Different gnocchi: semolina dumplings

The most well known italians dumpling in the rest of the world are the gnocchi made with potatoes. Never the less we have some other very popular and tasty dumling. They are made of semolina and we call them "gnocchi alla romana", i.e. dumpling at the Roma style.

I have always loved them since I was a child and nowsadays they

are still very approciated at home :)

But now that I prepare them by my own I make a small variation to the traditional recipe and I add some ham to make them if possible even more yummy. If you want a vegetarian dish just skipthe ham.

For 2

½ l milk

125g semolina

30g butter

1 egg

Parmesan

3 ham slices

Salt

Ground nutmeg

Heat the milk with butter and a pinch of salt until boiling.

In the while wet a baking paper sheet and squeeze it. Fold with it a medium size baking tray (20x30cm).  
 

When the milk is boiling add the semolina and go on in cooking and stirring. At the beginning it will be very liquid but after few minutes the mix will start to get thicker. Wait until you have almost a solitd mass and it is not sticking to the pot walls any longer. 

 

Now remove from the heat and mix in while stirring quickly nutmeg, egg, parmesan and the ham cut in small pieces.

 Pour in the tray and level with your hands wetted by cold water.  Let it cool and solidify (approximately 30-60min).
 

In the while take out a smaller tray  and fold it with backing papaer or spread a bit of butter.

When the semolina mix is hard cut in your favourite shape (my Mom always cut them in round shape with a glass, but I am an engineer so I cut it in squares for space optimization) and arrange them in an other tray overlapping a bit each raw to the one before. Finish with some butter and some parmesan.

 
Oven bakeat strong heat  in the higher part aproximately other 20minutes or until crunchy

Whops.. I was too late for the final picture ;-)

Yummy Lamb

Last week I saw some organic lamb meat at the supermarket which was looking just gorgeous. I am not a meat expert, but in this case was easy to understand.

And the meat was also not pre-marinated, like I normally see lamb meat for sale here in Austria where I live.

So I brought home a couple of packages and this is what I did. Result has been gorgeous. The meat was tasty and juicy and extremely soft!

For 4 people I prepared 4 steaks (lamb ones are pretty small) and 6 ribs. Do not exaggerate with portions because lamb meat is pretty fat and after few of it, especially if you plan also some appetizer, you are fine. I recommend also to serve some salad for side dish to help to remove the sense of fat.

Ingredients amounts are indicative, you do not need to follow it strictly.

Ingredients for 4

Lamb meat (eg 4 steaks and 6 ribs)

2 ½ onions

White wine 250ml

1 garlic clove

Rosemary

Thyme

Salt, pepper

Meat spices mix

Bouillon powder

5 potatoes

Olive oil  

Chop half onion in small pieces. Cover the meat with spices: rosemary, thyme, pepper and a bit of meat spices mix.

Take a big enough plastic bag (eg the one for deep frozen) and pile the meat with the onion inside the bag.

Pour gently white wine in the bag until the meat is almost covered. Close the bag and for safety place it in a bowl.

Store the meat in the fridge for some hours. The beast would be over night or even 24h marinating. From time to time shake the bag to uniform the marination.

At the end of the marinating time take a large frying pan and warm up a couple of spoons of oil. When the pan is hot place few meat pieces per time and brown them on both sides at strong heat.

When you are done with the meat, boil in the same pan half of the marination for few minutes.

Cut 2 onions in thin slices. Add one spoon of olive oil in the pressure cooker and pile layers of meat and onion slices.

Add some rosemary and the boiled marination and 2 cups of water. Sprinkle with 1 tbs of bouillon powder.

Cook under pressure for 60minutes.

(If you do not use the pressure cooker I think you can cook the meat in the oven covering the tray with aluminum foil. Cooking for few hours (3h?) until the meat is soft. Add further liquid if evaporating too much. Do not let the meat dry)

Pre heat the oven at 200°C. Wash the potatoes and cut them in 4mm slices.

Cover a baking tray with baking paper and fat it with 1 tbs of olive oil. Align the potatoes slices. Drop some of the meat sauce over the potatoes to give lamb taste. Bake for 30min.

Remove the meat from the pressure cooker and align it over the potatoes. Take care in this step and use a couple of tools because now the meat is very soft and will fell in pieces, eg the ribs meat will slide away from the bones.

Wet the meat in the tray with some spoons of the sauce out of the pressure cooker and bake again for other 15-20min until the meat will start to brown.

In the while process the sauce with an immersion blender and boil it softly.

When the meat is ready serve the tray on the table with the sauce on the side.

This is  the only picture I managed to take during the dinner.. we were too busy :)

Last summer feeling: Parmigiana

Summer is here definitely over, we have rainy and cloudy weather and leaves start to turn to yellow. In the end to buy good and fresh summer vegetables is almost a mission impossible, but last weekend I was in Italy and then I could still buy some fresh, tasty and yummy aubergines.

So, what is better than a juicy “parmigiana” to make the most of them?

Here is my version for 2!

Parmigiana 

Ingridients 

1 big aubergine or 2 small ones

Grated Parmesan

Cheese which melts easily 50g (traditionally is mozzarella, but this releases a lot of liquid and moreover I did not had it available)

1 can of tomato sauce

Clove of garlic

extra virgin olive oil

Salt, pepper, chili, basil 

Method

The best would be to purge at the beginning the aubergine, to get rid of the typical bitter taste. This means cut your vegetable in slices of 5-8mm thickness. Then place them in a colander in layers, cover every layer with a good pinch of salt (better thick grains) place a dish and a weight on the top and wait for 1-2hours. You will see a brown water drained out, that´s the bitter. 

But, as usual, I did the quick and dirty version and because of lack of time I had to skip this first step. But, especially if your vegetables are not very high in quality or not very fresh, this step really worth´s.

Now, again, traditional recipe would expect that you fry your aubergine slices, but I hate the operation of frying and moreover is not very healthy. What I do then, it is just to cook them simply in the oven. 

So, if you did the purge, previous next step remove the salt and squeeze gently your slices to remove the excess of liquid.

Otherwise just switch on the oven at 200°C. Then lay the slices on a baking tray and pour just a bit of oil above them. Bake them until they are cooked (you will notice a change in color and this should take aprox 15-20min). Then turn them and if too dry pour a second time a bit of oil and go on for other 10-15min or until the slices are cooked. 

In the while put a spoon of oil in a pan with a clove of garlic and some chili, add the tomato, adjust with salt and pepper and let sauce become thick. At the end remove the garlic clove and if you´d like add a couple of basil leaves.

Cut the cheese in small cubes. Warm up again your oven at 200°C.

Now, take out your oven pan and start to stack the layers. At first pour a couple of tomato sauce spoons on the bottom and a bit of oil and spread them, then go with aubergine slices, some tomato sauce, cheese and parmesan (be generous because the name parmigiana comes from parmesan ;-) ). Go on with the layers and finish with a good sprinkling of parmesan and a bit of oil.

Then place it in the oven for 30-45min until a brown crust start to form on the top. Then take it out and let it rest for further 15min. (no worry, it will be so close to lava boiling point that even if you wait it is still warm enough).

In the end, this is a parmigiana! :)