briciole: Pasta

Pasta

January 29, 2016

orecchiette (strascnat, handmade pasta)

strascnat (orecchiette) with crescenza cheese Orecchiette literally means “small ears” (orecchie means ears in Italian). To make them, small pieces of dough are drawn across the wooden board with a blunt-tipped knife, or are stretched and turned inside out on a fingertip. The latter method is the one I showed in my previous posts on orecchiette.1 A video of a woman from Bari making strascnat (the name used in that city for orecchiette)2 revealed to me the beauty of the former method. As the woman interviewed in this article3 (in Italian) says: "the women of Bari use the knife, the women... Read more →

Posted by Simona Carini on January 29, 2016 in Books, Pasta, Recipe, Special Event, Traditional Dish | Permalink | Comments (16)

December 22, 2015

vegetarian tsuivan (Mongolian stew) / tsuivan vegetariano (stufato mongolo)

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] Strands of pasta (tasalsan guril), purple cabbage and purple carrots The 21st country of our World Culinary ABC1 is Mongolia (Mongolia). In researching dishes from the country in the heart of Asia, I found out about tasalsan guril, fried noodles.2 These are short strands of pasta cut from a rolled sheet previously pan-fried. How could I not try to make them? And make them I did. I cooked the first batch in some of my homemade chicken broth and the resulting soup was excellent. I then read that tasalsan guril may be... Read more →

Posted by Simona Carini on December 22, 2015 in Consigli, English / italiano, Everyday, Health, Pasta, Recipe, Side Dish, Traditional Dish, Vegetable | Permalink | Comments (2)

December 01, 2015

crozets

done with cutting crozets For me, the current selection of our Cook the Books Club, The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard Morais, was a movie before it was a novel. Ten minutes into it, I started fidgeting. Five minutes later, my husband and I agreed it was not worth watching further. Nothing happened in that quarter of an hour to make us wonder what would happen next. With that history, I approached the book with caution and was pleasantly surprised. It is much better than the movie, at least until the midpoint: the story, the characters (particularly the protagonist's mother) and the... Read more →

Posted by Simona Carini on December 01, 2015 in Books, Everyday, Pasta, Recipe, Soup, Special Event, Traditional Dish | Permalink | Comments (20)

November 18, 2015

semolina pasta dough / impasto per pasta di semola

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] initial phase (i.e., before kneading the dough) Recipes for handmade pasta usually instruct you to make a well in the flour and put the liquid (water or eggs) in it, then use a fork or your fingers to mix the two and finally use your hands to knead. But pasta recipes usually instruct you to make a large batch of dough, which I do not recommend when you are learning. This post shows how I make a small batch of pasta dough using semolina flour and water. (The process is almost the... Read more →

Posted by Simona Carini on November 18, 2015 in Consigli, English / italiano, Everyday, Pasta, Recipe, Traditional Dish, Video | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 16, 2015

blueberry varenyky / varenyky con ripieno di mirtilli

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] making blueberry varenyky In our World Culinary ABC1 we have arrived in Ukraine (Ucraina), represented by the port city of Odessa. By a series of coincidences, my husband and I recently hiked to, and spent a night at, Odessa Lake2 in Rocky Mountain National Park3. So, while I have no personal images of Odessa to share, I can show you how beautiful Odessa Lake is. arriving at Odessa Lake Odessa Lake and Notchtop Mountain in the evening To celebrate our virtual visit to Ukraine, I chose to make my version of blueberry... Read more →

Posted by Simona Carini on August 16, 2015 in Breakfast, Consigli, Dessert, English / italiano, Everyday, Fruit Dish, Pasta, Recipe, Special Event, Traditional Dish | Permalink | Comments (8)

August 09, 2015

cocoa tagliatelle with ricotta, raspberry coulis and chocolate sauce / tagliatelle al cacao con ricotta, salsa di lamponi e salsa di cioccolato

pasta for dessert Author Patricia V. Davis is writing a trilogy set on the Queen Mary1, the retired ocean liner moored in the harbor of Long Beach, CA. In anticipation of the first book of The Secret Spice Cafe Trilogy2, titled Cooking for Ghosts and Lost Lovers, Patricia has launched a contest that runs until August 15. The idea is to prepare a personal interpretation of one of two dishes that appear in the book: Cristiano's Spiced Shrimp Rohini or Angela's Raspberry Chocolate Truffle Tarts. I thought about various ways of deconstructing the dessert and created this recipe. If I were... Read more →

Posted by Simona Carini on August 09, 2015 in Cheese & Dairy, Dessert, Pasta, Recipe, Special Event | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 14, 2015

tagliatelle al matcha (tè verde) / matcha noodles / green tea noodles

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] matcha noodles dressed with Crescenza cheese The eleventh stop of our World Culinary ABC1 is Japan (Giappone). Japanese food is the first ethnic food I discovered after moving to California. There was a Japanese restaurant close to my husband's office and we often went there for dinner. When we chose our wedding date, we asked the Japanese lady who owned it to cater the reception. And so it was that we had a sushi chef at our house, much to our guests' delight. Probably the most moving memory for me is that... Read more →

Posted by Simona Carini on May 14, 2015 in Consigli, English / italiano, Everyday, Health, Pasta, Recipe, Travel | Permalink | Comments (14)

March 22, 2015

vermicelli di riso fatti in casa / homemade bun rice noodles

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] western-style broth meets eastern-style rice noodles The eighth stop of our World Culinary ABC1 is Vietnam. To celebrate our virtual visit I made bun rice noodles from scratch. Making an Asian pasta had been on my to-do list for a long time. Having found a detailed recipe from a reputable source2, I went to work: the process was interesting and the result quite nice. The original recipe calls for a pound of rice flour, but I applied the rule I repeat in each of my pasta posts3 and quartered the quantities. Please,... Read more →

Posted by Simona Carini on March 22, 2015 in Black and White Wednesday, English / italiano, Everyday, Pasta, Recipe, Rice Dish, Soup, Traditional Dish | Permalink | Comments (22)

March 08, 2015

cecamariti (handmade pasta shape)

spindle-shaped, delicate cecamariti (literally, husband blinders) No husband was hurt in the making of this pasta. Blinding here is used in the sense of dazzling. Cecare is a dialectal form of the verb accecare. Mariti is the plural of marito, husband. In Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl, the current selection of our Cook the Books Club, there is a good amount of one person trying to dazzle another (not necessarily a husband). While reading the book, I remembered seeing an entry for cecamariti 1 in the Encyclopedia of Pasta by Oretta Zanini De Vita: it was time to learn... Read more →

Posted by Simona Carini on March 08, 2015 in Books, Cheese & Dairy, Everyday, Novel Food, Pasta, Recipe, Special Event, Traditional Dish | Permalink | Comments (20)

January 25, 2015

panda (pasta fatta a mano) / panda (handmade pasta shape)

la pastasciutta con quello che c'è The poem by George Bradley La past'asciutta con quello che c'è is included in the anthology Sustenance and Desire: A Food Lover's Anthology of Sensuality and Humor by Bascove, which is the current selection of our Cook the Books Club. (The book included a number of inspiring pieces and I may well go back to another one or two later.) In his poem Bradley captures perfectly my approach to pasta: I sometimes plan ahead, but often I simply create a dressing with what I have available. Dried pasta's how a cook accommodates the facts. No... Read more →

Posted by Simona Carini on January 25, 2015 in Black and White Wednesday, Books, Cheese & Dairy, Everyday, Pasta, Recipe, Special Event | Permalink | Comments (21)