Pasta Bolognese

With the first cold raindrops falling outside and the first tree leaves turning their color into yellow I’ve started thinking about something nourishing and warm. Sauce Bolognese. This typical Italian sauce, known throughout the world, has become a kind of generic name for minced meat and tomato sauce, but most of the families, especially outside Italy, prepare it according to their taste without being aware of the ingredients in the original recipe. The taste of the original Bolognese sauce should be kind of creamy and this is because of the milk, which mellows the acidity of the tomatoes and is a staple ingredient of the authentic recipe. The sauce requires simmering for some hours in order to develop its rich and hearty taste. The combination of sautéed onion, celery and carrots, called in Italian soffritto is also important. According to people from Bologna, this sauce tastes best served with fresh pasta like tagliatelle or fettucine.

Panzanella - Italian bread salad

Do you know what cucina povera means? It is an Italian term for the poor man's food. 
But nothing offensive. Peasant cooking means take the best from the ingredients you have on hand. Fresh ripe vegetables. Cheap cuts of meat and offals. Stale bread. The meaning is  cheap ingredients or ingredients you anyway have at home, simple recipe, rich taste.
In fact, bread and olive oil are two of the fundamental ingredients of Tuscan cookery and stale bread should not be wasted. So, Panzanella is a way to use a day-old bread. Roast or pan-fry the bread. Chop some ripe, but firm tomatoes. Add dressing and some more ingredients and you've got the summer taste in your plate, even if it is late spring outside. Bread soaks up all the juices from the vegetables and dressing and melts in mouth. Most of the recipes call for fresh basil as an ingredient, but I prefer to skip it in my version. I also substitute hot green peppers for the sweet ones used in the original. 

Bouillabaisse a la Marseillaise

I bet, you could not write the name of this dish if you are not french. Well, if you can, congratulations. I could not. I could not even pronounce it. But I can prepare it, I can enjoy it at lunch time, for dinner or even as a breakfast on early Saturday or Sunday mornings.   

Bouillabaisse is a French seafood stew, which home is supposed to be Marseille, but it is widely served in the coastal little ports of Southern France. It was once a cheap fishermen meal, which seafood ingredients depended on the daily catch. So, different kind of fish could be included, the most important thing is to put at least four varieties, every one of which delivers its own taste. Fish should be lean and fresh. The way I prepared the recipe is based  on the one from here. I added orange peel and wine.
There is a little rule conserning the serving of bouillabaisse - seafood in one dish and soup in another. But it all depends on you and your personal preferences. I like the fish to be hot, so I spoon a ladleful of soup onto it.

Zuppa Toscana

I don't have much time to prepare all the winter dishes I like- spring has nearly come, so I have to hurry. Nearly twenty days until the end of March, nearly twenty dishes to savour. 

One of them deffinitely Zuppa Toscana. Zuppa Toscana is a winter soup. Based on rich and nutritious ingredients like bacon, sausage, potatoes and heavy cream it is best enjoyed when the weather outside is cold. 

Head cheese, Pig brawn, Pacha or Sülze

It is a peasant food. Does not have to look pretty, is prepared from humble ingredients, but tastes amazing. The poor man's food has to be cheap, filling and nutritious. Low cost, high taste.

Every country has that sort of simple recipes representing the culinary traditions of the native folk. This local dishes are a nice reflection of the taste of the country and people continue preparing them like their mothers and grandmothers did. 

Have you ever heard about head cheese? No? What about pig brawn, pacha, fromage de tête or Sülze? 
Every country has an own name for this dish, but recipe is nearly the same. Parts of pig head and/or pigs trotters, boiled for hours with vegetables and spices, chopped to small pieces, cooled down and packed in a jelly. Refrigerated and served at room temperature. But also delicious served as a hot steaming soup sprinkled with hot pepper flakes and garlic-vinegar sauce. The very fact that so many countries in our industrial society still have it on their menu speaks for itself. It is good.

You have to overcome some prejudices to enjoy this dish at a full. The gelatin contained in the feet and the area behind the ears of the pig sets the brawn. The steps of preparing the dish are time-consuming and your hands will be, hmm, not very clean while you debone the hot feet and cut the ears in thin slices, but it is totally worth it. 
We enjoy Pacha with some mustard and pickled cornichons. At least once every winter.

Braised Red Cabbage Confit

Some days ago we went to a fancy new restaurant and there was a very tasty side-dish - a red cabbage confit. So I decided to find the recipe and to make it at home. This recipe is from here.

Onion and goat cheese Tart

This is one of the favourite dishes which is always welcome in my family. 

It is rich in aroma and should be served hot, right from the oven.

The onion becomes sweet and juicy by the caramelization, the goat cheese brings all the milky salty tasty flavours and the vergine olive oil  makes the crust crunchy and rich.