Entries Tagged 'love for food' ↓

Coffee is an important element of any Italian’s life. We are worldwide famous for our espresso, moka and cappuccino, which have been exported and proposed in many versions at Starbucks or made popular and trendy by the famous Nespresso advertising and stores.
But what does coffee mean and represent for Italians in their daily life? Coffee is for us not only a drink, coffee is a ritual, is a break during the day, a social moment, a digestive drink after a meal.
Today I will start talking about Moka, which represents the traditional home made coffee, prepared with the coffee maker of Bialetti, the famous brand with the man with moustache. There are copies and adaptations of the moka maker, but believe me, the best moka coffee is still the one made with the original aluminium pot of Bialetti called Moka Express.
In every Italian house you will find a moka maker. There is something ritual in preparing coffee with it. In our homes the aroma of fresh made coffee is the first sensation of the day, it has something cosy and comfortable in it, it’s the smell that announces a new day, the signal for the late sleepers that it’s time to wake up, the conclusion of a family meal.
I think the aroma of coffee prepared with a moka maker is particularly strong because it’s not a filtered coffee with water passing slowly through the powder, like with percolators. Here we pour cold water in the lower base, then put the aluminium filter inside and fill it with coffee powder. On top of it we screw the upper part, which has a thin aluminium pipe inside. Through this pipe we get coffee once the pressurized boiling water comes up thanks to the heat of the flam (we use gas cookers), passing through the filter. It takes only few seconds for coffee to come out and fill the upper part of the pot and during this operation a delightful flavoured steam spreads in the kitchen and in the whole house.

Moka coffee is served in small cups, purists drink it without adding sugar, but personally I prefer it with some sugar in it. And for my breakfast I add to moka-coffee some milk, that I separately warmed up: this is served in a bigger cup and it’s called caffelatte (literally: coffee-milk). In this case I don’t add any sugar.

Yesterday it was my birthday. I consider it just as another day during the year but it was a good opportunity to have a nice dinner with Illy. For this special event we chose a menu easy to cook and really delicious: salmon with rice and fresh tomatoes.
The recipe is easy to prepare, we put the salmon in a casserole and we added olive oil, salt, chives and hot chilli on it. Finally we cooked the salmon in the oven for 25 minutes.
And this is the result:

We think that each dish needs a decoration before serving on table so we prepared the rice and 2 tomatoes cut in slices. Simple ingredients, quickly prepared and nice also to look at…

An Italian white wine from the south of Italy with strong smell and aromatic taste completed my nice birthday dinner.

This recipe is my suggestion if you don’t have any idea for dinner.

My grandmother told me you never cut basil with a knife, but you only chop it with your fingers right away into the dish you are preparing, otherwise it will loose its flavour. Also, the best way to keep its aroma is adding it at the very last.
I really don’t know if it’s true or not, but you will always see me chopping basil leaves with my fingers.
That’s why last night I scared Manu to death when I yelled “NOOOOO!!!” when I saw him cutting some basil with a knife, that he dropped immediately, backing terrified and staring at me like someone that just woke up after a nightmare.
I know, I’m sometimes a kind of exaggerated, but I’m a maniac of certain kind of practices and traditions, especially of those that I learned when I was a kid, while helping my mother or my grandmother.
Basil is an herb that is cultivated in every Italian garden or terrace, it just needs warm and sun and it’s delicious with so many summer recipes, even the most basic pasta with fresh tomatoes gets a “royal” flavour when you add few leaves of fresh basil: not surprisingly, its name seems to come from the Greek basileus that means king…

As Manu’s parents love cultivating salad and vegetables in a small portion of their back garden during summertime, we are also lucky to benefit weekly of a big variety of delicious and healthy products.
In this period we are eating a lot of tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, courgettes, cucumbers, French beans, basil, rocket and various types of salad. Besides that, we regularly go to a farmer for excellent potatoes, onions and fruits at very correct prices. Also in Italy we are suffering the big price increase of food and we try to find an alternative to the supermarket, not only saving money, but also gaining in freshness.
That means also that we have to use our fantasy to cook all these vegetables in different ways.
These are some simple and tasteful recipes:
PANZANELLA
This is typical of central Italy, it’s made with some slices of rustic bread softened with few glasses of water. The bread must be wet and soft but not overwhelmed by water. Once made this operation you add chopped vegetables as red onions, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, capers then canned tuna and anchovy. You mix all together seasoning with salt, pepper and extra-virgin olive oil. Leave it some hours in the fridge before eating.
GAZPACHO see previous post
COLD RISE
Cook in boiling salted water a reasonable quantity of rice (we use ‘vialone nano’ rice from our region, but also other varieties are fine for it), after ten minutes drain the water away and put the rice into a bowl adding extra virgin oil, waiting till it gets cooler. Add chopped tomatoes and peppers (and any other variety you like). Add a small quantity of capers and olives, then a diced mozzarella, canned tuna fish and finally basil. Before adding salt, consider that capers are usually quite salted, so you better taste before. Last time I also added some paprika powder at the end.
TORTILLA
I like to give this Spanish name to my omelette, because it’s colourful like those you eat in Spain…
Break 3 eggs (or more, depending on the number of persons) in a bowl and whisk them, then add a half glass of milk and 3-4 tablespoons of flour, salt and pepper and continue whisking till it’s well mixed. Add chopped vegetables as: a half red onion, two medium tomatoes (removing their liquid before) and small green peppers. Heat a medium size non-stick frying pan with two tablespoons of olive oil. Pour the mix of eggs and vegs and level it carefully with a wooden spreader. After few seconds reduce at minimum heat-level and cover the pan. Leave it 10 minutes cooking slowly and check regularly, but keep covered, till you see that the eggs are cooked also on the surface.

GRILLED EGGPLANTS OR COURGETTES
This is a very easy way to cook these vegetables that can be combined with every dish, like meat or fish, but can also be added to a mixed salad. Just grill (you can use also a non-stick frying pan) thin slices of eggplants or courgettes and put them in layers into a casserole. Season every layer with salt, pepper, extra-virgin olive oil and if you wish also some chopped basil or parsley. Ideal is to leave it resting few hours before eating.