I admit it! Alan and I had a wee, mini gastronauts meeting in Rome last month. I was in town for the rugby 6Nations game between Italy and Ireland, and crashed at Alan’s flat. Since we only had a few hours to commit our gastro-crimes (I arrived latish in Rome on friday afternoon, Alan was leaving at 05:00 for teh US), we chose a very simple, yet tasty menu.
First, I got a small 30g can of “entry level” sturgeon caviar from Prunier at the airport in CPH. While on my way from Fiumicino airport, I got a bottle of Greco di Tufo at a petrol station on the raccordo, while Alan was preparing a quick puttanesca. So, as I arrived home, we immediately started with the caviar, washed down with a quite mellow chardonnay and we followed suit with the pasta, wetted by a jar of nebbiolo.
As a secondo, Alan had gotten some straccetti (litteraly translated to little rags) and some fresh rughetta (arugula, for you non romans). Straccetti are very thing and small strips of beef. It was my duty to cook them. So here’s how I made them:
In a large frying pan (or skillet), I did put quite an amount of olive oil. I’m Italian, I can’t quantify how much oil I used as if I were in the lab. I just know how much is right 
Anyway, I bring the oil the very high temp and throw in and 3 cloves of garlic and let tem get golden. Once that is ready, I bring down the heat and throw the meat in the pan (carful!) and quickly stir the whole thing.When the meat is almost ready, I salt it and add balsamic vinegar until the while dish is covered with a think and brownie sauce. Turn off the heat, serve the straccetti on large plates, covered with fresh rughetta and some slices of parmigiano. Enjoyed with the remaining nebbiolo and the greco di tufo.
Mmmmhhhh! Shame was that Alan’s butcher cut the meat too thick. Bollocks to him.
Hello fellow eaters,
I was getting bored at home today and after a bit of thinking, I decided to prepare some fresh pesto. You see, I have this pot of basil in the kitchen which is getting quite big. I bought it 3 months ago at the local supermarket and never thought it would last too long (these guys usually don’t last more than a couple of weeks). Anyway, since these “branches” were getting hard and old, I thought that I could take the older ones and try to make some pesto with them leaves. Better than letting them die.
So, I picked up all the leaves (about two handfulls) and washed them carefully in cold water and dried them in a clean cloth. 
While the leaves are getting a rest, I peeled 3 cloves of garlic and blended them together with a pinch of coarse salt. I then added the basil leaves, a bit at a time, and kept blending in short pulses (to avoid too much heating up of the mix). Continued adding a handful of walnuts (should be pine nuts, but walnuts are accepted by the purists) and a half handful of parmigiano reggiano.
Finally, and ONLY at this stage, I added my olive oil. I kept pouring until the whole thing became nicely wet and creamy. This is really important: adding the oil while blending will modify the taste, as the heat generated by the machine will somehow “ruin” it. Trust me, I git this tip from people having lived in Genova for all their lives. And I guess that in Genova, they know their pesto 
Ok, since I had the pesto, I cooked some pasta (try adding a diced potato in the water, you’ll see) and ate the whole thing. Tasty it was. Need more!!!
(grazie Giamaica)
Yallo! been a while since I wrote something here. You know, moving across continents, starting a new job and setting up a new house makes things a bit “crazy”. Anyway, we are now all nicely setup and we are starting to cook “real things” again and, after having thought about this for a long time, we finally decided to use those huge nettles we have in the garden.
I was thinking, for a long time, to make nettles risotto, but we finally decided to make ravioli instead. Itchilicious. This is how we did them:
- we “harvested” the top tender leaves from as many nettles as possible from the garden
- washed them in a lot of cold water, trying to remove as many stems as possible
- boiled them until they became just like boiled spinach (or kale)
- drain all the water and leave them to cool down
In the meantime, prepare the dough:
- using our fantastic Kitchenaid Pro600, I mixed ~ 700 grams of flour with 4 eggs and slowly add water enough for the dough to become homogeneous and not too wet
- take the dough-ball aside and cover with a dry cloth for about half an hour
Now, for the nettle stuffing:
- we mixed the boiled nettles with ~ 500 grams of ricotta, 4 cloves of garlic, one egg and enough bread crumbs (~ 250 grams) to make it compact and dryish. You can add a bit of nutmeg if you like.
- mix and mix and mix untill nice and firm
Finally, take out “the machine” and start working small pieces of dough into pasta strips of about 10/15 cm of width, not too thin or else they will break (I did use the #5 setting, ie one before “thinnest”). Place the stuffing onto the strips as little balls, not too big, not too small (you’ll find out how big you need them to be while assembling the ravioli) and fold the dough onto itself. Press the space between stuffings with your fingers and make sure that the pasta is properly sealed all along its length. Finally, cut them raviolis with your favorite cutter device (I like this guy) and place the ravioli on a well floured tray. Once all cut, you can decide whether to cooke them all, dry them or freeze them.
We had them with a wonderful tomato and porcini sauce:
- soak the dried porcini in a mix of water and red wine for ~ 30 minutes
- in a pan, golden a chopped onion in a bit of olive oil
- add your mushrooms with some of the water/wine mix
- allow for the liquid to evaporate and throw in one/cans of tomato
- cook, at low temperature, for as much as you can before starving (or burning the sauce)
- mix with them ravioli
Well, there it is. A bit rusty in the writing part, so it wasn’t maybe the best description ever. And I lack photos. At least, I got started again. I’ll try to keep this a bit more active from now on.
Cheerius!
Ok guys, enough. just to make things clear once and for all: THERE IS NO CREAM IN CARBONARA! just eggs, pecorino, parmigiano (and not parmiGGiano, like Jamie effing oliver writes it), pepper, guanciale and, I do add it, garlic. I personally love rigatoni to go with the sauce. Others like penne or spaghetti.
Here we go:
(this is for 2-3 people)
- start put a lot of water in a big pot and start boiling it
- take some oil, fry in a thingy of garlic and, when nicely golden, add the guanciale (3-4 slices cut in small pieces or cubes) and fry it until the fat has turned transparent. If you can’t find guanciale (I miss it, god if I miss it), use the best possible bacon you can put your hands on.
- while the pig is frying, break an egg in a bowl, start beating it (poor fellah) and add the grated cheese. Enough that the whole thing becomes dense and thick, but not as much as to turn the egg into a clump (I usually add.. boh… enough). Add enough pepper to make he cream start looking darkish. If you feel daring, you can add an extra egg red, for more taste.
- I am starting to realise that I have no clue on the amounts I use.. all done by eye. Sorry about it.
Now, we have the bacon ready, the egg/cheese/pepper “sauce” ready. Water is boiling, add salt in the water and then throw the pasta (half a kilo should suffice). One minute the pasta is ready, drain it aaaaaaaaaaaaannnd, here comes the hard part (and this is why philistines use cream):
- quickly toss the pasta in the sauce bowl and mix it quite rapidly
- toss the whole thing in the frying pan where the bacon is and mix th whole thing even more rapidly. The point here is to avoid turning the egg into an omelette. Should remain creamy and gooey. You can appreciate why incompetent cooks prefer to use the damned cream. Won’t omelettise
- Once you are happy with the creamyness of the egg, serve hot, with a bottle of red
I just realise this was a lousy way of explaining the dish, but I am tired. Next time I make it, I’ll take a few pictures and measures, so that I’ll be a bit more professional.
And, BTW, this here IS NOT carbonara:
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Here’s the setup. I am happily watching “Ramsay’s kitchen nightmares” on the telly, when Gordon Ramsey start declining italian dishes. Felt like fingernails on a blackboard: Brushetta, Ghnokee, Taghliatelleee, Fettucceeneee.
Oy! Gordon! Noo! ohnoohnohno! You have almost 10 Michelin stars for your fine restaurants all over the world. Learn the jargon, Jimmee!
So, here’s a wee lesson. Let’s start with the basics:
- “Ch” in Italian is pronounced like a “k”. It’s brusketta and not brushetta. Mocha is moka.
- an “e” is always pronounced like in the spanish word “que”. Not “eeee”. It’s fettuccinay, not fettuccinee. Same for linguine.
- “gn” is like the spanish “ñ”. It is ñocchi and not ghnocchi.
- Get a reality check: you’ll never learn to say parmiggiano properly. Just call it Parmesan cheese. not parmejian, or however you pronounce that.
- Few words that english speaking people tend to use in a way that we find quite funny are “prosciutto”, “gelato” and “biscotti”. It’s like going to a buthcer and ask for “meat”. Yeah, right, but what kind/animal/cut? Prosciutto means ham, gelato means ice-cream and biscotti means cookies. Quite general and broad items, right?
What really craks me up is to go to the local starbucks (I know, sometimes it’s the only place to get coffe in longwood) and see how marketing works. Why is it that a “small coffee” is called “grande”? Grande means big. wtf? moccaccino, frappuccino, whatthefrackkino is all that crap?
Anyway, it’s late… I am talking crap, as usual. Need to feed the young one as his 23:00 bottle is approaching. Talk to yous later for some more rambling about coffee and maybe another receipe.
Tschuess
BRUSKETTA!!!! not brushetta… ‘cazozza, ma e’ cosi difficile da capire?
Compliments to the Chef