Wordless Wednesday: French Riviera

Wordless Wednesday: Ferragosto under the rain

Chicken cakes with spicy horseradish sauce

 

Remember the good ol' days when I lived in Florida and every other recipe I posted involved chicken? Well, those days are long gone. Not only because I haven't breathed Florida air since April 22nd, but most of all —and this is the tidbit of news that may shock some of you— I haven't eaten any chicken since that very same day.

Crazy, right?

Well, yes and no.

To most Americans, and to my pre-April 22nd self, it certainly sounds crazy.I mean, chicken is easy. Cheap. Even nutritious. In one word, it's a staple.

Well, not so much in Italy. Nobody eats chicken regularly here, other than the odd roasted chicken on Sundays. Other than that, Italians do not enjoy and do not serve chicken as often as Americans do. Mention a chicken dish to a random Italian guy, my dad for instance, and he'll scoff. The reasons are many, but most of them have something to do with the fact that chicken itself is not the most flavorful of meats and, to make it good, you have to season the shit out of it or marinate it or cover it in sauce. Which makes most Italians shrug and say: Why don;t you eat something that is good without all these things then? 

What can I say? Every population has its obsessions, most of which are food related, especially when it comes to Italians. But that explains why I never ate the stuff growing up and, I'm guessing, that's why ever since I moved back here I haven't eaten it anymore.

Except that, a few nights ago, I was going through the only cookbook I took with me from Florida —a four pounder, hard cover version of "The Essential Dinner Tonight" by Cooking Light that caused me a lot of backache while I was transporting it in my backpack across airports and oceans— and I started recognizing all these chicken recipes that Tommy and I have loved back when I lived in Florida. And I don't know if it's the sentimental factor playing a big part in this (it most certainly is, since I've been very sentimental lately), but I've found myself longing for chicken.

I know. If my dad and/or the Italian government read this, they will disown me and probably burn my passport. 

Still, I since I was longing for a piece of freaking chicken breast cooked any freaking way, I went to the local Swiss grocery store, called Coop. Yes, like a chicken coop. Only it actually means co-op. But I digress. I went into the Coop and looked for chicken breast, knowing that all of the sudden I could no longer live without a piece of pollo. Well, boys and girls, let me tell you one thing. The Swiss must be very proud of their chickens, because to buy a mere 9 ounces of chicken breast I had to shell out 9 Swiss francs, which is about $8.50. But I was on a mission, so I whipped out my (un)trusty AmEx and came home with my loot, which I turned into one of my all-time favorite recipes: chicken cakes with spicy horseradish sauce. 

And although I call it "all time", by now you all must know that this is not a recipe from my childhood, since —to this day— whenever I tell my parents I'm having chicken for dinner, they laugh and say "we're sorry".

Oh, well. To those of you who don't have a problem with chicken, I highly recommend this recipe: it's tasty and it's moist. And Dad, in case you're reading this, it makes the chicken so good you don't even know you are having chicken.

CHICKEN CAKES WITH SPICY HORSERADISH SAUCE

Adapted from Cooking Light

Serves 4

1 cup bread crumbs

1  pound  skinless, boneless chicken breast

1/4  cup  chopped fresh chives

3  tablespoons  low-fat plain yogurt

1  teaspoon  Cajun seasoning

1/4  teaspoon  salt

2  large egg whites

2  teaspoons oil 

For the sauce:

  

2  tablespoons  low-fat yogurt

2  teaspoons  prepared horseradish

1  teaspoon  minced garlic

1/8  teaspoon  salt 

To prepare cakes, place chicken in food processor and pulse until ground. Combine chicken, chives, 3 tablespoons yogurt and seasoning, 1/4 teaspoon salt, egg whites, and breadcrumbs in a medium bowl; mix well.

Divide mixture into 8 equal portions, shaping each into a 1/2-inch-thick patty.

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add patties; cook 7 minutes on each side or until done.

To prepare sauce, combine 2 tablespoons yogurt and remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Serve with cakes.

Cortado con hielo

Sundays don't really feel like Sundays in August. They are sort of a soft, wimpy version of a real Sunday —I mean, they are still fun and ok, but they don't really feel like a break from the rest of the week. At least not here, where everyone has gone on vacation and nobody will be back until around the 20th. That's Europe for you. When I was little, in the early 80s, if you were not going anywhere in between the 10th and the 20th of August you had to stock up. I'm not joking. Everything was closed, and when I say everything I mean it. Grocery stores were closed, for crying out loud.

Nowadays things have changed and some stores and restaurants are open even in mid August, but one thing hasn't changed: everyone is gone. Well, everyone except me. I'm here, sitting on the couch, watching the rain fall on this dreary Ferragosto (August 15th), feeling a little bored and a little blue. The forecast promises me better weather tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday and then, Thursday, I'm going on vacation so —really— I shouldn't feel too bored or too blue. I do have things to do, mind you, but they happen to be the kind of things I don't feel like doing at the moment, like laundry or packing for my trip.

What I need this morning is a pick-me-up and —although the weather surely doesn't make it feel like it's the middle of August— a nice, Spanish-style iced coffee is in order. Next week I'll be sipping many of these in Barcelona and that, I have to admit, immediately makes me feel less bored and blue.

CORTADO CON HIELO

One espresso
A splash of milk
One teaspoon of sugar
Ice cubes

Fill a tumbler with ice cubes.
Make a good, strong espresso, stir in sugar until it dissolves, stir in milk and pour over ice. Mix until cold and enjoy.

Pan seared tomino cheese with bacon and bay leaf

Sometimes I get so lazy, it's not even funny. Take any of the these days —long August days spent by the lake, just the cat and I, with plenty of time on my hands to do whatever needs to be done. Mounds of laundry before I leave for France and Spain next week. Finding a dry cleaner to take all my sweaters to be cleaned before the fall is here. Making complicated and phenomenal dishes, like, I don't know, aspic or something. If I liked aspic, which I don't.

My point is, I have all the time in the world these days —the house guests are gone, I still have a few days before leaving myself— and what am I doing? Squat. I sit around, musing about life, love and freedom, which are all very noble and interesting concepts but, do they get stains off my jeans or do they iron out creases on my t-shirts? Unfortunately not.

Even when it comes to food I am being lazy these days. And I'm not talking about making aspic —something I wouldn't think of doing even on my most productive day— I'm talking about the fact that lately I've found myself making recipes that literally take three ingredients and five minutes to be ready. And, trust me, when you are musing about free will, fate and world peace, they are a real godsend. Because, no matter how philosophical you are being, you still need food in your belly.

PAN SEARED TOMINO WITH BACON

Serves 2

2 tomini (a smaller, slightly firmer version of brie) 3 inches in diameter
6 slices thin cut bacon
2 bay leaves

Wrap each tomino with three slices of bacon. Place one bay leaf on each.
Heat a skillet over medium high heat, place bacon wrapped cheese in it (no butter or olive oil necessary) and cook three minutes on each side, until bacon looks cooked and cheese begins to ooze out. Serve immediately.   

Wordless Wednesday: The Navigli in Milano

Spaghetti with clams, cherry tomatoes and saffron

When I was almost two years old, my parents and I went on a summer vacation to Isola del Giglio, a small island off the coast of Tuscany, close to bigger, more famous Isola d'Elba. It was a quiet family vacation that involved lots of hanging out at the local beach and eating simple local dishes which were, as they are on most islands, mostly seafood based. My mom especially enjoyed spaghetti with clams —the garlic and white wine, no tomato version. The version any spaghetti with clams purist loves. And although I wasn't even two years old, I loved clams so much I snatched them from my mom's plate with my chubby little fingers, leaving her with a dish of spaghetti in olive oil and parsley.

To this day, spaghetti with clams is one of my favorite pasta dishes and I love both the white and the red versions —there's something about the briny saltiness of the clams that makes me want to eat more and more of it. So the other day, when I found both clams and cherry tomatoes on sale at the grocery store I couldn't resist and decided to whip up some spaghetti with clams. The addition of saffron is something I thought of at the last minute, an idea that hit me because I had once eaten a guazzetto of clams and mussels in a tomato saffron broth and thought it was amazing. I have to say that it added a certain something to my dish, even though I'm sure my spaghetti with clams purist mom wouldn't agree.
 
SPAGHETTI WITH CLAMS, CHERRY TOMATOES AND SAFFRON
Serves 4

3/4 pound spaghetti
2 cups cherry tomatoes, quartered
Extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
1 glass dry white wine
1 teaspoon saffron
2 pounds littleneck clams
Crushed red pepper

Heat up some olive oil in a large skillet. Add garlic and red hot pepper and make it fizzle, without burning it. Add well-washed clams, drizzle with a glass of white wine, cover and wait until they open. When they are opened, remove most clams from their shells, leaving only a few for decoration. Discard any clams that haven't opened. Return clams to pan, add cherry tomatoes and saffron and keep warm over low heat.

In the mean time, cook spaghetti, and drain them slightly undercooked. Add them to clams, sautè everything for a couple of minutes and serve.

Tortilla de patatas

As you might have noticed from my recent posts, I have gone to Madrid for a few days and fallen in love with Spain. Not only I enjoyed the trip, the people and the city itself, I also discovered many dishes I absolutely love and rediscovered others that I loved already but had forgotten about. One of them is tortilla de patatas, an amazingly simple yet satisfying and delicious dish my dad used to make for me when I was little. Just so we don't get all confused, the term "tortilla" is Spain refers to what Italians call frittata and Americans (and many others) call omelet, not to what you make tacos or burritos with. How the two terms ended up meaning two completely different things is lost on me, but if someone knows it, please do tell —I have been wondering about it for years.

I made the tortilla using a recipe I found in a book I bought at the Madrid airport, because god forbid that I go somewhere without buying a cookbook. What can I say? I'm obsessed. Plus, our flight back to Milano was delayed a couple of hours and I was bored. So there, I have a good excuse this time. Anyway, the tortilla turned out great and made happy a crowd that is very difficult to please. See, I have these girlfriends, most of whom I've known since the 6th grade, who are a walking and talking collection of allergies with a plethora of food related problems and ideas that make it pretty much impossible finding something that we all can eat. There's two vegetarians, there's a dairy intolerant, two who have to eat gluten free and then there's me —I'm only allergic to crab, which makes me by far the easiest to feed. But I had promised I'd cook them a meal, so I started going through cookbooks, blogs and magazines like crazy. And then it dawned on me. Tortilla de patatas was the perfect solution to our little situation. Everyone loved it (or so they said) and I even got to use my brand new book. Perfect, right?

TORTILLA DE PATATAS

3/4 cup olive oil
6 large potatoes, thinly sliced
Salt and pepper to taste
1large onion, thinly sliced
6 large eggs.


Heat the oil in a 9-inch skillet, add potato pieces, and onions and cook on medium heat for about 20 minutes, turning occasionally until potatoes are tender.

Beat eggs in a large bowl with a fork. Salt and pepper to taste.

Using a slotted spoon transfer the potatoes in the same bowl as the beaten eggs, pressing them so that eggs cover them completely. Let sit for 15 minutes.

Discard most of the oil from the pan, reserving 2 tbsps of it. Heat it back up, add potato-egg mixture, and cook on medium-high heat. When the potatoes start to brown, put a plate on top of the skillet and flip to cook the other side. Cut into wedges and enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday: Ischia

Padellata of shirmp and vegetables

You'll get a kick out of this. Or at least I'm getting a kick out of it, so I'm going to pass it on to you. I'm writing this post using a high speed connection on a high speed train traveling between Milano and Napoli. It covers 724 km. in 4:25 hours, including a 15 minute stop at the Rome train station. Is actually mind boggling to zip through the countryside at such high speeds, speeds that peak at 355 km/h in galleries. The train itself, of course, it's pretty damn sweet, with a nice restaurant and bar wagon and power outlets for each seat, even in second class where I'm sitting. Rumor has it that in first class, other than having even roomier and comfier seats, they serve you complimentary drinks, including mimosas —a tidbit of information that has made me long for first class like never before.

See, a mimosa would greatly help me right now as I'm sitting only a few feet away from the world's most annoying 9 year old boy. Seriously, he just cannot shut up and, get this, he not only talks non-stop, he whines non-stop. Which is a lot worse, if you ask me. Good thing that in 40 minutes we'll be in Napoli, and then off to the ferry that will take my best friend and I to Ischia, a gorgeous island in the Med where her family has a vacation home. I'm really looking forward to a few days of sun, relax and, of course, her grandma's cooking.

Last night, before leaving for my minivacation, I had the usual problem of getting rid of all the contents of my fridge, so I thought I'd make a nice healthy meal to prepare myself for the journey and, most of all, to my alarm going off at 5 a.m. to catch the 7 a.m. train to Napoli.

PADELLATA OF SHRIMP AND VEGETABLES

(Serves 2)

1 zucchini
1 red bell pepper
1/2 red onion
1/2 egg plant
2 cups shrimp, peeled and deveined
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Crushed red pepper
1 clove of garlic

Heat olive oil in a pan, mince garlic and saute it in the oil until fragrant but not burnt. Add vegetables, season with salt and saute until crisp tender. Season with crushed red pepper.

Add shrimp to pan, saute for a few minutes, about 5, making sure not to overcook the shrimp.

Top with torn basil if you like, and serve immediately.