learn to cook: topfen strudel

what you need:

1 ready-made pastry for quiches

250 gr. fresh ricotta

50 gr. rasins

1 egg

2 and a half spoons of sugar

the juice of a pressed lemon

pre heat the oven at 180 dg. open up the pastry, which should be rectangular, poke a little the surfare with a fork, and leave it aside. Take a bowl, and quickly stir together the ricotta, the sugar, the egg, the rasins and the lemon juice, until it becomes reasonably fluid (as a  yoghurt, to give you an idea).  Then pour it on the middle of the pastry, and wrap the edges up, folding the long sides inwards (if the description sounds metaphysical, just google a “strudel” image and you’ll get it). sprinkle some cane sugar on top, and bake for 25-30 mins.

learn to cook: secon season- pomodori ripieni

a side dish with a very honorable personality.

WHAT YOU NEED: (2 persons)

- 2 large, round and red tomatoes

- breadcrumbs

-garlic, oil and parsley

-a frying pan

take the tomatoes and cut them in two halves. take away the pips and clean them up, and out them aside. switch on the over, 200 degrees. now put some oil in the prying pan, say half a centimeter, and heat it. once it fries, add the garlic, peeled and pierced as usual, then the breadcrumbs, three or four spoons, so that it soaks up the oil. then take if away from the fire, and add parsley, as much as you like, and stirr. fill the tomatoes with this mixture, if you like add some cheese, otherwise place in the oven and cook for twenty minutes.

a tavola!

learn to cook, class 6: involtini alle melanzane

summertime: you don’t want to stay locked in the kitchen while the guests are enjoying the panorama and the drinks, do you? free the aperitivo time from your cooking!

involtini alle melanzane (for 2 persons)

what you need:

-1 large aubergine, longer rather than round

-mozzarella for pizza (not the one in water)

-tomato sauce and breadcrumbles

-fresh basil

-oil, a frying pan, garlic and toothpicks

take the aubergine and wash it. slice it by the lenght, the slices should be 4 to 6 mm. to have an idea, they have to be thin enough to be bendable (we are going to roll the melanzane up with the mozzarella slices, but not too thin to avoid them falling in pieces). place them in a plate with salted water. take the mozzarella and slice it. usually this mozzarella comes in the form of a rectangular polyhedron, in which case you have to slice it by lenght as well. once done this, heat up some frying oil in the frying pan. peel a clove of garlin and pierce it with a fork. add the garlic to the oil untill it start frying, then throw it away. take the sliced aubergine out of the water and carefully dry it with kitchen paper. it is important to dry them well to avoid oil volcanos when frying them. place them in the oil and lightly fry them: say half a minute per side. then keep them aside. once done with the frying, roll up the mozzarella slices in the aubergines, and fix each roll with a toothpick. place the rolls in a pirex, sprinkle some breadcrumbles on it, and cover with the tomato sauce. adjust with salt and pass it in the pre-heated oven for 10-15 mins at 180 dg.

you can eat them warm or cold.

VARIANT: when you roll the melanzana and the mozzarella you may want to add a slice of smokes ham or a anchovy.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: chef Pipito for suggesting the recipe.

learn to cook, class 5: rotoli zucchine e salmone

hello! here we come back with a hors d oeuvres  (antipasto): rotoli zucchine e salmone (rolls with smoked salmon and zucchini)

WHAT YOU NEED:

1 or 2 zucchine (1 zucchina, 2 zucchinE)

100 gr. of plain smoked salmon

a grill, a peeler and and toothpicks

Take the zucchine, wash and rinse them. using the peeler, peel off stripes of zucchina, 2 or 3 mm thick. try to have them wide and long, so be careful when you peel. while you do this, heat up the grill. grill the stripes (TIP! the perfect grill: the grill has to be piping hot. put each stripe first on one side, then on the other. try to switch side only once: turn when the dark horizontal marks of the grill appear on the zucchina). while you wait for the zucchine to become colder, take the salmon. cut it out in stripes, of roughly the same width and lenght of the zucchine. finally, take a zucchina stripe (only once chilly!), place a salmon stripe on top of it, and roll. fix the roll with a toothpick.

while you prepare this antipasto, open a white wine bottle (suggestion: Chablis! Chablis! Chablis!) and drink along. cooking is all about hedonism, in the end.

caution: this dish is sexy.

learn to cook, class 4: spritz campari

a drink! i hate those people who are able to prepare a perfect mojito at home. i hate even more those who own (and properly use) a shaker. if you dream of a cocktail that will impress your catch for the night, easy to prepare and effectively fancy-looking, keep on reading! how to prepare a spritz-Campari:

what you need:

-Campari

- white wine, the less sparkling, the better

-tonic water or sparkling water

-ice, green olives and a slice of red orange

take a glass, pour 1/3 white wine, 1/3 tonic and 1/3 campari. stir, not shake. add the olive and the orange slice.

drink with no moderation.

learn to cook-class 3. salmone in salsa teriyaki

this is some sort of japanese-fusion dish. i assume that you may want to know not only about italian cuisine, but also about what a real Italian cooks. specifically, these days i am so in a hurry. so it crossed my mind that i should have written a recipe that is quick.

what you need (for two persons):

-two salmon fillet, de-frozen

-5 or 6 medium sized green onions

-a bottle of teriyaki sauce

-a frying pan

heat up the burner, and place the frying pan on it. pour the teriyaki sauce, say one cm, and warm it up. when it smokes, lower the heat, place the salmon in the sauce, and let it cook not super fast, not super slow. it should be ready in 7/8 minutes. when the salmon is almost done (it will be pink-ish but not yet ready) place the green onions on top of it. you are going to use only part of the shafts: take the onion, cut off half of the lower, roundish, part with the hair, and cut off the upper, drier, part. you should be left with 5 or 6 cm of cilindric green shafts. cut them in two parts (with an HORIZONTAL CUT, do not make them thinner, just shorter!) and put, as said before, in the pan. add some more sauce and increase the heat. quickly finish off the cooking, and serve steaming.

a tavola!

I shall stop writing these posts around aperitivo-time. i am so starving, even if, by courtesy of pressbyrån, i just had a sandwich.

learn to cook-class 2. carciofi fritti.

Fried artichokes (carciofi fritti) are damn fun. first because they make me think to a line like “fried atichoke at the bus stop“, which in turns makes me think to some old-fashioned Bmovie. secondly because of the frying: a bedrock in a chef’s skills’ set.

What you need (2 persons)

-4 artichokes

-1 small bag of baking power

-2 eggs

-flour, salt and nutmeg

-1 frying pan, a bowl

here we go! take the articokes and wash them. cut the stalk and pull the first hard leaves away. done that, cut the upper part of the leaves: basically, trimm the artichove. once cleaned up, put them in a little bowl with cold water.  take the bowl, place 2 or 3 spoons ot flour, a teaspoon of salt, the two eggs (without shell!) and the baking power: mix together with a fork, and avoid lumps. (HINT! never put first the shelled eggs and only afterwards the the flour- which is a move also known as the lump curse; HINT! if the compound is not liquid enough add some tap water. ideally, the compound should be a little less dense than yoghurt). let rest for 10 mins. in the meanwhile, fill the frying pan with 1/2 cm of oil and bring it to boil. take the artichoves and dry them out with some kitchen paper. cut each of them in 4 cloves, dip them well into the compound and place them in the frying oil (HINT! the oil has to be frying: to check, drop a drop of compound in it, to see if it’s hot enough) . turn them around when they become gold brown, as to fry each side. once done that, take them out of the pan, and dry them from the excess oil in some kitchen paper. if the oil evaporates away, adjust the quantity by adding some other. sprinkle the nutmeg and a tavola!

Accompanying thought: i so feel starving while i write these recipes. 

learn to cook- class 1. tagliatelle alle zucchine e gamberetti

there is no better way to start up this course than with the zucchine and gamberetti pasta: it s quick, it s coloured and it s fancy.

what you need (for 2 people)

-3 medium size zucchine

-150 gr fresh pasta all uovo (tagliatelle)

-1 pack of fresh gamberetti, i dont know, it could be 200gr., without shells

-a frying pan and a pot

-sea salt, 1 lemon and, optional, saffron

Start by chopping the zucchine. not finely, but make slices thick 2-3 mm. heat up some oil -DO NOT FRY- with 1 or 2 pieces of garlic, peeled from the dry skin and pierced several times with a fork, NB: do not cut the garlic (you will have to remove them later on). when the oil is warm, place the sliced zucchine, salt, and let cook at a medium heat (3 or 4 over 6) untill they become soft. This may take 15 to 20 minutes, but if they get ready before, do not hesitate in taking them off the cookers. In the meanwhile, take the gamberetti, and throw away the water they come in. put them in a pot with the juice of a squeezed lemon, and let them rest for 5 mins. after this, quickly fry the gamberetti in the zucchine, max 1 min to avoid the texture to dry too much. once done than, fill the pot with water: if you cook 150 gr pasta you need at least 1.5 l of water. when the water boils (NB: with bubbles!) throw in first a fist or two of salt, then the pasta. rinse to avoid the pasta to stick to the bottom of the pot, and adjust the heat to avoid the white foam. cook according to the instructions (NB: fresh pasta cooks from 2 to MAX 7 mins), and taste from time to time. take the pasta away from water, throw it in the frying pan with the zucchine (not on a cooker!), add 2 spoonful of oil and the gamberetti, mix together and a tavola!

optional: you may want to add saffron. it does not alter the taste much, but it turns the pasta in a professional bright yellow.

add the saffron (half or one a teaspoon) to the oiled pasta but before the zucchine and gamberetti. do not add the saffron to the zucchine: that would make your zucchine of a autumn green and leave your pasta the way it is.

 

learn to cook- say hi to our new category!

do we believe in stereotypes? YES WE DO!

say hi to the new twice-a-week posts on how to cook as a real italian.

what you need:

-a patient and moderately hungry guest

-a decently furnished kitchen

-some basic skills

-reasonably expensive ingredients (do not cheat! quality matters)

-some time.

what you will get:

a dinner for two, some precious tips and a few words or two on generalities.