Why not try them with some cuttlefish?

During one of my little holidays back home, I get inspired by my roman market, so the next one will be a colorful and tasty dish to change a bit your pasta habit.

Last Monday my mum told me she was going to the market, so I thought could have been nice to post here some pictures of the market that I always tell you about.

All these colors, all the vibe of the people at the stands and all the beautiful products... They blew my mind and I couldn't resist from buying the ingredients for my next recipe: zucchini blossoms and little squids.

I decide to cook them with some Spaghetti Pastificio dei Campi and here are all the ingredients I used for 2 people:

6-8 zucchini blossoms

150 gr. of Spaghetti or Vermicelli Pastificio dei Campi

6-8 little cuttlefish

Some white wine

Oil, salt, pepper, chili

and a bit of grated pecorino cheese.

Clean the cuttlefish or buy them already cleaned. Cut them in half and put them in a pan with some hot oil and a garlic clove. Let them cook and color a bit. Add the white wine and let evaporate.

Then add the flowers cleaned from the inside and cut in half.

Put the water for the pasta to boil with some salt and when boiling, add the spaghetti. Let the spaghetti cook al dente, while adding salt, pepper and chili to the pan.

When the spaghetti are ready, drain them and toss them in the pan with the rest. Serve in a plate with some grated pecorino cheese and a sparkle of chili! Enjoy the color and the taste of the hot roman spring!

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When furniture and the right design can really create a special dining experience

Also this year the Salone del Mobile has started in Milan and everyone is speaking again about design, new furniture, space solutions and great inventions.
I normally tend to focus my attentions on the new kitchen products presented there, the little tools that make your cooking easier or nicer, funnier or just great. This year instead I'm thinking about furniture and interior design and how much the environment of a dining room is important for a special dining experience. I had the true prove of it, when I went this winter to the event 'Too much is never enough'.

More than a supperclub, more than a shop and more than a unique experience: Disappearing Dining Club with 123 Bethnal Green have organized this original dinner format really entertaining and delicious!
For just 50pounds they were offering a 3 course meal + drinks and a vintage shopping night, all in one shot and in a unique environment.
123 Bethnal green is a really nice and old building in a corner of an East London street with a weird past (they said these premises harboured London’s most notorious illegal gun supply – selling hundreds of lethal weapons to villains all across Britain at the rate of one a day). The house has really old pieces of furniture all over the three floor and they organized the night in a way that everyone could go around the place in freedom.

The aperitif was served in the first floor and in the vintage cloths part. Up at the third floor there was the starter: chicken liver and a great salmon pate’ served with a spiced punch! This was the boys room full of weird objects and old arms of course!
In the second floor was served the main: a delicious veal stew cooked with mushroom and potatoes and accompanied by lots of rice salads “Ottolenghi style” and wine. The cosy room was showing women outfits and a big cupboard was offering in sale beautiful vintage plates and cups.

Finally in the basement between discs and old book was served the dessert and the final cocktail. Everything was really tasty because cooked by a proper chef and served by weathers and nothing was left unthoughtful. The place was so peculiar but cosy at the same time that was impossible to don't fell in love with the concept :)

In Italy we are starting now with the first supperclubs, but having a building like this one, it could be really interesting to start a format of this kind. Maybe something similar is Casa Clementina in Rome.  And I could see Pastificio dei Campi just as the cherry on the cake for an event like this!

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An exclusive event with the Chef & Pastificio dei Campi

I have a great news for all of you today: I’m proud to announce a very special evening taking place on the 23^rd of Januray at Massimo, the London’s new speciality fish restaurant and oyster bar.

Italian chef Massimo Riccioli, of the celebrated La Rosetta in Rome, will help you to forget the winter blue with a night dedicated to Pastificio dei Campi.

 "Join Massimo and Niccolo Bittante of Food in the City on Monday 24th January at 7.30pm (£25 pp) for an exclusive evening and see the chef create his famous signature dishes with pasta by Pastificio dei Campi (Gragnano, Naples). 

To book your place, call our reservations team on +44 (0) 207 998 0555 or email tables@massimo-restaurant.co.uk"

In love with this chef since I was in Rome, he recently opened his new restaurant in London between Trafalgar Square and Embankment, in the Corinthia Hotel and I can’t wait to comeback to say hello. The restaurant offers a great Mediterranean menu specializing in the highest quality seafood and he is the most adorable and nice person I ever met.

It will be a great night and I just tell you… don’t miss it.

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A vegetarian and light dish for a long menu.

As you maybe can imagine, in Italy we have long and great lunches in holiday time, when the family is all reunited together. The menus are reach of traditional dishes, seasonal ingredients and made following quite complex recipes.

For this Easter break I helped my mum in the preparation of the lunch and knowing about the starters, the lamb as a main dish, the potatoes and different vegetables as side orders and the amount of dessert that were going to come after, I suggested to cook a reasonable light pasta and it was a great choice.

I put together some fresh artichokes my mum bought at the market, some broad beans and how could i forgot about the Pecorino cheese, traditional partner of the broad beans in the picnic we normally organize on the  Easter Monday. Especially in Rome, "Fave e Pecorino" are a must!

Here the recipe i followed for 4 people:  Tortiglioni Artichokes and Broad beans

- 350 g Tortiglioni Pastificio dei Campi
- 4 artichokes
- 300 g Broad beans
- 1  onion
- 1 lemon
- Extra-virgin olive oil, salt and pepper
- Some grated Pecorino cheese
- some parsley if you like it

Remove the stalk and the rough outer leaves from the artichokes, cut them in half, and remove their hairy centers. Cut them into thin strips and place them in a bowl with water and lemon juice.

Open the broad beans and remove their extra skin. In a pan, cook the chopped onion until soft, then add the artichokes and the broad beans and cook for 4-5 minutes. Taste for salt and pepper and add another splash of lemon juice before cooking for another 5-6 minutes, or until the artichokes are tender.

Cook the Tortiglioni until "al dente", drain them and add them to the sauce and mix everything together. Finish the dish with some chopped Italian parsley and grated Pecorino cheese.

Happy Easter Monday to everyone!

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Spaghetti alla carbonara for the woman in your house

Do you know what day is today? Pancake day? Yes ok also! But in Italy on top of the last day of celebrations for the Carnival before the lent, (a time of sacrifice and pray leading up to Easter), today is also the International Women's Day.
It's true that is not one of our favorite celebrations in Italy, because we hope you can celebrate women in general every single day of your life, but anyway in this day everyone give flowers to women, especially mimosa, and I was thinking could be nice to put up a simple recipe that every man could easily follow.

Spaghetti alla carbonara from Andreas Liebschner on Vimeo.

 
Thinking about it, a friend of mine just sent me a nice video, made by a guy, that explains the process to cook spaghetti Carbonara. And I have to say it quite follows the way I do it! I can't avoid to post it because I think it's clear, well done and original. Watch it and read all the notes, and you will discover why we are speaking about the sound of awesomeness.

Here the ingredients for a classic Carbonara for 2 people: 200gr Spaghetti or Tubetti Rigati Pastificio dei Campi, 70gr pancetta (better if you find guanciale) some pepper, 2 spoons of Pecorino cheese, 1 egg per person, some salt and olive oil. I also add some chopped garlic clove in the oil at the beginning but you can choose to put it or not.

Follow the video and you surprise your woman when she will comeback home!

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The Italo-American food spy

Last week I had the pleasure to finally meet  of the mythical blog ParlaFood and I say mythical because being an American in Rome she knows absolutely more nice restaurants and places than me, originally from Rome!

So when I realized she was coming to London, I couldn't miss the opportunity to know her and have a nice chat about food, her passion for the italian history, art and cuisine and her life in Italy.

Ok we haven't been so organized and finally all the places we wanted to go to where really full. So I suggested to have a drink in the hidden Gordon's wine bar, one of my favorite place in London, not really for the food (that is basically cheese) and the wine (that is anyway better of the average english pubs) but for the place and the atmosphere, so cozy and different. That bar it’s just a little unique place in London (I just hope she liked it).

So what do you think pushed Katie to come to Italy and embrace the “Dolce Vita” life? I discovered she had some italian origins and she always defined herself as an italian. Finally she realized something was missing and she needed to live a bit there to really know what being italian could mean. So, after some holidays spent in my country, and after her studies in art and archeology, she decided to take the big step and start her life in Rome, where she even worked as a touristic guide for our beautiful monuments.

The love for food was always in her blood and not only for her italian origins: the father run a restaurant and the family always used to cook a lot at home. Also the polish grandmother was a great inspiration for her, cooking her polish dishes but also some Italian family recipes.

So when she came to Italy she also studies gastronomy reaching the Master’s degree in Italian gastronomic culture from the Universita’ degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata.

And then the love for the good food and her curiosity helped her to start her carrier in food writing: she writes now for The New York Times, The Atlantic Food Channel and Scatti di Gusto.

Which is her secret to find the best ingredients and producers in Italy? “Speak a lot with people, with chefs when you go in restaurant, ask to the local people ... and especially check where their products are coming from!” How? “If you go to the toilet for example you could pass near their stock: read the boxes and the container and see where the ingredients are from! You could have great surprises!”

Anyway she is just funny and simple as you can expect her if you use to read her blog and tweets, and next time I hope to have the chance to go in a market with her and really test Katie’s expertise on the field! Can't wait! Lot's to learn!

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... tradition doesn't mean immobility!

But they also said: "and yet, to define ‘traditional’ in Italy is not simple. Within Italy too, there are so many regional influences to the cuisine. In southern Italy, for instance, there is an abundance of olive oil near the coast. Naturally, it forms an important ingredient in the cuisine. However, as you travel north and it becomes colder, olive oil is replaced by butter."

What about the recipes instead? To be able to experiment with a recipe, you have to know and understand what the traditional recipe is, he says. “Once you learn what each ingredient brings to a recipe, you can try innovating."

Strangely this discussion is the same going on in the italian blog too this week. "Tradition is not immobility but the contrary: the local traditions comes from the combination and influences and everything in the time is influences by the contest, the people and the historical moment. Everything is in evolution."

So for instance, I was surprised when yesterday, having a dinner at Roscioli, a very nice restaurant in the centre of Rome, I found very innovative dishes, near very traditional recipes, but all with a common point: the best italian ingredients, PGI or PDO, sometimes revisited in new combinations or just proposed following the most classic recipes.

The most classic white pizza or focaccia VS suppli with pork ragu'

Amatriciana or Carbonara VS Paccheri with peppers sauce, ricotta and bits of dried cod

Tiramisu' VS Cold chocolate cream with anise ice cream and croccante biscuits

And even the place is a mix between tradition and innovation: it's a classic old grocery, transformed in an little but very peculiar restaurant, with wine, homemade products and specialities everywhere and a great service.

As chef Macchia says : “I’ve learned that diners don’t always want foie gras or black truffle to get a good dining experience. Even a simple dish prepared differently will give them that feeling.” After my experience in Roscioli I can definitely agree ... the Paccheri were amazing!

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