Tag: Italian

Too much routine

I need to go outside of my comfort zone in the cuisine… but I don’t know how…

Making ravioli, pancakes, scones, quiches, breads etc… has become such a routine and is so effortless that I miss the challenge. Because, yes indeed, I am a challenger. Whether it’s at work, on the court, in the ocean, or in front of my sewing machine I like challenges. That’s how I ended up registering to a bodyboard school last year and I still enjoy learning to ride waves better and to spin on my board! That’s why I enjoy sewing (and here the challenge is massive!!!) . But recently cooking has been more functional than challenging. Even the steam buns, the bread in a pan etc… are now basically classics and I rush them between two meetings!!

Since my main source of inspiration : experience and local sourcing during our trips has dried up in the past 18months, I have decided to use my imagination and my recollections of some our trips. First stop: Firenze of course! I remembered these gigantic sandwiches they would sell in something resembling focaccia (scaccia in Florence) and I never tried because it is just too gigantic and there was too much fat left on the ham (I have always hated meat fat) and since I just bought some prosciutto it was the perfect timing. So I baked a plain focaccia, and decided that we would have a savory breakfast.

Trying a new type of breakfast: focaccia, prosciutto and fresh tomatoes and peach…

And then because I made a rather giant focaccia we went for it again for lunch, this time in a real panino version with grilled vegetables. (Top picture)…

It wasn’t much but it was a change. Not yet far away from the comfort zone, but new enough!!!

I’ll keep searching my memories!

Panisse

Probably very few of you know what panisse are… you only know if you’ve been to Provence long enough or have a specific interest in regional cooking… Panisse are an other traditional recipe based on chickpea flour and that cones from Italy apparently, but is also famous as far as Marseille. I’ve already shared the recipe of socca from Nice, panisse are something different. They are thicker and fluffier. Most recipes I’ve found are just using the same ingredients as socca but cook it in a pan with a lot more water, and then wait for it to cool down before frying them. I wasn’t too happy with these recipes and tried one I found in one of my vegetarian cookbook. The reason I was interested in that recipe is because you need to add a bit of baking soda to the mix… and you can cook it immediately and eat it immediately too. I still cooked it in a frypan like the socca but it resemble a giant fluffy pancake.

So here is my recipe.

Panisse

– 100g of chickpea flour

– a pinch of salt

– 1tbs of olive oil

– 1tsp of baking powder

– water

In a bowl mix all the ingredients and add water little by little until the mix is thick but not dry.

Heat a frypan of 15cm diameter, grease slightly with olive oil, pour the mix and cook at low heat, under cover, until it’s almost dry on top. Flip, and cook 2more minutes. Cut and eat!

You can use a lot more oil when cooking the panisse, but this is not mandatory… you can also add a bit of salt after too… enjoy!

Ashitaba gnocchi

This is far from being the first time I post about ashitaba (明日葉), or if you prefer angelica. I love this herb and the magic combination with potatoes and pork. I know I should be trying new combinations, but you have a solid recipe, it’s great to do it again and again with small variations. This new gnocchi recipe is even simpler than the previous one I posted a couple of years ago and as delicious! I served with pork filet cooked in olive oil and use the cooking juice as dressing for the gnocchi, with just salt and pepper. Of course olive oil is enough!

Ashitaba gnocchi (4 servings as side)

– 3 large potatoes

– a bouquet of ashitaba

– flour

– salt, pepper, olive oil for the dressing

As usual boil the potatoes with the skin. When the potatoes are tender, let them cool down a bit, peel them and mash them with a fork. Blanche the ashitaba and drain them very very well (as soon as they are cool enough squeeze them in your hands), then chop them finely with a knife or scissors. Add to the potatoes. The mixture should be creamy. Add flour and knead until the mix is dry enough to shape the gnocchi. As always the less flour the better, hence the need to avoid excessive moisture. When dry enough shape your gnocchi. I usually line them on a piece of cooking paper. Boil them until they float when you want to eat them. Dress with olive oil, salt and pepper or like me this time with pork filet juice.

Italy meets Japan again

Saturday I spent some time browsing cookbooks, looking at their beautiful pictures and slowly moving from the winter mood to the spring mood. I was focusing on two very different books: a Japanese macrobiotic cookbook from Brownsfield owner elder daughter Shinema Nakajima, and a Sicilian cookbook by bloggers Maria Teresa di Marco and Marie Cecile Ferre. The first one reminded me its been too long since we last ate brown rice, the second one made me crave for tomatoes, fresh anchovies, fennels and artichokes. But from the mix of both came this very simple recipe of a macrobiotic risotto made from Japanese brown rice and fresh local vegetables. Here is my recipe.

Italian x Japanese risotto (2servings)

– 70g of brown rice

– 3 shiitake

– a handful of fresh rucola

– 3-5 small tomatoes, ripe

– olive oil, salt and pepper

First of all cook the brown rice in the Japanese way. Use left over if you have some.

In a large pan heat some olive oil, wash and slice the shiitake and cook them at low heat in the oil. That will make the base of the risotto stock. Add the rice and stir well, add a 2tbs of water. Then wash and chop the rucola and the tomatoes, add and stir well. Cook for a few minutes while stirring. Add salt and pepper. I served it with daikon pickled with yuzu, that was perfect!!

Ravioli with Japanese flavors

By now you must know that I love ravioli, that I love both making and eating them. With the end of year/new year holidays in Japan, most of the farmers market were off until today, so I had to buy some long lasting vegetables that would last 7-10 days and enough for having friends at home and unscheduled meals to cook, just in case… so I packed on shiitake, spinach, sweet potatoes, daikon, cabbages and carrots mainly. So when I wanted to make ravioli I was a bit falling short of options at first… but then I decided to use the ravioli recipe I learned in Florence last year: a base of potato and a sauce with mushrooms. I just twisted the recipe enough to make it Japanese style: filling of Japanese sweet potato and soya sauce, and the sauce with shiitake, spinach and a bit of grilled pork for those who like it. The result was really up to my expectations, even though I could have added a little more soya sauce. But each vegetable flavor and texture was remarkable and I and A. were both very happy with the result. So here is my recipe:

Sweet potato ravioli (2-4 servings depending on serving size, for it was 4)

For the pasta as usual:

– 100g of flour

– 1egg

– a bit of olive oil, a bit of salt

Mix all and knead until soft. Wrap and leave to rest for 30-90min.

For the filling:

– 2 medium sweet potatoes

– 2tbs of soya sauce

Boil them, when soft, drain, peel, and mash. Add a bit of water if too dry.

For the sauce:

– 1 bundle of spinach

– 4-6 large shiitake

– olive oil to your liking

– thin slices of pork if you like

Wash the vegetables, chop the spinach and slice the shiitake. In a heated pan with olive oil cook the vegetables, add the pork if you want. Add a bit of water if too dry. Keep.

Roll the dough and fill the ravioli. I used a 12-ravioli rack which has fairly large size ravioli (the dough quantities make for two racks: 24 ravioli). Mezze lune are also easy to make as in the recipe here. Fill them and boil them. Once they come to the surface take them out and add to the sauce. It doesn’t matter if a bit of cooking water comes too, on the contrary. Stir gently to cover the ravioli with the sauce and serve to eat right away.

Food in Tuscany

There is so much to say about it…

Food in Italy is always simple, fresh and great… I love to go shopping on the markets (there are markets pretty much everywhere) and find some local delish, I love to cook the simple fresh vegetables in season. My favorite Italian vegetables are zucchini, with the flower even better), fennel, artichokes, celery, radicchio, ceps and tomatoes. I love also the fresh pasta, the million varieties of cheeses and the prosciutto and the speck… but Italy is also great for herbs and dry fruits: pine nuts, hazelnuts, pistachios depending on the region. Pisa province is a region where pine nuts are produced and I couldn’t help but try them and bring some back to Japan! Recipes using them coming soon!

While in Italy I cooked a few different and very simple meals. I am a big fan of pesto soup and minestrone, so as soon as I can I usually cook one. In particular when the fresh beans are in season. It is really simple: celery, tomato, zucchini, fresh beans is the base, then add whatever: spinach, chard, carrot, onion… cook in salted water, serve with olive oil and grated Parmigiano. Enjoy warm or cold.

Fresh pasta are always good at least so much better than anything you can find elsewhere that there is no need to make tour own!! And stuffed pasta are always my favorite. Ricotta-spinach ravioli is on the top of the list, served with either a tomato sauce or chards and basil simply blanched and then cooked in olive oil with the ravioli. An other quick and delicious recipe!

When I have more time I like to prepare risotto with fresh and seasonal vegetables. Fennels that can hardly be found in Japan make a fresh risotto served with fennel flowers picked during a stroll in the garden. An onion to start with, plenty of olive oil, the perfect risotto rice, a large fennel, vegetable broth, and here is a beautiful risotto after 30 minutes!

Here it is for my selection of simple recipes for a little dinner fix in Italy!

Caponata

When you are super pleased to invent a new recipe that looks like delicious… and talk about it over the phone with your mom and she tells you that your brilliant idea not only already exists but is actually a classic Sicilian recipe!!! I must have Italian blood at some point!!!!

Anyway, this brilliant and delicious summer recipe is caponata! Serve with giant pasta and a bit of salad on the side. Here is my recipe.

Caponata (for 2 people)

– 3 Japanese eggplants

– 1 branch of celery

– 1tsp of capers

– olive oil

– 1tsp of vinegar

Dice in small cubes the eggplants. In a pan heated with olive oil cooked them at medium to high heat until golden. Stir often. Wash and dice the celery, up to the leaves. Add to the eggplants. Cook for 5-10 min at medium heat. Add the capers, and finish with the vinegar. Eat like that or with pasta as presented in the picture. Also good with grated Parmigiano.

Potato gnocchi x olive oil

I’m a great great fan of potato gnocchi. I love them just boiled with olive oil, or with tomatoes and basil. I love them grilles in a pan with olive oil and salt. I love them in more complex dressings (all my gnocchi recipes here!)… I also enjoy preparing them a lot, the texture of the potatoes and the flour together is quite unique and enjoyable to knead.

So when one our neighbor gave us a dozen of large potatoes, my first idea was to make gnocchi!

My first gnocchi recipe had egg in it, but once I tried without and discovered after discussing with an Italian friend that sone Italian recipes of gnocchi don’t have eggs in it.

So it’s really just potatoes and flour, and as little flour as possible makes the taste of the gnocchivery potato like which I kind of like.

I serve them most of the time simply with fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden. What I realized recently is that to be perfect, a tasteful olive oil, a bit of salt and pepper are mandatory. Last time I made gnocchi I only had some “regular” very mild virgin oil and it didn’t work well. The flavor of the olive oil was too bland, just an average olive oil, and it didn’t highlight the taste of the potato. For gnocchi you want an olive oil that has a good backbone, a strong olive taste without being bitter or too blazing either. That’s the key to enjoying gnocchi!

Parmigiano is optional…

Italia!

What was supposed to be a nice and peaceful trip to Italy and France started with quite a bit of a commotion with a few centimeters of snow in Paris… and I landed in Paris at 4:00AM only to learn a few hours later that the flights to Florence I was successively checked-in were all cancelled and I decided to fly to Roma instead and take the train and I arrived in Florence 12h later than expected… My long expected visit to the San Lorenzo market, to buy fresh fruits, vegetables, pasta, flowers and cheese was postponed… but not for long! As soon as I came back from work in Pisa on Thursday I went grocery shopping and I could enjoy cooking again the seasonal vegetables that we don’t have in Japan: chards, corn salad…  Sometimes with pasta, sometimes with gnocchi, always with fresh cheese. Here is one of my favorite recipe with corn salad, a fresh simple recipe but really tasty (picture below). I spare you the chard recipes because they were really too simple and the pictures talk for themselves.

Corn salad one plate: 

– 100g of corn salad

– 2 branches of celery

– 6 green asparagus  

– a handful of pine nuts

– freshly grated Parmigiano

– olive oil, salt and pepper  

Wah the vegetables, blanche the asparagus. Chop the celery in dice, chop the asparagus. Mix them together and add the pine nuts. Stir. In the plates, start with corn salad, top with the mixed celery-asparagus-pine nuts, add olive oil, salt and pepper and finish with grated Parmigiano. Enjoy!

Have a great week ahead! 

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