Tag: Italian

COOKED RADICCHIO

Maybe you are not familiar with cooked radicchio?

Even if you have experienced radicchio in a restaurant, you have probably eaten it raw and most likely in a salad, but you can also cook radicchio. Just like any other leafy vegetable it can be grilled, braised, baked, or sautéed.  I particularly like to eat grilled radicchio on polenta with a little tomato salsa,  it is great sautéed in a risotto, or a pasta dish.

In Australia it is relatively easy to buy round or the elongated red radicchio.

One of my favourite ways is to enjoy it with pasta .

Sauté some Italian pork and fennel sausages (out of their skins) in a little extra virgin olive oil, then add some radicchio cut into slices. Sauté it  while moving it about until the sausage meat is cooked. Add a dash of  wine and evaporate it. Use red or white wine as the colour from the cooked radicchio can be quite dark.

I know a few people who do not like radicchio because it is bitter and when it is cooked the bitter taste intensifies. The bitterness is perfect as a foil for fatty dishes.

Roasted radicchio and pan fried radicchio is very easy to prepare.

I prefer to  cook my radicchio on the stove because I feel more in control.

Cut a large radicchio into quarters.

Heat some extra virgin olive oil in a frypan that has reasonably substantial sides, add the radicchio to the hot oil, add  salt, a little rosemary and thyme and  watch it wilt. Turn it over once and towards the end add a little balsamic vinegar and a tablespoon of citrus marmalade. The marmalade is home made so it is not too sweet.

It  will be cooked in about 10 minutes.

It was the  accompaniment to pan fried duck breast so you can see why these flavours go well together.

It may not look appealing (maybe as cooked red cabbage) but it tastes good.

Although my radicchio was cooked plainly, it is easily seen that adding different ingredients, will modify the taste. Try:  nuts,  a few slices of sautéed onions , bay leaves,  caraway or fennel seeds, crisp fried pancetta,  a little blue cheese at the end.  It is a versatile dish.

The next day, the leftover radicchio made a nice topping for some toasted bread.

There was a cacciatore in the fridge and this, and the combination the radicchio worked well. Any pork or beef salumi, smoked fish or meat and a strong tasting cheese is perfect.

 

Once again, it does not look like much, but gosh, it was good.

More recipes with cooked radicchio
Pan fried radicchio with pickled pears, walnuts, beetroot and gorgonzola
BIGOLI NOBILI (Bigoli pasta with red radicchio, borlotti and pork sausages)
RADICCHIO (Treviso) with polenta and tomato salsa

CHICKPEAS and simple food

Let’s make the most of simple, healthy food — chickpeas.

We do not need perfectly stocked pantries to cook satisfying meals. Some of the best dishes come from using what we already have on hand and allowing simple ingredients to shine.

I always keep chickpeas and other pulses in my pantry and freezer. I soak dried pulses overnight, change the water, add bay leaves, or rosemary, or sage, or thyme and then cook them slowly over low heat.THe different herbs will impart a different taste.

Once cooked, I transfer the surplus into glass jars, cover them with their cooking liquid and store them in the freezer. They are nutritious, economical and always ready to use.

Chickpeas have long been central to Mediterranean cooking, especially in Italy, where they appear in soups, pasta dishes and rustic contorni. They are humble ingredients, but deeply satisfying.

Here are  some very different dishes using chickpeas — both simple, improvised and full of flavour.

Would these dishes belong to particular Italian regions? Perhaps not directly. But the ingredients and cooking methods certainly sit comfortably within Italian and Mediterranean traditions. The cauliflower pasta especially feels connected to the type of food my mother would have cooked — practical, seasonal and deeply nourishing.

Pasta with Cauliflower and Chickpeas

This pasta dish came together with ingredients I already had at home: chickpeas, cauliflower, passata, herbs and chilli.

The herb I used was nepitella, which grows abundantly on my balcony at this time of year. Oregano, basil, thyme, marjoram or parsley would all work beautifully.

The cauliflower was the common white variety — inexpensive, easy to find and a vegetable that keeps well in the fridge. I prefer spring onions to regular onions for their gentler flavour, but either can be used. There was also garlic and homemade stock involved, because there are always jars of broth in my freezer.

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The method was straightforward and very Italian in spirit. I began with extra virgin olive oil, garlic and spring onion gently sautéed. The cauliflower followed, then stock, herbs, seasoning and just enough passata to lightly colour the dish. Everything simmered slowly until tender and fragrant.

I cooked the short pasta separately, though I could easily have added extra stock and cooked the pasta directly in the sauce. I wanted this to be a softer, slightly brothy pasta dish — comforting and rustic.

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Chickpeas with pasta.

Chickpeas with Saffron, Mushrooms and Eggplant

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Chickpeas, saffron, mushrooms and eggplants.

The second dish was more improvised.There is no traditional name because it simply evolved from what I had in the fridge at the time. That is often how good home cooking begins.

I sautéed spring onion in olive oil, added whole mushrooms, then chickpeas and strips of eggplant. Saffron went in for warmth and colour, along with marjoram from the balcony garden. The liquid was the chickpea cooking broth itself — rich, earthy and too good to waste.

Before serving, I added fresh mint for brightness.

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Cooking with What We Have

Being creative in my kitchen gives me much pleasure. One of the reasons I enjoy camping or cooking in Airbnbs while travelling is that I cannot rely on having every ingredient or every kitchen tool available. There is creativity in limitation.

You adapt. You improvise. You cook with what is there.

And often those meals become the most memorable.

I MUST LIKE CHICKPEAS – RECIPES:

CECI (CHICKPEAS) IN SICILIA: Cucina Povera

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

MUSSELS WITH CHICKPEAS

VESPERS and a celebration of chickpeas in BACCALÀ CON CECI alla fiorentina (Salt Cod with Chickpeas as cooked in Florence)

CHICKPEAS SOUP WITH WILD FENNEL (Minestra di ceci con finocchio, erba selvatica)

Zeally Bay Sourdough Panettone

A  panettone was a present from the bakers from Zeally Bay. It came unexceptionally in the mail:

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Panettone from Zeally Bay Bakers

Panettone is traditionally eaten during the Christmas and New Year holiday period in Italy. Christmas is close. The best eat before date is 20th February so you will have plenty of time to eat it if you are lucky enough to buy one in Melbourne.

It is made with the best ingredients, and it is organic.

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Zeally Bay were experimenting with making Panettone last year but they were not happy enough with the mixture in time for Christmas 2017. But this year – perfect.

Thank you Zealy Bay, I shall enjoy mine.

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‘Like many great things, sourdough requires time, skill and patience’

The above quote is from Zeally Bay’s website.

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Good luck to those of you who live in Victoria, and enjoy it if you are able to purchase one.

About Zeally Bay bakers and sourdough panettone:

ABOUT PANETTONE AND SOURDOUGH

 Zeally Bay website:  https://zeallybaysourdough.com.au/

 

CAN I CALL IT PANFORTE?

I almost always like to experiment with traditional recipes, often by including ingredients that traditionally are not tolerated by purist Italians. I persevere with my variations because I usually like the end result. It is a little like the situation with Sangiovese produced in Tuscany and the wine from Sangiovese grapes grown in Australia. I once had a lengthy discussion with a lovely wine bar owner in Firenze who could not believe that we would dare call our wine Sangiovese because Australia could not possibly have the traditional characteristics of the Tuscan region, the terroir and the climate. But how important are the skills of the winemaker and the subtle variations of in an aged old tradition?

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I make panforte every year for Christmas. In traditional panforte recipes the most common nuts are almonds and hazelnuts. In recent times pistachio nuts, walnuts and macadamia have become common, especially in Australia.

We have also taken liberties with what we do with the nuts – whole or chopped nuts, skin-on, blanched or toasted? This time I used blanched almonds and hazelnuts with their skins – I blanched and toasted the almonds and toasted the hazelnuts and rubbed some of their skin off.

I like black ground pepper and plenty of it; traditional recipes do not add as much as I do, but then again I also like to add black pepper to my fruitcakes. The common spices are cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Some add coriander, and I too have done so in other panforte I have made.

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I added cocoa powder and chopped dark chocolate pieces. I wanted colour, richness and a slight bitterness, a contrast with the sweetness of the fruit. I also thought that the chocolate would melt and once cool would solidify (like in a Florentine biscuit) and make the panforte texture less candied. I used citron and orange peel, figs and ginger (in syrup, but I drained it). I have also eaten panforte with cranberries, cherries and pineapple. Where does one draw the line?

Could I still call what I made panforte? Not likely.

Zenzero (ginger) is not common in Italian cuisine and is not found in panforte, nor are dark chocolate pieces included in the traditional mix.

I used  equal amounts of honey and sugar – the sugar, like toffee makes it brittle, the honey adds flavour and gives the panforte a softer, less brittle consistency.

A little flour and a little butter – the more flour you add, the firmer the texture of the panforte; the more butter the richer and shorter the mixture. I used the chocolate and too much of it and because of the chocolate’s fat high content I should not have used. the butter. My panforte did not end up as chewy as the classic variety of panforte.

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I ended up with a fabulous tasting concoction – how could it not be with all of those good ingredients and flavours. The ginger and pepper makes it very more-ish. But is it panforte?

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I enjoyed making it and shall enjoy eating it and sharing it with friends but not call it a panforte – an experiment perhaps, so that I could make use of all of the ginger in syrup that I had in my pantry.

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A friend went overseas and left me with an incredible amount of  candied ginger. I made a syrup and turned the candied ginger into moist ginger in a very flavourful syrup with the texture of honey.

370 g of nuts – almonds, hazelnuts

370 fruit – figs, citrus, lemon and orange peel

4 tsp ground black pepper

2 tsp ground spices – cinnamon, nutmeg, less quantity of cloves
150g plain flour
4 tsp cocoa powder
150g chopped dark chocolate

1 tsp butter (I used 1 tbs and this was too much)
1 cup white sugar
1 cup honey

Roughly chop the figs, place then into a bowl with the peel and drained ginger
In a different bowl put in the nuts.
Into a large heatproof mixing put in the flour, cocoa and spices. Combine these and stir in the fruit and the nuts.
Heat the oven to 200C
Line containers with baking paper.
Put the white sugar and honey into a pan and gently heat until it bubbles. Keep it on the gentle heat for another minute. Place in the butter.
Work quickly and stir the hot liquid into the other ingredients until well combined, then scrape into the prepared tins and press down. Bake the small ones for about 15mins and larger shapes about 30 minutes. They harden as they cool.
Cool the panforte before turning out. Wrap them in more baking paper until you are ready to gift wrap them in cellophane and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Previous posts about panforte:

PANETTONE AND PANFORTE for an ITALIAN CHRISTMAS

PANFORTE again and again

NETTLES (Ortiche), Culinary uses and gnocchi

Nettles, known as ortiche in Italian, can be cooked and pureed to be added to potato gnocchi dough or made into bread gnocchi.

You may have noticed that use of nettles in culinary dishes are gaining popularity. Some Melbourne restaurants have included nettles and there were bunches for sale at the Queen Victoria Market a couple of weeks ago (Il Fruttivendolo – Gus and Carmel’s stall). Gus and Carmel have not been able to procure any nettles for the last couple of weeks so maybe demand by restaurants has increased.

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Nettles are part of the assortment of wild greens –  considered unwanted weeds by many and appreciated edible plants by others. Wild greens in Italian are referred to as piante selvatiche (wild plants) or a term that I find very amusing: erbe spontanee (spontaneous herbs).

Nettles are high in nutrients such iron, magnesium and nitrogen and can be eaten in many recipes – I ate them not so very long ago incorporated in the gnocchi dough in a trattoria in Cividale del Fruili, a lovely little town in the Province of Udine, part of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northern Italy.

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Once back in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago I enjoyed them on several occasions as a sauce for gnocchi at Osteria Ilaria and at Tipo 00 nettles have been part of a risotto since it opened– both excellent eateries are owned by the same team.

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Matt Wilkinson, of Brunswick’s Pope Joan has also been a fan of nettles for a long time.

Nettles are easily found anywhere where weeds can grow. If you have ever touched nettles you would know that they sting, cause redness and itching so use rubber gloves when you harvest them. Nettles need to be cooked before eating and because they reduce significantly when cooked, you will need a large amount of them.

Remove the stems and choose the best leaves – the tender young leaves from the tips are best; wash and drain them as you do with any other green vegetable. Blanch a few handfuls of the leaves in a pot of boiling water for minute or so – this softens them and removes the sting and you will end up with a dark green soft mass which you may choose to puree even further to gain a smooth, soft paste. Drain and use them – once cooled they can be included in a gnocchi or pasta dough or in a sauce to dress the pasta or gnocchi.  Incorporate them as part a soup – great with cannellini or chickpeas. Mix them with eggs and a little grated cheese to make a frittata. For a risotto either use the already softened nettles or sauté the leaves with whatever ingredients you are using for the risotto and then add the rice and broth.

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On my recent travels to Northern Italy I ate gnocchi with nettles in a trattoria in Cividale dei Fruili. The cheese used to top the gnocchi is smoked ricotta.

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You will find many recipes for making potato gnocchi and I generally use about 500 grams of boiled potatoes, 150 grams of softened/ blanched cold nettles, 1 egg, 150 grams of flour.

You could also try gnocchi made with bread.

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Bread gnocchi

Equal amounts of nettles and bread, i.e.
300 g of nettles, blanched and drained
300 g of good quality white bread (crusts removed and preferably 1-2 days old)
milk to soften the bread
1 large egg
seasoning – salt, pepper, grated nutmeg
about 2 – 4 tablespoons plain flour to bind the mixture (try to use as little as possible) and
grated parmesan can also replace some of the quantities of the flour

N.B. Spinach instead of nettles can be used in the recipe.

Dampen the bread with some milk and squeeze any moisture from out before using. Mix the cooled nettles with the bread in a large mixing bowl. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, add the egg and knead well. Add the flour gradually and make small balls with the dough. Flatten them slightly with a fork. Boil in salted water until they float to the top.

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A simple sauce can be some lightly browned melted butter with sage leaves and a good sprinkling of parmesan cheese.

Walnuts, garlic, seasoning, olive oil and butter can be blended till smooth and will make a great dressing. Or try the classic Genovese walnut pesto made with marjoram. See: PESTO DI NOCI (Walnut pesto/ sauce for pasta)

In my book, Sicilian Seafood Cooking I have written about wild greens in Sicily.

Posts about Sicilian wild greens on my blog are:

EDIBLE WEEDS: Orecchiette e Broccoletti Selvatici (and cime di rape)

SICILIAN EDIBLE WEEDS and Greek VLITA

Use the search button to find recipes for other foraged vegetables, i.e. Wild Fennel, Chicory, Wild Asparagus, Malabar spinach, Purslane, Mushrooms.

 

 

SEDANO RAPA (Celeriac and how to eat it)

What do you do with it?

Other purchasers usually ask me this question when I am standing at a stall at the Queen Victoria Market buying a celeriac. I am usually asked the same question when I buy cavolo nero, kale, artichokes and fennel – but not as frequently for fennel these days.

Sedano rapa (celeriac) is more common in northern Italy and here are a few ways that it is eaten.

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In Trieste, we used to eat it bollito e insalata – peeled, cut into quarters, boiled in salted water and then dressed with a simple drizzle of oil and lemon (or vinegar) and extra seasoning.

In Verona celeriac is made into a soup with borlotti beans, onion, carrot, beef or veal stock and fresh pork sausages.

In Piedmont (close to France) it is made into a much lighter soup, once again using broth, but it is served over slices of good quality bread topped with grated cheese.

In Australia, I do make a celeriac soup and I also like to eat it cooked with a dressing, but I particularly like it raw in salads.

Peel it first, to remove the knobs – it becomes quite attractive peeled, it is dense and fragrant.

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Because celeriac discolours easily when cut, I leave handling the celeriac till the last minute and eat the salad soon after. I cut the celeriac ‘julienne ‘ and dress the salad quickly. (Dressing made with extra virgin olive oil salt, pepper and lemon juice). I usually like to add apple. Watercress is also a favourite.

I also like to present celeriac raw as one of the vegetables for bagna cauda –a dip of anchovies, butter, garlic, and olive oil. It is served warm as an appetizer with fresh vegetables . This is a recipe originating from Piedmont also.

See TASMANIA, FOOD, ART, HOBART and Bagna Cauda

I always buy my celeriac with leaves – an indication of how fresh the bulb is. And besides, I use the leaves in soups and the small, tender, centre leaves in salads. “Us Italians’ (or at least this Italian), does not throw much away.
My father who spent his youth in Ragusa (Sicily) before moving to Trieste, said that his mother boiled celeriac and then dressed it with a drizzle of olive oil. Apparently my grandparents grew it in their mulino (a water mill) close to Ragusa Ibla. There are quite a few mulini in the region of Ragusa which were used to mill wheat. The family kept their dogs there and grew a few vegetables. As a child I visited Sicily every summer and we used to go there often; it was a place to go especially in summer when their apartment in the city was too hot. A couple of these mills have been turned into restaurants. In fact, in one of the Moltalbano episodes he goes to one of these restaurant and I thought I recognised it as the one my grandparents used to own. My relatives in Ragusa disappointed me when they told me that that it was not the one – I have since visited this restaurant.

During my last trip to Sicily I visited an old water mill that has been revived to grind organic wheat into high quality flour.