Tag: italian traditional dish

Rice and ricotta cheese cake for your heart

 

torta-di-ricotta

Lovely  recipes and lovely  Italian cakes to all! Especially in a time of austerity this old, simple, clear and easy recipe for a delicious cake is always welcome from everyone! Few, basic ingredients for a “grand torte”! Welcome to this ricotta cheese-based cake (Torta di ricotta e riso in original) ! Ask the variant to your mother or granny: instead of the rice, you can add and mix it up also fruit or candies. A lot of choices among for example apple but also pears and strawberries!!

 

Torta di ricotta e riso: Rice and ricotta cheese cake, a simple recipe
 
Infinite joy and pleasure to eat this simple recipe from Italian tradition called Torta di ricotta e riso (Rice and ricotta cheese cake) with a cup of caffelatte!
Author:
Cuisine: Italian
Serves: 6
Ingredients
  • Whole milk 4 Cup
  • Arborio rice 3⁄4 Cup
  • Ground cinnamon 1 Tsp
  • Salt 1⁄2 Tsp
  • Vanilla bean
  • Granulated sugar 1 Cup
  • Fresh ricotta cheese 1.425 grams
  • Whole eggs 3
  • Egg yolk 3
Instructions
  1. Heat the milk on medium high heat, and bring it to a boil. Add rice, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla bean in it.
  2. On medium low heat, stir occasionally, and cook for about 40 minutes.
  3. Remove the pan from the heat completely. Add the sugar and stir again. 4.Cover it with lid and let it cool.Throw away the vanilla bean.
  4. Preheat oven (350).
  5. In a large bowl, mix the ricotta cheese, the whole eggs, the egg yolks, and the cooled rice mixture.
  6. Pour the mixture in a baken tray.
  7. Put it in the oven and bake the mixture for 1 hour and 30 minutes or until golden on top and set in the centre.
  8. Remember to cover the pan with foil to hel the rice not to burn.

Passatelli in brodo: fab for the Winter

Passatelli in brodo: it is a treasure coming from the traditional recipes! This dish shows perfectly how Italian people can invent new recipes, changing the method you work the same ingredients.

In the Romagna region of Italy, this wonderful dish called “passatelli” (“to pass them through”). In fact the act of making them involves a kind of potato press designed for passatelli. You will eat them “in brodo” (with stock), but  also  dry with a “ragù di carne” (meaning meat sauce) or “ragu’ di pesce” (meaning a sauce made with fish).

The ingredients are: 200 g (7 oz) Breadcrumbs , 200 g (7 oz) Grated Parmesan cheese, 4 Eggs, 1 tsp Nutmeg, Lemon zest from a ¼ of the lemon, Salt and pepper to season, 3-4 litres of chicken stock.

Breadcrumbs has to come from stale bread that has become hard enough to be grated. Use bread made without olive oil! Chefs in restaurants add some flour to keep the passatelli mixture together. First, smash the bread in fine breadcrumbs and grate on it the Parmesan cheese. Break the eggs into a large bowl and season with salt and with pepper. Whisk the eggs for few seconds and set the bowl apart. Add the breadcrumbs into a second bowl. Add the nutmeg and stir to distribute better the nutmeg. Then it comes Parmesan cheese and lemon zest. Stir and add the dry mix to the whisked eggs.

Once all the eggs have been absorbed into it, start working the mixture with your hands. Work the dough for few minutes in a bal. Wrap the ball with cling film but don’t put the ball in the fridge; just leave it in a cool place. Use a kind of potato press with wider holes (4 mm diameter) to press all the ball and cut the passatelli when they are about 4 cm. Let them dry and then throw them into the boiling stock! Or press the pressed dough directly into the boiling stock. Try both methods and decide what you like most!

 

 

 

The best Italian living Nativity scenes

Living nativity scenes are pretty famous in Italy and they are called presepi viventi: they are made of costumed people acting out the parts of the nativity. For example, Chia, near Soriano, shows a large living nativity on December 26 with more than 500 participants!

Often living nativity scenes stay on for several days, usually Christmas Day and December 26, and sometimes around January 6, when the three Wise Men gave Jesus their gifts. Let’s go around Italy and discover a bunch of towns that reenact the Nativity scene!

Milan has an Epiphany Parade of the Three Kings from the Duomo to the church of Sant’Eustorgio on January 6.

Barga is a beautiful medieval town in northern Tuscany with a living nativity and Christmas pagaent on December 23.Equi Terme, in the Lunigiana region of Tuscany, has a reenactment of the nativity that takes place throughout the village.

In Liguria the living nativity scenes can be seen in the towns of Calizzano, Roccavignale, and Diano Arentino during the period of December.

Vetralla, in the northern Lazio region, has the oldest living nativity in the region.

In the South of Italy? Custonaci, a small town near Trapani, in Sicily, has a beautiful nativity scene re-enacted inside a cave.  Rivisondoli, in the Abruzzo region has a reenactment for the arrival of the 3 Kings on January 5 with hundreds of participants. Rivisondoli also presents a living nativity December 24 and 25. L’Aquila and Scanno also in the Abruzzo region have living nativities on Christmas Day.