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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The right recipe for these rainy days

Rain rain and more rain!
It was a long time that I wasn’t complaining about the weather, but I have to say that now it’s a bit too much. It’s almost one month that rains without stop and also if it’s not too much cold, for sure this is not the weather you expect in spring.
Thanks God, last saturday when I went to the market the sun decided to appear for few hours and I could enjoy a nice stroll and some shopping. I could see already some english asparagus between the amount of colorful vegetables , but I didn’t feel like cooking something with that yet.

I was actually more interested in something hot, and comfy, maybe baked... And here it was ... A nice cauliflower! I have read in fact that this is the best month for them in UK and so the shopping was done and the recipe came just after: "I will do a typical english dish revisited in an italian way.... With pasta of course!"

Here is the recipe for my Cauliflower cheese baked pasta and the ingredients for 4 people:

320 gr of Mezze Maniche Rigate Pastificio dei Campi

200 gr cauliflower florets

80 gr of shelled hazelnuts 

30 gr of grated parmesan

120gr of grated mature cheddar cheese

30 gr of butter

salt, pepper and a bit of chilli too

Cook the cauliflower florets in boiling salted water for 7-8 minutes, then drain them maintaining the water to cook the pasta. Mash them a bit in a pan where you have previously put some olive oil and a garlic clove. Smash the hazelnuts in little pieces but don't make a powder.

Cook the pasta in the cauliflower water adding salted water. Drain when al dente and pour into the pan with the cauliflower florets, add the hazelnuts, some pepper and chilli, the grated cheddar cheese and a bit of grated parmesan and stir until the cheese is melted.

Pour the preparation into a greased baking dish with the butter, sprinkle with remaining Parmesan and cook in oven at 180 ° C for 30 minutes. Serve piping hot and enjoy!

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Learning some english recipes and enjoying food... as usual

Last week a friend of mine invited me to a professional cooking class... I couldn’t believe it! I love learning from professional chefs and more in England where they cook different things from the ones I used to see cooked in my italian family.

The plan was to prepare a 3 courses meal in less than 1 hour almost and ... To eat it all together! Just great!

So I went to L'Atelier Des Chefs, an amazing place near Oxford Circus, very little from outside, but very well organized internally: there are 2 big kitchens, one on the street level and another downstairs and lots of cooking tools available to use in the class but especially to buy. A very cosy place with nice and welcoming people!
So we started our class around 11,30 with a Prosecco glass, gently offered, and the 3 courses meal was composed by the following recipes:

Pea soup with crisp pancetta and garlic croutons
Crisp fillet of sea bass with braised fennel and brown shrimp vélouté
Chocolate and praline cream with espresso coffee emulsion and hazelnut financiers

We started with the preparation of the basic ingredients: cutting finely the onion, garlic, mint & chives, peeling the bread, and putting the potatoes to roast in the oven. And all these easy tasks were all quite difficult if you wanted to follow the chef's lesson: first thing he showed us how to properly cut the ingredients and it's so much more difficult of what I could have never thought!

Then we mixed some of the ingredients to prepare a very rich sauce for the veloute’ while the other group was starting to deal with the mousse and financiers biscuits. This mousse made with the praline cream and the hazelnut dough for the biscuits were just great!

Finally, the financiers in the oven and the cream in the fridge, we places the fish to cook in the pan with just a little bit of oil, the fennel to boil and we started to prepare  the soup, cooking the peas and frying the bread.

It was a really funny day and of course I don’t tell you how much good the food was! I loved my peas soup and the veloute’ was great, But for me the real revelation were the financiers biscuits, very similar to the "Magdalene", that I used to eat when I was little and that I loved sooo much! Now I even cooked them by my self!!! Great place and great experience!

And you? Have you ever been to some professional cookery class?

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My Easter pasta recipe

Lots of thing will happen in these days: first of all I'm moving home,  and this means that i will have 4 days of real mess. Second, I'm organizing a little Easter Brunch in my new place.

It will be a brunch because I would like to unify a bit of the classic Easter breakfast dishes with a simple lunch, to have a great traditional but at the same time relaxing and original Easter feast!

Of course after the moving I will be dead, so i'm looking for simple recipes but with all the taste of the classic Easter sunday lunch i could have in Italy.

So Mafaldine with Lamb Ragu' I decided will be the main dish of the brunch, and for the rest you will need to wait the pictures :)

Ingredients for 4 people:

- 400 gr Mafaldine Pastificio dei Campi

- 400 g. minced lamb

- 300 g. of tomato passata

- 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 rib of celery

- 1 lemon

- rosemary if you like or a bit of parsley and fresh mint

- 1/2 cup of red wine

- extra virgin olive oil

- salt & pepper

- grated pecorino cheese

Clean the vegetables, carrots, onion and celery, wash and chop them finely.
Fry the chopped vegetables with a little oil, then add the minced lamb, and let it cook until brown. Sprinkle with red wine and let evaporate. Add salt and pepper, add the tomato passata and cook covered for about 2.5 hours. Occasionally add a little bit of water or broth if the sauce dries too much.
Just before serving prepare a mixture of garlic, parsley, mint and lemon peel or if you don't like this mix, just add some rosemary when pouring the passata. You can also put in the sauce to cook a few pieces of lamb on the bone: in this way the sauce will be tastier.

Cook the pasta in boiling salted water, drain and toss it with the sauce and the chopped aromatic prepared earlier. Take it to the table accompanied by grated Pecorino cheese.

Enjoy and Happy Easter to everyone!

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Two different Spaghetti Nests

Yesterday I was surfing the net for some ideas for Easter, something for you to do with your  children, but also something  to decorate the table during the Easter lunch or  during the classic Easter breakfast with eggs and salami.

This year I will spend this day with my italian friend here in London, and could be nice to have a traditional feast. So here are two ideas for that day: Spaghetti Nests.

For the decorative Spaghetti Nest you will need:

1 box of Spaghetti
1 egg
some salt and nutmeg
extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
Tools: Pot, baking dish from oven, oven paper, brush

Preheat the oven to 220 degree. Boil the Spaghetti in a big pot, to avoid to break them.
Place some baking paper on  the baking dish and spread a little oil on the bottom.

Drain the pasta with a fork and roll it, giving the form of a nest in the measure that you want. Arrange the nests on the baking sheet spaced, while in a bowl you will beat the eggs with a pinch of salt and the Parmesan cheese.
Brush the beaten egg on the spaghetti and bake them for 10 minutes in the preheated oven. They should be golden and crispy. Let them cool down and serve with the boiled eggs.

If instead you want to serve a little fun starter try the Spaghetti nest with peas and ham. You will need for 4 people:

- 40 g of flour

- 4 dl of cream

- 150 gr of Spaghetti Pastificio dei Campi

- 100 gr of peas       

- 100 gr cooked ham or little cube of pancetta if you want

- 1 little onion

- 2 tablespoons of Parmesan

- Salt, pepper and olive oil

Take a pan and toast the flour for 2 minutes, then gradually add the cream and stir with a whisk, then add tablespoon of grated Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper and stir. Put the cream in a bowl and let cool in refrigerator.
Cook the fresh peas in boiling water for 5 minutes, then take them out pass them in a pan with olive oil, some chopped onion and the ham cut in little pieces.

Boil the spaghetti , then drain and toss them with some of the sauce, made 8 little baskets and put them in a baking dish, decorated with the peas, the ham and some of the remaining cream.
Past the baskets in the oven at 200 ° C for 15 minutes and serve on a tray.

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Some recipes to enjoy this great ingredient and our pasta

I admit it: I love artichokes but has always been a bit difficult for me to clean and cook them properly. I want them but I'm always a bit too lazy to actually buy them often.

Today, with the official beginning of the spring season I decided that it's time to beat my enemy and shake a  bit my diet welcoming this great ingredient.

I then started to look here and there for interesting recipes and this is what inspired me. They really are pretty easy, so maybe is the time to go shopping soon.

Just few days ago in twitter @donalde asked me about the Pecorino cream. I didn't know what it was, because very local and typical of Sardinia, but it seems you can find it in London at Melograno Deli with the Provola cheese too. So here some recipes to enjoy them and the artichokes!

Fusilli with artichokes, goat cheese, pecorino and almonds or Mezzi Rigatoni with artichokes and provola cheese (smoked or not).

If you like goat cheese go for Fusilli, that are better with saucy cream, while if you prefer Provala Cheese (you can find it in Melograno deli) go for the Mezzi Rigatoni.

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Mother's day is near and Italy too!

Thinking about a special present for your mum this year? If she has always been in love with Italy, you could think about offer her an holiday in Italy.

What if you can find Italy at your doorstep? 

Easy with one of our great MAXI CUBE Pastificio dei Campi. 

There is the one "To Taste" (50 euro) with a selection of pasta shapes already made for you.

Then there is the "Customed Cube"(40 euro), if you already know your mum's favourite shapes of pasta. 

Finally the  "Maxi Cube Selection Pastificio dei Campi"(65 euro) is composed by pasta, Extra virgin Olive Oil L'arcangelo and a special kind of tomatoes, Miracolo di San Gennaro... so the best from the Campagna region. 

If you are interested in one of the 3 just let me know via Facebook and I will organize to send you one of the cubes.

If the present is not enough, why don't follow one of my recipe and invite your mum to a real italian pasta dinner all prepared by you? Here some of them.

And finally your italian day couldn't be easier than this: The Italian Cultural Institute in London has just started the new italian movie nights appointment from this friday: lot's of nice movies are in schedule in these days, all with subtitles and in a really beautiful environment.

Have a look here to chose the one your mum will be happy to watch and get ready for your Special italian Mother's day.

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