Apart from anything sous-vide, homemade ravioli could be considered to be my signature dish. Besides Italian classics I have developed many variations over the years. So many that it is getting hard to come up with something new. White asparagus … Continue reading White Asparagus Ravioli
As the dessert for our soul food dinner, Selena suggested we bake a sweet potato pie. This is like pumpkin pie, but made with sweet potato. Of course we made the pastry crust from scratch, using the new method that … Continue reading Soul Food, Part 4: Sweet Potato Pie
For a vegetable side for our soul food feast of dirty rice and smothered pork chops, we decided on turnip greens (Dutch: raapstelen, Italian: cime di rape). This preparation is suitable for other types of bitter greens as well, like … Continue reading Soul Food, Part 3: Turnip Greens
The second part of the soul food feast we prepared was smothered pork chops. This is a simple but tasty recipe: pork chops that are cooked low and slow in onion gravy. Of course we made this sous-vide, but you can … Continue reading Soul Food, Part 2: Smothered Pork Chops
My co-worker Selena suggested we prepare a soul food meal together, and I thought that was a wonderful idea. I was curious to try it and what better way than together with someone who grew up with soul food?! This … Continue reading Soul Food, Part 1: Dirty Rice
I’ve never been to India and I’ve never even eaten at an Indian restaurant. But I was curious about the cuisine, and so it was a great pleasure that two natives, Vinod and Seema, were willing to cook for me … Continue reading Introduction to Indian Cuisine
It’s Spring and when it’s spring I see lambs frolicking in the pastures. And it makes me think of how good they will taste as lamb chops or lamb shank 😉 A part of lamb that is not as popular … Continue reading Agnello alla Romagnola (Lamb Stew with Peas, Pancetta and Tomato)
This is the latest result in my quest for a nutritious breakfast that is high in protein, fiber, and complex carbs, and low in sugar and fat. More importantly, it is also very tasty. Even though oat bran may not … Continue reading Oat Bran Cottage Cheese Muffins
I’ve just had this for dinner and it was so good that I wanted to blog about it straight away! Satay is Indonesian for a grilled meat skewer. Saté babi is pork, saté ajam is chicken, and saté kambing is … Continue reading Saté Kambing (Lamb or Goat Satay with Peanut Sauce)
On Ocean Drive in Miami Beach I had a very nice dish at A Fish Called Avalon, crab-crusted grouper with steamed spinach, giant white beans, roasted teardrop tomatoes, and a madeira beurre blanc. This is the only dish from my recent … Continue reading Shrimp-Crusted Grouper with Spinach and Butter Beans
This is one of those rare cases when the name of a dish sounds better in English than it does in the original Italian. Simona of Grembiule da Cucina always has wonderful Italian home cooking recipes from her region Emilia, … Continue reading Rina’s Ribs (Puntine “della Rina”)
Celeriac is one of the few local vegetables available here in winter, not counting stuff that comes out of a greenhouse. It is tasty and versatile, as you can eat it raw, as puree, steamed, or roasted. In this recipe … Continue reading Pasta with Celeriac, Chicken, and Walnuts
Sea bream is a lean flavorful fish, also known by its French name daurade or dorade (orata in Italian). It is often served in restaurants in the south of France, so here I paired it with ratatouille from that same region. Ratatouille … Continue reading Sea Bream with Crunchy Ratatouille and Flavored Brown Rice
Geese have become somewhat of a plague in the area were we live. There are so many of them that they ruin the fields and therefore their numbers need to be ‘managed’. As a result, local wild goose is now … Continue reading Goose Breast Sous-Vide with Sauerkraut and Pear
This elegant and delicious appetizer is ridiculously simple. It requires only two ingredients (if you don’t count water, salt and pepper, and the parsley that I used for garnish) and not much skill to prepare. Due to some relatively warm weather we’ve … Continue reading White Asparagus and Goat Cheese Soup
Mushroom lasagna is a classic I’ve been making for years, but I noticed I had never published it on the blog yet. It is a great dish to indulge, rich yet elegant. Its components are fresh homemade spinach pasta, funghi … Continue reading Mushroom Lasagna (Lasagne ai Funghi)
Pecan Pie is a classic from the Southern US, and for good reason because pecan trees are native in that region (as well as Mexico). For this post I didn’t bake a traditional pecan pie, because I made three changes: … Continue reading Pecan Maple Squares (+ A New Method For Flaky Pastry)
Baking or slow roasting is an original way to prepare kale. It takes a long time to bake, but most of that is inactive time. This version with Italian flavors has great depth of flavor and a nice texture. For … Continue reading Slow Roasted Kale
As I’ve mentioned before, my favorite kind of blogging is thinking of a dish, cooking it, eating it, and blogging about it, all in a single day. And that is exactly what I’ve done today. Well actually, not exactly. Because … Continue reading Pasta with Lamb, Peas and Mint (Tagliatelle al Ragù di Agnello, Piselli e Menta)
Pollo alla Cacciatora is an Italian classic. It means chicken prepared in the style of the hunter’s wife (traditional recipes usually do not assume that the wife would hunt herself), which is chicken stewed in tomatoes with herbs, wine, and … Continue reading Pollo alla Cacciatora (Chicken in Tomato Sauce)
It is interesting how you can vary even the simplest of Italian recipes. I make pasta with broccoli often, and I often make it like I described in this post with anchovies, garlic, and chilli. I cook the broccoli and … Continue reading Pasta with Broccoli and Pancetta
I created this dish because I wanted to make something that was both very nutritious and also tasty. I don’t believe in ‘super foods’ (which is mostly a way to make you pay more for foods that aren’t necessarily more … Continue reading Brown Rice Pilaf with Lentils, Beef, and Bell Peppers
Many foods we still enjoy today were invented to be able to conserve food before we had refrigerators and freezers. A famous example is dried, or salted and dried, fish. In Italy this is known as baccalà for dried cod, … Continue reading Bacalà alla Vicentina (Dried Cod Braised in Milk and Olive Oil)
Bacon-wrapped turkey is so simple that it is hardly a recipe. To make it sound better, I’m calling these medallions. That just means pieces of turkey breast. The most important thing is that they are delicious. Turkey breast is lean … Continue reading Bacon-Wrapped Turkey Medallions
This is my favorite kind of food blogging. I thought of something to prepare for dinner on the train back home from work, using what I knew was in my fridge. I prepared and photographed it, we enjoyed it for dinner, … Continue reading Pasta Casserole with Salmon and Spinach (Pasta al Forno con Salmone e Spinaci)
I love recipes that use all parts of an ingredient. When I saw the recipe for deconstructed duck fried rice on Simon’s blog Stranded on the Island, which uses the duck breast, skin, and fat from the skin, I decided straight … Continue reading Duck Fried Rice
Cold smoking is a technique that preserves food (and gives it a wonderful smoky flavor and aroma) just by smoke, without heat. To get a really nice smoky aroma, it is best to cold smoke for 24 hours. This means … Continue reading Cold Smoked Halibut
Parsley root is exactly what it sounds like: the root of a parsley plant. They can be cultivated in a size as large as parsnips, and from their appearance they could easily be mistaken for parsnips. But they have a … Continue reading Pasta with Parsley Root
Wolffish is one of my favorite types of white fish, as it has a better flavor and texture than cod and its relatives. For this recipe you could also use another white fish that doesn’t flake easily (as flaky fish … Continue reading Breaded Wolffish with Anchovy-Braised Peppers
I thought it would be nice to make acetani with pistachios instead of almonds, and the result was amazing. Unlike acetani, the flavor of the orange zest blends in to support the pistachios, rather than being the star. These delicious pistachio-orange … Continue reading Pistachio Orange Cookies
