This is one of my mom’s favorites, she made it to eat it with fish terrine for that crazy Jan 1st meal. Seems like she recently got into bread making and so excited to make it for me. I love breads in France, all of them, baguette à l’ancienne, baguette tradition, pain de campagne, etc…they’re all so good that I love to eat them just plain, like some people would eat cookies and bread is the first thing I request when I arrive.

Not all bakeries make great bread but we all know where the best bread in town is, and get it fresh every morning and people have absolutely no problem driving a few miles to get the bread they want even though there is a boulangerie (bakery) at every corner here. Every one has its favorite boulangerie and we can have serious discussions about where the best bread is and why. Too bad I am no baker, otherwise I would open one in my San Francisco neighborhood since finding good bread there is like a mission impossible. Or eventually make it for my own consumption…I repaired my own shoes once, so why not make bread? I think making great bread is not an easy task though, you need the right ingredients, and a perfect humidity. I think the constant high humidity level in San Francisco makes it difficult to keep the bread crunchy for too long.

She made this bread very quickly and I was impressed with easiness of the process, it’s fairly simple. So you don’t need to be a baker to make it. I always thought it’s impossible if you’re not a baker to make good bread, and I have to say that some home made breads can be delicious.

Ingredients for one bread

• 12.34 oz (or 350 g) whole wheat flour
• 7-8 figs cut in pieces
• 10.14 fl oz (or 300 ml) water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 pack yeast

Preparation

In a container, place flour, add salt and mix. Dissolve yeast in water, and add gradutally to the flour. You need to have a little sticky consistency. Mix but to not over knead dough. Make a thick baguette shape bread. Let it rise for 2 hours. When dough has doubled its size, insert fig pieces and sprinkle with flour. Cook in a pre-heated oven for about 30 min. or until the bread is golden brown.

Orzo in the US, is that tiny pasta shape like a bird’s tongue, orzo in Italian means barley, so when I just arrived to the US, I got confused. Now since I am in the US, I will try to use american names so that people don’t get confused either. I have known orzo to be a cereal whole my life, in Italy they use it even as a drink, caffè d’orzo, it’s basically a powder like the instant coffee, you add hot water, dilute it and you get a cup of dark drink that somehow tastes like coffee and has no caffeine. It’s an alternative to coffee.

My mom used to make me soups with this pasta when I was a child and called it “bicca” meaning “seed” in her local dialect, they’re called Risoni in Italian (riso = rice, big rice grain).

Anyway going back to the other orzo, the pasta-orzo, in this dish I cooked it like risotto, coating it with olive oil, then adding broth and white wine gradually. You can also cook pasta this way. The water is absorbed gradually and pasta gets all the flavors of the stock.

I love this dish, it’s healthy, flavorful and very delicate and an alternative to risotto, if you want once in a while get some whole wheat grain in your diet and still be fully satisfied with your meal, this would be be perfect. I love risotto, a well-made risotto is heavenly but sometime I just want some whole wheat grains.

Ingredients for 2-3

• 1 cup whole wheat orzo
• 12 shrimps with shell and heads on
• 2/3 cups small sea scallops
• 1 shallot, chopped
• 1 carrot
• 1/2 onion
• 3 cloves
• celery stick
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 tbs fresh tarragon
• 12 mint leaves
• 6 large basil leaves
• 2 tbs parlsey
• 1 tbs fresh oregano
• 1/2 fennel, finely diced
• 1 cup shredded radicchio
• 1 tbs olive oil
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Start making the stock. Place 3 cups of water to a boil and add all the herbs, the fennel, the radicchio, let cook for 2 minutes. Remove from the water and drain. Chop the herbs finely and set aside.

Add carrot, celeri stick, stick cloves inside the onion, and add to the stock. Peel the shrimps, head and shell and add to the stock, reduce until you have about 2 cups of stock. Let it simmer for about 30-40 minutes, adding a little water if the water evaporates.

When the stock is ready, drain and keep the liquid.

In a pot, heat olive oil, add shallot and let it brown. Add risoni, coat them with olive like you would for a risotto. Add a little stock and wine, stir until the liquid has evaporated, and add continue stiring and adding stock and wine.

10 minutes before the orzo is almost cooked, add sea scallops and 9 shrimps cut in pieces, leave 3 or 4 for decoration. Stir well and cook until the seafood is cooked all the way through. Add the herbs, radicchio, fennel mixture. Stir well and let rest for about 5-7 minutes. Drizzle with olive oil and serve very hot.

I have been thinking about this recipe for a while that my grandmother used to make when I was a child, called tacconi. I loved those so much, because they’re always remained a little crunchy and I have always loved pasta that remains al dente, even more al dente than it should be. I would never eat overcooked pasta. My grandmother used to make a ton of those tacconi on Sunday and distribute them between my parents and I and my oncle and kids (since we all lived in the same house, different floors). That was the Sunday treat.

Tacconi are some rustic pasta from Marche region made with half fava bean flour and half regular flour. They’re cut thick and long and are served with a garlic tomato sauce.

I could not find just 100% fava bean flour, so the closest I could get is a mixture of half chick pea, half fava bean flour. Instead of white flour, I used whole wheat flour, that’s why those tacconi have a deep brownish hearty color.

Now the original tacconi have a different shape too, they look like thick spaghetti, not short like those gnocchi shape little nuggets. Actually, I somehow reproduced the shape of gnocchi sardi, called malloreddus. Obviously this dish is somehow a result of two Italian cuisines, the Sardinian  and the Marchiggiana…then if you think that pesto is from Genoa, then it combines three cuisines.

As for the pesto, rucola pesto is something I really love, the bitterness of wild rucola mixed with parmesan and pistacchios make a wonderful combination. The asparagus add another green and delicate touch.

Ingredients for 4

For the pasta

• 1/2 cup fava bean flour (or mixed chick pea and fava bean flours if just fava bean not available)
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• water

For the pesto

• 2 cups of wild rucola
• 3 tbs pistacchios
• 2 garlic cloves
• 4 tbs parmigiano reggiano
• 4 tbs olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1 bunch asparagus

Preparation

Start preparing the pesto. Mix all ingredients in a mixer and mix until medium consistency, you don’t want to pesto to be too thin, but with some grainy texture, and feel the pistachios.

Cut asparagus in about 1 inch length and cook in boiling water for about 5 minutes or until cooked but still firm.

For the tacconi, mix both flours together in a bowl and add enough water to make a dough that is not sticky or soft but rather thick and dense. Remove from the bowl, and transfer to a well-floured surface, add flour if necessary. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes.

Let rest in a plastic wrap for about 30 minutes.

Cut the dough in about 2 or three pieces and roll dough into a 1/8 inch cylinder, and cut into 1/4 inch pieces. Roll each piece pressing with your thomb on a gnocchi board or a fork to give it some ridges. Repeat process with all the dough.

Bring water to a boil, add salt. Transfer the tacconi and cook for about 6-7 minutes.

Drain, transfer to a bowl, add pesto and asparagus. Mix well but carefully not to break tacconi nor asparagus.

I think I am getting addicted to earl grey tea, I need to have earl grey at least once a day or my mind keep racing and keep obsessing about it. I think that is the beginning of addiction, I am not an addicted type of personality and never been addicted to anything, and always tried to kept a balance in my life, so I think I will have to do something about this earl grey obsession. It all started when I worked down town, the coffee shop close to my work had this very unusually strong and very flavorful earl grey tea, and by 10 am, I needed to have my large cup or I could not work.

I love its scent so much, this delicate bergamot flavor when it infuses is wonderful. It reminds me of the bergamot candies specialty we find in Nancy, my home town. They even make bergamot jam, and it has a very unusual and citrusy flavor. I had no idea that bergamot looked like a lemon until last year, walking down a craft fair in a village close to Nancy, I found a local farmer who made jams with bergamot and his jam was so popular that there was a huge line in front of its counter.

Those muffins are very light, they’re made out of whole wheat and quinoa flours so you get the nutty/hearty flavor of the unrefined flours. They are not very sweet either and are perfect for anyone controlling its weight and for the 4pm break with a cup of tea, it’s ideal. The sweet-tooth ones, might want to add extra sugar to makes that particular tooth happy. I tend to not sweeten my desserts too much, I think when there is too much sugar, you don’t taste the other ingredients. But that’s just my opinion.

Ingredients for 9 muffins

• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup quinoa flour
• 1/3 cup almond milk
• 2 earl grey tea bags
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 tsp vanilla powder
• 3 tbs candied oranges
• 1 tbs orange blossom water
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder

Preparation

Infuse the tea by heating up the milk and boiling tea for five minutes. Let it cool.

Beat eggs and sugar, add oil, milk infused with tea, orange blossom water, and flours. Mix well to obtain a smooth mixture. Add vanilla, and candied oranges. Mix well, and add baking powder and baking soda. Mix again.

Pour 2 tbs of mixture into oiled muffin mold. Cook in a preheated oven at 375F for about 30 minutes.