The Kitchen Pantry

Lately I’m experimenting a lot with sourdough and I have to say, besides the obvious improvement with bread, it is with pizza and focaccia that a piece of sourdough do its best!
For the focaccia

200 g of sourdough

300 g of flour

200 g of durm wheat flour

250 ml of water

Salt

Knead all the ingredients until you have a silky dough. Let it rise for 4 to 6 hours.

The stuffing this time was the “empty the fridge” kind: quartered cherry tomatoes, diced red pepper, capers, finely sliced spring onions.

Turn on the oven at the maximum.

Divide the dough in two. Roll out one half on a oiled oven sheet, spread over it the stuffing, then cover it with the rolled out other half. Spray all the surface with oil and bake it until golden, 15-20 minutes.

Provolone is a smelly, tasty Italian cheese that can go from mild to very strong. You’ll need the strong, even smellier and tastier type. It’ will give to this pasta a different hint. The leeks, on the other hand, will sweeten and mild out everything.

And it’s a quite simple and quick pasta.
You can do everything while the water is going to boil and the pasta cooks.

Finely slice the leek. Stir fry it with a bit of oil, until soft.
In the mean while cook the pasta (virtually any kind). Drain the pasta, add it to the pan with the leek, add over grated provolone, stir until melted, and serve.

Well, a fricassea, oh my, what the hell it is? Actually it’s something very simple and very traditional in the Mediterranean cuisine: you can find in Italy, Greece and even France.

8 artichokes
Juice 1 lemon
700 g lamb leg, cut in chunks
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 onion
1 tablespoon flour
Freshly ground pepper
Chopped fresh parsley
Chopped fresh dill
2 eggs

Clean the artichokes: remove all the hard leaves and the stalks. Cut them in two, remove the beard inside and cut every half in two and put them in water with the juice of half the lemon.
Chop the onion.
Heat the oil in a dutch oven. Add the onion, let it color, add the lamb, sprinkle with the flour and add enough water to cover the meat.
Stir, bring to boil, add salt and pepper, the 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Add the chopped herbs and artichokes too.
Lower the heat, cover, and let it cook for 45-50 minutes.
Beat the eggs with the remaining lemon juice.
Let the lamb and artichokes cool a little.
Take 3 tablespoons of the cooking juices and add it to the beaten eggs. Beat and add to the pan, reheating slightly and briefly, keeping mixing.

Serve immediately.

As a quick appertizer or a fancy side dish, this verrines are simple and very effective.

Why Puy lentils?

This are the lentils I have always at home, as they come near-by my in lwas, and the father of a dear friend is a major grower. They are quick to cook and they don’t need to be soaked before cooking. But you can use any kind of lentil you have at home or you are used too.

For 4 people, as an appetizer or a side dish

100g puy lentils

Mixed crunchy salad

Extra-virgin olive oil

Lemon juice

Cook lentils in salted boiling water for 20 minutes or until tender, but stil slightly crunchy.

Beat together oilive oil and lemon juice.

Feel a small glass with the salad, add lentils over it and dress with olive oil and lemon juice.

If you feel like it, decorate with lemon zest.

Valentine’s day is near and you don’t know what you can buy for your foodie lover: oh my!

Here are 10 (foodies) suggestions:

1. A wonderful artisan foodie gift from Foodzie.
2. Chocolate from the chocolate masters of the world: Valrhona o Richart.
3. An awesome, incredible, unforgettable dessert by Pierre Hermé.
4. One of the most beautiful, strudy and elegant pan in the world, by Le Creuset.
5. 2 identical special bottles of wine, like a well aged Barolo, or a Bourgogne or a Cahors.
6. A selection of special and rare teas, from Adagio, Revolution Tea, Whittard of Chelsea, or Teaposy.
7. A 2 years subscription to the best cooking and style magazine in the world: Donna Hay Magazine.
8. A bottle of Champagne or Franciacorta (Italian Champagne, as good as the French), already chilled, to drink right away.
9. Something silly, like the “love toaster” or the cupcakes lip balms.
10. A trip off the beaten track in countryside France, lodging in a wonderful castle, like Chateau Clement a Vals les Bains, in Ardeche: nature, spa and one of the owner is a chef!

Bonus: a voucher for a luxury spa or hamman: everybody would love that!

On the occasion of World Nutella Day, co-hosted by my dear friend Sara, not a recipe, but a fairy tale.

Our heroine was born and rised in Italy, the native country of Nutella.
Our heroine felt in love with nutella at first sight.
The gouyness, sweetness and velvet flavour of a creamy hazelnut and chocolate spread was always drooling from her thick crustry slice of bread during breakfast…

Once, an unaware boyfriend of our heroine, took the wrong decision and put nutella in the fridge… No, no, no, you don’t do that with nutella… You must respect nutella…

Once, an unaware boyfriend of our heroine, cut the bread way too thin… No, no, you don’t do that: the bread for nutella must be thick…

Once, an unaware friend of our heroine, said to her the unspeakable, raging on how much fat and blah, blah, blah, there is in nutella… No, no, no, you don’t say that about nutella…

And then one day our heroine took a decision.

She bought a small cottage, in an isolated part of northern Italy countryside, with a big wooden oven in a small kitchen, DSL connection (and a nice wifi network), a small garden and a breathtaking view.
The pantry was filled with an endless collection of different hazelnut and chocolate spreads and many many kilos of strong flour…
The oven was always hot and bread was coming out every day…
Nutella was never in the fridge, bread was always cut thick, the ingredients on labels where erased…

And she lived happily ever after

This was just a dream, of course, or a hope for future happiness

Happy world nutella day to everybody!

Bavarois is something quite simple to make, if you have patience, passion and a predisposition to make desserts.

Patience because you need to wait, to let the cream cool before to do anything else.

Passion because you need to come up with endless parings to make astonishing bavarois.

Predisposition because if you don’t know by instinct when the cream is enough whipped or the custard is thick enough, well, you fail… But anything can be learned!

For 6 people

3 egg yolks

250 ml milk

3 tablespoons honey

8 g (= 4 sheets) jelly

400 ml cream, chilled

Saffron

A bavarois is made of 3 different steps: 2 preparations and an action.

First preparation: custard

Soak jelly sheets in cold water.

Hot the milk.

Beat egg yolks and honey in a saucepan with a think bottom.

Add the hot milk and keep beating, Turn on the fire and cook on a low fire, turning with a wooden spoon.

Cook until the custard cover the back of the wooden spoon with a thin layer.

Turn off the fire, add the soaked and drained jelly. Keep turning until dissolved.

Add as much saffron as needed to turn it pale yellow. Let it cool completely.

Second preparation: whipped cream

Once the custard is cool, whip the chilled cream until it make soft peaks.

Add it to the custard, slowly turning, being careful not to unwhip everything.

The action

Divide the cream in serving glasses or bowls and refrigerate for at least 6 hours, better overnight.

Let it rest at room temperature 30 minutes before to serve.

Serve with a sweet fresh wine, like a Monbazillac or better a Recioto di Soave.

There is saffron and saffron.

Saffron from Africa, saffron from Asia, saffron from North America, saffron from Italy and Spain, and then there is a minor, tiny cultivation of saffron in Aveyron, France, chez my in laws!

The picture above is the 2008 harvest from my in laws field: 2-3 grames of one of the world most expensive spice.

Few grames spreading an heavenly parfum all around the spice drawer. Few grams to be carefully used

Next, what i did with them

Traveling around France in low season, sometimes mean you won’t find a restaurant open, especially if you travel off the beaten track. But is there another way to travel?

Lost in the countryside, far from any “big” town, the only thing open is the local épicerie, what do you do?
Well, you simply enter the épicerie (the local supermarket) say “Bonjour!”, and look for all you can possibly use as a lunch: bread, saucisson de campagne (a rustic, countryside salami), terrine aux chataignes (a chestnut terrine).

Find a nice spot, near a river, or a prairy, or a meadow, lay on the grass, and eat!

Enjoy

I recently had the fortune to put my hands on a 22 years old pasta madre, levain, sourdough (kind courtesy of Semerssuaq*).
I was always afraid of sourdough: I mean, it’s alive! What if it dies? What if I kill it???
Well, apparently it’s not so simple to kill it! If you take good weekly care of it, well, it will survive, kicking lively in your fridge!
And the bread, oh the bread: unbelievable!

200 g of sourdough
500 g of strong flour
1 teaspoon of salt
300 ml of water

Mix the sourdough with the water.
Add flour and salt, and knead for 20-30 minutes (better with a stan mixer: you’ll need only 10 minutes).
Let it rise in a big glass bowl, covered with film, for at least 3 hours.
pre-heat the oven at 200° C.
Cover a baking tin with baking paper and lay the dough, making a rounded ball, no kneading. Cover it with the bowl and let it rise for at least 30 minutes, better 1 hour.

Cook for 30-40 minutes, until knocking on the bottom it sounds hollow.

Let it cool completely before slicing it.