Easy dish for a lazy meal! Sometimes there is nothing better than a hamburger with some fresh veges or salad and a slice of fresh bread! Ah... I have nearly forgotten: and a glass of cold bear!
A good hamburger is not only minced meat: this time try it with some bacon... next time add some cheese instead... whatever you have in the fridge, as cold cuts or cheese, may do.
INGREDIENTS:
Servings: 2
300g minced beef
50g bacon (guanciale)
1/2 medium onion
salt
black pepper
EVO oil
1. Chop onion and cut bacon into thin stripes.
2. Pour some oil into a frying pan and cook onion and bacon till they become nicely golden.
3. Season minced meat with some salt and pepper and add fried bacon. Mix well.
4. Form 4 hamburgers and pour some more oil in the same pan you have used before for bacon frying.
5. Fry hamburgers on one side then after about 5 minutes turn them over and cook over the other side.
ENJOY!!!
In this recipe the two "uncombinable" ingredients, as prawns and bacon, become a really succulent dish. The prawns become even more juicy and are irresistible with their crispy jacket. The herbs add some fresh flavor as well...
In Italy the prawns are prepared with "Lardo di Colonnata", it's a special and very tender kind of lard or fat that even has it's IGP status (Protected Geografical Indication). But this time I prepared them with Guanciale (cheek part bacon) but if the only thing you could found in your grocery shop is bacon, try that!!
INGREDIENTS:
Servings: 2
10-12 king prawns
10-12 thin non-smoked bacon/lard slices
parsley
basil
1 garlic clove
EVO oil
1. Wash the prawns quickly and dry them with a paper towel.
Note: If you wash them for long they loose their taste...
2. Take the shell off the body but keep the first row next to the head, this way the body won't secede from the head.
3. De-vein the prawns this way: make a cut with a sharp knife long the vein and pool it away by hand.
4. Chop the herbs finely and squeeze the garlic with a garlic squeezer.
5. Mix the herbs, garlic and 4-5 tbs of extra virgin olive oil in a flat plate.
6. Place a prawn over the mix and turn it over, repeat with all the prawns.
7. Leave the prawns to marinate for 5 minutes.
8. If your bacon is not sliced, then slice the bacon in very thin slices with a really sharp knife.
Note: If you put the bacon/lard piece in the freezer couple of hours before cooking, it will help slicing a lot.
9. Wrap the prawn body with a bacon slice and put aside, continue with all the prawns.
10. Heat a nonstick pan till it's really hot over high heat.
11. Place the prawns in a circle over the pan and when you have finished with them start turning the prawns that you put first over. Wait just couple of minutes and when the bacon is crispy, the prawns are ready.
12. Serve the prawns with some green papaya salad, you may find the recipe HERE.
Enjoy!!!
Today's recipe is a bit particular... it is prepared completely with the remainders! Great! That is the housewife's paradise! We don't through away anything ... Of course it's possible to prepare the same dish with normal ingredients.
We had Polenta the other day. Polenta is an Italian corn flour porridge. I had just for a half a plate left... it was such a pity to throw it away.
In the evening we had some sauteed spinach and again there was some just to serve half a plate.
I usually cook generous portions but serve normal ones, so if one wants to top up there is some in the pot...
And finally I had some other remainder ingredients that were absolutely perfect for this dish - just a coincidence!!!
INGREDIENTS:
Servings: 2
1 big hand-full ready polenta
1 hand-full sauteed spinach
1 egg white
3 slices of bacon (I had Pancetta)
black pepper
EVO oil
I repeat, you may prepare the fritters from scratch. Polenta recipe may be found HERE.
1. Cut bacon into tiny cubes or stripes
2. Chop the sauteed spinach.
3. Mix polenta, egg white, spinach and bacon, use your hand or a fork to mix.
4. Add some black pepper to taste.
5. Wet the hands with water and form small fritters (from that amount I got 4).
6. Fry them with some olive oil till they are brown at one side, then turn them over and fry the other side as well.
7. Serve with some fresh salad to your liking as a main dish. Or you may prepare the fritters from scratch and serve them as a starter or snack.
Note: Don't add any salt as all the ingredients are already salted.
I was surfing in the net and saw sooooo many awful pseudo-italian recipes... Aghrrrrr.... Why do people abroad think that all the italian dishes contain CREAM? They don't.... we use more TOMATO!!!!
In this dish I used fettuccine pasta, this name comes from "fettuccia", ribbon in italian. And the name of the dish comes from "bosco", forest, as the ingredients in part come from the forest... :-)
INGREDIENTS:
Servings: 2
160-200g fettuccine
50g pancetta / bacon
100g mushrooms
100g green peas
1/2 onion
250ml tomato purèe
black pepper
salt
EVO oil
Parmigiano cheese
1. Cut bacon in sticks and chop onion. Slice mushrooms.
2. Pour some oil to a frying pan and start cooking first mushrooms, then bacon and finally onion.
3. When the first ingredients are ready add green peas and just give a mix.
4. Add tomato purèe, couple of pinches of sugar and salt, and pepper. Add some spoons of water that you prepared for the pasta and cook the sauce till it thickens.
5. Cook fettuccine al dente and add them to the sauce, mix carefully and serve with grated parmigiano on top.
Carbonara is originally a Roman dish.
There are many versions of the origin of this dish but the one that is more likely true is that this dish was prepared by the Carbonari - those who produced charcoal, "carbone" in Italian. It's a dish of poor and cheap ingredients, so that these humble people could make it.
While traveling over the world I saw soooo many variaties of this dish and the ingredients that they use for it. But to be called by it's name the dish should have only the original ingredients.
Even here in Rome sometimes people cannot agree on what they consider as original ingredients.
What I would like to underline is that the cream CANNOT and I'd like to repeat ABSOLUTELY CANNOT be used for this dish!!!!! But you may substitute the whole amout of Pecorino for half Pecorino and half Parmigiano, this will give the dish a milder taste. There also are some different ways to unite pasta and the condiment, I offer the one that is half way one, half the other....
And finally I would like to dedicate this dish to my dear American Friend Leela who while visiting me in Rome really appreciated my Carbonara. You are always welcome in our house, Leela !!!
INGREDIENTS:
Servings: 2
160g spaghetti
50g Pancetta (raw salted belly bacon)
2 eggs
Pecorino cheese
black pepper
EVO oil
1. Start cooking spaghetti in boiling water. You may also use a type of fresh pasta called Tonnarelli, it's not traditional, but delicious.
2. Meanwhile in a frying pan add some EVO oil and fry the stripes of Pancetta till they are slightly crispy. Switch off the power/gas.
3. In a bowl mix eggs with grated Pecorino cheese and black pepper. You may mix Pecorino that has a strong taste with some Parmigiano to have milder taste.
As an option you may try to use just the egg yolks instead of whole eggs. This is actually an original recipe, but as I cook at home and I don't like throwing food, so I use whole egg not to waist the whites. ;-)
4. When spaghetti are ready, drain them carefully and add to the egg mix.
5. Switch on the power/gas, put the frying pan with the crispy pancetta back to the fire and add the spaghetti mixed with the eggs.
Now come a delicate moment of cooking.
We don't want the eggs to become an omlette, we want them to become a creamy sauce. So, stir spaghetti delicately with a wooden spoon till the first signes of the egg clotting and switch off!
That's it!!!! And that is the secret of having a creamy Carbonara... and NO CREAM, of course!
How many times you had a situation of imminent guests when you were trying to astonish them with a special dish? Here I suggest a NO RISK dish: roasted pork loin. "Hmmmm", you will think, "not that easy!" Don't be scared, it's not fast but really simple. And the best part of it is that everybody and I say, everybody, will love it! Unless this person is a vegetarian....
INGREDIENTI:
serving : 5-6
1kg pork loin
150g sliced bacon (rolled Pancetta)
rosemary (fresh sprigs)
dried mixed herbs
salt
EVO oil
aluminum foil
1. Wash the loin and dry it with a paper towel.
2. Add salt and mixed herbs.
3. Pour some oil into the glass / ceramic pot, put the rosemary sprigs and place the loin on top.
4. Cover the meat with the slices of bacon, the one I usually use is Rolled Pancetta (raw salted bacon), but you can use any sliced bacon you have, the smoked one is really nice in this recipe.
5. Pour some more oil on top the meat.
6. Cover the pot with a aluminum foil.
7. Cook your pork loin in the oven at 180-200C max.
Note: Slow cooking at a low temperature will render the meat tender and juicy but not dry.
8. Now my favourite part comes: FORGET about the meat for 1 hour. Then take it out of the oven and wet the meat with the sauce that you will find at this point in the pot. Cover the pot with the foil again.
9. And now? Forget about your meat for one more hour. Easy??
10. You may take the foil out for 5-10 minute at the end of cooking so you will have the top of the roasted meat crispy.
11. Make sure you cut the loin into thin slices and pour some sauce on top. Bon Appetit!!!
Here I served my roasted pork loin the the Golden Scalloped Potatoes, the recipe can be found HERE .
You've bought this sad and tasteless chicken breast and now don't know what to do with it.... Let us add some common ingredients to reinvent it!
Sorry, no intermediate picture for now....
INGREDIENTS:
1 whole chicken breast
1 handful of fresh green peas
1 sausage
1 egg
some grated Parmigiano
100-150g smoked bacon (slices)
EVO oil
salt
pepper
nutmeg
parsley
2 sprigs of rosemary
1.Wash and dry the chicken breast, dabbing it with a paper towel.
2. Make sure there are no bones and if you find any then cut them out without breaking the whole piece.
3. Start opening the chicken as it called "like a book", being very careful cut from the centre to the side dividing into two. Do the same at the the other side and open the chicken breast in order to have a large slice of meat.
4. Cut off the parts that are in excess. We need a neat thick slice of meat.
5. Mince the small pieces of chicken that you cut off with a sausage, 1 egg, Parmigiano. Add salt to taste, some pepper, parsley and nutmeg.
6. In a bowl mix the minced meat and green peas manually.
7. Salt the chicken breast and add some pepper if you like it.
8. Spread the meat mix on the chicken breast and form a roll.
9. Dress nicely the roll with bacon, place it the baking form where you poured some olive oil (1-2 tbs), pour some more olive oil on top the roll.
10. Cook in the preheated oven for about 40 minutes at 200C.
