Italy Puglia cooking vacations and wine tours

There is no other day of the week, that I love as much as Sunday.

It’s the day when Marika does not have to go to the hospital (for work! of course) so she can make all her delicious Italian recipes and dishes. She usually wakes up early, goes on a bike ride and then in a couple of hours she is able to arrange a 5-course meal for the traditional Italian Sunday meal we have with the whole family.

When we were young our Grandmother used to cook the Sunday meal. Until a few months ago it was our Mother’s turn. Now it’s Marika’s (but I also help!).

Since we were very young, our family has always had meatballs with tomato sauce on Sunday. I and Marika would wake up with the smell of those fantastic meatballs slowly cooking in the tomato sauce. I think the first Italian word I learnt to say was “polpette”.

I and Marika both learned cooking with our Grandmother. However, we all agree that Marika’s dishes taste exactly what our Nonna used to make. I really don’t know how she does! But it must be due to the fact that cooking is more than a passion for her….and passion and love are two ingredients who make the difference.

So today is Sunday….and Marika made these fantastic meatballs with tomato sauce. You may say: everybody in Italy makes meatballs on a Sunday or… everybody knows how to make them. But I can tell you that they are really worth a post on our blog. They were incredibly good. And in fact they were all gone pretty soon. This is our family’s recipe. 

Marika’s Sunday home-made meatballs

INGREDIENTS

1 lb minced beef meat
1 whole egg
3 1/2 oz parmigiano reggiano cheese
3 1/2 oz durum wheat breadcrumbs
milk (as necessary)
1/2 tsp sea salt
good pinch nutmeg
pinch black pepper
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
6-7 fresh mint leaves
18 fl oz fresh tomato sauce with onion and basil

Before the preparation, there are a few secrets for this meatball recipe that our Grandmother taught us and we want to share with our readers.

First, at the butcher shop, make sure the piece of meat you choose is minced in front of you. Second, do not use powder breadcrumbs but use good quality stale bread. Third, moisten the bread with milk (not water).  Fourth add fresh herbs (parsley, mint or basil) as they give much more flavor. The last and most important thing, once you make the balls, let them rest (so they absorb all the flavors) for a few hours before cooking them in the tomato sauce. The “resting” part is key.

PREPARATION

Put the minced meat in a bowl. Then add the egg and grated parmigiano cheese and start mixing with your hands.

In another plate, moisten the durum wheat bread with milk. Slowly add the moisten bread to the meat while mixing. Finally, add the chopped parsley, sea salt, black pepper, a good pinch of nutmeg and the mint leaves in small pieces.

The mint leaves add freshness and make the difference!

After you mix all the ingredients together, make some little balls with your hands. Put them on a tray and let them rest for at least one hour.

As always, Marika adds her healthy twist to all our family recipes. Therefore, she does not fry her meatballs before cooking them in the tomato sauce.

On the side prepare a fresh tomato sauce with basil. Slowly add the meatballs to the tomato sauce and cook them for about 40 minute-1 hour at low flame with the lid. Do not forget to stir them if necessary.

As always, enjoy them with your friends and family.

Do you have any traditional food your family makes on Sunday? What is your meatball recipe?

I and Marika interrupt our series of Mediterranean recipes and cuisine from Puglia to bring you something a bit different and very delicious.

As Marika (the Cardiologist!!) says: “the important thing is to eat everything in moderation“!

So today we decided to join our internet friends Michelle and Sara and celebrate the World Nutella Day!

And what’s better than the traditional bread with nutella that all Italians have had for breakfast at least once in their life? Therefore, we decided to prepare a very easy breakfast recipe, with a Pugliese twist: we used our home-made durum wheat bread with some Pugliese ricotta!

Two days ago we made a huge loaf of home-made and durum wheat bread, that we cut in slices and froze (so that we can have for breakfast for the next days).

 

Today we used this bread to make our breakfast bruschetta.

Bruschetta with home-made bread, ricotta, nutella and orange zest.

INGREDIENTS

1 slice of durum wheat bread
1 oz cow milk ricotta
2 tsp nutella
bitter cocoa powder
orange zest
2tbsp sugar
3 tbsp water
1 tbsp rum

PREPARATION

Slice the bread and toast it.

Spread a good amount of ricotta on half of the bread. Spread a good amount of nutella on the other half.

Cut the orange zest in small pieces and caramelize it by melting in a saucepan sugar with water. Then add the orange pieces and keep stirring. When the water is all absorbed switch the flame off and add the rum.
Once the orange zest is caramelized, add it on top of the ricotta.
Sprinkle some bitter cocoa powder on top.

Have fun celebrating nutella!

Happy Nutella Day 2011!

I and Marika are just back from a wonderful 3-day cooking workshop held in Milan where all best Italian and International chefs got together to share the secrets behind their recipes and dishes.

Imagine yourself in the same room with Italian chefs from Massimiliano Alajmo, Carlo Cracco, Gennaro Esposito, Davide Oldani, Antonello Colonna, Niko Romito, Andrea Berton, to Elio Sironi, Davide Scabin, Ciccio Sultano and Massimo Bottura, who was recently awarded as the best chef in the world by the International Academy of Gastronomy in Paris.

The International chefs included: Inaki Aizpitarte, Paul Liebrandt, Sat Bains, Magnus Nilsson, Yoshihiro Narisawa.

During the three days, they prepared their famous dishes, telling about the ingredients they use, why they use them and how they put them together. In a few words they opened their kitchen doors to us.

Moreover, we got to taste most of the dishes they prepared, which means that we started eating at 10am until 7pm. We promise you that even if at some point we started getting full, these dishes were so fantastic that it was impossible to resist.

Our favorite workshops were the pasta sessions. Our number one favorite pasta dish was the pasta – pizza by Davide Scabin.

We also loved the idea of Carbonara pasta for breakfast by Elio Sironi (chef at the Bulgari hotel). He made it on top a nice bruschetta bread. Very nice way to start the day!

Of course we loved Gennaro Esposito and Carlo Cracco who are always so interesting. The biggest idea among many of them is that pasta can be cooked as if it was a risotto, without boiling the pasta in the water. Of course you can only do it with very high quality pasta. Cooking the pasta as a risotto helps preserving all the health benefits of pasta.

Finally we loved the spaghetti cacio e pepe by Antonello Colonna: so simple, but so wonderful!

The other super interesting cooking wokshop was the pizza session. We never had such a delicious pizza before. We got to learn (and taste!) the real pizza Napoletana from Napoli, the real Pizza Metro from Vico Equense and the fantastic pizza with natural yeast by Simone Padoan (and we could not believe he is from Verona!). Each pizza was made in three totally different ways.

As if all this was not enough, only the best food and wine producers were exhibiting their products: from best cheese, Parma ham, best pasta, to best wines and so much more.

A Grappa tasting was a good end to such good meals.

We think the best part was to see all these chefs (some of them so young!) supporting and praising each other without jealousy, rivalry or without comparing the different regional cuisines! They were all representatives of the Italian cuisine.

We are now back home ready to put together all the great learnings, videos and recipes….and to start eating again!

What I and Marika like the most about making our own bread at home is all the nice memories that it brings back.

There is nothing better than the flavors all around our house when we bake the bread in the oven. It reminds us of our childhood when our Grandmother would make the bread for all her grandchildren. She would call us when the bread was still in the oven and bring us together around her kitchen table: we would eat that delicious and warm bread with just extra virgin olive oil and fresh tomatoes. Nothing else. It was the best bread ever, made with lots of love. 

Nowadays, once a week I and Marika make our own bread. The nice smell of the bread baking in the oven reminds us of those moments.

This is the recipes of the bread we made this week. We usually use durum wheat flour to make bread in Puglia, but for this specific recipe we used Kamut flour (asa Triticum turgidum and Khorasan). Kamut flour is an ancient type of wheat related to the durum variety. It is richer in protein, minerals (magnesium and zinc), Vitamin Bs and Vitamin E, than common wheat. It is easy to digest and, being not refined, it retains all nutritional qualities.

INGREDIENTS

2 lb 8oz kamut flour
3 cups water
5 1/2 oz sourdough starter (or natural leaven /mother dough)
2tsp sea salt

PREPARATION
First have to make your own sourdough starter (we will make a post about it).

Put 2lb 2oz of kamut flour in a bowl. Add the water and the sourdough starter. Stir the ingredients together with a wooden spoon. Add the sea salt. Cover the bowl with a moisten napkin and let the dough rise for 24 hours.

Move to a marble table and knead the dough with your hands after adding the remaining 6oz kamut flour. Make a round or rectangular shape. Prepare a baking pan with some olive oil and flour. Place the dough on the baking pan and let it rise for another hour.

Pre-heat the oven and bake it at 400 F° for the first 10 minutes and at 350°F for the last 20 minutes.

What memories does home-made bread bring you back?

Cooking delicious dishes for our friends and family is one of the things that I and Marika love doing during the Christmas holidays.

We though of starting the New Year with a recipe that has been very successful: mandarin marmalade, with ginger, cinnamon and Veuve Cliquot champagne.

The beauty of this recipe is that we used the Veuve Cliquot champagne leftover from Christmas Eve. To tell you the truth, there was not much left over, but it was enough to make this marmalade fantastic!

INGREDIENTS

2 lb organic mandarins
1 lemon juice
1lb brown sugar
18 fl oz water
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
2tbsp Veuve Cliquot Champagne

PREPARATION
Wash the mandarins and peel them. Cut half of the peels in small strips.
Cut the mandarin inside in small pieces (you are free to remove the seeds. We don’t do that because seeds are full of pectin and we don’t mind finding them in our marmalade).
Boil the water with sugar, until the sugar is completely melted. Add the peel strips, mandarins and lemon juice and cook over medium heat for about two hours, stirring so that the marmalde does not stick.

Add the grated ginger, cinnamon and the Veuve champagne and keep cooking at low flame for other 15 minutes.

This marmalade is perfect to be eaten by itself on top of bread, or with cheese.

What is your favorite dish you make with leftovers?

Puglia is one of the best regions to go to if you love fresh, tasty and delicious tomatoes.
From June to the end of September, at any market or any street corner in Puglia, you see all the local farmers selling their own fresh and organic tromatoes.
You can buy fresh tomatoes by the kilo or, if you plan on making the traditional tomato sauce preserved in jars for the winter, you can also buy the whole basket. In this case, you will certainly receive a price discount!

If you are an early morning person, you can also go to the countryside and pick the fresh tomatoes yourself or together with the farmer.

How nice is it to eat the fresh tomatoes that you picked yourself a few hours earlier?

This year, also I and Marika experimented with planting tomatoes at our parents’ garden. We had a small production, but it is so nice to make a salad with the fresh and organic tomatoes that we planted ourselves! And we have to say that it is so relaxing!

This is our favorite and very easy tomato salad, perfect on a hot day when you don’t feel like cooking:

INGREDIENTS

1 lb fresh and red tomatoes
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp dry oregano
1 tbsp capers
1 pinch sea salt
20 leaves wild rocket (arugola)

PREPARATION
Wash the tomatoes and cut them in halves.

Cut the rocket arugola leaves in small pieces.

Put the tomatoes and rocket leaves in a salad bowl, together with the oregano, capers and sea salt. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.

Leave to marinate for one hour before serving.
Accompany with a bruschetta toasted bread, with a frisella or with rice.
Enjoy!

What is your favorite tomato salad? how do you make it?

In three days the World Cup starts and everybody in Puglia is getting ready for it with lots of good luck rituals!
You may know that in Southern Italy we are very superstitious.
I and Marika will make this simple and delicious recipe to support our Italian team!
It is made with rice, potatoes, zucchini and tomatoes.
We chose this recipe because it has the Italian flag colours (white, green and red). We chose a blue plate like our Italian team’s t-shirt!

The deal is that if we win the first match on June 14th, I and Marika will be making and eating rice, zucchini and tomatoes on all the following matches …..until the final on July 11th!

RECIPE

4 servings

INGREDIENTS:

- 5 small potatoes (small size)
- 3 zucchini
- 7 oz rice
- 15 cherry tomatoes
- 1/2 white onion
- pinch of sea salt
- a few mint leaves
- pinch of black pepper
- 1 3/4 oz cacioricotta goat cheese
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (intense fruity)
- 1 carrot
- 1 small onion
- 1 celery stalk
- water for the vegetable broth (as necessary)

PREPARATION:
First, prepare the vegetable broth, by pouring water in a pan and adding the carrot, onion and celery. Bring to a boil.
In a baking pan place a layer of potatoes, very thing sliced.
Add a layer of sliced zucchini, the mint leaves and the half onion, very thin chopped.
Add a layer of rice, the black pepper and the sea salt.
Top the rice with the halved cherry tomatoes.
Cover everything with the vegetable broth.
Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 350°F.
Once it is ready and still warm, add the grated cacioricotta goat cheese on top.
Serve adding the intense extra virgin olive oil on top.

And you, what recipes are you making for the World Cup?

If you ever come to Puglia and Southern Italy you will certainly notice that there are many people and women in particular who live up to 100 years and in very healthy conditions.
Certainly the slow and relaxed Mediterranean lifestyle has a big influence on this: everybody goes back home for lunch, eats with the family and takes a little nap before going back to work at 5pm.

However, the Mediterranean diet is one of the main reasons why women and people in general, live so long. One of the most important features of the Mediterranean diet and cuisine is that people eat a combination of carbs, proteins, and fats at every meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner). What is extremely important is that, everything is eaten in moderation and that focus is on GOOD carbs, proteins and fats.

In Puglia extra virgin olive oil is used almost for everything, even for sweets. Lots of vegetables are eaten at every meal. Proteins come from seafood and most of all from legumes which are eaten at least twice per week. Very little meat is used, sometimes once a week and always in small servings.

Lots of students attending our cookery courses are always impressed with the fact that we eat pasta almost every day and keep asking Marika, as a cardiologist, whether this is a healthy thing to do! Don’t we eat too many carbs?

It is true that in Puglia and Southern Italy we eat lots of carbohydrates. However we mainly eat those with a low glycemic index. Pasta in Puglia is made with no eggs, but just with semolina durum wheat and water. Also, we eat lots of grains such as barley, farro and rye and lots of fruit.

A recent study led by the National Institute of Cancer in Milan, shows that there is an increased risk of heart attack caused not by a diet high in carbohydrates, but by a diet rich in rapidly absorbed carbohydrates. 

This is a very simple and delicious recipe made with farro, a very good carbohydrate (which in English should translate into emmer). 

FARRO WITH MUSSELS, TOMATOES AND EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL

INGREDIENTS

1 lb farro
2 lb black mussels
1 garlic clove
15 cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup parsley
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
pinch black pepper

PREPARATION

Cook the farro in water for about 25 minutes. Remove it al dente.

On the side pour in a sauce pan a few drops of extra virgin olive oil with the garlic clove and chilly pepper. After one minute add the black mussels and cherry tomatoes and everything cook.

Once the mussels are open, add the farro and finish cooking everything together.

Switch off the flame and add freshly chopped parsley, extra virgin olive oil and black pepper.

Eat right away!

Puglia is certainly one of the best places in Italy where to go to if you like eating super fresh seafood, crustaceans and shellfish.

Because in Puglia, we also think that food should be local and eaten where it is produced, you will eat the best seafood in places, such as Gallipoli, Otranto, Polignano a Mare, Torre a mare, which are beautiful sea side towns.

When you look for best seafood in Puglia, there is something you should definetely not miss and that you can only find in Gallipoli: the famous big red shrimps from Gallipoli (which look more like prawns)!

The best way to prepare them is to bake in sea salt crust, as if it was a sea bass or sea bream.

BIG RED SHRIMPS BAKED IN SEA SALT CRUST

INGREDIENTS

2 servings
1 lb 3 oz big red shrimps from Gallipoli
coarse rock salt (as necessary)

PREPARATION

Stile Mediterraneo Cooking School Puglia celebrates its fifth anniversary in 2010!

Because of such an important event, we are hosting special PASTA cooking classes at our cooking school in Puglia.

On these days, cooking courses will focus on the preparation of traditional Italian pasta from Puglia: from egg tagliatelle; to durum wheat semolina orecchiette; durum wheat semolina cavatelli; stuffed ravioli and gnocchi.

Classes will be at a very special price!  Contact us at info.stile@gmail.com to book a place.

Dates:

June 13 and June 26, 2010

July 2, 2010

September 12, 2010.

Hope you will join us!

If you are interested in our pizza, focaccia and bread days click here!