Ciao!! Just thought I would give those of you who enjoy my food pics some more entertainment for the week. I have been busy cooking every week and am learning so many new recipes! I can't wait to make the biggest feast for my family when I get back:) Hang in there, and try not to drool too much please.
Food, Culture and Society: A few weeks ago we made a traditional spring and summer soup that is served in Tuscany. This is one of my personal favorites: Pappa al Pomodoro. It is a tomato bread soup made with bread, tomatoes, basil, and garlic. So fresh and so filling and delicious!
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| Pappa al Pomodoro |
The next week was Easter Monday so we had no class:(( But the next week we made homemade tagliatelle with Ragu sauce. I was predicting it to be more of a tomato meat sauce, but here in Tuscany it has a lot less tomato and just more meat. For this recipe, we made homemade tagliatelle pasta and then for the sauce we started with onions, carrots, and celery chopped very fine and then sauteed them in olive oil. Then you add ground pork and beef and deglaze the pan with some red wine. Then meanwhile, you prepare a vegetable broth. Then we used tomato paste, dissolved it in the vegetable broth and added it to the meat. If you like it more tomatoey, then you can just add more tomato paste.
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| Tagliatelle with Ragu |
The next week we made some very simple but traditional Italian dishes: Parmigiana di Melanzane and Tiramisu. This was one of my favorite weeks and the recipes were so easy! For the eggplant parmesan, we started by slicing the eggplants, and salting them to start releasing the water. Meanwhile we made a simple tomato sauce using both canned and fresh tomatoes, basil, garlic, salt and pepper. Then we lightly dusted the eggplant slices in flour and shallow fried them in olive oil. Then we began preparing the eggplant parmesan in individual pans. You start with sauce on the bottom, then layer the eggplant slices, then add slices of mozzarella cheese, then sauce, eggplant, mozzarella, more sauce and then top it with parmesan cheese. Then for the tiramisu, our teacher didn't want us using raw egg yolks so we replaced the eggs with whipping cream. We whipped the cream with sugar and folded it into the mascarpone cheese. Then dipped the lady fingers in a mixture of coffee and rum and then started layering. We finished with a light dusting of cocoa powder.
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| Parmigiana di Melanzane |
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| Tiramisu |
And now were at this week! This week was all about antipasti. We started by making such a simple starter: Prosciutto e Melone. We made it with both cantaloupe and honeydew. The combination of the salt from the prosciutto and the sweetness of the melon goes perfectly together! Then we also made a recipe called Gamberoni al Lardo. Literally this means shrimps with lard. This was the first recipe I wasn't so excited about. When I think of lard I think of the shortening that my grandma uses to make her pie crust! I was a little nervous. But as it turns out, it was very good! We started by peeling, de-heading, and de-veining the shrimps. Then we washed them and lightly sauteed them in olive oil. Meanwhile we blanched asparagus and tomatoes. We peeled the skin off the tomatoes and chopped them. Then the lard came into play. It really looked like strips of prosciutto but with just the white part. It was very thin and didn't look nearly as gross as I thought it would. We wrapped each shrimp in a small piece of the lard. Then we placed it on top of a crostini and broiled it in the oven. The lard sort of melted around the shrimp and you couldn't even tell it was there but it gave it a really meaty flavor. Then we served the crostini with the asparagus and tomatoes. So light and fresh!
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| Prosciutto e Melone |
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| Gamberoni al Lardo |
Chocolates: So we moved on from our chocolates unit, and started out baking unit. Who knew Italian cakes could be so amazing! A few weeks ago we made two cakes: Torte Morbide con pere e cacao and a sbrisolona al cacao. Both were so unique and so delicious! The first cake was a pear flavored cake with chucks of dark chocolate in it. And the second cake was a sort of chocolate crumble cake made with cocoa powder and in the center of the cake was a filling made with chocolate chunks, ricotta cheese, and strawberry jam.
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| Torte Morbide con Pere e Cacao |
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| Inside view of the cake |
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| Sbrisolona al Cacao |
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| Inside view of the cake |
The next week we continued our baking adventures by making spuma di cioccolato all'olio extra vergine, con zafferano e salsa di vaniglia al romarino. That sounds really complicated but basically it was just an olive oil dark chocolate mousse served with a cream on top that was infused with the flavors of vanilla and rosemary.
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| Olive Oil Chocolate Mousse |
The next week was more cakes: Sacher Torte and a Black Forest Cake. I think these were by far my favorite cakes we made in this class. A sacher torte is essentially a chocolate sponge cake that has apricot jam inside the layers and around it and then is covered in a layer of melted dark chocolate. And even for people like my dad who don't like to mix fruit with chocolate, this one is sooo worth it! And then the black forest cake was layers of chocolate sponge cake, with cherries in between each layer, then covered with whipped cream and more cherries and chocolate shavings.
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| Black Forest Cake |
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| Inside View |
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| Inside View |
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| Sacher Torte |
And then this week was all about cookies and tarts. Cookies are actually a pretty rare thing in Italy so this was a special treat! We started by making white chocolate raspberry and pistachio tarts and then also made 2 different types of sables (butter cookies). One cookie had chunks of cocoa nibs inside and the other was made by making a vanilla dough and a chocolate dough and then rolling them together to make a sort of pinwheel.
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| Sable with Cocoa Nibs |
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| Sable Pinwheels |
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| White Chocolate Raspberry Pistachio Tart |
Pastas: A few weeks back, we made one of my favorite pasta sauces: Pesto. We learned that this sauce originated in the Liguria Region of Italy which is where Cinque Terra is located. In Liguria, the traditional linguini with pesto is served with green beans and potatoes with the noodles. Interesting, but so good! Then we also made another type of pasta called pizzoccheri which is made from chestnut flour. These noodles were handmade and had a very nutty flavor. We served them with a sauce of cabbage and potatoes. This wasn't one of my favorite dishes but it was very unique!
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| Linguine al Pesto |
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| Pizzoccheri |
The next week was all about lasagne. We made traditional lasagne bolognese by layer fresh lasagne noodles with bechamel sauce, ragu sauce and parmesan cheese. We even added porcini mushrooms to our ragu to add to the meatiness. This recipe was so rich but really the flavor cannot be beat when you make homemade ragu and you layer it with the creaminess of the bechamel sauce.
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| Lasagne Bolognese |
The next week was focused on Tuscany: we made pici pasta with tomato sauce which is essentially like a homemade thick spaghetti. Then we also made the traditional crespelle alla Fiorentina which are the Florentine style crepes. I made these in my Food Culture and Society class on the first day but we made them slightly different in pastas class. We layered them with both a tomato sauce and a bechamel sauce which just added more flavor and cut the richness from the bechamel.
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| Crespelle alla Fiorentina |
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| Pici Pasta |
And then this week was all about Sicily and Puglia regions of Italy. We made pasta all Norma which is rigatoni with eggplant and ricotta salata cheese. And we also made homemade orecchiette pasta which are little ear-shaped pasta. This dish is called Orecchiette alla cimi di rapa and it is made with a sauce of anchovies and broccoli rabe. Once we made the fresh pasta we blanched the broccoli rabe in water. Then sauteed garlic in a pan with olive oil and added two anchovy fillets then added the broccoli rabe. Then you add a little bit of tomato sauce and mix with the freshly cooked orecchiette. It was so delicious and not too fishy at all!
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| Orecchiette alla Cimi di Rapa |
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| Pasta all Norma |
Contemporary Italian Cooking: Hang in there only one more class!!! So back up a few weeks. We made gnocchetti di Ricotta con Salsa di piselli al Tartufo. This was so delicious. It was gnocchi only made with ricotta. The sauce was made from guanciale (pork cheek), peas, and truffle. So fresh and bright, a great spring dish!
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| Gnocchetti di Ricotta |
Then the next week we actually made crepes. These crepes were unique in that they were very crispy because they were made with corn flour in the batter. Then the filling was made from leeks and potatoes and we served them over a fresh tomato sauce.
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| Crespelle di mais con Salsa di Porri e Patate |
The next week we made quite a complicated recipe. It was called Baccala mantecato con salsa di Pere. Baccala is a salted cod that can be found all over Tuscany. I wasn't sure I was going to like this dish, but I was pleasantly surprised. We cooked the fish in parchment paper in the oven. Then we made a pear sauce using pears and coriander seed. We also made two starches to go along with the fish: a rice pudding with lemon in it, and a potato pie made with parmesan cheese. There was a lot going on on one plate....once the fish was cooked we flaked it into a bowl and added olive oil and sort of made a mixture of the mashed fish. Then we made little cannelles with the fish mixture and served it over the pear sauce. We garnished it with sauteed guanciale (pork cheek). Not sure how a chef thought fish, pear, and pork would all go together but somehow it did. Definitely not my favorit but it was interesting!
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| Baccala mantecato con Salsa di Pere |
And then last week was all about Risotto! We made two types: Risotto con Provola affumicata, pistacchi e noci, and the second type was risotta al tuorlo d'uovo e parmigiana. The first risotto I liked better than the first although I thought both were too rich. The first one was made just like any other risotto with white wine but then we added cubed smoked provolone cheese (scamorza) to the risotto to add to the already creamy mixture. Then pistachios and hazelnuts were added on top. The second risotto was even richer than the first. It had parmesan mixed into it as well as white truffle cream and was served over a bed of a lightly cooked custard made from egg yolk and more parmesan cheese. Much too rich! I literally took one bite and was full!
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| Risotto con provola affumicata |
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| Risotto al tuorlo d'uovo e parmigiano |
Ok, so I feel full from just writing all of that so I hope I have done my job and you were able to eat vicariously through me! I really don't know how I'm going to eat Italian food in America...I'm so spoiled here!
Munich is this weekend...can't wait to fill up on something other than Italian food: BEER!!
xoxo,
Alli
