Happy New Year! I hope you will eat well in 2022. Perhaps this post can provide some inspiration for that. The three questions I get asked the most regarding cooking are: How can you eat all that food and not … Continue reading What We Eat On A Daily Basis
Bollito misto is a classic Italian recipe from Piemonte of boiled meat with various sauces, including salsa verde. At Ristorante Trippi in Valtellina I enjoyed a dish inspired by bollito misto, which was a boiled blade of beef with salsa … Continue reading Braised Blade of Beef Sous Vide with Peperonata and Salsa Verde
Happy Christmas everyone! It was on December 24, 1999 that I first met my husband. Every year we celebrate our anniversary by going to a great restaurant. For some years now we’ve been going to the Librije. But due to … Continue reading Dining in the Netherlands: At Home
Zander is a freshwater fish with a very elegant flavor that is caught locally in the Netherlands. It is also called pikeperch or pike perch. The combination with tart apple syrup and bacon has been made famous by Jonnie Boer, … Continue reading Zander with Apple Syrup and Bacon
Ravioli are called agnolotti in Piemonte. Every restaurant in Piemonte has them on the menu. As is always the case with traditional recipes in Italy, there are many variations. The most important variations are with or without greens (spinach or … Continue reading Ravioli del Plin al Sugo d’Arrosto (Meat Ravioli from Piemonte)
At Ristorante Trippi in Valtellina I enjoyed veal tartare with hazelnuts. Although this was in Lombardia, it is close to Piemonte were carne cruda is a very typical dish. This version with ground hazelnuts mixed through the meat was very … Continue reading Veal Tartare With Hazelnuts (Carne Cruda Con Nocciole)
Pheasant fillet dries out easily, but with sous vide it is a piece of cake to prepare it tender and juicy every time. The idea for the sauce comes from restaurant Le Due Lanterne in Nizza Monferrato, Italy. There the … Continue reading Pheasant Fillet Sous Vide with a Mushroom Marsala Cream Sauce
Last September on vacation in Italy, I enjoyed fresh pasta with a pheasant sugo at one of my favorite restaurants in Italy, Danêl Ai Cacciatori in Friuli. This was a pasta sauce without tomato, or not really a sauce actually, … Continue reading Fresh Pasta with Pheasant Sugo (Tagliatelle al Sugo di Fagiano)
Amandelkrullen are classic Dutch cookies and they are very tasty. For Dutch pastry recipes, I always turn to Cees Holtkamps book “De Banketbakker”. Holtkamp is a retired famous Dutch pastry chef, of the pastry shop of the same name in … Continue reading Amandelkrullen (Curly Almond Cookies)
After enjoying pork cheeks during our trip to Portugal last year, this year in Italy we had several different renditions of veal cheeks. The veal cheeks we had at Mariella were amazingly tender and flavorful, so back home I wanted … Continue reading Veal Cheeks Sous Vide (Guancialino brasato)
Flan di zucchine is a typical dish from Piemonte that we enjoyed at Due Lanterne in Nizza Monferrato. It is a savory flan (pudding) filled with zucchini and served with a lukewarm tomato salsa, basil, and extra virgin olive oil. … Continue reading Flan di Zucchine
I am a member of the Dutch association of Vinologists (Verenigde Vinologen Nederland) and for the first time I went on a wine trip organized by them. Piemonte is a large region and we did not visit all of it, … Continue reading Wine trip to Piemonte: Dogliani, Roero, and Barbera d’Asti
I am a member of the Dutch association of Vinologists (Verenigde Vinologen Nederland) and for the first time I went on a wine trip organized by them. This is the second article in a short series, in which I describe … Continue reading Wine trip to Piemonte: Barolo
I am a member of the Dutch association of Vinologists (Verenigde Vinologen Nederland) and for the first time I went on a wine trip organized by them. Although I’ve been to Piemonte myself on a number of occasions, those were … Continue reading Wine Trip to Piemonte: Nizza and Barbaresco
D’O is the restaurant of chef Davide Oldani in the town of San Pietro all’Olmo, just outside of Milano. The restaurant does not only hold two regular Michelin stars, but also one green star for sustainability. There are three degustation … Continue reading Dining in Italy: D’O**
Cappon Magro is a delicious and special dish from Liguria with fish and vegetables. It is on the menu in Liguria for special occasions such as the holidays. The name means “lean capon”, which indicates that it was an alternative … Continue reading Cappon Magro Sous Vide (Stack of Fish and Vegetables with Green Sauce from Liguria)
We love vongole and we love risotto, so risotto alle vongole hits all the right buttons. I opted to prepare it in bianco, without tomato, to allow the vongole to shine. The clams come with their own built-in stock, which … Continue reading Risotto alle Vongole
Sous vide pork belly is great, because the meat will be tender and unctuous. Sous vide belly with crispy skin is even greater, due to the contrast between the soft meat and the crispy skin. It is however not easy … Continue reading How To Make Pork Belly Sous Vide with Crispy Skin
Although the inspiration for this dish came from our latest dinner at the Librije, this is not an attempt to recreate the dish from the restaurant. It is a ‘taco’ of kohlrabi stuffed with foie gras and crab dressed with … Continue reading Crab, Foie Gras, and Kohlrabi
There are two main kinds of Vietnamese spring rolls: deep fried, and ‘uncooked’. The shrimp and meat in those is actually cooked, but otherwise these Vietnamese spring rolls are a fresh appetizer that is served at room temperature. Traditionally the … Continue reading Vietnamese Spring Rolls with Pork and Shrimp (Gỏi Cuốn Tôm Thịt)
The first dish from our trip that I tried to make at home was gnocchetti verdi con ragù di salsiccia, like we had at Due Lanterne. It is a bit of work to make the small pasta dumplings by hand, … Continue reading Fresh Spinach Pasta with Sausage Ragù (Gnocchetti Verdi con Ragù di Salsiccia)
The Pretzhof is a farm with a restaurant in Alto Adige/Südtirol, near the border with Austria. It is 1000 km from home and we can sleep in the camper on the parking lot of the restaurant, so it is the … Continue reading Dining in Italy: Pretzhof (2021)
This was our 4th visit to Laite, a restaurant in the ski resort town of Sappada in the North-East of Italy, close to the Austrian border. Just the way the restaurant looks tells you that Austria is not far away. … Continue reading Dining in Italy: Laite* (2021)
When I was planning our trip to Italy, one of the first things I knew for sure was that our route had to include a meal at Ai Cacciatori in Cavasso Nuovo. We had eaten at this trattoria in 2015 … Continue reading Dining in Italy: Danêl Ai Cacciatori
Trattoria La Madia is located in the small town of Brione, near Lago d’Iseo in the North of Italy. It has been awarded tre gamberi by the Gambero Rosso guide for being one of the best trattorie in Italy. It … Continue reading Dining in Italy: La Madia
Meeting other food bloggers in person is always a pleasure. Paola is originally from Genova and has a blog in Italian called “Primo Non Sprecare” (First: Don’t Waste), in which she shares recipes that often contain tips to prevent wasting … Continue reading Food Blogging International: Primo Non Sprecare
We like eating at simple but good restaurants, called trattoria or osteria in Italy, as much as eating at gourmet restaurants with degustation menus and Michelin stars. The Gambero Rosso guide awards there highest rating of “tre gamberi” (three shrimp) to only 32 trattorie in all of Italy, and we will be eating at three of them during this trip. The first is Locanda Mariella, located in the middle of nowhere in the mountains near Parma. It is called “locanda” instead of trattoria/osteria, because it also has rooms to stay the night. (We however stayed in our RV (camper) on … Continue reading Dining in Italy: Locanda Mariella
Four years ago we had a fantastic experience at Enoteca Pinchiorri, click here for my review of that dinner. Back then I already decided we would be back for an even better experience at “grand cru” rather than “premier cru” … Continue reading Enoteca Pinchiorri*** (2021)
Pepe Nero had attracted my attention as one of 24 restaurants in all of Italy that had been awarded “best value for money” in the 2021 edition of the Gambero Rosso Ristoranti d’Italia guide. And as the only one of … Continue reading Dining in Italy: Pepe Nero
Trattoria La Coccinella was one of the first restaurants I wanted to return to when I was thinking about what we were going to do this trip. We had only eaten there once before, in 2010, but I can still … Continue reading Dining in Italy: La Coccinella
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