Tag: cooking
CHRISTMAS PANETTONE FROM GENOVA
My favourite Christmas dish is the Panettone Genovese, from Genoa, my hometown. It is the most popular Christmas pastry around there, and it’s totally different to the usual Italian Panettone. In the last days I realized that the preparation is not very difficult, and decided to try and make one. Here’s the recipe.
What you need:
500 gr pastry flour
200 gr sugar
150 gr butter
50 gr pine nuts
100 gr raisins
50 gr candid citron
6 teaspoon of baking powder
1 egg
1 lemon
Marsala wine (8 spoons)
pinch of salt
warm milk (8 spoons)
How to prepare:
Put rhe raisins in warm water and let it soak for 15 minutes. While waiting, pour the flour in a large bowl and add the sugar, the baking powder, salt, the grated lemon peel, the pine nuts, the small pieces of candied citrus fruit and mix all the ingredients together. Be careful to squeeze off the excess liquid from the soaked raisins and add them to the bowl.
Then, beat the egg with the Marsala wine and two teaspoons of lemon juice.
Now make a small hole in the centre of the mixture in the bowl and add the melted butter, the egg with Marsala wine, the warm milk and mix all the ingredients together for some minutes to form a dough.
At this point shape the dough into a large ball and place it in a cake tin previously buttered. Make a deep cross cut on the top of the dough and let it rest for about 30 minutes. Turn on the oven and wait.
Finally, put the panettone in the oven and bake it for 45 minutes at 200C degrees. When it is cooked, let it cool down, take a picture of it, then slice it and enjoy your homemade Christmas dessert!
ROAST CHESTNUT
What you need:
1 kg chestnuts
oven
How to prepare:
This is a very easy recipe, perfect for kitchen dummies who like natural flavours and the fragrance of simplicity in a cold day. You just need to wash well the chestnuts, make a small horizontal cut in the skin. Then turn on the oven at the maximum heat, put the chestnuts in a casserole and put everything in the oven. Let it cook for about half an hour, turning them sometimes, and then check until you think they are ready. When the cuts become bigger and you start to see some black and yellow colors, you can take them from the oven and turn it off. Be careful not to burn your hands, let them cool down, call your friends and start to peel them with your fingers. If you’re in a good mood and you want a suggestion, try to drink some milk with it. Delicious.
SAGE RISOTTO
What you need:
parboiled rice (2 glasses per person + 1 for the greedy one)
a generous wisp of sage
1/2 yellow onion
parmesan cheese
butter, extra virgin olive oil, black pepper
How to prepare:
The recipe is very easy, and it’s the same process you must do for any kind of risotto – good to know – you need to stay actively in the kitchen for half an hour, but you won’t regret it. It all starts with the onion: clean it and cut it into small pieces, then wash it and put it in a large pan, where you’ve previously poured two or three spoons of extra virgin olive oil. At one side, prepare the broth: wash well the leaves of sage and put them in a pot with water until it boils, keeping the fire low and leaving it there. Put the rice you think you need, and maybe some more, in a bowl. Now turn the fire on and put the pan on it, mix your onion and oil with a wooden spoon and when you hear it’s crackling (it means it’s starting to fry), add the rice and two glasses of broth. Blend it carefully and always in the same sense (I don’t know why, but they say it’s better).
Now most of the work is done, you just have to mix the rice sometimes and add other broth when it’s too dry – don’t add too much of it, you just need to cover the rice each time (a couple of glasses is enough). Taste it to check the consistence of the grains and stop adding broth when you think it’s almost ready. When it’s dry, turn the fire off and add parmesan cheese and butter as you like (you can do the light version without butter or the fat version with any cheese you want). Adjust with salt and pepper, serve and enjoy your well-deserved risotto.
SICILIA: CORSO DI CUCINA A FAVIGNANA
Un weekend all’insegna del buon gusto e dell’arte di fare da mangiare con cibi sani e genuini, l’ideale per chi vuole trascorrere una vacanza invernale nell’affascinante Sicilia occidentale.
I sapori della cucina siciliana e la suggestione di luoghi antichi e ancora autentici sono gli ingredienti del “Corso di cucina mediterranea” che si tiene a Favignana, cuore delle isole Egadi.
Una full immersion culinaria per scoprire come il gusto e la genuinità dei prodotti a km zero, tenuta da un rinomato cuoco dell’isola, Giancarlo Riso. Le lezioni sono costruite su misura per gruppi da due a otto persone, per imparare a ricreare al meglio i saporiti piatti della tradizione siciliana.
E per appagare tutti i sensi, il corso si svolge nella suggestiva cornice del Nido del Pellegrino, un elegante resort nato sulla cima di un promontorio a picco sul mare.
Quella che nella seconda guerra mondiale era una struttura militare a guardia delle coste siciliane, è oggi un raffinato albergoin cui la pietra, il rovere e le maioliche tipiche della zona arredano suite e appartamenti creati all’insegna del relax e della riservatezza.
Aperto a principianti ed esperti, il corso di cucina mediterranea costa 210 euro a persona e comprende un soggiorno di tre notti in un appartamento per due persone al Nido del Pellegrino, 3 lezioni teoriche e pratiche di 3 ore ciascuna e degustazione finale.
Per prenotare, basta contattare l’organizzazione e fissare una data, senza dimenticare che l’offerta è valida fino al 15 maggio 2013, escluse le festività di Pasqua, il ponte del 25 aprile e 1 maggio.
Info utili: Nido del Pellegrino, tel. 3356840029, [email protected]
Articolo pubblicato su Latitudeslife.com
