Scampi (also known as langoustines) are one of my favorite types of seafood. Unlike jumbo shrimp (which are only available frozen in the Netherlands), they are available freshly caught, which means that if they are very fresh you can eat … Continue reading Scampi tartare with apple
So far I’ve been blogging mostly about single dishes, and I thought it would be nice to share with you also how I combine those dishes into a full menu. As I explained on this page, a full Italian menu consists of four courses. I like to pair wines with that as well. We had a special visitor from Australia over for dinner, so I wanted to spoil him with something nice. We had: Antipasto: Roe deer carpaccio with herb salad with a 2008 red Sancerre Raimbault Primo: Scallop and parsnip ravioli with a 2005 Chassagne-Montrachet (that was unfortunately already … Continue reading Home-made Vanilla Ice-cream to end a wonderful dinner party
Warning: stop reading this post now if you are a big fan of Bambi. One of the tastiest and most prized types of game is venison from roe deer. A roe deer (Dutch: ree, French: chevreuil, German: Reh, Italian: capriolo) is a small species of deer that is very picky about its food. It only eats the nicest leaves in the forest, and that’s why it tastes so damn good! The taste is so good in fact that my favorite way of eating roe deer is raw as carpaccio. Unlike other game like regular deer (venison), or wild boar, roe … Continue reading Roe Deer Carpaccio with Herb Salad
This is my “go to” recipe for un unplanned but tasty and healthy meal, as all the ingredients have a very long shelf life (so I usually have them available) and it doesn’t matter to leave out some of the ingredients. The only things you really need are spaghetti, a can of tuna, a can of peeled tomatoes, salt and olive oil. The taste will be more complex if you do use all the optional ingredients, but it will still taste fine without them or with just a few of them. Another advantage of this dish is that it takes … Continue reading Spaghetti with Tuna (Spaghetti al Tonno)
This is one of my favorite desserts in summer time. Only three ingredients, easy to make, and delicious. As with many of my recipes, it helps to use the best strawberries you can find (ripe and fragrant), nice honey and the best aged artisan balsamic vinegar you can afford. The best to use for this is the real stuff: aceto balsamico tradizionale aged for 12 or even 25 years. That stuff is very expensive, but also very good. If you live in the Netherlands, the 12-year old balsamic from De Librije is almost as good for about 1/6 of the price … Continue reading Strawberries macerated with Balsamic & Honey
The pasta sauce “Amatriciana” comes from the town of Amatrice, on the border of Lazio and Abruzzo. In Amatrice they serve it over spaghetti, and that’s what I have done. This dish has been taken over by the Romans, and … Continue reading Spaghetti all’Amatriciana
I invented this dish myself, so as far as I know it is not an authentic recipe unless I recreated it by accident. It’s definitely Mediterranean though. I love the combination of lamb, eggplant and rosemary and that’s why I created this dish. I’ve been making it for years and have made small improvements over time. It is not a lot of work but it does take a while to make, so when I want to eat this after work I will prepare the night before. Ingredients For 2 servings as a main course or 4 servings as a substantial appetizer … Continue reading Lamb-stuffed Eggplant
A well-known and excellent antipasto (that I haven’t posted about yet, but I will at some point) is involtini of roasted eggplant, mozzarella and basil. Years ago I thought it would be nice to combine this with veal scaloppine and a bit of tomato sauce. I really loved the result and made it often when I had guests over for dinner. I hadn’t made it for a few years until yesterday, and liked it as much as before. It’s not difficult to make but the taste is very impressive. Ingredients For 4 servings 4 veal scaloppine (around 120 grams/4 oz each), … Continue reading Veal scaloppine with Eggplant and Mozzarella (Scaloppine alla Melanzana e Mozzarella)
Making your own icecream is so much better than store-bought. All the usual reasons for cooking from scratch apply: more flavor and only natural ingredients. If you’ve never made your own icecream before, banana is a good flavor to start with as the banana really helps to achieve a great texture even without adding eggs. All you need is bananas, whipping cream, sugar and a splash of freshly squeezed lemon juice! Please make sure to use ripe bananas for this, as it makes a huge difference. Ripe bananas are yellow with small brown spots (like freckles). The result will have … Continue reading Banana gelato
Summer still seems far away here in the Netherlands, so I felt like making this hearty pasta dish. It’s a simple dish with an original flavor, and very filling. This is not an original Italian dish; the combination of cauliflower and almonds is my own invention. Ingredients For 2 servings 150-200 grams (1/3-1/2 pound) penne pasta 300 grams (2/3 pounds) cauliflower florets 50 grams (2 oz) blanched almonds 1 garlic clove, minced 1/2 cup home-made chicken stock (or vegetable stock) 1 cup whipping cream salt and freshly ground white pepper 6 fresh basil leaves, finely shredded 1/4 cup freshly grated … Continue reading Penne with Cauliflower and Almonds (Penne Cavolfiori e Mandorle)
A famous dish from the Piemonte region in Italy is Brasato al Barolo, beef braised in Barolo, king of the red wines. Since a bottle of good Barolo does not come cheap, it is good to realize that you can achieve … Continue reading Beef braised in red wine (Brasato al Barolo)
This is one of those dishes where the quality of the main ingredient makes all the difference. If you use really good prosciutto (Spanish jamon iberico will also do) that has been aged for at least two years and is sweet rather than salty, this dish will be amazing. If you use cheap prosciutto, it will end up being so salty it’s hardly edible. Good prosciutto is expensive, but even good prosciutto comes in a natural shape and thus there are pieces of the ham that are less attractive to be sliced. For this recipe you will chop it anyway, … Continue reading Tagliatelle al Prosciutto
This pasta dish was inspired by a dish on the menu of my favorite trattoria in Amsterdam: Lo Stivale d’Oro. They have “tagliatelle alla pugliese” on the menu, which is tagliatelle with peppers, salami and tomato sauce. (I have never seen this dish in Puglia, so my guess is that it is called pugliese because they use hot salami from Puglia.) I like it better with penne and prefer to use a type of salami that is not as hot. The taste of the dish is determined to a great extent by the salami used. I prefer to use a … Continue reading Penne with peppers and salami (Penne peperoni e salame)
Whenever I’m in Florida, I eat Key Lime Pie all the time because I love it. There are lots of different versions: with or without whipped cream, with or without meringue, with a crust from graham crackers or with a baked crust, etc. I like all versions, because what defines key lime pie for me is the contrast between the velvety texture and the sour tanginess of the custard. It may be impossible to find key limes out of the US or Mexico, but it’s fine to substitute with regular limes (living in the Netherlands, I do too!). Since key … Continue reading My Key Lime Pie
This is one of my favorite dishes and always a big hit when I make it for guests. It tastes as great as it looks. It’s easy to tell where the name “rose of Parma” came from: it looks like … Continue reading Rosa di Parma (Stuffed fillet of beef)
Pizzoccheri are a short and flat type of pasta from the Valtellina region in Northern Italy, made from buckwheat and semolina flour. You can buy them dried or make them yourself (something I might try another time). They are traditionally eaten with swiss chard (coste) or savoy cabbage (verza) and the local cheese: valtellina casera. This cheese is important to get the authentic taste, but if you can’t find it then fontina can be used as a substitute. This is the only traditional pasta dish that I know that has cabbage in it. Unlike other pasta dishes that are supposed … Continue reading Pizzoccheri alla Valtellinese
My favorite Japanese cookbook is “Japanese cooking: a simple art” by Shizuo Tsuji. Since some ingredients are hard to come by outside of Japan and because I don’t have a very good reference (unlike Italian food, in many cases I don’t have a clue what it is supposed to taste like) I haven’t cooked as much out of this book as I would like to. One of my favorite recipes from the book that I have cooked many times before is the chicken loaf. Here I’ve served it with roasted eggplant, a ginger-soy dipping sauce and Japanese rice. This recipe … Continue reading Japanese Chicken loaf with Eggplant and Ginger
“Rabbit sous vide” or variations of that are by far the most popular search term for people finding my blog through Google. Since I had only posted about rabbit sous-vide once and that was with a tomato sauce, I thought it would be nice to post about rabbit sous-vide without sauce as well. This is even easier to make, and still has all the advantages of sous-vide cooking: tender and moist rabbit instead of tough and dry. The preparation is extremely simple. Season each rabbit leg with salt and freshly ground black pepper and insert it into a pouch. Rub … Continue reading Rabbit leg sous-vide with rosemary
Two years ago we visited the city of Mantova in northern Italy and loved the Bigoli alle Vongole we had at Trattoria Cento Rampini. I was used to making pasta alle vongole with dried linguine or spaghetti, but really liked it made with bigoli. Bigoli are thick hollow spaghetti, made by extrusion. I am not sure if Cento Rampini used fresh or dried bigoli and whether theirs included eggs or not. During the same trip to Italy I picked up my own pasta extruder, so I’ve made bigoli alle vongole and other dishes with extruded pasta since. I like to … Continue reading Home-made Bigoli alle Vongole
Four weeks ago I had organized the first cheese & wine tasting event for friends at my house. Last night was the second evening with mostly the same wines and cheese, but some differences and better pictures. For the full story, please check out my post about the first evening. Soft cheese with light white wine With a caprese salad this time we had an Arneis instead of a Gavi. Both are good matches, but if memory serves me right this was slightly better because this specific Arneis was a bit ’rounder’ and therefore a slightly better match for the … Continue reading Pairing wine and cheese, revisited
The traditional way of making risotto is a bit of a chore. Sauté a minced onion, toast the rice, add wine, and then keep adding stock and stirring for around 18 minutes. Finish with some butter and in many cases (but not always) grated parmigiano. Adding the stock in parts instead of all at once is needed to get the correct texture: the grains of rice will stay whole instead of breaking and will release more thickening starch. I don’t mind the effort, but for a weekday meal after work or for a dinner party it is not very convenient. … Continue reading Risotto sous-vide with Asparagus and Goat cheese
My love for the Italian kitchen has partly originated from a woman whom I’ve never had the pleasure to meet: Biba Caggiano. She is an Italian from Bologna who moved to the USA in 1960 and later opened her own restaurant in Sacramento (where I have eaten in 2009, but sadly she wasn’t around herself because she was sick at the time — best authentic Italian food I’ve eaten in the USA despite her absence) and wrote many cookbooks. I received one of her first books, Modern Italian Cooking as a birthday gift in 1998. Trying the recipes in this … Continue reading Tagliatelle Verdi con Ragù Bianco
Until today I had never heard of Chicken Adobo, but thanks to this post in which Cristina calls Chicken Adobo her favorite Asian chicken dish ever, I decided to give it a try and now it is my favorite ever Asian … Continue reading Chicken Adobo sous-vide
A classic and delicious dish from Venice is pesce in saôr, which does not mean ‘sour’ fish but ‘flavored’ fish (saôr comes from ‘sapore’). The recipe was invented in Venice as a way to preserve fish, and even though we have refrigerators nowadays we still make it because it is so tasty! In this modern version I’ve made two changes to the classical recipe: I’ve used mackerel rather than the more usual white fish (such as cod or hake) and I’ve cooked the fish sous-vide. When you use white fish, the subtle flavor of the fish will be overpowered by the … Continue reading Venetian marinated Mackerel ‘in saor’ sous-vide
This is my most successful attempt at Dutch-Italian fusion and I make it quite often as it is as quick and easy to prepare as it is delicious! The flavors of the bitter endive, the sweet pancetta, the freshness of the white wine and the heartiness (umami) of the parmigiano blend really well. Just like most Italian dishes, the result will depend on the quality of the ingredients. This dish will taste best if you use actual pancetta, fresh endive (rather than already cut when you buy it), freshly grated nutmeg, freshly grated parmigiano and artisan orechiette. The classic Dutch … Continue reading Orecchiette with Endive and Pancetta (Orecchiette Indivia e Pancetta)
I tried this new idea for a cake on Sunday for a dinner party with my parents, and it was a big success! I had seen a recipe for a pear cake using ricotta instead of butter on GialloZafferano.it, and … Continue reading Pear-Ricotta-Almond Cake (Torta Pere, Ricotta e Mandorle)
A simple and healthy dish with a delicious flavor: pasta with roasted peppers. The other flavors (basil, anchovies, garlic, chilli pepper) are only used to support and enhance the flavor of roasted peppers. Ingredients For 2 servings 150-200 grams (1/3-1/2 pound) of fusilli or other short pasta such as rigatoni 2 red peppers 500 grams (1 pound) plum tomatoes 3 anchovy fillets, minced (optional) 1 clove garlic, minced dried chilli pepper olive oil salt 6 leaves basil Preparation Preheat the oven to 250C/480F. Brush the red peppers lightly with olive oil. This helps to cook the skin at a higher … Continue reading Fusilli ai Peperoni (Pasta with roasted peppers)
Simple but delicious: monkfish wrapped in prosciutto di parma. Slightly crispy prosciutto on the outside, tender juicy fish on the inside. If you don’t have a sous-vide water bath, you can get a similar result (still great but not as juicy) with an oven and an instant-read meat thermometer. Ingredients For each serving 120 grams (4 oz) monkfish fillet (Dutch: zeeduivel; French: lotte; Italian: rana pescatrice, coda di rospo) 2 thin slices of prosciutto di parma salt Preparation Ask your fishmonger to remove the slimy skin. Rinse the monkfish under cold running water and pat dry with paper towels. Cut into … Continue reading Prosciutto-wrapped Monkfish sous-vide
Some friends wanted to learn how to make home-made ravioli, so last Sunday I came over for a ravioli workshop! It was a lot of fun and very rewarding to see that by the end of the evening everyone was … Continue reading Ravioli workshop
Wine and cheese are a great match. But not just any wine with any cheese. Restaurants still offer a mix of very different cheeses with a glass of port. However in cases that different styles of cheeses are served together, they should be paired with different styles of wine as well. Last night we tasted 12 different wines with 12 different cheeses with a group of friends. We combined 7 types of cheese with 7 types of wine and tasted which combinations worked best. We had the cheese and wine for dinner, augmented with home-baked Italian bread and vegetable antipasti (sautéed mushrooms, roasted peppers, … Continue reading Pairing Wine and Cheese
