Stinging nettle risotto

This is my favourite risotto. It has a plenty, but also soft and delicate flavour. Can’t describe this cheap but truly sophisticated dish – you have to cook it and enjoy for yourselves!

You will need (for two people):

200-250 g fresh stinging nettles (just the top part)

2 and a half espresso cups of risotto rice (Carnaroli)

half an onion, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, chopped

meat bouillon or, if you don’t have it, a teaspoon of home-made meat stock cube

a glass of white wine

salt, extra virgin olive oil

Parmesan and double cream for topping

It is made like a normal risotto:

0. Prepare the nettles: wash very carefully (because they will sting you, and because they need an accurate washing) and boil them in salty water. Then strain and squeeze them with your hands (they won’t sting you any more! ). Chop very finely.

1. Make a soffritto with olive oil and the chopped onion and garlic. When browning, add the nettles and allow them to cook for five minutes, stirring every so often. Add now the stock cube, if you are using it.

2. Add the rice, stir and leave some minutes to roast. Pour the wine, stir again and allow to dry.

3. Cook at least 15 minutes, until ready, by pouring hot bouillon and water. When semi-cooked, taste and add the salt.

4. Turn off the fire and leave your risotto to rest for a couple of minutes. Serve with generous Parmesan and cream.

I’m sure you’ll love it!

Carrot velvet soup with marjoram and goat cheese

I made this recipe yesterday for dinner, and I knew it would have been good, but I didn’t think it was so delicious!!! So, I left my dish in one side to write down the recipe (even if it’s so simple, but I didn’t want to forget anything!).

You will need only a few things (2 people):

3 carrots

2 small potatoes

1 very small onion

1 teaspoon of veg stock

2 tablespoons of dried marjoram (if you use the fresh one, put only 1 tablespoon)

extra virgin olive oil and sea salt

semi matured goat cheese (I love when it gets a bit creamy).

Allow the sliced onion, half of the marjoram and the veg stock to brown in a pot with oil. Add the carrots, cleaned and roughly chopped. Cook for a few minutes, then add some water and the potatoes, peeled and chopped. When the vegetables are cooked, blend it all very carefully (it has to become very thick and creamy).

Serve with the rest of the marjoram and some goat cheese.

Enjoy!!! I’m sure you’ll love this soup as I do! <3

Sea fruits risotto

 

Ingredient list:

• Carnaroli rice (no more than 120 g for a light and romantic dinner in couple)
• Mixed sea fruits and shells, as you like, ready to cook (200 g) plus some beautiful ones to garnish
• Parsley
• Fish bouillon (you can easily make it with some fish and shrimps’ discard)
• 1 garlic clove and a half
• A small piece of onion
• A glass of white wine
• Extra virgin olive oil, salt and ground black pepper

 

To make the fish bouillon, you can follow the procedure for the beef bouillon. Put fish discard, shrimps’ skins, etc. instead of the beef, and put parsley instead of the Juniper.

 

First, you need to prepare a pot with the boiling bouillon (strained). Then, in a pan make a soffritto with oil, the garlic clove (whole) and the chopped onion, and some leaves of parsley.

Allow the soffritto to brown, then add the rice and stir. Wait some minutes for the rice to roast, add the wine and stir again. When it gets dry, add some bouillon. Keep adding the bouillon, taste and add the salt, until the rice is semi-cooked. Meanwhile, carefully cook the sea fruits to garnish your dish in another pan with oil, garlic and parsley. Add the others sea fruits in the rice pan to cook them with the rice. Wash and chop some parsley leaves. Move the rice away from the fire when is cooked; stir in some ground pepper. You can keep it only a few minutes with a lid before eating it – 2 or 3 (for a S. Valentine’s dinner, I can suggest to move the rice from the flame a bit earlier and suddenly cover it with a lid, so it keeps going on while you are eating the appetizer – about 10 minutes). To serve, arrange the rice in the dishes, sprinkle with the chopped parsley and garnish with the sea fruits.

Valentine’s day menus

Menu 1

Menu 2

.Don’t make big quantities

.Menu 1 goes with white wine

.Menu 2 goes with a young red wine

.I love to serve desserts with a Sicilian dessert wine (moscato, passito, marsala, ..), that you can keep drinking also when the dessert is finished

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Beef bouillon

 

This is the only italian bouillon recipe that my family has ever done. My grandmother taught it to my mother, my mother taught it to me, and I simply love it. And of course I’ll teach to my (future) children.

Just a few actions:

-         Fill a pot with cold water.

-         Put the meat in the pot. Add onion, garlic, bay leaves, rosemary, celery, carrot, peppercorns (I think black pepper has a too decisive taste, I prefer to use pink pepper, or green), cloves and 2 Juniper berries. The quantities you can see in the picture are for a small bouillon. Do not add salt.

-         Switch on the gas and allow it boil over a gently heath for a  minimum of 1 hour.

-         Allow the meat to cool down in the water (it will take back 10% of the water it lost in the cooking process).

That’s it.

You can eat the meat with sauces: the green sauce that I’m going to post, mayo, ketchup, Dijon mustard, hot sauce, tartare sauce, kebab sauce.

But what I really love, what I really want to eat, is the bouillon. Strain it from the vegetables and the spices and use it to make a perfect risotto; or simply cook into it a small pasta variety and serve this soup with a generous quantity of grated Parmesan.

A simple dish for a winter supper that won’t never, never delude me. Enjoy.

Rosa carpaccio

The italian title of this recipe, rosa carpaccio, in English is pink carpaccio or rose carpaccio, maybe both. This recipe is from Academia Barilla antipasti recipes book, but I improved the original version with some changes.

It’s a carpaccio with champignon mushrooms (champignons de Paris) and artichokes.

You need (5-6 serves):

15 thin slices of beef meat, for the carpaccio

1 fresh artichoke

250 g champignon mushrooms

2-3 lemons

Parmesan

a good extra virgin olive oil

salt and ground pepper

Remove the mushrooms’ stem and skin, wash and cut them in thin slices. Immediately dress with lemon juice, oil, salt and pepper (I love to dress the raw champignons with a teaspoon of white vinegar, in addition to the lemon). Dispose the dressed mushrooms over the platter and cover them with the meat slices.

Clean the artichoke (remove all the exterior leaves, all the sharp points and the hairy portion in the inner part by cutting the artichoke in half), then slice it in very thin slices.While slicing it, put the slices already done in cold water with some lemon juice, for the artichoke not to oxidize.

Make an emulsion by mixing 1 little glass of oil, salt and the juice of a little lemon. Then sprinkle the artichoke slices over the meat and pour the emulsion over it all. Condition with a bit of ground pepper and sprinkle with some Parmesan chips.

Wait 10 minutes then serve. Enjoy!

Artichoke cream, ham and Brie piadina

While walking on the street thinking about how to use three artichokes I had in the fridge, I had the idea for this recipe.

Piadina is a thing made of flour you can stuff, a bit like a crepe. It’s typical of Emilia-Romagna, an Italian region (maybe you heard about Bologna, Modena, Ferrara, Rimini, Milano Marittima…), and it’s a street food.

I don’t know if around the world you can buy ready-to-stuff piadina at the supermarket, but in Italy the answer is yes. However, I prefer to make them  at home because I don’t like the preservatives in industrial ones.

Quantities for 2 serves.

Artichoke cream

3 artichokes, a little bit of a sweet onion / shallot, olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon

Enjoy artichokes’ coloured and geometrical beauty! 

Clean the 3 artichokes: remove the exterior leaves, all the sharp points and the hairy portion in the inner part. Cut them in fine slices. Put the slices  in a bowl with water and lemon juice, for the artichokes not to oxidize.  Then brown the chopped onion in a pan with oil, and add the artichokes. Add salt and cook with a cover for about 20 minutes, until cooked. Then blend it, with some oil if necessary and ground pepper if you like. To make the cream without fibres, pass it in a strainer.

Piadina

You need a wide pan, like mine (thanks to my best friends for this gift!), from the “Chef à porter” Aeternum Bialetti crepes sets.

The ingredients are simple: for 2 piadinas, 150 g of white flour, a little bit of salt, a little bit of sugar, and a generous teaspoon of lard (I used clarified butter but I think ordinary butter works well too).

Mix these ingredients in a bowl, then add approximately half glass of warm water. Add a little water at a time and knead well the dough until it becomes a non-sticky ball.

Time to divide the dough in two parts and roll them out with a rolling-pin (I suggest to do it over some baking paper with flour, for the piadina not to attach at the  work top). Make two round and thin piadinas and cook them one at a time in the wide pan (do no add anything else in the pan for the cooking) over a low/medium heath, taking care not to burn or dry too much the piadina (when cooked, you should be able to fold it in the half).

Assembling

Spread the cream over half part of the piadinas, cover with some slices of Brie and some slices of ham. Fold the piadinas in the half and put them again in the pan for the Brie to melt.

Eat hot this italian fast/slow food!!!

Speaking of artichokes and italian products.. 

Do you know Libera Terra Products?

Libera is an association fighting against mafia, and Libera Terra is the part of this association that works to confiscate the large lande estates in South Italy owned by the mafia, and to do organic farming and cultural events over them.

Libera Terra artichokes’ pot is simply amazing!!!! (thanks mum)

Here the link to look and buy this healthy, perfect tasting and social helpful italian products (in Italy you can found them also in shops): La Bottega di Libera Terra

Red cabbage with apples

I love this German style recipe. It’s an unusual way to cook and taste the cabbage, and I think the final result it’s fantastic.

I make it to eat as second dish, as I don’t like (and I don’t want) to eat meat or fish every day, but it can be good as side dish, with a roast.

You will need (3-4 serves):

1 red cabbage

1 little garlic cloves

sugar

1 apple (not too big)

apple vinegar

olive oil, salt

Wash and slice the cabbage. Brown the chopped garlic in a pot with some tablespoons of oil, then add the cabbage. Cook for a while over a medium heath to brown the cabbage, then add a bit of water. When the cabbage starts to shrink, add 1 little tablespoon of sugar, 6 tablespoons of apple vinegar, some salt and the apple, chopped into cubes. Sugar and vinegar’s quantities go at pleasure: I suggest you to start with less tablespoons and then to add more of them if you like (I like 1 and 6). Cover and wait for the cabbage to cook (minimum 20 minutes), then serve.

Enjoy!

Ps. The dish in the picture was painted by me, for the method read here.

Home-made meat stock cube

To complete the series “stock cubes”, after the veg stock.

It can not appear so beautiful, but if only I could make you smell it… Believe me, it is fabulous, try it and you won’t never come back to buy industrial cubes!

You need (to make stock for 1 year):

200 g beef pulp

200 chicken pulp (not necessarily breast, that is too lean; I use thighs)

200 g onions

200 g coarse salt

celery

carrots

garlic

rosemary

sage

 

The process is really simple.

Clean the meat from nerves, skin, bones and other not regular things, and wash the vegetables and herbs. Chop everything into pieces, put it all in a big pot with the salt and simmer one hour and a half. Do not add any water, and mix frequently. Then, blend very well the mixture and froze it. I froze it in little bags, and when I open one of them I arrange it in the fridge.

This stock cube lasts for at least 1 year, and it won’t get damaged because of the salt. You can use it for risotto, soffritto, a quickly tomato sauce, soups and more.

 

2LC: Porcini mushrooms and pumpkin macaroni

So happy to take part to 2 Little Chefettes challenge this month!!

For this fabulous dish of macaroni, you will need (2 serves):

170 g macaroni

30-40 g dried porcini mushrooms

350 g pumpkin

1 garlic clove

half onion

1 teaspoon of home-made meat stock cube (click here for the recipe)

half glass of white wine

100 g single cream

1 sachet of saffron

1 piece of hot pepper

a bit of parsley

extra virgin olive oil and salt

Make the mushrooms to soften up in a cup of hot water. Wash, peel and cut the pumpkin in little pieces. In a little pan brown the chopped onion, the garlic clove (unpeeled but crushed a bit), the piece of hot pepper and the stock cube. Add the pumpkin, pour the wine, add salt and let cook. Crush the pumpkin with a fork, to make the sauce homogeneous, and if it needs more water for cooking, add the mushrooms water. When the pumpkin is cooked, add the mushrooms, roughly chopped, cook some minutes more and put out the heath. Then add the cream and the saffron, and throw away the garlic clove.

In the meantime, cook the macaroni.

Mix the sauce with the macaroni and serve with some parsley leaves and grated parmesan.

As we say in Italy… buon appetito!