08

Jun

The hundred-year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared

On his hundredth birthday,  Allan Karlson, climbs out of the window of the nursing home and disappears. He escapes and his flight becomes an adventure, which is at once thriller, mystery and comedy.  Alternating Allan’s present with the story of his century-lasting life, a life which goes through the Second World War and the Cold war, which is rich in crucial events and important acquaintances, the account becomes almost a fantastic tale. It is a light, funny, smart, fascinating novel; you won’t be able to put it down!

Available in the UK from 12 July, in the US from 11 Sept.

 

 

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29

Apr

Simone Rugiati*’s Chicken

* Simone Rugiati is an Italian chef and TV host

I’m a big fan of eating chicken:  you don’t get fatter and your account doesn’t get thinner. But when you don’t have time to roast it, stuff it or cook it in other succulent ways, but you simply grill it, it gets a bit dreary. So here is a speedy and super tasty recipe for you!

 

Clean, pound and cut 600 g of chicken breast or upper thighs into thin slices.

Marinade for 5/10 minutes in:

1 lemon, juice
salt
1 teaspoon mustard, such as Dijon
1 teaspoon curry, powder
1 teaspoon honey
extra-virgin olive oil

Drain the chicken with the help of a perforated spoon, leaving the marinade aside, and place it in a already hot saucepan on a high heat. Brown it, add the marinade and remove from the heat… and voilà, it’s ready!

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15

Apr

Le Turbe Culinarie in Italian

Dear Readers, Le Turbe Culinarie is available also in Italian on leturbeculinarie.blogspot.it!

 

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14

Apr

Apple and Goat Cheese Toast

Returning to the usual routine after a holiday is always horribly terrible and terribly horrible, especially when the weather in town is cold and it’s raining! I’d rather stay in bed with a good book and a hot tea all day long and do nothing! Yesterday I invited some friends to dinner and, the weather being so enticing, I didn’t really fancy cooking, so I turned to my dear friend, the roast chicken from the supermarket, and to these good and merry toasts!  I’d want to give you this handy recipe (which I myself found in a magazine), in case you too happen to want to do nothing, but to still enjoy a meal and have friends over for dinner!

Ingredients for four:

4 slices brow bread

1 Gala/Stark red apple

½ lemon

1 tablespoon salted butter

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1 half-mature goat cheese

1 wisp chive

pepper

Wash the apple, cut it lengthwise into ½ cm thick slices, take away the top and the bottom, then the core and the seeds with a knife, sprinkle the slices with some drops of lemon juice.

Toast the bread slices.

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the apple slices, dust with the sugar and cook on both sides until golden brown.

Place the apple slices on the bread ones.

Cut 4 slices of goat cheese and lay them on the apple ones.

Grill the toasts in the oven for 5/10 minutes.

Chop the chive and sprinkle it on the toasts. Pepper at pleasure and enjoy!

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09

Apr

Tresse or Zopf

Ingredients:

20 g brewer’s yeast

250 ml milk at room temperature

500 g white flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons caster white sugar

2 eggs

80 g butter at room temperature

Tresse is a Swiss sweet bread made from milk and butter, soft and with a thin crust, perfect at breakfast and tea time, spread with butter and jam, marmalade or honey, but very good also on its own.

Place the yeast and the milk in a big bowl and let the yeast melt. Add the flour, the salt, the sugar, one of the two eggs, beaten, and the butter. Knead for a long time until the dough becomes smooth and elastic and little bubbles form under its surface.

Let the dough leaven for about an hour. Divide it into halves, form two rolls and weave them together. Place the tresse on a baking sheet on a baking pan and let it rest for about ten minutes. Brush it with the other egg beaten with a drop water and sprinkle at pleasure with some caster white sugar. Bake in the preheated oven at 220° C (430° F) for 15/20 minutes, the lower the temperature at 120° C (250° F) and keep baking for 20/15 minutes (about 35 minutes altogether).

*How to weave the tresse:

1) form two rolls with the dough and place one on the other crosswise

2) fold end B over roll C-D and place it beside A

3) fold end A over B and place it beside C

4) fold end D over B downwards, then fold end C over D and B, upwards

5) weave together A and B

6) then weave together C and D and continue as this until the end

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05

Apr

A Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

200 g dark chocolate

250 g butter

60 g unsweetened cocoa powder

2 teaspoons coffee powder

100 g potato starch

1 pinch baking powder

1 pinch salt

4 tablespoons cognac or brandy

4 tablespoons fresh cream

5 eggs

350 g caster white sugar

Place the potato starch, the baking powder, the salt, the coffee powder, the cocoa powder, the fresh cream, the cognac and the yolks into a large bowl and mix.

Melt the butter and the chocolate in a saucepan in a bain-marie on a low heat or in a bowl in the microwave at low energy. Then add it to the first mixture.

Beat the egg whites and the sugar until stiff (they can’t be solid, but they don’t have to be liquid either) and add it gently to the mixture stirring from the bottom up.

Cover a springform tin with a baking sheet and pour the mixture in it. Bake in a preheated oven at 160° C (320° F) for about 1 hour.

The cake will be moist and soft with a thin crust and absolutely delicious!

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05

Apr

London Little Guide

A little guide for my friend An. J. J. and for you!

Barefoot in the park

London has loads of beautiful parks and gardens and on a spring day it’s a real pleasure to have lunch and a nap on the grass! Out of all of them  I do prefer Hyde Park, with its restaurant Serpentine and its Kensington Gardens, St James Park and Kew Gardens, which, weather permitting, are worth a whole day.

A tale of two banks

Start from… Let’s say Embankment tube station, go through the long and narrow Victoria Embankment Gardens, behind the Savoy, and visit Somerset House and its Courtauld Collection, where you can admire few but worthy paintings dating from the Middle Ages to the 20th Century, including Manet’s A bar at the Folies-Bergère and Van Gogh’s Self-portrait with bandaged ear. Go on along the Strand, visiting little Temple Church and the inner courts that surround it. Going back to the Strand you arrive at St Paul Cathedral; climb up to the dome to experience an extraordinary view on the city! Walk along Cannon St and cross the Thames on London Bridge, and, once on South Bank, slip into Borough Market (open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays), where you can taste almost anything, from ostrich hamburger to goat ice cream! Strolling along Queen’s Walk you can see and visit Shakespeare’s Globe and Tate Modern and get on London Eye. Cross the Thames again on Westminster Bridge, admire the Palace and the steeple and visit Westminster Abbey with its Poets’ Corner.

Among Portobello Road little shops… I will tell you which ones I do prefer!

Walking from South to North, you will find, on your right:
Highland Store, full of smooth and affordable cashmere scarves;
AllSaints, whose walls are covered with old Singer sewing machine;
Gallery 115, The Portobello Arts Club, in which you will find beautiful photographs of Notting Hill, its colourful houses and its characteristic antique shops, such as Henry Gregory;
The Blue Door, where the friendly Italian owner sell a little of everything, including Alice Tate’s wonderful printings.
Turning on your right in Blenheim Crescent, then, you will find The Travel Bookshop, made famous by the film Notting Hill, and, in front of it, Books for Cooks, a delicious bookshop selling only cookbooks!
Back on Portobello Rd, the pub The Duke of Wellington is excellent for lunch!

Some other shops

At the Tintin Shop, 34 Floral St, Covent Garden, you will find books, t-shirts, cups, posters of the young reporter created by the Belgian illustrator Hergé;
Hatchards Booksellers, 187 Piccadilly, is the fine library that serves the Queen;
At Fortnum & Mason, 181 Piccadilly, one of my favourite places ever, you can have tea and scones or a slice of fabulous Victoria Sponge Cake in one of the many beautiful rooms and then buy delicious teas, coffes, biscuits, jams, marmalades and honeys!
L’Artisan du Chocolat, 89 Lower Sloane Sq, located near the beautiful Sloane Square, sells its own production of chocolates (the raspberry one is especially good!).

At last some culinary addresses!

Churchill Arms, 119 Kensington Church St, is an excellent pub serving Thai cuisine;
Aubaine has five different locations and it’s a delicious sort-of-French place to have breakfast or lunch;
Abeno, 47 Museum St (near the British Museum) and 18 Great Newport St (near Leicester Sq), is an excellent and cheap traditional Jap (=no sushi) restaurant, perfect both at lunch and dinner;
The Prêt-à-Portea at The Berkley Hotel, Wilton Place, is the most fashionable tea in London!
Momo, 25 Heddon St, the oldest Moroccan restaurant in London is located in a beautiful inner court. I suggest the Momo Couscous and the Momo drink. Tell a waiter it’s the birthday of one of your party and see what happens!
Mon Plaisir, 21 Monmouth St, Covent Garden (near Seven Dials), is a delicious French restaurant. The one flaw is its kitchen closing time at 10 p.m., but if you go to the near St Martin’s to see Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap before dinner, tell the waiter when you book and they’ll wait for you!
Yauatcha, 15 Broadwick St, is a very fashionable fusion restaurant.

And remember that 2012 is the bicentenary of Charles Dickens’ birth; consult http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/interactive/2012/jan/02/dickens-walk-heart-of-the-city!

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27

Mar

Courgettes Flans with Saffron and Parmesan Sauce

Ingredients:

Flan:

400 g courgettes

1 shallot

salt

250 ml fresh cream

4 eggs

4 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon white flour

Sauce:

40 g butter

40 g white flour

500 g whole milk

3 sachets  saffron

100 g grated Parmesan cheese

This recipe is Piedmontese cook Alessio Piantanida’s and it’s easy and really good. You can cook it with whichever vegetable you want, aubergines, carrots, pumpkin, spinach, broccoli, mashed potatoes, etc. and it’s convenient when you have leftovers of vegetables and you don’t know what to do with them

Wash and cut the courgettes. Chop the shallot, place it in a pan with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and brown it. Add the courgettes, salt and cook them. Then place them in a mixer with the cream, the eggs, the Parmesan and the flour and blend them. Butter and flour ten little moulds and pour in the mixture. You can use a pudding mould (ring shaped is better), but the mixture inside has to be no more than three/four fingers high. Bake for 20/30 minutes in a preheated oven at 180° C (365° F) in a bain-marie (half fill a baking pan with hot water and place the moulds on it).

While I was waiting for them to be ready, I finished reading Alan Bennett’s A life like other people’s, the story of his slightly unusual family, and, as always with Bennett, it has been really delightful!

You can cook the flans in advance but you have to prepare the sauce at the very last. First you have to do a béchamel, so bring the milk to the boil and in the meantime melt the butter and the flour in a saucepan (this mixture is called roux). Slowly add the milk to the roux, stirring until it starts to thicken, then remove from the heat. If it goes lump (and it’s more of a certainty than a probability), mix it with an immersion hand blender. Add the saffron and the Parmesan and stir.

Serve the flans warm with the sauce, which can be either warm or hot (unless you use that special transparent film which goes into the oven, which in Italy doesn’t exists, it is nearly impossible to remove the flans from the moulds, so you can leave them there).

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19

Mar

Polpettone

Ingredients:

500 g minced meat

200 g ricotta cheese

2 eggs

chopped fresh parsley

salt

1 tablespoon of grated Parmesan cheese

 10/12 chopped pistachios

5/6 cherry tomatoes

200 g bacon

half a glass of firm red wine

Polpettone is traditionally made from leftovers of boiled meat, but it can also be made of minced chicken, beef or veal. You can flavour it as you prefer, using dates or dried figs instead of tomatoes, for example, or adding chopped prosciutto cotto (ham) to the mixture.

Place the meat, the ricotta, the eggs, the parsley, the Parmesan and the pistachios in a large bowl. Salt it (not too much, since Parmesan, pistachios and bacon are already salty) and mix it with a spoon or with your hands.

Take a terrine (20/30 cm long), butter it and cover it with bacon slices as you see in the photo.

Start fill it with the mixture, place the tomatoes in the middle and finish the filling.

Fold the bacon slices to cover the mixture.

Sprinkle with the red wine and roast in the oven, preheated at 180° C (350° F), for 50/60 minutes.

Serve it either warm or cold.

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09

Mar

Torta Mimosa

Ingredients:

Pan di Spagna: 

240 g caster white sugar

8 eggs

130 g white flour

130 g potato starch

a pinch of salt

Crema Pasticcera:

4 yolks

500 ml milk

150 g caster white sugar

60 g white flour

1 vanilla bean

Panna Montata:

250 ml cream

1 tablespoon icing sugar 

Bagna:

3 tablespoons of liquor (Marsala, Porto or Sherry)

9 tablespoons of water

1 tablespoon of caster white sugar

On Women’s Day here in Italy we eat a delicious cake which resembles the flower typically given as a homage on this day of celebration, the mimosa. However, I adore this cake so much that I don’t need a specific occasion to cook it.

In order to make the cake we need to bake the Pan di Spagna first.

Place the eggs and the sugar in a large bowl and whip it with an electric whisker for 10/15 minutes, until it becomes super fluffy and soft. Sift the flour, the potato starch and a pinch of salt and add it to the mixture, stirring gently with a spoon from the bottom up. Pour the mixture into two buttered and floured springform tins (about 25 cm diameter). Bake them for about 30 minutes in a preheated oven at 180° C (365° F ), until it becomes golden brown. If you are not sure, stick a toothpick in the centre; if it comes out dry, the cake is ready.

Let the Pan di Spagna cool down and in the meantime prepare the Crema Pasticcera.

Place the milk in a saucepan with half of the sugar (75 g) and the vanilla bean (cut it slightly lengthways); put it over a low heat and bring it almost to the boil. Meanwhile place the yolks and the  remaining sugar (75 g) in a bowl and whisk them until they become white and fluffy. Add the flour and keep whisking. Now add the milk to this mixture and put the whole mixture back again in the saucepan over the heat until you get the thickness you like (i.e. quite solid). Put it in the fridge to let it cool.

Place the cream, which has to be very cold, in an equally cold bowl and whip it.

Take a very long knife and cut each Pan di Spagna in two disks. Place a disk on a plate, moist it with the Bagna (liquor, water and sugar mixed together) with the help a brush. Spread a first layer of whipped cream over the disk, a second layer of Crema Pasticcera and then another disk of Pan di Spagna. Repeat the same procedure. Moist the third disk with the Bagna and cover the top and the sides of the whole cake just with Crema Pasticcera. Chop the fourth and last disk in tiny little pieces and spread them to completely cover the cake.

Put it in the fridge to rest for at least one hour.

Ananda.

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