Sto diventando abbastanza bravo a fare il pane, quindi mi sento in grado a questo punto di darvi qualche consiglio.

Ho sperimentato un po’ con la pasta madre o lievito naturale, che e’ semplicemente un composto di acqua e farina lasciato a fermentare, questo composto si usa come lievito per fare il pane.

Per capire come fare la pasta madre, sono partito da questo video, e dalla seguente ricetta:

200gr. di farina forte
90gr. di acqua

Impastate tutto e lasciate in una ciotola coperta per due giorni in cucina vicino al cesto della frutta.

Dopo due giorni rinfrescate prendendo 100gr. del composto (buttate il resto), 100gr. di farina, 45gr. di acqua e questo è appunto il RINFRESCO. Con queste proporzioni farete tutti i rinfreschi.

Trascorsi i due giorni se il lievito non si è mosso bisogna ricominciare e buttare tutto.

Se invece esso è cresciuto siamo arrivati a un buon lievito naturale che ora rinfrescheremo per una settimana una volta al giorno e cosi’ sara’ pronto.

A questo punto possiamo dire che abbiamo la nostra madre che dobbiamo rinfrescare ogni due giorni se la teniamo a temperatura ambiente e ogni 4 se la teniamo in frigo.

Ciao ciao!!

Tags: pane, recipe.

Ragazzi ho fatto il pane a casa con il lievito naturale! Mi e’ venuto perfetto, con le bolle irregolari dentro e croccante fuori; una bomba!
Erano mesi che non mangiavo il pane con questo sapore, molto vicino se non meglio del pane comprato al forno a Roma.
Me lo sono gustato ancora tiepido con una fetta di prosciutto sdraiata sopra; piccole cose che fanno un immigrato ad Amsterdam un immigrato felice.

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I’m at my parents house, in Fabrica di Roma, they have a small field were they grow vegetables, so I thought about making a pumpkin and potatoes soup with their fresh products.
It’s so rare if not impossible to find such as natural vegetables now days; just like heart gives them to us, that when you have the chance to have some of this product just dont miss the chance of eat them.

Here’s I’m going to explain the way i did a pumpkin soup:
Take a Pumpkin, some potatoes and some carrots, peal them, cut them ruffly and put the pieces in a baking tin, add extra virgin olive oil (my parents make their own), rosemary, garlic on its skin, salt, and a couple of chilies.

Cover the baking tin with aluminum foil and put it in the oven for forty minutes at 220 degrees.
In the mean time cut in small pieces a couple of onion and fry them slowly in a big pan with extra virgin olive oil.

At this point, take the pumpkin and the other vegetables from the oven, take a part the rosemary and the garlic and add them to the frying onion in the pan.
Squeeze a couple or more garlic out of the skin in the compound and stir it with a wooden spoon to help the vegetables melting. Add to the soup enough water with vegetarian bouillon in it , let it go for a little wile and the soup it’s ready.

Serve it with garlic bread and a tread of extra virgin olive oil.

Tags: recipe.

This last September I was in Morocco, I wanted to do a cuisine course to learn basics Moroccan kitchen.
The classes were full, so the only chef I could find was the man of the hotel; he offered me to cook together in the kitchen of the hotel. So it was:
The plan was to cook sheep with the traditional tajine of Marrakesh; which is different from the most common tajine.
To prepare it is quite simple:
Place the chunk of the sheep in the bottom of the tajine.
Than add slice of two red onions, resins, Moroccan curry, olive oil, a glass of water a bit of cinnamon and a bit of salt. Cover the top of the tajine with paper and put it on small fire for one our approximately.

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The most important in a good pasta al forno is the sauce:
Get the meat at the butcher and ask for half pork and half cow.
Start frying in a deep pan extra virgin olive oil with onions, carrots, celery and a bit of chili, when enough add the meat and let it go for a little wile adding a glass of red wine. Add tomato in can and salt, reach the boiling point and put the fire at the minimum, let it go for long time minimum 4 ours.
What I do ones the sauce start boiling is putting an extra layer of metal on the bottom of the pan, thats make it go even slower. As slower and as longer is the better.

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Something doesn’t really convince me about the preparation of the tiramisu. I took the recipe from Il Talismano Della Felicità, mainly what you do it’s just mixing the ingredients: orange eggs with sugar, mascarpone, and the white eggs mounted as snow. Here I have some doubts: the white eggs after being mounted starts getting a bit liquid again and I thing it’s a bit disgusting, plus when you mix it with the rest of the preparation, makes it a bit gross. That’s why I reduced already the amount of white eggs in my tiramisu, for six eggs I only use tree whites, but still, I’m not really happy with it, I’m still looking for solutions: not using the white eggs at all? Maybe, but than the utility of the white eggs which is making the compound soft and airy will miss…

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My mushrooms passed prove of the old lady! She sad was good. You know how difficult is to make old people happy with food when they’re used to theirs way of treating it. Maybe I succeed because I made them with my grandfather recipe. Prepare a dressing of extra virgin olive oil, lemon, and garlic, take the trunk a part and feel the head with it, plus: here’s the secret, spread some mentuccia over them, that herb it’s like a soft mint, it will give a freshness flavour.

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There’re different types of pizza, I also like to make the tick and soft one. This type is also good to prepare in a normal home oven since it doesn’t need really hi temperatures. The preparation of the dough is the same as for the pizza cooked on the stone:

Pane’s Pizza lesson n2, the dough:
For 1 liter of water:

2 Kg of flour

60 gr. of salt

60 gr. of olive oil

a little spoon of gist

Take present that this amount of ingredient is for 15 balls of pizza, so make your calculation to prepare the quantity you desire.
Mix the ingredients starting with the water, and work the dough out until is uniform and doesn’t stick on your fingers anymore, so you might need to add some more flour.
Let the dough rest for the all day in a bowl covered with a wet towel, prepare it in the morning so you can cook the pizza at dinner.
The dough will rise and become soft, that’s what we need to make this type of tick pizza
Take a metal tray, spread olive oil on the surface, than flat the dough in it, put your ingredients and leave the mozzarella at last. Since is going to stay for about 25 minutes at 220 degrees we don’t want the mozzarella to become dry, and we will add it the last five minutes.
The pizza should come if everything works thick, soft and hairy.

Tags: recipe.

Here’s my recipe for Italian polpette:

• Macinato
• One or two egs
• Enough parmigiano
• Prezzemolo
• Mollica di pane
• Milk
• Onions

I cant tell you exactly the proportions of the ingredients, I always do by feeling, when the mix is structured that means that the quantities are right, if it’s too soft it means too much onion or milk, too hard, one more egg or milk or onion, clear? So you start with the quantity of meat you want, it’s mixed half pork, half cow. In a bowl add the eggs to the meat, add the mollica of pane sucked with milk, grate a couple of onion in it, if you like, squeeze in it a garlic, add grated parmigiano, prezzemolo, salt and pepper. Work out the compound by hand and make than bolls of it, in a pan put enough extra virgin olive oil, make it hot and place the polpette in the pan, fry them on both sides for a little and than drop in some white wine, let evaporate it and add just plain tomato sauce and salt. Let the Polpette ultimate the cooking in the sauce and they’re ready. I love them next to puree and boiled green beans.
I put them in my menu, but again some diffidence, I understood that if your name goes around for being a good pizza baker than this is what people want. I had polpette four days in a row.

Tags: recipe.

Peperoni a la Wu-Tang.
Roast a peperone, pill the skin and hope the shape it’s similar to the Wu-Tang logo.

Tags: recipe.