Arte Culinaria
After the radio, my second
hobby is cookery.
Some theory:
It is normally believed that
cookery = recipes. Magazines ant TV programs just give recipes maybe with some
photo.
From my point of view there are
three aspects to be considered. Of these the recipe is the last one and the
more flexible: in fact I like to test variations to normal recipes or to adapt them to available
ingredients. From time to time I get good results.
So the main points are:
• Hardware of the kitchen
• Quality of ingredients
• Recipe
What is not flexible at all is the hardware used and the good
quality of ingredients.
About the quality of
ingredients I can’t say much as it requires a personal research on the
market: to select, for instance, the
right brand of pasta or rice requires some time and the research never ends.
I can
give some hints about pans and other stuff.
The
best material for pans is stainless steel.
Aluminium
do not resist to some acid food like tomato sauce. It becomes porous and
difficult to clean.
Teflon
inside pans is good but does not resist too much: it is very easy to scratch it
with metallic spoons or knives.
The
bottom of the pan must be very thick: this is important for the uniform
distribution of heat. I must have also an high thermal
capacity, i.e. must store heat for long time.
Steam
cooking is excellent for green vegetables, potatoes, manioc, eggs etc. I use it
a lot.
Since
many years I own the “Ferrari” of pans, but I do not want advertise here the
brand has I do not have any business with that.
From my research and
experiments I will put here some recipe: I hope to be useful to somebody and “Buon Appetito!”
Risotto with Avocado: a Lombardo-tropical recipe !
For
two persons you need one very ripe avocado (the skin is almost black), an onion, a cup of
rice, 2 cups of broth and half cup cream
The
pan must be massive and with a good lid.
All
as the normal Risotto: frit sliced onions, add the rice and let it frit a
couple of minutes; add the broth and cover the pan. When steam flows out of the
pan switch the fire of and do not touch for 20 minutes.
Open
the pan and add the smashed avocado and the cream and mix with a wood spoon until you get an homogeneous
light green colour.
Monte Bianco for tropical countries
Just replace chestnuts with batatas (sweet-potatoes):
the best have a red skin.
Of course a lot of Rum or Caña inside.