Parmesan Cream

I found very similar recipes for this cream in both Italian and French cuisine books. They seemed rather simple to make, especially if you are familiar with the bain marie method, and looked very delicious. Both recipes called for almost the same ingredients although the Italian was richer because of the heavy whipping cream, and the French was richer in eggs but lighter on cream. Just by reading of all the nice ingredients of this recipe I imagined that it could taste really nice so recently, when I bought a big chunk of genuine Italian Parmesan, I thought it was good time to experiment with it.

I made my own version, which is a combination of both recipes and lighter than any of them. I cut on eggs and I also replaced the heavy whipping cream with a lighter cream. The dish came out very nice, delicate and almost fluffy. It was had a very appealing presentation as I made it in small ramekins, so it could be used as an elegant and tasty dinner starter.



Parmesan Cream

Ingredients:
1 nd 1/2 cup table cream,
2 tsp corn starch flour,
2 large organic eggs,
2/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan Cheese,
a pinch of grated nutmeg,
salt and pepper,
balsamic vinegar glaze for finish.

Preparation:
1. Put the cream in a medium pot. Mix the corn starch in a small bowl with two tbsps of water until smooth and add to the cream. Mix well and heat the mixture on a medium heat until it boils. Season with salt pepper and nutmeg.
2. Mix together eggs with Parmesan. Add a little bit of cream custard to the eggs and cheese and mix well. Pour the mixture to the pot with cream and stir until smooth.
3. Preheat oven to 300 F. Butter 6 small ramekins with butter and divide the cheese custard.
4. Place the ramekins in a baking form with higher walls and fill up with hot water up to the half of their height.



5. Bake 30 minutes until set.
6. Cool slightly and remove from ramekins on plates after loosening them first around with a knife.
7. Serve drizzled with balsamic vinegar glaze, baguettes and salad.

Roasted Onions with Walnuts and Pancetta--Italian Style

For me, being Polish, traditionally, the Christmas Eve supper is the most important meal during the whole Christmas season. This is the day when I make and eat all my favorite Polish dishes: cabbage with dry porcini mushrooms, cooked yellow peas, clear beet soup, herrings, and pierogi with cabbage, just to name a few. But because of my kids, who are still very picky and eat only certain dishes from a long list of traditional Polish Christmas food, this feast lasts only one day.

Then, for the rest of Christmas Holidays, I prepare dishes that come from other culinary traditions, less meaty than Polish but equally delicious, and that everyone at home likes. And that to me is the way to celebrate holidays, the big part of which is to enjoy good, special food, good wine, indulging desserts, and share these special moments with family and friends.

So when my Italian friend mentioned that pearl onions cooked in vinegar are often served with roasted meat for Christmas dinners, I decided to prepare an onion dish that I found in one of many Italian cook books. It is very rich and therefore perfect for this time of the year. These roasted onions can be served just by themselves as a dish, or just as a starter, or be one of many dishes at a holiday table.

Inspired by pearl onion cooked in vinegar sauce I finished this dish with a drizzle of balsamic di Modena glaze which gave it a nice presentation and extra flavor.



Roasted Onions with Walnuts and Pancetta
(Serves four)

Ingredients:
4 large onions (but not the sweet ones),
5 tbsp olive oil,
1/2 cup lean diced pancetta,
1 cup chopped walnuts,
1 cup chicken stock,
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves,
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar of Modena glaze,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Rub whole, unpeeled onions with 3 tbsp olive oil and bake them 40 minutes.Cool.



3.Peel the onions. Cut off their tops and bottoms and cut them in halves horizontally. Remove the insides leaving about 2-3 outer layers. Chop finely the insides of onions, which will be used for the filling.
4. Place the onion halves in a oven-proof dish oiled with 1 tbsp of olive oil.
5. Heat last two tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan. Add pancetta and fry until brown. Stir in walnuts and chopped onion insides. Cook everything together for about 3 minutes.



6. Pour in 1/2 cup of chicken stock, add thyme leaves and season with salt and pepper. Simmer for about 10 minutes.
7. Fill the onion halves with pancetta stuffing. Add the remaining 1/2 cup of stock to the bottom of the baking dish and bake for about 20 minutes, or until lightly brown.
Serve warm with white Italian loaf bread or baguette.

Polenta with Porcini Sauce

I had never tried a true Italian polenta until my recent visit to Italy. When I went in Florence to a restaurant recommended to me by locals, I noticed a polenta dish on the menu. It sounded particularly interesting to me because it was not with the usual tomato sauce, which I am not a big fan of, but it was served with porcini. Without a second of hesitation I ordered polenta and waited anxiously to try it. Where should it be better prepared than in the heart of Tuscany?

It took 15-20 minutes before my dish was ready, which was just enough for me to enjoy a glass of local white wine with Tuscan bread. When polenta arrived, the dish was a generously large and pretty appetizing--lightly fried with an aromatic sauce on top. And it tasted even better.

Today, I decided to repeat the dish at home and use my supply of dried porcini from Poland. But, warned by my Italian friend that polenta is even more labor-intensive than risotto, I decided to take a shortcut and used a ready-made organic polenta (you can get it most Italian food stores or at Trader Joe's). I just made a good sauce from scratch. I was not disappointed at all and added polenta to my family's dinner menu.

Polenta with Porcini Sauce
(Serves four)

Ingredients:
1 lb ready-made polenta,
1/2 cup dried porcini mushrooms,
1 shallot,
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream,
3 tbsp butter,
2 tbsp flat leaves parsley,
salt and pepper to taste,
freshly grated Parmesan to finish.

Preparation:
1. First wash the porcini in cold water and then soak them in a cup of room-temperature water for about an hour.

2. Cook porcini for about 30 minutes in the water they were soaking. During the cooking about half of the water should evaporate.
3. Preheat oven to 375F.
4. Grease a baking form with one tbsp of butter. Cut polenta into 1/2 inch-thick slices and spread in a baking dish. Put small pieces of butter on top.

5. Bake for about 40 minutes, until polenta becomes slightly gold on top.
6. Melt the rest of the butter in a heavy duty frying pan. Add chopped shallot and fry on a small heat for about 5 minutes. Add porcini with the water and cook together for about 5 minutes.
7. Add heavy whipping cream to the porcini, season with salt and pepper and cook additional 5 minutes or until it becomes thicker.
8. Pour the sauce on top of the baked polenta. Finish with a little bit of freshly grated Parmesan cheese and chopped parsley.

Lasagna with Kale--World's Healthiest Vegetable

I had no time to update my blog but I have been cooking a lot and eating so well over the past long weekend that writing about food seemed almost too much.

The idea of today's post came to me a couple of days ago. While watching the Italian movie "La Grande Bellezza" and looking at Rome's most beautiful landmarks, I started to dream about some of my favorite Italian dishes--vegetarian pastas and risottos.

So today I decided to make a lasagna. In my home lasagna almost always means white béchamel sauce and vegetarian filling that would make all of us happy. Béchamel helps my vegetarian son, who does not like most vegetables, accept any vegetables if I put them between the sheets of lasagna.

After the trip to TJ I came home with a large bag of Tuscan kale (to make the dish as healthy and Italian as it could be). In recent years, kale became THE vegetable and is often called world's healthiest vegetable. It features in almost all healthy diets and especially those detoxifying, based on juices. It is super rich in many vitamins, particularly K, A and C, helps lower cholesterol and when included in a daily diet, it is reputed to lower cancer risk by mitigating the genetic predisposition to it.

Kale has a nice earthy and nutty taste and a slightly firm texture thanks to which this lasagna, besides being healthy, can also be very tasty and satisfying.

Kale Lasagna
(Serves four)

Ingredients:
9 lasagna sheets,
10 oz kale leaves (one large bag), chopped,
1 medium onion, chopped,
2 garlic cloves, sliced,
2 tbsp olive oil,
4 tbsp butter,
4 tbsp all purpose flour,
2 and 1/2 cup milk,
4-6 oz shredded Pecorino cheese,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. In a large frying pan heat the oil. Add the onion and garlic and fry on a medium heat for about 5 minutes until transparent. Add washed and chopped kale leaves and fry on a medium heat for a couple of minutes until kale twiddles.

2. Make béchamel. Melt butter in a medium pot over the medium heat. Whisk in the flour. Pour in milk and using a whisker make a smooth sauce. Bring to boil, while whipping continuously, and set aside. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Preheat oven to 375F.

4. Use about 1/3 of the béchamel sauce to cover the bottom of an oven proof dish. Spread three sheets of lasagna on top of it. Cover the lasagna with half of kale and put half of shredded Pecorino on top.

5. Place the second layer of lasagna on top. Use a half of the remaining béchamel to cover it and spread the second half of kale on top of it.

6. Cover the kale with the third layer of lasagna. Pour over the rest of béchamel and spread the remaining pecorino. Cover with the aluminum foil and bake for about 30 minutes. Remove the foil and let the lasagna bake for another 10 minutes until it turns dark gold.

Take out of the oven, let it cool down a little bit, cut and serve.

Linguine with Radicchio

Somehow I still did not get into the usual cooking mood, so my meals are really simple and often limited to salads, even for dinner. In such lazy and disorganized moments Italian cuisine and pasta come to the rescue. And they never disappoint me. So today I made radicchio pasta for dinner.

I love radicchio. Unlike some people, I do not mind its bitter taste and its texture, which is harder than in most other salads. I usually eat radicchio raw but I often read about meals that use cooked or grilled radicchio. However, my experiment with grilling it discouraged me for a while from experimenting. Grilled radicchio turned out dry and rather forgettable in taste.

But my Italian friend convinced me recently about giving a chance to cooked radicchio. She told me about all different dishes based on radicchio she prepares--pastas, lasagnas, pizzas, and warm salads, where radicchio is cooked and tastes really delicious.

Radicchio, in its basic version, is easily available almost everywhere those days. I usually keep a head or two in my refrigerator to enrich green salads. So when this pasta came to my mind as a dinner idea I already had the basic ingredient. It took no time to make this pasta dish. The sauce became creamy and slightly bitter from the radicchio, and fried pancetta rounded up the flavor.

Linguine with Radicchio
(Serves four)

Ingredients:
1/2 box of dried linguine,
1 head of radicchio, sliced,
4 oz of pancetta or lean bacon,
1/2 medium onion, cut in half and sliced,
3 garlic cloves, minced,
1/2 cup table cream,
freshly shredded Parmesan cheese,
2 tbsp olive oil,
salt and pepper.

Preparation:
1. Cook pasta until al dente in salted water.
2. Heat a heavy duty pan and fry pancetta until it releases its grease. Remove as much of the grease as you can and add olive oil to the pan. Add onion and garlic and fry everything until onion becomes transparent.
3. Add radicchio to the pan and toss for about 2 minutes until radicchio become soft. Pour in cream and season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring sauce to bubbling and cook for another 2 minutes.

4. Drain the pasta and place in a large bowl. Pour the sauce over the pasta and shred fresh Parmesan on top. Serve hot.

All Italian Whole Wheat Pasta Salad--Hodgson Mill Giveaway

I have been asked by the Hodgson Mill company to create a whole wheat pasta salad recipe and participate in their contest. I make pasta at least once a week and, recently, I have been particularly often using whole wheat pasta. I think certain sauces taste even better with whole wheat past thanks to its stronger, kind of nutty flavor. It also has some added health benefits.

But although I cook pastas often, there is only one pasta salad I make which is based on all good Italian ingredients. And maybe because it is very light, seasoned just with oil and vinegar instead of mayonnaise, it always disappears rather fast when I serve it for deck parties to accompany grilled meats. So that is the recipe I share today.

Hodgson Mill also offered a $25 suite of their assorted products to the US readers of my blog. This gift will be sent to the first person who first sends an answer to the following question:

What are the health benefits of the whole wheat pasta?



All Italian Whole Wheat Pasta Salad

Ingredients:
10 oz whole wheat whole grain Hodgson Mill pasta (preferably bow ties),
2/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil,
one large red bell pepper,
one small red onion,
1/4 cup roasted pine nuts,
1/4 cup marinated capers,
4 oz pancetta or very lean smoked bacon,
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar,
3 tbsp shredded or grated Parmesan cheese,
2 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley,
one tsp freshly ground black pepper,
one tbsp salt.



Preparation:
1. In a large pot bring to boil 4 quarts of water with a tbsp of salt. Add pasta, stir and let it cook until the water boils. Turn down the heat to medium and cook pasta for about 7 to 9 minutes, until tender but not too soft. Drain the pasta on the colander and transfer to a large bowl.
2. Preheat an oven broiler to 400 F and grill the pepper on the highest rack until the skin turns black, or roast the pepper on the fork over a gas burner until the skin is charcoaled. Place the pepper in a small bowl and cover it. Let it cool down. Peel off the pepper, remove seeds and cut it into small squares. Add them to the pasta.
3. Drain tomatoes from the oil and cut them into thin strips. Add to the pasta together with 2 tbsp of oil that they were marinated in. You can also use just dried tomatoes but then add 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil to the pasta.
4. Cut pancetta or bacon into very small cubes. Fry them on a small frying pan until all the grease is released and pancetta turns gold. Drain pancetta from the grease and add to the pasta.
5. Peel off the onion, chop finely and add to the bowl.
6. Drain capers from the brine and toss them in the pasta. Follow with pine nuts, chopped parsley and shredded Parmesan cheese.
7. Season with pepper and balsamic vinegar at the end. Mix gently all the ingredients and serve at room temperature.

If you like this recipe please go to the Hodgson Mill website and vote for it:

http://pinterest.com/pin/219761656787367264/

http://www.hodgsonmill.com/all-italian-whole-wheat-pasta-salad/

Carrots with Pine Nuts--Italian Way

There is a carrot dish probably in every culinary tradition. There is also one in Polish cuisine. We cut carrots in cubes, cook in a little bit of water, and thicken with butter and flour at the end. I love carrots prepared that way, especially with typical Polish dishes, for instance meatballs or chicken and potato puree. And I eat it always like that when I go back home. My mother makes it from very sweet and young carrots that she buys at the farmers' market and serves them always with meats.

But somehow I do not prepare carrot this way anymore at my home here. Most often I make Thai style carrots with roasted almonds or recently even more often I make carrots with pine nuts, a dish that comes from the Italian tradition. Carrots prepared this way are a bit drier, rather sautéd than cooked to a very soft stage and that is what I like a lot about this dish. I enjoy vegetables more when they are cooked al dente rather than completely soft or mushy as we often do it in Poland.

I remember my Italian friend cooking carrots in a very similar way, almost without water, but she did not add pine nuts. I also like to add chopped sage, which makes the mild carrots almost spicy. They taste great just with roasted baby potatoes or as a meat accompaniment.

Carrots with Pine Nuts

Ingredients:
1 lb of carrots,
1 medium onion, chopped,
2 tbsp pine nuts,
2 tbsp olive oil,
1 tsp brown sugar,
4 tbsp Marsala or any red wine,
salt and freshly ground black pepper,
1 tbsp chopped sage(optional)

Preparation:
1. Peel off the carrots and cut them into slices.

2. Heat the oil in a medium pan and add onion. Fry for about 3 minutes. Add carrots and sprinkle with sugar. Let the vegetables caramelize a bit.
3. Add about half a cup of water, salt and pepper, and let it all cook on a medium heat until most of the water evaporates.
4. Add red wine and let it cook again for about 3 minutes. Turn off the heat, add pine nuts and chopped sage if used. Serve warm.