Pretty onions with fruity balsamic glaze

Onions are amazing. They add strengt to warm dishes and salad, they're healthy and if you cut them right they can also look very good. As I said before I'm an avid consumer of onions so I came up with this combination to try something new with one of my favourite ingredients. Those who feel strange about having just onion as side dish will be won over by the fruity sweetness and aromatic sourness of the glaze, which is a perfect match for the flavour of the baked "lotus". This dish is easy, appealing, economic and tasty: why not give it a try? Here are the ingredients:

Preheat the oven at 160 celsius degrees then cut the onions in 8 wedges without chopping them completely. Leave them attached to the bottom of the onion. Wrap them in some aluminum foil and bake them for about 30 minutes, the texture should be slightly crunchy so make sure you don't overcook them. Heat up all the other ingredients in a casserole whisking energetically until the mixture becomes a dark and shiny syrup. Take the onions out of the oven (be careful, they burn like hell) and gently dish them, try to be very delicate because this yummy "lotus" can easily loose its shape. Aiding yourself with a large spoon pour some fruity balsamic glaze on top (I'm sure you will manage to do a better job than me in this). Serve warm as a side dish or as an uncommon and healthy aperitif with some chilled Prosecco wine, if you like it you can grind some white pepper on top.

Buon appetito!

Carrot, sesame and miso soup

This is a very simple, satisfying and colorful vegetables and miso soup. It's also highly customizable: the main ingredient still needs to be carrot (it should make up for 2/3 of the total ingredients) but  you can add any vegetable you want, providing that they have a "discreet" color that would not overwhelm the tonality of the carrots. I suggest not to use potatoes because I think they don't pair very well with miso. This soup is perfect to warm up hungry bellies and also it has an excellent protein contribution despite being completely vegan. I will not write quantities here so you can decide yourself, according to your own taste. Here we go!

Heat up the peanut oil in a large casserole and add leek and ginger. Stir-fry until the leek is soft then add cabbage and carrots. Toast them a little then cover with some water (make sure that the water completely covers up the ingredients). Cover the casserole with a lid and boil for about 20 minutes. When the carrots are soft take the casserole off the fire and blend the ingredients with a hand-mixer. Add the miso and stir until it dissolves (make sure miso doesn't boil, or you'll "kill" it). Dish up and decorate with sesame seeds, sesame oil and thin stripes of chili peppers. 

If you manage to find purple carrots (which are the original European variety) use them: your soup will be purple and its taste will be more rich. Another excellent possible addition is chopped up shiitake mushrooms, sautéed and added right before the sesame.  

  Buon appetito!

Risotto with pumpkin and broccoli covered in goat milk and rosemary béchamel

Risotto is one of my passions, first of all because it's very tasty and second because it's highly customizable. Today I decided to use the pumpkin purée left from yesterday to prepare another yummy first course. When I woke up I had the ingredients floating in my mind and while I was shopping the final recipe took shape.

Here's what came out! 

Ingredients for one (risotto):

Ingredients for béchamel (preparing béchamel for just one person is very hard so I made enough for two people):

First of all prepare the broth with fresh mineral water, carrots, celery and onion. Chop finely the shallot and clean the broccoli. In a little casserole let water and a pinch of salt and sodium bicarbonate boil. When it does quickly dip (10 seconds should be enough) the broccoli tops in and put them aside. The sodium bicarbonate will keep the color of the boiled vegetables more bright.

In another casserole (better if with panhandle) pour a breath of olive oil and put it on low fire. When it's warm enough add the shallot and stir until golden. Add the pumpkin purée and if needed a dram of hot broth. When it's thick enough add rice and keep on stirring (risotto is touchy: if you leave it alone it will get its revenge by burning and consequently tasting awful). This first stirring is essential because it toasts the rice and gives it the right texture.

When you feel it's becoming harder to stir add some broth, keep on stirring and let it be absorbed by the rice. Repeat until it's properly cooked. When you feel that the rice is almost ready take the casserole off the fire and add a good nut of butter and the broccoli tops. Stir very well until the butter melts and the rice becomes creamy.

In yet another casserole prepare the béchamel just like in the Classic Béchamel Recipe with the only difference that when you'll be adding in the goat milk you'll also add rosemary and when it's ready you'll pour in the Parmigiano. Pour the béchamel on the risotto through a sieve.

The only thing left is dishing it up. As you know I'm not very good at this so the arrangement you see in the pictures is just an idea. Feel free to follow your esthetic taste.

Buon appetito!

Japanese Soba noodles with chinese leek, spring onion, cucumber and tangerine flavoured chilli pepper.

Fresh baby spinach salad with raspberries and Bleu d'Aoste cheese.