Italian cooking

Recipe - Neapolitan Calamarata – Squid and Fresh Tomato Pasta Sauce

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Calamarata is a typical Neapolitan first course, its name comes from pasta in the shape of large rings similar to squid rings and served with a sauce of squid (Calamari in Italian) and fresh tomatoes.

Ok, but Calamarata refers to the pasta shape or to the seasoning?

Both. In addition to being a pasta shape, it is also a condiment whose protagonist, needless to say, is the squid. cut into large rings, it is practically similar as pasta.

There are many variations of Calamarata, some add seafood, swordfish, as well as the vegetarian version or a mix with potatoes, mussels and clams. In Sicily they prepare it with the addition of aubergine as well as calamari and swordfish.

Although the ingredients and the procedure are very simple, this dish is rich in taste and scent all Mediterranean and as we are talking about Naples, Pasta and Squids, here is the recipe for the classic Neapolitan Calamarata!
 
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Tomino cheese from Piedmont


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Tomino is one of the popular typical Piemontese cheese, round in shape, made with goat’s milk, althought, depending on the dairy farms, it is also produced with cow’s milk or a mix of both.

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The best known Tomino is the flowered-rind one, which has a slight surface coating induced by mould similar to that one of Brie, the French cheese.

Tomino has a very stringy dough and a soft and white outer crust. It is usually griddled or even wrapped in bacon or Parma ham or Speck as we did or even paired along with ” Bagnet Verd – Salsa Verde”

Tomino can be also eaten raw, sometimes with simple honey or fresh fruit like figs or dried fruit like walnuts, and it can also be sold preserved in oil with dry black summer truffles or spiced.

I like it also just melted in a pan and then spreaded on a bruschetta or used as a sauce to season pasta if you don’t have time to prepare a four cheese sauce.
 
Lampascioni.

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Lampascioni ( Lam-pa-sho-nee ) are very common bulbs in the areas of Southern Italy and they grown mainly in Apulia and Basilicata, They belong to the same family as garlic, but its bulbs are more similar in appearance to button onions: they share the same tight-layered structure and that's why they are also called wild button onions.


You can find Lampascioni in markets all over Italy by now.


They have a quite bitter taste and for this reason, once collected and cleaned well by removing all the soil and the outer part of the bulb, they are left immersed in cold water for at least one night.


In this way they eliminate some of their pretty intense taste (but never completely, after all it is their much appreciated characteristic!)
Lampascioni are quite rich in mineral salts, low-calorie, antibiotics, purifying agents. In addition to this, they reduce the risk of heart disease, Lampascioni prevent inflammation, have emollient properties, help to lower fat and blood sugar and to reduce high-blood pressure and have such a beautiful blue/lilac bloom.

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How to cook Lampascioni?


Start by cutting a cross in the bottom, you can simply boil and season them with salt, pepper, spices and olive oil or also breaded and fried. Lampascioni croquettes are a delicacy!


However, they can be also added to frittata also baked sometimes along with potatoes and delightful as a side-dish to lamb, a very popular second dish in Apulia.


They are also preserved in vinegar and oil as an apulian antipasto.


Curiously enough, the word 'lampascione' is also used in a good-natured way as a synonym of dumb person.
 
Recipe - Spätzle – The Tyrolean Gnocchi

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Spätzle are little egg gnocchi of rather irregular shape, part of the Tyrolean culinary tradition.


Tyrol is a part of the Trentino Alto Adige region, in the North East of Italy. This region borders with Austria and is part of a larger Swabian area, and there German is an official language as much as Italian. This is the reason why this dish has a German name and many variations of it can be found in Germany, Switzerland and some parts of France.


Spätzle are similar to gnocchi, but their dough is made only with flour, eggs and water, without using any potatoes. Different regions use different tools to make their kind of Spätzle; Tyrolean cooks use a sort of giant garlic press or potato ricer, with big holes.
 
The most entertaining way I've ever seen spaetzle made is by chef Walter Staib. He's from Germany but lives in Philadelphia, owns City Tavern there, and specializes in colonial America recipes and techniques. He also had a show called Taste Of History, where he cooks everything in the same manner as was done here in the 1700's.

I can't find a video, but what he does is take his spaetzle dough, which is quite wet, and smears it onto a giant board, like a pizza peel, that he holds over his shoulder.

Then, using nothing but his chef's knife, he rapidly cuts off tiny bits of dough, while standing over his pot of water, and the little bits of dough fly from the board right into the pot, and the whole thing takes mere seconds.

It sounds like a bit of flash, but it's really the opposite. No fussing with any specialized cutter, no waiting for the dough to drop on its own...just smear, cut, repeat and it's done.

It's one of those things that's just beautiful to see, watching a real mastery of a technique. I doubt I'm even describing it correctly.

As Chef Staib would say..."Spec-TACK-a-lar!"
 
The most entertaining way I've ever seen spaetzle made is by chef Walter Staib. He's from Germany but lives in Philadelphia, owns City Tavern there, and specializes in colonial America recipes and techniques. He also had a show called Taste Of History, where he cooks everything in the same manner as was done here in the 1700's.

I can't find a video, but what he does is take his spaetzle dough, which is quite wet, and smears it onto a giant board, like a pizza peel, that he holds over his shoulder.

Then, using nothing but his chef's knife, he rapidly cuts off tiny bits of dough, while standing over his pot of water, and the little bits of dough fly from the board right into the pot, and the whole thing takes mere seconds.

It sounds like a bit of flash, but it's really the opposite. No fussing with any specialized cutter, no waiting for the dough to drop on its own...just smear, cut, repeat and it's done.

It's one of those things that's just beautiful to see, watching a real mastery of a technique. I doubt I'm even describing it correctly.

As Chef Staib would say..."Spec-TACK-a-lar!"

Sounds funny and I am wondering how many fingers he has cut making spätzle like this?
 
Then, using nothing but his chef's knife, he rapidly cuts off tiny bits of dough, while standing over his pot of water, and the little bits of dough fly from the board right into the pot, and the whole thing takes mere seconds.
I found this rather long video - about half-way through he makes spaetzle - not using a giant board over his shoulder but the rapid cutting of tiny bits of wet dough from a board with a palette knife is shown.

Let Freedom Ring | Season 5 Episode 3 | A Taste of History

Grabbed this still shot:
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Sweet Polenta it’s an old smart way to re-use leftover polenta, mostly in the North of Italy and in particular in Lombardy and Veneto regions.
Nowadays many people (included me) make it from scratch and serve sweet polenta both for dessert and snack.

There are several ways to prepare it, depending on availability of ingredients, time, personal tastebuds.
I made today two versions from scratch, as I had polenta in my cupboard and wanted to prepare it not following the usual way. The first version is a cake, I mixed polenta and cocoa powder together, then I cooked it in warm milk and not in water.

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Then I’ve added what I had to hand, i.e. walnuts, raisins and a final addition of choco-drops. Bake to 170C for 10-12 mins.

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Second version:
Fried leftover polenta, that’s a very common way to eat sweet polenta.
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Recipe - Wedding Soup - Minestra Maritata

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Wedding Soup, Minestra Maritata in Italian, is a typical dish that belongs to Neapolitan cuisine, traditionally prepared during Christmas or even Easter, althought nowadays it is made on many other occasions, just perfect for the cold winter evenings. The expression “maritata” derives from the fact that the various ingredients of meat and vegetables got happily married in the soup.

The Wedding Soup has several regional variations. Although is a simple recipe, some vegetables can be easy to find in some regions but not in others depending on each region local products, as well as tailoring its preparation according to personal taste.

The preparation of this dish is pretty long and laborious, but the final result of the dish will pay you back for the time spent in the kitchen!

However, Wedding Soup remains a soup made with meat and vegetables served in broth.

Which vegetables are used?
Chicory, savoy cabbage, escarole, broccoli, borage, chard and even cavolo nero sometimes.
Which meat is used?
Hen and beef muscle are the main ones used and they are cooked separately.
But basically the Wedding Soup remains a soup made with meat and vegetables served in broth.

In some regions they also add some parts of the pork such as pork chops or sausage or rind as well. In Lazio region they use grated Pecorino cheese to garnish at the end, whilst in Campania region they used grated aged ricotta cheese.
 
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Recipe - Stuffed-Rice Tomatoes Roman-style

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Juicy tomatoes stuffed with rice and flavoured with Mediterranean aromatic herbs, then oven-baked. Pomodori a riso in Italy call summer and the sea. They are typical of the traditional Roman and Latium cuisine, eaten cold in summer and lukewarm in winter.

In the City of Rome, Stuffed-Rice Tomatoes are always accompanied by potatoes baked together with tomatoes, thus they are a complete secondo piatto with a side-dish.

Traditionally the rice is baked after being soaked for about 20 minutes in the aromatic tomato pulp and this is the version of this recipe.
 
Recipe - Friselle - Apulian Savoury Rusk Bread

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Friselle are a type of dry rusk-bread typical of Southern Italy and in particular of Apulia region, but also very used in Campania, Calabria and Basilicata regions.

Doughnut-shape, made with durum wheat flour, twice-baked in the oven. Before eat them, they should be strictly wet with water to get them soft but not soggy, then traditionally seasoned with Extra Virgin Olive Oil, salt and dried oregano and a topping with tomatoes and/or olives a bit like bruschetta-style.

Seasonings for Friselle are innumerable and they are often also added into chunks to soups or bread salads such in Tuscan Panzanella.

In the past Friselle were also called “crusaders’ bread”, eaten during the Middle Ages by the fighters who went to the Holy Land.
 
Italian Soffritto

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Soffritto comes from the Italian verb “soffriggere“, which means “to stir fry” or “sauté”. Not the main actor yet crucial as a basic cooking technique in many recipes, Soffritto is a typical Italian preparation made with three classic veggies: onion, carrot. celery diced or finely chopped, then stir-fried in Extra Virgin Olive Oil or butter.

It is used to cook dishes based on Tomato sauce, Ragù, Risotto, Minestrone or meat-based second courses like Braises or even in fish-based dishes.
Depending on what you are going to make then, you can also add aromatics such as garlic, rosemary, thyme or bay.

However, we also want to give credit to another herb that is usually discarded: celery leaves. Minced and added to Soffritto are really incredible.

Said that, the fundamental rule to obtain an excellent Soffritto is cooking vegetables very gently by giving them time to soften and to season without burning.
Celery, carrot and onion are available all year round, this is also one of the reasons why these are almost always the vegetables chosen. However, you can prepare Soffritto even only with onion and sometimes shallots come into play if you don’t have onion. What about red onion? Well, of course, just a slightly stronger taste.

Whatever the choice between onion and shallot, all of the three vegetables of Soffritto should be put in a pan together, browned over low heat and being stirred often for at least 10 mins. They don’t have to become dark, they remain shiny, not for an aesthetic reason but for a taste reason, because it could burn and becomes bitter or the onion could have taken over.

At the end of cooking, you can add white wine or water to blend.

How do you store vegetables to make Soffritto?

Cut the vegetables separately and dry them well with kitchen paper. Freeze them wide and not stacked one on top of the other on small trays, then dice them well separated, then gather them in jars or ice trays.

Tip: Soffritto on its own can also become such a simple yet excellent seasoning for pasta!
 
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