Tortellini Time

Since I brought back some fresh tortellini from Bologna, I decided to make them as soon as possible (I froze the tortelloni). I also brought back some porcini mushroom and wanted to combine both. I have been craving veggies, let's face it, you don't eat that many on vacation, and had an eggplant in the fridge :) Since David doesn't really like it, I chose to prepare it on the side and add it only to my dish.

Tortellini con Funghi Porcini

 Ingredients:

250grs of tortellini
50grs of dried porcini mushrooms
50grs of leek or green onions
1/2 cup of white wine
1/2 cup of water
oil
salt and pepper
oregano
1/4 cup of parmesan cheese
50grs panceta (for my garnish)
1/2 eggplant (for my garnish)

Slice the leek. Place the porcini mushrooms with the water into a bowl in order for them to rehydrate. It should take about 20 minutes. Keep the water.

In a large pot, heat the water with salt to cook the pasta.

In the meantime, I prepared my garnish. I diced the panceta and eggplant.

In a large skillet, add some oil. When ready, cook the panceta. After a few minutes, add the eggplant.

Add half of the white wine (can you tell I love wine in my cooking ;) ).

Reduce. Add salt and pepper. Remove from pan leaving the remaining liquid.

In the same skillet, add the green onions or leek and porcini mushrooms. Add the water from the mushrooms as it holds lots of flavors.

At the same time, drop the tortellini in the boiling hot water. Cook for a few minutes. Fresh pasta should be done in 2 minutes. Remove from water.

Add the remaining wine, oregano, parmesan, salt and pepper to the sauce.

Add the tortellini to the skillet.

Mix well.

And my plate with the garnish.

David did end up stealing some of the panceta off of my plate. Men and meat... :)

Amazing supper. It felt pretty awesome to create a typical Bologna dish made from the original products straight out of my kitchen :)

Bologna: a little glimpse into Medieval time

Ciao tutti. Sono ritornata da Bologna e mi e piaciuto moltisimo il viaggio :) E una citta molta bella :) Seriously worth the visit. It is a beautiful city filled with "porticos" (shaded sidewalks), churches, towers, plazas and canals. Oh, and let's not forget the food! I was in heaven! Bologna is the birth city of Bolognese sauce and bolognese lasagna and, as I quickly discovered, Tortellini and Tortelloni. AMAZING! Tortelloni are the big ones and tortellini the tiny ones. They are quite expensive as well; no wonder, they are hand made!

Here is a glimpse of the city:

Porticos

a gorgeous piazza facing a church

View while sitting on our hotel terrace

Typical street

Back of the Cathedral San Petronio

One of the canals

And now, the best part, some food:



Linguine con zucchini e frutti di mare

 

Tortellini alla bolognese

Melanzane alla parmigiana e polenta frita

Pizza di verdure e patate

and even better. Pure heaven:

Tortellini, tortelloni di zucca, di ricotta e spinaci, di speck...

I brought back some pancetta (it's like the one we have in Canada!!!!!!), coppa, tortelloni di spinaci e ricotta, tortellini bolognese, pecorino romano, provolone... my suitcase was going to bust! David was laughing so hard at me when he actually picked it up lol. I love the no duty european travel :) You can bring back meat and cheeses :) Since Montreal is filled with Italian products and Spain is not, I was in heaven and stocked up on the stuff I can never bring back to Madrid. I really have to plan at least an Italian trip each year minimum.

Now, I seriously need to get those extra pounds off from all that wonderful food I had :)

Mexican Beef Rice Twist

My mom and sister used to cook pretty often what was called: Riz à l'espagnol (Spanish Rice). After living here for a few years and with over 6 years of Spanish cooking knownledge, I can honestly say that when they said Spanish, they really meant Mexican. In America, when you tell someone that you are Spanish, they always ask you from where. Hum... Spanish people are from Spain??!! People really confuse the language with the nationality. Anyways, back to the recipe. My mom always used peppers and ground beef in hers and it was always gone before you knew it!

I actually didn't start doing this recipe with the intention of making a twist on this dish. I wanted to use my beef cubes and some green beans I had. So I decided to make a beef and green rice and realized that I still had some tomato sauce in the fridge that wouldn't be good to use when I come back from Italy on Monday. Why not just throw it in? That's what I did! :) Ended up with my Mom's Spanish/Mexican Rice Twist!

Mexican Beef Rice Twist

Ingredients

500grs beef cubes
200gr of green beans (or peppers or any other veggies)
1 small onion
1 garlic clove
1 tbsp Montreal Steak Spices (or chili powder for a real Mexican twist)
1 tbsp of rice seasoning
1 tsp of Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 cup of white wine
3 cups of beef broth
1 & 1/2 cup of rice
Salt and pepper
oil

In a skillet, heat oil. In the meantime, roughly cut the onion, green beans and garlic. When the oil is ready, add the onion and garlic. Cook for a few minutes. Add the meat, steak spices and rice seasoning. Cook for about 5 minutes. Add the white wine (red wine can work as well).

Reduce wine and add the tomato sauce and worcestershire sauce. After a few minutes, add the beef broth. Let simmer.

When the broth turns slightly brown, add the green beans and rice.

Cover and let the rice cook through. You might need to add a bit of water depending on the rice you are using. When ready, add the salt and pepper. I always add it at the end because the salt removes the moisture from the meat.

You can really use whatever you want with this rice: chicken, pork, beef, seafood and any kind of veggies. Be creative :) You'll be surprise by what you can come up with.

I'm off to preparing my suitcase. Parto per l'Italia domani per la mattina :) Buon fine de settimana a tutti!

Beer Chicken Stew

I had some chopped chicken legs that I had thawed and was still trying to figure out the best way to cook them. I started off wanting to do Pollo alla cacciatore but I didn't have any capers or olives... then I saw the beer we still had in the fridge from Sunday and decided on Beer Stew :)

I love my stew with some good potatoes and figured I should add some carrots for veggies and color. So, I stopped by the fruteria on my way home and as I was picking the carrots, I saw some sweet potatoes. I have actually never cooked with sweet potatoes in Spain but I had been looking forward to it. Also, it would work great with the colors from the stew. Funny fact, in Spanish sweet potato is called Batata. I find that name pretty wicked. Potato is patata and sweet potato is batata. :)

Beer Chicken Stew

Ingredients

1 kg of chicken legs (chopped or whole)
1 onion
2 potatoes
2 sweet potatoes
2 carrots
4 cloves
2 garlic cloves
1 bay leaf
2 cans of beer
2 cups of chicken broth
salt and pepper
oil

In a large pot, heat oil. In the meantime, remove the skin from the chicken pieces. I like to remove it because it tends to splash a lot if you keep it. When the oil is hot, add the chicken pieces. Brown on each side for about 10 minutes total. I worked with 2 pots as mine is kind of small...

While the chicken is cooking, chop the potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots and onion.

Remove the chicken from the pot.

With the oil and broth from the chicken, sweat the onion and garlic for a minute. Add the potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, salt and pepper.

Add the beer, bay leaf, cloves and chicken. Cover the stew with the chicken broth.

Cook for 30 minutes.

I left it longer, for about 1 hour as I was waiting for David to get home. The stew was great but the sweet potato was a bit too soft and would undo super easily. So, if you are using sweet potatoes, do not overcook them :)

Late Night Chips and Dip

So this is what happens when you don't know what to cook for supper! Seriously, I had nooooo inspiration. I had half an eggplant that I wanted to use but didn't know with what. I didn't want to eat the leftovers we have as I am going to Bologna on friday; I don't want to leave poor David without food ;)

I also had a craving for tuna and mayo. But I didn't have any nachos or crackers. So I thought: Use the eggplant as the cracker! So here goes my little tuesday night chips and dip supper:

Tuna & Ali oli Dip served with Potato and Eggplant Chips

Ingredients:

4 small cans of tuna
1 egg
1/2 cup of oil
1 garlic clove
1/4 onion finely chopped
1 tsp of white vinegar
salt
parsley
1/2 eggplant
2 potatoes
oil

So first off, the mayo for the tuna dip. I use a hand blender to make it, so I just drop the egg, garlic clove, salt, vinegar and oil into the recipient.

Using the blender on turbo, mix everything until the mayo forms. If it is too liquid, add oil slowly until the desired texture is reached.

In a bowl, mix the tuna, onion, parsley and mayo (I used half of the mayo).

Now on to the chips.

Finely paper slice the peeled potatoes and eggplant.

In a large pan, add lots of oil to fry. If you have a deep fryer, even better!

When oil is ready to fry, add the eggplant making sure to not overcrowd the oil.

When a deep golden color is reached, remove from oil. Add a bit of salt.

Potato frying time! You need to fry them longer than regular fries to have that crunchier texture.

All fried and salted.

Perfect for a nice hockey or football game :)

It is also a nice way to get the veggie hatter to actually eat them :)

It's all about the Fish and Seafood! Part 2

Ok, since my other post was really long, I decided to separate this recipe. Merluza, Hake in English, is a fish that is very often used in Spanish cooking. Its nice, flaky and soft texture makes it very versatile and there are so many ways of cooking it. One of the traditional ways is with garlic and parsley. Simple and makes the Merluza flavor stand out.

Merluza en Salsa Verde con Almejas

Ingredients:

2 kgs merluza (includes the bone, that was used for the Fideua broth)
250gr almejas (clams)
3 garlic cloves
2 tbsps of fresh parsley
1/2 cup of fish broth
salt and pepper
oil


I served this dish with grilled asparagus. Place the asparagus on a oven dish, drizzle some oil and salt on them, broil at high until grilled. Done.

Ok, on to the Merluza now. Ask the pescadero to prepare filets in pieces; 2kgs should give you about 8 pieces.

Mince the garlic and parsley. Heat a large pan and add oil. Add the garlic and half of the parsley. Cook for a few minutes.

Salt and pepper the merluza and add the pieces to the pan skin side up. When the juice from the fish starts coming out. Add the almejas and remaining parsley.

When the fish starts getting flaky, flip the pieces around.

Once all of the almejas are open, dish is done. Super fast, I actually had time to cook it between both dishes.

Healthy and easy :)

So our lunch was awesome. Great company, great food and some good wine :) We had a greens, dried tomato and parmesan salad and, for dessert, some nice strawberries with whipped cream drizzled with some maple sugar. Heaven!

It's all about the Fish and Seafood! Part 1

So on Sunday we had our Canadian friends over and since Gen is a veggie, I decided to do an all seafood meal. In Spain, lunchtime is the big meal of the day and when you go to restaurants or anywhere, they usually have a Menu del dia. The Menu del dia always included a first and second dish.

For the first dish, I decided to go with a twist on the Paella: Fideua. Fideua is a small macaroni but with a smaller whole allowing it to absorb a lot of the flavors from the dish. Paella and Fideua both originated from the Valencia province and have many different varieties now. Here is the seafood one.

Fideua de Marisco

Ingredients:

500gr shrimps
1 kg mussels
500gr berberechos (shellfish similar to clam. Mario Batali calls it the mix between scallop and clam)
2 squids
1 small onion
2 garlic cloves
2 tbsps of grounded tomato
100gr of frozen spinach or peas
2 cups of fideua pasta
1/2 cup of white wine
5 cups of fish broth (made from fish bones and shrimp skins)
salt
saffron
parsley
oil

Soak the berberechos in a large bowl of water in order to remove the extra sand. Leave them in there for about 1 hour, changing the water and moving the shells around.

I always make the broth homemade. It is really easy to make and the taste is all worth it.

Peel the shrimps and keep the skins and heads aside (I like to keep 5 or 6 complete for presentation). Place 6 cups of water in a large pot. Add the fish bones and shrimp skins and heads. Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 20 mins.

Some people make the paella or fideua adding all the shellfish and shrimps directly to the paellera (large pan used to make the paella) without cooking some of them first. Since I actually prefer to not have to peel the shrimps full of rice and broth and just eating them directly, I prepare the seafood before hand but always keep some apart to add to the dish. Makes a great presentation, but doesn't overcrowd the paellera. To each their own method :)

Clean the squid and cut it into rings.

Clean the mussels and remove the beards (pull them out of the shells). Take about half of the mussels (I like to take the big ones in order to keep the smaller ones to put directly into the dish) and half the berberechos, and vapor cook them in a large pot with a bit of water. Once they open, they are ready and remove from heat. Do not overcook them as they will continue cooking in the paellera. Once they cooled down, remove from the shells and keep the meat aside.

All seafood ready (actually got some clams in this picture but they were for the second dish ;) ):

So, the long part is done. Prepping the seafood is the long part. The rest goes by like a breeze :)

Heat oil in the paellera. Dice the onion and sweat for a few minutes. Add the tomato sauce.

Once the tomato has cooked for a few minutes and reduced, add the squid.

Add the wine and let reduce a few minutes. I just like adding wine as it gives it a nice fruity tangy taste but most people make this dish without it.

Add the fideua mixing well to cover it with the sauce. Add the shellfish.

Add the broth, shrimps, saffron, minced garlic and parsley.

Add the spinach (I decided to add spinach but usually people use peas). Mix well. If your stovetop is large enough for the paellera for the heat to cover completely the bottom, keep it cooking on the stovetop. If you paellera is too big, cook it in the oven at 180C degrees in order for it to cook evenly. Works great. So I added the whole shrimps, popped it in the oven, after about 20 mins and the broth was basically all consumed, remove from oven. Fideua is done.

Serve and enjoy this delicious meal!