hathor

Pontormo, that's a great idea for a thread! I know you guys all find some unusual stuff. Could be fun! I thought about the crepe cook off, but trust me, this was not any crepe you would want savory or sweet....its a an animal onto itself!

I'm pretty sure there is an old thread on squash blossoms....do a search. I'd try and do it for you, but I'm on dial up, and life is short! My favorite, simple technique, is as follows: wash the blossoms and gently shake them dry prepare some flour and a bit of salt for coating them heat olive oil in a flat pan, abundant amount of oil put the flour/salt mix in a plastic bag and toss the damp flowers in them, coat well fry until the flowers are crispy, add a little extra salt if needed and eat right away. They make a divine appertif nibble. If you want some stuffed blossom recipes, let me know. Stuffing such as mozzeralla with a bit of anchovy. Sausage. Your imagination is the limit!

Il Testarola Con Baccala`, based on the About.com recipe. To be honest, I kept making up excuses why I couldn't make the testarola. I'm not a big fan of 'wraps', and the whole concept of a thick, boiled, crepe just wasn't making me run into the kitchen. So, I left it until the night before market, when there wasn't anything else in the house to eat. The hand feel of the testarola, when I opened the vaccum package, was like a slick oilcloth tablecloth. I cut it up into nice diamonds, all the while wondering why a traditional dish, that is round, gets cut up into diamond shapes. Too much wastage, ok, I was feeling a little cranky about the whole project. I prepped the baccala sauce, but added some tomatoes to it, and sauted the onions along with some pancetta, just because the recipe seemed a little barren. The bits of cut-up-tablecloth-testarola then got thrown into a pot of boiling water for about a minute, then sauteed in a pan with garlic and pepperoncino. My husband came down, and he's always a very good sport about what's for dinner, looked into the pan of frying testarola, and asked, "Are we eating that?". Plated, it didn't look too bad, and the baccala` tasted very good with tons of onions, shallots and some garlic. My first impression when I ate it was, "Well, its not too bad. If I was starving on a desert island, and had already eaten my shoes, it would be ok." By the second or third bite, it started to grow on me. It was amazing how much of the pepperoncino flavor was absorbed, so I guess with pesto it would be the same thing, almost a magnification of the flavors. All in all, it was pretty good, but it may be something that you need to have grown up with. In any event, we finished the whole plate of them, along with some friggere peppers. But thank god there is the market this morning!

I was just reading some info on getting broad band where we are, and our area is described as 'marginali'. But that shouldn't make a difference with opening a website! Not sure what the problem is...

NYCMike, I was wondering where you were as well. I think you may be on to something with the food of sustenance thing, or maybe because the basic preparations are what is commonly done all over Italy, and not specific to just Sardina? Nathan: nice fregula!! And I'm so relieved to hear that I will most definetely live to be 100! Cannanau is a favorite house wine around here. Pontormo: pheas-turkey? What an intriguing idea...but tough to pull off, let alone dig the pit. The ground is hard as a rock right now, I would need a back-hoe! Last night I made "Culurgionis di Patate" from Maurizio Mazzon's book "The Il Fornaio Pasta Book". Its an American book, and I had some hesitation with figuring out what type of products he meant (the flour, the potato), so I went with some Tipo 0, as the pasta is just flour, water, and a bit of salt. Actually I stood around for awhile just looking at my scale and a liter measuring cup that I have trying to figure out how to translate measurements of 1/2 cup, until I rembered that mother had given me a set of US measuring cups. Thanks god. The filling is roasted potato (I used a very floury potato), pecorino staginota, pecorina fresca and parmigina, butter and sage. The recipe called for a basic tomato sauce, but I wanted something a little more refined so I made a quick sauce of slivered sweet onions, sage, and pomodorini strips in brown butter. They turned out really good....as in you need to watch out or you can eat way too many of them! Here they are after being made, the cork is to help visualize the size, not because I was sipping away while making them! And here they are on the plate. See. We practised portion control. Oh, and one last bit of good luck. You know the swiss chard filled pasta that a bunch of you have been making? My neighbor gave me a batch of home made swiss chard filled cannelloni. Now, that is some very good luck!!

Hathor: I tried the direct link from my post above--it works from here. But here is the actual URL: http://chef_in_italy.livejournal.com/ ← I've tried the link a few different ways, including copy and paste, and I get an error that says Invalid URL. Must be because I'm in Italy!! Our group was much younger...mostly in their early 20's...but I still beat them up the stairs. Most days!

Mark, the link to journal is coming up as invalid. If you posted it from Italy, lord only knows whats up with it!!

Swiss_Chef! My classmates, I like to think, affectionately, called me "Anziana". The ancient one! However, I totally agree with you, the secrets are to be found in the kitchens of our neighbors.

Ciao Stigand! Can you be a little more specific about what you are looking for? Regional? Slow Food type mentality? Restaurant cooking, or home cooking? There are endless choices here, but of course, I'm partial to Umbrian cooking!!

Thanks. I like your idea with the vinegar, gives you better control over it.

Thanks Adam. I'll give it a go, although steeping a 'crepe' sounds a little strange to me. But, what do I know?? I might try the baccala recipe.

A house guest of mine just gave me a vaccum packed "Il testarola". It looks like a large, maybe 18" diameter buckwheat, thick, crepe. Its not buckwheat, though, the only listed ingredient is durum wheat. Does anybody have any idea what I'm supposed to do with it? She got it on her travels through Cinque Terre, if that helps. grazie mille!

Sounds good. Would love to have the recipe! We were in Orvieto this week, at I Sette Consoli, and they had an herb type fritatta that was delicious, but could have used a little bite of something acidic.

Ciao Mark! Auguri for completing the course! Are you staging? Where? I'm in the land of dial-up internet, so it make take a few days before I can read your blog, but I look forward to it. Regards!

Ciao from Montone! Very, very happy to be back. So far, for all things Sardinian: a) we flew over the island, and it looks just like the map! b) I bought lots of Sardinian pecorino at the market c) We ate at our Sardinian restaurant in town. It gets better and better. d) We've been dutifully drinking Sardinian wine, mostly cannanau, but today for lunch we had a light white. Shaya, your meal looked beautiful! The carmelized vegetables looks especially good. Kevin, I share your pain with the red mullet. Its one of my favorite fish, but a real pain to bone. I want to look thru the books I have here, re-acquaint myself, and then do some cooking! I have access to a substantial sized BBQ, it looks more like an altar for meat roasting, but I don't know if I can get a whole goat on it.... We'll see. We've had a whole houseful of company, but they left this morning for Florence, and now hopefully things will settle down a bit and I can back to the serious stuff of cooking Sardinian.

Ciao tutti! Those ravioli look just beautiful, Mrbigjas! You absolutely do not need a pasta roller machine, doing it by hand gives you a much better feel for working with the dough, in my very humble slow food, opinion. I also love cannonau. Chicken and fennel sounds like a great combination. I adore fennel, its so adaptable, and when you serve it, you always get a "mmmm, what's this" reaction. I'm heading back to the land of dial up, so I'll have lots of cheap cannonau and access to all sorts of ingredients, but no high speed internet. I know you all feel real sorry for me. Guess I'll have to make some stuffed pasta later this week, all this is making me very hungry!!

The recipe looks good...how many people are you feeding? That's going to make a lot of ravioli. Kevin, take a look at the pasta formula....that's a lot of flour for one egg. What do you think? Ravioli con verdure

Buon fortunto mrbigjas!! We all have total faith in you!

Wouldn't it be more or less the same as a fresh mayonaise? That has raw egg and can last a few days without a problem.

That filling does sound incredible....I bet it would make a great tart with a little pine crust on top. Not that ravioli don't sound just as delectable. Can't wait until I have some time to mess around with making these.

don't even go there. Porchetta is sacred and Ariccia is not where the temple lies.....

Ciao Ore! I'm in NY until sunday, then back to the Old Country. I heard thru Darius that you were making some bangin' salami!! Bravo! We're going to set up the salami buying club in the fall. Hang in there! I'm teaching some classes, doing a little writing and going back to work on the money pit of a tower.

Shaya, your formula looks perfectly ....normal, average. I'm wondering, along with Pontormo and Kevin, if the semolina grains may have been too large, or if a little blending would have helped. The other comment is that when I've made that type of pasta, I use a thinner "base". Meaning that the little pea that you use to roll on the board, you press it so hard that you almost press thru the pasta, you feel a bit of warmth from the friction and your thumb either starts to hurt or you have a nicely developed callus. Does that make sense? They don't end up looking as beautiful and uniform as yours, however. Last night we had a Sardinian inspired "agnello humido". Basically a braised leg of lamb with lots of spices (juniper, allspice, cinnamon etc), served over a basic cheese ravioli with sheep milk ricotta and chopped mint. Tasted good. Seriously funky looking!

What a drag!! What was the formula/recipe for the dough? Maybe we can figure out what happened. I hate when stuff like that happens!!