The Italian goes to Atlanta

"Rit, che la mama g'ha fat i gnoc!"

2011-10-13T15:42:00.013-04:00

In my dialect there is this saying "rit, che la mama g'ha fat i gnoc", which litterally means "laugh, laugh, cause your mom made gnocchi", which is said to people that are laughing for no apparent reason...I guess... Anyway, why not giving you precisely the recipe of the legen...dary gnocchi? And despite the fact that they sound (and taste) delicious, they're actually fairly easy to make. It might just take a little bit. But I'm sure that this won't stop you, my dear nonexistent reader. About the sauce to put on them, a common choice is some crashed tomatoes and cheese sauce, but I'd rather eat them with butter and sage, which is the recipe I'm going to give you.

Gnocchi di patate (potatoes gnocchi)

Ingredients: 2lb of potatoes, 3cups of flour, 1 egg, salt, butter, sage.

Preparation: boil the potatoes, peel them and mash them. Then add the flour, the egg and a couple of salt sprinkles and start mixing everything together (by hand). You should get to a pretty soft dough. If it's still sticky, add more flour. Now roll the dough into the shape of a snake of diameter of about one inch. With a knife, start to cut the dough into little pieces (your gnocchi!).

If you want to get fancy (go big or go home...just saying), you can now roll each of the gnocchi on the spikes of a fork, to give them the characteristic shape. The drawback is that...it takes forever!!!

Now put a big pot filled with water on the stove and when it boils, add salt (like you do whenever you cook pasta...cause you make pasta, right? RIGHT?). Then throw the gnocchi in the pot, but not too many at a time, cause they need space. Basically, they all need to be able to float. They cook pretty quickly (about 2-3 minutes). When they're ready, they start to float, and you can collect them with a strainer or a big spoon...or whatever you have!

In the meanwhile, you can prepare the sauce: just melt some butter in a pan and add a few leaves of sage, then let hit fry for a couple of minute. Don't be stingy with the butter, cause some will stick to the pan and you need enough for your gnocchi.

When the gnocchi are ready, just add the sauce (and some parmesan if you like it) and enjoy!

...rit, che la mama g'ha fat i gnoc!

Sounds French, but guess what...

2011-09-20T23:19:00.006-04:00

The vitel tone' is indeed an Italian recipe, from Piemonte, to be precise. It's supposed to be an appetizer, but in my opinion works perfectly as a main course. I really love when my mom cooks it and I tried to do it myself. It wasn't as awesome as hers, but hey, it was my first time, ok? So, here we go.

Vitel Tone'

Ingredients: 2lbs of veal meat (beef might still work, but it's gotta be tender), one big onion (or two small), 3/4 garlic cloves, a couple of rosemary branches, 5-6 bay leaves, 1/2 carrots (depending on the size), 2 celery sticks, some cloves (5-10 depending on your tastes), 3 cups of white wine, 10 anchovies fillets, 200g (7 oz) of tuna (better the one in oil, drained), some capers (1tsp or more if you like them of the ones in vinegar), 4 eggs, salt, pepper, 5-6 tsp of extra virgin olive oil and some drops of balsamic vinegar.

Preparation: put the meat in a pot (better if tall and narrow) with wine, onion, garlic, rosemary, bay leaves, carrots, celery, cloves, salt and pepper. Then add water until the meat is completely covered. Put it on a stove at medium-low and let it cook for about 1 hour and a half. When it's cooked, put the meat on a side (it has to cool down til room temperature or lower) and strain the sauce to take out the spices and vegetable.

For the sauce, you can use a food processor or use a bowl and an immersion blender. First boil the eggs, peel and mash them. Then put in the food processor, tuna, anchovies, capers, eggs. Add alternately the sauce from the meat cooking and oil, until you reach the consistency of a creamy thick sauce.

Now cut the meat in thin slices (this is easier if the meat is cold) and put them in a glass pan or in a big plate covering each layer (if you have a lot of meat) with the sauce you prepared and adding some capers here and there. Then put the pan in the fridge for about 1 hour (or more) to make the sauce condense a little bit.

Your vitel tone' is now ready to be served.

Bologna la dotta, Bologna la grassa

2011-07-24T00:03:00.020-04:00

Bologna has been called "la dotta" (the erudite) for centuries, since it hosts one of the oldest (someone say the oldest) existing universities in Europe. According to historians, it was founded in 1088, originally being focused on law related studies.

However, not so many people know that it's also called "la grassa" (the fat), due to its cuisine, which is rich of delicious dishes and characteristic recipes. I wanna share one of those with you, the way that I make it. And what could be more characteristic about Bologna than the well known Ragu'?

Please, note that I'm just giving you the recipe of the ragu' itself (the way I cook it); you can then decide yourself how to use it. My advice is to make Lasagne or to cook some pasta (preferably some curly type of pasta, like shells or fusilli, so that the sauce sticks well to it, or, at worst, penne) and put the ragu' on top. I also suggest that you make a lot of ragu' and put whatever you're not using right away in some plastic jars and freeze it. It last really for a long time in the refrigerator, and when you need it, you just need to defrost it a few hours earlier.

Ragu' alla bolognese

Ingredients: 2lbs of ground meat (pork, preferably), 2 onions (the yellow ones), 2-3 carrots, a couple of sticks of celery (if you like it), a third of a cup of oil, 1/4 lb of butter a glass of red wine, crushed tomatoes, milk, cloves (I use the whole cloves, not grounded), bay leaves (I use grounded bay leaves), broth, salt and pepper.

Preparation: it's probably easier if you use a wok, but even a medium size pot will work. First of all cut in small pieces the onions, the carrots and the celery (if you like it); after having melted the butter with the oil in the pot, add the onions and the carrots (and the celery) you just cut. Turn the stove knob to a medium-low level. After a few minutes (about 10), the onions should have browned a bit. Add the meat, trying to separate it into small lumps with the aid of a wooden or plastic cooking spoon. Let the meat brown for 30 minutes, giving it a stir every few minutes.

While you wait the meat to brown, you can prepare a cheap broth (if you don't have it already) by boiling some water (3-4 cups) with one of those beef boullion cubes (like knorr has).

When the 30 minutes have passed, add the glass of red wine (I suggest a cabernet) and wait until it evaporates completely. Then add the crushed tomatoes (about half a cup) and the spices. There's no rule...no, I rephrase: I have no rule about how many cloves (about 1 tablespoon?), how much bay leaves powder (about 1 tablespoon?), how much salt (1 tea spoon) or pepper (1 tea spoon?) to add, but don't be too stingy with those. You will find with experience the dosages that fit with your tastes. Stir everything and then cook it for 1 and a half hour putting the stove knob to a low level, adding (when needed) some broth.

At this point, your ragu' is basically done, but I suggest you to add a little bit of milk (1/3 of a cup or less), to tie the whole sauce together.

Note: if you freeze your ragu', I suggest you to put it in a pan to simmer for a couple of minutes before adding it to your pasta or lasagne. By the way, this way you can also add some crushed tomatoes if you notice that your ragu' is not enough for your recipe.

Taking it to another level

2011-07-15T01:01:00.015-04:00

Alright, so far I was just kidding. But now I wanna give you guys a real recipe. As most of my recipes, the measures are not rigorous, since when you love to cook, you just "go by eye", like we say in Italy; but I always try to give reasonable numbers. You will better them with experience. Also, they (the recipes) usually don't have a name. This one I will call it "Pasta with broccoli". The best type of pasta would be "Orecchiette" (literally, small ears), but also something else like medium shelves or penne will be ok. However, don't do this recipe with "spaghetti" or some "smooth" pasta. Imho, it would lose 30% of his awesomeness.

Pasta with broccoli

Ingredients (2 people): green broccoli (2 bushes), breadcrumbs (1/2 cup), red pepper (whole is better but grounded still works), oil, salt, pasta (2/5 Lb).

Preparation:first of all fill a pot with water, enough to boil the broccoli and the pasta inside. When the water boils, add salt (a fist of the coarse one should be fine). Then cut the broccoli bushes in small pieces, but not too small; you can cut the small branches from the main one and that will be about the right size. Of course, you can boil also the main branch. After about 5-6 minutes, you can add the pasta and wait for it to be cooked (follow instructions on the box; usually is around 10 minutes). While the pasta is cooking, put the breadcrumbs in a small pan and toast them, watching out not to burn them (it should take 1-2 minutes, depending on how hot you turn your stove). Also, in another pan, put some oil (1/4-1/3 of a cup) and fry the red peppers for a couple of minutes. If you like them, you might also cut in half a few cherry tomatoes and add them to the red peppers in the pan.

Here, the quantity of peppers to use depends on how much you like spicy food. As a rule of thumb, I would say one of the small ones per person. If you have grounded red pepper, well, 2-3 sprinkles should be ok. When the pasta is done, strain it. Then put the pasta with the broccoli back in the pot and then add the oil and the red pepper on top. Add also the toasted breadcrumbs and stir everything. Your pasta with broccoli is ready to be served.

Note: if you have guests and if you have a pan large enough, it's always cool and stylish if you mix all the ingredients in the pan with the oil and the red peppers, maybe making it jump with the fancy wrist movement very common among chefs. Be careful, cause if you try it and spill pasta on the floor, it might not be that cool and stylish...

Simple is beautiful.

2011-06-29T00:23:00.006-04:00

It was about the time for a second recipe, my imaginary readers, so there it is! Although my mom made it lots of times, this is a recipe typical of the South of Italy (namely Calabria or Sicilia). It's extremely simple and quick. I use to cook this at night when I don't wanna cook.

Pasta "garlic, oil and pepper"

Ingredients: pasta (1/2 lb, spaghetti is preferred), oil (5 tbsp), garlic (1-2 cloves) and hot pepper (whole peppers would be better, but also grounded will work). Optional: cherry tomatoes (a few).

Preparation: while the pasta is cooking, put the garlic and the pepper with the oil in a pan. If you have the small peppers, put 2-3 in the pan; if you have the big ones, 1 is enough; while if you are using the powder...well, use your fucking intuition man! If you want to add cherry tomatoes, cut them in 4 and put them in the pan together with the garlic and the pepper. When the garlic browns a bit, turn off the stove. When the pasta is cooked, strain it and put the sauce you prepared on top of it and serve. You might also add some fresh basil to make it more appealing.

I swear, this is a picture of mine...

Blog restyling

2011-06-17T13:06:00.008-04:00

First of all, I apologize with my old readers (if any), but I didn't like my blog anymore and I needed to start up anew.

Although this new blog is gonna focus on everything that I feel worth it to tell, I will use it mostly to share with all the zero of you, my readers, the recipes that made me famous all over my apartment.

And since I don't want to close my first post leaving you without a gift, I will reveal the first recipe I've ever learned. Don't sag if your first attempt is not satisfactory. It took me years of study to get to the nirvana.

Fried eggs

Ingredients: salt, butter, a number of eggs consistent with the width of your frying pan and your appetite. Experience will teach you.

Preparation: there are many different schools of thought about how to prepare fried eggs. Imho, the best is the old Iberian school way, which is the following. Put a bit of butter in the pan to baste it; when the butter is melt, put the eggs in the pan without breaking the yolk. Add a sprinkle of salt. You can also add some cheese or some spices that you like on top of it. When the edges turn a bit brown, the eggs are ready.

I swear, this is a picture of mine...