Speck Fettucini

Last night I came to the conclusion that sometimes, despite all the carbless and protein focussed diets out there, besides chocolate, a woman needs pasta.... and the requisition of this pasta must always be 'GOOOOOD and fulfilling'!!!!
Moreover, there is way too little pasta on this blog... so let's get some change into that.

Chef Raffaella made a good and rather healthy fettucini for me a couple of months ago and it didn't get lost in my database of mouthwatering pictures of food, it was just on hold for the right moment. Its moment has come to shine!

Ingredients:

• 400 gr fettucine or tagliatelle
• 4 zucchini
• 200 gr mushrooms
• 150 gr bacon cubes (Italian call this speck, which is a gourmet version of bacon)
• olive oil
• garlic 

How to make it:

Heat up a pan of water with a fist of salt for your pasta and bring it to a boil. When it boils, add the pasta and cook it according to what is written on the packaging. Keep the indication for 'al dente' pasta as you will be cooking it some more in the end together with the sauce in your frying pan.

Cut up the vegetables in little cubes and slices.

While you cook the pasta you heat up a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan, fry the garlic and add the zucchini for a couple of minutes until they get tender. Then you add the mushrooms and some salt. Add a couple of tablespoons of pastawater and let it simmer for circa 5 minutes with the lid on. After which you add the bacon cubes. Give it a good stir and let it simmer for another 10 minutes but keep an eye on the pan as you want to avoid the sauce of getting dry. If it does, add some of the pasta water into the sauce.

Once your pasta is cooked al dente, take it out of the pan with a pastaspoon or a pair of pincers as you want the pasta to remain wet while adding it to the sauce. Pastawater contains starch that will densify the sauce a bit. Stir the whole for a couple of minutes on a low 'fire' and then you are done!

Outcome: Italian mamma approved fettucine!!!

Speck Fettucine

Baci
Chef Raffaella

Home Made Hamburgers

TGIF!! Yeah baby.. it is friday... it is summer - well for most people out there. In my beloved Amsterdam that I so was looking forward to moving to, it is cloudy, rainy & cold! Seriously NOT cool.

But once the sunshine is out, the whole Dutch population drops whatever it is they're doing and runs outside, dusts off their sunglasses to put them on their white little faces and right after they have a chilled beer they turn on a BBQ at home or in a park nearby to put on some juicy burgers!! That's summer for us, once in a decade... sigh!

Ingredients:

• a man
• 1-2 burgers per person
• 1-2 buns per person
• cheddar
• tomatoes sliced
• pickles sliced
• cucumbers sliced
• salad
• mayonaise 
• ketchup

How to make it:

Dust your BBQ and find a man to do the hard work of preparing the BBQ. Playing with fire is just their cup of tea so you shouldn't have any trouble in finding a volunteer. If you do, just say you will reward him with a big fat home made burger. No man on earth will resist you! (did I just come up with a new theory on how to seduce a man???)

Hmmmm meat!

Once the BBQ is hot and steamy, put on the rack and throw the burgers on there.

Twist and turn until done; this should take around 7-10 minutes depending on the thickness of your burger.

Add the cheddar on the burger a minute before it's done so that it can melt nicely.

While the burgers are cooking, open up the buns.

Build your burger to taste.

Home Made Hamburgers

Buon Appetito

Chef Steph

First entry of a 26 year old: Spring Chicken

Hi everyone, I am back!
I was away for a while because I spent a long weekend in Holland with my friends and family to celebrate my 26th birthday (ssshhhhh don't spread the word!). Hence the absent note: partying! It was fantabulous! I went to this 80's party on saturday night where EVERYBODY was dressed up in crazy panther printed leggings and fluerescent colours and hair of like 5m tall, hilarious. Only the Dutch can do that and enjoy themselves while doing it. Wellll... maybe the brits or germans could too but...
Sunday was a family day: went horseriding with my sis after years and years of not having ridden - it felt great! In the evening I had dinner with my parents, sis, bro and gf at a cute little 'french bistrot'. Had a smoked duckbreast salad and a steak tartar, aka raw meat!!!! But let me tell you, it was divine. But most of all, the company made into a super birthday dinner.
Monday evening I spent it with friends and it made my birthday complete. Time to go back home....

I have literally 2 minutes to post this recipe but as it has been a little while that I haven't posted anything, I wanted to treat you with my spring chicken creation I made last week. Simply because it is such a nice midweek dinner, and who knows it might inspire you this week.

Ingredients: for 2 servings

• 2 chicken legs, or 4 drumsticks
• 0.5 kg carrots - peeled
• 1 red onion cut in rings
• 1 garlic smashed
• extra vergine olive oil
• splash of lemon juice
• herbs provencal
• salt and pepper

How to make it:

Peel the carrots, cut the onion, clean the garlic and place them all in an oven tray.

Salt and pepper the chicken. Place in the oven tray in between the veggies.

Sprinkle the lemon juice, olive oil and herbs on top.

Place in the oven at 180 degrees celcius for about 40-45 minutes.

Outcome: Easy peasy springy light chicken meal. Add bread or potatoes for your male friends! :)

Spring Chicken

Buon Appetito

Chef Steph

Back to my roots: Dutch Stamppotje & Honey Mustard Chicken

A club by dictionary means: A group of persons organized for a social, literary, athletic, political or other purpose. So our club would be a group of persons for a culinary purpose, that cook together and share their secrets, doubts and love for cooking and extraordinary foods.
Furthermore my goal of this club is to gain experience and knowledge about different cultures and their customs about food. So I have thought to go looking for information about different cultures and their foods and post them one by one accompanying the respective recipes.

So I live in Italy, but I am Dutch.

Dutch cuisine; what is Dutch cuisine really? Many of my friends ask me what a typical Dutch dish is, and my usual answer is 'stamppot', which is a mash of potatoes and vegetables. Traditionally it is made with 'boerenkool' or in English: kale! Actually kale has become a very fashionable ingredient these days in the states, everyone is cooking with and frying kale! However for the Dutch it has become so old school that Dutch foodies desperately look for new ways to make their easy and traditionally heavy and wintery dish. And it is doable: imagine a mash of potatoes with sundried tomatoes, or with chicory and goat's cheese... or even with broccoli like I did, turns out a good combination.

The mash is then traditionally combined with 'rookworst', a smoked sausage, and trust me when I say it is gooooood! Really good! But again, very wintery and quite fat. So I looked for a lighter alternative and found a honey mustard chicken recipe over at Jessica's blog 'How Sweet it is'. Mustard is another Dutch traditional spice, because all the way back, when spices were super expensive, the Dutch would spice up their solid foods such as potatoes and different plain cabbages with mustard. It was so famous that each region had, and still has their own type of mustard. I used 'Zaanse Mosterd' and a french mustard 'Dijon' for this recipe. (I live in Italy, not all Dutch mustards are available here).

Ingredients: serves 4

• 250gr peeled potatoes chopped in small cubes.
• 250gr broccoli chopped
• 200gr cauliflower chopped
• stock
• 20 dl milk
• pinch of salt and pepper
• 600 gr of chicken breast
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil extra vergine
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons of spicy mustard 
• 2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard

How to make it:

Boil a big pan of water and add a cube of broth - boil the potatoes. 5 minutes before the end, add the vegetables. They have to be all soft and mashable when they're done. Rinse the vegetables and start mashing the vegetables while adding the milk to make it a bit more creamy. At the end add salt and pepper to taste.

While the vegetables are cooking, pat the chicken breasts dry with a paper towel. The trick to really nice and crispy golden brown chicken is to make them really really dry (I had no idea of this fact, did you?!). Heat a bit of oil in a pan and fry the chickens 6-8 minutes - depending on the thickness of the breast filets. 

In a bowl combine, the oil, mustards, honey, salt and pepper and mix it well. When the chicken is done and still hot, brush the honey mustard mix on the chicken and serve with the mashed potatoes and vegetables.

Outcome: a traditional Dutch AVG'tje in a new jacket... AVG=  Aardappels (=potatoes), Vlees (=meat) and Groenten (=vegetables) in a new jacket, yet still with old school flavours.

Stamppotje & Honey Mustard Chicken

Buon Appetito

Chef Steph

Fusion: Easter continues with Blueberry Lambchops

Chef Stefano is probably down south in his beloved Lecce cooking for his parents and sister...
And there might be a good chance he is making this recipe that he taught me a while back, and it is divine!!! Again fruit in a main dish is not something that everyone likes, but this one is surprisingly good. The taste of the meat comes out really well with the blueberry....

Ingredients: serves 4

• 8 Lamb Chops
• 3 tablespoons of Olive Oil 
• 2 garlic cloves
• small glass of white wine
• 250 gr Blueberries
• a glass of Sweet liquor or Brandy
• 1 tablespoon Thyme

How to make it:

Clean the garlic by squashing it with a knife and peeling off the skin. Heat up the oil in a skillet and add the garlic until it starts to smell all nice and garlicky! 

Add the white wine to make it slightly more liquid.

Take out the lamb chops when they are halfway done.

Add to the same skillet the blueberries and cook them while squashing them slightly with a fork and add the liquor. Let the alcohol evaporate.

Finish the lamb chops in the oven in order for them to remain crispy on the outside and soft and pink on the inside.

Serve with the blueberry sauce.

Outcome: A surprising version of the classic easter dish. You can serve them with oven baked rosemary potatoes.

Blueberry Lamb Chops

Buon Appetito

Chef Steph

Spezzatino Allo Yoghurt

Back to normal life... means back to cooking! Even though the sun is still out and my inner dutchie wants to enjoy every ray of sun out there, my brain tells me to stay home at least one night a week in order to get some zzz and cooking done. Afterall, this cookingclub must exist for a reason and should not be seasonal...

So in order to keep everyone happy (my brain and my conscience.. and Katia) I invited her to come over and enjoy a home cooked meal at my place.
Decided to make a new Italian recipe, not very summery but not too heavy either: spezzatino allo yoghurt. It was good!

Ingredients:

• 300 gr of Bocconcini di Vitello (veal meat cubes)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• salt and pepper
• flour
• one shallot chopped
• 100 gr of carrots thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon of herbs provencale (basel, thyme, rosemary)
• 125 gr yoghurt (full or low fat)
• tad of milk
• 1 tablespoon flour

How to make it:

Cut the veal in medium sized cubes, salt and pepper them and then cover them with some flour.

Heat up the oil in a deep frying pan. Add the veal and fry until golden brown.

Add the onion and carrots to the meat. Toss for a couple of minutes until the carrots get softer.

Add some salt, pepper and herbs to taste.

In the mean time mix the yoghurt, milk and flour to a creamy mixture and add it to the meat and carrots.

Heat and stir until the sauce becomes creamy. 

The whole takes 10-15 minutes!

If you want to have it with rice: start boiling the water at the start and add the rice when you add the carrots to the meat. That way it's all done at the same time.

Outcome: in combination with some rice you have a perfect weekday meal. Nothing extraordinary but still better than a take-out! you could also make this with beef or chicken.... up to you!

Spezzatino allo Yoghurt

Buon Appetito

Chef Steph

For you: Chicken Parmigiana

No time nor power for actual words. Sometimes you just want to cook to get things of your mind.
What do you cook to forget?
Made this recipe with you in mind....

Ingredients: for two servings

• 1 eggplant
• 2 plum tomatoes peeled and chopped
• concentrated tomato puree
• 1 shallot chopped
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• salt, pepper
• fresh basel
• 1 mozzarella
• 2 large tablespoons of parmigiano

How to make it:

Heat oven at 170°C.

Slice the eggplant in 1cm slices, salt them and let them 'tear' for a couple of minutes (how appropriate).

While they are tearing, prepare your tomato sauce by frying up the shallot in 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add the chopped and peeled tomatoes and let simmer until they get soft. Add the concentrated tomato puree, salt, pepper and basel to taste. If needed add a splash of water to make it more liquid - this depends on the tomatoes you are using. - I'd also suggest to add some tabasco or chili flakes to give it some umpf!

In the meantime wash and dry the eggplant.

Bake the chicken in one heated tablespoon of olive oil. When it's done, place the chicken in an oven tray.

After the chicken, use the same pan to fry the eggplant with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Once these are done, place them on top of the chicken. Sprinkle some salt over the chicken and eggplant.

At this point you put the tomato sauce on top of the eggplant.

To finish off in style, place the mozzarella (shredded in pieces) on top, and sprinkle the parmigiano on the whole thing.

Place 10-15 minutes in the oven until the cheese get golden brown.

Outcome: you would have liked it!

Chicken Parmigiana

Buon Appetito

Chef Steph

Turkish Maklube

The first recipe posted by a member of the International Cooking Club!!!!!

A big welcome to Oya Emerk who is writing a blog for some time - however in turkish, you can find some recipes in English and her plan is to have all of them in english soon! 

Let's get cooking some Turkish Chicken called MAKLUBE

Ingredients:

1 Whole Chicken 

3-5 glasses of Chicken Broth

4-5 Eggplants

2-3 Cups of Rice

1 Tablespoon Cinnamon

Salt and Pepper to taste

1-2 tablespoons of Currants

50gr Butter

Shortening for frying the eggplants

Skinned Roasted Almonds

What to do:

Soak the rice: meanwhile peel the eggplants and slice them vertically, about half cm thick.

Place them in a deep bowl and salt them generously. Keep them for half an hour in the bowl until they give off their juice. Half an hour later, wash the eggplants and dry them thoroughly. Heat the shortening in a pan and fry the eggplants. Place them on a kitchen towel. 

Drain and wash the rice.

Boil the chicken in a deep pot with plenty of water. To add more flavour, peppercorns, carrots and onion can be added to the boiling water.

When the chicken is boiled, drain it and remove the bones. 

In a flat-bottomed pot, place the chicken meat first as the first layer, then the fried eggplants, and the drained rice. Press lightly with your hand.

When cooking pilav, my rice and water ratio is 1 to 1,5 (1 cup of rice - 1,5 cups of water) but for this recipe I add half a cup of water/broth more. Once the rice has absorbed the broth, decrease the temperature of the cooker and let it simmer until the rice is done. 

Before serving, turn it upside down into a platter and garnish with roasted almonds. Pour the chicken broth over the ingredients, adding currants, cinnamon and a pinch of salt. Finally add the butter

Outcome: A beautiful Chicken 'Tarte Tatin' with rice.... Thank you Oya!

Maklube

Afiyet Olsun

Chef Oya

Classic: Vitello Arrosto

On a friday night, after a long week of working I prepared this romantic dinner for my man as we had a little something to celebrate. Never having made a vitello arrosto before, I consulted my dear friend Ste asking how to prepare it easy, yummy and especially fast!!  He suggested slow cooking it in red wine... here we go!

Ingredients for 4 people:

• 500gr Vitello arrosto
• 2 tbsp olive oil (NOT extra vergine - for cooking you need regular pressed oil)
• 1 clove garlic
• salt
• pepper
• red cooking wine or use a nice chianti like I did

What to do:
Take a large and rather deep antiburning pan (how do you call these again?!), put on a big flame adding the 2 tbsp of olive oil and the clove of garlic chopped into small pieces. As the garlic is getting brownish, add the meat. Bake it golden brown on all sides for approximately 10 mins.
Then lower the flame and add the red wine untill half way of the vitello arrosto. Slow cook for 40-45 mins.It is done when you push it gently and it bounces back on its place.


Cut the meat into 1cm slices....
Add some (now yes..) Extra Vergine Olive oil of good quality...
Serve with a fresh green salad or grilled veggies and a tasteful red wine such as Barbera d'Asti - full of flavour and slightly dry

BUON APPETITO!

Chef Steph