briciole

éclair al cioccolato / chocolate éclairs

After having to skip a month, I am back with the story of the Daring Bakers' challenge. This time I have no tragic tales of disaster to tell. I read the recipe, I followed it, and things worked out fine, in the sense that the end result of my efforts was appreciated at the table, the usual ultimate test of success. First of all, many thanks to this month's hosts, Meeta of What's for Lunch Honey? and Tony Tahhan. Their choice for the challenge, chocolate éclairs, was a little less intimidating than usual for me, because I had recently made cream... Read more →

prugna (a.k.a. susina) / plum

Whatever the name used to refer to it (prugna o susina), this is a fruit I have always liked, so much so that last June we planted a small plum tree (prugno, o susino) in our garden. It is doing so-so and will probably be moved to a more suitable location in the fall. Since prugna may remind you of prune, let me clarify that the latter in Italian is prugna secca (literally, dried plum). I like pretty much all varieties of plums (prugne o susine), though I miss the one that was my favorite as a child, golden in color... Read more →

Edizione speciale: Novel Food #5 / Announcing Novel Food #5

The light has changed in my corner of the world, indicating that summer is giving way to fall. In other places, winter is on its way out, and spring is welcomed with joy. The approaching official change of the season is marked, once again, by the announcement of a new edition of Novel Food, the culinary/literary event that Lisa of Champaign Taste and I co-launched a few seasons ago. Once again (for the 5th time, to be precise), we are looking to find culinary inspiration in literary works. If you are new to the event, and you are wondering what it... Read more →

prosciutto

The following few lines about prosciutto have been inspired by: Jeremy of DoBianchi with his post and photo essay on prosciutto di San Daniele, and Susan of Food Blogga with her delicious recipe for Wild Arugula, Cantaloupe, and Watermelon Salad with Prosciutto and Blue Cheese. As I mentioned in a previous post, prosciutto is one of the two items that I buy as soon as possible after arriving in Italy. My husband likes to open the package of prosciutto (usually San Daniele) and eat slice after slice of it over granetti. The other famous Italian prosciutto crudo (raw) is prosciutto di... Read more →

brodo di pollo / chicken stock

I warned you at the end of my previous post that you would get another episode related to pollo arrosto (roast chicken) and here it is. Bones with some meat attached and the neck went into a pot to make a light stock and, ultimately, a soup (minestra). Tutto fa brodo means it's all grist to the mill, or every little bit helps (literally, everything makes stock). Lasciar cuocere qualcuno nel suo brodo means to let someone stew in his/her own juice. Back to the chicken. In Julia Child's "Julia's Kitchen Wisdom," I found a nice recipe for making Light Chicken... Read more →

insalata di pollo con labneh / chicken salad with labneh

Roasting a whole chicken for two means having a certain amount of leftovers (avanzi). Making chicken salad with avanzi di pollo arrosto is not really creative, but using labneh to season it is probably not as common as using, say, maionese (mayonnaise). Why labneh? Because of a photo of it that I saw in this post by Lucy of Nourish Me. The image of a snow-white ball nestled in white cheesecloth stayed with me and inspired me to follow the instructions on this page and get my own snow-white mass of labneh. I decided to be daring and used non-fat, organic... Read more →

pollo arrosto per Paz / roast chicken for Paz

I wrote a guest post for Paz, of The Cooking Adventure of Chef Paz, describing my first attempt ever at preparing pollo arrosto. Fear not, the adventure has a happy ending. Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post: pollo arrosto or launch the pollo arrosto audio file [mp3]. [Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.] Read more →