Making Kalathaki

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Amanda

 

Suitcases down and settled in, I walk the 10 paces across the street to the grocery store, to grab a few things for the house. My eyes light up, as I see home grown tomatoes, all different shapes and sizes, crimson red and a little mottled at the tip… a far cry from the uniform, blemish free specimens in the supermarkets back home.


My eyes dart over to the green beans. As thin, crisp and tender as French fries – I can’t help but pick up a handful. Apart from some zucchini, cucumber and a shop floor full of watermelons, there’s not a lot more today. That’s the way it is here. The shelves are sparse, but it’s enough. The food that they sell is grown on the family’s farm or made themselves, so what they have is what they have. That’s it.


Chris asks for a wheel of his favourite cheese handmade by Aspasia, the yiayia of the shop. It’s called Kalathaki a local specialty of Limnos. This rindless, semi-hard sheep’s milk cheese is Chris’s go to snack, paired with watermelon, so we scoop one of those up and haul it home.


What is it that makes this such a good match? The floral slightly fruity notes in the sheep’s milk seem to just sing with the watermelon. But aside from all that, the watermelon is a refreshingly good alternative to bread in this heat. As we sit and eat, I can see freshly made cheese hanging from the balcony across the road, drying in the sun, right next to half a dozen bunches of wild oregano from the mountains. I wander across the road I ask Aspasia if I can watch her make cheese in the morning..


Overslept as usual, I bound across the road and arrive just in time to see the curd being scooped. It’s a pretty simple operation. She has a blue bucket full of curd that has been cut into cubes and looks a bit like tofu right now.

  
She starts scooping the curd into three tall white baskets, filling them right to the top– she pushes down on the curds with the back of her hand, expelling the whey.


After a few minutes she slops them all back into the blue tub and repeats the process. By then end of the day, these will have reduced in size by half, then it will be time to salt them.
It’s a different process than I’m used to, when I’ve been taught to make cheese before it has been a rather technical process… measuring of pH, starter cultures and the rest of it.

But Aspasia doesn’t follow all that…instead it seems she follows her instinct that way she’s been doing it forever and a day. She’s just making three cheeses today. I ask her why? She explains that last month she was making six, but the milk from her sheep has almost finished up, so just a few now.  Right… seasonal variation.. I’d almost forgotten all about that. This really is paddock to plate.


Next to the tub of curd are a bunch of little wicker baskets which hold cheese from the last couple of days. As she turns them out, you can see the imprint of the wicker in the surface of the cheese. These marks are distinctive of Kalathaki you see all over Limnos. She calls over her husband who hangs them out to dry next to the rest of the bounty. Aparently some people wash them in the sea, to salt them as part of the ripening process. So very organic!

Before saying goodbye, I take the opportunity to ask her about another contraption I see on her table, it looks like a long paddle with a plastic grid at the end.. some sort of milk stirrer perhaps? She squeals with laughter, picks it up and swats down a fly on the nearby chair. Ah… that’s what it’s for. I still think it would make a good stirrer.

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Mornings in Limnos

Posted on July 24, 2015 by Amanda

Day breaks and the village is still. We slip on a pair of walking shoes and step out for a morning hike while the breeze is still cool and the sun not yet fierce. As we stroll through the village, we pass a local grocery store, Chris tells me we’re not allowed to buy anything… it’s not OUR shop and if we’re caught by the people from OUR shop, it will look bad. The village rules are becoming clear. We pass the new bougatsa shop on the way up the hill and Chris makes a promise that we will visit tomorrow – which he later fulfilled..

  
We’re on our way to a church on top of the mountain. One of many on the island. All over Limnos you’ll see towering, baron mountains, with ancient stone fences cascading down them like ribbons, sheep or goat grazing on the dry pastures and often, perched right at the very peak a little tiny church, watching over and protecting the village. 

    
After quite a climb, we let ourselves inside, light a few candles and just enjoy the church and the uninterrupted views. From here I can see the beautiful crystal blue water at the beach, the restored windmills and terracotta tiled roofs of the village. 

     
   
   
   
It’s magical, but the sun is heating up and we’re both getting hungry. It’s time for breakfast. We head back down through the village and stop off at the fourno – the bakery. I peer into the kitchen and see hot bread being scooped out of the oven and swung

 into baskets, an array of flaky pita being spiralled into snail like bundles and the smiling face of the baker. 

  They’ve been at it since 4am this morning, but the bakery shuts in the afternoon and they’ll all be at the beach later, like us. We buy a warm loaf of wholemeal bread, a spanakopita and head home to make breakfast. Today we pull out the ripest juiciest crimson tomatoes, grown by the lady across the road, a homegrown crispy cucumber we were gifted from Chris’s aunty.  On our first day here, Aspasia from across the road welcomed us with half a dozen of her wonderful eggs, so we fry them up in a little olive oil and enjoy them on the front porch. 

  
 To finish, we demolish half a wheel of semi-hard sheep’s cheese, made daily by Aspasia and some fresh watermelon – it’s salty, sweet, floral and refreshing, the perfect match and I’m close to heaven. As we eat, we can see yesterday’s cheese from our front porch, hanging in little mesh sacks from Aspasia’s washing line, drying out in the sun.

  
    
It just doesn’t get better than this.

But it does…because now that breakfast is over, it’s time for the beach! And that folks, is a story for another day.

Here’s a little more of a taste of our mornings in Limnos..

   
Yoghurt with glacé quince ‘glyko’

  Cappuccino Freddo

  
   

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Salami – Preserving the tradition

Posted on July 31, 2014 by Amanda
Sausages, salami, capocollo and pancetta hanging out 2014

Sausages, salami, capocollo and pancetta hanging out 2014

I don’t know if anyone can really know for sure what their earliest childhood memory is, but if I had to say, I think one of mine would probably be making salami and sausages at my Zia’s house. More than the salami itself, I remember the pig out the back on the farm. My cousins would take me down to see the big fat smelly thing, always joking that it would soon be salami.  My dad recalls the array of Veneto-style smallgoods they produced each winter, such as pansetta (pancetta), salami, capocollo, coessin (cottechino sausage) and offal-laced delicacies. Sadly, when my Zio passed away many years ago, no one was game to take on the role of rearing the pig and ahh… shall we say, turning it into salami.

I’d like to be entirely ‘nose to tail’ in my approach to meat like they were back then, but if I’m honest,  giant offal sausage is a concept  I’m yet to grasp and the smell of cottechino boiling on the stove makes me gag everytime I walk into the house. Still, it makes me sad that the tradition of living truly ‘nose to tail’ has been largely lost in our family for over 25 years.

Good news is, with a little more time on their hands now, my Dad and two Aunties have started to experiment with making sausages and salami again, (but now they buy the meat). Their knowledge is understandably a bit rusty, but each year we try something new, hone the recipe and the array of smallgoods grows…as does the selection of equipment dad engineers to make the job easier! – He really is a creative genius.

One thing you have to understand about my dad though, is that he is rather particular about the way things must be done… to put it lightly. So to even be allowed to touch the salami while they’re making it, is a privilege. Dad is in charge, while my two aunties act somewhat like consultants, advising on technique and attending to the needs of the salami. Everyone else is delegated a single job. For me, that was (precisely) measuring ingredients, for my cousin it’s winding the meat mincer. Pretty exciting stuff, but hey, you’ve got to earn your stripes in this family.

Last year, I was ever so grateful that they let me into the salami sanctum with a camera so I could capture the process and all of its quirks. You might think that once you’ve seen someone make salami, it’s all the same, but every region and each family does things a little differently and it’s all those  things I tried to capture in this incredibly dorky video, complete with an old school Veneto folk song as the backing track.  Now it’s forever floating around in the expanse of You Tube, so one thing is for sure, this family tradition will never be lost again.

 

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Catch this for Carbonara

Posted on June 20, 2013 by Amanda

IMG_2493

I feel a bit naughty writing this post, as if some Italian pasta purist will come after me for Carbonara blasphemy.

The confession is this: I sometimes put vegetables in my Pasta alla Carbonara. Tsk, tsk!

Most Italians would scrunch up their noses in disgust at that statement.  Funny thing is, I have always fancied myself to be one of those pasta purists too. I follow many of the cardinal rules of pasta, I never marry seafood pasta with cheese (my mother would strongly disapprove) and ‘If it’s not al dente, it’s in the bin’. But like most people, I do commit the occasional pasta sin.

So shoot me.

Truth is, I’m like any figure-conscious-twenty-something-female, I feel a little bit guilty about my dinner containing next to zero vegetables. Trouble is I have an inherent weakness for Pasta alla Carbonara. There’s just something about arriving home hungry from work on a cold, dark night, that drives me straight to carbs and cheese….and my beloved deli meats.  I (often) find myself in this vegetable predicament and so that’s how I got to putting vegetables in my Carbonara.

Now, before you all start have visions of me emptying the remnants of a frozen bag of peas, corn and carrot into a slurry of egg, please give me some credit. There is NO throwing the leftovers from the fridge into any old spaghetti sauce in my house. This ‘Cauliflower Carbonara’ of mine has been carefully thought out and has turned into one of my favourite weeknight meals at the moment. Tasty, quick, cheap and contains at least some element of all the food groups.  It would probably also make most Italians cringe, but since I’m Australian-Italian, my Carbonara is allowed to be too.

So since this is my dish, these are my rules:

  1. Use spaghetti. No other pasta shapes allowed for this one.
  2. Use the best eggs you can find, luckily I have backyard connections which makes for Carbonara the colour of sunshine! But don’t stress if you can’t find a chicken to chase, good free range will do.
  3. Don’t skimp on the cheese. Use a cheese with robust flavour like a good parmesan, pecorino or even pecorino pepato, this will contribute a lot of flavour and creaminess to the dish and help you to get a silky sauce without cream. – That’s right, real Carbonara doesn’t contain cream, (but it tastes really good when you sneak some in!)Cauliflower Carbonara 2

Cauliflower Carbonara

Serves 2

2 tablespoons olive oil
½ small red onion, finely diced
50g pancetta, roughly diced (or use prosciutto or bacon)
200g spaghetti
300g (about ½ small head) cauliflower
3 eggs
1/2 cup finely grated parmesan or pecorino*
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

  1. Heat the olive oil in a large frypan and add onion and pancetta, gently sauté for 2-3 minutes until onion is softened.
  2. Cook spaghetti in a large saucepan of boiling salted water, until just al dente.
  3. In the meantime, chop the cauliflower very finely, add to the pancetta mixture and sauté for 2-3 minutes. Spoon in two tablespoons of pasta water, cover and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally until the cauliflower is tender and a little bit caramelised.
  4. Whisk the eggs and parmesan in a bowl with a generous grinding of pepper. Drain the pasta, reserving about ½ cup of the cooking water. Add the pasta to the frypan and turn off the heat.
  5. Beat 1/4 cup of the water into the egg mixture and then pour into the frypan, quickly tossing for 1-2 minutes until the pasta is well coated and silky, if it’s a little thick, you can add more of the pasta water. Serve immediately sprinkled liberally with pepper and extra parmesan.

Tip: For something a little richer, add a slurp of cream or sour cream to the egg mixture and cut down on the additional cooking water – truly heaven.
*I use a microplane to grate my parmesan, then pack it into the cup measure firmly.

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Bringing back retro – The Avocado Dip

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Amanda

So, I have found some new inspiration for my long neglected blog.

hooray

It started when someone turned around at work last week and asked me if making a layered Avocado Dip for her dinner guests would be a bit.. “daggy”.

You know the dip? I mean that one ya mum used to make in the 80’s (when people still made dips). There’s many a version, but most generally comprised of a layer of mashed avocado, then sour cream mixed with taco seasoning, then grated cheese, tomato and spring onion. Some variations even swanked it up with refried beans on the bottom. You with me now? Yeah you know it.

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Labelling that beloved Avocado Dip as “daggy” though, sent me off on my latest rant. I feel that in a world where quinoa is the new rice salad, where the humble potato chip has given way to the kale chip and cupcakes are sooooo 2009, people seem to have turned their nose up at food that tastes good. Because it’s not in fashion anymore.

So, I’m on a mission to resurrect a bit of retro food and I’m starting with that Avocado Dip. Don’t even try to deny it, the Avocado Dip I’m talking about, is bloody delicious. Especially with Savoy bickies.

All this started me reminiscing about the legend of the Avocado dip in our family.  Apparently it was originally Aunty Connie’s dip, after all, she was the ‘early adopter’ of the bunch, always the one to introduce us to the flavour of the month. I’ll never forget when she first bought sushi to a family event. Oooo Ahhh!

Anyway, Aunty Connie made the original dip, she bought it to every birthday, christening and communion. Until one day, mum (aka Aunty Rose) decided to make it instead. I can’t remember why she made it that once, but who cares, point is, everyone liked hers better. Mum says it’s because she put less taco seasoning in, so it didn’t taste so much like “dirty feet”. It took the Italians a while to appreciate the flavour of cumin.

So Aunty Rose became champion of the Avocado Dip, she was responsible for bringing it to every family function. She introduced it to other friends and family, loved by all, was Aunty Rose’s Avocado Dip.

Alas, Aunty Rose’s reign at the top was not to last forever. One day Cathy, my cousin’s wife, who was fairly new on the scene at the time made the dip instead. A fairly bold move if you ask me, making an Italian matriarch’s signature and serving it up to her. But we are not the mafia, so she survived another day and in fact, everyone liked Cathy’s dip better.  So it was time for Aunty Rose to hand the baton to Cathy. To this day, Cathy is the Queen of the dip, she grates the cheese and cuts the spring onion thicker. My allegiances stay with my mum I always preferred her thinly sliced spring onion.

I bring you Aunty Rose’s Avocado Dip, not quite the original, but the best.

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Aunty Rose’s Avocado Dip (with a few of Amanda’s edits)

2 ripe avocadoes
squeeze lemon juice
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 x 200g tub sour cream (use full fat or light depending which day it is)
1/4 to 1/3 packet taco seasoning
1 cup finely grated cheddar cheese
2 tomatoes, de-seeded and finely chopped
1 spring onion, finely sliced

  1. Mash avocado, with a squeeze of lemon juice and pepper to taste (the taco seasoning is full of salt so you don’t need to add any to the avo). Spread into the base of a shallow serving bowl or deep plate.
  2. Mix sour cream and taco seasoning, adjusting the quantity to taste (depending how much you like the taste of dirty feet) and spread evenly over the avocado.
  3. Top with cheese, then tomato and spring onion and you’re ready to go!

Advice:
I like serving this dip with a pate knife or teaspoon to scoop the dip, because dipping with biscuits can get a bit messy!
I think it tastes great in its simplicity, but if you want to funk this thang up a bit, try adding some chopped coriander, lime juice and grating of lime rind to the avocado. Yummo!
The dip can be refrigerated for a few hours, but is best served on the day you make it.

Images:

Avocado Dip: ediblepress

Hooray!:  http://dambreaker.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/1000-views-yay/

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Sharing the Love – ‘Pasta lust’ moments of 2011

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Amanda

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we all shared some love around… or some pasta?

Lady and the Tramp

Lady and the Tramp

 Italians are renowned for being some of the world’s best lovers and if there are two things Italians are obsessed with it’s lurrrrrve (yeah, you know what I mean) and pasta. I think Annie Leibovitz captured it perfectly.

Wow!

So if you haven’t already picked up what I’m putting down here, perhaps in order to share a bit more love in our lives, we should share a bit more pasta? After all, for Italians, food IS love.

So with that spirit, I want to share some love. I don’t want to put you off your food, so I will refrain from getting intimate with my pasta here, but while I bubble some orecchiette away on the stove, I’d love to share some of my “pasta lust” moments of 2011.

 

1. Paccheri con Fiori di Zucca e Zafferano

Osteria behind the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence,  June 2011

I enjoyed this memorable dish in a tiny Osteria with no name in Florence. I must have waited an hour to get into this tiny hole in the wall, but it had a hand written menu with no English on it, so I knew it would be good. I shared a table with the lovely Brett from California, who was extremely well versed in Italian and a very helpful trip advisor. As soon as the plate hit the table the fragrance of saffron was intoxicating. The pumpkin flowers enhanced the saffron or the saffron enhanced the flowers, either way it was like a damn symphony!!  Paccheri are like giant maccheroni, which seemed to match perfectly with the rich creamy sauce.  My travel notes say “OMG, best thing I’ve ever eaten” and to be honest, it just about was.  

2. Testaroli al Pesto

Another Osteria, Santa Margherita, June 2011

 If you go to the Genoa region and don’t try the pesto Genovese, you’d be an idiot, it’s absolutely delicious.

This light lunch was delightful, I sat down with a book, a glass of vino and a cute waiter who brought me everything I desired. Testaroli is a local Liguarian specialty, it’s more of less like a thick crepe (not really pasta) cut into little squares,  made of “Farina, aqua e sale” I’m told by the cute waiter.

“Could you please write that down for meeee…”  *flirtatious eyelash batting*

I couldn’t help but ask…

3. Linguine ai Ricci di Mare

Local restaurant, Brucoli, Sicily,  July 2011

Ale took me to this restaurant for his own selfish reasons, he loves it. But I couldn’t have picked a better foodie, he drove for an hour to a restaurant, on the water, in the middle of nowhere because he loves it. The entire meal was…well nothing short of simplicity, perfected.  The highlight was the Linguine ai Ricci di Mare (sea urchin). So simple, a combination of olive oil and creamy sea urchin lubricate each strand of linguine and are highlighted with just a touch of garlic and parsley. A taste of the sea in every forkful. Like the pasta junkie that I am, I kept trying to get the same high by ordering it in other restaurants only to be disappointed, proving that, simplicity is sometimes the hardest to master.   

4. Linguine al Granchio e Bottarga

Sosta Cucina, North Melbourne, October 2011

Got to love an impromptu mid-week indulgence and that’s why I love Diba. It’s not all the time, but when she wants to indulge the girl does it my way. On this particular evening we decided to join another friend at Sosta Cucina in North Melbourne and what was supposed to be a simple glass of wine on a balmy Melbourne evening turned into a pasta moment worth writing about.  Al dente linguine, coated in flavoursome olive oil with perfectly cooked  pearls of blue swimmer crab, complimented by the crunch of toasted breadcrumbs and accented with bottarga (frightfully expensive cured tuna or mullet roe).  I am sitting there hoovering my linguine while the others banter about booking the “chef’s table” at some $$ Melbourne restaurant.  They can have their chef’s table, I’ll have that spaghetti any day thanks.

5. Mauro’s Penne with Trombette and Shellfish

San Remo, Italy, June 2011

Mauro culminated a Ligurian seafood feast with this pasta he made for my cousin Lisa and I when we were staying in San Remo. Mauro tossed Kamut Penne with a sauce (pictured) of sweet, fresh Ligurian shellfish, ripe cherry tomatoes and trombette (pictured above) – a delicious local vegetable shaped like a long skinny, spiralling zucchini. I could have eaten 2 plates, 7 year old Liam wanted a cheese sandwich instead.   

6. Pappardelle with Veal  Osso Bucco Ragu

Chez Amanda, October 2011

I experimented with cooking this dish after enjoying a meal at A Tavola in Darlinghurst, which climaxed in paper thin ribbons of handmade pappardelle tossed in a light pork ragu, cooked for 8 hours with vegetables, wine and its own juiciness. The pork fell apart and the brothy sauce really just coated the pasta so that it wasn’t too rich or heavy. Mmmppph!  I have always wanted to cook ragu like this, not too wine-y, not too meat-y not too tomato-y. So I decided to give it a go at home with veal osso-bucco, which melted after a few hours and this was the result!  It was good, even if I do say so myself and it tasted even better in Nonna’s old bowls. I will eventually get around to posting the recipe.

I’m all loved out for now so I’m going to leave this post open ended, I still have a couple of months of 2011 left to eat and people have already been giving me ideas. Anyone want to come over for pasta?

Images from: Lady and the Tramp – Babble and Woman in a plate of Spaghetti- World’s Best Ever

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Just call me Nonna.

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Amanda
 

 I am supposed to be writing a post about Turkey. It was the next destination on the list and I have a pile of photos destined for this page. I think they call it writers block, I’ve been suffering from it for a few weeks now, but I have recently found some new inspiration. Arancini. – Yes, this is where you start calling me “Nonna”. 

Syarcuse, Italy

Ortigia, Syracuse - Sicily

The love affair all started back in old Sicily, Syracuse to be exact. To be truly honest before then I was never particularly fond of Arancini, they tended to evoke memories of fried, lukewarm balls of overcooked rice, handed around at cocktail functions. Cheap fillers, efficient at absorbing alcohol. Every caterer’s dream.

It was when I visited Sicily in July 2011, I discovered that there is a whooooole other calibre of Arancini. Shaped in cones, rounds like plump oranges or croquette like fingers and filled with fragrant ragu or porcini, spinach and cheese or artichoke, there was an array of flavours and styles everywhere you went. By far the best Arancino I had in Sicily was this one from a very unassuming place in Ortiga, Syracuse.

"The" Arancino from Ortigia

"The" Arancino from Ortigia

Need I say more??? That gooey cheese, that rich sauce!
I have been craving one of those carbo packed, deep-fried cheesy balls of goodness for the last 2 months. So on Saturday I set out on a challenge to make one just like it!

Sicily's favourite recipes

Sicily's Favourite Recipes

Lucky I had nabbed up a small Sicilian cookbook when I was there and so I was armed with the goods to tackle the challenge. But I needed one last thing, a little pep talk from my mamma, the woman who taught me everything I know about Italian food. – Awwww. Of course my mum is Veneto though and they don’t cook Arancini at the top end of Italy so, mum took out our battered copy of Il Cucchiaio D’Argento, handed down from my great aunt who brought it from Italy light years ago.

If you’re not familiar with it, “The Silver Spoon” is like the encylopedia of Italian food, so we figured it would have a pretty authentic recipe. It went something like this (translated of course, with my commentary):

“Boil rice. (what kind of rice mum? Just rice. How much? doesn’t say.) Stir through butter and grated cheese (what kind of cheese mum? Just cheese. How much? Doesn’t say.) Put some rice in your hand, make a hole in the middle with your fingers, fill with ragu, put some more rice ontop and seal to form a ball. Dip in egg and then breadcrumbs and fry until golden.”

 Hmmmmm. Helpful. Certainly authentic, it’s assumed that if you’re Italian you were born with an innate ability to cook Arancini. Back to my “Recipes of Sicily” cookbook it was and at the risk of opening myself up to abuse from real Sicilian Nonna’s out there, who have spent years quietly perfecting the art, while I swoop in and blog about it like I’m all that… Here it is peeps (Warning, its long – just like my blog posts!):

Arancini di Riso con Ragu
(Rice Balls with Meat Sauce Filling)
Adapted from Sicily’s Favourite Recipes, Sime Books.

Ragu:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 stick celery, finely diced
1 carrot, peeled and finely diced
400g piece stewing beef
100ml red wine
250g tomato paste approx.
500-750ml water
3 bay leaves
3 cloves
1 strip orange rind, dried in the oven for about 10 minutes at 100C
1 pinch cinnamon
salt, to taste
1 cup blanched peas

 It recommends making the ragu the day before. The quanitites above are half the orginal recipe and I had enough sauce to freeze and make arancini 3 times over.
1. Fry onion, carrot and celery in olive oil over low heat until soft. Turn up the heat, add meat and brown on all sides.
2. Pour in the red wine and allow to bubble for about 30 seconds before adding, tomato paste, enough water to come three-quarters of the way up the meat and all the aromatics. Season with salt, bring to a gentle simmer, cover and transfer to a hot oven.
3. Bake at about 170C for approx. 2-3 hours, checking every now and again and adding more water if necessary. The meat should be falling apart. Add the peas and cook for a further 5 minutes.
4. Remove the meat and aromatics. Shred or chop the meat into small pieces and return to the sauce. Cool.

This is what mine looked like:

Ragu

Ragu to fill the arancini

For the Rice:
500g Carnaroli or Vialone Nano Rice
100g freshly grated parmesan cheese
knob of butter
3g saffron threads steeped in 2 tablespoons boiling water

Boil the rice in salted water until al dente. Drain and return to the saucepan with the butter, cheese and saffron and soaking water.
Stir until cheese is melted and rice is sticky.

To assemble:
8-10 cubes mozzarella or cheddar cheese
bowl of plain flour
bowl of beaten eggs, seasoned with salt and pepper
bowl of breadcrumbs

I found it easiest to work with when the rice was lukewarm and the ragu was cold. Have a bowl of water next to you, wet hands are the key to not ending up with rice all over yourself and the kitchen.
So, take a mandarin sized ball of rice in your hand and make a hole in the middle with your fingers so that you have a nest shape, you do have to fiddle a bit.

arancini riso

Rice "nest" before you fill the arancino

 I didn’t steep the saffron properly so my “nests” are a little anaemic…  but you get the point.
Once you have a nice little nest, take a heaped teaspoon or so of the cool ragu and fill the nest then pop in a cube of cheese (don’t be stingy with the cheese!).

filling the arancini

Packing it all in - the more filling you can put in the better they taste!

Using your other hand, take a little patty of rice and place on top of the ragu, shape the ball around in your hand until you have a round sealed ball.

Filling arancini

nearly done, just a bit of shaping and finishing!

I allowed them to cool on a tray before I crumbed them. Can I just add – doesn’t this look like a whole lot of hard work? And there is still more to go! At this point I’m thinking I might just go find a decent sicilian restaurant… or a real Nonna.

cooling arancini

Arancini - just chilling out before getting crumbed

To crumb the arancini. Roll each cold ball in flour, then in beaten eggs and finally in breadcrumbs. – Remember use one wet hand and keep the other dry, to save you crumbing you fingers!

Deep-fry the balls in hot oil (I used vegetable oil, you can use canola, peanut sunflower, or light olive oil) until golden brown.

The production line - cooking the arancini

At this stage you can cool and freeze the Arancini or refrigerate until you’re ready to eat them. If you want to eat them straight away, pop them in the oven for 10 minutes to warm right through.

cooked arancini

Golden fresh arancini

I like to serve them in my Nonna’s old bowls, with a little runny Napoli sauce drizzled over the top and freshly grated parmesan!! Ta Da!!

finished arancini

Buon Appetito! The finished product

What do you think?? Check out the inside -I didn’t really get the full effect in this shot but you get the idea.

arancini inside

Mmmm, delicious!

 
 For next time, I would try and make the rice shell a little thinner so that I can put more ragu and cheese in the middle. I think that’s a skill that comes with years of practise and true Nonna status. But I was pretty happy with my Arancini and recommend the recipe (if you are a complete nerd like me and can be bothered spending a whole saturday cooking Arancini). I have heaps of ragu leftover in the freezer which will hopefully making cooking the babies a whole lot quicker next time! Anyone want to come over and help me?

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Eating my way through Santorini

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Amanda

I awoke after a dizzying night in Athens. Our dodgy little hotel room looks like a bomb hit it and smells like Ken’s mouldy shorts.  El, the only organised one of us is already late for her flight to London and we scramble to get her out the door on time.  Ken and I are left twiddling our thumbs.. what to do, what to do. We hastily jump in a cab to the airport and get on a flight 2 hours later to Santorini.

Business Class upgrade from Dimitra the best air hostess ever!

Our Santorini pad is gorgeous, peaceful and cheap. Before long, we realise that it’s also a retirement village…eik! Looking for a feed, Ken and I head into Akrotiri village – it’s tiny. We choose an adorable family run restaurant, recommended to us.

Maria Restaurant

Maria Restaurant

“Maria” restaurant is everything you’d want from first Greek restaurant experience.  Yiayia is in the kitchen, and you can see all the glistening stews, golden-topped moussaka and yemista that she’s slaved over all day.

just the start...First up we order the obligatory bottle of ouzo, a plate of Dolmades (rice stuffed vine leaves) and some grilled octopus, which we lather with fresh extra virgin olive oil, lemon and oregano. Three things which that are plentiful on every Greek table. The dolmades are different to what I’d normally see, wrapped like parcels, warm, lemony and juicy. mmmmm. And not to forget the Greek salad, the first of many that I ate in Santorini, I could write an entire post on Greek salad alone.

lamb chops

lamb chopswith tzatziki

Just when Ken and I think we have eaten far too much already, a plate of  charcoal grilled lamb chops hit the table and we manage to find room. I note here, that everything that has been “grilled” in Greece takes on the most intoxicatingly delicious smokey, charcoal smell and flavour. This is the real deal baby, so amazing. Oh, pardon the extra addition to the photo, cigarettes seem to be as common as olive oil on a Greek table…

Rabbit Stew

Stifado - Rabbit Stew

For something a bit different I thought we’d try ‘Stifado’ a rabbit stew with onions- which I was made with about 4 ingredients – a good sign – and baked for about 2 hours, simple goodness, tastes like home cooking.

oven baked potatoes - look at that juiciness!

Of course, When in Greece you can’t let the opportunity slip for some oven baked potatoes in olive oil and lemon. I ate nearly the entire plate alone, a luxury reserved only for holidays. Nom, nom, nom. We waddled out of  Maria from our full bellies…and a little too much ouzo. A couple of very happy Aussie tourists.

The next day we are whipped off to the resort where our friends Michael and Tina are getting married. The property warrants a jaw dropping gasp upon arrival. Set upon the highest peak in Akrotiri with uninterrupted views of the entire Island, we do not tire of lying on lounges next to the pool, sipping on gin and tonic and watching the world go by for the next three days. I will refrain from detailing how insanely crazy the wedding was. But the food highlights of our stay were thanks to Litsa and Bob at the Tavern across the road. Their food authentic, fast, cheap and freaking spectacular!!!

The menu with handwritten message from Bob and Litsa!

The best thing about the place was the hand written menu, scribed in a school-like exercise book. – A sure sign that you are about to enjoy some very authentic food.

'Fava'

El convinces me to try the “Fava” a Santorianian specialty.  The best way to describe it is a Greek style Dhal. Not spicy, but like a split pea puree, the flavour coming from the oil and fresh onion  that it’s dressed with. Simple and quite delicious.

SAntorinian Salad

Santorini Salad

After the plethora of Greek salads we have already eaten we decide to try a variation – the Santorini salad, with sweet Santorini cherry tomatoes and caper leaves, which are pickled and absolutely delicious. Capers seem to be everywhere in Santorini, home-pickled, they are seen on every corner sold in recycled plastic water bottles.

capers - its the new homemade look

Melitzanosalata

If I had to choose the two best things I ate at the tavern I’d nominate the Melitzanosalata – Eggplant salad, a chunky mix of capsicum, eggplant, seasoned generously with oil, lemon and garlic. Secondly, the orgasmically good, grilled whole calamari stuffed with Kefalograviera cheese and green capsicum, Three words, Oh. My. God. Ate it before I could take a photo!

Oia- from an iphone

I don’t know how to begin to describe the
lunch I had in Oia with Kemal. Oia is a picturesque town, which is exactly what you see on the postcards of Santorini. We took a “coin walk” up and down the towns narrow paths and stairs, chosing our direction by flipping a coin, heads we turn left, tales right. We eventually got ourselves off the beaten tourist track (if at all possible) to a quiet little restaurant on the side of a cliff.  The view: phenomenal. As would happen when you are in one of the most amazing places on earth, my camera died. So I only managed to get a few iphone photos! Don’t you hate that??

Oia - So authentic!

We ordered a cold beer and a few things we hadn’t eaten in Greece before. Black olives stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in a fluffy doughnut like beer dough, then deepfried. I decided these should be replicated worldwide as the perfect drinking snacks – greasy, salty and utterly sinful. Again, scoffed them before I took a picture, whoops!!

Warm feta rolled eggplant

20110606-033755.jpg

 The agreed favourite was the grilled eggplant slices wrapped in feta and warmed, then topped with a minted tomato sauce and more crumbled feta. Ahhh, look at those views, Amazing!

Ahhhh, dear Santorini how we love you! All good things must come to an end and that they did. We boarded an overnight Ferry to Rhodes a quick pit stop on our way to Turkiye!! Stay tuned…. Destination: Turkey.

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Cousin Love-up at Supermaxi

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Amanda

Mention a catch up once to my cousin Krystina and she is likely to make an event out of it. Yep she even made this picture..

Queen Amanda

The Occasion:  “Queen Amanda’s pending overseas holiday”
The Company: The cousins. 
The Venue: Supermaxi. 

Alora, Supermaxi. No not a large chain supermarket, or sanitary item. 
If you want to organise a catch up with our family, just wave food under our infamous “Menegazzo noses” and we will come-a-running. Supermaxi  is in fact a cosy little spot in North Fitzroy, clean, modern and chic but with a warm familiarity, like every good Italian. The fare by Rita Macali of Ladro fame is of course authentic Italian, specialising in some darn good Pizza.

In true Italian style, I was greeted with kisses and hugs and a bowl of “Lupini”. Little salty, soaked yellow beans that you slip and suck out of their skins.  At this stage, I was far too excitable to even think of taking pictures, I apologise, I’m still getting used to the blogging thing.

 As usual, Krys leaped for the wine menu upon arrival and ordered something appropriately Italian, red and delicious. You can read more about the wine at www.ladonnadelvino.com  

Loz, bless her heart suggested ordering a bunch of starters. Yes please!
Worth the wait was lightly battered cauliflower scattered with a little sweet and sour onion, truly satisfied my weird winter cravings for fried vegetables.  The other starter worth a mention are the olives. I’m a huge fan of crumbed olives (who isn’t?) and these were some of the best I’ve eaten. Ever.  Stuffed with Fontina, they are every bit the oozy, salty, creamy and crunchy mouthfuls that I’d dreamed they’d be.  Again, I’m too excitable to take pictures, oops! *palm to forehead*.

All but Paul succumbed to the pizza menu and we struggled in silence trying to choose our flavour. Hard decisions, no one likes food envy. By this stage I had finally pulled out the camera.

"Speciale"

Nika was smart and ordered the special, described to us as Italian greens predominantly chicory with homemade pork and fennel sausage. The greens were a lovely bitter and cleansing contrast to the rich cheese and sausage. LOVE.

la Strada Nova

I, on the other hand ordered the most indulgent pizza on the menu. La Strada Nova. Gorgonzola, mozzarella and really good pancetta with basil on a “bianca” base – just the way I like it. Cheesy, meaty goodness. But a little too rich for me on this occasion.   

La Napoletana

True food envy set in when a piece of “La Napoletana” landed on my plate. Krys ordered well. Rich tomato, anchovies, capers, fior di latte and dehydrated olives – my favourite kind. This deceptively plain-looking pizza, was incredibly intense in flavour, however well-balanced, you tasted every ingredient on the pizza.

Prosciutto Pizza

Loz went with her favourite, the Prosciutto Pizza. A tomato and mozzarella base scattered with fresh rocket and adorned with thin slices of fresh prosciutto. Delicious, refreshing, but not the best I’ve eaten.

Fetina - Steak with Fontina and Italian Greens

Paul, who chose the only non-pizza option chose well. “Fetina” which was a very thin steak topped with a sliver of Fontina and a pile of glistening greens.  The chunky smashed orange mash that it rested on caused much debate around the table and had everyone reaching into Paul’s bowl to identify the mystery mash. Too firm for pumpkin, not floury enough for sweet potato, we decided it was carrot and delicious carrot at that. Great dish.

Lemon Verbena Semifreddo

Despite the fact that this was a casual Wednesday night get together and we were full to our eye balls, we couldn’t leave without at least looking at the dessert menu and then we HAD to try the Lemon Verbena Semifreddo….seemed like a refreshing end to a meal.
The Semifreddo was a little more freddo than semi (if that makes sense?) so we nibbled on that amazing nougat while we waited for the ice cream to soften a bit. The Lemon Verbena was subtle but the decorative sweet spice ice on top added flavour.  


 We stumbled on out of Supermaxi taste buds satisfied and having learnt a few new truths about each other. hehehe. Would I go back? If I ever decided to move to North Fitzroy, I’d be a regular.

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Ms. edible crashes another feast..

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Amanda

‘Twas a dreary Sunday afternoon, when I got a call from the beautiful El who after the chitter chatter invited me (as she always so politely does) to her nephew’s 2nd birthday .

Let me preface this by saying – El invites me to everything and I more often than I should, accept. And why wouldn’t I?
1. El’s family are a sensational bunch of people and
2. Her family gatherings always involve some sort of deliciously exotic feast.

So, yes, with no shame I shimmied on along to a family-only 2 year old birthday party on a Sunday night. I rock up to Ms V’s (El’s sister-in law’s ) amazing house and find this chilled out mum with a two year old running around her ankles, calmly chopping coriander, steaming duck, rice and making silky wonton sauce, almost completely oblivious to the fact that 15 people are about to walk through her front door for dinner. – Wow, I want to grow up to be like that.

The feast of choice for the evening? Vietnamese-ish. Two gorgeous ducks have been steaming of and hour and a half in szechuan peppercorns and a boatload of other stuff.

Ms. V cutting up that crispy fried goodness!

Minutes before guests are due to arrive Ms V calmly bones and segments the ducks, flours and deep frys them.

Fragrant orange and anise sauce for the duck

I see a fragrant sauce brewing on the stove, balanced with sweet, sour and spice with oranges, star anise and cinnamon. Ooo this is going to be one helluva duck!

Ms V

V’s mum arrives with bagloads of homemade spring rolls, fresh, fragrant vietnamese herbs and all the trimmings. She makes her way to the stove, picks up the chopsticks and begins freshly frying a batch.
Before long, Mr Two begins to realise it’s his birthday and is beside himself with excitement, all his favourite people (+ some tall stranger) are in one room, YAY!! The simple joys.

Wonton goodness

El comes over and prys open my mouth with a pair of chopsticks, shoving in a sneaky slippery wonton. Gaaaaah! The most drop. dead. orgasmic wontons. That sauce! – ginger, salty, sweet, garlic, texture…yes I was a happy girl.

A

The table gets set and no, V and El did not make all that food, V’s mum brought back-up catering just incase…but no one is complaining, Lobster, Honey Prawns, Chinese Broccoli and Shitake Mushrooms, oh and that’s V’s Fish in Spicy Coconut Sauce in the back which was delicious!

V

Apart from the wontons, the highlight of the dinner for me was the succlent duck, all glossy and finished V was beaming with satisfaction. Lip smacking, crispy, deepfried goodness.

Mr two cutting his cake

When dinner is over, we clear up for the big “Happy Birthday” a chorus that happened 4 times (we said it was for Mr Two’s sake, but I think the adults found it highly entertaining and wanted 3 encores!)

What a great Sunday night. And bonus, I got a bag of homemade fresh spring rolls to take home! Ahh, life is good. Thanks to the White family for adopting me again, and to V, kitchen goddess and mummy-extraordinaire, for a great feast!

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