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Italian New Years - Mussels with Saffron-Tomato Mayonnaise

Ingredients                  

Preparation :

• scrub mussel shells with a stiff  brush  and tear beard off each mussel  several hours before serving .
• Rinse mussels thoroughly under cold running water.
• In 10″ skillet combine mussels, wine, shallots and saffron.
• Cover skillet and heat to boiling over high heat.
• Reduce hat to medium and cook mussels until shells open - about 5-8 minutes.
• Remove mussels from heat.
• With tongs transfer mussels to tray or rimmed baking sheet, discarding any unopened mussels.
• Reserve cooking liquid. Snap off and discard top shell from each mussel and loosen mussel from bottom shell.
• Place mussels in half shells on tray.
• In small bowl combine mayonnaise, 2 tablespoons tomato and the parsley.
•  Stir in enough reserved cooking liquid to make a spoonable sauce.
• Divide sauce among shells, spooning over and around mussels.
• Sprinkle with remaining 1 tablespoon chopped tomato and serve or cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
• Arrange on serving platter.

Good appetite !

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1. Put a large saucepan of water on to boil. Finely chop the pancetta, having first removed any rind. Finely grate both cheeses and mix them together. Beat the eggs in a medium bowl, season with a little freshly grated black pepper and set everything aside.

2. Add 1 tsp salt to the boiling water, add the spaghetti and when the water comes back to the boil, cook at a constant simmer, covered, for 10 minutes or until al dente (just cooked).
3. Squash the garlic with the blade of a knife, just to bruise it. While the spaghetti is cooking, fry the pancetta with the garlic. Drop the butter into a large wide frying pan or wok and, as soon as the butter has melted, tip in the pancetta and garlic. Leave these to cook on a medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring often, until the pancetta is golden and crisp. The garlic has now imparted its flavour, so take it out with a slotted spoon and discard.

4.  

   Keep the heat under the pancetta on low.When the pasta is ready lift it from the water with a pasta fork or tongs and put it in the frying pan with the pancetta (see left). Don’t worry if a little water drops in the pan as well (you want this to happen) and don’t throw the rest of the pasta water away yet.

5. Mix most of the cheese in with the eggs, keeping a small handful back for sprinkling over later. Take the pan of spaghetti and pancetta off the heat. Now quickly pour in the eggs and cheese and, using the tongs or a long fork, lift up the spaghetti so it mixes easily with the egg mixture, which thickens but doesn’t scramble, and everything is coated. Add extra pasta cooking water to keep it saucy (several tablespoons should do it). You don’t want it wet, just moist. Season with a little salt, if needed.

6.  

   Use a long-pronged fork to twist the pasta on to the serving plate or bowl. Serve immediately with a little sprinkling of the remaining cheese and a grating of black pepper. If the dish does get a little dry before serving, splash in some more hot pasta water and the glossy sauciness will be revived.

    

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In Italy breakfast is considered a minor occasion. However as many children do not have school in the afternoon and some businesses close at midday, lunch is far more significant.

A typical Italian meal will consist of:

• A combination of starters called antipasti (the term antipasto meaning “before the pasta”). The antipasti could include cold meats (ham, salami, mortadella, or coppa), fish and various versions of seafood (anchovies, sardines, tuna fish), olives, mushrooms and other vegetables (peppers in olive oil, aubergines, artichokes). Small quiches, vegetable pies, stuffed vegetables, pieces of pizza, ham and melon, tomatoes and mozzarella may also be served
• A warm starter, called primo piatto, which may include: pasta in all its different shapes and tastes (for example with vegetables, fish, meat or sauce and cheese), or rice cooked as a risotto, gnocchi (small dumplings made of potatoes or flour or both), polenta which is made out of corn flour or some kind of soup or minestrone.
  • There are many types of pasta, each one usually named according to its shape. Each shape (due to it’s ability to hold a sauce) complements a specific sauce. Whether the pasta is fresh or dry, it has to be cooked in boiling water until it is al dente (”to the tooth”/firm). Some pastas such as spaghetti, tagliatelle, linguini, fettucini or vermicelli are long and thin whereas other ones have very different shapes: penne are hollow oblongs, conchiglie look like shells, farfalle look like butterflies, spirali like spirals. Some pasta (ravioli, lasagna or cannelloni) may be stuffed or garnished with meat or vegetables
• A main dish, the secondo piatto is generally fish or meat served with or without a side dish (contorno). In main courses, the most common meats will be veal, chicken and pork. Lamb is also served, especially during feasts such as Easter or Christmas, and beef is mainly served as steak (bistecca). Vegetables (potatoes, carrots, or beans) and salads may be served with the main dish
• A dessert, often fruit and/or ice-cream, is popular; the best known desserts include tiramisu, panna cotta, and zabaglione

   

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1/4 lb basil

3 cloves garlic
salt, to taste
1 scant cup Pecorino or Romano cheese
1/2 cup good quality olive oil
2 tablespoons hot water

Harvest basil on a dry, sunny day.Clean the basil with a clean cloth or paper towel and pick over to remove bruised leaves and stems.

In a mortar and pestle, pound leaves, a few at a time, adding garlic and coarse sea salt or kosher salt, until a smooth paste is obtained.

Alternatively, combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor.

Taste, and adjust seasonings.

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Try a plate of original Genovese Pesto … and you´ll never leave Genova again - at least this is what an old saying tells us . This delicious sauce, rich with the flavors of fresh basil, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts, and cheese is a typical Ligurian dish , so simple , yet soooo good !

Traditionally, the ingredients are put in a mortar and pounded with a pestle until a smooth sauce emerges. Pesto is popular throughout the world, but small-leafed Ligurian basil, grown in herb gardens buffeted by sea breezes, is arguably the best in the world.

Ofcourse there are many more specialities you can try when visiting Liguria :

Pansotti are a triangle-shaped ravioli-style pasta, stuffed with a mixture of vegetables (such as swiss chard, borage, and endive) and ricotta cheese, and are often served with salsa di noci, a walnut sauce. Trenette, made from whole wheat flour, come in long, flat strips, either fresh or dried, and like trofie, a spiral-shaped gnocchi, are served with a sauce made from boiled beans, potatoes, and pesto.

Throughout the years local restaurants have become famous for their fish and specialties, but traditional recipes have never been forgotten and are always part of the menu. Mussels (le cozze) are always on the menu too: alla marinara - boiled and dressed with a few drops of lemon juice and a sprig of parsley - or stuffed with tuna fish, cheese, mortadella, egg and marjoram. The latter takes lot of patience because each uncooked mussel has to be opened individually.

Typical food from Liguria include:
Buridda: Genoese soup of various fish in a stock with plenty of garlic, anchovy, tomato.
Capponada: the poor man’s cappon magro includes biscuits and mainly preserved fish.
Ciuppin: the humblest of fish stewed with tomato, garlic, onions, white wine and eaten as soup thickened with stale bread.
Coniglio alla carlona: rabbit braised in white wine with black olives, pine nuts, capers, herbs.
Gianchetti all’agro: the miniature fish served raw or poached with lemon, oil, parsley.
Mes-ciua: chick-peas, beans, farro and olive oil blend in an antique soup of La Spezia.
Pansùuti con la salsa di noci: pasta envelopes filled with ricotta and the Preboggion bouquet of herbs, topped with walnut sauce and grated Parmigiano Reggiano.
Sbira or sbirra: tripe with tomatoes, potatoes and herbs served over slabs of toasted bread with Parmigiano Reggiano, eaten by Genoa’s stevedores and Sbirri (cops) after a day’s work.
Siluri: torpedoes, the nickname for totani or flying squid, stuffed with cheese, breadcrumbs and garlic and stewed with wine and tomatoes.
Stecchi fritti: wooden skewers of various pieces of veal coated with thick batter that includes artichokes, mushrooms and grated cheese and fried in olive oil.
Stocchefisce accomodou: dried cod cooked with pine nuts, olives, mushrooms, potatoes, vegetables, herbs and anchovies, in white wine and tomato sauce.
Tomaxelle: veal rolls with a filling of mushrooms, pine nuts, breadcrumbs and eggs braised in tomato sauce.

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Spinach ravioli
served with lasagna
and a side order of cheese

Gelato-it is so incredibly delicious!

Pizza- so many different kinds
and very thin crust

Spinach risotto

Tortellini in a soup broth

Ravioli in vodka sauce

stuffed with spinach and ricotta cheese

Gnocchi served with sauce or butter

(for the little ones)

Espresso is like coffee but a little stronger
it is served in a miniature cup and is yummy!

Meat tortellini served with alfredo sauce
and grilled perciutto ( which is like ham)

Muscles marinera- Muscles cooked with an awesome tomato sauce and served as a yummy appetizer!

Homemade pound cake with no icing and nothing special however it is an Italian treat you are sure to at least like!

Penne alla vodka- My favorite type of pasta ( my mom makes it very well but my aunt in Italy makes it better!)

Zeppeli - fried dough with sugar

All these foods are delicious
but don’t eat all of them at once!

What makes their pasta great is their sauce is very light plus their tomatoes are ripe and fresh.

Zucchini fries/chips - fried zucchini with some fried bread crumbs. It is very delicious!

Calamari - Squids mantle cut into rings and fried with bread crumbs.

Popcorn - make sure you stop by a popcorn machine on your way!

Stuffed shells - stuffed with delicious ricotta cheese and pasta shaped as shells.

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For a long while we have been considering a recipe which truly represents the cuisine of the Liguria Ponente, a recipe which satisfies two indelible characteristics: the sparseness of the raw materials and ‘the inspiration which transforms such a limitation into something wonderfully unique’. It then follows that the preparation is easy and straightforward and based on ingredients readily available anywhere. The choice, and we think somewhat provocatively, is “Pan e pumata” also known as “Bistecca sanremasca” or “Sanremo Steak”. The preparation of this dish has always been popular and widespread, even during the leanest of years.

People may ask what can be so satisfying about placing tomatoes between two pieces of bread, but it is this humble honesty that makes the final result so marvellous.

The “Pan e pumata” is decidedly west Ligurian, although its value didn’t escape the attention of people such as Domenico Scarlatti, the great musician.

Originally from Naples, an indulger of good food and wine, he turned up in many of the courts of Italy, Spain and Portugal and didn’t hesitate to mention the Neopolitan “pagnottelle”, which is also filled with tomatoes.

ingredients

32 tomatoes, bread, garlic, olive oil, basil, sea salt.

making it

For two people, take a large flat rustic loaf of bread, such as those which preserve well, and cut it horizontally in two.

In the same way, horizontally cut a pair of ripe sweet summer tomatoes.

Bathe the two bread halves in a little extra virgin olive oil and fry them with a touch of garlic.

Next, take the tomato halves and squash them with your fingers over the soft part of one of the pieces of bread, in such a way as the tomato breaks up into large pieces and sheds some of its water.

Sprinkle a pinch of large salt granules over the bread together with a little more oil and a fresh young basil leaf.

The large salt grains will melt a little, and the sour taste forms a pleasant contrast with the sweet tomatoes.

Place the other bread half on top and press down lightly.

Cut into two and eat immediately

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An ancient dish, from the times of the Saracen raiders, when people would flee to safety in the mountains; since flour, oil and locally made cheeses were readily available in their hideouts, they’d make focaccia stuffed with cheese.

INGREDIENTS:

• 5 cups (500 g) durum wheat flour
• 1 pound (450 g) stracchino or fresh Ligurian soft cheese (you want something mild and creamy that will melt)
• 5 tablespoons extravirgin olive oil
• Salt

PREPARATION:

Make a mound of the flour on your work surface, scoop a well in it, and pour 4 tablespoons of oil, a small ladle’s worth of warm water, and 2 healthy pinches of salt into the well. Work the mixture into a dough and knead it until it is soft, smooth, and elastic, then cover it for an hour.

Preheat your oven to 360 F (180 C). Divide it into two pieces and roll them out into very thin disks the size of your baking sheet (if you have a 12-14-inch diameter metal pizza pan, it would be about right). Lightly oil the pan and lay the first sheet of dough over it. Shred the cheese and dot the dough with it. Lay the second layer over the first, roll the edges up and around to form a rim that seals, and give it a decorative pattern by pressing down on it with the tines of a fork. Puncture the top here and there the moisture can escape as the focaccia cooks, and bake it for about 15 minutes, or until it’s golden brown.

Variations:
You can add an ounce of yeast to the dough to make it puffier.
Some people prefer to use fresh pecorino in the filling, cutting it into thin strips.
In San Bartolomeo (province of Genova) the Osteria di Nanni makes focaccia al formaggio, cuts it into 3-inch squares, tamps down the edges and fries them until golden brown.

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