Cooking classes and vacations in Puglia Italy

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 from Puglia or with rice.
Enjoy!

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

If you like this post, you may also read: how to make fresh capers and frisella dry bread with fresh tomatoes from Puglia

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 and tours in Puglia 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!

If you like this recipe, you may also want to read our other recipes: orzo and lentils and durum wheat orecchiette with tomato sauce and durum wheat orecchiette with broccoli rabe.

Contact us for more information at info.stile@gmail.com or subscribe to the Stile Mediterraneo Cooking School newsletter.

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).

What are your New Year’s culinary traditions?

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

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INGREDIENTS:

4 servings

4 potatoes

10 ½ oz (300 grams) cardoncelli mushrooms

Chopped parsley

3 ½ oz (100 grams) grated Parmigiano cheese

4 cherry tomatoes, in small cubes

1 ¾ oz (50 grams) breadcrumbs

black pepper

extra virgin olive oil

pinch of sea salt

PREPARATION:

Peel and slice the potatoes. Cut the mushrooms in small pieces.
In a little bowl add half of the parsley, the tomatoes, half of the Parmigiano cheese, 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil, black pepper, sea salt and some water. Stir everything together.
In a baking pan pour a few drops of extra virgin olive oil and place a first layer of potatoes. Add on top the mushrooms. Then add the parsley with the tomatoes and parmigiano cheese.
Cover everything with another layer of potatoes.
Sprinkle on top with the remaining parsley, parmigiano, breadcrumbs, a few drops of extra virgin olive oil and black pepper.
Place the potatoes and mushrooms in the preheated oven and bake at 350 °F (180 °C) for about 30 minutes.

Puglia is the perfect place for those who love capers! We produce tons of capers. Apart from sweets, almost all recipes from the traditional cuisine of Puglia, require capers…from fish, to meat, vegetables and pasta. In Puglia, we certainly use more capers than garlic or other herbs.
Yesterday, I went to the market with a specific mission. I wanted to buy a caper plant and try producing capers….once more! I might have tried 20 times already….always with no success!
It’s really difficult to grow capers. They prefer to grow wild only where they decide to grow! They require just the right sun exposure, the right soil or rock, the perfect climate.
I always wondered how they can get to grow so well on top of the most dangerous sea cliffs…and not in my chalky garden with all my care and love!
When you drive along the Adriatic coast from Otranto down to Santa Maria di Leuca you will see lots of people with bags climbing the sea cliffs: they will be picking capers…and of course the best capers are the smallest ones, the most difficult to pick. May be that’s why they are the most expensive ones!
In the next months, I will keep you posted about what happens to this lovely caper plant!
Just to make sure I and Marika had enough capers for the summer, I also bought some freshly picked capers.
Of course, I and Marika like buying the smallest capers: they are so tasty compared to the big ones.


The recipe to prepare the fresh capers is the following:

1kg freshly picked capers (the smallest)
1kg sea salt
White wine vinegar (as necessary)

Wash the capers, put them in a jar and mix them with sea salt. Leave them with sea salt for at least 10 days.
We use salt to remove capers’ bitterness. Please consider that it is very important you use “sea” salt since it helps preserving the capers’ flavor and taste.
As you may already know, salt preserves food: therefore capers with salt can last for many months or years.
After the first 10 days, put them in another jar, add other sea salt and leave them for other 10 days.

Now they are ready to be eaten. Remove the sea salt, put them in a jar, cover them with white wine vinegar and close the jar with the lid.
Leave them with vinegar for about 5 days. After 5 days, remove the vinegar and cover them with other white wine vinegar. After 10 days, repeat this step once more. Leave them with vinegar for other 15 days, at least, before using them.

For more info please email at: info.stile@gmail.com

Making pear jam is one of those things that brings me and Marika to our childhood, when we were preparing it with our Grandmother: not only the smell in the house while we prepare it, but also the taste when we spread the delicious on a piece of warm bread.
I and Marika belong to the very traditional school when we come to making preserves. We don’t use any pectin nor any water!
We know that the pectin would reduce the time to prepare our jam. But we really don’t care: you need time and patience if you want an excellent result. We want to know that anything else goes into our pear jam but organic pears (from our father’s garden) and sugar. You may also use honey, which is the ancient Roman way of preparing jams.
The key when you make your fruit preserve is the quantity of sugar you use.
Sugar is one of those ingredients (along with salt and vinegar) which have very important properties in preserving food. Sugar helps to preserve food by lowering the water activity, so preventing the growth of bacteria and fostering the microbiological stability of the product.
The quantity of sugar depends on the fruit you are using (which can have more or less sugar content). In general you need a minimum of 600 – 650 grams of sugar per each kg of fruit, if you want to store your jam for up to one year.

We totally agree with Christine Ferber: the secret for a very good jam is the quality of the fruit you are using. Therefore, our pears need to be of very high quality and not too ripe!

We also like to keep the skin of our pears, because of their high quantity of vitamins.

RECIPE

servings: about 20 little jars

Ingredients:
4 kg pears
2,5 kg sugar

Preparation:
Cut the pears in small pieces, add the sugar and start cooking in a very big and tall steel pan. Cover with a lid and stir very often with a wooden spoon, so that the compound does not stick or burn.

Once the pears start boiling, reduce the flame to the minimum, cover and keep cooking. Stir very frequently. Cook at very low flame for at least 1 hour and half or until when the preserve reaches the right consistency.
To check the consistency, put a few drops of jam in a glass with some cold water. If the jam drops fall down to the bottom without melting, it means the jam is ready.
Our recipe is to keep some small pieces of pears, therefore we don’t pass it through a food processor.

In the meantime, sterilize the glass jars and lids in boiling water for about 10 minutes. Let the jars cool down. Fill them when the pear jam is still very warm and within ½ inch of the top! Close the jars very well.

Our Grandmother’s method is to keep the jears upside down for about 5 minutes.
I and Marika like to be super safe so we boil the jars again for about 40 minutes at low flame. Then, place the jars in a warm place and cover with a blanket so that they don’t break.

What is your favorite jam?

For more info please email at: info@stilemediterraneo.it

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

Ingredients for 5 people:
-250 grams flour
-1 yeast
-½ tsp sugar
-1 tsp salt
-2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
-200 grams of fresh pecorino cheese
-5 tomatoes
-3 basil leaves
-Pinch of oregano
-1 tbsp capers
-3 anchovies

For the dough: melt in a cup the yeast with some warm water and the sugar. Pour the water with the yeast in a bowl with the flour and salt. Knead with your hands and let it rise for about 1 hour. Then, knead again the dough on a wooden board and cut it in small pieces, of 50 grams each.
For the inside: cut the tomatoes, cheese, basil leaves and anchovies in small pieces and dress in a bowl with oregano, olive oil and capers.
Roll out each piece of dough and place a spoon of tomatoes and cheese in the middle.

Fold the dough and close it very well.
Prepare a baking pan with some olive oil. Place each piece of dough one next to the other and let them rise for other 30 minutes.

Bake in the oven at 180° C for 35 minutes (350F).
Let us know if you make this recipe. It’s perfect to be used on the table instead of the regular bread.

For more information, please contact us at: info.stile@gmail.com