The Italian's Have It!

Happy New Year to you all!

I hope you will join me this year as we launch our food journey of 2014. 

The first recipes for the year will be from Italy. Here are a few photos taken on my last visit to Tuscany, to get you excited.

Harbour at  Riomaggiore  - top,  Volterra - middle,  view across Tuscany - bottom - photos by Cyndy

So why start with Italy, you may well ask?

Firstly, I wanted to to begin the year with one of my favourite countries. Beautiful scenery and historical buildings, wonderfully friendly people and amazing food.  We can also travel into many other exquisite places from here going west, east or north. We will come back to Italy later in the year and look at regional cooking and how that has developed over time and try out a few new recipes. But I wanted to start with something that everyone can cook regardless of how much experience you have.

Today, I desperately needed to use up some Granny Smith apples and I knew that this recipe would inspire many people. It is very easy to make and just a little different from your everyday apple pie. I think it makes a stunning centrepiece for any table.

They say Coppi in Naples and Sfogliate in Lombardy, but most people will recognise the name Crostata! It is a sort of open apple pie which is popular in Italy. I can certainly remember eating a huge slab of Crostata in Sienna a couple of years ago; crisp shortcrust pastry, succulent apples with just a hint of cinnamon.

So diving head first into 2014, here is a recipe for Rustic Italian Crostata.

Rustic Apple Crostata

Ingredients - Oven temperature 180 degrees fan forced

Pastry

220g Plain flour
1/4 tsp Salt
120g Butter cubed
50ml Cold water approx

Make a shortcrust pastry, by putting flour, butter, salt in a food processor until it resembles breadcrumbs. With motor running, add water a little at a time until it forms a soft dough. On a floured board, gently bring pastry to a ball, cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Filling

120g Granita biscuits or similar
1 tbls Icing sugar for the top
2 tspns Ground cinnamon
2 tbls Plain flour
1 kg Granny Smith Apples (you could use any other kind of apples)
75g Caster sugar + 2 tbls sugar extra
2 tsp Vanilla extract
40g Butter

Peel, core and slice all the apples but one. The remaining one should be peeled and sliced whole, removing the seeds but retaining the 'star- like' pattern. Melt the butter in a pan, add 75g sugar, and vanilla extract. Place the apple slices in a large bowl and drizzle the butter mixture over the apples to coat them thoroughly. Put aside.

In a food processor, add Granita biscuits, 1 tablespoon of sugar, cinnamon and flour. Put aside.

Take a pizza pan or a large baking sheet. Cover with baking paper. If you use a baking sheet draw a large circle on the piece of baking paper as a guide. Roll out pastry larger than the pizza pan or the drawn circle. The overhanging pastry will be used to fold back onto the apples. Add the Granita biscuit mixture. Lay the slices of apple randomly over the granita mixture, ensuring the whole apple slices are on top. Sprinkle with remaining tablespoon of sugar and fold over the pastry edge. (see photo)
Place in a pre-heated oven and cook for around 35 minutes until pastry and apples are browned.
While still warm, sprinkle with icing sugar to give the apples a nice sheen.

Buon appetito!

This recipe was adapted from Belinda Jeffery's Apple and Cinnamon Crostata from The Country Cookbook - Lantern 2010

What a load of Rhubarb!

The Chinese had it first, Marco Polo talked extensively about it and the Greeks had some extrodinary names for it, but we call it just plain, Rhubarb.

When I was just a kid in England, I remember my father used to have a huge bed of rhubarb. He would carefully collect any horse manure from the neighbouring yards and he would dig it in to the rhubarb bed. He had an old metal bucket that had a hole in the bottom which carried ashes from the fire until the bottom burned out. Each winter he would pick his best rhubarb crown and carefully lay the bucket over the top. My sister and I would keep a watch on the rhubarb over winter, brushing off the snow if it became buried by an overnight flurry. We watched it to make sure that we would be able to break off a few pieces when Dad wasn't watching, sneak into the kitchen and dip the end of the rhubarb into the sugar bowl and eat the crisp, juicy but sour rhubarb. We all loved it.

By Spring, Dad's prize rhubarb would be growing out of the top of the bucket and we knew that mum would soon be making crumbles and pies for Sunday lunch.

I picked a big bunch of rhubarb from my vegetable garden yesterday and thought it was time to make something delicious. I checked my fridge to see what I could possibly teem up with Rhubarb and decided that some Creme Patisserie would be a wonderful combination.

Here is a recipe for a French Rhubarb Tart - When you eat it, think of your parents and what they did to make your memories so wonderful.

French Rhubarb Tart

A rich sweet pastry, creme patisserie filling, topped with cooked rhubarb and a syrup glaze. The recipe came courtesy of BBC Good Food but adapted to suit. You could substitute this pastry for an ordinary shortcrust pastry with a bit of icing sugar in it.

Ingredients

Rhubarb - 12 x 35 Fluted Flan Dish

500g Rhubarb approx

50g  Caster sugar

Juice of an orange

1/2 Cup Water
Vanilla pod seeds removed and kept

Cut the Rhubarb so it is exactly the width of your flan dish

In a fry pan add water, sugar,orange juice and vanilla pod and cook on a low heat until the sugar has melted.

Add the rhubarb and cook for 5 minutes.

Take off the heat and let the rhubarb cool in the juice, it needs to be cooked but keep its shape. 

Pastry - Oven fan forced 170 degrees 

220g Plain flour

140g Butter

25g almond meal
2 tbls icing sugar
1 egg yolk

Add flour, butter, almond meal and sugar into a food processor and blitz until it resembles breadcrumbs, add egg and 1 - 2 tablespoons of water while still running. Blitz again until it forms a soft dough. Knead very lightly to bring together, wrap in plastic, fridge 30 minutes. Roll out and blind bake with paper and beans in flan dish for 15 minutes, remove beans and paper and bake another 5 minutes. Remove and cool.

Creme Patisserie

4 Egg Yolks

250 ml Milk

100 ml Thickened Cream

2 tbls caster sugar
1 tbls cornflour
1 tbls plain flour

While pastry is resting heat milk and seeds from vanilla pod until it reaches about 90 degrees or just below boiling. Beat egg yolks, flours and sugar together in bowl until pale.  Add warm milk. Strain and put back on heat stirring continuously until the custard thickens. Cool. Whip cream to peaks and add slowly to the custard once the custard is cool enough.

Assemble by spreading the creme patisserie on the base of the flan. Lay the rhubarb onto the creme. Make a syrup by fast boiling the rhubarb juice and once it is cool glaze the rhubarb.

Apart from the resting and cooling time, this really is pretty quick to make and it is delicious.