After a trip to Italy and France where I got to see my whole family for once, I came back really inspired.

We went to Cinque Terre (Liguria), then Tuscany (Lucca, Pisa, Firenze, San Gimignano and Pisa), then to my parents’ house situated in their little village of Isola di Fano (Marche). I am so glad that Italy unlike France is preserving its cuisine and traditions. France is being invaded by American food chains such as KFC, McDonalds, Subway, Starbucks and many others. I have seen a few McDonalds in Italy and that’s basically it. Italians like their caffe, tramezzini, panini, so Starbucks did not made it through yet. Let’s hope it will remains like this for a long time. Like in any other big city, and of course any touristy city, it’s not always easy to find good food in Florence, Siena, or even Paris, you have to know where you’re going and ask the locals for advice. The best meal I had was Da Tano in Fano (Marche) which is a fish and seafood specialty restaurant. Since Marche is not as touristy as Tuscany, you get to eat wonderful meals at an affordable price.

A few shots from Florence

A few shots from Siena

A few shots from Pisa and Lucca where it rained

Going back to my recipe, I wanted to use my beautiful artichokes in a risotto, I haven’t made a risotto in ages, and a risotto recipe is long over due, but since I had already cooked saffron rice, I decided to use it instead. I am not really a big rice eater even though I do enjoy it whenver I eat it…it’s one of those ingredients that I keep forgetting, just like potatoes.I used basmati rice, but any long grain rice would work well. Of course, a saffron risotto using arborio rice is also another great alternative.

Ingredients for 4

• 10.60 oz (or 300 g) basmati rice or any other long grain rice
• 1 dose of saffron
• 20.30 fl oz (or 600 ml) vegetable broth
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 2 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 lb baby artichokes, cut and trimmed
• 3 tbs dry white wine
• 4 tbs fresh or frozen peas
• 3 tbs freshly grated parmesan + extra for shaving
• black truffle oil
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Steam rice with vegetable broth using a pot or a rice cooker. If using arborio rice, cook it like a risotto, adding broth and wine gradually until absorption of the liquid.

In a pan, heat olive oil, add garlic, stir. Add artichokes, salt pepper and wine. Cover and let cook at medium heat until artichokes are tender but still firm. Add peas, cover and cook for another 5-10 minutes. When the rice is cooked add artichoke/peas mixture. Stir parmesan cheese and mix carefully.

Divide in dishes and top it with shaved parmesan, sprinkle some truffle oil and black pepper.

]]> http://citronetvanille.com/blog/2012/10/rice-timbale-with-artichokes-and-peas-parmesan-and-truffle-oil/feed/ 2 http://citronetvanille.com/blog/2009/12/the-poor-soup-passatelli-revisited-with-chards-and-carrots/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-poor-soup-passatelli-revisited-with-chards-and-carrots http://citronetvanille.com/blog/2009/12/the-poor-soup-passatelli-revisited-with-chards-and-carrots/#comments Wed, 02 Dec 2009 04:30:30 +0000 silvia http://www.citronetvanille.com/blog/?p=5524 La povera zuppa – Passatelli in brodo vegetale con bietole e carote

I had a conversation with my mom this morning, she told me she made passatelli, suddenly I got the irresistible urge to make them too. When I lived at home, I was never a fan of them, probably because that soup was served way too often. Between my grandma and my mom, we ate passatelli maybe once a week. When you eat something all the time, the excitement goes away. I guess tastes change when you grow up and move out of your country.

This is a regional soup very common in Romagna and Marche regions of Italy, it’s traditionally made for some festive occasions, but then people end up making them when they feel like it. It’s another peasant dish made basically with breadrumbs, parmesan, eggs, nutmeg and if you want lemon peel (I like it better without it, I think the lemon is too strong).

The original recipes is made with a chicken or beef broth (or sometimes a combination of both). I like it also with just a vegetable broth. Here, the broth has been enhanced with chards and carrots “en julienne” (cut in tiny strips), so you get a little texture and color and of course the benefits of eating vegetables.

I always ate broth made with hen instead of chicken, hen is fatter and takes hours to cook, so it’s mainly used in broths. Nowadays people use chicken in their broth, probably because it takes less time to cook. It’s important to “degrease” the broth from the deposits and fat the meat produces (if you’re using meat) while cooking, so you’ll get a clear and healthy broth. When making passatelli usually, you eat the boiled meat along with the soup called “lesso“, I have never been a fan of it, and remember my dad pouring tons of black pepper and olive oil on top of his meat.

You need to have that particular kind of potato masher (schiacciapatate) like this one, to make those little round and long threads (not sure how to describe them).  There is another tool used to make passatelli but I don’t think it’s available in the US.

I like to make my own breadcrumbs with old and hard baguette or what is called “Italian bread”, I grate it and get great quality crumbs. The ones you buy already made in stores tend to have an unpleasant taste, and for the passatelli home made crumbs work much better and hold the paste together well, so when you drop them in the broth, they don’t break.

Ingredients for 4

For the broth

• 4 cups or more of water
• 1 leek
• 1 carrot
• 2 celeri stalks
• 1 turnip
• 1 onion with 4 cloves
• 1 bay leave
• 1 thyme sprig
• 1/2 hen or chicken, or beef
• salt and pepper

For the passatelli

• 250 g parmesan, finely grated
• 250 g breadcrumbs
• 3 tbs flour
• 4 eggs
• nutmeg
• lemon peel (optional)
• salt and pepper

Preparation

For the broth

Using a large pot, mix ingredients with water and let it simmer for a while at least an hour. If using hen, it might take over 2 hours. Regularly, remove the deposits you get on the surface of your broth (especially, if you are using a meat based broth).

When the broth is cooked, remove all the vegetables and residues and drain it through a sieve to get a clear broth. Add carrots and chopped chards, and let it cook for a few minutes, until the carrots are cooked.

For the passatelli

In a mixing container, mix, breadcrumbs, parmesan, eggs, flour, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Mix well and let it rest for about an hour. You need to have a hard enough mixture, but not too hard or it will not go through the potato masher.

Fill the potato masher with the dough mixture, bring the potato masher on top of boiling broth and squeeze to produce the passatelli, then cut the base with a knife. The passatelli will drop on top of your pot. Cook for one minute or so. Remove from the stove, sprinkle wit olive oil and serve hot.

]]> http://citronetvanille.com/blog/2009/12/the-poor-soup-passatelli-revisited-with-chards-and-carrots/feed/ 20 http://citronetvanille.com/blog/2009/10/dont-break-the-egg-poached-egg-on-saute-fava-beans-snap-peas-and-aspargus/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dont-break-the-egg-poached-egg-on-saute-fava-beans-snap-peas-and-aspargus http://citronetvanille.com/blog/2009/10/dont-break-the-egg-poached-egg-on-saute-fava-beans-snap-peas-and-aspargus/#comments Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:02:57 +0000 silvia http://www.citronetvanille.com/blog/?p=4648 Ne casse pas l’oeuf!! – Oeuf poché sur fèves, mange-tout et asperges sautées, balsamic et pecorino

I have had some poached eggs lately at a new little place that used to be a French restaurant called Couleur Café run by French people. It closed down, and opened again under another name, Pizza Nostra run by the same people and now it’s an Italian restaurant, well the menu is more Italian than French. I liked it before when they were serving French cuisine and I like it now serving Italian cuisine. One of my favorite brunch menu item is the poached eggs on asparagus artichokes and eggplants with a side of frisée.

The best poached egg salad I had was in Lyon. Of course, if you ever go to Lyon, you need to order a Salade Lyonnaise at L’Est one of Paul Bocuse‘s four brasseries (one of the most famous French chefs of this century). The four brasseries are comprised of Le Nord, Le Sud, L’Est and L’Ouest (North, South, East and West). That salad is really a masterpiece. Unlike other French cities, where you tend to get very tiny portions on your plate, Lyon is very different in that respect. That salad was enough for four people and so rich that it had probably the amount of calories I consume in three days…but a real delight. Actually, Lyon is my favorite city in France, I prefer Lyon than Paris, it reminds me of San Francisco, a very livable size city, a clean metro, and nicer climate.

So going back to our egg, what do you do when you get a poached egg? Do you break the egg right away or eat the rest of the dish and break the egg at the end? I think I never really changed from when I was 8 years old. I just hate to break the egg and see the yolk dripping by, sometimes I just feel like sticking the whole egg in my mouth, just not to break it.

Ingredients for 2

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup snap peas
• 1 cup fava beans, skin removed
• 4 asparagus, cut in 1 inch pieces
• 1 shallot, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 tsp mixed herbs, chopped (parsley, chives, etc…)
• 4 slices pancetta, diced (optional)
• balsamic vinegar for drizzling
• parmesan or pecorino, shaved
• 1 tbs olive oil
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Heat olive oil in a pan. Add shallots, brown them, then add pancetta, let it cook for a couple of minutes until it gets a little crunchy, then add garlic. Stir for a couple of minutes, then add snap peas and asparagus, salt and pepper. Cover and let it cook at slow heat.

Remove fava beans from the pod. Bring water to a boil in a small pot, then add fava beans. Cook for one minute depending on the size of the beans. Drain, let it cool and remove the skin from the beans.

Add to the snap peas and asparagus mixture.

To poach the eggs: In a medium size pot, bring water to a boil with salt and vinegar. When it started to boil, reduce heat so that it boils very slowly. Break egg in a bowl and slowly bring the bowl on top of the boiling water and pour it very slowly and carefully in the water. Make sure the egg whites don’t get spread out in the water, and bring the white close to the yolk. You can use two spoons to try to “glue” the egg whites all together on top of the yolk. remove the egg carefully and place in cold water to rinse the vinegar and stop the cooking process.

When the vegetables are cooked but not overcooked, drizzle with balsamic vinegar, shave some parmesan on top. Spoon vegetables in serving plates, place one poached egg on top, Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Now I know that this might be a little too much of spaghetti squash in just a couple of days. I was not planning on writing a blog about it, I took the pictures, just in case…then after eating almost all of it by myself, I figured it was definitley blog “worthy” and I have to say it’s my favorite spaghetti squash recipe. I had quite a lot of extra squash left from the pancakes, and certainly did not want to throw anything away. I was taught not to throw food growing up, and I rarely do. I still have some squash left, but I promised I will not write another blog about it.

Vegetable gratin are every French basics. They come in all colors, shapes and form. One thing in common they have cheese in it, actually almost all of them, the real potato gratin, le gratin dauphinois has no cheese in it (although a lot of people do put cheese, but the “purists” will grind their teeth at the though of cheese in gratin dauphinois).

I absolutely love this gratin, and I recommend it to anyone who likes spaghetti squash.

Ingredients for 2

• 300 g cooked squash (approximately)
• 3 riped tomatoes, peeled, seedless and cut in small cubes
• 3 medium size potatoes
• 2 tbs basil chopped
• 2 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1/2 onion (optional)*
• 4 tbs Gruyere cheese, grated
• 4 tbs Parmigiano Reggiano, grated
• salt and pepper
• 2 tbs olive oil

Preparation

Cook potatoes in boiling water until tender but do not overcook them, they will cook more in the oven.

Add a little oil at the bottom of a deep dish, slice potatoes and lay them flat in the dish, add salt and pepper. Add another layer of spaghetti squash using half of the squash. Add garlic, basil thyme, tomatoes and cheeses, salt and pepper. Sprinkle with olive oil. Proceed with another layer of the same ingredients, ending with cheeses at the end.

*You can add onion fondue and add the onions after the potato layer. You have to cook onion at medium heat in olive oil until they’re translucent. Add a tsp of balsamic vinegar.

When you’re done layering the gratin, press firmly with your hand on the surface to remove any air in between the layers. That way, when it’s cooked it will stand and not collapse.

Cook in a pre-heated oven at 370-375F for 30-40 minutes until the top is golden brown. Serve hot as a side dish or as is with a green salad.