Orecchiette 2: beef or broccoli (turnip tops) & Don Quijote?

Sometimes an ingredient attracts your attention because of its shape. Orechiette always fascinated me for this reason. It is like a vessel you can load with different sorts of flavours. Sometimes those that look as impossible preparations come out to be the easiest ones, and while the water boils you are able to achieve amazing results. Sometimes, simply the fact that a dish is your girlfriend's preferred one, encourages you to indulge on its unrhymed poetry. Moreover, orecchiette remind me of Don Quijote, because of the resemblance between their shape and his typical element:

Murillo Benich Hugo, The dream of Don Quijote, 1980.
Benich Hugo is able to capture all the elements of the dream
in one painting: this ability is similar to that of the dish of pasta,
where all the cooking processes have to homogenize
according to a specific manner.

This time I wish to tickle your interest on two opposite dressings: the Aberdeen beef ragout I prepared two posts ago and the sautées broccoli. Broccoli substitute here turnip tops, which would actually be the most indicate vegetable for the orecchiette.

What to do with turnip greens? Good question: "I know vegetables"

offers several answers, although sometimes

his selection of recipes is using too conventional ideas

(this sounds dreadfully hipster, but it didn't meant to):

http://www.iknowvegetables.com/turnip-greens.html

Here is the meaty suggestion:

Measure around 80 gr of orechiette (Tesco finest* 1,65£),

let them boil in salted water

for 11 minutes.

Aren't they just beautiful like this?

Shall we call it entertaining pasta?

Drain the orecchiette and dress them with the 

Aberdeen angus beef ragout, lightly warmed up:

the mild ragout and the hot pasta 

will reach the right temperature not

to burn your tongue at the first bite.

Sprinkle with some Pecorino

or another hard cheese.

Here is, instead the vegetarian answer: this condiment is so tasty and rich that everyone will appreciate it, because it recreates a sort of Southern atmosphere, and brings the broccoli to a higher level, without begin excessive. Moreover, this recipe allows you to avoid using the broccoli as a side dish, and cooking the pasta in his water possibly helps to save even more nutrients.

Select your broccoli (there are Tesco Organic, 1,40£ each)

Boil them in salted water,

KEEP THE WATER TO COOK THE PASTA

Drain the broccoli with a skimmer and 

fry them gently in 2 tbs of extra-virgin olive oil

with some chili, a clove of garlic.

Add 30 ml of tomato sauce, only to give colour,

correct the sapidity. 

Drain the orecchiette, but keeping them wet

(or just add a ladle of cooking water before draining):

stir until the liquid and the sauce will be 

well absorbed.

Add also some Pecorino during the stirring process.

Take a quick picture and eat them,

in their decadent light.

Some people would add some bread crumbs, and I am positively favorable to this extra topping, especially if you brown for 30 seconds the breadcrumbs in a pan.

Lasagne and vegetarians (cream of mushrooms)

In these summer days the PhD absorbs so many hours of my life that I gradually lose the sense of reality, becoming part of the Middle-ages texts I am reading. I feel an excruciating nostalgia due the distance from Italy, not because of the Sun that strangely enough I do not appreciate much, yet because my girlfriend is there. When all the couples have the chance to spend more time together for their holidays, it is even more difficult to live your own self-inflicted exile with dignity: nonetheless I told to myself there was a way in which beyond the mails, the letters, the phone calls, valets and pigeons I could have been closer to her, while waiting for my imminent going back. The solution I found is basically warming up my cooking engines, preparing recipes she might then fancy, dreaming the moment in which we shall cook together...

A pic from You me and Dupree (2006), with Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson,

here a clip from the movie:

Food, in my view, is a privileged channel through which one is able to vehicle his most tender feelings: nourishing the beloved person is like bringing her to life again every time. My girlfriend is not just adorable for herself, ça va sans dire the French would say, she is also smart, clever and vegetarian and I find particularly challenging to combine ingredients that match her vision of the world: it means being closer to her throughout the selection of the food, the experimentation of dishes. Together we cross new frontiers of taste, finding solutions to re-interpret traditional dishes.

Revitalize the porcini mushrooms*, 

wash the organic champignon mushrooms,

keep their stem, AND BIG CHALLENGE

prepare béchamel and fight with its lamps! 

How? Stir continuously:

Béchamel:

• a knob of butter (30 gr), a table spoon of white flour
• a pinch of salt (10 gr), white pepper (so to keep the colour clear)
• and a sprinkle of nutmeg
• then pour gradually the whole organic milk (500 ml)
• 50 gr of grated Parmigiano (or a reasonable alternative)
• prevent yourself from eating it all while adjusting the seasoning!!!

The chromatics given by the extra-virgin olive oil

and the thyme are absolutely beautiful:

this thyme has an aftertaste of lemon, which

is exalted brilliantly by the combination

with mushrooms.

Chop the mushrooms,

let them go for 5 mins

Let them grow again for 10 mins in warm water,

which you should keep because of its flavor:

if you have fresh ones is even better.

The mushrooms will start wither, add the Porcini

mushrooms and a glass of white wine will suit well

(a Pinot Grigio or a Chardonanny),

correct salt, black pepper, and parsley

When the whine is gone, add the Porcini mushrooms water,

avoiding to add the little deposit of sand

you will spot at the bottom of the bowl.

Let it go until the liquid is reduced in volume, 

but not completely gone

Mix béchamel and the mushrooms with a hand blender,

keep some béchamel and some mushrooms apart

for the final garnishment

Start alternating the cream you obtained with the layers 

of lasagne (I used some Trattoria Verdi one because it is not bad

at all, and it is more practical, but it should be highly preferable 

to prepare your own pastry).

Lasange shouldn't be in stripes,

but this was the easier way to explain the process.

The top layer can be covered in béchamel and mushrooms

and then generously sprinkled with the cheese

(you may had a knob of butter here and there)

After 25 mins in the oven at gas mark 8 (210ish °C) 

this is the result, but never trust blindly your oven.

This little portion of heaven lasted not too long,

but if the balance of tastes has been respected,

each chewing will produce an explosion of 

uncontrollable happiness,

a closer happiness to the one 

my heart experiments next to my girlfriend.

BUON APPETITO

You can actually use asparagus, artichokes or Savoy cabbage instead of the mushrooms, or combinations of these ingredients. These lasange will impress your palate and eventually your guests!

*This recipe costed me only 4,50£: 50 pennies for the milk, 20 pennies for the lasagne pastry (it was a reduced to clear), 1£ for the mushrooms, 2,80£ for the Porcini [http://www.waitrose.com/shop/ProductView-10317-10001-5532-Waitrose+Cooks%27+ingredients+dried+porcini+mushrooms]. 

The wheel of taste

After some pondering, I desire to streamline my approach toward this blog: fewer images and less words. Without the pompous cortege of too pedantic explanations (this will be the last sample), I wish to share the bright coulours of serving ideas and presentations. I shall keep the pleasure of describing what's on the different dishes with a brief caption in English. Today a vegetarian lunch:

Detail: Amphitheater of aubergines (called parmigiana, a Sicilian recipe) 

from an hill of sauté lemon and chili spinaches, and a radish colossus:
curious to know my recipe? Feel free to ask how to make
 aubergine Parmigiana!

From a distance: a caprese waterfall, an eclipse of hard-boiled egg, 

a mono-portion of parmigiana, an Aberdeen buttery desert, lushy spinaches, 

and a monolithic radish.