Homebaker’s Cookbook: Cavatelli with broccoli and anchovies/ Il Ricettario di Homebaker: Cavatelli con broccoli e acciughe

I wanted to make orecchiette…and I came out with cavatelli! For today’s Homebaker‘s Cookbook recipe I studied a lot, watching several videos and discovering an inspiring woman…Nunzia! The problem is that despite my good manual skills that gesture that might seems so easy to do, dragging a dumpling of dough using the tip of a knife, proved to be very difficult and quite frustrating. So after the first ten orecchiette that believed themselves to be cavatelli, I gave in. But I intend to find a grandmother from Puglia willing to spend several hours with me to teach me all secrets that lay behind the famous pasta. I wonder if this site could be of any help (go and take a look, it is truly wonderful!). Ok, no more chatting…fasten your aprons!

Cuochi d’artificio: “Messy Spring Frisella” / Cuochi d’artificio: “Frisella primaverile pasticciata”

It was a long wait…the first weeks of April showering with rain and confusing us with it’s sudden meteorological moods switching from cold autumnal temperatures to sunny days, but finally Spring is here to delight us with it’s sunny and mild climate. To greet the coming of Spring I thought up this simple recipe which I presented on my last recording at “Cuochi d’artificio”. The theme of the episode was “Mess”.

“Cuochi d’artificio”: Focaccia Pudding

For this episode of “Cuochi d’artificio” I did no kneading, at least not in the tv studio’s kitchen (of course I could not stop myself from baking the focaccia I used for this recipe) but found myself using my beloved focaccia as the main ingredient for the dish. Too little time and too many steps to bake a well honeycombed and fragrant focaccia, not to mention the structure of the dough which is very wet and difficult to handle and this might put off some viewers. But who knows, maybe I will have the opportunity to present my own recipe for focaccia on tv sooner or later. But no more talk. Pudding is a great way to recycle old bread and focaccia leftovers (even though it never occurred to me to have focaccia leftovers) and in this case instead of the usual sweet pudding dessert I decided to make a savoury version. To flavour it I used formaggella ticinese, a very fat cheese, anchovies and the right dose of one of my favourite ingredients…licorice! Are you curious? Then click here to access to the episode with the recipe and here for all the ingredients you need and the steps to follow to bake the recipe. Bon appétit!

Pistachios, Anchovies and Buffalo Mozzarella Arancini / Arancini ai pistacchi, acciughe e mozzarella di bufala

Summer is over. Fortunately the days of sweltering heat wave are only a distant memory. I do not know about you but this summer’s heat was reall unbearable to me. I stopped counting on the sleepless nights spent gasping for fresh air. Oh what a relief when the first rains came, finally, in late August. Finally the right climate to bake and experiment with doughs. July and August were particularly intense, with a lot of hard work to come up with a good recipe for croissants and different projects and works that popped out of the blue to both my surprise and delight. This year is ending definitely better than it started and I hope that 2016 will see a new chapter of my life unfold, hopefully one of many stimulating collaborations.

My heart belongs to Genoa. Sourdoug Surprises: Focaccia with pickled artichokes, red cabbage and anchovies / Il cuore a Genova, una focaccia alla crema di carciofi, cavolo rosso e acciughe per l’amore della mia vita

Focaccia, Genoa’s most famous bread, is this month’s Sourdough Surprises theme. Genoa has adopted me for little less than a year back in 2006, and still is the city I consider my true home.