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Le Noci

Posted by Serena
Nov
3
2009

This year has been great year for le noci (walnuts), and every day I go out to pick up manciate (handfuls) of them that have fallen from un noce (a walnut tree) in front of our house. I share this tree with a couple of scoiattoli (squirrels), which keep themselves busy all day long running up the noce, collecting noci, and running down again to store them away in a secret place. We always enjoy watching these two squirrels from our kitchen window as they skillfully jump from one branch to another with their long fluffy tails trailing behind them.

Earlier this year, at the end of June when the walnuts were still acerbe (unripe), and had il mallo verde (the green husk), I made il Nocino, a strong aromatic liqueur typical of the Emilia Romagna region, which we drink as a digestivo (digestive) in piccole dosi (in small doses). Now it’s autumn, the noci are ripe, and we eat them as a snack or use them in cakes and cookies. But there is one special recipe that we love, and which I always make when fresh walnuts are available, il Pesto di Noci (Walnut Pesto). This pesto is originally from the Liguria region and, as the name suggest, was traditionally made in the mortar and pestle (hence the word pesto, from the verb pestare = ‘to crush’), although nowadays we use an electric blender. It’s a simple and tasty recipe ideal for dressing i pansoti, a type of ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta, or in fact any type of egg pasta. This recipe makes enough for four people.

 

Ingredienti:

16 noci (16 walnuts)

Mezzo spicchio d’aglio (half a clove of garlic)

4 cucchiai di olio extra vergine d’oliva (4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil)

Mezzo bicchiere di latte (half a glass of milk)

2 cucchiai di Parmigiano grattuggiato (2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese)

Sale a piacere (salt to taste)

 

Preparazione

Shell the walnuts, and put them in warm water. When they have softened a bit you should be able to remove the dark skins until you are left with the whitish nut inside. Put the walnuts in a blender with the garlic, salt and olive oil, and blend the ingredients until you obtain a smooth, thick paste, adding the milk a little at the time. Finally incorporate the Parmigiano, and put the resulting pesto aside to rest.

While the pasta is cooking, add a couple of spoonfuls of the pasta water to your pesto in order to make it a little more liquid. Serve the pasta, and dress it to taste with your lovely fresh pesto di noce. Ecco fatto! 

Buon appetito!

 
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Parmigiana di Melanzane

Posted by Serena
Sep
10
2009

Melanzane, melanzane e ancora melanzane! (Eggplants, eggplants and more eggplants! or aubergines as they are called in the U.K.) This long hot summer the melanzane on our orto (vegetable garden) have been very prolific, and I’m trying to find different ways to cook them. This old traditional recipe is definitely our favorite: la parmigiana di melanzane!

 

Ingredienti

Quattro melanzane medie (4 medium size eggplants / aubergines)

Sei tazze di salsa di pomodoro (6 cups of tomato sauce)

Una manciata di basilico (a handful of basil)

Due tazze di Parmigiano grattugiato (2 cups of grated parmesan cheese)

Due mozzarelle (2 mozzarella cheeses)

Olio per friggere (oil for frying)

Sale (salt)

 

Preparazione

Slice the eggplants about 1 cm thick, spread them out on a tray in a single layer, and sprinkle them with salt to remove any bitterness. Leave them for about 1 hour, then rinse them and dry them thoroughly. In a big frying pan heat plenty of oil, fry the eggplants until they have a dark, golden color on both sides, then put them on some kitchen paper to remove the excess oil. In the meantime chop the mozzarella into small cubes, and rinse, dry and chop the basil. In a large baking dish (a Lasagna dish for example), pour a few tablespoons of tomato sauce, enough to cover the bottom. Make a layer of the fried eggplant slices, cover them with some more tomato sauce, plenty of chopped mozzarella, some basil, and 2 tablespoons of Parmigiano cheese. Repeat the layers making sure to finish off with plenty of Parmigiano to give it a nice golden crust when baked. Put the dish in a hot oven, 200 degrees C, or 400 degrees F, Gas Mark 6, for about 40 minutes.

You can also make this recipe with zucchini / courgettes, in which case it is called parmigiana di zucchini, and with carciofi (globe artichokes) which is called parmigiana di carciofi. 

Buon Appetito!

 
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Ricette Italiane col Basilico

Posted by Serena
Aug
8
2009

As promised, here are a couple of essential Italian recipes that contain il basilico (basil).

The first one is the famous Pesto, which takes about 15 minutes to prepare. The quantities given below should make enough pesto for four to six (Italian!) people.

You will need:

100g di foglie di basilico (100 grams of basil leaves)

uno spicchio d’aglio (a clove of garlic)

50g di pinoli (50 grams of pine nuts)

5 gherigli di noci (5 shelled walnuts)

2 cucchiai di parmigiano grattugiato (2 spoons of grated parmesan cheese)

2 cucchiai di pecorino grattugiato (2 spoons of grated pecorino cheese)

1 pizzico di sale (a pinch of salt)

150g circa d’olio d’oliva (around 150 grams of olive oil)

 

Wash the basil leaves, and spread them out on a tea towel to dry off the surplus water. Put them in a mortaio (mortar) with the salt and begin to pestare (crush) them. Add the pine nuts and walnuts and squash them against the sides of the mortaio with the pestello (pestle). When the basilico is well mixed with the other ingredients add the grated cheese a bit at a time. Mix the ingredients well, adding the olive oil in order to obtain a thick liquid paste. Now make yourself a nice piatto di spaghetti (plate of spaghetti), add your lovely fresh pesto, and enjoy!

By the way, as you may have guessed the name pesto comes from the verb pestare (to crush), and the pestello is literally the ‘crusher’.

 

If pesto sounds a bit too complicated, or you don’t have all the ingredients then you can always try the second recipe, Salsa di pomodoro, also known as Pomarola.

You will need:

1 kg di pomodori maturi (1 kilo of ripe, preferably sweet tomatoes)

una cipolla piccola (one small onion)

uno spicchio d’aglio (one clove of garlic)

un mazzetto di basilico (a small bunch, or handful of basil)

olio d’oliva (olive oil)

sale (salt)

Drop the tomatoes in boiling water for a moment to loosen the skins, peel and chop them, remove the seeds, and then blend them. Finely chop the onion and garlic and gently sauté them in olive oil for about 5 minutes. Add the blended tomatoes, basil leaves, and salt, and leave the salsa to simmer for about half an hour. This salsa is wonderful with any pasta dish, just pour the it over the cooked pasta and sprinkle a bit of grated parmigiano, or chopped mozzarella on top.

 

In fine (finally), I’ll leave you with this excerpt from an interesting  comment I received from Kavita about my article: http://www.transparent.com/italian/il-basilico

“Il basilico italiano is a cousin of indian basil (tulsi)!
This is interesting. Basil has so many beneficial properties it is considered holy here in India.”

Buon appetito

 
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Il Basilico – L’Erba Regale

Posted by Serena
Aug
2
2009

It’s difficult to imagine Italian cuisine without il basilico (basil). The name basilico derives from the Greek word basilicòn which means ‘royal’, and in fact it was the Greeks themselves who introduced this most archetypal of Mediterranean herbs into Europe, importing it from its native habitat of India. For the Romans, besides being an important aromatic ingredient in their cuisine, il basilico was the emblem of gli innamorati (those in love). 

Il basilico is an annual arbusto (bushy plant) which can grow up to about 60 cm high. It is used a lot as an aroma (an aromatic ingredient) in la cucina Italiana (Italian cuisine), especially in sughi al pomodoro (tomato sauces), insalate fresche (fresh salads) and, of course, as the main ingredient of Pesto alla Genovese.

If you want to grow il basilico at home you should plant it in a fairly light soil, or terriccio (compost), and keep it well watered. It has a sweet fragrance, especially when it gets a lot of sun, and the scent of the leaves is at its strongest just before the plant begins to flower although older leaves tend to have a more piccante (peppery) flavor.

One of the hidden benefits of il basilico is that it attracts le api (bees) and therefore helps with l’impollinazione (the pollination) of other plants growing nearby.

The Egyptians, incidentally, incorporated il basilico into the balsam which they used to mummify their dead, but I’m afraid I don’t know the whole recipe!

Coming soon……….Ricette Italiane col Basilico (Italian Recipes with Basil).

 
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Ciliegie e Amarene

Posted by Serena
Jul
21
2009

Questa è stata un’ottima estate per molti tipi di frutta! This has been a great summer for many types of fruit!

The first fruit to ripen in our village are le ciliegie (the cherries), which are fairly small and dark but very sweet, and they appear at the end of May. There are lots of cherry trees in the village, most of them very old, and some are quite impressive in stature, but of course the fruit isn’t so easy to reach and all the nicest looking cherries always seem to be at the top of the tree! Fortunately Dina, la nostra vicina (our neighbor), whose land borders on ours, has got two sweet cherry trees growing in her vineyard. One afternoon, having of course asked her permission, we went round with our ladder and a couple of carrier bags and I sent my dear husband up into the tree while I stayed safely down on the ground holding the ladder and trying to catch the cherries that were raining down on my head. My husband is 1.88m tall and I am only 1.55m, and having much longer arms than me he can, naturally, reach further, at least that’s my excuse for staying on terra firma.  In less than an hour we had filled our bags with over two Kilos of fruit! When we had finished we knocked on Dina’s door to say thank you, and to put un paio di manciate (a couple of handfuls) of cherries in her apron.

Although picking the cherries took less than an hour, snocciolarle (stoning them) took much longer, and as I don’t like wearing rubber gloves I ended up with very unladylike black fingernails and hands stained purple for several days afterwards. When I had finished the slow fiddly job of separating the cherries from their stones, I sprinkled them with sugar and left them overnight. The following morning they were ready for making into jam, and so I sweated over a hot stove for two hours boiling them slowly, adding a little more sugar, and the juice of half a lemon. The results were well worth the effort however, and I made eight jars of very tasty confettura di ciliegie (cherry jam).

A few weeks later we had a glut of amarene (sour cherries), which are used in the food industry to make lo sciroppo di amarene (sour cherry syrup), il gelato di amarene (sour cherry ice cream), amarene sciroppate (sour cherries in syrup), and of course la confettura di amarene (sour cherry jam). Once again I went and had a chat with Dina, who has also got due alberi di amarene (two sour cherry trees), to see if I could pick a ‘few’. This time I didn’t need my husband’s help because the amarene trees were much smaller than the sweet cherry trees, and they were così carichi di frutta (so laden with fruit) that the branches were conveniently bowed down to the ground. It took me just half an hour to pick two kilos of amarene, but another two hours per snocciolarle! (to stone them!). Following the same process as for the sweet cherry jam I made another eight jars of confettura di amarene, one of which, of course, went to Dina in payment for the ingredients. For now I’m leaving both types of jam to mature a little, but I’m really curious to taste the difference between them, for purely scientific reasons of course!

 
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