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! 

Leftover Italian cooking

Since we’ve arrived in Florence, everyday I’ve been cooking something different for dinner: simple vegetables and salad, pasta, risotto, cereals… I’ve tried them all. And I’ve been using as much as possible things I don’t usually find in Japan, and that I love extremely: artichokes, fennels, lamb lettuce and a great variety of cheeses. And what I’ve been doing is make sure that each time I would have some leftover for my lunch the next day. Indeed, what’s better than working all morning, going for a walk at noon, coming back at two cold and starving, and having already the lunch half prepared? And what’s better than olive oil pan roasted pasta or risotto when them become all crispy and golden? For me leftovers are a real treat! And top them with some new sort of cheese everyday and it’s pure happiness, and pure energy for working the rest of the day!

Here are my two favorites from this week: leftover pasta with newly added artichokes, and fennel risotto with newly added plenty of tomme cheese. For the first one (top picture), simple pasta leftover is good. Then boil one or two artichokes remove the leaves and keep the hearts, slice or chop them. In a heated pan generously add olive oil, the pasta, the artichokes. Stir once in a while until the pasta are golden crispy. Top with a bit of parmigiano and eat right away!

The second one (bottom picture) is even simpler. I actually made some fennel risotto with some pork roast, so I just cooked it again in a pan with a lot of olive oil and didn’t stir until it got really crispy on the edges, then I served it with plenty of some tomme cheese I bought at the market, a much softer cheese than parmigiano but not less fragrant.

Mezzelune

For those who’ve been following us, they know that I love to make fresh pasta, and even more stuffed pasta like ravioli (all my recipes are here!). I’ve been testing many options and yet I was satisfied but never fully satisfied by the result, in particular the pasta itself, but not only, though the taste was always really delicious. So while in Florence and A. too busy with work, I decided it would be a great opportunity for me to learn from a real Italian “Mama” or a real chef. My first idea was to go to Giula’s cooking classes at Juls’ kitchen, but it’s too far away from the city for this time, I’ll go later in the spring… I wanted something that wouldn’t take more than 2h. So when I found the cooking classes at the mercato centrale (again mercato centrale… which in the end I’ve been visiting every day!), and that they just had a vegetarian mezzelune class at the perfect timing for me, I had to go!
And I didn’t regret it, I made some of the best pasta ever I think, because thanks to the chefs I’ve finally learned the tricks that where missing to me:
1. it’s OK to knead a lot the pasta and really use the palm of the hand to squeeze it;
2. let the pasta dough rest before rolling it so that the glutinous structure has time to develop;
3. roll and fold once first before rolling for real;
4. and that’s the most crucial, get the sauce moisten (with some of the boiling water for the pasta) and after boiling the pasta add them to the sauce pan at medium-high heat, shaking regularly, so that they roll over in the sauce and it becomes just creamy, neither to watery nor too dry. Serve and it right away!
So now I feel really equipped to prepare more stuffed pasta!!! And I can’t wait to have my new motor for my pasta machine!!!

And because this something I would have never prepared, but it was really delicious, here is the recipe of the mezzelune I made.

Potato and chestnut mezzelune (for 2, makes 8-10 mezzelune)

For the pasta:

same recipe as usual: 100g of flour, 1 egg, olive oil (or not)

For the filling:

– 2 small potatoes

– 1 handful of boiled chestnuts

– a bit of parsley

– 10g of butter

– 20g of grated parmigiano

For the sauce:

– 5 mushrooms

– 1 little handful of dried porcini

– olive oil

– 15 g of butter

– 4-6 leaves of sage

– 30g of grated parmegiano

Start boiling the whole potatoes with the skin, simply washed and add the chestnut to soften them.
Re-hydrate the porcini.
Prepare the dough for the pasta , wrap it and keep it on the side.
Clean and peel the mushrooms, chop them, chop  the sage. Drain the porcini and chop them. In a pan heated, add half of the butter for the sauce,  a splash of olive oil, then the mushrooms, the porcini, the sage, cook at high heat until it start to golden, then lower the heat, add some hot water and keep cooking all along, while keeping it moisten.
By now the potatoes should be ready, so peel them and chopped them roughly. Mash them with the chestnut (a blender may be welcome here), add the parsley, the parmigiano and stir well to obtain a creamy-dry paste. Roll the pasta, cut out circles and start filling with the filling. close well.
Boil the pasta for about 4-5 minutes, then drain and add them to the sauce pan directly, add the rest of the butter and shake in the pan at high heat, until the pasta has rolled over in the sauce and the sauce has reduced to a creamy texture (look at the top picture at it looks like!). Serve, top with a bit of parmigiano, and enjoy!

Firenze!

 Good morning from Florence!  So here we are, finally in Italy, this time it’s not Sicily but Tuscany, and it’s not for the Christmas holidays with the family but a business trip. Nonetheless it’s the Christmas season and it’s Italy with panettone and Christmas songs everywhere and the many delicious food to eat! In order for me to have enough space to work and to cook A. has rented us an apartment where I have a small kitchen to play with, and just 12h after landing in Florence I was already happily cooking lunch for us!

 my panettone and I!
my panettone and I!

What was I doing during 12h? Well I slept 6, then woke up at 6AM in the dark… right… it’s Europe, it’s winter and it’s dark until 7:00 or 8:00…
Waking up early is still a great thing, because while it’s still all sleepy and empty and the sun is rising slowly we first enjoyed walking around the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio before it’s getting impossible to enjoy. And then only we went for some important shopping: food! We first went just around our apartment to Eataly (but honestly when you’re in Italy you don’t need Eataly, there’s so much more to explore!) and at the San Lorenzo market, where they have a food court on the second floor of the mercato centrale where you can buy, take away or eat there plenty of Italian food: pizza, fresh  pasta, curd meat, Fiorentina beef, fish… no city is escaping the hipster food fashion with all the good and the bad… Anyway… I got there and around some essentials: olive oil, parmigiano, panettone, honey, tangerines, and for the lunch: fresh vegetarian ravioli with spinach and ricotta and some speck. Everything for a day outside walking all over the city in the cold, because it is quite cold indeed in the narrow and shaded streets of the city.

 all what's needed to start with!
all what’s needed to start with!

It is impressive how quickly the city gets crowded on Sunday with groups first and then just crowd and past 11:00 am it gets really crazy, so to avoid most of the crowds we then headed for the Abbazia di San Miniato al Monte, from which the view is worth the small additional climb from piazzale Michelangelo! It’s so quiet and green. And I recommend the funny bucolic and almost rural walk down through the via dell’Erta Canina among the olive trees and the cypress trees. And well that’s how my first day ever in Florence went… beautifully and deliciously! And there five more to come!

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