A famous dish from the Piemonte region in Italy is Brasato al Barolo, beef braised in Barolo, king of the red wines. Since a bottle of good Barolo does not come cheap, it is good to realize that you can achieve … Continue reading Beef braised in red wine (Brasato al Barolo)
This is one of those dishes where the quality of the main ingredient makes all the difference. If you use really good prosciutto (Spanish jamon iberico will also do) that has been aged for at least two years and is sweet rather than salty, this dish will be amazing. If you use cheap prosciutto, it will end up being so salty it’s hardly edible. Good prosciutto is expensive, but even good prosciutto comes in a natural shape and thus there are pieces of the ham that are less attractive to be sliced. For this recipe you will chop it anyway, … Continue reading Tagliatelle al Prosciutto
Most people have nostalgic memories of a favorite food made by their mother or grandmother. Just the smell of it will instantly propel you back to your childhood. In many cases the memory has been romanticized by our brains and it may therefore seem impossible to recreate it. For me, this was the braised chicken my grandmother made. Her husband, my grandfather, was the only one who had left the family farm, where his brothers and sister kept livestock including chickens long past retirement age. This included chickens, the original ‘organic’ kind, running around freely in the yard scavenging for … Continue reading Quest for my Grandmother’s Chicken, Part 1
This pasta dish was inspired by a dish on the menu of my favorite trattoria in Amsterdam: Lo Stivale d’Oro. They have “tagliatelle alla pugliese” on the menu, which is tagliatelle with peppers, salami and tomato sauce. (I have never seen this dish in Puglia, so my guess is that it is called pugliese because they use hot salami from Puglia.) I like it better with penne and prefer to use a type of salami that is not as hot. The taste of the dish is determined to a great extent by the salami used. I prefer to use a … Continue reading Penne with peppers and salami (Penne peperoni e salame)
A bergamot orange is a citrus fruit that looks like a hybrid between an orange and a lemon. Chances are you’ve never seen one before. I certainly hadn’t. Chances are also that you do know what bergamot oil tastes or smells like, because this oil (that is obtained from the skin) is what lends its flavor to Earl Grey tea. I don’t drink a lot of tea, but Earl Grey is one of my favorites. So when I saw bergamots for sale, I decided to buy one and try to make something with it. After some thought, I decided on … Continue reading Bergamot cookies
Risotto or pasta is not served as a side dish in Italy, but sometimes you do get fish fillets served on top of a nice plate of risotto (in many cases raw, or just slightly cooked because the raw fillets are on top of the hot risotto). I really like the combination of a risotto made with fennel and home-made fish stock and a sea bream or seabass fillet, fried on the skin side only for juicy tender fish with crispy skin. Risotto takes some time and patience to make, but the texture is better if you do the proper … Continue reading Fennel risotto with Sea bream (Risotto di Finocchio con Orata)
Whenever I’m in Florida, I eat Key Lime Pie all the time because I love it. There are lots of different versions: with or without whipped cream, with or without meringue, with a crust from graham crackers or with a baked crust, etc. I like all versions, because what defines key lime pie for me is the contrast between the velvety texture and the sour tanginess of the custard. It may be impossible to find key limes out of the US or Mexico, but it’s fine to substitute with regular limes (living in the Netherlands, I do too!). Since key … Continue reading My Key Lime Pie
This is one of my favorite dishes and always a big hit when I make it for guests. It tastes as great as it looks. It’s easy to tell where the name “rose of Parma” came from: it looks like … Continue reading Rosa di Parma (Stuffed fillet of beef)
Pizzoccheri are a short and flat type of pasta from the Valtellina region in Northern Italy, made from buckwheat and semolina flour. You can buy them dried or make them yourself (something I might try another time). They are traditionally eaten with swiss chard (coste) or savoy cabbage (verza) and the local cheese: valtellina casera. This cheese is important to get the authentic taste, but if you can’t find it then fontina can be used as a substitute. This is the only traditional pasta dish that I know that has cabbage in it. Unlike other pasta dishes that are supposed … Continue reading Pizzoccheri alla Valtellinese
My favorite Japanese cookbook is “Japanese cooking: a simple art” by Shizuo Tsuji. Since some ingredients are hard to come by outside of Japan and because I don’t have a very good reference (unlike Italian food, in many cases I don’t have a clue what it is supposed to taste like) I haven’t cooked as much out of this book as I would like to. One of my favorite recipes from the book that I have cooked many times before is the chicken loaf. Here I’ve served it with roasted eggplant, a ginger-soy dipping sauce and Japanese rice. This recipe … Continue reading Japanese Chicken loaf with Eggplant and Ginger
The ‘how to’ I wrote for making fresh pasta did mention spinach pasta, but didn’t really go into the details. I took some pictures when I recently made spinach tagliatelle with white ragù so now I can show step by step how to make fresh home-made spinach pasta from scratch. Spinach pasta can be used for all kinds of pasta such as tagliatelle, lasagne or ravioli. Ingredients per person: 1 egg, 100 grams (3/4 cup) of semolina flour, 50 grams (2 oz) of fresh spinach. You can go as high as 100 grams (4 oz) of fresh spinach, but then … Continue reading How to make fresh spinach pasta
“Rabbit sous vide” or variations of that are by far the most popular search term for people finding my blog through Google. Since I had only posted about rabbit sous-vide once and that was with a tomato sauce, I thought it would be nice to post about rabbit sous-vide without sauce as well. This is even easier to make, and still has all the advantages of sous-vide cooking: tender and moist rabbit instead of tough and dry. The preparation is extremely simple. Season each rabbit leg with salt and freshly ground black pepper and insert it into a pouch. Rub … Continue reading Rabbit leg sous-vide with rosemary
Two years ago we visited the city of Mantova in northern Italy and loved the Bigoli alle Vongole we had at Trattoria Cento Rampini. I was used to making pasta alle vongole with dried linguine or spaghetti, but really liked it made with bigoli. Bigoli are thick hollow spaghetti, made by extrusion. I am not sure if Cento Rampini used fresh or dried bigoli and whether theirs included eggs or not. During the same trip to Italy I picked up my own pasta extruder, so I’ve made bigoli alle vongole and other dishes with extruded pasta since. I like to … Continue reading Home-made Bigoli alle Vongole
Welcome to Stefan’s Gourmet Blog! You can find an overview of my sous-vide recipes as well as times and temperatures by clicking on “Sous-Vide” above. If you like what you see here, you can sign up on the sidebar to … Continue reading Lobster sous-vide temperature experiment
Peperonata is a classic Italian side dish with peppers as the main ingredient. It is good with light meats such as chicken, rabbit or even frog legs. It is simple to make, healthy and very tasty. Instead of eating it as a side, you could also serve peperonata as pasta sauce over penne rigate, or even as a topping for crostini. Ingredients 1 red pepper (capsicum) 1 yellow pepper (capsicum) 1 green pepper (capsicum) 200 ml (1 cup) passata (sieved tomatoes) 150 grams (1/3 pound) red onions 1 garlic glove salt and fresly ground black pepper olive oil Preparation Slice … Continue reading Peperonata
The traditional way of making risotto is a bit of a chore. Sauté a minced onion, toast the rice, add wine, and then keep adding stock and stirring for around 18 minutes. Finish with some butter and in many cases (but not always) grated parmigiano. Adding the stock in parts instead of all at once is needed to get the correct texture: the grains of rice will stay whole instead of breaking and will release more thickening starch. I don’t mind the effort, but for a weekday meal after work or for a dinner party it is not very convenient. … Continue reading Risotto sous-vide with Asparagus and Goat cheese
Spaghetti alla Carbonara is a delicious and simple dish from Rome made with pancetta or guanciale and eggs. There should absolutely be no cream in carbonara: this is in fact a very good way to check the authenticity of Italian … Continue reading Spaghetti alla Carbonara
My love for the Italian kitchen has partly originated from a woman whom I’ve never had the pleasure to meet: Biba Caggiano. She is an Italian from Bologna who moved to the USA in 1960 and later opened her own restaurant in Sacramento (where I have eaten in 2009, but sadly she wasn’t around herself because she was sick at the time — best authentic Italian food I’ve eaten in the USA despite her absence) and wrote many cookbooks. I received one of her first books, Modern Italian Cooking as a birthday gift in 1998. Trying the recipes in this … Continue reading Tagliatelle Verdi con Ragù Bianco
One of the traditional treats for Easter in the Netherlands is a “paasstol”: a bread filled with raisins and almond paste. The same bread is also made with Christmas and then called “kerststol”. Other than the name, there is no real difference. In many cases the filling also contains candied fruits and hazelnuts, but I prefer just raisins. A similar bread is made in Germany and then called “Stollen” (Weihnachtsstollen, Christstollen). Instead of proper almond paste, a store-bought stol will in many cases contain ‘confectioner’s paste’ (“banketbakkersspijs”) which is actually made from beans instead of almonds. It is of course … Continue reading Dutch Easter bread (Paasstol)
For Easter it is a tradition in the Netherlands, as in many other places around the world, to eat lots of eggs. Conor’s post about poached eggs reminded me that I had not yet blogged about eggs sous-vide. Cooking an egg sous-vide was the first thing I tried with my sous-vide water bath about 15 months ago, that was basically the ‘christening’ of the water bath. At 64C/147F The egg whites came out a bit softer than I liked. I needed to go to 67C/152F to get the egg whites just set, but by then the egg yolk didn’t have the … Continue reading Sous-vide egg
When I’m cooking, I make almost everything from scratch using good quality ingredients. Often (but not always) it’s more work than something from a store-bought package or jar, but since I actually like to cook that is not a big problem and there are many advantages: Food cooked from scratch usually tastes better If you cook food from scratch, you actually know what you’re eating and it’s healthier Food cooked from scratch is often cheaper And the most important one: cooking food from scratch is fun and rewarding! It’s not really difficult, and practice will make it even easier. I’ve … Continue reading Cooking from scratch
After a less than fully satisfactory first attempt last week at making beetroot gnocchi that did not turn out as ‘beetrooty’ as I had wanted, my second attempt was a success! More beetroot flavor with a simpler recipe. I served them with a gorgonzola sauce. To make the beetroot flavor stand out even more, you could serve them with a lighter sauce. The combination with gorgonzola works well, though. Ingredients For 2 generous servings 750 grams (1.6 lbs) beetroots 1 egg yolk 50 grams (1.8 oz) flour (Italian 00) 50 grams (1.8 oz) potato starch salt bit of semolina flour for … Continue reading Beetroot gnocchi (Gnocchi di barbabietole)
Until today I had never heard of Chicken Adobo, but thanks to this post in which Cristina calls Chicken Adobo her favorite Asian chicken dish ever, I decided to give it a try and now it is my favorite ever Asian … Continue reading Chicken Adobo sous-vide
A classic and delicious dish from Venice is pesce in saôr, which does not mean ‘sour’ fish but ‘flavored’ fish (saôr comes from ‘sapore’). The recipe was invented in Venice as a way to preserve fish, and even though we have refrigerators nowadays we still make it because it is so tasty! In this modern version I’ve made two changes to the classical recipe: I’ve used mackerel rather than the more usual white fish (such as cod or hake) and I’ve cooked the fish sous-vide. When you use white fish, the subtle flavor of the fish will be overpowered by the … Continue reading Venetian marinated Mackerel ‘in saor’ sous-vide
I’ve always liked Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, but this is the first time I’ve made a Black Forest Cake from scratch. It turned out great, although my cake-decorating skills are not outstanding. Ingredients For the cake (24 cm/9″ springform pan) 75 grams butter 140 grams dark chocolate 100 grams flour 15 grams baking powder 50 grams corn starch 6 eggs 180 grams sugar (preferably vanilla-scented by keeping used vanilla beans in the sugar jar) For the filling 500 grams (net weight) pitted sour cherries with syrup from a can or jar, preferably Italian amarene 70 ml kirsch (cherry brandy) 750 ml whipping cream … Continue reading Black Forest Cake
After the success with the parsnip ragù from $35 a week I decided to try her recipe for pasta with cabbage and gorgonzola well. I’m always looking for new ways to use vegetables, especially if I don’t eat them very often like cabbage. This recipe is very simple, quick and tasty, especially if you like blue cheese because that’s what it tastes like! With pasta dishes I always try to match the texture of the pasta with the texture of the sauce (or create a contrast on purpose). Since this sauce has a ‘fine’ texture, I decided to use gnocchetti rather … Continue reading 35aweek’s Pasta with Cabbage and Gorgonzola
This is my most successful attempt at Dutch-Italian fusion and I make it quite often as it is as quick and easy to prepare as it is delicious! The flavors of the bitter endive, the sweet pancetta, the freshness of the white wine and the heartiness (umami) of the parmigiano blend really well. Just like most Italian dishes, the result will depend on the quality of the ingredients. This dish will taste best if you use actual pancetta, fresh endive (rather than already cut when you buy it), freshly grated nutmeg, freshly grated parmigiano and artisan orechiette. The classic Dutch … Continue reading Orecchiette with Endive and Pancetta (Orecchiette Indivia e Pancetta)
I saw the recipe for Wine-braised beef & parsnip ragù on 35aweek‘s blog and thought it could be good, even though I had never tasted or heard of this combination. So I decided to give it a try, sticking mostly to her recipe. Cooking beef and vegetables in the same stew is always a challenge since the temperature needed to cook the vegetables is too high to cook meat without drying it out, but this recipe works around that by shredding the beef. The good thing about drying out the beef is that the flavor doesn’t just disappear but ends … Continue reading 35aweek’s Beef & parsnip ragù (Ragù di manzo e pastinaca)
I tried this new idea for a cake on Sunday for a dinner party with my parents, and it was a big success! I had seen a recipe for a pear cake using ricotta instead of butter on GialloZafferano.it, and … Continue reading Pear-Ricotta-Almond Cake (Torta Pere, Ricotta e Mandorle)
I wanted to try making beetroot gnocchi. Most recipes I found on the internet seemed to be more about the color than the taste of beetroot, since only small quantities of beetroot were used. So I tried to make it with as much beetroot as possible and they turned out fine, but did not have a strong taste of beetroot. Perhaps it was the quality of the beetroots I used or perhaps I should try to use even more beetroot, but that will be pushing it in terms of making sure that the gnocchi will not disintegrate during cooking. So … Continue reading Beetroot gnocchi: not as beetrooty as I wanted
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