Turnips? What a f...

Yeeeah! I’m back! From where? Never mind, no reason to spend time on this question....the important thing to say is...I’m back! In this week a lot happened: Master begun, winter came, a new album of Florence and The Machine which helps me not to notice the homeless people in the U-Bahn. So, spending my time between American Puritans and Socio-holics let’s talk about Turnips.

It happened a few weeks ago, we were looking for vegetables, which, as I’ve already said in one of my older posts, seem to be a rich-people food.....so, we were trying not to become sane-but-poor-people ....and we found this “thing” which is not very common to be  found in Italy.....
The German name cleared our minds _______as usual, it just created chaos....fortunately a good friend of mine, Meister iPhone discovered that the ugly “thing” we were buying were turnips.

Ok, it might seems odd, but, so far, I never had Turnips_____absolutely NO idea of how to cook them. So, I consulted the Bible, the Delphi’s Oracle of my Kitchen____Miss Julia Child, and I’ve found a nice recipe... I’ve actually changed and adjusted it according to my tastes and to what was available in my fridge....


What do you need

• 1 Kitchen
• Boiling-salted water
• 1 saucepan

Ingredients

• Turnips (quantity? I had two, and I’ve used both of them)
• 60 g Butter
• Speck (the hard and brown part which is usually thrown away in the dicing  process)
• 2 Little Onions (or a big one)
• Chicken Stock (or Vegetable Stock....or...)

1. Peal the turnips [which is quite a hard work] and dice them into 1,5 cm2 cubes [it’s just a suggestion, just to give you the idea...you don’t need a ruler to do that]
2. Boil them into salted water for ten minutes, drain them and keep aside.
3. Simmer the Speck in boiling water for 10 minutes, drain it.
4. Butter in the Saucepan, moderate heat; when it starts to boil, but not to burn, sauté the speck for approximately 10 minutes [until it becomes crispy].
5. Slice the two onions and put them into the saucepan. Cook them until brown.
6. Pour the turnip-dices into the saucepan, cover with the stock, simmer slowly for 30 minutes covered. Season with salt and pepper.
7. Remove the speck before serving [if you are using the hard part of it...]

So, now you know how to cook Turnips....so do I!

Bis bald!

[the-same-life-expectancy-as-a-butterfly] APFELSCHNITTEN

Here we are again! After decades and ages of absence.... Oh, come on...I’m not that bad!
As I’ve said in my last post, a cake was on the run! And it actually came.... It actually was a short visit ‘cause I’ve baked it in the early afternoon, and by the end of the day it was all eaten. But that’s the beauty of the binomial friends for dinner - cakes ---> the cake has the same life expectancy as a butterfly.

So. That’s the history which stands behind this cake: a few weeks ago, when I was shopping in Lola Rennt’s supermarket (which is the closest to my house in Berlin) I’ve found a sort of free Magazine that contained a small number of good recipes and a huge amount of advertisement. In these recipes there was the one I used to bake this Apfel cake....so, here you are my first experience with a German Schnitten!

What do you need:

• 1 Kitchen
• 1 Oven
• 1 Food scale
• 1 Bowl
• 1 Mixer

Ingredients:

• 500g Apples
• 100g Sugar
• 50g Butter
• Baking powder
• 175g Flour
• 1/2 Lemon (Zest)
• 200ml Milk
• 1 Egg (danke Checc.)

1. Peel and dice the apples
2. Mix the butter with the sugar using the mixer, and when you arrive to a foamy and bright yellow compost, add the egg and continue to mix until you can not distinguish the ingredients.
3. Mix the flour and baking powder. Pour the milk into the sugar-egg-butter batch, mix it and add the flour spoon by spoon and the lemon zest.
4. Pour the compost into a fireproof-pan (over baking paper if you don’t want to use more butter...), add apple-dices, sprinkle with sugar (if you want your cake to be crusty) and put it into the oven (180°C) for 45 minutes.

Serve with a lot of love....and some booze if you want the evening to become interesting!

P.S. ______we also had ©Cluedo!

Enjoy it and Bis bald.

Cakeing?

Oh My......It is a number of days that I'm in need of a good cake.....two possible explenations: 

- Am I pregnant?

No....i think it's just the winter.....so.....maybe tomorrow 'cause today is Sunday.....a cacke post!

Buona Domenica....and

Bis bald from a cold sunny-windy Berlin

Mein "Meister" Ragu

It is quite impossible and a bit weird to think that last monday we were watching a bunch of friends playing volleyball....and today we are freezing to death!
I think that means summer is gone, and winter is slowly finding its way into the city: a cold wind is blowing, bright colors left place to a dark scale of gray....
So, it’s Saturday....I think one my last free Saturday before the beginning of my Master study....and instead of being out partying and shopping....I’m cooking.....so....let’s post a new recipe.

This is one of the few recipes I use to do quite often...the smell of it reminds me of home, of childhood, of Sunday lunch with my family.....
As for the previous post, it is not possible to say that this is the right recipe for this kind of dish......it has a huge number of varieties ____ so, just say that this is my “Maister Ragu’”....it is really similar to “Bolognese Sauce”, even if a person from Bologna would kill me reading this post_________

What do you need:

• 1 Kitchen
• 1 Wooden spoon
• 1 Knife
• 1 Saucepan

Ingredients:

• Butter and Olive oil
• 2 Little onions [or a big one]
• 1 Celery stalk
• 1 Carrot
• 1 Can of canned Tomatoes [Pelati....and good quality please...]
• From 500g to 1 kg of Minced meat [if your religion allows it, Pork and Beef]
• 1 glass of wine [I use white dry wine....but, if you prefer, a good red wine is also acceptable ]
• Rosemary, 1 Bay-leaf, 1-2 Cloves, Nutmeg, 1-2 Garlic cloves [trimmed]
• Salt and pepper

1. Wash your vegetables. Dice Onion, Celery and Carrot [as the Cajun-Creole cuisine has its “Holy Trinity”, also Italian cuisine has its one....and that’s it]
2. Put some butter and olive oil in the saucepan, medium-high fire. When the fat is starting to boil [don’t make it smoke....otherwise everything will be sour...and you will start again from point 1], pour our “Holy trinity” in the saucepan, stir it for a couple of minutes, reduce the heath, and cook it for ten minutes simmering every 2-3 minutes.
3. When you think that the veggies are cooked enough [they should smell a bit toasted, NOT BURNED!] add the meat. Now it is very important that you follow my instructions carefully: leave the meat alone. Don’t pinch it, don’t stir it as you were cooking mashed potatoes, otherwise, by the end of the process, you will eat meat soup. So, leave the meat alone, stirring it carefully every 4 -5 minutes. It has to roast a bit but gradually. Meat will change its color from red to brownish gray _____so, let’s go to number four.
4. Turn up the fire to its maximum power, pour the glass of wine over the meat, and being careful not to burn everything, stir the meat and leave the wine to evaporate.
5. One most of the wine has evaporated [so it is when you can not smell alcohol anymore] turn down the fire to its minimum [please, use the smallest burner you have]. Add Tomatoes, spices and season with salt and pepper.
6. Cook it as long as you can [the longer the better] but not less than two hours on a very low heath: it has to simmer very very slowly. Stir it every 10 - 15 minutes. If it is necessary, add some water during the cooking phase______

Serve it as a sauce with a good homemade pasta [...] ....as it was Bolognese sauce___

Enjoy and Bis bald!

Michtortelli alla Zucca _____AKA The Pumpkin invasion part ZWEI

The Pumpkin invasion part ZWEI

Ok, don’t worry, this blog is not turning into a “PUMPKIN BLOG” ....even if Halloween is shortly on its way ____ but I had some pumpkin remaining from my last post. So, taken by the “BIO” spirit of Berlin, I’ve decided to cook something new....something which would have taken me some time....a difficult dish, but extremely ITALIAN [as a friend of mine was pointing out a few evenings ago, it is not possible to scrap away your “italianity” by moving to a new country, learning a new language and starting a new lifestyle....so, just to please him]

This will be my first “tribute” to Italy, or at least, to the Italian Cuisine.

Two or three words about this dish.....it is impossible to give a perfect recipe for something like “Tortelli con la Zucca”, someone will always tell you that you are doing something wrong, ‘That’s better if you do it this or that way’, that ‘My Granny used to do this way and that way’, that ‘In the place where I live they use to put this and that into the filling’....usw

So, keep your boring and useless comments for you, that’s the way I do “Tortelli con la Zucca”.....and so I will call them “Michtortelli con la Zucca” ....

What do you need:

• 1 Kitchen
• An entire afternoon + evening [or a late afternoon and evening if you are a good cook]
• Spoons, forks and knives
• 2 big bowls
• 1 big-flat plate
• 1 pasta machine [or a rolling-pin if you are as good as Bree Van De Kamp...but by the end of the process you will certainly be a desperate housewife.....]
• Saucepan filled with boiling water

Ingredients:

For the filling:

• 300g Pumpkin
• 40g Amaretti cookies
• 2 tablespoons Honey mustard
• 1 teaspoon melted butter
• 40g Parmigiano Reggiano [so, don’t use Gouda or other abominable types of cheese]
• Salt and Pepper
• Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Cloves [trimmed]

For the Pasta:

• 200 g Plain Flour
• 2 Eggs

1. Boil the pumpkin [with its skin on] into boiling-salted water for 10 minutes [or until it becomes soft as a boiled potato]. Add some sugar into the water when you switch the heat off, and leave there three minutes longer.
2. Peel the pumpkin, mash it [...with a fork....] and put it into a bowl.
3. Crush the Amaretti [using your fingers, or with a spoon] and add them to the pumpkin with the Parmesan cheese, Honey mustard the spices and season with salt and pepper. Cover and set aside.

________ I don’t want to make this post too long, so I’m gonna give you an eye-bird vision of the pasta-making process....I hope to have more time and space in a new Post...veilleicht!___________________________________________________________

1. Start with the Pasta: put the Flour into a bowl [or if you know how to do that on the table....], add the two eggs, and work it with your hands until this compost will turn into a homogeneous dough [approximately 7 - 10 minutes]
2. Put the dough into a plastic bag, or fold it with cooking film and put it into your refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
3. Take the dough out of the fridge, cut the dough into a number of mini doughs [with this amount of pasta, into 8 - 10 mini-doughs]. Start pulling the pasta using the pasta machine [or your rolling-pin]
4. Cut your pasta into 8x8 cm squares. Put in the middle of each one half teaspoon of filling, fold the pasta into a triangle, and, pushing with your fingers, starting exactly where the fill finishes, close the pasta into a closed triangle. Fold the tip of each triangle on itslef [the important here is to prevent the filling from coming out of the Tortello, and the Tortello not to open during the cooking process]

1. Done with geometry...I promise....Put every single Triangle-Tortello onto a big flat plate with some Flour [be careful not to put a Tortello over the other, otherwise, by the end of your folding you will have a single huge Tortello]
2. Once your hands start hurting, and you are covered of ravioli filling and you have finished folding pasta, put the Tortelli into boiling and salted water for 5 minutes [please, before pouring all your ravioli into the water try with one, so you will find out if you will end up with a Tortello soup, and to check the cooking time]
3. Serve with some melted butter, parmesan cheese and a huge smile on your face!

Bis Bald.