The blog of San Lorenzo

You must be thinking that I spend half of my time in Italy.

Yes, indeed: I am in Verona again for a short family visit and I am thoroughly enjoying every minute of it.

My brother, who likes to spoil me with good food, produced in the past 3 days all the dishes he know I like and I seldom get around cooking for myself. This time, reading my blog about sweet dumplings, he decided to get his hands on our granny’s food, so I had very sensible Italian cooking, like Cotoletta alla Milanese (thin veal steak coated with flour, beaten eggs and fine bread crumbs, cooked in butter) with the quirky accompaniment of ‘crauti", that is sauerkraut, in the very ‘fusion’ style my granny used.
By the way, quick tip, remember that a good Cotoletta alla Milanese MUST be cooked in butter and not olive oil, otherwise the result in not ‘authentic’ and certainly not half as good.

I know for certain I must have added at list one kilo to my less than perfect figure, but good food makes me happy and is worth the occasional extra weight; on top I realised it is not so difficult to shed once you return to a more controlled diet and a reasonable amount of healthy exercise (which cannot be said by the Oversize Me type of food…)

I have recently added a tamed version of kickboxing to my sloppy running routine and I do feel entitled to some extra calories, every now and then. I realise that one of my main motivation to exercise is to avoid worrying about what I eat: I am not sure it is the most noble reason, but it works!

In half an hour I am off to  some friends house to have a takeaway pizza from Pizzeria Impero, a good eatery close to the historical centre of Verona, accompanied with a good amount of laughters, the latest gossip in town and the giggles of my daughter playing with her little friend Rachele.

This is life at its best: a generous serving of simply good things.

*******************************************************************************

MEMENTO, IN ALTO SEMPER…

Rememeber to send me the recipes to get your free share of San Lorenzo goodies. And places are still open for the January get together! Don’t be shy!

********************************************************************************
(more…)

Scritto da admin alle 16:39, in Main category

2 Commenti »

Hello Everybody.

My internet connection has given me big headaches this week, but since yesterday evening I am solidly back on line and everything seems to work as it should…

Soooo, I will silently give grace to the God of Speedy Connections and move on quickly to write todays’s post, before I should regret sitting on the laurels of restored happiness. 

I was reading Dagmar post on dumplings two weeks ago and I had a moment of strong nostalgia for a sweet dish of my childhood. My granny Blanda, a wonderfully energetic lady born and bread in a town called Fiume (or should I say Rijeka, now, since it was annexed to Croatia after the Second World War) used to cook a lot of dishes that all my friends in Verona considered totally alien. They were dishes of Austrian-Hungarian heritage and to me, as a child, were the best comfort food in the world.

If I am allowed a little digression, I must say that dumplings, the regular potato dumplings with a meat sauce, are a Big Thing in Verona, my home town. They are a special dish absolutely everybody cooks or buys on the last Friday of Carnival (which is the one before Lent starts), so come the time, watch out for them in this blog.

Today, though, I want to cook with you the sweet dumplings of my Granny Blanda, whom we never called by name, by the way. Nonna, is the Italian for Grandma, but since her last name was very unusual and exotic with a ‘ch’ ending, she became our Nonnich and thus she was known among all her grandchildren.

So, in the memory of the coolest granny on hearth, my beloved Nonnich, here is the recipe that always managed to make me happy.

RECIPE

Cook in water half a kilo of whole potatoes with their skins. The red ones are a good choice for dumplings. You must avoid using young potatoes rich in water, or the result will be extremely disappointing. You certainly know that, but just in case, a little reminder that potatoes must always be put in cold water and the water should be taken slowly to boil. Once cooked (you can use a fork to check: once it goes into the core of the potato easily, you can consider it ready), drain, peel quickly and mash. Add 150 grams of flour, one egg to bind and the usual pinch of salt. Work very quickly into a roll of about 5 cm. I maybe forgot to tell you that my sweet dumplings are Giants with a Sweet Heart. My favourite filling is apricot jam, but you can experiment with your favourite if you like.

Before moving on, have some boiling water and the coating of the dumplings ready. Once they come afloat (which is when they are ready!), they must be immediately rolled in their coating, which is simply some very fine bread crumbs mixed with sugar cooked in butter until brown. Try 3/4 of bread and 1/4 of brown sugar, but you can adjust the quantities to your taste.

Now, let’s make the dumplings. This is not very easy at first. Don’t give up!

Make little discs of about 8/10 cm (thick about 1 cm) and put the jam in the centre. Like this:

Make a ball, like this:

Put the dumpling in hot boiling water and once it comes onto the surface, fish it out and roll it on the coating.

This is what you shoud get at the end:

They are the most wonderful Food on Earth. I am not sure you can call them a dessert, because eating them at the end of a meal it is an impossible challenge, so use them for a really indulging tea. They will surprise you!

********************************************************************************

And now, the Date and Place for your diary, courtesy of San Lorenzo:

Thursday 18th of January 2007, at 7 pm

Osteria dell’Arancio  LONDON

THEME: Italian Food Feast featuring dishes from Liguria and Piedmont

NOTE:

All Foodbloggers and Gourmant Friends of the Foodblogging World are invited!  Places are limited and free, so let me now if you wish to participate.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST:

There will be room for creations of the participants on a theme I will disclose on my next post. So, stay tuned!

(more…)

Scritto da admin alle 13:07, in Main category

4 Commenti »

News from Italy!
Last Thursday I went to Pieve di Teco, to the San Lorenzo factory, for a photography shoot of the new SL products: basically all the things you can find, right now, in the San Lorenzo Fresh Produce category: cheeses, charcuterie, tuna… I can tell you first hand that this is a range of outstanding products that you won’t find anywhere else online.
No, the photographs haven’t been published yet: the excellent Fiorenzo Calosso is speedily working on the shots, and when you see them… For now, all you need to know is that when studying each shot with Fiorenzo, product by product, right down to the last detail, we had to shave off bits with the knife here and there, and you can be sure that we’d never have had the courage to throw those pieces away… (more…)

Scritto da Antonio Tombolini alle 21:04, in Main category

Nessun Commento »

I do not know you, but come Sunday afternoon I sometimes get a sort of Sunday blues: it must be the abrupt realisation that Monday is round the corner and, alas, the weekend is over.

I have recently read an article about the positive effects of a healthy lifestyle to prevent and fight depression.

I do honestly agree: the comprehensive, long term approach must be the best to fend off unhappy thoughts. As far as I am concerned, I run (yes, I am a runner) and eat my greens, but I still have the strong feeling that for a dark, winter-bound, slightly melancolic Sunday afernoon, the best and quickest fix is a home made treat (well, I wouldn’t be writing a food blog, if I did not believe this, would I?).

This Sunday I opted for the healing qualities of a home made Lemon Cake. Lemon juice and lemon zest, with a handful of pinenuts as a seasonal addition, brings back fresh uplifting memories of mediterranean summer. Look at the picture and if you like what you see, the recipe will follow.

 What you need is:

400 gr of flour. If you can find corn starch, use half corn starch and half flour: the cake will be softer and lighter.

200 gr of butter

300 gr of sugar

3 eggs

1 and 1/2 lemon juice and zest

1/3 glass of milk

half a sachet (about 9 gr) of yeast for cake

a splash of spirit of your choice (I used some grappa)

a handful op peanuts.

Keep the butter at room temperature for some time. Proceed to work it into a creamy consistency with a wooden spoon. Add the sugar and keep mixing until fully absorbed (you can use castor sugar, if you prefer). Then start adding the eggs, one at the time, working them well into the cream. At this point add the lemon juice and zest, the grappa and the flour mixed with the yeast. Finally add some milk (but check the consistency first: it might not be needed). Butter a cake tin and cover it with a thin layer of flour. Pour some peanuts at the bottom. Follow with the cake mix in and drop some more peanuts on top. Bake at medium heat (about 180 C degrees) for roughly 50 minutes and enjoy!

*********************************************************************************************

And now, my reminder (I am not giving up on this!):

Produce and send me a recipe involving any  San Lorenzo product in the store and the three most intriguing entries will receive the products mentioned in the recipe for free. All you need to do is  cook your recipe and send me the pics for publications on this blog.

Make me happy, let me be your Secret Santa and distribute great Italian products. You will make my day.

(more…)

Scritto da admin alle 16:31, in Main category

1 Commento »

Unlike vino novello, a rogue wine designed to give instant gratification (running the risk of becoming anonymous and quickly becoming tiresome), a good "novello" olive oil is trickier, stronger, more demanding. "Novello" olive oil from San Lorenzo is already available for sampling - in its pure state, of course! - on bread, bruschetta, boiled potatoes, cooked greens, fresh goat’s cheese or an excellent mozzarella. That’s how its full strength is released, as its overwhelming aroma announces the delicate taste that will follow.
(more…)

Scritto da Antonio Tombolini alle 11:00, in In the spotlight

Nessun Commento »

Hi everybody.

I had two things in mind for today’s post  that have no connection whatsoever.

Since I could not decide which of the two to postpone, I decided to write about both.

Let’s start with the Italian Event for Foodbloggers.

I have been wondering why my invite to organise an Italian food feast has received no reply from my friends bloggers and I have been enquiring about. it.  Johanna , The Passionate Cook, has given me the most comprehensive answer, which I can summarise like this: I got it all wrong!

Fair enough. It may seem I am here to teach, but I am really here to learn, so I gobble the bitter bite and I have decided - as per Johanna wise advise - to give it another try soon , but fixing a date around  mid-January. So stay tuned because Italian feast it will be and we will have a theme on which the participants will be asked to produce some creations to share. Any comment is welcome.

For the time being I have had a better idea. My friends at San Lorenzo are very keen to make their products known and having tried them, I must admit they have a point. So, waiting for the moment we can have a get together, I want to make sure you can try some of them.

(Sound of trumpets to introduce my newest idea).

Produce and send me a recipe involving any  San Lorenzo product in their store, and the three most intriguing entries will receive the products mentioned in the recipe for free. All you need to do is  cook your recipe and send me the pics for publications on this blog.

Make me happy, let me be your Secret Santa and distribute great Italian products. You will make my day.

****************************************************************

And now, my mushroom dish.

It is one the first recipes I have ever learned and tried to cook, so you have certainly seen it before.

What I really like of this recipe is that you can change it as much as you like, add or remove ingredients and it is very hard to go wrong.

So, take some big mushroom (like portobella), one per person, and cut out the stem. In a container mix the filling for the mushroom. In this case I used some left overs of cheddar cheese, grated parmesan, grated bread, thinly cut ham, the stems of the mushrooms cut in small bits, some coriander leaves, some thinly cut garlic, one egg to bind it all, salt and pepper to season.

You can do all the variations you want. I tried all my fridge leftovers on this dish! It works with bacon instead of ham, parsley instead of coriander, any mild or mature cheese instea of cheddar and you can be very inventive and go wild with goat cheese and caramelised onions if yuou want. That works too!

Fill the mushrooms and put them in hot oven on a container with some good extra virgin olive oil until ready (15 mins should suffice).

Here comes the picture gallery:

Just before cooking

And the final outcome:

It can be anything, from a main dish, when eating light, to an appetisers for a pantagruelic meal.

Best with a glass of red wine, by the way, to match the earthiness of the mushroom; alternatively try a mineral white…

Enjoy!

(more…)

Scritto da admin alle 15:19, in Main category

7 Commenti »