Legumes | Italy Puglia cooking classes and wine tours

Lucky lentils with orzo and Happy New Year! 0

Posted on January 01, 2010 by Stile Mediterraneo

There is one dish that cannot miss on Italian tables at midnight on December 31st.

This is the Lentil soup! Because they resembled coins, in the past they were thought to bring financial prosperity in the year to come. Nowadays, we associate them to general good luck, in any field. I and Marika had lentils for three days in a raw….just to be sure!

Usually lentils are prepared with cotechino (pork).

Instead, I and Marika prepared a much healthier recipe with lentils, orzo and extra virgin olive oil.
Really easy and really delicious!

INGREDIENTS
1 lb lentils (the very small)
1 lb orzo
2 carrots
parsley
extra virgin olive oil
sea salt
chilly pepper

RECIPE
Soak the lentils overnight and then rinse them. Put in a pan with the orzo and cover with water. Add the sliced carrots and cook at low flame for 1 hour and half while stirring and adding water if necessary. Add sea salt and chilly pepper.
When ready switch them off and add parsley and extra virgin olive oil.

The extra virgin olive oil is the key ingredients for the success of this recipe. It must be intense fruity and bitter.

During our cooking classes in Puglia we teach in more details how to taste the extra virgin olive oil and how to pair it with food.

What are your New Year’s culinary traditions?

WE WISH A WONDERFUL 2010 AND NEW DECADE TO ALL OUR READERS!

Subscribe to the Stile Mediterraneo newsletter

Tags: cooking schools Puglia Italy Cooking classes legumes mediterranean cuisine Puglia cooking classes Puglia cuisine
Category Favorites, Italy Cooking classes, Mediterranean Healthy food, Pasta & Rice, Puglia Extra virgin olive oil, Recipes, Vegetables & Legumes, cuisine

Home made tagliatelle with chick peas 2

Posted on September 17, 2009 by Stile Mediterraneo

Lots of people have asked us for the Ciceri and Tria recipe. This is one of the most typical and traditional dish you can eat in Lecce, where the cuisine is based on lots of fresh pasta, legumes, vegetables. Legumes are rich in proteins and so all the legumes are at the core of this paesant cuisine. The main ingredients to prepare this recipe are: durum wheat semolina to make the pasta and the chick peas. The best herb for this plate is the bay leaf.

INGREDIENTS

6 servings

For the chick peas:

1 pound dried chick peas

pinch baking soda
2 lt water
1 garlic clove
1 small red onion
1 carrot
2 bay leaves
1 stalk celery, chopped
3 cherry tomatoes
1 tsp sea salt

For the tagliatelle pasta:

1 pound durum wheat flour
2/3 cup warm water
1 tsp sea salt
Extra virgin olive oil (for deep frying)
Red hot chili pepper
Parsley, chopped

Soak the chick peas overnight (8-12 hours), with a pinch of salt and a pinch of baking soda.

Next day, drain the chick peas and place them in a deep pan. Cover with two liters fresh water and add the garlic clove, the red onion, the chopped carrot, the bay leaves, the cherry tomatoes and celery. Then, add the salt, cover the pan and lower the flame to the minimum. Cook for about three hours until the chick peas become very tender.

While the chick peas cook, make the handmade pasta. The best pasta for this recipe are the tagliatelle. You can make them with the machine or by hand. Let the tagliatelle dry for a few hours.

When the chick peas are ready, deep fry some of the tagliatelle in extra virgin olive oil until they get crunchy and brown. Dry them with paper towels.

Remove the bay leaves from the chick peas, add more water if necessary and raise the flame. Cook the other tagliatelle al dente and then add to the chick peas, with a pinch of chili pepper. Reduce the flame to the minimum, add the chopped parsley and the fried pasta and keep stirring for a minute.

For more information about Puglia cuisine and about our cooking classes and wine tours in Puglia Italy please write at info.stile@gmail.com

Tags: ciceri and tria cooking Italy fresh pasta handmade pasta Italy Cooking classes legumes Puglia cuisine
Category Cooking tip, Hand-made pasta, Pasta & Rice, Puglia, Puglia Extra virgin olive oil, Recipes, Vegetables & Legumes, cuisine, traditions

Spring Sunday lunch with your friends 2

Posted on May 16, 2009 by Stile Mediterraneo

What’s better than inviting all your best friends at your place for the Sunday lunch and having everything ready from the night before?

Having a free Sunday morning gives you the time to relax, choose the best wine to accompany your food, buy colored flowers and choose the perfect table cloth.
I and Marika are so excited: we have 6 friends over tomorrow and we are already done with all the preparation!
We experimented with this fantastic recipe: fresh green peas with lamb and bacon.
We used the fresh green peas we bought at the vegetable market today (you may also try with the frozen peas).
RECIPE

Ingredients
For the green peas:
600 grams fresh green peas
¼ onion

A few drops extra virgin olive oil
For the lamb:
700 grams lamb
Pinch rosemary
2 glasses red wine
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove
3 eggs
150 grams bacon (lengthwise sliced)
50 grams grated parmesan cheese

Preparation:
Cut the lamb in small pieces and discard the fat. Dip the lamb in the wine with rosemary and marinate it for about two hours.

When the lamb is marinated, soften the garlic (whole) with 1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil. After 1 minute remove the garlic clove. Drain and add the lamb to the olive oil and stir while cooking it at very low flame. After about 25-30 minutes, switch off the flam and let the lamb cool on the side.

For the green peas, soften the onion with a few drops of extra virgin olive oil in a pan just for a minute. Add the fresh green peas, stir, reduce the flame to the minimum and cover with the lid. After 5 minutes, stir and add some warm water. When the green peas are cooked (about 25 minutes) switch off the flame and let them cool on the side.
Drain the green peas, in case they released some water.
Using a food processor, reduce 2/3 of the green peas to a smooth cream and add 3 whole eggs, the grated parmesan cheese, the lamb (once it is cold), and the remaining green peas.

Moisten an oven paper with water and use it to cover a plum-cake baking pan. Place the bacon slices on the paper (the bacon must be placed on the sides as well) and pour on top the green peas and lamb. Fold the bacon and close the oven paper.

Bake in the oven at 180° for about 50 min. Once cold (better after 12 hours) slice the lamb and peas plum-cake.

Serve with a good Rosè wine! One of our favorite Rosè wines from Puglia is the Metiusco Rosato from the Palamà winery made from Negroamaro (70%) and Malvasia (30%).
To contact us please email at: info@stilemediterraneo.it

Tags: fresh green peas lamb legumes meat Sunday lunch
Category Favorites, Fish & Meat, Recipes, cuisine

Fava beans and chicory – Healthy and easy recipe! 6

Posted on April 17, 2009 by Stile Mediterraneo

If you ever get invited by a Pugliese family at their lunch or dinner, you can be sure they will offer you Fava beans with wild chicories and extra virgin olive oil (among the other one thousands dishes!!).

This is something that all families from Puglia eat at least once per week. I and my sister, at least twice per week!

This is a very simple but still super delicious dish.

It is perfect for everybdoy: for vegeterians, for people who work a lot and have no time to shop for food every day, for kids….for everybody!

It is a super healthy dish because this legume has LOTS of proteins.

Fava beans with chicories come from Puglia’s traditional paesant cuisine, based on very little meat (that only rich people could afford) and on what the local farmers produced – lots of vegetables, legumes, durum wheat pasta and bread.

Given the simplicity of this dish (as all food from Puglia), the quality of the ingredients you use is the key! Therefore, you need to serve the fava beans with very good extra virgin olive oil. And if you are having it with bread, you need to use the durum wheat bread!

This is the recipe:
5 servings
- 400 grams dried peeled fava beans,
- salt to taste
- 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 liter water
- 1 kg wild chicories
- 1 garlic clove
- spicy pepper
- durum wheat traditional bread

Soak the fava broad beans overnight (8-12 hours), before cooking. Rinse and place the fava broad beans in a big casserole with fresh water. Place over a slow flame. When the water starts boiling, remove with a spoon the white foam that the fava beans produce. Stir every 10-20 minutes and cook for about 2 hours at very slow flame, while the beans gradually dissolve. Add water from time to time if needed.
While you cook the fava beans, wash the wild chicories. Cook them for about 5-10 minutes in boiling and salted water. When they are “al dente”, drain the chicories.
In a large saucepan, pour some extra virgin olive oil (two tablespoons), add the garlic and spicy pepper and cook for about two minutes. Add the chicories, stir and cover. Cook at low flame for other 5-10 minutes.
When the fava beans are completely dissolved, switch off the flame and add 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (or more if you like) while stirring with a wooden spoon.
Serve the fava beans with the chicory on the side in the same plate. The chicory and fava beans are meant to be eaten together!
You can also serve them with small pieces of traditional durum wheat bread. You can add other extra virgin olive oil.

Please share with us other healthy and simple recipes you know!

For more information, please contact us at: info@stilemediterraneo.it

Tags: durum wheat bread fava beans legumes mediterranean cuisine peasant cuisine Puglia cuisine Puglia Extra virgin olive oil Recipes vegetables wild chicory
Category Mediterranean Healthy food, Puglia, Puglia Extra virgin olive oil, Recipes, Vegetables & Legumes, cuisine