Here is a recipe that is very popular in American cuisine, but many recipes add so much “stuff” that the flavor of the eggplant is hidden.  (Maybe this is done on purpose for those who dislike eggplant, but love Italian cooking?)  In any event, I cook my eggplant with the philosophy that less is more.  Don’t get me wrong, to make a good parmigiana, you need many ingredients and a lot of time.  But it is oh-so-worth it!!!  Buon appetito

Eggplant Parmigiana – Serves four

Ingredients:

1 big eggplant

6 plum tomatoes

1 fresh mozzarella 4oz

extra virgin oil

1 garlic clove

1 cup parmesan cheese

Spices: I used chili pepper basil and a hint of mint, if you like you can use also oregano.

Salt: I use the salt only when i cover the slices.

First, wash the eggplant, slice it into edible pieces and cover each slice with salt layering them on a dish or in a colander. What you want to do now is to press out the water from the eggplants, so put a second dish over it with something heavy pressing down. Keep the eggplant like this for about one hour, moving the layers every twenty minutes. This is a crucial step because it takes away the bitter taste from the eggplant and thus leaving a succulent eggplant. In the meantime prepare the tomato sauce. First peel the tomatoes in hot water, then with oil, garlic and the spices prepare a tomato sauce.

Take the eggplant slices and fry them in the oil. There should a thin layer of oil, not enough to cover the slices. The color of the eggplant should become like the one in the picture.

Oil the baking dish and then in layers put the fried eggplant, mozzarella and tomato sauce. Finish the top with grated parmesan cheese. This will make a crunchy crust on the top.

Cook in the oven for 30 minutes at 400 degrees.

As the eggplant absorbs the salt while extracting the liquid, this is the only time i use the salt in the recipe. Mangia!

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Peposo dell’Impruneta

image-peposo

Many times I have been passing with the tour bus the city of Impruneta going towards famous wineries of Chianti from Florence. We often also made a stop at the world word two American cemetery.  Impruneta is famous for pottery and the making of tiles and bricks a centuries old tradition that boomed with the building of the Florentine cathedral and continued with the building of the dome by Brunelleschi arriving to our days.

More than 700 years of producing terracotta, so who knows who and when between the workers had the idea to stew meat on one side of the terracotta oven while working.

The recipe was good and became popular. When in Florence is always convincing to me to go to the trattorias that list peposo. There i know i can have authentic Tuscan food.

The recipe is simple and delicious. I use tomato paste but you can use also tomato sauce.

For me the tomato paste colors this recipe in a special way reminding the colors of terracotta. For the cooking i used the crock pot so in reality it just takes a few minutes to prepare.

Ingredients for two

One pound beef for stew, one table spoon tomato paste, three cloves of garlic, one glass of Chianti wine, salt and two tea spoons black pepper.

Recipe

I first usually cook the beef for five minutes on the pan, than I cook all the ingredients together for about three hours in the crock pot. As the name says peposo, which means in

Italian peppery, you should put quite a lot of it, but this i leave to your taste

The important think is that the meet gets tender with a long cooking.

In the past cheaper cuts of meat where used as this recipe made them delicious

I like the sauce quite liquid as you can see from the photo so i added some water during the cooking.

Wine

Saying Chianti is very easy but there are so many producers that it is confusing making a choice. What i find here in the U.S.A. and like very much is the Castello di Volpaia Chianti Classico a Chianti Cassico produced in one of the highest parts of Chianti Classico area at about 1500 feet

WINE RISOTTO

  

How to make wine Risotto

I like to make risotto with wine. Depending  on the wine it will get an incredible purple color as you can see from the picture. I have to say that the best would be with amarone, a full bodied wine produced close to Verona. The drying of the grapes before the pressing and so more concentration of sugar, make it that this wine can have a very high content in alcohol for a wine, but also more taste.  In the same area with the same varietals there is a dessert wine called recioto, which to simplify is an amarone for which the fermentation was not finished and so sweeter. Also this wine  is very good for the risotto and a makes a typical  risotto recipe from that area, which you can find at local restaurants.

Well also a a nice barolo would be good for this recipe. Barolo the king of reds of Piedmont. If produced the traditional way it has the precious smell of goudron, considered a major quality. The French word goudron means tar. Although it might seem strange is something very appreciated by wine lovers.

Unfortunatly  there is only one problem about these wines, the price.

Being special rare and good they can cost a lot of money. For the recioto also it is really very difficult to find it in the U.S.A. .

As an Italian i say pazienza (patience) and reply to less expensive wines. What is important, the wine must have at least a good body, or else you don’t get much taste.

What could you use?

  From California red Frontier wine, a blend of different varietals

From Spain Yecla castano  monastrell varietal

Both are about 10 dollars and excellent for that price.

To enhance the colors use a red onion!

INGREDIENTS for two

 6 oz of rice, one small red onion, one cup of broth (you can also use bouillon), one spoon of butter, two glasses of wine, one tablespoon parmesan

RECIPE

Fry the onions in the butter add the rice pour a little bit of wine and continue cooking and stirring alternating the adding of wine with the broth. When ready add parmesan but not to much, because it takes the taste away.

Wine

to pare with

Just use the wine you where cooking with. A perfect companion

 

 

 

This weekend i was making pizza at home. I am not so good at making pizza, as in Italy we usually eat pizza when we go out with friends. The reason is we love pizza that is baked in the wood burning oven the traditional Italian pizza oven. Pizza was invented in Neaples  Italy and still today you can eat at the restaurant where the pizza margherita was invented. It is called brandi and it is close to Piazza Plebiscito the heart of the city. When the queen Margherita visited Neaples in 1899 a pizza with the colors of the Italian flag was created. Green the basil leaf white the mozzarella red the tomato.

Recipe for two: ingredients for the dough 3 cups of flour 1 cup of warm water, fresh yeast 0.3 oz, small cherry tomatoes 8 oz one teaspoon of sugar one teaspoon of salt, mozzarella 8 oz, oil, dry or fresh basil.

Work the dough with your hands on a table by mixing the wheat the water and yeast.Add the sugar and salt and a drop of oil. Work the dough with your hands for at least ten minutes. Keep the dough covered for a long time at least three hours .

Preheat the oven at 500 degrees. Oil  lightly an oven dish, try to distribute  the dough equally on the surface then add the tomatoes and mozzarella in pieces. Reduce the heat to 400 degrees and put the pizza in the oven. Check the dough with a fork to see if it became solid.

The pizza was good, but i still miss the one I can eat in Rome.

Pasta e Fagioli

This Italian classic you can prepare in many different ways, as also in Italy the recipe varies a lot from place to place.In Tuscany  for example cannellini beans, are used other regions add tomato sauce or tomato paste. My recipe is the simplest one, using also beans from a can. So i have to say this is not the best recipe of all, but very easy rapid and tasty at the end.

Ingredients for two

One can 15 oz beans. You can use your favorite beans. I often use the cannellini, because having a thin skin they are easier to digest.

5 oz short pasta like ditalini, two table spoons of oil, two teaspoons of tomato paste, one teaspoon mixed crushed rosemary and sage, chili pepper and pepper

Recipe

Deep fry the garlic in the oil as shown in the photo, by leaning the pan. Open the can of beans and wash them. This I do to take any taste of can away. Add a half cup of water with the tomato paste add also the herbs and then cook the beans at low heat for twenty minutes.

To finish add the pasta and cook the recommended time reported on the box.

I use to make exactly the same recipe by using chickpeas instead.

To decorate at the end I use rosemary and olive oil. Serve with parmesan and or pecorino on the side

Bonnie Stern: For the mouths o… http://bte.tc/bQyC #OPP

Hot to make a good bruschetta? Well the secret is cutting the bread thick (2 fingers thick), and toasting it well.  The problem is that there is a very fine line between the toasting and the burning. It is something you should constantly watch. The original version was just garlic that you rubbed on top with salt and olive oil, but you can have different toppings. Many years ago there was a pub in Rome close to the Vatican called pub32.  There, they where preparing it in a way I like it very much.  Here’s their recipe:

Toast the bread and rub it with garlic and parsley.  Top with a slice of tomato and some corn kernels. Finish with a drizzle of oil, some pepper and salt. It was always so good!  We ate it not only because it was delicious but it was also the cheapest item on the menu.

TOMATO JELLY

This recipe is very easy and tasty to prepare. It will surprise your friends and i like to serve it with lobster. I changed the old recipe by adding tomato paste and balsamic glaze. The tomato paste because it gives a nice red color, the balsamic glaze adds a lot of taste. The fresh taste is indicated for worm days and your friends will think you are a great chef. Everyone will be surprised by the nouvelle cuisine look of it. Serve it as an appetizer or side dish.

Image Tomato Jelly

Tomato Jelly Salad (Six portions)

INGREDIENTS

(Good served with the meat or fish course at dinner.)

Two cups tomatoes

One cup water

One level tablespoon chopped onion

Four whole cloves

Two bay leaves

One teaspoon tomato paste

One level teaspoon salt

Two level tablespoons granulated gelatin One-half cup cold water

RECIPE

Cook the tomatoes, water, onion, cloves, bay leave, tomato paste and salt together slowly for fifteen minutes. Soak the gelatin in one-half cup cold water for five minutes Strain the tomato mixture carefully, heat to the boiling point, and add the gelatin mixture. Stir until dissolved. Pour into small moistened molds. Set in cold place for one hour or more. Unmold on lettuce leaves and serve with mayonnaise and balsamic glaze on top.

How to cook big mussels

Big Clams

Fasolari are Italian mussels that are very tasty. Bigger than usual clams the outside shell has a brown color, the inside has an orange yellow color. They are often not appreciated because the inside is bigger and harder to chew than the normal clams called vongole and often full of sand, although very tasty. I think this depends also that very often people can’t prepare them the proper way. Italy is a big producer of see farmed mussels, but when in Italy if you find the wild ones you will have an incredible experience in taste. Fasolari are not so easy to find and until recently they where not farmed. That said the other day i saw clams here in the U.S.A that looked similar to fasolari and not see farm raised. So i prepared them in a very particular way used by the fisherman on the Adriatic for fasolari, a special recipe you will not find on the internet, not even on Italian sites. This special recipe by chopping the clams meat, avoids the unpleasant look of the big clams inside and makes them easy to chew.

INGREDIENTS

10 big shells, two eggs, about 3 oz unseasoned bread crumbs, about 8 fl oz of oil for frying, salt, pepper

 RECIPE

Wash the clams. In a large pan with one finger high water make the clams open at medium heat. Once opened take the inside away and throw the shells. Chop it very thinly and add salt and pepper. Beat the two eggs and than start to make balls like you do for the fried rice balls. Dip first in the scrambled eggs than in the bread crumbs, than again in the egg and finish in the breadcrumbs. This double dipping makes a perfect coating. I use the same technique for fried rice balls and other fried food. For the frying i use extra virgin oil. Frying with it makes the food more tasty. Remember extra virgin oil is the only oil extracted naturally and is excellent for frying.

Buon appetito Tommaso

  

Big Clam How to Cook