Category Archives: Cheese, Eggs and Savoury Pastries

Cheese, Eggs and Savoury Pastries, Entrée /Antipasto/Starter/Light Dishes, Italian Regional, Recipes, Sauces and Condiments

SFORMATO DI RICOTTA E SPINACI and an Italian lesson about sformati

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I am unsure what to call this dish in English.

If I were to call this following dish a Ricotta and Spinach Bake, most people would assume that it would be predomintly pasta (or rice?).

If I called it a pie, the assumption would be that it would have a pastry base; a terrine is likely to be cooked in a bain-marie and a frittata is fried and not baked (fritta means fried).

 The Italian label – a sformato – is so appropriate and descriptive.

And yet if one looks at the translation into English of the word sformato it is translated as a flan, a pie, even a quiche. These translations cover a lot of territory in the world of cuisine and they just don’t do it for me!

For me a sformato is something that has eggs to bind some chopped or pureed vegetables (or/and protein, ie meat, small goods, fish) and flavourings. And it is baked. It could contain some pasta, rice or breadcrumbs for thickening. Unlike a souffle, a sformato  may contain less eggs, hence a sformato is not as light and fluffy.

A ‘forma’ is a shape or a mold, therefore a sformato is baked in a vessel that gives it shape. The word and noun sformato comes from the verb ‘sformare’, to unmold, therefore I will assume correctly that a sformato is to be tipped out onto a plate.

Maybe I also need to acknowledge that because I have eaten various sformati (plural) I know what they are. Sformati are made all over Italy so it is an Italian regional dish.

A sformato is one of the perfect ways to use left over vegetables. Maybe the Anglo version was/is  to use left overs in a mornay… remember them?

Ricotta and spinach are good together and a very popular combination in many Italian dishes. Parmigiano or pecorino add a stronger taste and enhance the flavours of these ingredients.

Like most Italian recipes the quantities are an estimation. if you add more spinach add eggs, if you would like to taste the butter, add more.

Ingredients in my sformato:

4 eggs, 700 gms ricotta, 50g butter

400 gms cleaned and chopped spinach

1 spring onion finely chopped, 1 clove of chopped garlic (optional),1 clove minced garlic

½ – 1 cup grated parmigiano or pecorino (stronger taste), some cultures may use feta

salt pepper and a pinch of nutmeg to taste, 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds if you wish to add a different layer to the dish (in other cultures dill is popular and you may wish to use this)

a little extra virgin olive oil to saute the vegetables and more butter to grease the mold.

I also had some parmigiano that had gone hard in my fridge and I wanted to use that up so I chopped it into little pieces and added it to the mixture.

Oven to 180 /200C

Pour a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil into a pan and add the onion and garlic and lightly sauté the ingredients.

Add spinach and fennel seeds (if using) and wilt it for 5-7 minutes.

Drain the spinach. Let it cool.

Prepare a mold 20-26 cm/8-10 baking pan by rubbing it liberally with butter on the base and up the sides. Better still, use buttered baking paper to line the pan. I  used an old pyrex dish and had run out of baking paper, and as you will see in my photo below the bottom of my sformato stuck. Maybe, if you are not using baking paper, shake a little flour or breadcrumbs over the buttered baking pan.

Beat the eggs with the ricotta and butter. I used a kitchen hand/ blender.

Mix in the spinach mixture, grated cheese and bits of cheese if using. Decide how pureed you would like the spinach and blend accordingly.

Place the mixture into the prepared baking pan; smooth it over.

Bake for approximately 45-60 minutes or until cooked in the centre. When it is cooked the sformato will spring back when touched.  Mine cooked for 55mins but I think it could have been left for about 10 minutes to set even further.

It cut quite nicely and we had it hot,  but it was also good to eat cold the next day. Like frittata, a sformato is portable and perfect for a picnic.

I had some tomato salsa (what some call Napoli Sauce – peeled, chopped tomatoes, basil, extra virgin olive oil, salt, garlic clove… all cooked together and reduced till thickened).

Other recipes related to this post:

OMLET DI SPINACI (Pancakes ricotta and spinach)

TORTA DI VERDURA (A vegetable flan or pie)

ALL ABOUT MAKING FRITTATA and Podcast with Maria Liberati

Camping, Cheese, Eggs and Savoury Pastries, Pasta, Soups and Rice, Recipes, Travel and Recipes, Vegetables, Wild greens and Salads

WILD ROCKET, IT WAS THERE FOR THE TAKING

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I love travelling in the country and always, I look for wild produce wherever I am.

This time, while in Eyre Peninsula I found wild rocket. So strong tasting and spicy and very different from garden rocket.

I made the most of it. When one is camping, fresh produce, especially foraged produce is a highlight.

I first found it on a walk in Port Lincoln and as we drove inland there were fields of it, little dark green bushes in the landscape. Amazing!

Wild rocket is not always available to buy, but rocket is. I hesitate to call the leaves that you buy as sweet rocket, because that can taste quite peppery to some palates. Those of you who grow rocket know that once you have it, it can be unmanageable, but the leaves can be used in cooking and you too can make the most of it. You probably already do!

Here are some simple ways I enjoyed the wild rocket. I jazzed up some iceberg lettuce that in some places in the country was the only lettuce available. The contrasts between sweet and peppery worked very well. On another occasion I added feta.

I always take feta that I marinade in extra virgin olive oil with me on camping trips. I also add dried oregano,  fresh bay leaves, anise or fennel seeds and pepper corns .

I had some kale and pumpkin. Both keep well on camping trips and I cooked them with some rocket.

Easy stuff. I always braise or sauté vegetables rather than steaming them. Italians tend to steam vegetables when they are feeling poorly so braising is the way to go.

I also found a few mustard greens that I added to the concoction. Whenever I sauté greens I like to use at least a couple of varieties of greens, indivia/ endives or cicoria/ chicory add bitterness, and  kale / cavolo nero add mustard tastes to sweeter tasting greens like spinach/ silverbeet/ beetroot leaves. Contrasting tastes do wonders! I use extra virgin olive oil, garlic and sometimes chillies.

I sautéed the pumpkin with harissa , also a staple I make to take with me on camping trips. The version I take has dried chilli flakes, caraway seeds, salt and extra virgin olive oil.  I soak the chillies and caraway seeds in some hot water till they swell and then add salt and oil to preserve the harissa. It is fine out of the fridge and suitable for camping as long as you add enough salt and keep on topping up the oil. I do not add garlic in this version or fresh chillies because the fresh ingredients encourage the growth of mold.

Back to the recipe. Once the pumpkin and harissa and some garlic is sautéed in extra virgin olive oil add the greens. Sauté, put a lid on and let soften. Done.

I also found field mushrooms around the Southern Flinders Rangers! Amazing at this time of year, but the weather was wet.

The soil was wet and given a little spring sunshine, there they were!  I added garlic and wild rocket to them and sautéed them in some oil, then added a splash of white wine and evaporated some of the moisture. Pretty good!

I poached some eggs in these mushrooms. The farm fresh eggs were free range and they came on the way to Venus Bay/ Ceduna.   They were free range, I checked! Mind you I did have some Kangaroo Island eggs already in the van and they were cheaper in SA than in VIC.

I also added wild rocket to a Minestra/ Wet Pasta dish made with borlotti beans. I usually cook borlotti beans at home, freeze them and take them with me, but tins of course are OK and for some, more convenient. The kookaburra above was never far away.

Once again, easy stuff. Sauté some onion and garlic in oil, add finely cut rocket, wilt it, add the beans with some of their water. Cook the pasta. Drain it. Add it to the semi liquid beans concoction …and there you have it.  I always drizzle some of my best extra virgin oil on top. The rocket does reduce in mass when cooked, but this was also the last of the rocket. I would have used more if I had it.

Talking about the wild, a highlight was seeing a baby owl/ owlet  in country Victoria.

Other recipes:

HARISSA (A hot chilli condiment)

Harissa made with fresh Chillies

SENAPE, a new type of mustard green vegetable

PASTA E FAGIOLI (Thick bean soup with pasta)

Cheese, Eggs and Savoury Pastries, Italian Regional, Recipes, Sicilian

MAKING RICOTTA, Paneer or curd cheese

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I think I have fallen in love with rich Jersey milk.

It is so easy to make the curds  to make ricotta.

All it takes is full cream milk and some lemon juice. The only other things you’ll need are a slotted spoon and a colander lined with cheese cloth (muslin) to strain the curds.

You may have a ricotta basket handy – if you buy ricotta it is often sold in a plastic basket and you can use it to drain the curds and shape the ricotta.

A slotted spoon will be handy to gently scoop out the curds.

Making ricotta is very simple.

I used 3 litres of milk, two lemons and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

Bring the milk almost to a simmer on medium heat, add some salt and wait till little bubbles form close to the edge of the pot before you add the lemon juice; stir it in gently. The milk should separate into clumps of curds, and the whey will be thin and watery. If not enough of the milk has separated, reheat it and add a little bit more lemon juice and once again stir it gently. Once it has separated leave it undisturbed for about 10  minutes; stirring will make the curds dense.

Gently scoop out the curds with a slotted spoon – do not pour – into a large ricotta basket or a colander lined with cheese cloth that you have placed over a bowl to catch the whey.

A culinary specialty and a way of serving ricotta in Sicily (especially in the Ragusa region) is to ladle the curds with the whey into a bowl and to eat it with a spoon and bread.

** See post, A visit to Massaro,  link below.

How long you let the curds drain or how firmly you press them down will determine how solid the curds will be. If the curds are too solid you may need some whey to mix back into the curds. But if you think of how many recipes suggest that you drain the ricotta before using it for making cannoli, cassata, frittata, ravioli, baked ricotta, ricotta salata, scacce,  having firm ricotta is advantageous.

There are many recipes using ricotta on my blog that can easily be found by using the search button.

Traditionally, ricotta is made by heating the left-over whey from other cheese-making. The curds are worked to make and shape cheeses like mozzarella, trecce, fior di latte, bocconcini, and reheating the whey produces the fine-grained curd that traditionally makes ricotta – ri-cotta, translated as re-cooked/twice cooked. Usually more rich milk is added to the whey to make a full cream ricotta.

The curds can also be formed to make quark, cottage cheese and paneer. When I make paneer I do not add salt to the milk and I drain the curds or press them for longer.

however, the three links below are about making ricotta. The photo above is how ricotta is shaped and sold in Sicily .

SICILIAN CHEESE MAKING. A VISIT TO A MASSARO (farmer-cheese maker) IN RAGUSA. 

RICOTTA how to make it (using rennet)

RICOTTA and FRIED PEPPERS (Peperoni fritti). The Butter Factory at Myrtleford

The whey has many uses especially for baking. My partner bakes bread, flatbreads and cracker biscuits). I have not yet used whey for marinating meat, but I do braise pork in milk – a Bolognese specialty. The milk separates and forms a caramel when heated slowly at a low temperature for a few hours. I will write a recipe for this in my next post.

 

Cheese, Eggs and Savoury Pastries, Italian Regional, Pasta, Soups and Rice, Recipes

RISOTTO AL TALEGGIO – risotto made with Taleggio cheese

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I had forgotten just how good risotto made with Taleggio tastes.

Taleggio is is a Northern Italian cheese with a semi-soft, washed rind  named after the Alpine valley of Taleggio. The cheese has a thin crust and a strong, distinctive aroma, but its flavour is comparatively mild when compared with other washed rind cheeses. It is a DOP product (Protected Designation of Origin) . It is produced in Lombardy, Piedmont and the Veneto region. The Igor I used is from Lombardy, butI Taleggio is also produced in Lombardy, Piedmont and the Veneto region.

Taleggio is described as being Smear-Ripened Cheese. I had to look this up and all it means is that the bacteria (Brevibacterium linens) is smeared onto the rind of the cheese and while the cheese is aging, the rind is washed (washed rind) to discourage mould growth and provide moisture to encourage growth of the bacteria.

Making the risotto is very simple and you will be able to see  this from the photos.

I used Carnaroli rice, but sometimes I use Aborio. You will need butter, oil, stock, some herbs (parsley and thyme), spring onion (or white onion) and white wine – nothing different to making  risotto. At times I have used vodka instead of white wine and on one occasion a shot glass of grappa instead . All good.

I do not usually weigh produce when I cook, but if you are cooking for 4-6 people, use 300g rice, 40ml wine/ 20ml is using vodka or grappa, 1L hot stock.

On this occasion I also added chopped fresh fennel. On other occasions I may add some red radicchio.

Above there is extra virgin olive oil and butter, chopped parsley and thyme. Heat  this and sauté some spring onion in the mixture. I like to use spring onion  –  it is milder tasting.

Add some chopped, fresh fennel and some fonds if there are any.

Add rice and have some good stock ready.

Toast the rice slightly, add wine, evaporate, cover with hot stock and stir. Add more stock as required.

Have some cubed Taleggio ready (you can decide  just how cheesy you want it).

Add the cheese when the rice is cooked (rice has good body but is not crunchy and there is still some liquid in the pan.) called all’onda.

Stir the cheese into the risotto until it is smooth and creamy.

Rather than grinding black pepper on this occasion I ground some pink peppercorns onto the top of the risotto .

Risotto recipes :

CAMPING, Pumpkin risotto

MUSSELS, three ways: in brodetto, with spaghetti and in a risotto with saffron

BACCALÀ MANTECATO, risotto

RISI E BISI (Risotto with peas)

Cheese, Eggs and Savoury Pastries, Pasta, Soups and Rice, Recipes

PASTA con cavolofiore, salsicce di maiale e ceci (pasta with cauliflower, pork sausages and chickpeas)

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Over the last 10 days there has been little time to write or to take photos of all the food consumed over this period.

Not all the food has been elaborate, but here is one simple dish that I prepared for friends.

Pasta with pork fennel sausages, chickpeas, cauliflower,  fennel seeds, fresh bay leaves, saffron and marinated feta.

Short pasta is preferable and I used penne. Pecorino, being a stronger tasting cheese is better with these ingredients than Parmesan, but although feta is not an Italian cheese I often use it as a topping for pasta .

This pasta dish is simple to make.

Begin with sausages (out of casings) and onion sautéed in a little extra virgin olive oil.

Soak a big pinch of  saffron in a little water and set aside.

To the sautéed sausages add cauliflower, separated into smaller pieces,  fennel seeds and fresh bay leaves and toss around in the hot oil.  Add the saffron (that  has been soaking in a little water).

Add chickpeas and a little chickpea stock, cover and cook on moderate to gentle heat.

Combine it with cooked pasta and top with the feta. The feta will soften and will make  the pasta more creamy.

Marinated feta comes in handy for nibbles as well as using it as a creamy substitute for grated cheese.  Like marinated olives, capers and preserved lemons, this is something that is nearly always in my fridge.

Ingredients: feta, dry oregano, fennel seeds, whole black peppercorns, bay leaves  and extra virgin olive oil. The cheese must be  totally submerged. Store it in the fridge.

Cheese, Eggs and Savoury Pastries, Travel and Recipes, Vegetables, Wild greens and Salads, Wine, Spirits, Liquers and Drinks

EATING AND DRINKING IN THE GOLDFIELDS in Victoria

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Richard Cornish beat me to it!

I did not mind, I always like what he writes and I too appreciated  some of the produce from Castlemaine.

I visited The Mill in Castlemaine on November 15 and found two of the stars of Castlemaine’s culinary scene (as Richard describes them) – Long Paddock Cheese, where French emigre Ivan Larcher and his wife Julie make sensational European-style cow’s milk cheeses….

…..and Oakwood Smallgoods,Oakwood Smallgoods, where German master butcher Ralf Finke uses ingredients such as free-range pork and wagyu beef to make more than 40 different smallgoods and charcuterie. 

I was able to buy from Ralf  Finke some of the smallgoods I used to buy in the Adelaide Market and in the  Barossa Valley. Good memories, good times, good eating.

This time in Castlemaine we did not visit Austrian couple Edmund Schaerf and Elna Schaerf-Trauner at Das Kaffeehaus, coffee house and eatery as we had done years before when it was located at the old hospital in Castlemaine, but we were aware that they have now moved into a rear corner of The Mill in 2015. They were closed.  I sought them out several years ago;  having lived in Trieste I am very appreciative of Austrian food.

With the easing of restrictions and our first opportunity to venture into the Victorian countryside Castlemaine and Bendigo  in the Goldfields region were favoured, especially because the very brilliant chef Thi Le (from Anchovy in Richmond) was cooking at Sutton Grange Winery.

We stayed at an Airbnb , visited the Bendigo Gallery, had lunch at the Dispensary Bar & Diner, always a treat.

That weekend, as expected, my partner and I had amazing food, wine and service at Sutton Grange Winery including a wine tasting conducted by Melanie Chester( Mel) the Sutton Grange’s winemaker, and Adam Cash (we were happy to catch up with him and remembered him from Union Dining) with passionate chats of the history of the vines, wines and winemaking methods behind every wine we tried.

Thi’s excellent food was served on the veranda of the winery homestead cellar door and one of the table service staff was Thi’s partner, Jia-Yen (JY); all in the family – their dog was there too wandering around and enjoying the countryside.

It was rewarding to see other guests seeking out the chef, to thank her for her exquisite food.

Although Thi’s lunches at Sutton Grange Winery on Saturdays and Sundays were supposed to be only until November 29, lunches have been extended on Sundays in December 6, 13 & 20. Very worth doing.

There were a number of small courses, all exceptionally delicious.

We came home from that weekend with excellent  bottles of wine, cheese, smallgoods and sausages. We unpacked the Airbnb clothes, packed the camping gear into the car and drove back to that area two days later. We set up camp by the Loddon River, near Castlemaine and stayed there till  last Sunday.

I planned to write a post about the awesome produce I had purchased from the fromagerie and charcuterie at The Mill when I returned from my camping trip, but Richard beat me to it – Off The Beaten Track was published in the November 17 issue of The Age.

When we camp, we eat in style – I cooked some of the bratwurst with a warm salad of cabbage, spring onion and apple (and caraway seeds of course).  Cabbage keeps well when camping.

All the ingredients are placed in the pan at the same time and slowly softened in extra virgin olive oil , salt, pepper, caraway seeds. Finish off with a dash of white wine vinegar.

I pan fried the leberkaese and accompanied it with braised mushrooms.

The green you can see are sage leaves; most are underneath the meat ..crisp fried. When I camp, I always bring herbs from home.I wrap them in a damp towel. we do have a small fridge we take camping.

Mushrooms keep well in paper bags when camping, they may lose some moisture but that means more intense flavour. You can see fresh garlic, parsley, i had a bit of rosemary and a few sprigs of thyme. Once again, all in together and sweated in extra virgin olive oil.

We ate the cheese, small goods and smoked trout unadulterated (en plein aire) or (au naturel) … picnic style, with a few additions brought from home…. black olive tapenade  went well with the cheese, egg mayonnaise went well with the trout, with the smallgoods, good shop bought mustard.

On  our return to melbourne we called into the Spaghetti Bar in Keynton. Silly us, no booking, no room.

Cheese, Eggs and Savoury Pastries, Cooking of Trieste, Italian Regional, Sicilian, Vegetables, Wild greens and Salads

ALL ABOUT MAKING FRITTATA and Podcast with Maria Liberati

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I was very surprised when one of my friends said that she had baked a zucchini frittata following a recipe in Ottolenghi’s Simple. I opened my copy of the cookbook to see if Ottolenghi really had baked a frittata. Afterall he has Italian heritage! It is not called a frittata for nothing!(I am joking here – I really like and respect Ottolenghi – but all jokes aside, if I were to bake a mixture of zucchini and eggs, I would call it a Zucchini Bake.

Fritta, means fried (feminine) and fritto, as in Fritto Misto is fried (masculine) and misto means mixed. I would enjoy continuing with a lesson in Italian grammar, but this post is about frittata.

Recently I was contacted by Maria Liberati and invited to participate in an interview about Frittata, for a podcast. So there I was  from Melbourne in lockdown chatting to Maria Liberati in Pennsylvania.

Maria asked me to speak about frittate (plural), she found of a post I had been invited to write by Janet Clarkson’s very popular blog called ‘The Old Foodie’. The post was called An Authentic Frittata (December 2008). I had forgotten that I had written it, but what I said then still stands.

Apart from discussing frittate in general and providing a  Sicilian recipe for frittata I made a comment about Claudia Roden. She is one of my heros,  but I disagreed with what she must have said at some stage:” Frittate are common throughout Italy but not Sicily and Sardinia’.

But just how popular are frittate anyway? When do we eat frittate? and could it be that frittate are such ordinary fare that they do not appear in cookery books very often?

In An Authentic Frittata, my first sentence is:
‘Every National Cuisine has certain rules and customs.’

Baking a frittata in Italy is not one of them.

But I can understand why frying a frittata is scary.  This is a simple zucchini and cheese frittata. It is spring in Melbourne and we had some new season’s zucchini tossed quickly in a frypan with some extra virgin olive oil, a little parsley and garlic. I turned the leftovers  and some grated pecorino cheese into a simple frittata. 

Frittata is cooked on one side before being inverted onto a plate and then slid into the frypan again  to cook on the other side. It is not that scary.

Pour the mixture of beaten eggs (a fork will do),  zucchini, salt, pepper into hot oil. Use the spatula to press the frittata gently on top and lift the edges tilting the pan. This allows some of the runny egg to escape on the side to cook. when there is no more egg escaping you are ready to turn it over.

As Maria said in the interview, perhaps cooks could try this with a smaller pan. I think it is worth it.

When making frittata, using a round frypan makes sense, and not making it a huge frittata makes it more manageable.

Depending on the quantities of the other ingredients to be added to the frittata, I think about 8 eggs is the maximum.

Maria and I certainly agreed about how the cooking of Italy is very regional and how this may also apply to frittata. I grew up in Trieste (the north eastern Italian cooking of Friuli Venezia Giulia is similar to the Veneto and Trentino Alto Adige) but I also have a Sicilian heritage.

Cuisine is localised , each region has prepared specialities based on their produce and cultural influences. Sicily was an important trade route in a strategic location in the Mediterranean and was settled by Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians,  Arabs, Normans, French, Spaniards. Trieste was a very important port  for much of that north eastern part of Italy that  were part of the Austro – Hungarian Empire. Surrounding countries that influenced the history and culture were Austria, Switzerland, France, Germany,and Croatia are not too far away.

Here are some basic differences  between the making of frittate in the north and the south , some are no longer hard and fast rules, for example:

  • butter or butter and oil is used for frying in the north, oil in the south,
  • use of local produce in both – I have had quite a few frittate with ricotta in Sicily and made with fruit in the north, especially with apples,
  • because left-overs are good ingredients for a frittata, you may see more vegetable based frittate in the south and more smallgoods based ones in the north, e.g. prosciutto, different cheeses,
  • breadcrumbs are common additions to a frittata in the south (to soak up liquid from vegetables), a little flour and even a dash of milk is evident in many northern recipes,
  • a little grated cheese is common in all frittate, Parmigiano in the north, pecorino or aged caciocavallo or ricotta salata in Sicily.

Like language, cooking evolves and when I cook, I do not invent or modify recipes without knowing what came first – what is the traditional recipe?  What are the ingredients and how was it cooked? Experimentation can only come after respect for the ingredients and method of cooking that traditional recipe, and accepting that although the recipe may have been right for the time, there are changes that i would like to make. When I modify a recipe I ask myself if modifying it will improve it, is it a healthier way to cook it, quicker? And this applies to all traditional recipes.

A very simple example is how my mother always overcooked her vegetables, but she found my sautéed vegetables very undercooked. She either used onions or garlic, never the two together, meat and fish in the same recipe? Never.

Using Warrigal Greens (Australian bush tucker,  like English spinach). Do not even think about that, I am definitely breaking the rules. These are growing on my balcony.

I am looking forward to using other spring produce to make frittate , especially artichokes, spring peas/snow peas, zucchini and zucchini flowers.

Maria and I talked amicably about many things, and there were many details that I had intended to say, but we ran out of time.

Thank you Maria for giving me this opportunity.

Below is a frittata I cooked with  wild asparagus.

Some links:

  • Recipes on my blog for making Frittata:

ASPARAGI DI BOSCO and FRITTATINA (Wild Asparagus continued, and Frittata)

WILD ASPARAGUS IN SICILY AND TUNIS (ASPARAGI SELVATICI)

BOOK SIGNING OF SICILIAN SEAFOOD COOKING AT READINGS (and Fennel Frittata)

FRITTATA: SAUSAGE and RICOTTA

The recipe I provided in this post is a version of Giuseppe Coria’s but variations of this same recipe are in a couple of Sicilian cookbooks written in Italian. I do wonder if that recipe is still made now.

Podcast: A Sicilian Frittata Story
 54 mins

This week Maria discusses the power of food to take us to new places – this time, to Sicily – where we’ll enjoy a simple frittata. Joining her today is Marisa Raniolo Wilkins, a passionate food writer, blogger and recipe developer from Sicily.

To hear this podcast, click HERE

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheese, Eggs and Savoury Pastries, Recipes, Sicilian

Formaggio all’Argentiera (pan fried, fresh cheese, Sicilian)

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I had forgotten how much I particularly like Formaggio Fresco, pan fried with a sliver or two of garlic in a smidgen of extra virgin olive oil, sprinkled with a little dry oregano and de-glazed with a little red vinegar and a pinch of sugar (optional). This is how Sicilians like it.

Formaggio Fresco = Cheese Fresh….Fresh Cheese.

This  Sicilian recipe is called Formaggio all’Argentiera.

Why All’ Argentiera?

An argentiere in Italian is a silversmith.

All’argentiera means “in the style of…as an argentiere would cook it”.

Why this name?

An argentiere can afford the price of meat, a poor person cannot, however, the poor can afford to buy and cook cheese and pretend that he is eating meat. The lovely smells dissipating from the windows of the poor will give passers-by the impression  that just like a silversmith he can afford to eat meat. It is all to do with the making a bella figura syndrome.

The recipe is quick and easy, the difficulty could be finding what is called Formaggio Fresco. What is ‘fresh cheese?’

Some producers call Formaggio Fresco,  Fresh Pecorino,  but they are  both young cheese (aged typically 15- 45 days depending on the manufacturer). It is a white, semi soft, smooth and milky cheese,  good for slicing and for partially melting.

Pecorino is made from the milk of a pecora, (sheep), however, most Pecorino Fresco or Formaggio Fresco, especially in Australia  is made from cows’ pasteurized milk, salt and culture (usually rennet).

Aged Pecorino, whether Romano (Roman), Sardo (Sardinian), Toscano, or Siciliano is the firm, salty and sharp cheese we are familiar with and used for grating – you can eat it too.  In Italy they are DOP cheeses and made in the place of origin.

Stores that have Italian Produce are likely to have Formaggio Fresco  but I have also seen some in a few good supermarkets.

In Melbourne I can buy Formaggio Fresco made by these manufacturers: That’s Amore cheese, they call it cacciotta  and Pantalica make Bacio and Pecorino Fresco.

In Adelaide the manufacturers are: La Casa Del Formaggio and La Vera. I have seen La Vera sold in other Australian cities as well.

 

Formaggio all’Argentiera

A little extra virgin olive oil to fry the cheese.

Also: 1 large clove of garlic (cut into slivers), pinches of dried oregano,  1-2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar and a pinch of sugar.

I prefer to use a non-stick fry pan.

Heat the oil; use medium heat.

Add the garlic, the slices of cheese and lower the heat. Sprinkle the cheese with some of the dry oregano.

Cook that side of cheese until golden in colour, turn the cheese over and repeat with the dry oregano….cook for as long again.

Add the vinegar and sugar ( I sometime do) and deglaze the pan.

See also:

SICILIAN CHEESE MAKING. A VISIT TO A MASSARO (farmer-cheese maker) IN RAGUSA. Formaggio all’argentiera

Sicilian Cheese and more cheese

Cheese, Eggs and Savoury Pastries, Italian Regional, Main Course/ Secondo/Substantial, Pasta, Soups and Rice, Recipes, Travel and Recipes

NORTHERN ITALY, pasta made of rye or buckwheat flour and PIZZOCCHERI

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Last year (2019) I stayed and travelled through parts of Tuscany, Emilia Romagna, Liguria, Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Trentino Alto Adige and a few places around Mantova (Mantua) in Lombardy. I loved it all, but I particularly enjoyed spending time in some parts of South Tyrol I had not ever visited – South Tyrol is an autonomous province and part of the two that make up the region of Trentino-Alto Adige.

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A few years before this trip I stayed and travelled around Bergamo, Brescia, Lake Como and Lake Maggiore and also parts of Piedmont.

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And years before this, I travelled through from France to Trieste, stopping in many places on the way.

And just because all these places may be described as being in Northern Italy, you will find the food from place to place is vastly different.

Never skiing, always looking, appreciating, drinking and eating.

Those of you who have travelled through Northern Italy may notice that the further north you go, the more corn (polenta), barley, rye, and buckwheat you will find in local dishes, especially in the array of dark breads, cakes and pastries.

I particularly like buckwheat polenta and rye or buckwheat pasta.

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Rye and buckwheat are popular in Eastern Europe where, in particular, the climates are cold. Cold weather brings deep winter snow and the jaggered peaks and mountains increase the isolation, especially in earlier times when transporting produce was much harder than today. The food in this particular part of Lombardy is unique because of its isolation in the past.

Italian food is all about locality – unique heritage, local produce and local food.

For example, Valtellina is a long narrow valley bordered by mountains in northern Lombardy, north of Lake Como and it is recognized for Pizzoccheri – a buckwheat pasta that is cooked with cabbage and potatoes – vegetables associated with hearty food – suitable for cold weather terrain. The  distinctive flavour of this dish is enhanced by the alpine cheeses such as Bitto and Valtellina Casera (DOP cheeses – Protected Designation of Origin) which the region is renowned for producing. 

Rye and buckwheat, especially, are widespread and prominent in the region and used in the local cuisine. Rich pasture is plentiful, and this region is also renowned for dairy produce. Sage is a hardy perennial and garlic (lots of it) add flavour. The garlic may also be there to boost health – in many countries, garlic has been used medicinally for centuries.

The use of rye or buckwheat creates a darker, chewier and more flavoursome pasta. Obviously, it does not go with all sauces, but I particularly like it with nut and herb based dressings and cheeses.

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Pizzoccheri is not a dry pasta dish and commonly the ingredients are drained before they are dressed with the butter and the cheeses, but I much prefer it as a wet pasta dish, so I suggest you read the whole recipe before you decide to make it.

The ratio of using buckwheat flour to white flour varies, but I like 300g of buckwheat to100g 00 white. No eggs are used in this type of pasta, just water, however, once again, occasionally I have added 1 egg to the mix.

Some cooks use more potatoes than cabbage, I like to use more cabbage than potato, say approximately 300 g potatoes to 400 g cabbage.

The cheese Valtellina Casera may be difficult to find, so you may wish to substitute it with Fontina or Gruyère, Emmental, Edam, or Gouda, especially if the cheese is aged.

To make rye pasta use the same amounts and procedure as described in this recipe, but substitute the buckwheat flour with rye flour and add three eggs. When making rye pasta I usually add some caraway seeds, or fennel or anise to the dough when kneading. At times, I have also done this when making buckwheat pasta.

Once again, the amounts are only guides. When my relatives make/ made pasta (or I make pasta for that matter) I use an estimation of judgement. I can remember my mother saying:

“One fistful (un pugno) of flour per egg, and ½ eggshell of water if it needs more liquid”

Having grown up with this, I still use this measure.

300 g buckwheat flour

100 g 00 flour

300 g butter

200 g cheese (see above)

6 cloves of garlic, a few sage leaves

salt and pepper

Parmesan, grated, at time of serving

Place the 2 flours and a pinch of salt in a bowl and mix. Make a well in the centre, pour in some water, a little at the time. Use your fingers to mix liquid with the flour, until everything is combined. Knead it to make one smooth lump of dough (for 5-8 minutes).

Follow the procedure as for rolling and cutting as in the previous post: MORE AUTUMN PRODUCE… lemons and quinces, wild mushrooms and homemade pasta.

Once you have cut the pasta into the width of pappardelle, cut each strip diagonally into pieces roughly 1 cm long.

Cut the potatoes into cubes – I like waxy potatoes and leave the skins on, Italians peel them.  Remove the core from the cabbage and cut into strips about 2 cm square.

Put the potatoes into some cold water, sufficient to make a thick soup like consistency when all of the ingredients have been added and cooked.

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The pasta will swell a bit and need more water than the vegetables; it needs liquid to cook so estimate sufficient water. You can also always add more boiling water to the dish as the pasta cooks if you think it needs more liquid.

When the potatoes come to the boil add the cabbage and add the pasta. I do not think it matters if you use a lid or not while it cooks. If I have too much liquid, I tend to leave the lid off to allow some evaporation. Cook until all is cooked and keep the pasta al dente.

Cut the garlic cloves into thin slices, add some sage leaves and gently cook them in the butter but prevent them from browning. 

Cut the cheese into small cubes.

Now, this is where you need to decide if you drain the solids and dress it or eat it as a wet pasta dish. My preference is for a wet pasta dish and to remove some of the liquid if it is too wet… save it for making another  and different soup.

Sometimes, I have cheated. When i do not have time to make fresh pasta, I have used commercially made  pasta. As you can see these are spiralli. San Remo makes both buckwheat and spelt spiralli. Both good. NOT traditional.

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Cheese, Eggs and Savoury Pastries, Italian Regional, Meat/Carne, Pasta, Soups and Rice, Sauces and Condiments, Sicilian

RAGU` DI CAPRETTO – Goat/ kid ragout as a dressing for pasta

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Sometimes, it is easier to tell a story and describe a recipe by photos.

Goat or kid if you can get it has been available for a while this season (Autumn in Australia). The mint on my balcony is doing well, celeriac is in season, the last of the red tomatoes also and there is a glut of carrots in Victoria at the moment. And all of these ingredients, cooked on low heat and for a long time made a fabulous ragout (ragù in Italian). On this occasion I used the braise as a pasta sauce. Good quality Pecorino cheese is a must.

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Goat cut into cubes – you can tell that it is not an old goat by the pale colour of the meat. It is trimmed of fat.

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The usual onion , part of the soffritto in most Italian soups and braises.

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Add a chopped carrot and instead of celery I used some celeriac and some of the inner leaves of the celeriac.

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Remove the soffritto, add a little more extra virgin olive oil and brown the meat.

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Add the herbs and spices. Recognise them? Salt and pepper too.

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A couple of red tomatoes.

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Top with liquid. I added a mixture of chicken stock (always in my freezer) and some Marsala, to keep it in the Sicilian way of things. On another occasion I may add white wine or dry vermouth.

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Cover the pan and braise slowly.

It does not look as good as it tasted…the perfume was fabulous too.

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Serve with fresh mint leaves and grated Pecorino.

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N.B.  Real Pecorino is made from pecora (sheep)..i.e. sheep’s milk. I used a Pecorino Romano. See how white it is in colour?