Sicilian salad

This colorful and tasty salad is one of the pillars of Sicilian cuisine. Its flavors and its variety of textures are perfectly balanced and create an extremely fresh and juicy mix. My only suggestion is to use sweet oranges to obtain an harmonious composition. As you can see it's a very simple salad but it looks and tastes great and it's perfect for cleaning your taste buds after a massive feast of grilled meat. Indeed it's a really good idea as a side dish for a picnic or  a barbecue.

  Ingredients:

  Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, sprinkle with salt and pepper and a dash of olive oil.

  Buon appetito!

Huevos y patatas à la Nini

My husband, who's very much into eggs, wanted a snack and I had been reading about lots of Spanish recipes so I opened the fridge and I picked up some ingredients that could match his taste and my Iberian inspirations. I'm not a Spanish cuisine expert by any means, but part of my family lived in Spain for many years and I spent a few summers and Christmas Eves there. My interest and this recipe could very well come from stuff that I tasted during my Spanish visits and got stuck into my sub-conscious or something. If some Spanish people or some Spanish cuisine aficionados could point me to the proper name of this recipe I would be very grateful. I read so many recipes that they got mixed up in my head so I'm not sure which one I made, or which ones I combined to prepare this dish. These "Huevos y Patatas à la Nini" fill you up and are really tasty but they're not exactly pretty to look at.  Here are the ingredients!

For each egg:

Stir-fry with the onion and the Chorizo in little oil until the onion is soft, add  potatoes, stir well and add the tomato concentrate. Let the water evaporate a bit and crack the eggs over the pan. Pour in the Manchego cheese and the chili flakes. Stir gently trying not to break the yolks, lower the flame, cover with a lid and let it cook for five minutes. In the meantime toast the bread. When the whites are done but the yolks are still pretty liquid, lay the toasted bread on a plate and pour the rest of the stuff over it. Salt it according to taste and serve. 

¡Buen provecho!

Bacon-wrapped asparaguses and celeriac purée

This relatively economic dish is a yummy treat for these critical times, and despite the presence of King Bacon it has a simple yet refined taste. The asparagus-egg combo is a classic and a guaranteed success, so I will not indulge in too many explanations. On the other hand the celeriac is an unusual yet fitting addition and the walnut oil adds an earthy flavor that makes this dish more "important". Rich people can add black truffle flakes, vegetarians can drop the bacon, vegans can drop the egg, the butter and the cheese too and fruitarians will have to stick to a bowl of apples or something. There we go!

For two:

Put the asparaguses in boiling salted water and let them cook for a couple of minutes. Let them cool down and then wrap them with bacon. Delicately dip the eggs in water with a spoon and boil them for about five minutes (if you want you can use the same water where you cooked the asparaguses). Put the celeriac in a tall casserole, salt it and barely cover it with water. Top with a lid and boil until soft. When it's ready blend with a hand-mixer and add a pinch of rosemary. Cream with butter and Parmigiano. Maintain it warm. Cook the bacon-wrapped asparaguses in a non-stick pan until the bacon is nice and crunchy. When everything is ready, lay a celeriac purée bed on a dish and top it with the asparaguses and the eggs. Add salt, pepper and a dash of walnut oil.

(The eggs should be a bit more liquid than they look in the pictures but I overcooked them!)

Buon appetito!

Pink scampi, grapefruit and honey cocktail

This tiny fruit salad is a refreshing and juicy appetizer, it's healthy and light but still delicious. The grapefruit's bitter sourness is balanced by the honey dressing and the buttery texture of the beans. This salad is perfect for regular meals as well as cocktail parties also because it has its own natural bowl. In addition to being beautiful and yummy it's also pretty quick to make. Here's the ingredients for 1 appetizer:

Cut the grapefruit in two pieces one of which should take 3/4 of the whole fruit. Using a sharp and small knife take out the grapefruit's pulp with circular movements. Chop the pulp in fine pieces and set it aside. Quickly boil the shrimps keeping them in their own husks (it depends on size of the scampi but 1 minute should suffice), drain, let them cool down and peel them. In a cup whisk oil and honey until they blend together. Gently mix scampi, grapefruit's pulp and butter beans in a bowl and add the honey dressing. Pour the salad in the grapefruit's emptied skin. Dip the spring onion cut in thin stripes in ice-cold water so it curls up. Top with sea salt, pepper and spring onion. Serve possibly with a good chilled Prosecco wine.

Buon appetito!

Aromatic Salt (Salamoia Bolognese)

Today I'll write about Salamoia, a precious and very common ingredient for many Italian dishes. Used with measure it adds a lot of richness to even the simplest preparations. It can make the difference between a good meal and a yummy feast. You'll need:

Preheat the oven at 50 degrees

After you washed them dry the herbs with a clean cloth napkin and mix them with the salt in a flat baking pan covered with a layer of baking paper. Put in the oven for about 10 minutes so the herbs release their essential oils. Pour the aromatic salt in a sterile jar so you can keep it for as long as you want. This recipe is for the basic Salamoia, but there are countless variations (you can use lemon zest, thyme, chili peppers, estrogen and so on).

This powerful flavour enhancer can be used on meat, fish, cooked vegetables and pretty much all savory things that need a new kind of kick.

As you can see I didn't upload any picture this time because the ones I took turned out too crappy.

Buon appetito!