Franci

No, we don't eat figs with salame. They are served with other fruit at the end of the meal. Unfortunately I almost never eat them: in stores they are quite disapponting and expensive. In the States even from trees they were not good. See pagnottella taste more like a sweet cucumber, the one on the left resemble a little more to a melon but is more chruncy and less juicy the one on the right is more like a cucumber. I could find pagnottelle in Astoria once.

Another traditional dish from my town with cardoncelli is called carduncidd azzis (azzis=seated) Cardoncelli are bleanched and then briefly cooked in meat stock. In a pan make layers of carndoncelli and grated pecorino, cover with the stock beat one or two eggs with more pecorino and pour on the cardi. It's not really a frittata. Then gratinee' in the oven. The eggs should still be quite soft and the end dish is not dry, very good and tasty Here is still a little stock missing, just before going to the oven, sorry I don't have the finish picture This also can be considered a tiella, that's how is called the round pan (both of earthware but also alluminium). There are many layered dishes of vegetables: potatoes and cardoncelli (this time I mean the cardoncelli mushrooms), artichokes rice and potatoes, potatoes, zucchini and mussels, etc. Besides tielle also the frittate in the oven are a staple This was with wild asparagus, tons of pecorino, breadcrumbs, chopped garlic and parsley (almost same dough of polpette d'uovo but baked)

Good try Mrbigjas! It's really not easy to make orecchiette. Monday morning we were invited for lunch at friend's house, they made orecchiette and with the camera I shoot a video, which I cannot manage to watch on my pc, I am guessing I need to download something (I want to make sure of the quality) and then I don't have a clue on how to upload it here. Any guess? Going back to orecchiette, some people add a little bit of white flour to semola but the most use only semola and warm-hot water (it's a little thinner then semolina: way too coarse). For the cime di rapa, Lidia is making my stomach twist.....no stock and butter . I boil the cime di rape, take them out and boil the pasta in the same water. Just to get the proper cooking time. My parents don't use the same water if the rape are really bitter but cime di rape in Puglia are so much more bitter then the broccoli rape. When the pasta is almost ready, heat up plenty of evo, add garlic, hot pepper (when golden) melt in it at least 10 unsalted anchovies (in NY you can find the cetara one at buonitalia). The quality of the anchovies can ruin the dish. When the anchovies are melted saute' the pasta with the rape (which are added back to the water at the end). In many towns some toasted breadcrumbs is sprinkled on top.

I don't think is power of suggestion. I cannot tollerate very cold drinks, I don't normally refrigerate my water in the summer unless is really 40 C. And salads? I have always wondered how people can eat cold salads, beside the stomach ache I get, I cannot even taste it. And the list would be long...no collants and wet hair in winter for ladies: we think Americans are maybe immune to cervical headaches

Guys, congratulations to both of you! Foodman I really can see that the baking at 2 am is really productive I just got back today from Puglia, I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked and of course I didn't have the time to cook a lot, although I managed to gain a couple kilos anyway . I am just in time to post some pictures before leaving again for the real vacation Sunday morning, very early and was already too hot, we went to our land just outiside town to pick up some fruit for jams. It rained recently, so we were lucky enough to find tender wild chicory and "sivoni" which didn't bloom yet (in the first of the two pictures of sivoni you can see it was bloomed already) We got back with 4 kgs of figs that we turned into jam These would have been also very good for drying, figs are traditionally laid on these tables in the sun. We brought home also some pagnottelle, wich we usually munch while eating pasta Here other kinds of pagnottelle Unfortunately it was not possible to find fresh cardoncelli (wild cardoons) but we managed to find cultevated ones and this is the polpette and wild herbs dish I was talking about (can be done with chicories, catalogna, cardoncelli and polpette or lamb pieces)

Chufi, how I understand you...I just need one for each country . When my husband was in business school I managed to put together an international cooking club (italian, portoguese, brazilian, chinese, japanese and mexican), we used to meet once a week every time a different country. We had so much fun, we also pull together a book of 2 years of cooking (just for ourself)

I am sure it turned out good, but in fact it shouldn't be brown, I guess you browned the meat and maybe deglazed with red wine...It should be a kind of no colour stew (like for blanquette). You could have use polpette too, leaving a little soupy, with grated pecorino on top an some crusty bread. If dandelion are quite bitter you can blanch them before adding to the soup that is generally done. But I like it and I am used to the bitterness of the veg. If you don't like dandelion for the bitterness you'd like lampascioni even less. They can be very bitter and have a different taste than regular onions. In fact it is necessary to clean them, cut a cross at the base and leave them to soak in cold water even for a day, changing it different times to remore the bitterness. I really do like the taste they leave to roasted potatoes but I am not a big the lampascione in itself. I saw them around Chirstmas in Astoria NY. If you want to fry veg in batter, there are plenty of options (blanched califlowers "mugnoli"), mushrooms (you'll find even bitter mushrooms, funghi di mucchio ), artichokes, etc. Well, I am leaving today for Italy, Milan for 3-4 days , then Puglia, I hope I can come back with something interesting, like all the fish part that I have negletted and the tielle. Ciao

Matthew, how is your italian understanding? Try this one pizza Adriano dal forum di gennarino Pictures Pizza di Adriano I would traslate for you but I am leving for Italy tomorrow , if I can manage to leave London

I know that the term yufka indicates a very thin flat bread and also the pastry sheets used for borek, it is sturdier than phyllo, I like it better. It's just flour, water and salt. In the States is not difficult to find. In NY I'd buy at Amish mkt.

In my area what I also consider fast food is carne al fornello: almost every butcher, or a big majority, has what is called a fornello next to the store, a brick oven where meat is cook on a iron flat spits. The spits lean vertically on a grate inside the oven, so the meat cooks slowly away form the heat. Usually the meat cooked is lamb chops (called costatine), salsiccia a punta di coltello (knife cut pork sausages), bombette (involtini with a cheese heart and often wrapped in pancetta), gnumeridd (meaning ball of thread which are made with lamb offals). Meat is cooked all the way through, people is not used to eat pink lamb I think as soon as I have been introduced to meat I was hooked to carne al fornello. I was maybe four year old and I would be one of the biggest fan of Cataldino, being the best butcher and the fornello king of all times. I had my own personal chair in his store and I would wait patienly for my meat to be ready. I even manage to get the two young Cataldino's daughters to be my baby sitters....Cataldino died a couple years ago, saddly I haven't find anybody after him who could be at his level. Last time home, I went to visit Cadaldino's wife: Pasqua. Pasqua and Tina, the older daughter, were so kind to teach me how to make "marretti". Marretti are rolls of offals which can be grilled of baked with potatoes. A very traditional dish on Easter would be a big marro. In Bari province I discovered through another pugliese from my italian forum that marretti instead are meat rolls, involtini, that we'll call braciole. For marretti you'll need lamb casing (Pasqua told me that they are not replaceable with pork casing they are too hard, in emergency just just use white cotton yarn) These are lamb offals. It is important that you know where you are buying it, must be superfresh. You need the lamb net –which we call zeppa- for tying the marretti. You could use the pork net, but Pasqua said it's not the same, she explained to me that the lamb net is more lean and more resistant, it's easier to work with since it is less easy to break. You need to soak the net in warm water to open. This is the net still closed. Open net after soaking. Boil plenty of water. Put the casing in water and with the help of a wooden spoon try to disentable it, the purpose is to clean it, to open up a little in a uniforme way. You don't want to cook the casing, infact as soon it comes to a boil drain in plenty of cold water. Now you need to cut the casing. You will me amazed but it is not as easy as it looks because you don't want to break the casing otherwise you'll end up with short strings that cannot be used. You should have seen Pasqua, unbelievable speed and precision (but she use to make one hundred kilos of this every we), If the casing is not big enough you can cut in three, is you have enough and don't care about saving you could cut in two. Pasqua cut before on the right (1/3 of the diameter of the casing), then cut the remaining strip in half. Do you see how she keeps it in her hands? One end will rest on the index and the other slide between the middle and the annular fingers, wet the hand every once in a while if gets too dry. Then she went on cleaning the offals and cut the single organs, everything needs to be cut in julienne, not in cubes, it will change texture and taste. Liver Take out the skin around the kidney and cut into julienne In the lung if there are hard parts they need to be removed. And check there are no stones in the kidneys. We also made some gnumeridd, take is about the right size When all the meat is cut, add some salt, pepper, a mince clove of garlic, finely chopped parsley and a good amount of grated pecorino. Put some on the net, cut a little bit of net on the side, so you can cover with it the filling and roll very very tight. Cut a little more on the side and make sure the roll is well covered. then you need to tie with the casing, first on the long side and then wrapping around. Do not tie too strong since will swell during cooking Better to let the marretti rest in the refrigerator for a couple hours before cooking Pasqua usually cooks the marretti in water before adding the other ingredients: it gets a lighter and in any case marretto will take longer then potatoes to cook. Add 2 fingers of water and cooke semi covered, turning them once in a while. Meanwhile cut the potatoes and dress with a little garlic, oil, salt (not much sice marretti are alreay been salted) and if you wish a dash of white whine. Add to the marretti and bake until the potatoes are golden brown, adding warm water if necessary (it shold not be too dry, a little bit of sauce is good). You can eat the all marretto as it is. . I am so sorry that the quality of the picture is so bad but this was my previous camera and I was not able to make it work anymore in a proper way. gnumeridd are easier to make. Every piece is wrapped in a strip of net and then tied with the casing. Cook on the iron spits in the break oven or charcoal with bayleaves in between. Of course also marretti can be grilled.

Sure Ling, I'll pm to you. I want to try it one more time to make a couple adjustments before adding it to the recipes.

This looks delicious, but I have no idea what it is! Could you elaborate? Is that coconut? Are they frozen? I bet I'd like them either way. ← it's a very popular brazilian snack I learned from a friend from Sao Paulo. The cake is similar to a sponge cake, maybe a little more dense (eggs, sugar, flour, hot milk and baking powder), cut in squares, dipped in a mix of coconut milk and condensed milk and rolled in coconut. Then every single piece is wrapped in foil and refrigerated. It's very good although next time I will have to adjust the sugar, brazilian have a very sweet tooth

We use herbs frugally. Never seen using marjoram in my town. The only fresh herbs that are used daily are parsley and some basil and those are the only fresh herbs that you'll find in vegetables stores. Of course, if you go to bigger supermarkets you find more variety... Dry oregano is more common with tomatoes like on focaccia or on friselle or in a tomato salad. But I will not add to a simple tomato sauce for pasta. We use a lot of capers, in some kind of fish stews with tomato sauce, for ex. baccala' or squid, in a pizzaiola sauce or with some vegetables (eggplants, potatoes). A lot of bay leaves: in soups with chick peas or beans, in roasted dishes. Thyme will grow wild everywhere but is not used very much. Dry mint, expecially with peppers or some fried vegetables (like zucchini). That's it. And also the use of onions and garlic is different depending on which area of Puglia you are in. We use very little of both. For Taranto everything related to fish has garlic. For ex a fish soup or mussels would never be cooked with onions.....if you go toward Brindisi or Lecce they use onions with fish. A cooking term in puglia that you will find very often is ARRACANATO, which originally ment with oregano but now just means "gratinato", au gratin. You'll see patate arracanate, cozze arraganate, ecc. Something is arracanato if is spinkled with a mix of : breadcrumbs, finely minced garlic, chopped parsley, salt and oil, often pecorino. These potatoes for ex are made with layers of thinly sliced potatoes, slice of red onions, cherry tomatoes, capers,, evo, salt and every layer is sprinkled with the above mixture. A little bit of water in the bottom and it is baked It is a very common side dish for charcoaled meat

Thanks Chufi! I have a weakness for eggplants, I could eat everyday! The stuffing: I will pulse the inside of the eggplants in the mixer, then cook with a little evo, add the ground beef (about half a kg for 4-5 medium-small eggplants) and cook untill there is no more pink, let cool add one egg, salt, pecorino and a little bit of breadcrumbs. It's important to leave the tomato sauce runny enough to stand 40 minutes in the oven, in case add some water. Try and let me know, is one of my favourite dishes. I know in Greece papoutsakias are very similar but we don't add the besciamelle sauce on top.

Chufi, thanks a lot for the pictures! I do love boregi, in any way they are made, I always think I must have been turkish in another life! I usually keep a package of yufka in my fridge. If you don't have, get yourself a copy of Ayla Algar Classical Turkish Cooking. I almost tried all her recipes, not yet the one for irmik helvasi. I would have eaten the all tray of borek . As for the spices, I understand and that is why I like this kind of food, why do you need to hide the taste of a perfect and tasty vegetable!

Still eggplants This is also a pretty good recipe, I took it from Tonio Piceci web site. It is called merangianata di Sant’Oronzo, in honor of the Sain Patrono of Lecce. I think this marangianata is the personal interpretation of the chef and I need to say I particularly liked it (I like more Piceci’s book than the food he served at his restaurant) Eggplants are dipped in egg, flour batter and fried Dress breadcrumbs with dry oregano, chilly peppers and lot of cacioricotta chips (not very mature) , some oil. One time I didn’t have cacioricotta and I used Dodoni’s feta that is less salty and creamier and worked very well. Make a fonduta with more carioricotta and milk. And then layers of eggplants, breadcrumbs and fonduta. Goes in the hot oven until golden Serve lukewarm. This time I kept if a little too dry, I should have used more fonduta. Very good

Stuffed eggplants There are many recipes of this dish. This is the way in my family. We fry the shells in evo Chop in the mixer the inside of the eggplants, cook it with ground beef, one egg for half kilo meat, pecorino and a little bit of breadcrumbs if too soft. Stuff the eggplants Make a tomato sauce very simple and quite runny…wet the pan and more on the eggplants, no extra cheese, only capers (undersalt). Bake of about 30-40 minutes Better lukewarm or roomtemperature with crusty bread. The next day are even better

Bread with semolina will come out heavy. For bread it's better semola rimacinata (kingarthur sells it online). In Sardinia they use semola but my friend told me she makes a dough the night before with semola and water (so the semola will have the time to rehydratate completely) and the next mornig she will work the starter (which matured overnight) the semolina dough, plus other regular flour, water and salt. I made this when my wild yeast was still alive and healthy. It's not perfect but was not too bad The crumb will depeds on the hydratation, the time you let it rise, etc. I do like baking breads, sometime I think I should have gone to the bread course instead classic culinary arts I already said so, I am a huge fan of Hamelman, try his durum bread too. This was with his recipe

Recipe? Looks fabulous. ← Devlin, thanks. It was really good indeed but the filling would be quite elaborate, I would use instead of this just a pot the cream (egg yolks, milk and cream, plus sugar) plus some almonds, it would be easier. It was around Easter and I was making pastiere, so having a left over of filling I tried it. The brioche dough I don't remember with recipe I used (french one will work, example Jacques Pepin recipe) Filling (recipe from Elisabetta Cuomo from an Italian forum. For the brioche tart maybe I used only 1/5 of this quantity. Ricotta cream 400 g ricotta 400 g sugar 3 whole eggs and one yolk Sift the ricotta and make a cream with the other ingredients. Wheat berries cream 1 jar of cooked wheat grain 580 g (you'll find it in italian stores, or you have to soak the berries in water, cook long until the burst open) 30 g of butter 1,5 dl milk a pinch of salt cook the wheat with the other ingredients for 10' costantly stirring. let cool. To make it simplier you can use barley or other berries which don't require soaking. Pastry cream 300 g milk 100 g sugar 2 yolks 50 g flour (of half starch) lemon and orange zest Make a pasty cream Incorporate the three creams, add a touch of orange liquor and 8 drops of fiori di arancio, a pinch of cinnamon and vanilla essence, 100 g of small pieces of candied fruit (orange, citron, zuccata)

Don't worry Abra, I am harmless I would like to add something. To me what is odd about your dish is the pasta and the meatball together. I see foreigners putting all the meal in one plate. We don't because it's mixing up flavours. Meatballs to me would have been another dish. We do make a tomatoes sauce with meat and meatballs to dress orecchiette, but the sause is inteneded for the pasta.and the meat will become the following dish, after pasta. Especially in Puglia if you order fish or meat, what we call "secondo", you'll get just the bare fish and you will have to order a side I hope I am not boring or worse annoying you, I only like to explain the culture a little better

I do love tarts in a brioche dough. In this case I used a pastiera filling because I had extra

FoodMan, you knew about peaches and primitivo! it is one of my father addiction in summer: percoche and primitivo! And your bread looks very good

Nicolai, thank you so much. I'll follow your advice: Mawal the night we get there and with your other suggerstions we'll know where to go.

MRbigjas, I don't want to make anybody nervous because I am pugliese! But one think, I don't agree in complimenting at any cost. I think the purpose of a forum like this is too learn as much as possible from others. So, if someone tells me my bread looks bad for some reason in a nice and constructive way, it's ok. You picked a nice pasta dish, called Alla Crudaiola (crudo=raw). I would have grated the cheese tough. And to make you feel better, for the lamb dish, in my town we do not brown it, simply make layers of lamb and bleanched herbs (wild chicory) some cherry tomatoes and maybe a clove of garlic. Most important that it tasted good.

Marcia, I am sorry if this doesn't have anything to do with you question, but I have a very good friend named Marcia, from Sao Paulo, japanese descendant which married a Taiwanese