Risotto Seafood Recipe

This declicious recipe from our Italian cooking holidays is a bit of a show stopper and great for big family occasions! The key to success with this dish is great quality, fresh seafood. All of which should bring back great memories of a trip to the wonderful Italian Coast. With so many types of seafood in this dish, it offers a flavoursome melody of coastal flavours. Serves fantastically with a glass of white wine. To see the full recipe visit our new blog here: https://www.flavoursholidays.co.uk/blog/risotto-alla-marinara-seafood-risotto/

Stuffed Vegetables Recipe from Puglia

Try our stuffed aubergine recipe from Puglia! Like most regions in Italy, food in Puglia relies on seasonal produce and ingredients are sourced freshly and locally. As May marks the start of the aubergine season, we want to share one of these mouthwatering dishes, popular on our cooking holidays in Puglia. To try our recipe check https://www.flavoursholidays.co.uk/blog/in-season-stuffed-aubergine-recipe/ 

Italian April's Fool Day : Pesce d’ Aprile

In Italy, just like much of the rest of the world, April 1^st is customarily a day of practical jokes, pranks, and silliness. The origin of this custom is not well known, however there are many stories about it, one thing is certain: a lot buffoonery takes place.

In Italy this day is called “Pesce d’ Aprile”, which literally means “April’s Fish”. The name comes from a common joke amongst friends which involves attaching a small paper cut out fish on the back of someone’s shoulder.

The more sophisticated pranks are ones that involve false communiqués, such as the one from the Ministry of Interior in Italy which involved a communication about Aliens invading Italy and told everybody to stay at home. Another example happened when someone spread the rumour that money was being given out: “Today we’re gonna distribute money at this address…. At this time…. Join in everybody! All welcome!” .

Another funny prank in Italy was when Google on 1^st of April 2013 announced Google Olezzo (“Google Stench”), a program that would have permitted people to smell odours from every corner of the world by sniffing their computer screen.  Google also did pranks in previous years, for example the treasure hunt on Google Maps.

Don’t miss out on the culinary opportunity, there’s even a recipe for Ravioli al Pesce d' Aprile to celebrate this day!Here there’s the recipe:

Ingredients (for 6 people): 

• Parsley

• Milk

• 2 slices of sandwich loaf

• 400 gr. of egg pasta dough

• Chilli

• Butter

• Parmesan

• Chives (or fresh onion)

• Extra virgin olive oil

• Salt

• 1 clove of garlic

Method

In a skillet brown the garlic with a little bit of extra virgin olive oil. Add the fish pieces and cook on medium heat for a few minutes. Soak the sandwich loaf into milk, squeeze it, add it to the chopped fish and add the chopped garlic and parsley. Season with salt and make the dough. Roll out the dough and then make ravioli of the size of your choice. In one of the raviolis place a red chilli (to be served to the person you would like to play an April Fool’s joke on). Drain and season with butter, chives and parmesan.

Enjoy and remember to check our website for more Italian recipes !

photo credit: ghirson via photopin cc

Your favourite Italian recipes: Gnocchi di patate con pesto alla Genevose!

We're almost half way through Flavours Italian recipe competition  and we are so please to have such a great response so far. Today's recipe is a special treat as it has been named as one of your most favourite Italian recipes! We persuaded our Italian chefs to share their secret recipe for making it the authentic Italian way and it's here for you:

Gnocchi di patate con pesto alla Genevose 

Ingredients for gnocchi (serves 6)

• 1 kg of potatoes
• 250 g of flour
• 1 egg
• pinch of salt & pepper
• parmesan (to sprinkle)

Boil the potatoes in plenty salted water, peel and smash them. Add immediately flour, salt and the egg, knead well to make sure that all the ingredients are blended; make a roll and cut in slices two fingers thick. Sprinkle some flour on your pastry board and roll every slice up, them cut all the rolls in small pieces, 2 cm each. Press every ‘gnocco’ (dumpling) on the grater, just to shape its faces. Cook in boiling water until they bob up, strain at once put in the dishes covered with pesto sauce and a pinch of parmesan.

Now, you can buy pesto but why not make your own? 

Ingredients for pesto:  

• 50 fresh basil leaves
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 glass of olive oil
• 30 g of grated pecorino cheese
• 70 gr of parmesan cheese
• 30 g of pine nuts
• salt (as required)

Pesto is usually prepared with mortar and pestle: if you have one, put some leaves inside, the garlic and some sea salt. Mash the basil turning the pestle from the left to the right, and the mortar on the opposite, to obtain a green liquid from the leaves. Add the pine nuts, and mash again to reduce in cream. Add the cheese little by little, keeping on mix, and drizzle the olive oil. Blend all the ingredients to have a uniform gravy..Otherwise, use the technology and just put all the ingredients in your mixer for about a minute! You can keep your pesto in the freezer for a few months.

Buon divertimento! Enjoy and remember there's still time to join us in our next cooking holiday in Tuscany and learn to create more recipes the authentic Italian way !

Don't forget, Flavours Italian recipe competition on Facebook, Twitter  and Pinterest closes on Monday 31st March.  

Risotto ai Frutti di mare - seafood recipe from Amalfi!

Amalfi is our new favourite cooking holiday destination and certainly a very famous place for its seafood and fish dishes. The Flavours chefs couldn't have come up with a more delicious recipe today when it comes to a typical dish of Amalfi. Try this seafood risotto recipe for dinner tonight and enjoy a special meal that is also very good for your diet.

RISOTTO AI FRUTTI DI MARE 

Ingredients:

• 400 gr carnaroli rice
• 600 gr seafood (mussels, clams,...)
• 1 onion
• 1 glass of white wine
• 2 lt vegetable broth (made of celery, carrots, onion)
• 2 courgettes
• Salt (the right amount)
• 50 gr grated Parmesan cheese
• 50 gr olive oil

Procedure:

Dice the courgettes. Cook the mussels and the clams in a pan on high heat until the shells open. Then separate the shells, keeping the cooking water previously strained. In a separate pan, brown the onion with oil, add the rice and let toast for a few minutes. Simmer with white wine and add the vegetable broth once in a while. When rice is half cooked, add courgettes and seafood cooking water. Keep adding broth until the rice cooked; blend with grated Parmesan cheese and serve.

If you are tempted to learn how to make more seafood recipes from Amalfi and capture the taste of the island in your food, why not join us on a cooking holiday this spring?

Castagnole recipe : start the carnival season with a special treat!

Today is the start of the carnival period in Italy.Let's celebrate with a traditional dish from the Tuscany region brought to you by the Italian food lover and blogger Marta Correale. 


Viva il carnevale, dove ogni cherzo vale! 

Castagnole

 
Castagnole are a sweet dish typical of the carnival season. They can be found, with slight variations in their recipe, in most parts of Italy, but this version comes from Tuscany, where they can are usually sold along with the other star of carnival food: i ‘cenci’.

Like many other carnival sweets, castagnole are fried but it is also possible to bake them in the oven: the taste and texture is slightly different, but they are both delicious so you can’t go wrong either way! The recipe below comes from my family and has been approved by generations of demanding (and satisfied) children and adults.

Difficulty: easy

Ingredients for a large tray of castagnole:

• 3 eggs
• 80 grams sugar
• 4tbs olive oil
• 1 tbs dried yeast
• 5 tbs lukewarm milk
• 400 grams flour
• Grated rind of 1 lemon
• Liquor of your choice (optional) 
• In a large bowl, mix the eggs, the oil and the sugar
  
  
  Separately, warm up a mug of milk until it is lukewarm and mix in your yeast
  
  
  Add to the eggs mixture and stir well, trying to avoid the creation of lumps
  
  
  Add the grated rind of one lemon and then your flour, slowly.
  
  
  Be careful: it might seem a large amount of flour for the liquids you have, but it should be enough to mix well to get a nice dough. If you feel like you need a bit more moisture, you can add a ittle milk.
  
  
  When the dough is soft and smooth, leave it in its bowl, cover with a damp cloth and leave to rest for about 20 minutes.
  
  
  When this time has passed, make the dough into small balls (about 2 cm diameter), then fry them in a pan with a generous amount of hot oil until golden on all sides
  
  
  Take them off the heath, dry excess oil and dust with sugar
  
  
  If you like the taste, you can now sprinkle some liquor on top of them
  
  
  Enjoy hot and remember there's still time to join us in our next cooking holiday in Tuscany and learn to create more traditional recipes!
  
  
  Author bio:
  If you are interested to find out more about Marta's culinary adventures check her blog The Sleepless Cook. 

'Ravioli with spinach stuffed with fish' recipe

Whether you are planning to impress your guests with an Italian cooking holiday inspired menu or simply diversify your everyday meal, Livia’s ravioli recipe will suit any occasion. Have a look at our Italian chef Livia and her suggestions in order to get inspiration to bring some more uniqueness to your dinner.

Ravioli with spinach stuffed with fish

A perfect meat free dish which could make your everyday meal a little bit more special. Handmade ravioli with spinach stuffed with fish is a perfect way for you to bring more excitement to your dinner.

Pasta dough

Although it might look a complicated dish –  it is not, you will just need to follow the classic recipe for the handmade pasta dough. To make your ravioli green, simply add the spinach after boiling it (be sure to squeeze as much moisture out as possible before hand) and then add to your four mixture.   

Filling

For the fish filling you will need:

• 1 pound fish (500 g) leftover roasted fish (you could also use boiled, white fish will be fine, though any fish you have will work)
• 2 cups grated Parmigiano
• 100 g ricotta
• 2 eggs beaten
• Salt and pepper to taste
  
  
  

Preparation

Shred the fish, removing all traces of skin and bones. Combine the fish with the other ingredients for the filling. To cook the ravioli, boil water in a pan with a drop of oil and rock salt and cook the pasta for between 3-10 minutes depending on the thickness of your dough and whether it has a filling or not.        

So, if you are an italophile or foodie why not try a traditional Italian recipe today? You can also find more Italian recipes here and get more Italian cooking inspiration to try a cookingholiday in Italy. 

Traditional Sicilian cuisine: Nucatoli biscuits

Sicily has an impressive culinary tradition and is full of delicious local specialties. In a trip to Sicily you should try local food to understand the authentic Italian food culture and why Sicilians are passionate about their local cusine.

One of the best ways to discover traditional cuisine in Sicily is have a passionate, local foodie expert guide you. We asked our local Italian chefs what we should try on a cooking holiday to Sicily and where.

Nucatoli,is a typical recipe of the picteresque Modica, in Sicily, a town famous for artisan chocolate production. If you are tempted to have a first hand experience of Sicilian food and tradition there is no better way than a cooking holiday to Sicily! In the meantime and while you are ticking off the days on the calendar why not try to make Nucatoli biscuits at home?

Ingredients

Dough

130 gr all-purpose flour

40 gr sugar

15 gr butter

1 egg

1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder

2 teaspoon of baking powder 

Filling

1 orange

130 gr orange blossom honey

130 gr walnut kernels

80 gr almonds

1 tablespoon of fig marmalade (you could also use dry figs)

70 gr Modica chocolate

Instructions 

Warm the honey and pour the orange zests and the marmalade without reaching the boiling point and then turn the cooker off. Grind the walnuts, toast and mince the almonds, pound the chocolate and add everything to the pot. Work it as if it was short crust pastry, then wrap it with the plastic wrap and chill.

Knead all the ingredients for the dough, then roll it until it is thin and rectangle-shaped. Then cut out 3x12cm rectangles with a scalloped pastry wheel. Sprinkle with flour.

Take the filling and work it into logs more or less a finger thick. Take one of them and place it on a rectangle of dough along the length of it. Do the same with the others. If the dough is still wet add a little flour to help you roll it.

Gently, using your fingertips, tap the length of the roll to make the filling and the dough adhere. Bend it to a S shape. Bake for approximately 15 minutes (until the top gets brown) at 160°C.

When cooled, sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar.

Nucatoli cookies are a traditional dessert that Sicilians eat during All Souls’ Day.and are very good at the end of the meal with a glass of Passito wine. Enjoy and if you are interested to find more about Sicilian cuisine and what our local Italian chefs recommend, have a look at our cookery holidays in Sicily.

Ribollita Is Flavours Favourite Way Of Preventing Autumn Chills

Today I sat listening to the rain beating against the glass in the kitchen. Light levels were low and my pot of Basil was looking a little sorry for itself. I was certain I heard it shiver in the slight draught from an open window, but perhaps that’s just my vivid imagination. One’s fantasy world has to be quite rich to survive the next few months in the UK and I console myself with a store of colourful memories gleaned from the Flavours holiday I managed to squeeze in during the last week of August. I can still smell the heat on the banks of thyme, remember the intense aroma of tomato leaves and stalks as I stripped the fruits to prepare a tomato sauce. Sigh…. how I wish I was still there, but all good things and all that……

So, looking along the shelves in my pantry I can see there are some wonderful Italian goodies to help me enjoy the autumn and put some of the skills I practised to good use. I am never without dried porcini, pine kernels, truffle oil and nutmeg for example and we had a wonderful crop of garlic from the allotment this year, so it’s a start.

What I really fancied, to chase the cold and damp away was a pot of hearty Tuscan soup, the kind of thing that sticks to the sides and makes you feel as if you have had a passionate embrace but from the inside out. Ribollita must be the soup of choice for a rainy day in London. Bread and vegetables are what gives this traditional dish its flavour, a handful of cannellini beans will exert that silky smooth thickening which makes a soup like this just what the doctor ordered. Ribollita actually means ‘re-boiled’, in English and demonstrates just how thrifty the Tuscans were in times gone by. Perhaps we should take a leaf out of their book; preferably a Cavolo Nero to be precise. Funny how Ribollita sounds so much more romantic though!

Carrots, cabbage, potatoes, celery, leek, tomatoes, beans and the usual ingredients go to make this comforting soup. The surprise ingredient and thickener, however, is bread. The addition of which apparently has its origins back in the medieval period where the well to do would have their food served on ’bread’ plates. At the end of the meal servants would collect these and add the meat soaked edible ‘china’ to vegetables to eke out meagre rations.

La Ribollita really needs to be prepared 24 hours before you wish to consume it; so much Italian food is slow cooked and things do take time to mature (I’m banking on it anyway!) It’s the usual sweating of olive oil and vegetables, salt, pepper and a stir. When the vegetables are soft, add tomatoes and any juice, some chicken stock and toss in cooked cannellini beans. Add a bouquet garni, orange peel and peppercorns in a muslin bag and then simmer gently for around an hour. Cool and refrigerate.

After 24 hours, bring to the boil and add some peasant-style bread until the soup thickens dramatically and then set it aside off the heat. At this point the soup will be like some kind of stuffing in consistency. If you find this a little too much to cope with, by all means ensure you have sufficient liquid to deal with the bread. So, it’s at this point you heat some extra virgin oil then add the soup, brown it on both sides and serve, if you are going for the sticky version that is.

For me, the peppercorns, thyme and orange really lift this soup and somehow remind me of the festive season’s approach. Should I be saying this? Still it’s plenty of time to discover the very best Italian cookery books and then drop hints about them in a casual and subtle manner. What about The Beaneaters and Bread Soup: Portraits and Recipes from Tuscany by Lori De Mori published by Quadrille? This would be my tip for serious students of Tuscan food. First off you will discover Tuscans are known as ‘Mangiafagioli’, the ‘beaneaters’ of the title. This is a beautiful book which outlines the Tuscan skill of making do; where simple ingredients and leftovers are represented as the tasty peasant fare we all love so much. Illustrated by Jason Lowe, a highly respected and celebrated culinary photographer this is a beautiful book. It features the producers who have done so much to promote Tuscan cuisine and is well researched and a loving set of portraits, complete with the author’s own recipes. If you want an evocative glimpse of a reminder of a Tuscan Flavours holiday this book will put you in mind of what you experienced or what you might wish to try next year.