Franci

Thanks a lot! So, I will take advantage of the proximity Looking forward to re-establish our crab night tradition

Hello! I just moved to beautiful London and I live right in front of Billingsgate market. I didn't yet had the chance to visiti it. Do you know if there is any small possibility to buy retail quantities? Although Waitrose at Canary Wharf is not so bad, the fish doesn't look very good and I am hoping to buy as fresh as I can. Thanks

No, mustard powder cannot replace the essence.

If anybody is interested, here is also my version of ragu' di carne. In my town, Taranto in Puglia, we call it sugo di carne. There is not one recipe, dipending from the pasta used, the meat cuts can be different. If it's for orecchiette, we usually make the ragu' con bracioline di cavallo (horsemeat's rolls) or a little piece of wildboard fresh guanciale. If is for maccheroni or penne we usually mix cuts: a little bit of castrato, some fresh pancetta, a piece of pork, or especially in my small town we use a lot of kid or lamb, so it's possible to have just sugo di agnello. For the braciole di cavallo is very simple: thin slices from the rump, beaten with the flat side of the chef knife, a little bit of salt, a little piece of cheese, usually pecorino staginato, some parsley and fresh black pepper, roll and tie well. No matter which cuts are used, the procedure is the same: saute' very well the meat in good evo from puglia, keep the meat aside, soften the onion in the oil, return the meat to the pot and deglace with primitivo. Start adding the tomatoes a couple of laddle at the time, when the sauce turn dark, add more laddle. Bring to a boild, add salt and simmer for no less then 2-3 hours. I used peeled canned tomatoes and sometimes a little bit of concentrato. We do not use garlic or basil or other herbs.

I am Italian, live in NY and I am married to a Chinese... My husband prospective is that Chinese people don't care of giving an authentic food...in Italy chinese food is pretty bad. In Milan there is an old Chinese community, the thing is that the Chineses who emigrated to Italy come from the pourest area in China, where the food is not that sofisticated. Our version of "chicken with broccoli" would be chicken with almonds, or chicken with pineapple, or with lemon, spring rolls, dumpling, finished! So, in Italy, please, eat Italian!

A Morron friend of mine, who just opened a restaurant (not moroccon, sorry), reccomanded me also Maison du couscous.

Adam, purging is necessary! particularly if the snails were not farm raised, otherwise they could have eaten something toxic to humans: mushrooms for ex. One more thing: after the snails have been boiled for the first time, you can take out the snails, clean from the intestine (the very far ending), rinse the shells, dry them and put back the snails. This is particularly advisable if you are going to stuff the snails afterwards. If you read Italian, read this guy website, I found it very interesting: lumache

On Saturday, in Astoria, in an Italian Deli, they were selling LIVE snails, babbaluci in sicilian, Helix pisana, I tried to buy them, but my husband was shaking his head....... Anyway, there is a kind of recipe. Sorry, no quantities. Keep the snails to purge in a basket (with holes in the bottom), if you want you can feed them with herbs for a couple of days. Then usually they are sprinkled with fine breadcrumbs or bran for a week. Put the snails in water and set on the stove, when the water is lukewarm, check if they are coming out (if not, discard them). Then rinse them with plenty of water and salt. Now you can boil them for about 1 hour, starting with lukewarm water. Meanwhile prepare a sauce with a soffritto of garlic and peperoncino, add crushed peeled tomatoes and laurel, halfway through the cooking add the drained snails and finish cooking.

Adam, that is one! I had my father looking at it. It is the "garden" snail that I would find in the courtyard. There is another snail similar, much smaller, that you would find in June or July on the dried herbs in the fields (in puglia everything dries up in the summer...): cuzzedde. Then, the lumache con la panna, helix aperta, closed up, because hybernated, that would come out with the rain, at this point you can find preatty big ones. For the recipes, another time, going to union square market. ciao

I am from a small town, Crispiano, between Taranto and Martina Franca. , I don't know the scientific name of the common snails we eat, I am trying to locate a picture (they are fairly small in white and brownish circles). Instead the "lumache con la panna", I am sure, are the helix aperta. Hathor, do you want a precise recipe? Tomorrow my father is coming to visit from Italy (now I live in NYC), I will ask him the exact procedure and other info I can gather on the subject. bye

I think only a foreign will think so...this would never cross the mind of an Italian. Maybe it's just considered home food or cibo da trattoria and once in a while, like in the last decade, with the rediscovery of “cucina povera”, some fancy restaurant would put on their menu. In my area, we don't buy snails in the stores...rather go and look for them ourself, or someone would sell them in front of they home door, or someone would sell on the side of the state streets (as for mushrooms, wild asparagus, etc.)

I never made them myself, but I tried the sicilian ones. They are hard! I have a couple recipes, both with almonds, flour and egg whites (no whole eggs) and they don't require to rest overnight. I have a beautiful collection of italian regional cooking, I will check for other regional variations.

I can only speak for Puglia. It's very common food. We eat basically two kinds of snails: the one I like better is what we call "lumache con la panna", or patedde (patelle) con la panna: snails with cream. I am referring to Helix aperta. The panna refers to the skin they form when they hybernate, in the summer because it's too hot, or in the winter. So, people will just dig under the soil, about 10-15 cm, to find them. They don't need a preliminary treatment, they are bleanched just to clean from outside dirt, the opening get broken and they are rinsed with water and salt. Usually they are cooked in a spicy stew or simply grilled and dressed with oregano, salt, garlic and oil. In this case, they are put on the grill in one of those perforated pot used for chestnuts. If they were not hyberneted, but still patedde they will need a treatment but shorter then other snails. In a pot with very fine breadcrumbs for 2 days. In the Murgia, at least the one I am from, they are called patedde (also the sea one, the murici), instead in Salento they are called munaciddhe (little nuns). There is also a festival della monaceddha in Cannule (Lecce) during August. We also use the common snail (cuzzedde or cozzedde) white and brown, after the rain, people will go and seek for them in the fields, but they required a longer treatment of a week. They usually are bleanched before beeing cooked still on the grill or in the sauce. I like the patelle con la panna, in a spicy ragu' with laurel leaves, but I know of people marinating them and eating raw.

Hi Tina, here is the link for Titan Foods: http://www.titanfood.com/main.htm That wuold be the Astoria Blvd subway stop. If you walk north, there is another plaza with a small supermarket, a butcher and Artopolis a nice bakery (23-18 31 St.). At the bakery they sell many small cookies, also Moustokouloura, look like tarallini but made with vin cotto. I wasn't particularly excited because the use corn oil in their cookies, me as a good pugliese, only extra-virgin. If you go to Titan Foods, try also the mizithra, it's closer to our ricotta then the american one. Also Anthotiros cheese is similar to our primo sale...sorry I am a big "chiacchierona", but I am so excited about my discoveries. Alberto, pettole are traditionally made for Immacolata and for Vigilia (per la cena di magro)

Hi Tina, Kalustyans is in Manhattan, 123 Lexington. http://www.kalustyans.com/catalog.asp?menu...category_id=151 the pekmez is made with grape, but they also carry what they call "Essence Of Fig Puree" (from Calabria), that is cotto di fichi. Quite expensive, a small bottle is 20$, but, consider that, to make a full bottle of cotto di fichi, you would need many pounds of figs and, to my experience, here figs don't taste very good. I check the recipe I saved, it's not very different from the one suggested before. I am usually the one who like to do everything from stracht, but, in this case, I suggest you to buy. You could try both the pekmez and the cotto di fichi from Calabria and decide which one you like. Also in Astoria, at Titan supermarket for ex., you can find vin cotto, I didn't check if they carry the fig ones, because, as I said, I prefer the one made from must. I just bought a jar of vin cotto, I use for sassanelli or mostaccioli, it's not really the right season...but I like them.

Alberto, cartellate are dipped in vin cotto. Honey is only an alternative. Also pettole are dipped in vin cotto or honey. I personally prefer vincotto than cotto di fichi, because it's' less sweet. I have a recipe for cotto di fichi that I have not tested, do you want it anyway? In Puglia you can buy it easly, it's time consuming, so we usually buy, unless you have a lot of figs that you don't know what to do with them. I tried to make vin cotto (from grape juice) one time there, but I personally don't advice to do so if you think of using just a little grape bought in a store. I don't know where you live, but in the US it's easy to find in some store. At Kalystians, for example, buy the turkish Pekmez, it's vin cotto and much cheeper. I found a brand from Lizzanello, to me, seems a product for the abroad market.

I am sorry I took so long!!! I think my pastry instructor, looking a me and my friends, would have start yelling, maybe our method is a little unorthodox, but my friends who are from Lisbon liked it. The recipe come from culinarias.net. The traslation is mine, sorry for mistakes Puff pastry 6 yolks 2.5 dl water 0.5 kg sugar 1 cinnamon stick Lemon zest ½ liter milk flour Roll the puff pastry into a rectangle, then it should rolled up into a log, then cut into rounds of about 2.5 cm in diameter and 1.5 cm thick. Butter the molds, and drop in each mold a round, with the cut facing down (of course). With wet hands try to spread the pastry evenly on the bottom and on the sides. At the top it should be thicker, in order to have nice layers, instead the bottom and sides should be very thin, so that the shell can cook quickly without having the cream to boil. In a bowl dissolve 60 g flour in a little bit of cold milk. Bring to boil the rest of the milk with the cinnamon and the lemon zest. Add in a stream the slurry and beating to avoid lumps. Take out of the stove before it reaches a boil. Prepare syrup with the sugar and 2.5 dl of water; take out of the stove when it reaches 110 Celsius. Incorporate the milk mixture and mix well. Let it cool. Add the yolks, one at a time, pass the cream through a fine chinoise. With a funnel pour in the shells, they should be only ¾ full. Bake in a preheated oven 200 C for about 15 minutes. Sprinkle with 10X and cinnamon.

me and the girls from my cooking club-including my friend from Lisbon- made them one time. I think they were not bad. Not as good as the the one from Belem, but not bad. Do you need the recipe? It will take me a little bit to translate...

Thanks for the pictures! One of the things I miss more from Italy are the markets, the noise and the colour around them. Not to mention the fish... About the gourd, I read the link. A sicilian lady from Palermo told me that for the zuccata she uses a winter variety called zucchina centenaria, she said use the gourd from the picture in the summer, only if it's not too tender. About the usage of the word "cocuzza" or "cucuzza", now it's in the italian dictionary, and it means only zucchine.

My parents live in Puglia. Myfather just told me about this winery he really liked. It's located in Carosino (Taranto) and it's called: Aloia. And, regarding Lecce, although I haven't tried yet the restaurant, as soon as I'll have the chance, I will go to Picton. I become a big fan of the chef: Tonio Piceci. http://www.toniopiceci.it/ I am reading his "Salentinbocca" right now: beautiful. In Lecce, I would stop also at pasticceria Citiso, very famous when I was growing up. I don't know if now it's at the same level, but, for sure, a guy, who worked at Citiso, opened a pastry shop in Nardo' (a local confirmed me it's very good).