Gnocchi di ricotta con fiori eduli - Ricotta gnocchi with edible flowers

 

 

Start by mixing 500 g of ricotta with a few flowers and petals (I used cornflower, verbena and calendula). Add salt to taste and white pepper if you like.

Add 100 g of flour and mix well.

Shape into balls, no bigger than a golf ball, and flatten lightly.

Bring the water to boil, add salt, then lower to a simmer. Add the gnocchi a few at the time, moving them lightly in the water as they cook. Be gentle! When the gnocchi rise let them float for a minute or so and lift out with a slotted spoon and transfer into a pot with melted butter and sage.

Continue until all the gnocchi are cooked. Keep the the pot with the butter warm and turn over the gnocchi just once, very delicately. Dish and top with the melted butter, Parmigiano Reggiano, and some more edible flowers.

Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Covid-19 lockdown recipe 5: kale lasagne

Remember those pre-lockdown trips to the supermarket where shelves were bare? A lot of people complained that it wasn't really possible to 'shop normally' because 'normal' things weren't available. 

In fact I couldn't find any frozen spinach from Talley, but never mind, all the kale was there, sitting alone among the empty spaces previously occupied by frozen peas and mix veggies. I wonder why, I always thought that frozen kale was one of the best frozen veggie out there after mine got all eaten up by bugs! So, lucky for me :-). I use kale in the same way as I would use spinach, and silverbeet too (fortunately still alive in the garden, but either too young or too leaf deprived (by me this time, not by the bugs) to use now. Of course lasagne with kale taste different from lasagne with spinach (or silverbeet) but I love them (btw, to me lasagne is a plural noun, lasagna is just one sheet a pasta).  At the same time I could use the Barilla lasagne I scored when all the other pasta was not available! I usually make fresh lasagne, but I have to say that these ones are super easy to use and quick, and give good results. I wouldn't use any other brand in fact.

Start by cooking the kale. Place the kale in a bowl and let it defrost at room temperature (one pack is 500g, I use it all). Chop a couple of shallots (if you don't have shallots substitute with an onion), and sauté in olive oil, add a little salt and then the defrosted kale and stir well. Cover and simmer on low for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time and adding more water when needed. Towards the end of cooking add more salt to taste. Let the Kale cool down completely. I cooked mine the day before so I stored it in the fridge overnight. 

Then make a white sauce. Easy version: mix two tbsp of plain flour with a little full cream milk taken from 1 litre to make a paste with no lumps, add most of the milk and 60 g of butter. Bring to the boil stirring constantly, when it is creamy add the rest of the milk and stir well. Add salt, pepper and freshly grated nutmeg. If you like the more traditional version melt the butter, mix in the flour and then add the milk. Procede as above. 

To layer: place a small amount of white sauce at the bottom of a lasagne dish, cover with sheets of pasta, breaking up some to fit your dish perfectly. Add some kale, a little more white sauce and some grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Add more pasta and continue to layer as above, making sure that you have as many layer of pasta as possible: good lasagne have many layers, so keep the kale/white sauce layers very very thin!! Make sure that you keep enough white sauce for the last layer which is just pasta completely covered with white sauce and grated Parmigiano.

Bake at 180℃ for 45 minutes, or until you get a nice crust. Cover with tin foil or a lid and let it sit for 20 minutes (in the warm oven if you like) before serving. Or if serving later on in the day keep covered and then reheat in the oven for 20 minutes.

Easy to cut and I love a bit of crunch on the crust and the creamy white sauce just underneath!  

I also used kale to make Palak Paneer, just in case you don't like Lasagne :-)

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

How to make candied flowers

You will need some fresh organic edible flowers and petals, clean them well with kitchen paper and a little water, if necessary, but make sure that they are not wet before starting.

Mix an egg white lightly with a fork (do not whip). Coat the petals with the egg white.

Next step: coat with sugar. I find caster sugar a bit to rough, and icing sugar too fine, so I just put some normal white sugar in a mixer and grind it a little until it is finer but not as fine as icing sugar.

I keep the egg white, sugar bowl and a tray all in a line so I can work more easily.

Let the flowers and petal dry completely and then store away in a dry place until needed.

And now some flowers for Pinterest! 

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Wholemeal fresh pasta - pasta fresca integrale

Wholemeal fresh pasta is delicious! I made it with Agnese and her son Antonio, they get the flour from a local mill, organic and all :-). First you need to pass it through a sieve.

Leave the bran behind, this will be for the chickens, they make the eggs for the pasta!

And this is Agnese's knife to cut tagliatelle and maltagliati.

Then you make the dough, usually for  each 500g of white flour I use five eggs, but for wholemeal pasta you need more, about six or seven eggs. Of course you can also mix wholemeal and white flour, in any case, the dough was done by machine and you can see if it is the case to add an extra egg or not, it all depends on the egg size and if the dough looks too dry. Once the dough is ready Agnese cuts it...

And then rolls it so it is ready to go through the pasta machine.

From the largest setting to the thinnest roll roll roll!

Then fold the rolled pasta and cut into tagliatelle

Now maltagliati: fold the rolled pasta and cut the corners, this is Arantxa doing it:

Maltagliati is great for soups, like pasta e fagioli, or with a simple clear broth. Wholemeal tagliatelle goes well with thick and flavoursome sauces.

I made it with a mushroom sauce (porcini, garlic, tomato and cream), amazing!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Jackfruit for tacos

I love tacos, tortillas and Mexican food in general, and for me it goes with beans, but everyone is talking about jackfruit these days, so I gave it a try. Got myself a jar of green jackfruit in beans and started the experiment.

First I fried some onion with olive oil and a Tio Pablo Mexican spices, in the meantime I drained the jackfruit and cut it into smaller segments, like in the photos.

I added the jackfruit to the onions and cooked it until the jackfruit become soft and easy to break with the wooden spoon. 

 Like this. Various recipes suggest breaking it up so it resemble shredded chicken... not sure I like the idea, never had shredded chicken and I don't see the appeal of it, but the jackfruit 'core' is a little hard, so some mashing goes well here, and the spices combined well. I used this to fill tacos, with the usual salad, tomatoes, guacamole and salsa verde, it was good, and I made several variations ever since, but I now use cans of organic Jack Fruit, they are easy to find in all supermarkets! And I got better at mixing my own spices ;-).

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©