Tag: from scratch

Basics16 Comments

Pickled Chipotles à la Richard

StefanGourmet

Ancho chile rub was not the only homemade goodness that Richard sent over, his wonderful package also included pickled chipotles. Chipotles are smoked jalapeño peppers and they are not only spicy but also wonderfully smoky. I had never tasted them prior to Richard’s surprise, and liked them instantly. I especially liked them in pork burgers. Just like the ancho chile rub, I ran out of the original batch pretty quickly, and so I had to make my own. I followed Richard’s recipe for them, and they turned out just like the batch that he had sent. Continue reading “Pickled Chipotles à la Richard”

1. Antipasti (appetizers)26 Comments

Homemade Gravlax

StefanGourmet

Stéphane Gabart has beautiful photograph on his blog My French Heaven, and the recipes he shares with us are both simple and delicious. His post on gravlax inspired me to try this for myself. Gravlax or gravad laks is salmon cured with salt and sugar. This used to be a method to preserve salmon, and nowadays it is still prepared for its nice flavor. The name actually means “buried salmon” in Scandiavian languages, as the salmon used to be buried on the beach to preserve it.

Gravad lax tastes similar to smoked salmon, except that it’s not smoked. It is very easy to make your own, which will certainly impress your friends. All you need is sushi grade salmon and some patience. Continue reading “Homemade Gravlax”

4. Dolci (dessert)6 Comments

Pear Ice Cream

StefanGourmet

Pears are in season, and pear ice cream is one of my favorite flavors. If you own an ice cream maker, making your own pear ice cream is very easy. Just blend all the ingredients and pour the mixture into your ice cream maker. The ‘official’ way to make ice cream requires you to cook a custard first, but if you don’t mind eating raw egg yolks then that step can be skipped and you will still end up with very nice ice cream. The advantage of making your own ice cream from scratch is that there are no artificial flavors, just actual pears.

The most important thing to remember is to use ripe pears, and it pays off to buy them a week in advance if needed as they will ripen after you buy them. To obtain firm but pliable ice cream and just a touch of lemon, I add a small amount of limoncello. The alcohol will prevent the ice cream from freezing into a brick.
Continue reading “Pear Ice Cream”

Basics26 Comments

Homemade Flour Tortillas

StefanGourmet

After yesterday’s post telling you about making the components for fajitas from scratch, it’s not much of a surprise that today’s post is about making homemade flour tortillas.

I have a confession to make. I’m not good with rolling pins. Maybe it’s a matter of patience (of which I have very little), but I always get grumpy when I try to roll out dough with a rolling pin. I especially hate it when it keeps shrinking (I know it helps to allow the dough to rest to avoid this, but still). This is why I never make pasta the classical way with a rolling pin (which according to Italians is the superior method), but with a pasta rolling machine. And this is also part of the reason why I never made flour tortillas from scratch before. So when I was purchasing some dried chipotle and ancho chiles from an online store that sells Mexican stuff, on a whim I clicked and added a tortilla press to my order. Continue reading “Homemade Flour Tortillas”

Basics10 Comments

Salsa Roja (Roasted Tomato Salsa)

StefanGourmet

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know that I like making everything from scratch using fresh ingredients. Chicken fajitas are one of my favorite dishes to prepare when I don’t have time and/or equipment to make everything from scratch (like when we are vacationing in an RV), as they are very tasty and store-bought flour tortillas and salsa are of acceptable quality. I had never made fajitas from scratch yet, and I wanted to try to see if it would be worth the effort compared to using store-bought components. And so I needed to make my own salsa as one of the components. Continue reading “Salsa Roja (Roasted Tomato Salsa)”

4. Dolci (dessert)32 Comments

Tarte Tatin

StefanGourmet

One of the most famous French tarts is the upside-down apple tart that according to legend was created by mistake by the Tatin sisters in the 1880s. Baking the cake upside-down helps to keep the crust crispy. The other success factor is the combination of apples with caramel. It sure is delicious and not that hard to make — the tricky part is turning it at the end.

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A few weeks ago I made a very simple Tatin cheat using store-bought puff pastry but without turning the tart. Many recipes for Tarte Tatin use store-bought puff pastry, but I’m quite sure that the Tatin sisters used more simple pastry so instead I made pastry dough from scratch. Here’s my version. You will need an oven-proof flat pan with a diameter of 28 cm (11″). Continue reading “Tarte Tatin”

2. Primi (pasta, risotto)17 Comments

Gnocchi alla Sorrentina

StefanGourmet

Home made potato gnocchi made from scratch are the best! They are so much better than chewy store-bought ones. I’ve only posted about potato gnocchi once before: gnocchi with gorgonzola was the first recipe I ever posted on this blog. The city of Sorrento is near the island of Capri, the island that gave its name to the famous Insalata Caprese with tomato, mozzarella, and basil. You can think fo Gnocchi alla Sorrentina as the gnocchi version of this salad, because the gnocchi are dressed with fresh tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil, and parmigiano reggiano. This combination is always a winner, and it is even more so with feathery light homemade potato gnocchi.
Continue reading “Gnocchi alla Sorrentina”

4. Dolci (dessert)16 Comments

Hazelnut Meringue Cake

StefanGourmet

This cake is relatively easy to make and can be presented as a neat layer cake or, as I chose to do in this case, in a more ‘artistic’ way. Kees hates regular meringue, but he loves hazelnut meringue. Traditionally, hazelnut meringue cake is made with a complicated butter cream. The butter cream in this recipe may be slightly less creamy, but it is a lot easier to make and very good all the same. Hazelnut meringe cakes are often coffee-flavored as well, but I decided to use hazelnut liqueur to flavor the butter cream instead. Continue reading “Hazelnut Meringue Cake”

2. Primi (pasta, risotto)13 Comments

Chicken Ravioli with Sage

StefanGourmet

I’ve never seen ravioli with a chicken filling before, but I couldn’t think of any reason why it wouldn’t be nice so I decided to give it a try. I used a good quality free-range chicken with a lot of flavor, cooked the legs sous-vide for the filling and used the rest to make a chicken demi-glace (reduced stock) for the sauce. You could also just braise the chicken legs instead, so it is not needed to own a sous-vide cooker to be able to give this a try. The chicken ravioli turned out just like the name suggests, with a good chicken flavor. The concentrated flavor of the sauce helped to get this effect. If you like chicken, you’ll love these ravioli. Here’s what I did… Continue reading “Chicken Ravioli with Sage”

4. Dolci (dessert), Dutch cuisine22 Comments

Apricot Tart (Limburgse Abrikozenvlaai)

StefanGourmet

The dinner I cooked for Clayton when he visited had to contain something Dutch. After some thinking, I came up with Limburgse abrikozenvlaai, a tart from the province of Limburg that is made with a yeasted dough. I already wrote about kersenvlaai (with cherries) a while ago. Since it’s summer, fresh apricots are available. The apricots are cooked before they are used in the vlaai.

DSC08710 Continue reading “Apricot Tart (Limburgse Abrikozenvlaai)”

2. Primi (pasta, risotto)17 Comments

Spaghetti alla Chitarra con Ragù di Agnello e Peperoni (Fresh Pasta with Lamb and Bell Pepper Sauce)

StefanGourmet

Next time I’ll be visiting the Italian region of Abruzzo I’ll have to watch out, because I’m cheating in this post. Every region of Italy has its own pasta shapes, and for Abruzzo this is the Spaghetti alla Chitarra, also called Maccheroni alla Chitarra. In other regions this type of pasta is called tonnarelli or troccoli.

Spaghetti alla Chitarra are thick square fresh egg noodles, made from semolina flour and with a thickness and width of 2 to 3 mm (1/12 to 1/8 inch). They are called “alla chitarra” because they are traditionally made with a guitar-like device, which has a wooden frame strung with metal wires. The pasta dough is first rolled out with a rolling pin, then arranged on top of the metal wires, and then a rolling pin is used to press the pasta through the wires and thus cut it. You guessed it: chitarra is the Italian word for guitar. The device helps to give the pasta a rough surface, ideal for sauce to cling to.

I don’t own such a device, but since I do own a tagliolini attachment for my pasta roller with a width of 2-3 mm, I figured I can cheat and prepare something very close to spaghetti alla guitarra using the attachment for tagliolini. To get square pasta, the thickness of the dough should also be 2-3 mm. Spaghetti alla chitarra should be served very much al dente, with a lot of bite to them, so it is important not to overcook them.

One of the traditional ways to serve spaghetti alla chitarra in Abruzzo is with a ragù of lamb and bell peppers, flavored with garlic and bay leaf, and that is what I dressed the spaghetti alla chitarra with. It turned out wonderfully and I will definitely make this again. The ragù is made with fresh tomatoes and has a very elegant taste. Continue reading “Spaghetti alla Chitarra con Ragù di Agnello e Peperoni (Fresh Pasta with Lamb and Bell Pepper Sauce)”

Cooking30 Comments

Homemade Limoncello

StefanGourmet

Limoncello is an Italian lemon liqueur with the nice fresh taste of lemons. It is easy to make yourself, and in many trattorie in Italy it is customary to get a glass of ice cold homemade limoncello on the house when you get the check. As with many Italian recipes, the quality of the ingredients (in this case the lemons) is important, and the ingredients are not always simple to find (in this case 95% pure alcohol). 95% pure alcohol is difficult to find and expensive in the Netherlands, but in Italy it is sold by every supermarket. So I brought some home from my latest trip.

Since you will be infusing the liqueur with the zest of the lemons, they need to be ‘untreated’. Most lemons (and oranges) are treated with wax. Since you’d like to make a lemon liqueur rather than a wax liqueur, you need untreated lemons. The best lemons are those from the Sorrento peninsula, but you may be hard pressed to find those.
Continue reading “Homemade Limoncello”

2. Primi (pasta, risotto)21 Comments

Trenette alla Genovese

StefanGourmet

Each region of Italy has its own pasta dishes. The most famous foodstuff from Liguria is pesto, and the two typical pasta dishes from Liguria with pesto are Lasagne alla Genovese and Trenette alla Genovese. Both are best with pesto made from scratch using pestle and mortar. Trenette alla Genovese are trenette cooked with haricots verts and potatoes, and served with pesto alla genovese. Continue reading “Trenette alla Genovese”

Cooking23 Comments

Arancine (Sicilian Rice Balls)

StefanGourmet

Without a doubt, the regional snacks of Sicily are arancine or arancini. These are deep-fried balls of rice, stuffed most often with a ragù (meat sauce) and peas, but also with other stuffings such as cheese. Arancini are everywhere in Sicily, and we liked them so much that we had them for lunch almost every day during our trip.

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Arancini for lunch in Monreale (near Palermo)

Arancini have been named after oranges (arancie), because they look so much like them. In the West of Sicily they have a round shape and are female  (1 arancina, 2 arancine), whereas in the East of Sicily they are pear-shaped and are male (1 arancino, 2 arancini). This could mean that the eastern name is more ‘Sicilian’, because oranges are male in Sicilian (arànciu) contrary to female in Italian (arancia). I entitled this post arancine because I made round ones, but I like the sound of arancini better so that’s how I’ll call them.

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Looking inside: rice, ragù and peas

After coming home, arancini were high on my list of Sicilian delicacies to prepare. They turned out to be relatively easy to make and very good. When we had arancini for lunch in Sicily, they had been lying in a display case for a while and were heated up in a microwave oven. This has an advantage that the flavors have the opportunity to blend, but the crust is not crispy. My homemade arancini were freshly deep-fried and thus very crispy. Next time I’ll make them earlier to allow the flavors to blend before deep-frying them. But even deep-fried straight away they were delicious! Continue reading “Arancine (Sicilian Rice Balls)”

4. Dolci (dessert)19 Comments

Homemade Lemon Sorbet

StefanGourmet

I’m making homemade limoncello with the 95% alcohol I brought from Italy. (I will post about the limoncello in a few months, as it requires 10 weeks to make it.) One bottle of limoncello requires the zest of five lemons, so I ended up with five zested leftover lemons. What to do with the juice? I decided to make homemade lemon sorbet. It’s very easy to make if you own an ice cream maker: simply mix the juice with a simple sugar syrup and let the ice cream maker do the rest. Lemon sorbet can be served as a palate cleanser, or be used for an Italian drink called sgroppino, about which I will do a post later. For now, here’s how to make lemon sorbet. Continue reading “Homemade Lemon Sorbet”

Bread22 Comments

Homemade Ciabatta

StefanGourmet

The types of flour available in Italy are different, or at least labeled differently, from flour available elsewhere. Two types, farina di grano tenero 00 and semola di grano duro rimacinata are available more and more outside of Italy because we like to use them to make pizza and pasta. Grano tenero means soft wheat and is used for pastries. Even though it is referred to as tenero in Italy, farina 00 can be high-gluten to use for pizza or fresh egg-based pasta as well as low-gluten to be used for cakes. Grano duro means hard wheat (durum wheat) and is used for dry pasta as well as water-based fresh pasta in Southern Italy. If you buy flour that is labelled as ‘all purpose flour’, you don’t really know what kind of flour it is. It probably has low gluten and then will be unsuitable for making pizza or pasta. For making bread with a long rising time such as ciabatta, flour with a very high amount of gluten is used in Italy. This flour is called farina Manitoba, and is named after the province in Canada where this wheat is being produced. The high amount of gluten makes it ‘strong flour’, which means that the dough can rise better.

I haven’t found a source for Manitoba flour in the Netherlands, but I was curious about the difference with bread flour as it is available here and so brought a bag of farina Manitoba from Italy. I used to farina Manitoba to bake ciabatta bread for the first time, and I was very pleased with the result. For ciabatta the long rise is crucial to give it the characteristic airy texture and crispy crust. I’ve based the recipe on that of GialloZafferano.it. It is interesting to note that three different types of flour are required to make ciabatta: 00, manitoba, and semolina. The latter is used as a ‘gluten coat’ for the rising and for the crust. Continue reading “Homemade Ciabatta”

2. Primi (pasta, risotto)29 Comments

Busiate alla Trapanese

StefanGourmet

Each region in Italy has its own pasta shape, and in western Sicily around Trapani this is busiate. Like other fresh pasta from the south of Italy it is made from durum wheat flour (semola di grano duro rimacinato) and water only, no eggs. Although it is also available dried, busiate are best when freshly made. Homemade busiate are thin hollow tubes of pasta, about 7 cm (3″) in length and with a diameter of about 4 mm (1/6″). Fancier types have the same dimensions, but resemble telephone cord.

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Busiate alla Trapanese as served at U Sfizziusu

The first time I’ve ever tried busiate was at a great trattoria called U Sfizziusu in San Vito Lo Capo, a beach town close to Trapani. There I had Busiate alla Trapanese, busiate with Pesto alla Trapanese. Trapani and Genova are both port towns, and interaction between the two has introduced the concept of pesto from Genova to Trapani. Pesto alla Genovese is made with basil and pine nuts, whereas the principal ingredients of pesto alla trapanese are tomatoes and almonds. Whereas there exists an official recipe for Pesto alla Genovese, this is clearly not the case for pesto alla trapanese. Tomatoes, almonds, and garlic are in all of them. I’ve encountered version with our without (Sicilian) pecorino cheese, whereas thanks to a post by Chef Mimi I found out that Nigella Lawson even adds capers, raisins, anchovies, and chile pepper. I decided to make it as I remember it from U Sfizziusu: with minimal ingredients but great flavor nonetheless. I only left out the eggplant, because I was already serving caponata as part of the same dinner. Continue reading “Busiate alla Trapanese”

4. Dolci (dessert)23 Comments

Macarons

StefanGourmet

French macarons are almond and meringue-based airy cookies that are commonly filled with ganache or buttercream. The image of two macarons with filling in between has always reminded me of a hamburger, but perhaps that’s only me. I’ve had lots of macarons at the end of fancy dinners in restaurant, but until now I had never made them myself. A great post by the Cooking Chook inspired me to try making them for myself. Lo and behold: my first attempt was successful and they were outstanding stuffed with orange curd. My first attempt looked a bit rustic because I hadn’t piped the meringue very neatly, but that didn’t take away anything from the great flavor. The brittle crispiness of the shells combined very nicely with the creamy curd, and the sweetness of the almond shells went nicely with the tangy orange. Paired with a passito di pantelleria dessert wine, it was sublime. Continue reading “Macarons”

Basics38 Comments

Brown Beef Stock

StefanGourmet

Home-made stock is an important success factor to many dishes and sauces. It is vastly superior to bouillon cubes and in most cases also better than anything else you can buy in a store. It’s not hard to make — it just takes a bit of time. After the success of pressure-cooked chicken stock I am a strong supporter of using a pressure cooker to make stock (with the most important reason more flavor, not the shorter cooking time), and so I also prepared this beef stock in my pressure cooker. You could however also prepare it in an ordinary pot and it will still turn out great. Continue reading “Brown Beef Stock”

2. Primi (pasta, risotto)18 Comments

Homemade Pizzoccheri alla Valtellinese

StefanGourmet

Pizzoccheri are a short and flat type of pasta from the Valtellina region in Northern Italy, made from buckwheat and flour. I already posted about preparing store-bought dried pizzoccheri with savoy cabbage. This time I decided to make the pizzoccheri myself, and use chard rather than cabbage. I already liked pizzoccheri the previous time I made them, but the fresh pasta and the chard make it even better.

Did you know that buckwheat, despite its name, is not a wheat? It is also interesting that the word buckwheat has been derived from the Dutch word “boekweit”. In Italian it sounds more fancy though: grano saraceno. In any case, in homemade pizzoccheri you can taste the buckwheat better than in store-bought ones, and they are surprisingly easy to make as they do not need to be rolled out as thinly as for other types of fresh pasta. So even though I did use my pasta roller out of habit, you could easily and quickly make them with a rolling pin. The fresh pizzoccheri also have a nicer texture than the dried ones. Continue reading “Homemade Pizzoccheri alla Valtellinese”

Basics36 Comments

Is a Pressure Cooker better for making Stock?

StefanGourmet

You may not believe this, but until recently I did not own a pressure cooker. I didn’t know much about pressure cookers and I never really saw the need for one. I knew a pressure cooker cooks at a higher temperature in a shorter time, but since I’m mostly interested in cooking at a lower temperature at a longer time (such as sous-vide), that doesn’t seem very appealing to me. After some of my gourmet friends told me that it really worked better for making stock, I decided to buy one. Of course the first thing to try it with was homemade stock. Is a pressure cooker really better for making stock? Time for another side-by-side experiment! Continue reading “Is a Pressure Cooker better for making Stock?”

2. Primi (pasta, risotto)54 Comments

Lasagne alla Genovese

StefanGourmet

When you think of lasagne, you probably think of the famous Lasagne alla Bolognese with bolognese ragù and bechamel sauce. There are however more types of lasagne, such as Lasagna alla Napoletana with ragù alla napoletana, meatballs, sausage, and ricotta, or this Lasagne alla Genovese with pesto. I had never made it before but I will definitely make it again as it was delicious and surprisingly light. Lasagne alla Genovese is made with a mixture of pesto alla genovese and bechamel sauce, to which vegetables can be added. In this case I added roasted zucchini, an idea I got from the Italian blog Il Marito Perfetto (the perfect husband). Continue reading “Lasagne alla Genovese”

Basics42 Comments

Homemade Pesto: Man versus Machine

StefanGourmet

Freshly made pesto is vastly superior to anything bought in a jar, which is why I never buy pesto and always make it myself from scratch. I’ve always used the ‘modern’ way of making pesto: in the food processor or blender. My Italian blogging buddy Tuttacronaca convinced me to try at least once to make it using the traditional method with mortar and pestle. And so I decided to do a side-by-side comparison. The word “pesto” has been derived from the word “pestle”. Making pesto in the food processor takes only a few minutes, whereas by hand with mortar and pestle it almost requires half an hour of hard work. So it’d better be worth it! Is it? Read on to find out! Continue reading “Homemade Pesto: Man versus Machine”

Cooking38 Comments

I didn’t know Shawarma could be that good

StefanGourmet

Shawarma (or shoarma as it is called in the Netherlands) is Middle-Eastern way of preparing meat with spices on a vertical spit, which is subsequently served in pita bread with salad and garlic sauce. It is a fast food staple around the world, and not something you’d expect to read about on a foodie blog such as this. Most places that sell shoarma in the Netherlands have their peak hours in the middle of the night on weekends, when people get hungry after having drunk a lot of beer. If you were the owner of a shawarma place and you were serving your fare mostly to customers who are too drunk to care, would you care about the quality of what you are serving?  I’ve had such a shawarma sandwich (broodje shoarma) on a few occasions, but never cared much for the soggy, greasy, overspiced and overgarlicked concoction with a taste that lingered way too long. Not surprisingly however, it turns out that if you make a shawarma sandwich from scratch, it is actually outstandingly delicious! And when I say from scratch, I really mean from scratch, including baking your own pita bread. Continue reading “I didn’t know Shawarma could be that good”

Basics51 Comments

Brown Chicken Stock

StefanGourmet

Good quality chicken is often sold as whole chickens. I take off the legs and breast, and use the rest to make stock. When making stock from bones, chefs differentiate between ‘white’ stock and ‘brown’ stock. The difference is that white stock is made from raw or blanched bones, whereas for brown stock the bones are roasted first. Brown stock has a more rich, fuller flavor than white stock. For the best Coq au Vin sauce, it is best to use a brown stock. Since I posted about Coq au Vin the other day, I thought I’d share a recipe for brown chicken stock with you. Please note that I did not include salt in the recipe because it is never a good idea to add salt to stock before you know what you are going to do with it. You may have to simmer the stock down to make a sauce, and then it may end up too salty. Continue reading “Brown Chicken Stock”

Asian cuisine12 Comments

Chicken Ramen From Scratch

StefanGourmet

Most people associate Chicken Ramen with instant noodles in a foam cup. You just need to add boiling water and it’s done. It doesn’t taste bad, but it is very different from the chicken ramen that I prepared today. I made everything from scratch, including the chicken broth and the noodles. Instead of cooking the chicken sous-vide like I did in my previous post about chicken ramen, I wanted to show you how you can approach the same result by cooking the chicken at a low temperature (between 65C and 70C or between 150F and 160F) and then taking the chicken meat off the bones and finish making the broth Making ramen noodles from scratch is just like making fresh Italian noodles, with the exception that baking soda is added to make the noodles alkaline (i.e. the opposite of acidic). This will give them a firmer texture when they are cooked in the broth.

I was very happy with the result. The broth had a very nice flavor, the chicken was tender and juicy, and the noodles had a nice texture. It takes a lot of time, but most if it is inactive so this is a great project for a rainy Sunday. Continue reading “Chicken Ramen From Scratch”

2. Primi (pasta, risotto)11 Comments

Sweet Potato Gnocchi (Gnocchi di Patate Dolci)

StefanGourmet

The preparation of sweet potato gnocchi is the same as regular potato gnocchi, and they have an interesting taste that is slightly sweet as the name implies. It is not difficult once you have made them a few times, and if you don’t add too much flour they can be nicely light and fluffy. To be able to taste the sweet potato I served them with a very simple sauce of butter and sage. If you like you can add a bit of sugar to make them even sweeter. Ingredients For 2 servings 400 grams (.9 lbs) sweet potatoes 100 grams … Continue reading Sweet Potato Gnocchi (Gnocchi di Patate Dolci)