As I said in the previous recipe, I am determined to try some traditional Italian recipes using alternative brands of plant-based meat substitutes. This week I make a few changes to the traditional meatball recipe from “La Cucina Italiana” Magazine , and I use a different brand of meat substitute than in my previous test. The result is much more satisfying than the previous attempt. The texture is excellent, and the taste is fairly close to that of the traditional meat recipe. It is important to use high quality tomatoes – such as the San Marzano variety I have used – and blend them using a mixer, because the combined flavors of the meat(less)-balls and the sauce are what make the dish so delicious.
Ingredients
Ingredients
Plant based meat 1 pack egg 1 100 g grated Parmesan cheese Slices of bread 2 Milk or stock 1 dl breadcrumbs 3 tbsp
This is my version of a vegan “ragù alla Bolognese” – or simply ragù – prepared with Beyond Beef (here called B.B. in short). Before proceeding, I would like to explain how I came up with this recipe. I previously used half of a package of B.B. (total weight 16 ounces) to prepare “polpette” – meatballs – following a classic recipe. The meatballs turned out to be flavorful, with B.B.’s flavor prevailing over the other ingredients (eggs, bread, cheese, and garlic). In particular, the taste of pomegranate and beetroot together provided an intense taste of meat, similar to the Italian meat specialty called “cotechino”. For this reason, I decided to proceed with the preparation of B.B. ragù following the proportions recommended by Professor Dario Bressanini. There are of course a thousand recipes for ragù alla bolognese, but I prefer Bressanini’s because he explains the theory behind the dish and the reasons why the various steps are carried out. According to him, the traditional recipe requires sausages (and fats) to provide taste and softness to the ragù. Instead, B.B. contains coconut oil and cocoa butter, along with canola oil; the package indicates the presence of 18 grams of total fat. Since the meat/vegetables ratio Bressanini recommends is 1250 grams of meat to 700 grams of vegetables, I maintain roughly this proportion – that is, the vegetables are about half the weight of B.B.
Some time ago a friend of mine told me that her greatest cooking challenge was calculating preparation time. I have been thinking a lot about this and about my previous experience as a cook. In fact, she is right. Some of my colleagues find recipes taking too long and wondering why. I rarely have that problem and the secret is organization.
Why?
I will use the next recipe to illustrate my method. Pasta with cod, white wine, and tomato sauce can be prepared in about 30 minutes, starting from scratch. The recipe starts by sautéing carrots and leek (or onions). So, begin with these two ingredients, and wash, Continue reading →
It’s day 17 of lockdown here in Italy. So far, I have been able to keep myself busy thanks to my work, my MBA at the UoPeople, another course in statistics and R, and cooking (of course). Cooking is not the same as usual, though, because many ingredients are not available. I don’t know about you, but the way I handle food now is also different. I religiously seal and store all items carefully, and I avoid wasting anything.
This situation reminds me of my motivation when I have created this blog. Continue reading →
In fact, you cannot really tell it until you make it – until you have made it several times.
How can you tell if a gnocchi recipe is good? Why gnocchi?
I have chosen gnocchi because there are hundreds of different recipes, it is a classic staple of Italian cuisine, and if the recipe is good, it is delicious. (According to Massimo Montanari, Professor of Medieval History at Bologna University and scholar in Food studies, gnocchi has been a favorite recipe since the Middle Ages.)
In this post and in subsequent posts, we will study the various recipes and procedures for making gnocchi that you can find online. We will see that some recipes are good because they include photos of key steps, some are good because they explain how to vary the recipe depending on qualities of the key ingredients, and some are good because they are bad, because they show you what not to do.
Gragnano Pastais famous all over the world for its rich taste. They produce it by using durum wheat semolina and the special local water. In the past times, Gragnano was called “the City of Macaroni” and now thePGIlabel is rewarding its absolute quality.
Vesuvio is a new shape of Pasta and I received it as a gift when I visited the “Pastai Gragnanesi “stand in Florence, during the
This healthy recipe is perfect if you’re on a diet: it’s light and it satisfies your hunger. Select high quality ingredients, since they’re the secret of its success.
I think this is the best cake on earth because it represents Spring, my favorite season of the year. Unfortunately, I can only post the photo, not the perfume that filled my house, like flowers blooming. I cannot imagine Easter without it.
Each family owns a recipe and I’ll post mine, that has a reduced amount of eggs and sugar, if compared to others.
1 teaspoon grated orange zest and lemon zest (organic)
500 g. of sifted ricotta
4 large eggs, at room temperature
260 g. sugar
3 tablespoons orange-flower water
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon + 1 cinnamon stick
1/2 cup very finely chopped candied orange peel
Confectioner’s sugar
Directions
Drop the wheat flour and the butter into a food processor, turn for 20 seconds, then add the powdered sugar, the egg + egg yolk and vanilla or lemon. Put aside ¼ of this dough, for the stripes. Place down the remaining dough (use a rolling-pin) into a (9-inch) pie pan and press down along the bottom and all sides. Pierce the dough by using a fork, then set aside in the fridge.
Preheat the oven at 338° F.
Place the wheat in a medium saucepan with milk. Add the butter, the cinnamon stick and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the wheat is tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Place in a large bowl, remove the cinnamon stick. Let cool.
In a large bowl, whisk together the ingredients in the following order: eggs, sugar, the sifted ricotta, orange-flower water, grounded cinnamon, lemon and orange zest, candied orange peel. Beat until blended, stir in the wheat mixture.
Pour the filling into the prepared pan.
Take the ¼ of the dough you have put aside and cut into 1/2 inch wide strips to use as a lattice top for the pie. Place the strips of dough across the filling, spaced about 1 inch apart (at right angles) forming a lattice top and flute well.
Bake the pie in a preheated 338° F oven for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the bottom of the crust is light brown, the center is set, and the top of the pies are golden.
Serve cool.
If you like, you can give the pie tops a light sprinkle of powdered sugar before serving.
Background music: “Sweet Candy” BY AC/DC.
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