. Take a tablespoon of grated cheese, like parmigiano-reggiano, and place it on the silicone baking mat. With a fingertip, spread cheese into a disk of about 3" diameter. Repeat a few times, making sure to leave at least one inch between the disks. Bake until the cheese melts, 3 to 4 minutes (check after 3 minutes and bake half or a minute longer, if necessary). Lift crisps delicately with a spatula and let cool. Serve with hot soup. I suggest establishing a per capita share in advance. In my experience, these crisps have a tendency to disappear faster than the speed of light.

As long as we are having one storm after another dumping rain on us, a hot soup is what I want for dinner.

This is my submission for the first edition of Creative Concoctions, an event created by Ivy of Kopiaste..to Greek Hospitality that will have two editions per month. This post contains the roundup of the event.

This is also my submission for Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays, a weekly event created by Deb of Kahakai Kitchen. This post contains the roundup of the event.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

zuppa di zucca e carote

or launch the zuppa di zucca e carote audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

hummus ai carciofi

artichoke hummus

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano]

This is a spread I had had in mind to make for a while. I saw it somewhere on the web, but I can't remember where: I only remember that it was a hummus made also with artichokes.

I like artichokes a lot. My mother made them often, when they were in season: artichoke frittata and carciofi alla giudia (Jewish-style) were often on the table. The important ingredient in the latter is mentuccia, a type of mint that grows wild. According to my mother, there was no substitute for it, so we went out looking for it in a place where she knew it grew.

When I moved to Milan, I learned to appreciate risotto coi carciofi and raw artichokes, sliced thinly and added to salads. Artichokes are grown extensively in California, but I have never found an artichoke that would be comparable to the ones I ate in Italy. After many attempts, and many disappointments, I am currently taking a break. So, to make this recipe, I resorted to canned artichoke hearts (cuori di carciofo). I like that they are preserved in just water and salt¹. As for the chickpeas (ceci), I cooked them from scratch. In the absence of mentuccia, I picked some orange mint from the pot where I planted it last year. I really like its citrusy notes.

Printer-friendly version of briciole's recipe for hummus ai carciofi

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup dry chickpeas, cooked as explained here, skinned (optional, but nice), and drained [check the chickpeas half an hour after the simmering started to estimate how much longer they need to cook]
• 1/2 can artichoke hearts [preserved in water and salt] (4 and a half, 4.25 oz. dry weight), drained
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin (cumino) from freshly toasted seeds [you may need to increase this a bit, if your cumin is not strongly flavored]
• a garlic clove (spicchio d'aglio)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoon freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice
• a few leaves of fresh orange mint (Menta piperita citrata) [I used the tips of two twigs; given the intense flavor of this herb, it is better to start with a small amount and add more if necessary]
• chickpea broth, as needed
• salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• chopped dry roasted and salted hazelnuts (nocciole) as topping, to taste

Place in the food processor the first 7 ingredients above and process until smooth. Add some of the chickpea broth as needed to make the hummus reach the desired consistency. Adjust salt and pepper and possibly the other flavorings to your taste. Place in a covered container and refrigerate until close to serving time. Spoon into a serving bowl and sprinkle some hazelnuts on the surface. Serve with bread of your choice and with additional hazelnuts. (Note that the recipe makes quite a bit more of what you see in the photo above.)

The spread has a delicate flavor and you can taste all the ingredients, which is very nice. Originally, I had not included the hazelnut topping, but the spread lacked a little something, so I decided to put on the table a small bowl of finelly chopped toasted and salted hazelnuts. With that, the hummus was perfect. We enjoyed it spread over slices of my homemade challah.

The post allows me to show you my first 6-strand challah, of which I am very proud (I usually make a 5-braid challah). As mentioned before, the recipe comes from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day, which I follow fairly closely. Reinhart suggests a mix of sesame seeds and poppy seeds (semi di sesamo e semi di papavero) as topping and as you can see, the result is very nice (By the way, the poppy seeds come from the poppies that grow in my garden.)

This is my contribution to this month's edition of Healing Foods. The event is organized by Siri of Cooking with Siri and the current edition is hosted by Vanessa of Sweet Artichoke, who chose the theme. This post contains the roundup of the event.

I am also sending this post to Tin Can Recipes, a monthly event that will run until the end of this year. The organizers are Ale, Fra, Sere and Paola of Il Giardino degli Aromi and Brii of Briggis recept och ideer and Briiblog in English. The rules for participating are detailed on this page. This post contains the roundup of the event.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

hummus ai carciofi

or launch the hummus ai carciofi audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

¹ The can of artichoke hearts in the photo is for information only: it is not an advertisement. I do not have a business relationship with the product's company.

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Per i lettori italiani

L'hummus è una crema di ceci tipica del Medio Oriente. Questa è una variante nella quale ai ceci ho unito i carciofi. L'idea di usare i carciofi non è mia originale: tempo fa lessi da qualche parte il titolo della ricetta "hummus ai carciofi," ma non mi ricordo dove e non mi ricordo i dettagli. Quindi, quando ho deciso di realizzare l'idea, ho messo insieme gli ingredienti basandomi su esperienze precedenti con l'hummus preparato solo con i ceci.

Ingredienti:

• 100 g circa di ceci secchi, cotti come spiegato qui (controllate i ceci dopo mezz'ora dall'inizio della cottura con gli odori per stimare quanto tempo manca) o come fate di solito, poi scolati
  
• 4,5 cuori di carciofo, conservati in acqua, scolati (peso secco 120 g)
• 1/2 cucchiaino (2,5 ml) di cumino in polvere (consiglio di tostare i semi a macinarli freschi: il sapore è molto più intenso)
• uno spicchio d'aglio
• 1 cucchiaio (15 ml) di olio d'oliva
• 2 cucchiai (30 ml) di succo di limone Meyer fresco [alternativamente potete usare un cucchiaio di succo di limone e uno di succo d'arancio oppure un cucchiaio e mezzo di succo di limone]
• alcune foglioline di Menta piperita citrata fresca [dato il sapore intenso della menta, consiglio di usare una piccola quantità e aggiungerne se necessario]
• un po' di brodo di cottura dei ceci
• sale e pepe macinato fresco, a seconda dei vostri gusti
• nocciole tostate a secco e salate e sbriciolate distribuite sulla superficie

Frullare i primi 7 ingredienti fino ad ottenere una crema morbida. Se necessario, aggiungere un po' del brodo di cottura dei ceci per ottenere la consistenza desiderata. Correggere sale, pepe a seconda dei propri gusti e, se necessario, le altre spezie. Mettere l'hummus in un contenitore coperto e porre in frigo fino a poco prima di servirlo. Mettere un po' di hummus in un ciotola da servizio e distribuire sulla superficie le nocciole. Servire insieme ad un piattino con altre nocciole. (La ricetta produce molto più hummus di quello che si vede nella foto in alto.)

Questo hummus ha un sapore delicato che lascia spazio a tutti gli ingredienti. Noi lo abbiamo mangiato spalmato su fettine di challah fatto in casa. Challah è un pane tradizionale ebraico fatto con uova e olio, a forma di treccia semplice oppure complessa, la cui superficie è spennellata d'uovo e quindi ha un bel colore dorato intenso. La ricetta che uso io viene dal libro di Peter Reinhart Artisan Breads Every Day. Per l'occasione ho fatto una treccia a sei capi (di solito la faccio a 5 capi) e devo dire che sono contenta del risultato. Per la decorazione, Reinhart suggerisce un misto di semi di sesamo e di papavero e io uso i semi che ho raccolto dai papaveri del mio giardino.

Con questo post contribuisco all'evento Healing Foods. organizzato da Siri di Cooking with Siri e la cui edizione corrente è ospitata da Vanessa di Sweet Artichoke, la quale ha scelto il tema: carciofi. Questo post contiene il riepilogo dell'evento.

Contribuisco anche all'evento Tin Can Recipes dedicato alla celebrazione dei 200 anni del cibo in scatola. L'organizzazione dell'evento è di Ale, Fra, Sere e Paola del blog Il Giardino degli Aromi e di Brii che scrive Briggis recept och ideer e Briiblog in English. Le regole per partecipare le trovate su questa pagina. Questo post contiene il riepilogo dell'evento.

¹ La scatola di cuori di carciofo nella foto è solo a titolo informativo; non è una pubblicità. Non ho alcun rapporto commerciale con l'azienda produttrice.

coffee cake con cioccolato e nocciole

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

On this page, you will find the details of the recipe, including various suggestions for the filling.

I really like the description of the recipe source: "Jamie found this recipe on a piece of yellowed paper in her dad’s collection of clipped out and hand-written recipes from the 1970’s, no source, no date, and she tried the recipe and it was brilliant!"

I struggled a bit to come up with the title for the post. A cake made to be served with caffè is alien to the Italian tradition of drinking coffee by itself, either at the end of a meal or first thing in the morning, or during a coffee break. In the end, I decided to leave the English name. Also, the original recipe name mentions that the cake is leavened with yeast (lievito secco) and that it includes a meringue (meringa). I decided to omit those from the post title and highlight instead the two main ingredients of the filling.

When I saw the photo of the coffee cake we were challenged to make, I noticed that it resembled Stollen, the German Christmas cake that we made last December. I enjoyed making Stollen a lot, so I had high hopes for the yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake. I was not disappointed. Here are the adjustments I applied to the given recipe:

• I halved the quantities and made a single cake
  
• I used 1 teaspoon of instant yeast instead of active dry yeast
• I added saffron (zafferano) to the dough, even though I didn't make Ria's version of the cake
  
• I opted for a filling of 70% cocoa chocolate (cioccolato) and hazelnuts (nocciole)
• I omitted cinnamon and sugar from the filling
• I baked the cake using the convection bake option of my oven (forno) [which does the temperature adjustment automatically]
  

Everything went smoothly and the cake that came out of the oven looked quite nice. As usual, the minimalist in me made me stay away from special decorations. The egg wash gave to the cake a nice surface color, which, unfortunately, I was not able to capture properly with the camera. Of the many photos I took, only the one above was good enough for sharing. The coffee cake received an enthusiastic endorsement from my husband.

In a recent post, I showed the variation on the theme of French toast below, where I used some of my homemade English-style Coulommiers as topping. I mentioned that something else made the dish special and now I can reveal the secret: I made it using slices of the last piece of coffee cake.

A special thank you goes to our hosts for their choice and efforts. It was a very nice challenge. I hope you will take the time to go around and look at the creative output of my talented fellow Daring Bakers.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

coffee cake con cioccolato e nocciole

or launch the coffee cake con cioccolato e nocciole audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

sorbetto al mango

mango sorbet

For the current edition of Cook the Books, we are reading Ann Vanderhoof’s An Embarrassment of Mangoes: A Caribbean Interlude. In the book, Vanderhoof recounts her and her husband's voyage from Toronto to the West Indies in their sailboat, Receta. An interesting voyage, certainly, though not one I would like to embark upon, for various reasons, the first one being that, while I am completely comfortable in the water, I am a lot less so on a boat.

Besides sailors, divers also enjoy visiting the Caribbean. A little piece of my heart is in that part of the world, on Little Cayman, the smallest of the Cayman Islands. We visited it the first time during our honeymoon and have returned every year ever since. During our second visit, we obtained our open-water certification and became divers. I am not yet an underwater photographer, so I have no photos of the island's famous dive sites and their inhabitants. However, if you are interested, here are a couple of videos I found on YouTube, which should give you a sense of what it means to "dive the wall":

• Bloody Bay Wall (the statement about the restaurant is not quite accurate)
• Marilyn's Cut
• Great Wall West

By the way, turtles are noisy when they feed. And eagle rays are amazingly elegant. If you keep still, they may swim very close to you (and truly make your day).

Of the places along Vanderhoof's route, we visited Dominica. Besides diving (on the Caribbean side of the island), during our stay, we did a fair amount of hiking in the rain forest. Dominica is a beautiful volcanic island. While there, one evening, we saw a moonbow, a.k.a. lunar rainbow, which is "produced by light reflected off the surface of the moon rather than from direct sunlight" (source: Wikipedia). We went whale watching on a fishing boat and at some point we found ourselves surrounded by a pod of them (I counted eight whales), standing still on the surface, an utterly amazing experience. We saw beautiful nature both on land and underwater (for example, we dove a nice site called Champagne on New Year's Day). We will not go back, though, as other things of our trip left us with less than pleasant memories. You can see some photos of Dominica on this page of Ann Vanderhoof's site.

As you know, the Caribbean area is subject to hurricanes. In recent years, Little Cayman has been hit more than once and has recovered quite well every time. The resort where we stay (Pirate's Point) is closed during hurricane season. However, we have been there many times during the Holidays and winter can serve you some fairly bad weather. One Christmas Day, this is what we saw from the back porch of our room:

It's a waterspout. The most amazing thing was that a couple of hours after this photo was taken, we were all diving and the sun was shining. I ♥ Little Cayman. I have more images of the island on this page.

As for the cooking component of the event, my plan was to make cream of callaloo soup, based on the recipe given by Vanderhoof. I have actually eaten callaloo while in Little Cayman. Instead of the suggested spinach as a substitute for callaloo, I used mostly baby colored chard and some red Russian kale from my garden. I made some changes to the recipe given by Vanderhoof and the result was disappointing. We ate it, and with all the fresh, organic greens it was very nutritious, but it was not a dish I want to talk about. I am sure the less than pleasing result was due to the changes I made to the original recipe, and therefore, I am planning to make the soup again and follow more closely the given instructions. 

I then went back to what had been, after reading the book's title, my original choice: mango sorbet.

We actually experienced "an embarrassment of mangoes" once, but in a different part of the world, namely Australia. We ate our first mango there after hiking to Cook's Look, on Lizard Island, in the Great Barrier Reef. Our guide had brought mangoes for breakfast and he showed us how to cut them into small cubes: up until that point, my experience with mangoes had been nil and I got excited. From that day until our departure from Australia, we ate a lot of freshly picked mangoes (this page has some information on mangoes in Australia).

The mangoes we buy in the stores in California are imported and I find that they are not as good as the ones we tasted in Australia. Also, I find that often, instead of ripening, they become brown inside and at that point they are only good for the compost bin. Luckily, I was able to get two mangoes that reached a nice stage of ripening and became the main ingredient for this sorbet that I have been making for many years with success.

The recipe is from my one and only ice cream and sorbet book: Frozen Dessert, by Caroline Liddell and Robin Weir. You can find the recipe here. To make the syrup (sciroppo), I bring half a cup of water to a boil and then pour it into a jar where I have already measured 125 g (4.5 oz.) of sugar (zucchero). I mix well, let cool, and then use it. The resulting quantity is more than the 200 ml I needed for the recipe (I had 400 ml of puréed mango). In terms of lemon juice (succo di limone), I always use less: this time, I juiced half of a plump Meyer lemon (of which I have a nice supply, thanks to my dear friend Alice and her productive Meyer lemon tree).

This is a really nice sorbetto, very easy to make and a with a clean, fresh flavor. I serve the sorbet fresh out of the ice cream machine and freeze what is left over. (The serving in the photo above is not "fresh out of the ice cream machine," because when I churned the sorbet, it was too late in the day to do a photo-op.)

Final note: In browsing Ann Vanderhof's site, I found this entry on her blog, where she talks about a recent visit to a restaurant on St. Lucia, where, among other things, she had, guess what? mango sorbet!

This is my contribution to the current edition of Cook the Books, hosted by Deb of Kahakai Kitchen. You can find the guidelines for participating in the event here, and here is the announcement.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

sorbetto al mango

or launch the sorbetto al mango audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

buon compleanno, Italia!

Happy Birthday, Italy!

On March 17, 1861, Vittorio Emanuele II, hitherto king of Sardinia, was proclaimed King of Italy (Re d'Italia) by the first Italian parliament. Therefore today, March 17, 2011, Italy turns 150.

To mark the anniversary, I decided to write a "different" post, a commentary to a YouTube video (by StevePop100). While you listen to a nice song by Italian singer and songwriter Jovanotti, titled Ora (Now), you'll see images of people, who played an important role in Italian political and cultural history after WWII. (A comprehensive list would require a long movie, but this is a good selection.) I will list their names and provide a translation of some of the quotes. The video is interesting because it captures history from various perspectives, including politics, sport, cinema, literature and science.

1. Garibaldi's army lands in Sicily in 1860 (images from a movie).
2. "The worst of all democracies is better than the best of all dictatorships." Sandro Pertini, the most popular President in Italian history
3. July 1982: Italy has won the FIFA World Cup: then President Sandro Pertini plays cards with the team's head coach, Enzo Bearzot, and two players on the flight back from Madrid. This video shows the three goals scored by Rossi, Tardelli and Altobelli against Germany and the uncontainable joy of the President, who at the end of the game joined the team on the field. [Italy won another World Cup in 2006.]
4. Director and actor Vittorio de Sica and actor Alberto Sordi
5. Tazio Nuvolari, "the best racecar driver of the past, the present and the future."
6. "An actor does his best to become famous and when he succeeds, he puts on a pair of dark glasses to avoid being recognized." Actor Marcello Mastroianni
7. A famous scene from Fellini's 1960 movie La dolce vita: Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg in Fontana di Trevi
8. "Italy is the only place in the world where first the culture was born, then the state. We must be proud of this." Actor, comedian, director Roberto Benigni
9. 1998: actress Sophia Loren shouts to announce that Roberto Benigni has won the Academy Award for his movie La vita è bella (Life is beautiful). This video shows the award ceremony and Benigni's speech. Loren won the Oscar in 1962.
10. "A politician looks at the next election. A statesman looks at the next generation." Alcide De Gasperi, Italian Prime Minister in the years immediately following the end of WWII
11. Enrico Berlinguer, national secretary of the Italian Communist Party.
12. "And it is not so easy to free oneself of feelings as it is of ideas: the latter come and go, but feelings remain" from La noia by Alberto Moravia
13. Writer Alberto Moravia at his desk 
14. "Dear Italy, because right or wrong as it may be, this is my country, with its great virtues and its great defects." Journalist Enzo Biagi
15. Enzo Biagi during an interview and in a photo together with journalist Indro Montanelli, who in 1977 was shot in the legs by the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades), one of the terrorist organizations that operated during the period of Italian history referred to as gli anni di piombo (years of lead).
    
16. Don Lorenzo Milani, catholic priest and educator
17. "When they say that the blue jersey is the winning post of every soccer player, they merely say the truth." Soccer player Roberto Baggio
18. Baggio scores a goal while wearing the blue jersey of Italy's national soccer team. From the color of the jersey comes the team's nickname gli azzurri. 
19. "People pass, but ideas remain, their moral tension remains and will keep walking on other people's legs." Judge Giovanni Falcone, killed (together with his wife and their Police escort) by the mafia on the road between Palermo and the airport in 1992.
20. Falcone (left) with judge Paolo Borsellino, assassinated shortly after Falcone.
21. "The best Ferrari ever built is the next one." Enzo Ferrari
22. In this snippet from the 1954 movie Un americano a Roma (An American in Rome), actor Alberto Sordi claims he wants to eat like an American, but he ends up "destroying" a large serving of spaghetti, which he calls "macaroni." The whole scene is visible in this post.
23. Actors Totò and Peppino de Filippo in the 1956 movie Totò, Peppino e... la malafemmina. They are in Milan's Piazza Duomo: they try to ask a vigile urbano (traffic policeman) for directions, but manage to creat a great confusion. The whole scene is visible in this video. 
    
24. Film director Sergio Leone, of Spaghetti Western fame
    
25. Poet Eugenio Montale, 1975 Nobel Prize for Literature
26. Film director Federico Fellini
27. In 1958, Domenico Modugno makes everybody sing Nel blu dipinto di blu (In the blue sky, painted in blue), a.k.a., Volare (To fly)
    
28. Cyclist Fausto Coppi
29. "Intellectual courage of the truth and political practice are two irreconciliable things in Italy." Writer and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini
30. Union leader Luciano Lama
31. "The body doesn't matter. What matters is the mind." Neurologist Rita Levi Montalcini, 1986 Nobel Prize for Medicine
32. Rita Levi Montalcini during an interview
    
33. Pope John XXIII, known as il Papa buono (good Pope John), speaks to people from his window high above Saint Peter's Square: "Go home tonight and hug your children, and tell them it is a hug from the Pope."

A few lines from the song:

They say it's true that when we are born everything is already written in a scheme
They say it's true that there is only one way to solve a problem
They say it's true that to each enthusiasm corresponds the same quantity of frustration
They say it's true, but even if it were true it would not justify
Not doing it again, not doing it again
Now

There's no mountain higher than the one I won't climb
There's no bet more lost than the one I won't place
Now

This is my contribution to FrancescaV chiama Italia an event organized by Francesca of FrancescaV to celebrate Italy's sesquicentennial. The logo says "Italian recipes and a lot more," and I decided to contribute to the "lots more."

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post

buon compleanno, Italia!

 

or launch the buon compleanno, Italia! audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

formaggio fatto in casa: Coulommiers stile inglese

homemade English-style Coulommiers (a.k.a. English farmhouse cheese)

I am not sure why I had never tried to make this fresh cheese before, but I am certainly glad that the availability of fresh goat milk (latte di capra) coupled with an impending trip steered me towards it. Different from Coulommiers, its English-style counterpart is not mold-ripened and can be eaten shortly after being made.

I followed the recipe for this cheese given in the book 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes by Debra Amrein-Boyes. I adapted the given recipe by diving the quantities by four and by using one quart of fresh goat milk and 1.5 quarts cow milk (latte di mucca), instead of all cow milk. Ricki Carroll's Home Cheese Making also has the recipe for it. (They are slightly different, mostly in the use of a different starter culture.) In the introduction Carroll describes the special mold used to make Coulommiers. A Camembert mold can also be used, and this is what I have done.

It was not the first time I had used this mold, so I knew that it requires special attention. After the curd is formed, thin slices of it are ladled into the mold. Draining of the whey (siero di latte) is by gravity, which takes some time, so the watchword here is "patience" (pazienza). In the photo below you can see drops of whey sliding along the side of the mold, which has small holes all around.

I filled the mold almost to the rim, waited until the curd's level dropped then added a bit more. I continued this process until all the curd was used. What happens if you go too fast? The mold has no bottom, so if you overfill it, the pressure may move it and you may end up with curd rushing out from the bottom (been there, done that).

To help prevent any movement of the mold and also to make sure there was no leaking of curd through the cheese mat, I put a sterilized piece of cloth under the mold (the green thing you can glean in the photos). This may or may not be acceptable, but it was certainly useful. If you can manage to be patient and come back to the mold over and over again to fill it, and make sure the draining occurs undisturbed, the process is actually kind of fun to watch. As you can see below, the curd level has gone down and the curd looks more compact than in the photo above.

Unfortunately, I don't have additional images of the process nor of the cheese when it came out of the mold. Just to give you an idea, the mold is 4-1/4" high and the thickness of the final cheese is 1.5 inches. The photo below shows the finished cheese resting on the mat (if it reminds you of a sushi mat, it's because that is what it is). The cheese has already been flipped, and you can see the markings left by the mat on its surface.

After a day or so in the fridge, we started consuming the cheese, whose surface glistens nicely in the light. The cheese is wrapped in a special two-layer paper, described on this page accompanying a previous cheese post.

The end product was a pretty small cheese that tasted fresh and milky. In my case, there was a also delicate tang provided by the goat milk. The cheese pairs well with my homemade bread. Pane e formaggio (bread and cheese) is really one of my favorite foods to eat during dinner. I also used it over French toast. After flipping the toast, I put on it four thin slices of the cheese and let it warm up and soften, but only slightly, to protect the delicate flavor of the cheese. This was a special French toast also for another reason, but the revelation will have to wait a couple of weeks. Let me just say that head of my Quality Assurance department (a.k.a., my husband) fully approved.

A couple of nights ago, I brought the cheese to the table together with 100% whole-grain bread (which you can see in the photos in this post) and my red beet spread: everything was warmly received. Other serving suggestions come from the cheese-making book's author. Amrein-Boyes says:

It is very versatile: try a slice with a muffin for breakfast, or drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with herbs and a few capers for an easy gourmet appetizer.

[I assume she refers to English muffin.]

I will make this cheese again, maybe using Ricki Carroll's recipe for comparison. As always, stay tuned for more reports about my adventures in cheese making.

Exciting update (June 7, 2011): my story on making English-style Coulommiers is featured in today's post on the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company blog. Such an honor!

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post

formaggio fatto in casa: Coulommiers stile inglese

or launch the formaggio fatto in casa: Coulommiers stile inglese audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

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I started writing this post a couple of days ago, but the recent events in Japan have understandably diverted my attention. Early Friday morning, we were woken up by a friend calling to make sure we were all right. Soon after, another call arrived, then another. We were not close to the ocean at the time of the tsunami alert, and we did not see the wave that reached the California coast and caused substantial damage to the Crescent City and Santa Cruz harbors.

Earthquake preparedness has made a difference in Japan, from the way buildings handled it to the way people reacted to it. The tsunami unfortunately was a different story. Yesterday morning, I went to a yoga class in Berkeley. The teacher started it with these words, which I share with you, because they are so true in their simplicity: "We are here by grace."

He later reminded us (some 40 people) that we were sitting on a fault. As I watch the third part of the disaster in Japan unfold (I am quite worried, having experienced the consequences of Chernobyl's accident, when I was living in Italy), I will keep repeating to myself those words, and remind myself of the basic concepts of earthquake preparedness that I learned by taking classes. Being prepared at a personal level makes a difference. Your city or county may organize dedicated classes (like basic disaster preparedness, light search and rescue, fire safety, disaster first aid). If so, I strongly encourage you to attend those classes. Also, check this entertaining slide presentation by the City of Berkeley Office of Emergency Services illustrating 5 critical steps to prepare for an earthquake (terremoto).

ceci con picada catalana

chickpeas with Catalan picada

As a child, I was a chickpea-hater. My epiphany occurred after I moved to California, at a potluck and was brought about by an Indian chickpea dish. Something made me try it even though I had always disliked chickpeas and my taste buds (papille gustative) converted on the spot.

Making hummus and this dish helped me to get comfortable with preparing chickpeas. As in the case of beans, I weaned myself off cans. In the evening, I put the chickpeas into their soaking bath and the following day I cook them according to this recipe by Deborah Madison. I use the optional kombu, which I am able to find locally harvested. I check the chickpeas half an hour after the simmering started to estimate how much longer they need to cook. Also, I don't salt them until I use them in a dish. Once done, I let the chickpeas cool in the pan. If I don't use them right away, once cooled, I remove the aromatics and pour the contents of the pan into a container that I then refrigerate until needed.

Please, read Madison's recipe until the last sentence, which states: "Strain, reserving the delicious broth for soup stock." That is what I do, because the broth is indeed quite delicious. Also, remember that, whatever your preferred method, you can cook more legumes than you need and freeze the extra, so that they are like canned ones: ready to be used.

Every time I make pollo con picada catalana (chicken with Catalan picada), I end up with some leftover sauce, which I have used in various settings: over polenta, with eggs, with beans (fagioli), and most recently with ceci (chickpeas).

I never thought about removing the skin from chickpeas until I read this post from Ivy of Kopiaste. The last few times I made chickpeas, I removed a lot of the skins, which was actually easy as they separated from the beans on their own accord, so I simply retrieved them from the broth. I drained the cooled chickpeas (reserving the broth for future use, as explained above), and added some picada sauce, then warmed up in the microwave and finally tossed well. The sauce is intensely flavored, so a little goes a long way. I like to serve these ceci with some polenta, or accompany them with some of my homemade bread and cheese.

I presented a dish made with chickpeas, dried apricots and tomatoes for the very first edition of My Legume Love Affair, three years ago. The current recipe is a way of creatively using leftovers. However, it supports the fact that the combination of chickpeas and tomatoes is great. The chickpeas I have been cooking recently come from the bag I got as part of the package from Hurst Beans I won a few months ago in the MLLA monthly drawing¹. Thank you!

This is my submission for My Legume Love Affair 33, the current edition of the popular, legume-centered event created by Susan, The Well-Seasoned Cook, and hosted this month by Dee of Ammalu's Kitchen.

This post has the roundup of the event.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post

ceci con picada catalana

or launch the ceci con picada catalana audio file [mp3].

 [Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

¹ This is not an advertisement. I do not have any business relationship with the company referenced.

pomodori in scatola e la picada catalana

canned [tinned] tomatoes and Catalan picada

[cliccare il link per andare alla nota in italiano]

If you open my pantry, you won't find much canned food. There are a few exceptions and I will describe them within the context of the Tin Can Recipes event dedicated to celebrate 200 years of canned food. (If you are interested in the details of the story, this page has a brief description of the relevant events.)

The first exception is tomatoes. Considering that I live in California (the leading producer of tomatoes in the US), I should be able to can my own tomatoes in the summer, right?, but the fact is, I have not yet developed a liking for tomato preservation. This past summer, I did a little bit of roasting and puréeing of tomatoes, which I then froze, but it was a no-pressure enterprise, totally different from the almost industrial operation my mother would set up to bottle tomatoes for the whole year. I am not an industrial operation person: I prefer micro-batches of whatever I am doing.

Once tomato season is over, I switch to organic canned tomatoes from California, the format depending on the recipe I am making. A favorite kind is organic fire-roasted crushed tomatoes. I also use fire-roasted diced tomatoes. Very well, then, I'll admit it: I like roasted tomatoes a lot.

I have written an enthusiastic post about a gift I received in late 2009 from Gattina of Kitchen Unplugged. Thanks to the gift, I learned to make a version of Catalan picada, and the more I make it, the more I like it. Using the picada set Gattina sent me worked for the first realization of a recipe for chicken with Catalan picada. I then adjusted the recipe to use available ingredients.

The original recipe I chose is here: I follow it fairly closely, especially in terms of execution. The following are the adjustments that I made for last Sunday's rendition, which is featured in the two photos below:

• For the first time, I used "4 whole chicken legs, split" from locally raised organic chicken (by Shakefork Community Farm); I had bought them (frozen) at the farmers' market some time ago, knowing I would use them for this dish; however, chicken thighs (bone-in and skin-on) are still a great alternative (remember to set aside discarded bones and skin to contribute to the making of light chicken stock)
• Instead of "one 14-ounce can whole tomatoes, drained and finely chopped" I used a 14.5-ounce can of organic fire-roasted crushed tomatoes
• Instead of "1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth" I used a cup of my homemade light chicken stock (plus the liquid component of the can of tomatoes)
• Instead of "1/4 cup oloroso sherry" I used 3 tablespoons of vermouth (Martini Bianco) and one tablespoon of water, because I have always liked vermouth and I have it in my pantry
  
• Instead of "1 slice of peasant bread, crusts removed and bread cut into 1/2-inch cubes (1/2 cup)" I used 1 ounce of homemade breadcrumbs (pangrattato, also spelled pan grattato), which I obtain by processing pieces of my homemade bread with my grater (I usually toast lightly the bread before putting pieces of it in the grater)
• Instead of "1/4 cup slivered almonds" I used a mix of toasted hazelnuts and toasted blanched almonds (I do both the blanching and the toasting).
• I used a special kind of chocolate not for sale (the story will be told at some point in the future), corresponding to 80% cacao chocolate. I have used chocolate with a cacao contents between 70 and 80% and prefer the highest value.
• Thyme and parsley were again fresh from my little garden (to be precise, I have a parsley jungle, which fortunately does not seem to have been affected by the recent cold weather).

The photo¹ shows some of the ingredients and a small bowl of the picada sauce. One of the beauties of this recipe is that I always get some leftover sauce to be reused (more on this really soon). (Note: the chocolate in the photo is not the one I used last Sunday.)

I followed the recipe's instructions, except for step 3, which did not apply, since the almonds and hazelnuts I had were already toasted (I rubbed the hazelnuts slightly to remove the skin) and instead of bread pieces I used my breadcrumbs.

I have said it before and I say it again: this recipe is great. It pairs very well with polenta, as shown in the original post and above. Some of you may notice that the polenta in the photo has an unusual color. Indeed, while the polenta in the original post was made with a mix of cornmeal and what in local stores is sold as polenta (roughly corresponding to Italian polenta bramata, which is coarse), the one in this photo was made with a mix of cornmeal and buckwheat flour, both stone milled from locally grown grains (by Shakefork Community Farm, again). Details will be given in an upcoming post.

A few more words before I conclude. In this context, in scatola means canned (or tinned, in British English). Scatola indicates a container with a lid, so in other contexts it may be translated with "box" (for example, una scatola di cioccolatini is a box of chocolates). Beverages are packaged in lattine (singular: lattina, as in una lattina di Coca Cola). Jarred tomatoes, of which my mother would make some every year, to be used as pizza topping, are pomodori in barattolo. The word scatola is used in a number of expressions, like comperare a scatola chiusa, which means to buy something without seeing it first and checking for its quality (box unopened).

As mentioned above, this is my contribution to the March edition of Tin Can Recipes, a monthly event that will run until the end of this year. The organizers are Ale, Fra, Sere and Paola of Il Giardino degli Aromi and Brii of Briggis recept och ideer and Briiblog in English. The rules for participating are detailed on this page. You are invited to join the event with your recipe (in Italian or in English) that includes one or more canned ingredients.

This post has the roundup of the event.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

pomodori in scatola e la picada catalana

or launch the pomodori in scatola e la picada catalana audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

¹ The can of tomatoes in the photo is for information only: it is not an advertisement. I do not have a business relationship with the company referenced.

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Per i lettori italiani

Con questo post contribuisco all'evento Tin Can Recipes dedicato alla celebrazione dei 200 anni del cibo in scatola. L'organizzazione dell'evento è di Ale, Fra, Sere e Paola del blog Il Giardino degli Aromi e di Brii che scrive Briggis recept och ideer e Briiblog in English. Le regole per partecipare le trovate su questa pagina.

La ricetta per il pollo con la picada catalana non è mia originale: nel post fornisco il link alla pagina dove è descritta e specifico i cambiamenti che vi ho apportato. La ricetta originale è in inglese e in inglese ho scritto le variazioni che ho apportato a tale ricetta la prima e l'ultima volta che l'ho realizzata.

Il primo post l'ho scritto dopo aver ricevuto in regalo da Gattina di Kitchen Unplugged il kit di ingredienti per preparare la picada catalana. Per le realizzazioni successive ho adattatto la ricetta all'uso di ingredienti disponibili. La ricetta originale la trovate qui: la seguo piuttosto alla lettera, specialmente per quanto riguarda l'esecuzione. Sono pronta ad aiutare chiunque sia interessato alla ricetta e necessiti di consulenza linguistica. Lasciatemi un commento o scrivetemi direttamente a simosite AT mac DOT com.

Questo post contiene il riepilogo dell'evento.

¹ La scatola di pomodori nella foto è solo a titolo informativo; non è una pubblicità. Non ho alcun rapporto commerciale con l'azienda in questione.