Italian

Spanish spinach and ricotta penne

6th May 2012 by Regula 6 Comments

Our first dinner in the garden, spring has been cold this year… the blossoms have been blown away by storms of rain and hail. We have had a few days of fine spring weather in March and then winter came back to taunt us. All I want to do is sit by the stove and read a good Jane Austen novel. Wrapped in a blanket and sipping a cup of Earl grey tea…

This morning the sky looked a little blue so we left the house early to go to the organic market in Brussels. I bought fine looking Spanish spinach and found freshly made Ricotta at an Italian stall. That was dinner sorted. I just love simple pasta dishes, simple is gorgeous in Italian cuisine.

I generally don’t use recipes, I mostly just start cooking and see how it goes. Don’t get me wrong I love cookery books but I don’t really use them for cooking. Unless for pastry, you need to follow the recipe there!

We eat pasta nearly every day at our house, vegetarian ones as we only eat meat once a week. There’s nothing more soothing than a good bowl of pasta after a busy day at the office.

So here we are, one of my favourite easy dishes, penny with spinach, Ricotta and Pecorino.

What do you need

1 bunch of fresh spinach (I used Spanish but you can also use the regular one)

150 g of Ricotta

Pecorino cheese grated

Pepper and sea salt

Method

Boil salted water and add the spinach, cook for 30 seconds and drain.

If you are using Spanish spinach, keep the flowers and buds separate to decorate your dish.

Put all the Spinach leaves in a container with a few teaspoons of the cooking water and puree with a handmixer. If the mixture is too dry, add more water.

Add the penne to the cooking water you used for the Spinach.

Wait for 4 minutes, put a heave based pan on the hob and add the spinach to it.

Add the Ricotta and stir, you might need some more cooking water so if you do, add until you get a good consistency.

Add a handful of grated Pecorino and stir well so you don’t get lumps.

Taste and add pepper and salt if needed.

The sauce shouldn’t be on the stove too long, so add the pasta as soon as it’s ready and fold in the sauce.

Put your flowers and buds on top of the pasta and serve with extra grated Pecorino cheese.

Enjoy

Pasta with Haak or Collard Greens

11th April 2012 by Regula 13 Comments

I had never seen this type of kale before and to be honest, I had to do some research.

‘Haak’ or ‘Collard greens’ is a leafy green vegetable from mustard – cabbage family.

They are native to the Mediterranean region but I bought them in Kent.

The leaves look like outer cabbage leaves but darker in color and sometimes almost black. The aroma and taste is something between cabbage and mustard leaves and the leaves do not get very soft after cooking like spinach leaves tend to do.

‘Haak’ or ‘Collard greens’ are also very nutritious, a 1 cup portion of cooked collard greens has about 50 calories. It is an excellent source of vitamins C, A, and K. This same serving will provide a good source of calcium, fiber, and beta-carotene, as well as vitamin E. Rich in nutrients and antioxidants, ‘Haak’ or ‘Collard greens’ are beneficial for supporting the immune system.

the paste

The taste does take some getting used to but after you do, you will enjoy the warm mustardy flavour. I made the leaves into a pesto-like paste and mixed them with parmesan. The parmesan softens the mustard flavour a bit and the Ricotta gives the greens a sweeter touch.

What do you need

serves 4
1 bunch of Collard greens
1 clove of garlic crushed
1 cup of grated parmesan
4 tsp of olive oil
2 tsp of ricotta
parmesan to serve
olive oil to serve

Method
– Rinse the Collard greens well
– Remove the stalks from the leaves
– Boil salted water
– Cut the leaves to create strips
– Add to the boiling water, do not put the lid on
– Boil for 5-7 minutes
– Drain the Collard greens and keep the cooking water to cook the pasta in.
– Add the pasta to the boiling water
– Divide the Collard greens so you have 2/3 and 1/3.
– Add the 2/3 of the Collard greens to a food processor or mixing bowl
– Add the olive oil, parmesan and garlic to the Collard greens and puree.
– Add the Ricotta to the paste and stir
– Drain the pasta and keep some of the cooking water
– Stir the Collard greens paste trough the pasta, if its to dry, add some of the cooking water.
– Finally stir in the 1/3 of Collard greens leaves
– Serve with a generous amount of parmesan and drizzle some olive oil over the dish to finish it of.

This dish is delicious with a fruity white wine.

Enjoy

Please leave a comment, I appreciate every single one!

Fagliolini al Fiasco, beans cooked in a bottle

17th December 2011 by Regula 6 Comments

I’m already dreaming of travelling to Tuscany again…

On our first evening in Tuscany I ate a dish with beans. A friend of our hostess told me that dish was named “Fagliolini al Fiasco” “beans, cooked in a wine bottle”.

He told me this is a dish often sold by bakeries who used the leftover warmth of the bread oven to cook the beans in old Chianty bottles.

The technique was quite simple, the dried beans are dropped in through the narrow neck of the bottle and just barely covered with water, herbs and olive oil.

In the old days, the bottle was sealed with a wad of muslin and set in a corner of the fireplace onto the smoldering ashes. While everyone in the house was asleep, the beans cooked. Imagine waking up to that.

This dish is also one of the classic “pane e companatico” which means “Bread and something to go with the bread”. That something in was very often these beans.

Now being a lover of beans and cooking over an open fire, I had to give this dish a go.

It was a grey morning but as the weather was still mild for the year I was still able to fire up my oven in the garden and keep it warm for a few hours. In the evening we were rewarded by a aromatic bottle of beans and the smell of smoke in our hair. You do need some time, it takes 6 to 8 hours to cook.

What do you need

an empty clear wine bottle like a Chianty bottle (remove the straw)

fresh sage, a small handful

3 cloves of garlic

salt and pepper

a good quality olive oil

dried white beans, fava beans or another small type of bean

wood for your fire (I used old grape vines)

One day before

Soak the beans overnight

On the day

Light your fire with wood, I used a smoker BBQ which is basically a long bullet shaped BBQ with a lid and a thermometer so you can monitor your heat. I hope to build a Tuscan bread oven in my garden next summer but in the meantime this does the trick. I you have a fireplace, this will work to. Just be sure the flames can’t touch the bottle and the bottle isn’t placed in too much heat.

My oven was around 70° Celcius for 5 hours.

Drop the beans into the bottle until it’s filled to 3/4. The beans will expand so you will need that extra space. Add the 3 crushed cloves of garlic, the sage leaves and a bit of black pepper.

Pour in about 3 teaspoons of olive oil and add water so the beans are generously covered in water.

Close the bottle with a wad of muslin or cotton wool so the steam can escape the flask.

You best warm the bottle by putting it in warm water before you put in into the oven or fireplace.

Put the bottle into the oven when the fire is smoldering and leave on the cover for 3 hours.

After 3 hours, the beans in the bottle will look like in the picture.

Leave for another 2 hours.

After those 2 hours, open the bottle and try to get a bean out by using a skewer, have a taste, if the beans are still tough just put the bottle back in the oven for an hour and check again.

Mine were perfect after 6 hours.

We ate the beans in a few ways: just with parmesan and olive oil, with olive oil, croutons from homemade stale bread and parmesan and finally with Italian sausage I brought home with me from Tuscany.

Enjoy

Other posts about Tuscany:

• A trip to the farmersmarket of Monteriggioni and Chestnut cake

• Tuscany in the Autumn: the story of our trip

A fabulous Tuscan foodblog to go to: Juls’ Kitchen

Please leave a comment. I appreciate every single one.

Chestnut cake from Monteriggioni, Tuscany

25th November 2011 by Regula 13 Comments

A beautiful farmers market in the heart of a fortified town.

It was a sunny autumn morning when we left for Monteriggioni, the fog had slipped away and gave way to a yellow and brown colored landscape.

We changed our clocks one hour ahead that night so when we awoke the dew had already dried up and the sun was giving a warm glow.

We drove trough the rolling landscape of Tuscany to reach the hill where the quintessentially fortified town of Monterriggioni lies.

From a distance the town looks like a giant fairytale castle, as we drove towards it my thoughts wandered off to the Middle Ages when Monteriggioni was at the very heart of the conflicts between Florence and Siena. I imagined large battalions of knights approaching the town and peasants going about their business. The knights have all gone now but the farmers remained and were the reason we were driving here today.

Today was a special day in Monteriggioni because in the heart of the fortified town there was a farmers market going on. It was only for one day and there were no certainties for it to happen ever again. The town square was filled with food stalls, producers were proudly presenting their new Organic olive oil and wines were given to taste generously. There were smiling faces everywhere, from the stallholders insisting we’d try their food to the people who were enjoying the scenery and the sun. It was like at this moment, everyone was happy here. There was no music, no dancing but nonetheless this was a feast, a food fest.

The produce at this market was absolutely beautiful, if I could I would have bought something from every stall. But luggage restrictions bound me to making choices, a choice like this is hard to make. What do I leave behind, the glorious organic chestnut flour or the tasty Boar salami… I decided to leave the Fava beans behind and regret that choice every day since. What if I could have fitted an extra bag in my luggage?

Oh well, you can’t have it all and I went home with a beautiful selection of food.

Monteriggioni

Chestnuts roasting

Fill your own cone of tasty chillies

Proudly presenting the new Organic olive oil of 2011

Snail ragout, suprisingly delicious

Wild boar delicacies

Chestnut cake, recipe for my version of this cake below.

Chestnut bread and chickpeas

I baked a cake with the organic chestnut flour I bought at the market.
My friends and I tried to bake this cake in the evening as we tasted chestnut cake at the market that day. The heath of the oven warmed Giulia’s house and filled it with a lovely smell of chestnuts, on this chilly autumn evening.
We loved it so much at the market, I decided I wanted to have another try at reproducing this wonderful cake. After a few tries I came up with this recipe, it’s not at all the cake we tried at the market but I think this one tastes more of chestnuts, which was something I was going for.

Ingredients
200 gr of Chestnut flour
75 gr of corn flour
175 gr good quality butter (unsalted)
1,5 teaspoons of baking powder (check the pack, not all brands of baking powder are gluten free)
4 organic eggs
50 gr of cane sugar
3 teaspoons of Ricotta
1 teaspoon of Cocoa

Method
Preheat your oven to 160° (gas)
Cover a cake tin with baking paper
1. Mix your butter and the sugar, whisk until creamy
2. Add the eggs one by one
3. Add the Ricotta to the butter and egg mixture and stir
4. Add the two types of flour to a bowl and add the baking powder
5. Add the butter, egg and sugar mixture to the flour and mix together.
6. Pour the batter into your baking thin and put in the oven for about 50 minutes.

When you take it out of the oven, leave it to cool in the baking tin.
Dust with Cocoa when the cake is still warm.

You wouldn’t believe how much this cake tastes of roasted chestnuts, just divine!
A good thing about this cake is the low amount of sugar used.
Enjoy!

Next week I’m attempting another dish I discovered in Tuscany: Fagloli al fiasco
Have you missed my previous post about our Tuscan escape? You will find it here

Special thanks to Giulia from Juls’ kitchen

Please leave a comment. I appreciate every single one.

Italian

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