My mom learned to make roasted eggplant dip from a Romanian friend. This friend used to roast her eggplants on the open flame, as that is the traditional way of doing it in Romania. My mom decided to do it her way and roast the aubergines in the oven instead. By doing so you lose the smoky flavour, but the outcome will have the same texture and will yield an equally great ingredient to make a delicious eggplant dip.
There is evidence of flatbreads being baked in many ancient cultures, but pizza as we know it nowadays has a much more modern history. Legend has it that the first pizza Margherita was invented in 1890 in honor of Margherita of Savoy, Queen of Italy. The country had been unified under the same flag for only a few decades, and to honour the queen the pizza that carried her name was made with the same colours of the Italian flag – red, green and white. Continue reading
I wish I could say it’s hot but it’s just not. I think all through July the temperature never reached 25 degrees. My parents are here visiting and it feels like fall. Some nights the outside thermometer even shows one-digit results. This is the first year that I get to spend all of July in Sweden, as we chose to travel in June and then again in August and I think I never want this again. July is disappointing. I’m not a fan of the heat but in the summer I want to see the sun. Continue reading
As this post is being published I am spending a portion of my summer vacations in Poland. Prior to getting here, I had spent a few days in Norrköping visiting a dear friend of mine. I traveled there two days after my job was done, finding it absolutely unbearable to stay in town any longer for some reason. I love the cute little town I live in, but a creeping sense of suffocation had me in its grip and I needed to get away, fast. The fact that my boyfriend was in Rome and I was not enjoying my time alone as much as I usually do (I am an only child and have been raised to love my own company very much) didn’t help either. Well, long story short I hopped on a train and got off in Norrköping. Continue reading
We Italians can be awfully picky eaters. We pride ourselves for coming from one of the places in the world with the best food, and then tend to forget that there’s a whole world out there that is not doing that bad when it comes to preparing food, after all. Sure, Italian food will forever be my favourite, but I think that keeping an open mind is something a few more Italians should consider doing.
Last week I bought cherry tomatoes with the intention of eating them on Thursday, the day that I start working at 12:00 and I usually have to fit in a quick lunch around 11:00 before I leave home. Cherry tomato and tuna salad was my plan. But then that particular Thurdsay morning I decided to get busy in the kitchen and I just forgot about the cherry tomatoes. I almost forgot to have lunch at all, that day. So a few days later, during the weekend, I opened the fridge and saw that package of cherry tomatoes. Some of them showing off serious wrinkles. Continue reading
It all started two months ago, when I stumbled upon a very interesting recipe on one of the first food blogs I have ever followed, cilantro lime rice by Cooking with a Wallflower. Sometimes I find recipes and I wonder how on Earth I had never come up with such ideas myself, spontaneously. I lovelovelove guacamole and I often think that my big love is mostly for the avocado, but the thing about guacamole is also the peculiar flavours of lime and cilantro that make the avocado mash special. Why didn’t I ever think of adding lime and cilantro to rice? Continue reading
I come from a country that has a lot in common with Switzerland, including a shared border, the Alps and a language (Italian is one of the official languages of Switzerland), yet I had never heard of rösti earlier than last year. Never even ate them by chance. I had had something pretty similar in Poland (placki ziemniaczane) but rösti are not quite the same thing, despite being potato-based just like the Polish fritters. I guess that one of the main differences between Italy and Switzerland (even Canton Ticino) is a different main source of starches. Continue reading
Despite being Italian, I have ventured into making home-made pizza only in my late twenties. I think the reason is partially found in the fact that living in Italy it is so much more convenient to get really delicious pizza from an actual pizzeria, also considering that most pizzerie in Italy have a stone oven with real fire. Which is, in my opinion, the key element to producing a real good pizza and not just an okay pizza. An electric oven will never deliver the same result, as delicious as it may turn out. Yes, I’m very conservative.
Who doesn’t love a good burger? Beef, chicken or vegetarian, I will never say no to one. As much as I enjoy burgers as street food, I also love making my own patties at home. Minced beef is my first ingredient of choice, but I like to alternate my diet and reduce my meat intake, so vegetarian options are becoming more and more popular in my house. I must admit that I am not crazy about “meat replacement” foods like soy burgers, and if I’m to eat vegetarian I’d rather go with something totally different from meat, also in terms of texture. Chickpeas, for example. Continue reading