Monthly Archives: June 2012

Zaleti – little yellow Venetian polenta biscuits

Posted on June 30, 2012 | 7 Comments

Venezia is a magical place and one that is close to my heart. My parents spent their honeymoon in Venezia, which is about an hour and a half from where they were living in Monfalcone. Mark proposed to me at the Rialto market. Venezia is also the home of delightful biscotti with names like bussola, pane dei dogi and zaleti that are made especially for Carnevale (Carnival held each year in February) but are found all year round.

My favourite Venetian biscotti to make at home are zaleti, which are yellow because they are made with yellow polenta. The word giallo means yellow in Italian and in Venetian dialect the word is zalo. Hence zaleti (or even zaeti – you leave out the L) are little yellow biscuits. These biscuits are sweet, buttery with a hint of lemon and have a lovely texture due to the contrast of the polenta and the soft sultanas. I add orange zest to mine as well as the traditional lemon – the zesty orange complements the other flavours beautifully.

They are very simple to make – you mix the ingredients with a wooden spoon or even with your hands. I like them dunked in coffee or tea or even with a glass sweet Vin santo (holy wine). Eating them reminds me of being in La Serenissima, a few hours before the Prosecco hour when it is time for a glass of Prosecco and cichetti (appetisers). Or you could start the Prosecco hour a bit earlier have it with the zaleti!

Zaleti
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees
300g fine yellow polenta
250g self raising flour
150g caster sugar
3 egg yolks
150g butter, melted
rind of one small lemon
rind of one small orange
4 tablespoons of sultanas soaked in grappa for about 20 minutes (use Brandy if you have no grappa or even warm water if you don’t like the taste of liqueur in your cakes)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla essence (optional – works well if you don’t use grappa or brandy)

Zaleti on a tray ready to cook

Place the polenta, flour and sugar in a bowl. Combine then add the zests. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and add this to the dry ingredients. Mix well with a wooden spoon. Add the lightly beaten egg yolks and the vanilla essence (if using). Mix until everything is evenly incorporated.

Lastly add the drained sultanas. Add a bit of grappa that the sultanas have been soaking in if the mixture appears too dry. Shape them into lozenges about 7 cm long and 4 cm wide. Place on a lined baking tray with some space between them to allow for them to spread whilst they are cooking. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until they are golden. Allow to cool on a wire rack before eating. You can sprinkle on some icing sugar if you like though I prefer them plain.

Zaleti have a rather crumbly texture though will have a bit of a crunch if you cook them longer. They store well in a sealed tin for around four days. You can vary them slightly by adding pine nuts. You can also use coarse polenta, though they turn out with more of a grainy texture.

Ah…. bella Venezia…. I will see you soon!

→ 7 Comments

Posted in Places, Sweets and cakes

Tagged , , , ,

Growing garlic in a green and gold planter box

Posted on June 27, 2012 | Leave a comment

My first post on this blog was about growing garlic on my terrace. This year’s garlic crop has moved to a green and gold planter box in my tiny courtyard.

Green and gold planter box

Mark has been working on the courtyard for a few months – it measures approximately 90cm by 300cm. Not a lot of space but now that it is paved with recycled bricks and some shelves have been put up, I will be filling it with herbs and other small edible plants that will fit either in some colorful milk crates or on the narrow shelves that have been built. It is more protected than the very sunny terrace and it will hopefully allow edible plants to thrive. I am excited about finally putting the minimal space of the courtyard to good use!

Garlic and tuscan cabbage, just sprouted

In the meantime, the garlic, which I planted 3 weeks ago, is doing very nicely. 12 of the 13 cloves I planted have sprouted – maybe the 13th one just didn’t like being number 13 so refused to grow. The Tuscan cabbage (cavolo nero) I planted in the planter box next to the garlic has also sprouted. The worm castings solution from the worm farm that lives in the garage is clearly doing its job and giving the garlic and cabbage all the right nutrients to thrive.

The colours of the planter box – again made of recycled wood – are the green and gold of Australian sporting teams that play internationally. That is not a deliberate patriotic move…. I wanted bright colours and this is what paint we had in the garage. However it coincidentally fits in with the up and coming July 2012 Olympic games so maybe I was being subliminally patriotic.

I am hoping I have inherited some of my late father’s and his ancestors gardening prowess and that the courtyard will flourish to become a wall of green by summer at the end of the year. Right now I am enjoying looking at the green and gold box and the patterned pavement bricks as I type.

Recycled bricks in the courtyard

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Growing things

Tagged , , ,

Rhubarb, orange and cardamom pie

Posted on June 24, 2012 | 1 Comment

Rhubarb has a fascinating history. When Marco Polo travelled to China, he found it being used as a medicinal and in the middle ages it made its way to Europe. It continued to be used to aid digestion and in 1845, Tilde, the wife of Piemontese Ettore Zucca, experimented with the rhubarb potion that her doctor had prescribed her for digestive ailments in an effort to make it more pleasant to drink. Her husband Ettore sensed that she was onto a winner as the result was a ruby red liqueur that was rich and aromatic, with bitter orange and cardamom added to rhubarb root. Rabarbaro Amaro was born and became popular even in the royal court.

The Zucca family went on to fame and fortune. If you have ever been to Milano you might have noticed the delightful Cafe’ Zucca in the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele, right next to the gothic Duomo (the main church in Milano). Famous musicians like Giuseppe Verdi used to drop by after a performance at the historic theater, La Scala, which is nearby.

Cafe’ Zucca in the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele

There is a lot of rhubarb at the markets at the moment. Last week I made a rhubarb pie and tried to recreate the liqueur that was so appreciated in the royal Italian court. My rhubarb crostata (short crust pie) has the right mix of butter in the pastry and a balance of tart rhubarb, sugar and orange with a hint of cardamom. The tart is blind baked first – and it remains crisp even after the rhubarb has been added. The secret is that a tablespoon of flour and one of sugar are placed on the cooked base before the fruit is added.

Enjoy this crostata with a dollop of double cream and a cup of coffee – and imagine you are at the Cafe’ Zucca in Milano, watching the well dressed Milanese walk by.

Crostata di rabarbaro
125 g butter, room temperature
30g icing sugar
240g plain white flour
Pinch salt
zest of half a lemon
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Bunch of rhubarb stalks, washed and cut into 5cm pieces (about 500g)
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon orange zest
4 cardamom pods, seeds removed and crushed
1 tablespoon white flour
1/2 cup caster sugar, plus one table spoon extra

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a 23 cm pie tin with a removable base with aluminum foil.

Place butter and icing sugar in a bowl and process/beat until creamy. In a bowl, mix together the 240g flour, salt and lemon zest. Add the the butter mix and process/beat until it is a crumbly texture -which takes about a minute. Add the egg and process/beat until the mixture comes together – less than a minute. Remove the mixture and put the lot on a large sheet of plastic wrap. Place another sheet of plastic wrap over this and using a rolling pin, roll the pastry into a disc and enclose in the plastic wrap. Allow to rest in the fridge for 45 minutes.

Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll it between the two sheets of plastic so that it is quite thin. You should have enough to cover the base and sides of the pie plus some left over to put a lattice on top. Line the base of the prepared tin with the pastry and blind bake the pie shell for 10 minutes with pie weights (or dried beans/rice) and for 5 minutes with the weights removed. Don’t forget to put baking paper under the weights and also prick the pie bases in several places with a fork. The pie base should be cooked through and a light golden colour.

While the pie shell is cooking, place the cut rhubarb, orange juice, orange zest, cardamom and 1/2 cup of sugar in a saucepan. Cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes until the rhubarb softens but maintains its shape. Remove from the heat. Strain the liquid from the cooked rhubarb.

Take 1 tablespoon of the flour and one of caster sugar and scatter them over the cooked pie base. Spoon the cooked rhubarb on the pie base and make a lattice over the top of the pie with the remaining pastry (which you would have put back in the fridge while you were blind baking the pie shell).

Cook for 35 – 40 minutes or until the fruit is soft and the lattice is a deep golden colour. Place on a cooling rack and remove the sides of the tin. There you have it – a crostata with rabarbaro, fit for the afternoon tea of a Milanese. It is lovely served on its own but a dollop of whipped cream or mascarpone would not go astray.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Sweets and cakes

Tagged , , ,

Red radicchio in risotto with pancetta and red wine

Posted on June 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

Radicchio (pronounced rah-dee-kee-oh) – from the chicory family – is a leafy vegetable that is native to the Veneto/Trentino regions in the northeast of Italy. In the 1970s you could not find seeds to grow it in Melbourne. When my sister got married and my nonna Carolina came here for the wedding, she smuggled a whole lot of seeds for green radicchio in her suitcase. She was stopped by Customs at Melbourne airport – she was in her late seventies and did not speak a word of English and was brilliant at feigning surprise – but the whole lot was confiscated anyway, much to my father’s dismay.

You can buy the seeds now from stockists such as Cardamone in Fairfield and buy some varieties fresh at the market. The red variety, which is what I am writing about today, is used most frequently in cooking – it is slightly bitter and can be spicy. The types that are most commonly available in Australia are radicchio rosso di Chioggia (round red leaves, about 10cm diameter), radicchio rosso di Verona (elongated round leaves, the outer ones are green/red striped) and radicchio rosso di Treviso (the elongated type). The words Treviso, Verona and Chioggia refer to places in Veneto where the vegetable is grown and they are protected names.

Radicchio rosso di Treviso ready to eat

Radicchio (radicio in our dialect) rosso is great in cooking. It is a winter vegetable so its bitter taste matches beautifully with hearty meals. The redder the leaves, the greater the bitterness. If you don’t like the bitterness, you can soak the leaves in water for a period of time (10 minutes to an hour) to make it sweeter. I use either the Chioggia (pronounced key-oh-jar) or Treviso varieties to make my red risotto. The Chiogga type has more bitterness so it should be soaked before using for cooking. If you use the Treviso variety, you will need to remove most of the white spine of each leaf.

Radicchio rosso di Chioggia

Risotto is the perfect dish to complement red radicchio. Regular readers of this blog will know that risotto is my fast food. Read here for tips on making the perfect risotto. This recipe ticks all the boxes – bitter, sour, salty and sweet plus the rice is cooked in an equal proportion of stock to red wine. Brown sugar is used to counteract any residual bitterness, creamy butter and parmiggiano are stirred through and aged balsamic is drizzled on top. Aged balsamic is quite expensive – if you don’t have any, don’t use the cheap variety – just omit this step. Enjoy this meal shared with your loved ones and a glass of peppery Shiraz on a cold winter evening.

Red risotto
Serves 4
50g pancetta, diced (2mm)
1 red onion, diced
1 red radicchio, thinly sliced (and soaked in water if bitter, then drained)
1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
Olive oil
1/2 glass full bodied red wine (to cook radicchio)
2 cups Carnaroli rice
2 cups chicken stock (preferably home made)
2 cups full bodied red wine
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
75g unsalted butter
A bit of extra red wine to stir in at the end of cooking
75g grated parmiggiano
Aged balsamic vinegar for drizzling over prepared risotto

Cook the pancetta for 15 minutes on low heat until the fat renders and the pancetta starts to crisp in a non-stick pan. Remove the pancetta from the pan and set aside. Add some olive oil to the fat in the pan and add the onion and radicchio. Simmer for about 20 minutes, adding 1/2 glass of wine when it starts drying out. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve. Add the cooked pancetta, the red wine vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Keep warm on low heat until needed.

Red risotto drizzled with aged Balsamic vinegar

In the meantime, heat the chicken stock and wine in a small saucepan. Heat the rice in your risotto saucepan (a large non-stick one works well). When the rice warms up add the warmed stock/wine – the rice and the liquid should be approximately the same temperature. Simmer on low heat with the lid on for 12 minutes.

After 12 minutes increase the heat of the saucepan with the rice, remove the lid and add the radicchio mixture. Stir well. Add some boiling water as needed and stir every now and until the rice is cooked (about another 8 – 10 minutes). Adjust for salt. Stir in the butter. When the butter has melted, add another slug of red wine. Remove from the heat after a minute. Stir in the parmiggiano, put on the lid and let it rest for a few minutes.

Serve on white plates, drizzled with some aged balsamic.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Pasta, rice and gnocchi

Tagged , , , ,