View this email in your browser

The Month in Food (March 2019)

It's been a whirlwind of a month, though I've made the effort to rest whenever possible now that I'm just over six weeks away from giving birth. Teaching duties, both English and cooking-related, to attend to. Pregnancy exams and appointments to fit in somehow, not to mention, slowly getting the house ready for the new arrival - a little girl whose name will start with C, just like my firstborn - due in May.

Yet, after a break during the first two months of 2019, I am proud to say that this month I managed to fit in some time for writing, recipe-testing and photography. In this edition of The Month in Food, you'll find links to three recent blog posts, one for a treat that reminds me of my home country of Australia, and two with recipes which are very much rooted in Italy, namely the regions of Veneto and Liguria, respectively. There's also a link to my final contribution for Italy Magazine for the time being, a recipe for another Ligurian delight, as well as an exclusive recipe for email subscribers for making homemade salted butter from scratch. Buon appetito!

Ligurian panissa salad

I’ve gradually transitioned to working from home over the past couple of years. This means minimal commuting and to my great relief, far less office politics to put up with. There’s no more need to fill a lunchbox with a pre-made lunch the night before either. And let’s not forget those occasions when I was too tired to do the above task and had to rely on a trayful of food from the mensa or a bar near my former workplace at the opposite end of Turin. Instead, on mornings when I am not teaching English or giving cooking classes, after the school run, I make my way to the market in Corso Brunelleschi and buy the fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables necessary to keeping my family and I fed for the next couple of days.

Lunch for me then has to be a relatively quick and unfussy affair, especially if I’ve got teaching duties to attend to afterwards. Eggs poached in tomato sauce is a favourite for this purpose, as is pasta with a pesto I may have prepared the day before in the fridge. Lately though, the fresh parsley and spring onions readily available in Corso Brunelleschi have been beckoning me to pair them with bite-sized morsels of chickpea flour polenta in a dish known in its home region of Liguria as panissa (not to be confused with the Piedmontese rice dish I wrote about a few years ago).

In my latest blog post, I write about the ritual surrounding my current seasonal favorite work-from-home lunch dish, this filling and nutritious salad from Piedmont's coastal neighbour, Liguria. For more deliciousness from this very special part of Italy, don't forget to scroll down for my Focaccia di Recco recipe!

Focaccia di Recco

When you think of focaccia, chances are that slices of thick, dimpled and generously oiled leavened bread anointed with salt crystals – a specialty of the historic port city of Genoa - come to mind. Yet, focacce have been made in Liguria and along the Italian peninsula since Roman times. Subsequently, you'll find the name focaccia used to describe a great variety of locally-produced rustic breads which differ considerably in shape, size and toppings all along the sunkissed, mountainous region straddling Italy's northwestern coast. There's the piscialandrea, a relative of Nice's anchovy and onion-topped pissaladière, thought to be named after the Genoese admiral, Andrea Doria. There are focaccia con le cipolle and focaccia alle olive, made with onion and olives, respectively. My personal favourite, however, would have to be a rather atypical, unleavened variety from the town of Recco, near Genoa.

In this recipe for Italy Magazine, my final one before taking some time off from writing for the online publication, I recount the history of the sublime and irresistibly cheesy focaccia that began winning over summer visitors to the Ligurian coast in the 1950s. I also share a few tips for ensuring that those layers of dough are perfectly paper-thin and transparent. Trust me, it does get easier with practice!

More about radicchio (and what it's like to be pregnant in Turin)

If you were to ask one of the people who knows me best what I enjoy eating most I'm sure they'll respond with the word insalata or salad. And by salad, I mean raw, simple ones composed of one or two plant varieties at most, seasoned with flaky sea salt, vinegar or freshly-squeezed lemon juice and a light, extra virgin olive oil. There's nearly always one at a meal I serve, a trait that's always served as a source of bemusement to my more carnivorous husband, who jokingly calls me capra or 'goat' for my love of raw greens. Not even the precautions I've currently been advised to take by torinese doctors as a pregnant woman (more on this subject below) who has never had toxoplasmosis - namely washing all fruits and vegetables thoroughly with Ammuchina and avoiding raw fruits and vegetables when eating out - have dampened my enthusiasm for currently in season fennel, cabbages, valerian salad and my personal favourite, radicchio.

In this post, I am back in the more familiar territory of Italian food and a beloved ingredient from the boot-shaped peninsula, radicchio. I share two recipes for using it in the kitchen, as a topping to a pureed soup and as a surprisingly sweet dessert. And since prepping radicchio and other salads reminds me of all that extra careful washing I have to do now that I'm pregnant and receptive to the aforementioned toxoplasmosis, I couldn't help but share some information and personal reflections on pregnancy and childbirth here in Turin.

N.B. Maternity photos by my very talented friend, Turin-based child and wedding photographer Michelle Bottalico. For more photos, here's a link to her blog post about this very enjoyable photoshoot from the third trimester of my first pregnancy in 2014.

Banana bread, another taste of home

I recently bought a new cookbook, Julia Busuttil-Nishimura's Ostro. Initially, I was attracted to the Melbourne-based Maltese-Australian cook, teacher and author's interpretations of Italian dishes, as she has spent a lot of time studying and working in Italy. In her stunningly photographed book, there are some lovely-looking recipes for regional Italian classics such as homemade trofie with pesto genovese, pasta and chickpea soup and pork cooked in milk, for instance. I also love her food and cooking philosophy which has much in common with mine. That is, slowing down and taking the time to source the best, seasonal ingredients and make things - pasta, mascarpone, even butter - by hand is a true pleasure in itself.

In this post, I make a slight deviation from the Italian theme of my blog and post a recipe from Ostro that brings me back home, banana bread. Below, you'll also find an exclusive recipe for homemade salted butter to accompany it, also inspired by Julia's lovely cookbook.

What I'm Reading: Julia Busuttil-Nishimura's Ostro

One of the things I love about Julia's cookbook is the emphasis on making various staples from scratch, at home. I'd long wanted to try my hand at making butter and I decided to take the plunge at around the same time I started baking her banana bread. Feel free to use your favourite flaky sea salt when making your own batch. At the moment, I'm quite fond of the grey fleur de sel from France's Breton coast and English Maldon flakes!

For the homemade salted butter

500 ml cream
1 teaspoon flaky sea salt
a large bowlful ice cold water

Method

In a large bowl, beat the cream until the solids separate, about 7-8 minutes. Place a tight-mesh sieve over a bowl and press on the solids to release all of the liquid. That liquid is buttermilk, which you can keep for other purposes. Return the solids to the bowl and beat for another 3-4 minutes to remove more buttermilk, and repeat the straining process.

Fill a large bowl with very cold, ice water and, working quickly, knead the butter in the water, squeezing out as much buttermilk as you can. Drain and repeat until the water is clear. Mix in the salt until evenly distributed. Wrap the butter tightly in baking paper and refrigerate until ready to serve. It should keep for three weeks, provided all the buttermilk has been removed properly.

Read my latest recipes for Italy Magazine:

Travelling to Turin? Keen to learn more about seasonal home cooking? Then book one of my hands-on, Market-To-Table Cooking Classes or Pasta-Making Classes with Bonappetour!

My website's Privacy Policy has been updated in light of the new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws that came into effect on 25^th May 2018. If you'd like to keep hearing from me, there's no need to do anything. I'll continue to send you this monthly newsletter with blog updates and subscriber exclusive recipes, just as you signed up for. I will never spam you! In addition, I value your privacy as much as my own and your data will never be traded or disclosed to anyone for any reason. You are also free to opt out and unsubscribe from my mailing list at any time by clicking the links below at the end of this email.

Forward

Read Later