ambra
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Posts posted by ambra
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Reviving this thread because I was searching to see if there were any topics on making your own Amba sauce because I am about to try it myself! (I can't find any where I live so I have to.)
This is one of my favorite sandwiches ever, but I've never tried amba sauce. I've found many recipes online that are so different. Some say to cure the mango by salting it and leaving it for one to five days and some say to cook the sauce. Does anyone have any experience? I'm leaning towards the cooked version because I already have my pita dough resting, my hummus made and my eggplant waiting for its final step in the preparation. ( probably won't fry either, like Shain mentions. :))
TIA!
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In my old town, I used to go to Alfredo. He would hand-slice mortadella with one hand and hand-cut gigantic steaks (this was Tuscany after all) with the other. If you forgot your wallet, he’d say, “That’s ok, just bring the money next time.” He knew the life stories of all his clients, of course, because they had all been coming for as long as he could remember.
I wouldn’t say I learned anything from him, but he learned from me. Not that I know anything about butchering (I don’t!) but because I would go in asking for cuts they don’t (or didn’t) have in Italy. He’d always oblige: short ribs, skirt steak, hanger steak, flat pot roasts. I would buy the skirt steak off every cow he would get and it became such a thing that no matter when I went or for what, he would greet me by saying, “I don’t/do have your cut today.” (Coincidentally, skirt steak -- diaframma, here -- and a few other American cuts are starting to gain in popularity.)
Now, in Milan, I have two. I go directly to a farm a half hour or so out of Milan and there I buy in bulk when I have room in my freezer, But for everyday, I go to a guy who has the biggest chickens I’ve ever seen in Italy, but very little variety or flexibility (he has what he has and that’s that). So he never has “my” cuts and won’t do them for me and if I need a whole chicken, I have to order it two days in advance (!!). But the quality is good, the prices are fine and sooner or later, I’ll bring him around.
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On 9/12/2020 at 4:16 PM, shain said:
Vegetable salad - tomato, cucumber, onion, spring onion, chilies. Tahini, lime, fish sauce, peanuts, crisp peas, puffed rice, fried shallots. Eggs.
Shain, your breakfasts are amazing!!
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I've been in a funk too. I usually scour the internet for interesting recipes or dishes but that hasn't really helped lately. We did a lot of cooking projects during our lockdown. But that ship has sort of sailed in that we have less interest in making pretzels, raviolis and knishes, dumplings (fail!). I've been trying to get my young son interested in cooking so he can take over some meals, but that hasn't proven itself very successful.
I feel uneasy in supermarkets still, like you @rotuts! So very little inspiration coming from there too.
That said, egullet has been a great help, as usual!
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Dinner has been weird this week, because I'm in a cooking funk, need to find some new recipes!
Here we have an old fave, fave e cicorie.
Then we had fried zucchini flowers, three different kinds of peppers (peperoni amollicati, which has onions, bread crumbs and vinegar, roasted peppers with olive oil and capers and fried friggitelli peppers) and barbecued chicken with an alla diavola marinade. The flowers didn't come out great. I stuffed some with ricotta and anchovy but the ricotta was a little too watery and they were essentially ruined.
We are always looking for everyday bubbles because we are bubble-dependent, especially for the aforementioned fried zucchini flowers. This is our latest bottle to try. It costs 15 euros a bottle. I used to get amazing Franciacorta from a little-known grower, but he and his wife both got Covid and passed away and his son decided to rent the vineyards to another larger winery. They only have about 5,000 bottles left.
Pasta e fagioli made with fresh Borlotti beans.
And finally there was some (sort of) Singapore chicken rice, with sweet soy sauce and chili sauce. It's one of our favorite dishes.
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This year I'm really on the fence about what to cook. I'm looking for something new and exciting. It's always just the three of us since I know no others who celebrate around me. Last year I made something I had never made: Chicken with prunes and apricots (everyone loved it).
The only thing I've decided for this year so far is roasted beet salad probably with goat cheese and a honey apple cake though haven't decided which recipe yet.
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On 9/8/2020 at 9:36 PM, heidih said:
Clever imaginative kids. Eggs - a theme. Bravo!
Thank you, Heidih!
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My eleven year old and his cousin wanted to make dinner for us this week so this is what we ended up with! Deviled eggs and Carbonara. We did gently try to explain eggs after eggs was perhaps not very balanced so instead of changing the menu they served us an Amaro after dinner!😂😂
They did a great job with the Carbonara. It wasn't very sauced, but still very good.
Fresh figs for dessert.
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I have a weekly subscription for a CSA-type delivery that saved us during lockdown (Seriously, the day of my first delivery with them, I didn't have food for that night). They sell a lot of extra products besides seasonal fruit and vegetables from local and less local farms, like fabulous dairy and bread (the best of both available to me now), even some wine (all of it pretty crappy), and some “exotic” items, such as ginger or avocados. There’s also pasta and affettati and meat (all pretty excellent).
So this is today’s delivery. It’s a bit of an odd selection, because you can switch out up to four items (and I switched out all the squash and a cabbage because I detest all forms of the former and wasn’t in the mood for the latter).
This is the first time I’ve ever gotten a plant in my delivery (haha) but I kept it even though I have two-three basil plants on my balcony already and I’m glad I did because it’s the most aromatic basil ever!
I love these guys. Aside from the stuff being super high quality, the service is excellent.
So I get the veg only box, but added in some "Percocca" peaches and some "Verdello" lemons (that stay green); there are some zucchini flowers, Borlotti beans, yellow peppers, Friggitelli peppers, eggplants, green onions, ginger and avocados. The dairy in the upper left corner is ricotta, mozzarella and burrata. And a couple of bottles of kefir. I forgot the butter, which is the best I've had in my entire life. Next week.
Here is the white bread, but we also got a wheat bread.
Excuse the hideous table cloth, it is to collect the water from the washed veg.
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On 8/23/2020 at 11:52 PM, shain said:
As in rosé. This is the term we use in Israel for what is better known as "vodka sauce". I guess it is derived from Italian "salsa rosa". However I'm pretty sure that Italians don't use this term for the sauce.
Google suggest "pasta al baffo" for a version with ham. I wonder what lead to it being named after "mustache" (baffo)...
Normally, salsa rosa is ketchup and mayonnaise mixed together in Italy. But I've seen the term used for pasta too. In fact my FIL used to make paccheri with shrimp and brandy in "salsa rosa" (and it was tomato with a splash of cream).
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25 minutes ago, pastameshugana said:
This is something worth breaking a diet for.Believe me, I did! 😂😂
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A "Bombolone" from a coffee bar/bakery in Siena. It's basically just a donut, filled with pastry cream.
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I’ve been back and forth to Tuscany (to see family and house hunt) this last month and am finally back to stay (as my son has to go back to school soon) -- with 67 bottles of wine (I am part of a couple of buying groups down there and am a regular at a particular store that offers me bulk discounts), one loaf of Tuscan bread (yep, I do like saltless bread!) and a half kilo of Ricciarelli (the almond cookie from Siena).
Not much food in the house though. So I sent my husband to grab something to cook while I dealt with suitcases and the rest.
He came back with chicken breast, a bag of salad and tomatoes. So there you have it. Just a regular salad with pan-fried chicken.
While we waited for our grocery delivery, we defrosted some meat sauce and had it over mezzi paccheri, which my MIL calls “vergogna cuoco” meaning they make the chef look bad because even if a portion might weigh the same as other more voluminous pasta, the portion always looks small. 😊
Then there was pan-fried salmon with roasted potatoes and homemade old-school dill sauce with raw carrots for dipping in the extra sauce. Dill is not popular in Italy but I can find it dry at one supermarket chain in the north. But I also try to grow it on my balcony. This one has the last of my fresh dill (it all seemed to die while I was away.
)
And finally, there is no good pizza in my neighborhood (The shame!). It is very, very thick and always has too many toppings where we are (think Chicago style) unless we seek out Neapolitan style but I don’t like the ones by us. So we make our own. Actually my husband makes it for us. 😊 He just makes it the way his mother taught him, so no match for all of yours, but perfectly satisfying.
And here are some ricciarelli. My favorite bakery closed down, so this is from one of my two second favorites.
Extremely delicious cookies.
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@Franci, I didn't get to say thank you for the recipe, because I went away, sorry about that and of course thank you!
We are down in Tuscany, staying with friends, who just got this cute little guy, called "Truffle" because he is in fact a truffle hunter. The breed is a Lagotto Romagnolo. He's only 6 months old but acts like a disobedient teenager! But he does find the prize.
We've been watching our friends train him all week by hiding truffles all over their property for him to find, which he does!
We did then get to eat summer truffles! (Sorry for the bad pic, I forgot to take it before I started eating...)
Followed by Tagliata with rosemary (which I also forgot to photograph before eating....)
I also made some octopus and potato salad one night.
Another night we made Pici all'Aglione (fat spaghetti in a very garlicky tomato sauce), which I didn't photograph, but here's the garlic at the shop. (The garlic in the red bag is regular garlic.) I guess it's Elephant garlic? From the Val di Chiana (which is where Chianina beef comes from), located between Siena and Arezzo. The cloves are huge and the taste is so much more delicate than regular garlic. In fact, in the pici dish, they put many, many cloves (though I don't).
When you add it to hot oil, it foams a little bit.
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Thank you tons for the comments, @Smithy(I hope it was delicious!), @Kim Shook, @TdeV and @Shelby!
More pasta over here too. This one is Pancetta, onion and canned date tomatoes (and a little chili pepper).
Then there was homemade Schiacciata stuffed with prosciutto di San Daniele, mozzarella (oddly shaped because it's from a treccia) and fried friggitelli peppers.
@Franci, can you say how you did the pork? It looks amazing and is something I miss!
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I’m coming out of “hiding” (I visit often but am shy about posting) to combat some anxiety, in hopes of “obsessing” over things other than the impending doom anxiety convinces you of. 😊
I love this thread, it gives me tons of ideas for dinner when I have none – everything always looks amazing! I also love seeing your bottles (I write or translate about wine every day) especially because most of your bottles are hard to come by where I live. I get all the Italian wine I want, living in the suburbs of Milan. But the rest? Not so much.
Thank you so much everyone for keeping me company during the long Italian quarantine and slow bounce-back.
Here are some latest, perhaps not greatest, meals and sorry about the bad photography and plating. 😊
So there's potatoes and green beans in homemade pesto (with basil grown on my balcony and vegetables from my weekly delivery from local farms)...
A big bone-in steak on the barbecue. It weighed a kilo. Rare inside, but no pic...
Lamb sugo over tagliatelle. Sorry about the smears on the plate.
Broiled Salmon with mustard, capers and dill. Dill is finally available in (parts of) Italy! But this one is from my balcony.
Risotto with Calamari
Edited to say: P.S. I hope I did this right!
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Just curious: I absolutely love the mejadra, but I did find it somewhat overseasoned. I think half the seasoning would have been better. Does anyone agree or have I just become too delicate in my old age?
I also toned down the seasoning for the lamb kawarma. -
If I were you, I'd make sauce out of it and serve over pappardelle or something similar.
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I adore baked potatoes. I especially love them with bacon and cheddar and sour cream.
I really love twice-baked. I'm going to give this recipe a try tomorrow:
http://food52.com/recipes/20367-twice-baked-potatoes-with-kale
(Odd, this is the second time I have posted a food52 page it's not even one of my go-to sites!)
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I made this recipe :
http://food52.com/recipes/12352-okonomiyaki
And I liked it. But it was a bit eggy. Maybe it's supposed to be. It was the first time I had ever had it.
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I'm with everyone else. You should try. Especially with the pineapple juice, only bottled water (just for the beginning), and a good not overly processed flour.
I did it. My first try was a total disaster because I wasn't patient enough. You need to wait for the right effect at every stage. My second, a winner. I followed instructions from Peter Reinhart's book: Artisan Breads Everyday
The sourdough rye recipe I used I think is from Bread.
Having said that, someone gave me some starter as a Christmas gift last year. They bought it from a local bakery and while it's very good, my bread has never gotten as sour as with my own starter. (I don't know why, maybe I did something wrong.) But it's a strong, old starter that I have no intention of getting rid of. I give starter to my friends all the time too. They usually kill it within a day though.
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I've been thinking about trying my hand at homemade gyro meat. Do you have a recipe you like? Thanks!
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Franci, I am making cartellate too! Are you using vincotto or honey?
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Shellfish tart
Turbot with cauliflower
Getting caught up here and I must tell you, that is about the most delicious fish dish I have seen. Actually much
more tempting than the Turbot dish I had at Le Cirque two weeks ago. Sadly I rarely can get Turbot here in Spokane.
Your turbot looks so thick compared to what I get. I am wondering if I am incorrectly translating the name of the fish and eating something else entirely. May I ask how much the whole fish weighed, if you know?
It's my all time favorite fish.
Bolognese and garlic bread?
in Italy: Cooking & Baking
Posted
I adore garlic bread. It's always delicious. 😀
But the closest thing you'd find in Italy is toasted or grilled bread that has been rubbed with garlic and topped with fresh oil, especially new oil in the fall, and it's usually served on an appetizer plate with other crostini. Here is an example on the top left.