Chicory with pancetta - radicchio coi bruciatini

I am not sure if you can find this kind of chicory, which grows wild by the Italian rivers. Anyway, you can also use the red variety, no change in taste, but different look! Just cut the red chicory into thin stripes after washing it carefully!

My grandmother used to prepare this side dish in winter, after pig slaughtering, when she had fresh pancetta available and I dare say that it was all the supper they had, lots of fresh vegetables and a little bit of pork meat....

Fast and very simple to prepare, it will feel your kitchen with the pungent smell of vinegar! Can you smell it!?

Ingredients for 4

250 grs/ 1/2 lb. chicory
8-10 tablespoons cubed salted pancetta (unsmoked bacon)
3 tablespoons Modena balsamic vinegar 

How to:

1) Wash the chicory and drain it well. Arrange it into your dishes.






2) In a large, non stick pan saute the pancetta cubes. No grease is necessary as they will produce a lot of fat.







3) When the pancetta cubes  get crunchy, add the balsamic vinegar. Stir well and take away  from fire.





4) Dress the chicory with the pancetta cubes and its juice/grease and serve immediately. Add salt if needed, but usually pancetta is already salted.

3 chocolate mousse

Dedicated to all chocolate lovers, this smooth, rich dessert will be great for your holiday parties! It is quite fast to make, but you need a little bit of experience in mixing the ingredients.
Choose  glass containers to show the different coloured layers of chocolate!
This recipe is taken from an old cook book where a young Enrst Knam (now a very famous chocolate and cake designer), explained, without many details, some of his recipes.
I tried to stick to the original as much as I could, which I did for the ingredients, but I had to made few changes when putting all the ingredients together.
Always use good quality/fresh ingredients if you want to have a great result.

Ingredients for 4
(I made 6 small portions my Ikea candle holders...)

For the dark chocolate mousse
100 grs/ 3.52 oz dark chocolate 65% and over
20 grs/ yolk
100grs/ 3.52 oz  heavy cream (to be whipped)

For the milk chocolate mousse
100 grs/3.52 oz milk chocolate
20grs/0.7oz   yolk
100 grs/3.52 oz heavy cream (to be whipped)
1/2 a leaf  gelatin
1 table spoon milk


For the white chocolate mousse
100 grs/3.52 oz white chocolate
20grs/0.7 oz  yolk
100 grs/3.52 oz heavy cream (to be whipped)
1/2 a leaf  gelatin
1 table spoon milk

How to:

1) In 3 different bowls/pans (bain marie or microwave) melt the 3 different chocolates.

2) Put the gelatin  in a cup full of water and let it soak for 5 minutes until soft.

3) In the meanwhile beat the yolks (about 4 to reach the quantity) and divide them into 3 parts

4) In an other bowl whip the cream.

Now all your ingredients are ready!

Careful! Chocolate must be cold or slightly warm, if not when you add the whipped cream it will melt!

5) Put the beated yolk in the dark chocolate and beat with an electric beater. Add the whipped cream as well and go on beating.This is the trickiest part of the job, because the chocolate tend to stick and make little knobs. 

6) Pour the dark mousse in the bottom of  your bowls.   Try  not to spot the glass with the dark chocolate, or wipe it away  with some paper. Put them in the freezer. Wait until it has hardened a bit.

7) Now make the milk chocolate mousse, warm up the gelatin with a spoon of milk, let it melt and add it immediately with the yolk and the milk chocolate bowl. Whisk well with the electric beater.

8) Pour the milk mousse as a second layer in your  bowls.  Put them back in the freezer just for few minutes until the previous layer have hardened.

9) For the white chocolate mousse, warm up the gelatin with a spoon of milk, let it melt and add it immediately with the yolk and the white chocolate bowl. Whisk well with the electric beater.

10) Pour the white mousse as the last layer in your  bowls.

Put some cling film on top of your bowls and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, better if overnight.

Enjoy!!

TIP: Cover your bowls with cling film while in the fridge. And if you want to freeze them to do exceed 1 month time to keep the good taste.

Ham Mousse

Ham mousse reminds me of the sixties, when "bon ton" and home entertaining were a must!

Yet I like it, and it is so uncommon nowadays that it always surprises my guests and family.

It takes less than 5 minutes to make and you can refrigerate it for up to a couple of days, if it lasts!

As in many of my dishes, you can serve it in a single bowl or in smaller portions.  A small bowl and one special small bread will make an elegant starter.

As an appetizer it serves lots of people, but you can use to stuff your sandwiches if you like.

Enjoy!

Ingredients for 8-10 people

300 gr ham cut into pieces

100 gr heavy cream

200 gr. soft cheese (Philadelphia light will be great)

50 gr. almonds (or more to taste)

 2 tablespoon of Marsala (fortified wine) or brandy.

Salt and pepper to taste (very little though, as ham is already salted.

How to:

1) Cut the ham into pieces and put it with the other ingredients, except almonds, in the food processor.

2) Process it until very smooth. 

3) Add the almonds and process for 1 minute or less, and taste it, almonds should remain in small pieces and be detectable when you eat it.

 

Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and serve with toasted bread or slices of French baguette.

It keeps well in the fridge for 2 days, cover it cling film.

  

Cauliflower soup

Are you preparing a boiled or steamed cauliflower?

Well, do not throw away the leaves and the harder parts, make a soup with that!

Of course you can use the whole cauliflower with great results!

Very easy to prepare, it takes about 30/45 minutes to get ready,  it is tasty and warming in this cold winter and very cheap to make.

A light comfort food you can offer to your guests as well, if you garnish it in the right way!

Ingredients for 4:

About 400 grs / 1 lb. cauliflower and its leftovers (leaves, stem, broken pieces)

200 grs / 1/2 lb potatoes, peeled and cut into pieces

½ liter/ one pint vegetable stock

½ leek or 2 shallots, finely chopped

3 spoons of olive oil

Salt to taste

Pepper

Serve with

-  Croutons or

-  A thin slice of bacon for each cup 

How to:

    1)      Wash the cauliflower very well and cut the leftovers into small pieces (discard any tough or damaged parts)

   

   2)      Peel and cut the potatoes in pieces

   

   3)      Slice the leak or the shallot very finely, warm up the oil in a pan and let it cook over a medium heat until soft and golden

    
  4) Put the vegetables in the pan, let them saute for 1-2 minutes, stir well, add the stock to cover the vegetables and bring it to the boil.

5)      Put a lid on the pan, and let it cook for 20 minutes, stir well, then take the lid away and cook for an other 15-25 minutes until all the ingredients are soft. Turn off the heat.

   6)      With an immersion blender, whisk the vegetable and the stock until you obtain a thick soup.

7) Serve hot in a little bowl or cup with some freshly ground pepper, croutons, fried bread, or a slice of cooked bacon (it must be dry) cut it into 2-3 pieces or a sprinkle of grated cheese.

You may also like: 

Gratinated cauliflower

Lasagna with red chicory - Lasagne con radicchio

I had some guests last Sunday and, as I did not want to cook the all day, I prepared this autumn/winter recipe in advance. Then I freezed the baking dish before cooking, took out of the freezer the day before, let them in the fridge overnight and put in the oven 1 hr. before eating them. 

If you prepare them the day before, just refrigerate covered with cling film or aluminium foil, which you will remove before putting the baking dish in the oven.

This recipe is a little lighter than the original lasagna with Bolognese sauce, and quite unusual because of the bitterness of the red chicory.  But the vegetables will melt in your mouth and then you will taste the smokey speck. Different tastes, different textures... A great winter treat!

I love to use the season's vegetables, because they usually are more tasty and less expensive.

It takes time to prepare, and as usual I start from the very beginning - making home made pasta. In case you want to use a pasta machine, or your food processor, you will get great results as well. As I believe I take more time in washing and cleaning all the device, I make it the old way, by hand. Remember it is a great exercise for your shoulders and neck as well!

If you use dried lasagna, skip this part and prepare all the other ingredients before boiling the pasta.

Quantities depends on how many courses you have during your meal, if lasagna is the only dish, well consider 5-6, if, as it happens when I entertain, there is plenty of different foods, then consider a 8-9 people.

For a spectacular result, you can also make single portions using little ceramic moulds: the layers of  dark red chicory will make a nice contrast with the yellow pasta. I  made this when preparing my vegetable lasagna last Spring (in this case portions were quite small, as they were part of a 5 course meal).

Ingredients for 6-8

For the home made pasta
2 eggs
About 200 gr / 7 oz 00 Flour (or all purpose)

For the layers

Bechamel sauce:
1,5 liters/ 3 pints milk
150 grs/ 5.30 oz butter
150 grs/ 5.30 oz flour

3 small red chicories /2 big ones
4 shallots
3 tb spoons vegetable oil
2 1/2 cm thick slices Italian speck ham

Butter to grease the baking dish (mine is 30x21x6 cm.)

How to:

1) Peel and cut the shallows very finely.

2) Wash and cut your red chicory.

3) Warm up the oil in a very large and high pan and, over a medium heat,  gently saute the shallots.

  4) When soft, add all the chicory, and stir now and them. They will reduce to less than half by cooking!

Add salt to taste.

5) In the meanwhile, cut the slices of Italian speck ham into stripes and warm them up in a non stick pan until they release the grease and change their colour.

6) Switch off the gas under both pans. 



7) Prepare the bechamel sauce.

8) To make pasta please click here and follow the instructions until you have rolled it out with the pin.

9) Bring a large pan of slightly salted water to the boil.

10) In the meanwhile grease your baking dish with butter.

11) Cut your pasta into squares to fit your baking pan and boil them little by little 2-3 pieces every time. It takes about two minutes.

If you have store-bought pasta for lasagna, follow the instructions on the box, but I recommend to cook it anyway until soft.

Drain them on a clean tea towel.

12) Start making the layers: the first one should be the pasta, then the bechamel sauce, then the speck ham, the vegetables (drain them well squeezing them with your hands), pasta again until you early reach the top. The last layer is bechamel sauce, you should still have a good quantity to close it.

13) Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for 45 minutes or until you see it slightly boil for few minutes. Take out of oven and let it set for 10 minutes before serving, so the bechamel sauce will thincken a bit.

Spaghetti with grilled vegetables

During the last Argilla (a great ceramic fair in Faenza) I literally fell in love with these beautiful dishes. They are also very cunning for children and for my foreign friends, who find difficult to roll long pasta on the fork. (of course I am breaking my pasta!) No spoon is needed and no fuss, just elegance and good manners.

I thought that the very best way to use them for the first time was to prepare this colourful spaghetti recipe, very light and very tasty, with lots of healthy grilled vegetables. It takes quite a bit to grill the vegetable but you can do it in advance and cook the spaghetti at the very last minute.

You can use any type of grilling methods. I used the most basic grill, but just now I realise that I could do in half the time using my electric one!

Ingredients for 4

3 marrows

3 eggplants

4 red tomatoes

2 yellow sweet peppers

400 grs/ 0.88 lb spaghetti

4 cloves garlic

6 spoons extra virgin olive oil (evoo)
Salt

4-6 basil leaves

How to:

  1) Wash, clean and slice the marrows and eggplants: 1 eggplant and 1 marrow should be cut into round slices, while the other 2 of them should be cut into thin stripes.

   

2) Wash and slice the sweet peppers in long stripes

     

      3) Grill all the above mentioned vegetables: the marrows and the sweet peppers should remain crunchy; season all with salt and sprinkle with extra virgin olive oil in order not to let them dry too much.

 

4) For the sauce, in a large pan warm up 4-6 table spoons evoo and add the garlic cloves, let it cook until golden. In a food processor, process the basil leaves with 1 teaspoon olive oil.

     5) In the meanwhile wash the tomatoes, cut into pieces, salt them and put them in a colander to make them loose part of their water.

   

6) Pour the tomatoes in the pan with the garlic and let it cook for 5-7 minutes to taste. Adjust salt. Add the round slices of vegetables to the sauce and the processed basil leaves.

7) Decorate the side of your dishes with the stripes of grilled vegetables.

8) Cook your spaghetti in a large pan of salted running water (10 grs salt each/liter) and drain them well in a colander. Always remember to follow the cooking time on the packaging! 

9) Pour the pasta in the pan and let them saute for few seconds, stirring well until they absorb part of the sauce.

10)  I used a ring to better display the spaghetti, but obviously they will not keep the shape! Garnish with fresh basil leaves.

11)  Serve immediately with a glass of cold dry white wine.

Intrigued by these beautiful red dishes? Contact me! italy.food.and@gmail.com