Farrotto al pomodoro

 

 

  

When I made this, the wisteria was still blooming outside of our kitchen window. The weather was warm, the smell was divine and we kept the window open all day to make the most of that warm, scented spring breeze and lovely view. Every now and then, I cut off some of the flowers and livened up our table and my blog photos. 

That lasted about a week.

Now the flowers are gone and it has been raining and chilly. Our beautiful wisteria has gone back to being a flowerless nuisance, getting tangled in our rolling shutters, crumbling the stucco of the building façade and the paint on the pre-war wooden fixtures, attracting pigeons to nest in,  and making our kitchen pretty dark. I will admit that it helps keep the room cool in the blazing summer heat, but it also unfortunately hides the view of our building's quaint courtyard and magnolia tree.

 

But that is the cycle of life, of nature, is it not? And what makes it all the more special: nature shows itself for an instant in all of its ravishing, fleeting beauty, only to leave us with the memory of what was and what can be, for the rest of the year.

 

Luckily nature, besides providing vegetation with transient beauty, also offers a great variety of plants for our everyday nutrition. Some of these less-known varieties - like farro, which has been around for millennia - are experiencing a comeback.  

 

Clockwise: in the making

A farrotto is simply a risotto made with farro, or if you prefer, farro made using the risotto technique. You can use pretty much any ingredient to make this, just as you would in risotto, but here I used the most humble of pantry ingredients, canned tomatoes.

 

This dish is not gluten free, as some may think, because farro is a member of the wheat family, but it does offer a valid alternative to white rice, especially for those who are looking to substitute highly-processed white carbs. You may not be eating less calories, but what you are ingesting is a complex carb that breaks down slowly, making you feel fuller for longer. Farro is also a cholesterol-lowering fiber (about 8gr per cup versus the 4gr per cup provided by white rice!). Farro is rich in magnesium, vitamin B, and protein, and although I eat it for all of these reasons, our main reason for buying it is its nutty flavor and pleasantly chewy texture.*

Ingredients
400gr farro
1-1.5l vegetable stock
1 400gr can chopped tomatoes
1 medium-sized yellow onion, diced
1 large clove garlic, slivered or chopped
4-5 anchovy filets

Parmesan cheese
extra virgin olive oil
pepper

Heat some olive in a pot. Peel and dice/sliver the onion and garlic. Cook them in the olive oil on a low flame, until the onion is soft, then add the anchovy filets. When they have melted, raise the flame a little and add the chopped tomatoes (or you could add the farro beforehand to toast it a little). When all the flavors have melded, pour in the farro and start making the farrotto, by adding a little stock whenever the grains have absorbed most of the liquid and stirring a little. Constant stirring is not necessary, because the grains do not release starch like white rice would. Also, the hull doesn't stick as easily to the bottom of the pot. When the farro is ready (keep tasting, but it will remain al dente, with a little bite), serve immediately sprinkled with Parmesan cheese, freshly ground pepper and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.  

We sprinkled over a little Pimenton de la Vera this time (see above)

 

* Please note that this is a personal blog and that I am by no means a professional nutritionist, dietitian, or doctor. The information on this blog is purely based on my personal opinion, experience, and research.

Risotto al finocchio, or fennel risotto

I was standing at my kitchen counter slicing, stirring and thinking. I was thinking about life, how much - or rather how little - time we have. I was thinking about how we all want to leave a mark in this world, how we all want to be remembered.

 

Not everyone is born an artist, a genius with words, notes, paintbrushes; not all of us have magic in their hands. We don't all excel in our careers or have children to pass on our genes, our teachings, our experience. But I think we all strive to be remembered, we all want our life to have had a meaning, to have left some sort of an impact.

 

I kept stirring and musing. I was making a family favorite, risotto, using a totally new ingredient, the humblest of vegetables. I had never once heard of or even thought of making risotto with fennel bulbs until recently. I ask myself why, now that I have experienced the delightful creamy, delicate yet almost buttery flavor fennel imparts.

 

Risotto ai finferli (with chanterelle mushrooms)

 

 

It is still quite warm in this corner of the world but you can definitely tell fall has arrived when walking through the market stands. Figs, pumpkins, apples, chestnuts, grapes everywhere. I couldn't resist when I saw a bright yellow basket of chanterelles the other day (although I was not quite as excited while I stood in my kitchen cleaning them). There really is nothing better for an early Sunday dinner than a nice, creamy risotto that tastes like the forest in autumn.

 

You can pretty much put anything you fancy into a risotto but there are a few things that are a must in my book and that involve a lot of Italian words like al dente, all'onda, mantecazione, Vialone nano and Carnaroli.

 

Go here if you want to find out what any those words mean or if you need a risotto tutorial. I made an exception to one of my rules and used chicken stock to make my mushroom risotto instead of vegetable stock because I had some homemade stock in the freezer and I thought it would add flavor to the dish.

 

The amounts below are approximate. 

 

 

 

 

Ingredients (5/6 servings)

500gr chanterelle mushrooms (finferli)

500gr rice

vegetable/chicken stock

2-3 tbsp butter

oil

1/2 cup parsley, chopped

2-3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

pepper for garnish

 

Clean and chop the mushrooms into bite size pieces. Heat olive oil in a heavy-based pot and the stock in a separate pot. Peel and chop up a couple of cloves of garlic and lightly brown in the oil. Add in the mushrooms and a most of the parsley (set aside a little for garnish) and cook a few minutes before toasting the rice. Cook the risotto following the tutorial. Remember to add the butter and grated Parmesan cheese a few minutes before serving, making sure you mix fast to release the starch. Garnish with a little more parsley, a good sprinkling of Parmesan cheese and pepper.

For a vegetarian dish, substitute chicken stock for vegetable stock.

 

 

 

 

Ossobuco alla milanese (or braised veal shanks)

He sat on the scaffolding suspended from the cupola and shook his wrist for a few seconds, trying to ease the cramping of his fingers. He had been working on this window depicting St. Joseph for an hour, or maybe more he decided looking through the beautiful stained glass at the sun, which had moved considerably higher since he had last checked. Vincenzo had arrived from Leuven, Flanders with many others from all over Europe to work in the Venerable Factory of the Duomo, the construction site for the enormous gothic cathedral that was being built in the wealthy Duchy of Milan. The colors of his glass were renown because they were particularly striking, especially the yellow inserts. His secret was that he always added a touch of saffron when preparing the glass.  He decided to stop for a quick lunch, suspended in the air because there was always much to do and little time to climb down and chat with the others. He had brought a bowl of rice, which grew plentiful in the countryside surrounding the city and was cheap to buy, to work. He untied the knot in the cloth that he had wrapped his lunch in and just as he was moving his work utensils to the side, a fellow worker hollered from the scaffolding above.

"Perfundavalle! Buon appetito!".

Startled, he knocked over a tiny jar of the precious saffron he carried with his tools at all times and a little fell into the wooden bowl of rice. Vae! he mumbled in Latin, this was not good. So much waste of prized saffron and a ruined lunch! His stomach grumbled as he thought about what to do. He decided to taste the rice anyway, he was too hungry to wait till sunset and he had some wine to wash it down with. After all, saffron was a plant, how bad could it be? He stuck his fingers in the bowl, took a few kernels of rice, closed his eyes and stuffed them in his mouth. He chewed slowly, ready to spit out the offending bite. He chewed some more and sides of his mouth turned up into a big smile. This was delicious! Who would have ever thought saffron was so good? And the rice looked as beautiful as it tasted, with its yellow hue.

That is how the legend goes, regarding the birth of Milan's most famous dish, risotto giallo or allo zafferano. It is a versatile dish that can be eaten many different ways, as a first course or as a main course served with ossobuco, like the recipe I posted. It is always good to make in abundance so you have leftovers for riso al salto the next day, a crunchy, thin, pan-fried version of the rice beloved to all Milanese.

As you may or may have not have noticed, it has been a while since I last posted. I was offered a very interesting work opportunity last week that I couldn't turn down, despite the deadline being atrociously near, the amount of work being quite daunting and the fact that I have a full time job and pretty noisy children. This job involves writing, translating, researching to a certain extent. I am reading a lot on historical and artistic facts about the Duomo, Milan's cathedral.

It just so happened that when I received the file on the Duomo in my mailbox, I had 4 ossobuchi defrosting in my fridge. The more I read and wrote about the past glory of this town and the immense human and artistic effort made for decades, even centuries, to build the cathedral, the more I was excited to be preparing this dish for my family. Besides being one of F's favorite dishes, it somehow just made sense with its perfect timing, it made me feel connected to this city that often seems unattractive but that has some beautiful hidden secrets if you are willing to scratch a little beneath the surface. And so here is my ode to Milan, Oss bus a la milanesa con gremolata.

Risotto al pomodoro and how to make risotto (and tomato sauce)

My in-laws are in town so we had them over for lunch yesterday.

You remember my mother-in-law? The Sicilian cooking goddess who made one more fabulous dish after another during our stay in Elba? The woman who has been cooking non-stop for the past 50 years and never writes down a recipe? The mamma of my DH?

Sunday lunch is a big deal in Italy, a family event, especially in the south. For years we had regular Sunday lunches with the family at my in-laws'. Then recently my sister-in-law moved to Rome and my in-laws spend less and less time in Milan. So, now that there are not so many of us and we are really the only milanesi, I have started inviting them over. It is still very new for me, hosting the Sunday get-together. The few times I have done it I usually played it safe and made something a little, er, exotic, just to  muddy the waters if you know what I mean. So m-in-law couldn't really judge my cooking skills because she was eating something she had never tasted before. But the time to cook Italian had come: there are only so many curries, meat pies and Marrocan lamb you can serve your Italian in laws. The day comes when your mother-in-law will find out if her son and grandchildren are eating decent Italian fare...