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 and show me how Indians cook at home. Of course India is a large country … Continue reading
Bologna is famous for being the food capital of Italy. The best-known pasta dishes from Bologna are tagliatelle (not spaghetti!) alla bolognese and lasagne alla bolognese, both made with fresh egg pasta and the famous ragù alla bolognese. Being the food capital of Italy, those are by far not the only typical pasta dishes from … Continue reading
Different types of pasta can be found all over Italy. Especially the shapes are different everywhere, but there are also differences in the pasta dough. Generally speaking, fresh pasta is made with eggs and 00 flour in the North, and water and semolina flour in the South. Sometimes salt, white wine, or olive oil are … Continue reading
We love risotto and I’m always trying to come up with new recipes. This spinach risotto turned out really nice, and it was even nicer with the garnishes of pancetta and sous-vide egg-yolk. But the risotto is delicious by itself, so for a vegetarian version you could easily leave out the pancetta. However, using homemade … Continue reading
I got the idea for this fast delicious summery pasta dish from Marina of Le Recette di Baccos. It only takes as long as it takes to cook the pasta and the variations are endless. Raw vegetables, in this version zucchini and tomatoes, are combined with aromatic herbs and tossed with the cooked pasta with … Continue reading
Guanciale is cured pork jowl. It is the traditional ingredient for Spaghetti alla Carbonara, Amatriciana and Gricia, but difficult to find outside of Italy. Pancetta (cured pork belly instead of jowl) can be used as a substitute, but of course it is nicer to use the real thing. After the success with making my own homemade … Continue reading
Scamorza is a cheese from southern Italy that is often smoked, and it is this smoked variety that is the star of this recipe. You can think of it as smoked mozzarella. I had picked up this scamorza without deciding what to do with it. Then as its ‘best before’ date was approaching, I decided … Continue reading
My friend Melvin taught me how to make this dessert from Indonesia. They look great and when you bite into them, there is a nice surprise of melted palm sugar inside. First a dough is made of glutinous rice flour, a pinch of salt and water mixed with pandan paste (for the nice green color … Continue reading
This is more a serving suggestion than an actual recipe, but since I liked it so much I’m sharing it with you anyway. You see, the place where I found imported burrata before, had it again (after a few botched attempts of finding it again). And so after the first success with a recipe featuring … Continue reading
I’ve never yet tried my hand at lobster bisque, and so when Auldo claimed his lobster bisque was top notch I asked him to give me a demo. The result was outstanding, and he volunteered to do a guest post on it. So for once, the only thing I did was taking the photos — … Continue reading
Burrata is a fresh cheese from the Italian region of Puglia that is like a creamy version of mozzarella. I had never seen it imported before, so when I did see it in Amsterdam I jumped at the chance to buy it. Then I remembered ChgoJohn posted some recipes with burrata, and so that is … Continue reading
Breast of lamb is a cut of lamb I had never prepared before. It is interesting that similar cuts from different animals can have completely different names. In this case, breast is to lamb what belly is to pork. The difference with pork belly is that breast of lamb is of course thinner and smaller. … Continue reading
In Italy, ravioli with a seafood stuffing are usually made with potato rather than ricotta and/or egg to bind the stuffing. In this case I selected seabream (orata) to stuff the homemade fresh ravioli, and I served them with a seafood sauce. You could also use another white fish such as sole or sea bass. … Continue reading
Usually I am a substance over form kind of guy, but this time around I went for the look — without forgetting about flavor of course! The flavors in this dish are a classic combination: lamb, rosemary, eggplant, and potato. I decided to cut all ingredients into cubes of roughly equal size, and serve the … Continue reading
This post is another example of how good very simple dishes can be. I had never thought of tomato risotto, and saw it for the first time on Le Ricette di Baccos. I tried it, and it was absolutely wonderful. What a great flavor! Grazie per aver condiviso, Marina! This risotto really allows the tomato … Continue reading
Thanks to Miranti’s great blog The High Heel Gourmet, I’ve been trying out authentic Thai recipes for the first time. Miranti is very clear about what is authentic Thai and what is not, and I really like her style. The funny thing about me cooking Pad Thai is that I have never eaten it before … Continue reading
After seeing a nice recipe for caramelized red onions on Viaggiano con Bea I wanted to try, all that was left to do was pick what I would serve it with. I had some lovely wagyu blade steaks in the freezer, and decided to try whether I could cook them sous-vide using a trick I developed … Continue reading
I saw a recipe for chestnut gnocchetti with a taleggio sauce on GialloZafferano, and thought I’d give it a try. This was the first time I made something with chestnut flour, which has a bit of a sweet taste. It was nice with the taleggio sauce, although I think gorgonzola would be even better. The … Continue reading
The first recipe I tried from Modernist Cuisine at Home was Caramelized Carrot Puree. The flavor of the carrots is intensified by pressure cooking them with baking soda. The baking soda allows caramelization to occur at temperatures that a pressure cooker can generate. I really liked the result, although I think I will pressure cook … Continue reading
After my trip to REMCooks I was inspired to try some more Mexican/Southwestern food. Carnitas is a dish made of braised or roasted and then fried or sauteed pork in Mexican cuisine. Richard had served us delicious sous-vide duck carnitas, and a few days later in Miami I tried a taco with pork carnitas. The recipe … Continue reading
Viaggiando con Bea is one of the Italian blogs that I follow to get inspiration and feedback on my Italian recipes directly from the source. A while ago she published a recipe for a Sicilian side dish with cauliflower called Cavolfiore affucatu. I served it as a pasta dish instead, and when I told Bea she … Continue reading
After my post about Viennese potato salad, it won’t be a surprise that my next post that was inspired by my trip to Vienna is about Wiener Schnitzel. Although this is probably the most famous savory dish from Vienna (unfortunately I did not have time to try Sachertorte as well, which is of course the … Continue reading
Last week I was in Vienna for the first time, on a business trip for a day. We went to a rather tacky restaurant that played Austrian waltz music but served decent food. I decided to order the most Austrian thing I could find on the menu: Wienerschnitzel mit Erdäpfelsalat. Erdäpfelsalat is the Austrian word … Continue reading
I used my first homemade corn tortillas to make tuna tacos. Tacos are stuffed tortillas (either wheat or corn). Tuna tacos are not very traditional, but they sure are delicious. I stuffed the tacos with ancho seared tuna, pico de gallo (a raw tomato salsa) and avocado. We tried this with both soft and crispy tacos, … Continue reading
It won’t come as a surprise that after visiting casa Remcooks, I have been inspired to do some Mexican/Tex-Mex/Southwestern cooking. Baby Lady got me a big bag of corn masa flour, needed to make corn tortillas and she also taught me how to make crispy taco shells. Thank you, Baby Lady! Making your own corn tortillas … Continue reading
Each region in Italy has its own pasta shapes and pasta recipes. For the southern part of the island of Sardinia the shape is called malloreddus or gnocchetti sardi, and the traditional dish using them is called Malloreddus alla Campidanese. A while ago I showed you how to make fresh malloreddus from scratch, with an … Continue reading
Pisarei e fasö is a typical dish from the province of Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna. Cristina from The Blog Around the Corner was inspired to blog about this dish from her region by my post about pasta with stewed beans. I already put it on my “to cook” list after reading Cristina’s post, but when Marina of … Continue reading
I really like the combination of amarena cherries and almonds, as you may have noticed from this almond meringue cake with amarena cherries. I also really liked the texture of Mimi’s hazelnut cranberry cookies. And so it wasn’t hard to come up with almond amarena cookies, starting from Mimi’s recipe as a base. I made … Continue reading
The success of many recipes depends on using a good stock. Most store-bought stock has too much salt in the best case, and in the worst case even lacks flavor. Not to mention bouillon cubes… Homemade stock is easy to make, just put some ingredients in water and allow to simmer for some hours. It … Continue reading
Pork tenderloin is amazing cooked sous-vide, it is the most tender and juicy pork tenderloin you have ever tasted. And it is so easy to do: simply season the pork tenderloin with salt and pepper, vacuum seal it, cook it for an hour or so at 57ºC/135ºF (with sous-vide the exact timing isn’t critical), quickly … Continue reading
