Cooking with the crafters #8 - Apulia's flavours

[Versione italiana]

Here we are at our meeting with "Cooking with the crafters" and this week we'll show you a very peculiar dish, cooked for you by Lunica:

Tiedda Barese

Along with “Orecchiette con cime di rapa” (Orecchiette with Turnip Greens), this is a typical dish of the cuisine of Bari. In dialect, it is called “Tiedda” and it is a timeless icon of the Mediterranean cuisine of Apulia. We are talking about the typical dish with “potatoes, rice and mussels”

Ingredients for 4

° 150 g (5.2 oz) of rice
° 1 kg (2.2 lb) of potatoes
° 500 g (1.1 lb) of black mussels
° 2 courgettes
° 1 medium sized onion
° 300 g (10.5 oz) of cherry tomatoes
° 70 g (2.4 oz) of grated Pecorino cheese
° 1 garlic clove
° A little parsley, minced
° 0.8 dl extra virgin olive oil
° Salt, pepper

Preparation:

Leave rice to soak in cool water for 10 minutes.
Peel and slice the potatoes. Wash the mussels and open them up. Leave the two half-shells (valves) attached.
Slice the onion and cut the cherry tomatoes in halves.
Pour half the oil in a 26 cm (10.2”) baking tin. If possible, use a terracotta baking dish. Add half the sliced onion and a few cherry tomatoes. Arrange the first layer of potato slices with a few slices of courgettes and sprinkle with Pecorino cheese, salt and pepper. Then arrange the mussels face up and add chopped garlic and the rice. Complete with a layer of potatoes and courgettes. Sprinkle with the remaining grated Pecorino cheese, parsley, onion and cherry tomatoes, followed by the remaining oil.
Add water up to half the height of the tin. Bake in an oven at 170°C (330°F) for 45 minutes until the surface is crusty. If you notice the Tiedda becoming too dry as it is baking, add a little water. Serve piping hot.

Buon appetito! :)


English translation by FabDant1


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Cooking with the crafters #7 - Carnival of Venice's Sweet Treats

[Versione italiana]

The culinary adventure of “Cooking with the Crafters” goes on thanks to AliceCouture and some typical Venice’s Carnival treats! Last week we enjoyed “Fritoe”. This week Alice presents:

Galani
(or Chiacchere -chit chats, literally- or Crostoli)

Another typical sweet treat of Venice’s Carnival are Galani.
As you may notice from the title above, they have several different names, depending from the zone where they are produced.
Some academics reckon the origins of this treat to be really old, even going back to Ancient Rome times! We think, in fact, that Romans, during the celebrations for the upcoming spring, used to prepare sweets made of the same dough used for lasagne, fry them and cover them in sugar. What a delicacy!

Recipe:

Ingredients:
500 grams all purpose flour
1 orange, to grate and squeeze
1 lemon, to grate and squeeze
1 espresso cup of seeds oil
100 grams caster sugar
2 eggs
3 tea spoons of baking powder
1 espresso cup of dry white wine
2 table spoons of Grappa Veneta (or rhum or brandy)

Preparation:
This procedure is really easy!
Put first all the liquid ingredients in a bowl (oil, wine, eggs, orange juice, etc.) then add all the dry ones (flour, sugar, etc.).
Create an homogeneous mix, then knead the dough using a rolling pin and then cut it in rectangles or diamonds (of 15x8 cm circa) and slightly cut the surface in the middle. Now fry them in boiling oil until golden, soak them with kitchen paper and sprinkle abundantly with icing sugar.
Enjoy!

(in case you wish to convert the grams in your country’s measuring system units please go to this website)

Photos by RelyDesign

English translation by Tirabaralla.

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Cooking with the crafters #6 - Carnival of Venice's Sweet Treats

[Versione Italiana]

At last we have another Cooking with the Crafters' episode! This week and the next, in honour of the Carnival of Venice, we show you two Venice traditional recipes, cooked (and tasted) for us by AliceCouture.

Photos by RelyDesign

I'm the greatest glutton, so I decided to show you the traditional sweets of Carnival of Venice: Frittelle and Galani. They are both sort of fritters / doughnuts sweets, made with almost the same ingredients but their shape and consistence vary. And they're both delicious!
This week and the next you can find here some brief historic outline about them and obvously, the recipes!

Frittelle (Venice's dialect: “Fritòe”)

The frittella (fritter) has its origins in the Serenissima lands, since 1600 A.D. 
In that period the “fritoleri” (people who made the fritters), were the only ones allowed to produce and sell these delicacies, and they set up an association made by 70 of them. To each of them was assigned a commercial area and furthermore they had a guarantee: only their heirs could succeed to them!
The ingredients used to make Frittelle haven't changed so far, and even now they are the most famous sweets for the carnival, not only in Venice but everywhere in the “Bel Paese”.

The Recipe

Ingredients:
20 gr. /0.7oz brewer's yeast
300 ml / 1.25 cup of milk
150 gr. / 5.30oz all purpose flour
3 eggs
35 gr. / 1.23oz sugar
180 gr./6.35oz margarin or lard
30 gr. / 1oz raisins
30 gr. / 1oz pine-kernels
1/2 coffee cup of grappa veneta
peanut oil to fry
confetioners' sugar
a pinch of salt

How to:
First of all you need to revive the raisins in tepid water.
Put the milk in a bow, add the yeast and 2 tablespoons of flour, whisking in the meanwhile to make it smooth.
Once the douch is smooth, cover the bowl with a cotton cloth and let it grow until it is doubled.
Now get another bowl and put the rest of the flour in it, add the dough, a whole egg and three yolks, mix everything and add the sugar, the lard or margarine (not directly from the fridge!) and a pinch of salt.
Mix everything again and add the rest of the ingredients: the pine-kernels, the raisins (well squeezed) and the grappa; mix again, cover with the cotton cloth and let it grow for another hour.
In a large pan warm the oil and when it's ready use a tablespoon to spoon the dough into the oil and make it fry till it's golden; then put in a dish covered with blotting paper.
Cover the frittelle with confetioners' sugar, and you're done! Buon appetito! :)

Next week's Carnival recipe: Galani.


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