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Torta Dolce di Ricotta with cranberry topping

Are you wondering what to serve for dessert during the holidays? This delicious and beautiful ricotta cheesecake would be perfect on your table, with its festive cranberry topping.

The recipe is from a wonderful cookbook called “Feast of the Seven Fishes” by Daniel Paterna. While the book contains many seafood recipes and is an ode to the Brooklyn neighborhood where Paterna was raised, this showstopper of a cheesecake really captured my attention. It’s shown without any topping in the book, and you could surely enjoy this cake even without any embellishment. Containing ricotta, rather than cream cheese, it’s not at all heavy and it’s easy to make too.

One tip — I didn’t roll out the crust with a rolling pin as the recipe says. I didn’t even refrigerate it for the recommended half hour. Using my hands, I pressed it into a disk over a piece of parchment paper, then kept pushing with my palm and fingers until it reached 14 inches in diameter.

I then lifted the parchment and pressed it into the greased pan. Don’t worry if some breaks off. It’s easily patched together.

Here’s what the cake looks like as I pulled it from the oven. It puffs up a bit from the eggs, but will sink a bit after removal from the oven.

The little recess on top is a perfect nest for the topping, if you choose to add one. I love cranberries and typically have leftover cranberries after Thanksgiving, but you could serve this plain and simply dusted with confectioner’s sugar, or use other fruit — raspberries, strawberries or whatever you like — to crown this beauty. Buone feste!

Click here to connect with me on Instagram and find out what Ciao Chow Linda is up to in the kitchen (and other places too.)

Torta Dolce di Ricotta with cranberry topping
 
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Ingredients
  • CRUST:
  • 2 cups all purpose flour, plus extra to dust board and pan
  • ¾ cup sugar
  • zest of one lemon
  • ½ cup unsalted butter, softened, plus extra to grease the pan
  • 2 large eggs
  • FILLING:
  • 8 large eggs
  • 3 pounds ricotta cheese, drained of excess water
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 1½ cups sugar
  • zest of 2 oranges
  • juice of 1 orange
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • FOR THE CRANBERRY TOPPING:
  • 1 bag of fresh cranberries
  • ¾ cup water
  • ¾ sugar
  • zest of one orange
  • ¼ freshly squeezed orange juice
Instructions
  1. FOR THE CRANBERRY TOPPING:
  2. Place the cranberries, water, sugar, orange juice and orange zest in a pan.
  3. Turn the heat to high and cook until the cranberries are popping and release their juices.
  4. After about five minutes, remove from heat and refrigerate for a couple of hours, to thicken.
  5. FOR THE RICOTTA TORTA:
  6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter and flour a 10-inch springform pan, then set aside.
  7. To make the crust, place the flour, sugar and zest on a pastry board or clean, dry flat surface.
  8. Mix thoroughly to combine.
  9. Add the butter and work it into the dry ingredients.
  10. Gather the mixture into a mound and create a well in the center.
  11. Add the eggs, beating with a fork and grabbing the dry mixture until the dough begins to form.
  12. Shape into a disk and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  13. Meanwhile, make the filling by combining the eggs, ricotta cheese, vanilla, sugar, orange zest, orange juice, lemon juice in a large mixing bowl.
  14. Mix thoroughly and set aside.
  15. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and place on a large board or clean, dry flat surface, lightly dusted with flour.
  16. Using a floured rolling pin (I just used my fingers and palms of my hand and pressed it onto a piece of parchment paper) roll the dough out into a large circle, approximately 14 inches in diameter.
  17. Now roll the dough over the rolling pin and carefully unwind it over the baking pan, gently easing it to fit evenly in the bottom and up the sides of the pan.
  18. (I lifted up the parchment paper and placed the dough into the pan. Don't worry if some of it breaks. You can easily patch it.)
  19. Pour or spoon the filling mixture into the crust, leaving about ¼ inch below the rim of the pan.
  20. Place the pan in a preheated oven and bake for 1 hour and 45 minutes, until the center is slighy firm.
  21. Cool for at least 2 hours.
  22. Spread the cranberry topping over the cake.
  23. Carefully run a knife or spatula around the sides of the pan to remove it, so that no crust is pulled away when you release the spring of the pan.
 

Crumb-topped Pumpkin Muffins

Fall is the season for squash of all kinds – pumpkins, butternut, acorn and many other types, and I love them all. Sometimes there can be too much of a good thing however. After making the stuffed pumpkin from my previous post, we finished all the stuffing and some of the pumpkin flesh, but after three days, we were still left with a lot and were bored with eating buttered pumpkin again. Rather than continue to eat it all as a vegetable, I took some of it and whirred it in the food processor to use in these muffins.

I found the recipe on the internet from a website called Celebrating Sweets, and let me tell you, the muffin part was delicious and a great way to use up some of the leftover pumpkin, but that crumb topping — oh my. It just took the muffins to a new level. I think I’m going to keep cooking up more pumpkins just to have the leftover for these muffins. Or maybe I’ll just buy a can of pureed pumpkin instead and make it easy on myself. I may pour the batter into a cake tin and make this as a cake next time.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Click here to connect with me on Instagram and find out what Ciao Chow Linda is up to in the kitchen (and other places too.)

Crumb-topped Pumpkin Muffins
 
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Ingredients
  • FOR THE CRUMB TOPPING:
  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ⅛ teaspoon salt
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter melted
  • scant ½ cup all purpose flour
  • FOR THE MUFFINS:
  • 1½ cups all purpose flour see note
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice
  • ¾ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 2 large eggs
  • ⅔ cup light brown sugar
  • ⅓ cup canola, vegetable or melted coconut oil
  • 1¼ cups canned pumpkin puree
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • FOR THE CINNAMON ICING:
  • Cinnamon icing:
  • 5 tablespoons powdered sugar
  • 1-2 teaspoons milk more, if needed
  • ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
  1. FOR THE CRUMB TOPPING:
  2. In a medium bowl, combine sugars, cinnamon, salt, and melted butter.
  3. Whisk until combined.
  4. Add flour, and stir until the flour is combined.
  5. Set aside.
  6. FOR THE MUFFINS:
  7. Preheat oven to 350°F.
  8. Grease a 12 cup muffin tin, or line with paper liners.
  9. In a medium bowl, combine flour, cinnamon/spice, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
  10. In a large bowl, whisk eggs, brown sugar, oil, pumpkin puree and vanilla, until combined.
  11. Add flour mixture, and stir until combined (I use a rubber spatula), being careful not to over-mix.
  12. Divide the batter between 12 muffin cups.
  13. Pinch off small pieces of the crumb topping and scatter them over the tops of each muffin.
  14. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean.
  15. Place the pan on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes, then remove the muffins from the pan and place on the rack to cool completely.
  16. FOR THE ICING:
  17. Whisk all ingredients until smooth.
  18. Adjust the consistency by adding more powdered sugar (to thicken) or more milk (to thin). Use a small spoon to drizzle icing over the tops of the cooled muffins.
 

Baked Stuffed Pumpkin

UPDATE TO ORIGINAL POST

I had to update this post to let you know that as much as I loved this recipe the first time I made it, with a “traditional” pumpkin that cropped up in my son’s garden totally by accident (a so-called “volunteer” plant), I made it again for my book group with a purchased “cheese pumpkin,” and it was a game changer. The squat, tan-colored cheese pumpkin doesn’t taste anything like cheese, but is named that because of its resemblance to a wheel of cheese.

The interior is brightly colored orange, and is related to butternut squash. It has a sweet flesh that tastes  much like butternut squash and is superior over traditional pumpkins for both savory or sweet dishes, including pumpkin pie.

I filled it with the same recipe I used in the original post, even though the cheese pumpkin weighed twice as much as the pumpkin in the original post. The filling came only about 2/3 of the way up the pumpkin rather than all the way up to the top.  No matter, the filling rises somewhat after baking because of the eggs. It’s actually better not to fill the pumpkin all the way to the top anyway, since otherwise, there won’t be room for the lid to fit securely.

Here’s what the pumpkin looked like about about 2 1/2 hours in the oven. Be sure to remove the lid after about two hours of cooking because the pumpkin contained a lot of water. I actually drained away the water from the pan after removing the lid, then placed it back in the oven without the lid to “brown” the stuffing.

Another tip is to cube the bread and toss with the melted butter in a cookie sheet, rather than brown the bread cubes in a skillet as I did originally. Toast the bread cubes with melted butter in a 375 degree oven for about 15 minutes, stirring them a few times to brown them evenly. Also, after the pumpkin has been roasting for a couple of hours, you may want to cover the sides so that they don’t burn (but keep the top uncovered in order to promote browning of the stuffing).

ORIGINAL POST:

I just love it when Mother Nature gives you some of her bounty without your even trying. It happened recently when a butternut squash grew in my garden as a “volunteer” plant among my rose bushes, and again when my son discovered a long vine with several pumpkins he hadn’t planted growing in his front yard. Either the birds or the wind carried seeds to these new places that provided fertile ground for the welcome plants.

We weren’t sure at first what kind of squash or pumpkin we were dealing with, since it was green for so long.

But as the cold weather progressed, the pumpkin started to turn orange on the bottom.

And the interior certainly looked like the typical orange jack o’lantern. I decided to use my lagniappe in a recipe I’d read about long ago in a memoir called “A Thousand Days in Venice” by Marlena De Blasi. I made several adjustments however, since I felt the amount of cheese in it was excessive (believe me, there’s still a lot of cheese in it). It would also make a spectacular showstopper dish at the Thanksgiving table.

Start by carving out the lid, and scooping out all the stringy stuff and seeds from inside.

Take some good bread (I used ciabatta) and cube it, tossing it in butter until browned.

Saute some mushrooms and onions in butter, adding some fresh sage leaves to give a bit more flavor.

Mix the mushrooms and onions with eggs and three different kinds of cheese – mascarpone, Emmanthaler and Parmesan. Marlena’s recipe calls for three cups of mascarpone, but I cut that way back to one cup and it was just fine. I cut back the amounts on the other cheeses too, and the dish was still plenty cheese flavored.

Layer the cheese mixture into the pumpkin with the bread, making several layers and ending with the cheese mixture.

Place the lid on top and bake in the oven for about 1 1/2 – 2 hours, removing the lid for the final 20 minutes to brown the top. Pierce the flesh with a knife to see if it’s soft and if it’s not, leave it in the oven a bit longer.

Remove from the oven and bring to the table amid oohs and aahs. Scoop out some of the flesh and some of the pumpkin for each person. We had lots of leftover pumpkin after the stuffing was all gone, and it was great for leftovers one night. But I blitzed the rest in a food processor and used it to make the best pumpkin muffins I’ve ever eaten. Stay tuned in the next blog post for that recipe.

By the way, if your pumpkin was too small to hold all the stuffing, place the rest in small buttered ramekins and bake them another night. They make a great side dish — a kind of mushroom bread pudding.

Click here to connect with me on Instagram and find out what Ciao Chow Linda is up to in the kitchen (and other places too.)

 

Baked Stuffed Pumpkin
 
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Ingredients
  • 1 large pumpkin (about 5 pounds)
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 large onion (about 2 cups minced)
  • 12 ounces sliced mushrooms (I used baby portobello, but a mixtured of fresh mushrooms and dried porcini would be great)
  • fresh sage leaves
  • sea salt, freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 cup mascarpone cheese
  • 3 ounces parmesan cheese
  • 8 ounces Emmenthaler cheese (or Gruyere or Comte)
  • 3 whole eggs, beaten
  • 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 4 tablespoons butter for toasting the bread
  • 6 slices hearty bread, cubed (about four cups)
Instructions
  1. Cut the bread into cubes (I didn't trim the crusts).
  2. Melt the 4 tablespoons butter in a frying pan and add the bread, tossing it to brown all around.
  3. (I did this in two batches so each piece of bread could rest flatly on the pan.)
  4. Melt the 2 tablespoons of butter and add the onion and mushrooms, cooking until softened and the mushrooms give up their liquid.
  5. Season with salt and pepper
  6. I also added some sage leaves to the above to flavor them.
  7. Beat the eggs lightly with a whisk, then add the cheesesm and nutmeg and stir well.
  8. Remove the lid from the pumpkin and clean out the cavity of all its seeds and strings.
  9. Into the cavity place one third of the cheese/egg mixture, then layer half the bread cubes over it.
  10. Repeat again with another third of the cheese/egg mixture and the rest of the bread cubes, finishing with the remainder of the cheese/egg mixture.
  11. If you have more than you need, put the rest in a buttered casserole and cook it separately another time.
  12. Place the lid on the pumpkin and place the pumpkin on a heavy baking pan or cookie sheet.
  13. Bake at 375 degrees for 1½ - 2 hours, removing the lid during the last 20 to brown the top.
  14. Test the pumpkin to see if its cooked by piercing the flesh with a knife.
  15. It should be soft.
  16. Serve immediately, scooping out portions of the pumpkin with the stuffing.
 

Lemon Sheet Cake

Are you a fan of the Great British Baking Show? It’s a competition show, but not at all like the American baking shows, where the participants can be cutthroat and nasty. Instead, everyone is so supportive of the fellow bakers, and you feel genuinely sorry when someone gets eliminated. The show is my antidote to when the bad news cycle gets me down. It’s a feel-good show that always makes me want to rush to the kitchen and bake something.

Recently, I was searching for a recipe to use some of the lemons that had ripened on my indoor lemon tree. I almost hate picking them, but the one year I left them on the tree to admire them longer than I should have, they were dried out by the time I harvested them. So this year, I made haste to pick two lemons as soon as they turned completely yellow. They were bursting with juice and I was bursting with a desire to bake something with them.

I turned to a recipe from the “Classic” cookbook by Mary Berry, former host of The Great British Baking Show, and a noted British food writer. I was gifted the cookbook last year by my daughter’s boyfriend, when the two of them came from London for Christmas. The ingredients are posted in metric, and since I use a kitchen scale, it was easy to proceed as written. However, I made a few adjustments — substituting butter for the “cold baking spread” called for in the recipe, adding some limoncello to get more lemony flavor and a couple of other changes. While I was weighing the ingredients, I also measured them in cups, so I could write the recipe for American readers who might not use a kitchen scale. However if you don’t have a kitchen scale, I highly recommend you get one. They’re infinitely useful, and so much more accurate for baking than using measuring cups.

I also made twice the amount of icing and decorated with colorful pistachios I had stashed in the freezer from a trip to Sicily last year. Toasted slivered almonds would be great here too, or just use the lemon zest called for in the recipe. Either way, the cake is delicious with its strong lemony flavor and tender, delicate crumb. It also feeds a crowd, so keep that in mind next time you’re invited to bring something to an event.

Incidentally, the winner of the copper water pitcher giveaway (chosen by a random number computer-driven generator)  is Karen, of Karen Cooks.

Click here to connect with me on Instagram and find out what Ciao Chow Linda is up to in the kitchen (and other places too.

Lemon Sheet Cake
 
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Adapted from Double Lemon Traybake from "Classic" by Mary Berry
Author:
Ingredients
  • FOR THE CAKE:
  • 225 grams (8 ounces) cold baking spread or 2 sticks butter plus more for greasing
  • 225 grams (8 ounces) caster sugar - or 1¾ cups superfine sugar
  • 275 grams (10 ounces) or 2 cups self-rising flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 2 tablespoons lemon curd
  • 1 tablespoon limoncello
  • finely grated zest of 2 lemons
  • FOR THE ICING:
  • 8 tablespoplons lemon juuice
  • 2 tablespoons limoncello
  • 4 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted
  • grated zest of 1 lemon OR chopped pistachios OR toasted, slivered almonds (to decorate)
Instructions
  1. Line a 9 x 12 inch pan with parchment paper and grease well.
  2. The original recipe tells you to add all the ingredients, including "cold baking spread" together and beat well for two minutes.
  3. I was doubtful of this procedure, so I used room temperature butter and beat it together with the sugar until smooth and light.
  4. Add all the rest of the ingredients (except the decoration) and beat for about two minutes until well blended.
  5. Turn the mixture into the prepared baking pan and smooth out the top.
  6. Bake at 350 degrees about 30-35 minutes until the cake has shrunk a bit from the sides of the pan and springs back when pressed in the middle.
  7. Cool completely.
  8. Add the lemon juice and limoncello to the confectioner's sugar and mix until you get a thick, but somewhat runny consistency.
  9. Pour half of the icing on the cooled cake and place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the remaining icing (to avoid getting a "crust.")
  10. Let the icing on the cake harden somewhat for an hour or so, then spread the rest of the icing over the first layer, smoothing it out with a spatula.
  11. Sprinkle the top with the pistachios, or slivered toasted almonds, or just grated lemon peel.
 

Gnocchi Alla Romana with Butternut Squash

This post contains original content by me and is sponsored by La Cucina Italiana

When most Americans think of gnocchi, they think of those soft little cushions of dough made with flour, potatoes and eggs and served with a tomato or pesto sauce. But there’s an entirely different type of gnocchi made with semolina flour called gnocchi alla Romana.

As you can guess, it’s a Roman dish that is served in a casserole hot from the oven, golden and crunchy on top. Talk about comfort food — these just melt in your mouth. They make a great primo piatto, or first course, but I frequently serve them as a starchy side dish with a roast, or even some meatballs or braciole. I decided to give the traditional gnocchi alla Romana a little twist and added some small cubes of roasted butternut squash. But they’re equally delicious without the squash if you prefer them plain.

Detailed instructions are in the recipe below, but you start by mixing the semolina flour with milk and butter until it’s very stiff. Many people recommend warming the milk first, but in my experience, you’re less likely to get lumps if you start out with cold milk. Keep stirring so it doesn’t burn on the bottom, and when it’s thick enough to hold a wooden spoon upright, you’re there.

You need eggs to make the gnocchi “puff up” in the oven, but if you stir the eggs directly into the pan with the hot gnocchi mixture, you’re going to wind up with scrambled eggs. So you need to temper the eggs first. To do this, place the eggs in a measuring cup and whisk them together. Then add a bit of the hot gnocchi mixture to the measuring cup, whisking all the time. Keep adding a few more tablespoons at a time, whisking vigorously each time, until the temperature of the mixture has warmed slightly and become a little thick. Now it’s safe to add this mixture into the large pot with the rest of the semolina gnocchi mixture, stirring all the while to blend everything together well.

Stir in the cooked bits of squash.

Then spread it out on a cookie sheet that you first moisten with a little water. Let it cool in the refrigerator several hours or overnight (covered with plastic wrap if overnight.)

Use a cookie or biscuit cutter (or even the rim of a glass) to cut circles about two to three inches in diameter.
Arrange in a buttered pan.

Generously sprinkle parmesan cheese on top.

Bake in the oven until golden and crispy on top.

Make extra, because they are always a hit and you’ll want leftovers. They’re easy to reheat in the oven or microwave the next day.

Connect with me on Instagram and find out what Ciao Chow Linda is up to in the kitchen (and other places too.)

Gnocchi Alla Romana with Butternut Squash
 
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Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
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Serves: 6-8 people
Ingredients
  • 1 cup butternut squash, diced into small pieces
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • salt, pepper
  • 9 oz. semolina (1¼ cup)
  • 1½ quarts of milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter
  • pinch of salt
  • pinch of white pepper
  • a few gratings of nutmeg
  • 1 cup parmesan cheese
Instructions
  1. Peel the butternut squash and dice into small pieces.
  2. Toss with the olive oil, salt and pepper.
  3. (I use herbed salt that I make from fresh herbs.)
  4. Roast the squash in a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes, turning once.
  5. Remove squash from oven and set aside.
  6. Place the milk and the semolina in a saucepan.
  7. Many people tell you to heat the milk first, then add the semolina, but I find it gets lumpy that way, so I start with cold milk and add the semolina directly.
  8. Whisk it constantly, adding half the stick of butter (4 tablespoons), the salt, the white pepper and the nutmeg.
  9. After about five minutes, it will thicken quite a bit, and you can switch from stirring with the whisk to a wooden spoon.
  10. Keep stirring another ten minutes until the mixture is very thick.
  11. Remove from the heat and add half the parmesan cheese.
  12. Whisk the eggs in a glass measuring cup or bowl.
  13. Don't add the eggs directly into the hot gnocchi mixture or you might wind up with scrambled eggs.
  14. Instead, add a small amount - maybe a few tablespoons - of the gnocchi mixture to the eggs, stirring quickly with a whisk to incorporate.
  15. Do this a few times until the mixture is thickened and homogenized.
  16. Add the egg mixture back to the gnocchi mixture and stir in the reserved squash.
  17. Wet a cookie sheet (one with raised edges) with a little water.
  18. Spread the gnocchi mixture on the cookie sheet, to an even thickness of about ¾ inch.
  19. Place the cookie sheet in the refrigerator and let it cool for at least four hours or overnight.
  20. Take a round cookie cutter, or biscuit cutter, or even the edge of a glass, and cut out circles, about two to three inches in diameter.
  21. Grease an oven proof casserole, and place the rounds inside, overlapping slightly.
  22. Make a second layer, but don't completely cover up the first layer around the edges, since you want them to get some browning too.
  23. Melt 4 tablespoons of butter and drizzle over the gnocchi, then sprinkle with the remaining ½ cup parmesan cheese.
  24. Bake uncovered, at 400 degrees, for about 30 minutes, or until golden brown.
 

Vegetable and Swiss Chard Stalk Soup and a Giveaway

Please don’t tell me you’re one of those people who buys Swiss chard and throws away the stalks. They’re equally as delicious as the leaves, but many people are in a quandry knowing what to do with them. They make great fritters, something my mom made when we were growing up, (recipe here), but another way to use them is in a vegetable soup — perfect for the fall weather that is descending on us here in the Northeastern U.S.

These are the stalks from some multi-colored Swiss chard my father grew in his garden. Just chop them up into small bits, along with the leaves and follow the recipe below.

After you’ve sautéed the onion and garlic, add all the rest of the ingredients to the pot and let it simmer for about a 1/2 hour to 45 minutes. I also added in some fresh corn, since it was summer when I took these photos and corn flavor was at its peak. Add more liquid (water or chicken stock) to the pot if necessary.

Grate some parmesan cheese over the top and serve with some hearty toasted bread that’s been drizzled with olive oil and salt. Enjoy a healthy and delicious bowl of soup.

And while we’re on the subject of healthy, I received this water pitcher from Shantiva and so can you. Aside from serving water in a beautiful, hand-hammered copper pitcher, drinking from a copper vessel has health advantages too, according to Shantiva’s webpage. Water from a copper pitcher can enhance digestion, decrease the risk of bacterial infection, improve cardiovascular and thyroid health and stimulate the brain, among other things. Who wouldn’t want that? Shantiva has graciously agreed to send one of my readers one of these lovely pitchers. All you need to do is leave a comment on this post (NOT in an email) and tell me what healthy food you like to consume after indulging in what you think is bad eating. And don’t forget to leave a way for me to contact you — whether through email or through a blog you may also write.

Click here to connect with me on Instagram and find out what Ciao Chow Linda is up to in the kitchen (and other places too.

Vegetable and Swiss Chard Stalk Soup and a Giveaway
 
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Ingredients
  • 1 large bunch of Swiss chard, stalks diced and leaves roughly chopped
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • 1 cup of fresh tomatoes, diced (or one small can diced tomatoes)
  • 1 small can cannellini beans
  • 1 cup of green beans, cut into small pieces
  • kernels from two ears of corn (optional)
  • 6 cups either water or chicken broth, or a combination of both
  • a parmesan cheese rind
  • a nice handful of parsley, minced
  • salt, pepper to taste
Instructions
  1. Pour the olive oil into a large pot and saute the onion and garlic until soft on low temperature. Do not let them brown. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the green beans and the parsley, and let everything cook together for about ½ hour. If you have fresh corn, add the kernels from that too. Add more water or chicken broth if the soup is too thick.
  2. Add the green beans and cook until they are tender, about ten minutes.
  3. Stir the parsley at the last minute before serving, to get a fresher taste.
  4. Remove the parmesan cheese rind, and serve with grated parmesan and Italian bread that's been toasted and smeared with olive oil and salt.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch and Lecture with Massimo Bottura

Please forgive me if I seem a little star struck, but it’s not often that I get to meet Massimo Bottura, who has been named number one chef in the world. You may have seen him in an episode of Netflix’s “Chef’s Table,” where he explains the evolution of some of his iconic dishes such as “Oops, I Dropped the Lemon Tart,” or “An Eel Swimming up the Po River.”  His three-star Michelin restaurant in Modena, Italy –  Osteria Francescana – has also taken top honors for best restaurant in the world, and is consistently on the top five list. I still haven’t been to his restaurant on any of my trips to Italy, since snagging a reservation is harder than getting a private audience with the pope. So when I read that he’d be in New York, I jumped at the chance to experience some of his food.

He was in town recently for several reasons — one of which was to lecture and host a lunch at Eataly’s birreria. It was a perfect fall day to sit outdoors on the rooftop terrace (with about 50 other lucky people) and enjoy a sampling of Massimo’s food, accompanied by perfect wine pairings.

Massimo’s passion for people and food were evident during the lecture, as he described the various dishes and reasons why he came up with some of his creations. He never stood still, pacing back and forth, gesticulating all the time he spoke, even imploring one of the day’s sponsors who was present, to shift away from its plastic bottles into more environmentally friendly packaging,

He brought many of his staff with him from Italy, and they were kept busy cooking, while Massimo regaled us with stories – some about his food, and some about his employees love life!

After some prosecco and foccaccia to whet our appetites, the first course arrived – a simple halved fig roasted in a wood oven, topped with some aged parmigiano cheese and a drizzle of cherry balsamic vinegar. Never have three simple ingredients tasted so perfect together.

Massimo is a lover of contemporary art, and his culinary philosophy toward cooking incorporates many ideas from artists who veer away from tradition while embracing its roots. “It’s looking at centuries of history, but filtered by contemporary minds,” he said, citing Ai Wei Wei, an iconoclastic Chinese artist who took ancient Han Dynasty earthenware vases and dipped them in industrial paint.

The first course was a perfect example of that philosophy, and an homage to the region of Emilia Romagna, where Massimo’s restaurant (and my mother’s home town) is located. The innovative chef gave a traditional dish his modern interpretation. The metamorphosis started with two classic Renaissance dishes – sbrisolona, (recipe here) a buttery, almond shortbread-like cake normally served as dessert, and cotechino, a large pork sausage typically eaten on New Year’s eve.  Massimo transformed the sbrisolona into a savory base for this first course, reducing the sugar and adding some salt. Above the sbrisolona was a disc of cotechino, not prepared in the typical way of boiling, but instead, first cooked sous vide (slowly under vacuum in a very low temperature water bath), then browned in a wood oven and finished in ashes. Enveloping it all was an eggy, foamy zabaglione sauce, drizzled with an aged balsamic vinegar, also a product of his home region. Massimo likes to call this a “breakfast dish” that evokes bacon and eggs, but I’d be glad to eat this any time of the day.

For the main course, Massimo broke with tradition again to conjure the ancestral flavors of a typical pollo alla cacciatore made by families throughout Italy. He combined it with trout in an unexpected, but delicious way. “The best part is the sauce, not the chicken,” he said, noting that the cacciatore is slowly cooked in a copper pot, and the flavors are extracted by steam, then dehydrated to make a powder. The trout is seasoned with the powder, and a pesto with those flavors is used to sandwich the two pieces of trout together. A light flavorful broth is poured all around it. “Cooking is like art,” he said, “You have to pay respect to the flavors from grandmother, but use it in ways to break borders, to evolve.”

Dessert was also a tour de force. A edible bright red wafer-like disc resembling a piece of origami was made using flavors extracted from the unusual combination of oak trees, strawberry grapes, roses and bay leaves.

The fragile disc broke away in shards to reveal a small portion of rosemary and olive oil flavored gelato. I could have easily quaffed three more of these.

Osteria Francescana may be the mothership, but he has since branched out to other locales, including a partnership with fashion house Gucci in Florence and a restaurant in Istanbul, Turkey. In the last year, he opened a high end guesthouse in Modena – Casa Maria Luigia – with its own dining venue.

While eating at his restaurant doesn’t come cheap, Massimo is not deaf to those less fortunate. After Milan’s world fair “Expo” in 2015, whose theme was “Feeding the Planet,” Massimo took that project to heart, starting a nonprofit with his American-born wife Lara Gilmore called “Food for Soul.” They opened what they call a “refettorio” (the Italian word for a dining space where monks eat) in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Milan and set out to provide nourishing meals for the underprivilged, using donated food that would otherwise have been thrown away. Since then, they have opened rifettorios around the world, in an effort to reduce food waste and provide multi-course meals to the needy. His visit to New York also included a talk to the United Nations on food and sustainability, and a collaboration with Sotheby’s auction house for its “Contemporary Curated” sale.

As if my afternoon with Massimo and his food weren’t enough, the cherry on the cake was meeting tv personality Phil Rosenthal and restauranteur Nancy Silverton, who are friends of Massimo’s and were in town coincidentally. Phil was a writer on TV’s “Everybody Loves Raymond” and is the host of the show “Somebody Feed Phil,” where he travels around the world exploring local cuisines, including an episode where he visits Massimo in Modena. If you haven’t yet caught this feel-good show, check it out on Netflix. Nancy founded Los Angeles’ La Brea bakery and Campanile restaurant in Los Angeles, and is co-owner of Pizzeria Mozza in two California locations, and has also been profiled on Netflix.

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Fig Tartlets in Kataifi Cups

Have you ever eaten kataifi? It’s a shredded phyllo dough that’s available frozen in Greek or specialty food stores. Admittedly, it’s not easy to find, so if you can’t locate it near you, use regular phyllo dough instead.

I’ve been wanting to cook with kataifi for a long time and I finally took the plunge when a friend let me pick figs from her tree. The tartlet is stuffed with an almond flavored pastry cream and I served these as dessert at a dinner we attended last night. You could also switch things up and make this a savory appetizer, using a whipped, herbed ricotta or goat cheese instead of the pastry cream.

Kataifi is really simple to use, but slightly messy. Don’t worry about trying to be neat, because they have a certain charm with their little tendrils sticking every which way. Push the dough down into the tartlet tin, then drizzle with melted butter and bake.

They come out a nice golden color and look like pale bird nests.

Before the tartlets went into the oven, I cut the figs in half, drizzled with a little honey and roasted them on parchment paper for about 15-20 minutes, letting the flavors intensify.

The dessert is a cinch to put together before serving. Just place a dollop of the cream into each tartlet and top with a roasted fig. Drizzle a little more honey over each tartlet. You can make everything ahead of time and assemble before serving.

They pop in the mouth like candy, and deliver a great combination of flavors and textures – crunchy and soft. You’ll want to make a big platter of these because they disappear in a flash, if last night’s dinner party was any indication. There were two lonely tartlets left on the platter that nobody had the courage to grab. But the hostess assured me she was going to enjoy them after we had all left.

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Fig Tartlets in Kataifi Cups
 
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Ingredients
  • 1 box kataifi shredded phyllo
  • melted butter (quantity depends on how much phyllo you use)
  • 3.4 oz. box vanilla instant pudding
  • 2 cups milk
  • 1 teaspoon almond extract
  • ½ cup whipping cream
  • fresh figs (quantity depends on how many tartlets you make)
  • honey to drizzle
Instructions
  1. Take kataifi from freezer and let thaw in refrigerator overnight.
  2. Bring to room temperature.
  3. Place the figs on a baking sheet lined with parchment, and drizzle with honey.
  4. Roast at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.
  5. Remove figs from oven, and lower temperature to 375 degrees.
  6. While figs are roasting, start making the kataifi cups.
  7. Working with a small amount at a time, take kataifi in your fingers and press and swirl to fit into small tartlet tins.
  8. When you're not working with it, keep the rest of the kataifi under a kitchen towel to keep it from drying out.
  9. Drizzle a little melted butter on each tartlet.
  10. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes, or until golden.
  11. Remove from oven and let rest on paper towels.
  12. Make the pudding according to package directions, but add 1 teaspoon of almond extract.
  13. Whip the heavy cream and fold into the pudding mixture.
  14. Place a dollop of the cream mixture and a roasted fig atop each tartlet.
  15. Drizzle with a little honey and decorate with a mint leaf, if desired.
 

 

Corn Risotto with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

 

Quick, before fresh corn is no longer available, you must try making this risotto with sweet corn and roasted cherry tomatoes. I know it sounds a little crazy to add carbs to carbs, but it really is a great combination of flavors and textures. The roasted cherry tomatoes on the side add another level of sweetness that you can’t stop eating. I debated whether to add the tomatoes directly into the risotto while cooking it, but decided I didn’t want a pink or red risotto. Besides, they look so pretty whole, clustered on the vine atop the dish.

I grilled the corn, not so much to cook it, but to get grill marks that look nice as garnish. It’s a step you can skip if you want, since the corn will be stripped off the cob and cooked with the rice. But if you’d like to dress up your finished dish, just smear the cob with a little butter and grill for a couple of minutes, on an outdoor grill, or a grill pan.

Strip the corn off the cob, setting aside some of the pieces that have the best grill marks on them. You’ll use them on the top of the finished dish.

Don’t throw out the cobs. Add them to the broth or cooking water. Even if it’s only for a few minutes, any little time simmering with the water helps to impart some flavor.

Meanwhile, drizzle the cherry tomatoes with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until the skins start to split open.

While the tomatoes are roasting, make the risotto. I’ve blogged about many different types of risottos before, so I won’t detail it here, except to say that you need the broth to be hot when adding it, ladleful by ladleful. Directions for this risotto are in the recipe below.

Serve with the roasted cherry tomatoes on top, and enjoy this taste of summer on a plate.

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Corn Risotto with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
 
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Ingredients
  • 1 cup arborio rice
  • about 4 cups liquid - chicken broth, vegetable broth or a combination.
  • I used two cups chicken broth and two cups of water into which I placed the corn cobs and let simmer for a short while.
  • ¼ cup minced onion
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • ¼ cup dry white wine
  • 2 ears of corn, smeared with a little butter
  • 1 small bunch of cherry tomatoes on the vine, drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper
  • ¼ cup parmesan cheese
  • fresh thyme and chives, minced
  • fresh black pepper
Instructions
  1. Smear the corn with the butter and place on a grill or a grill pan.
  2. Sear the corn a couple of minutes until you get some grill marks.
  3. You can skip this step since the corn will cook in the risotto, but I like the look of the grilled corn as a finishing touch.
  4. Scrape the corn kernels off the cob, saving some of the large pieces with grill marks to use on top.
  5. Set the corn kernels aside, but place the cobs in the pot with the broth or water.
  6. Place the cherry tomatoes on an ovenproof dish and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper.
  7. Roast at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until tomatoes start to split open.
  8. Remove tomatoes from oven and set aside.
  9. While the tomatoes are in the oven, make the risotto.
  10. Melt the butter in a skillet with the olive oil.
  11. Add the minced onion and saute until softened.
  12. Add the rice and stir for a couple of minutes.
  13. Add the wine and stir, then add the broth, a little at a time, stirring constantly.
  14. When the risotto is about five minutes from being finished, add the corn kernels, setting aside the larger "planks" that you will use to garnish.
  15. Finish cooking the risotto with the corn addition, adding more liquid if necessary.
  16. Finally, add the black pepper to taste, the herbs, another tablespoon of butter and the parmesan cheese.
  17. Serve with the roasted tomatoes on top.
 

Spinach linguine with clams, corn and pancetta

This dish has got to be my favorite thing that I made all summer. I know it’s a long blog post, and it involves making your own pasta, but the end result is worth it. If you want to eat something divine and be crowned with a halo from your family and friends, you have to make it. But — and this is a big but — only if you live in a place where corn and clams are in season right now. Don’t try this with canned corn or canned clams or I will get the “freshness police” after you. The pancetta is crucial too, but I know some of you may not have access to it. A decent substitute is slab bacon, but it will have a smoky taste, whereas pancetta does not. I’ll give you a pass and say you can use boxed pasta but ONLY if you don’t have a pasta machine. Otherwise, you must, must, must make your own pasta. I’ve made it different ways, from rolling it out by hand, to using the automated KitchenAid attachment, to using my nearly 50 years-old crank machine that you’ll see in the photos below. I’ve made plain pasta many times (tutorial here) and beet-flavored pasta too, but this was my first time making homemade spinach pasta and it was a game changer. What a toothy and delicious texture and flavor, not to mention the vibrant color. I made this dish earlier in the month with store bought pappardelle and everyone loved it, but that’s because they hadn’t yet eaten it with the homemade spinach pasta. Excuse me for tooting my own horn, but it’s no exaggeration to say the homemade pasta version was sublime, compared to just delicious with the store bought pasta. So I may be making spinach pasta on a regular basis. Or at least until my pants zipper gets harder to close. I know my husband won’t complain.

I used a 10-ounce box of frozen spinach. Don’t cook it. Just let it thaw on the counter, and squeeze the bejesus out of it. Using your hands, make sure you squeeze every bit of water from the spinach you can. Then press it between paper towels to get any other moisture out. Place the spinach in the food processor with the eggs and give it a whir. Look at that pretty green color.

Then add the flour and a pinch of salt until it forms a ball. (Your food processor is not going to be happy and will probably start “dancing” on the counter.) Stop it at this point and put it on the counter.

It will still be a bit sticky, so knead in more flour. Use 00 flour from Italy if you can find it (it’s easily available online.)

After a few minutes, it will develop a smoother texture. Cover it with a bowl, or in plastic wrap and let it sit for about a half hour, to let the glutens rest.

Then cut off a piece, squish it with the palm of your hands, flour both sides a little, and pass it through the pasta machine, starting with the largest opening and going down a few notches (but not to the thinnest. I stopped at two numbers before the last on the dial).

Then take the long piece of pasta, flour it a bit on both sides again, and pass it through the linguine cutter (or the smaller spaghetti size if you prefer.)

You could make “nests” with pasta and place them flat on linen or paper towels, or hang the pasta from clothes hangers, as my kitchen helper did for me. (Smile, you’re on Ciao Chow Linda!)

OK, now that the pasta making is out of the way, start on the sauce. Scrape the corn from the cobs, mince the garlic, pancetta and herbs and set aside while you prepare the clams. I used littleneck clams, the smallest available where I live. If this were Italy, I’d be using the even smaller vongole. If only!

After rinsing and scrubbing the clams, place them in a pan, turn the heat to high and cover.

If you don’t have a cover large enough, use another pan that’s the same size to cover the bottom pan.

Steam the clams in their own juices and remove immediately when they start to open. It will take only a minute or two once the pan is hot. The clams won’t be fully cooked and that’s fine. You’ll finish cooking them later. The reason to cook them partially is to open them up and pluck some of the clams out of the shell to mix with the pasta, and you also want to strain the liquid from the clams to use in the sauce. There was still a lot of sandy sediment, even after scrubbing the clams before cooking. Use a coffee filter, or a paper napkin on top of a sieve to strain out the sediment. I cooked the clams in two batches to give them enough room to open. Don’t worry that they’ll get cold. You’re going to heat them and cook them further with the pasta later.

After removing the clams, and straining the liquid, I used the same saucepan to cook the pancetta (you can see the splatter from the clams on the sides).

When the pancetta is nearly crispy, add the garlic and the clams (both the ones you plucked out of the shell and the ones in the shell.)  Cook for a minute or two to soften the garlic. Add the olive oil, the white wine, the reserved clam juice (it should be about 1/2 cup) and season with salt and pepper. I also added a tablespoon of butter (because butter always makes everything taste better.)

Meanwhile cook the pasta. If it’s freshly homemade, it won’t take longer than two or three minutes. Save about a cup of that pasta water before you drain the pasta.

After draining the pasta and getting rid of the water (except for that cup you saved), put the pasta back in the pot and dump all the clams, pancetta and raw corn into the pot. Mix everything really well, adding some of the pasta water, and a bit more olive oil to make sure you have a bit of  “sauce.”

It shouldn’t be drowning in the sauce, but just enough to moisten the pasta and keep it from sticking to itself. Add in the minced parsley and basil just before turning into a platter or bowl.

Serve immediately and receive your kudos. This recipe makes enough for four to six people, depending on appetites. My husband and I each had two servings, and the family of three living next door to us were happy to consume the rest.

Buon Appetito!

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Spinach linguine with clams, corn and pancetta
 
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Serves: 4-6 people
Ingredients
  • FOR THE PASTA:
  • 1 10-ounce box frozen spinach
  • 2 cups 00 flour
  • 2 eggs
  • pinch of salt
  • FOR THE SAUCE:
  • 3-4 dozen clams
  • ¼ pound pancetta, cut into small bits
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • ¼ cup white wine
  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • ½ cup reserved clam juice
  • 2 ears of fresh corn, stripped off the cob
  • pasta water
  • black pepper
  • a generous handful of minced parsley
  • a generous handful of minced basil
Instructions
  1. FOR THE PASTA:
  2. Drain the spinach thoroughly, squeezing out all the water you can with your hands.
  3. Then press it with paper towels to get out any remaining water.
  4. Place the spinach and the two eggs into the food processor to break down the spinach.
  5. Start adding the flour.
  6. You may need as little as a cup and a quarter of flour.
  7. It's easy to add more flour later, but much harder to work the dough if you place too much flour into the food processor.
  8. Add just enough flour and process until the dough comes together into a ball.
  9. It will be sticky.
  10. Place the dough onto a wooden work surface, add more flour until the stickiness disappears and the dough seems more "homogenized" and softer.
  11. Cover the dough with plastic wrap or a bowl and let it sit for at least ½ hour.
  12. FOR THE SAUCE:
  13. Place the clams in one layer a pan over high heat and cover.
  14. Cook for a couple of minutes or until the clams have opened.
  15. Once open, set aside on a plate and repeat with remaining clams, draining the liquid from the clams.
  16. Strain the liquid from the clams to remove any sediment.
  17. Remove half the clams from the shells but leave the rest in the shell.
  18. Set the clams aside and the liquid aside.
  19. In the same pan, saute the pancetta until nearly crisp.
  20. Add the garlic and cook until softened.
  21. Place the clams (the ones in the shell and the ones out of the shell) in the pan and add the white wine, butter, olive oil, clam juice and black pepper.
  22. Meanwhile, cook the pasta and drain, but reserve about a cup of the pasta water.
  23. Put the pasta back into the large pot and dump the clams and pancetta over the pasta, adding the raw corn as well.
  24. Add the parsley and basil and mix all together.
  25. If it seems too dry, add some of the pasta water and swirl around a bit more.
  26. If the liquid seems too thin, add a bit more butter or olive oil.
  27. Serve immediately,.