11/26/08 Cod and Mushroom Tart from OreganoFromItaly.com |
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"La superbia è figlia dell'ignoranza." (Pomposity comes from ignorance.) Welcome to another recipe edition from Angela's Organic Oregano Farm!
This week's Italian recipes:
-Spaghetti Amatriciana
-Pumpkin Pie
-Cod and Mushroom Tart
Best wishes for a happy and healthy Thanksgiving to all our subscribers. Enjoy your recipes.
Thanks again for subscribing!
Yours Truly,
Angela Reina
Recipe: Spaghetti Amatriciana |
Spaghetti Amatriciana
Spaghetti all'Amatriciana
Ingredients:
Extra virgin olive oil, for brushing
3 and 1/2 oz (100 grams) pancetta, diced
1 onion, thinly sliced
l lb 2 oz (500 grams) tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced
1 fresh chili, seeded and chopped
12 oz (350 grams) spaghetti
Salt and pepper
Directions:
Brush a flameproof casserole with olive oil, add the pancetta and cook over a low heat until the fat runs.
Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes until lightly browned.
Add the tomatoes and chili, season with salt and pepper, cover and cook for about 40 minutes, adding a little warm water if necessary.
Cook the spaghetti in a large pan of salted, boiling water until 'al dente', then drain and toss with the sauce in a warm serving dish.
Serves 4.
That's it!
Recipe: Pumpkin Pie |
Pumpkin Pie
Pasticcio di Pasta di Zucca
Ingredients:
For the Bechamel Sauce:
2 oz (50 grams) oz butter
2 oz (50 grams) plain flour
18 fl oz (500 ml) milk
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
Salt and pepper
For the Pie:
2 oz (50 grams) dried mushrooms
1 oz (25 grams) butter, plus extra for greasing
1/2 shallot, chopped
1/2 carrot, chopped
7 oz (200 grams) cooked pumpkin
11 oz (300 grams) plain flour, plus extra for dusting
1 egg, lightly beaten
Salt and pepper
Directions:
Prepare the Bechamel Sauce:
Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat.
Whisk in the flour.
Pour in all the milk, whisking constantly until it starts to boil.
Season with salt, lower the heat, cover and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for at least 20 minutes. Bechamel sauce should not taste floury.
Remove the saucepan from the heat.
Taste and add more salt if necessary and season with pepper and/or nutmeg.
If the sauce is too thick, add a little more milk.
If too runny, return to the heat and add a knob of butter mixed with an equal quantity of plain flour.
Note: For a richer bechamel sauce, replace half the milk with the same amount of double cream; for a lighter bechamel sauce, add half milk and half water.
Prepare the Pie:
Put the mushrooms in a bowl, add hot water to cover and leave to soak for 20 minutes, then drain, squeeze out and chop.
Melt the butter in a frying pan, add the shallot and carrot and cook over a low heat until softened, then add the mushrooms.
Cover and cook for 15 minutes until tender, then stir into the bechamel sauce.
Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F) Gas Mark 6.
Grease an ovenproof dish with butter.
Meanwhile, process the pumpkin with a pinch of salt in a food processor.
Transfer to a bowl and combine with the flour, then stir in the egg to bind into a dough.
Knead quickly and roll out on a lightly floured surface into a fairly thin sheet.
Cut out 10-12 rectangles.
Bring a pan of salted water to the boil, add the pumpkin rectangles and cook for a few minutes, then drain.
Arrange the rectangles in alternate layers with the mushroom sauce and bake for a few minutes. Serves 4.
That's it!
Recipe: Cod and Mushroom Tart |
Cod and Mushroom Tart
Torta Delicata di Merluzzo agli Champignon
Ingredients:
For the Bechamel Sauce:
2 oz (50 grams) oz butter
2 oz (50 grams) plain flour
18 fl oz (500 ml) milk
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
Salt and pepper
For the Pate Brisee (thawed if frozen):
9 oz (250 grams) plain flour, plus extra for dusting
6 oz (175 grams) butter, softened and diced
1 egg, lightly beaten
Salt
For the Tart:
18 fl oz (500 ml) dry white wine
1 large onion, halved
2 cloves
6 cod fillets, skinned
1 tablespoon chopped fresh marjoram
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
1 fresh flat-leaf parsley sprig, leaves only
1 oz (25 grams) butter, plus extra for greasing
2 and 1/4 lb (1 kg) mushrooms, thinly sliced
3 and 1/2 oz (100 grams) Gruyere cheese, grated
2 tablespoons double cream
2 eggs, lightly beaten
Salt and pepper
Directions:
Prepare the Bechamel Sauce:
Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat.
Whisk in the flour.
Pour in all the milk, whisking constantly until it starts to boil.
Season with salt, lower the heat, cover and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for at least 20 minutes. Bechamel sauce should not taste floury.
Remove the saucepan from the heat.
Taste and add more salt if necessary and season with pepper and/or nutmeg.
If the sauce is too thick, add a little more milk.
If too runny, return to the heat and add a knob of butter mixed with an equal quantity of plain flour.
*Note: For a richer bechamel sauce, replace half the milk with the same amount of double cream; for a lighter bechamel sauce, add half milk and half water.
Prepare the Pate Brisee:
Sift the flour and a pinch of salt into a mound on the work surface and add the diced butter.
Rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
Shape into a mound, make a well in the center and pour in the beaten egg and 2 tablespoons water.
Knead lightly by hand (your hands should be cold - if necessary hold them under cold running water) or using a metal palette knife.
Wrap the pastry in cling film, flatten gently with a rolling pin and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) Gas Mark 4.
Divide the pastry into several pieces, roll out on a lightly floured surface and use to line boat-shaped, oval or round tartlet tins.
Line with baking parchment or greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans.
Bake for 15-20 minutes.
Remove the tins from the oven, remove the beans and parchment or paper and leave to cool before filling.
*Note: The quantity of pastry given here is also enough for two 23-cm/9-inch round pies. Halve or double the quantity according to your requirements.
Prepare the Tart:
Pour 18 fl oz (500 ml) water and the wine into a saucepan.
Stud the onion with the cloves, add to the pan and bring to the boil.
Add the fish and cook over a low heat for about 20 minutes.
Remove the cod with a fish slice and boil the stock to reduce slightly, then set aside.
Sprinkle the cod with the marjoram, thyme and parsley, and season with pepper.
Melt the butter in a frying pan, add the mushrooms and cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes.
Remove from the heat and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 160°C (325°F) Gas Mark 3.
Grease a tart or quiche tin with butter.
Make the bechamel sauce using half milk and half fish stock, then stir in the mushrooms, Gruyere, cream and eggs and season with salt and pepper.
Roll out the pate brisee on a lightly floured surface and line the prepared tin.
Prick the base all over with a fork, line with baking parchment and fill with baking beans.
Bake for 15 minutes, then remove from the oven and increase the temperature to 180°C (350°F) Gas Mark 4.
Remove the parchment and beans.
Chop the fish and sprinkle evenly over the pastry case.
Cover with the bechamel sauce mixture and return to the oven for 40 minutes. Serve warm. Serves 6.
That's it!
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Only In Italy! |
"Only In Italy" is a daily news column that translates and reports on funny but true news items from legitimate Italian news resources in Italy. Each story is slapped with our wild, often ironic, and sometimes rather opinionated comments. And now, for your reading pleasure, a sample of today's edition:
The Picnic in St Mark's Square Is Over!
Venice - October 6, 2008 - People have started obeying orders not to stop and snack in Venice's famous St Mark's Square, officials said Monday.
"The picnic's over," said city decorum pointman Augusto Salvadori. "Today there was no one lying around eating in St Mark's".
Six city cops have been deployed to enforce the 'anti-bivouac' ordinance, Salvadori said. He voiced the hope that soon they won't be needed any more.
"Tomorrow we'll see multi-lingual signs go up detailing what is allowed in the square, and hopefully people will get the message."
"If need be, we're always here to remind them".
Among other things, the signs will point people to the Royal Gardens as a better place for snacking. Salvadori said the next front on the clean-up drive will be the graffiti that is despoiling palazzi and monuments.
"They cause enormous damage and we plan to get compensation from these so-called 'writers'," he said, announcing the arrival of 70 new surveillance cameras to join the 35 already in operation.
But the clean-up czar denied reports that the city drive was also aimed at preventing kids using chalk to mark the squares for skipping games.
"That's nonsense. I agree perfectly that children should have space to play in Venice," Salvadori said after traffic wardens were reported to have scolded children for drawing patterns for the traditional game of 'campagnon'. He said the city planned to open up more areas where children could play.
Venice authorities said last week they would launch an international competition for schemes to stop mass tourism spoiling St Mark's and the city's other famous squares. Venice launched its decorum drive two years ago to fight a modern wave of scruffiness and lax behavior it said was dragging its image down. Among other things it has employed so-called 'City Angels', a band of young women, to tell tourists to put their shirts back on, stop putting their feet in fountains and have their picnics away from the most popular sites.
The city has also launched a drive to rid St Mark's of the pigeons many people associate with it by banning feed vendors and taking other moves to shoo the birds away. Authorities said last week the anti-pigeon measures were proving "an unqualified success". The square's pigeon population was down from its historic levels of 20,000 to a bare thousand.
"Just a few months after the feed ban most of the square is free of the animals who have moved off to find food on the islands," said Venice Artistic Superintendent Renata Codello. She said the birds had "almost completely disappeared" from the logge on Palazzo Ducale (the Doge's Palace), once their favorite gathering spot.
The animals, which have been judged a health hazard and threat to city monuments, had also decamped from St Mark's Basilica, allowing the historic church's facade to be cleaned.
Since when does eating a candy bar that costs 6 Euros (plus tip) appear as if one is enjoying a mini-picnic? "Hey, non mi rompere le palle!"
"Tomorrow we'll see multi-lingual signs go up detailing what is allowed in the square, and hopefully people will get the message."
Do you understand, you good-for-nothing tourists?
Rule: The tables in the Piazza are there for a reason!
Caffè Florian in St. Mark's: What's the brilliant logic behind high menu prices but no customers. Is one supposed to sit at one of the 60 empty tables and say, "Minchia, I was at the Florian. I left a kidney when I finished my cocktail but I saw the table of Goethe, Byron and Proust."
It would cost you less if you bring a chair, classical music and a nice bottle of Barolo to Byron's grave.
Rule: Music costs so don't listen!
"Excuse me waiter, Giuseppe, faccia di culo, whatever your name is...Two glasses of crappy house red wine (17 Euros for two), a tiny bottle of fruit juice that could barely nourish a mouse (8.50 Euros) and 12 Euros for listening to the chamber music (3 Euros per ear)?"
"Ah, you forgot the 6.50 surcharge because I'm wearing a hearing aid?"
It would cost you less if you buy a bottle of wine in a Venice bottega, chug it down in one of the aisles and dance over to the square to enjoy a lovely evening.
Venice wants to know if you got the message? (il messaggio?, le message?, die Nachricht?, el mensaje?)
The party and picnic is over!
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