Categories
Biscuits Breakfast Dessert

Twice-Baked Almond Cookies or Cantucci, Cantuccini and Tozzetti

How to prepare the real Italian recipe of Cantuccini Biscuits or”Cantucci or Tozzetti”

This recipe is very ancient. Cantucci, or Cantuccini, are twice-baked biscuits. The biscuits are oblong-shaped almond biscuits traditionally, made dry and crunchy through cutting the loaf of dough while still hot and fresh from baking in the oven. Cantuccini were born as bread flavored with aniseed and rehearsed in the oven, hence the classical name of bis-cooked, which means cooked twice. Then there is the “Tozzetti” variation, so called in Lazio region, with hazelnuts instead of almonds. Great after dinner with a dessert wine like “Vinsanto” or a good “Passito” from Pantelleria or a Malvasia from Lipari.

Ingredients

  • 200 grams of Sugar
  • 500 grams of Flour
  • 3 Eggs +1 for brushing
  • 2 knobs of Butter (about 60 grams)
  • 300 grams of Almond or Hazelnuts (of which a handful minced in food processor)
  • 1 tablespoon of Baking Vanilla
  • 1 shot of Liquor

Preparation of Cantuccini

  1. Place the flour on a large bowl, add the sugar, eggs, and baking powder, then knead with your hands adding the butter and some of almonds or hazelnuts. Ideally excluding the nuts left whole to be added separately.
  2. Divide the dough into loaves of the length of the baking tray on which to align the nuts (very near) that are then pushed inside, to work well to give a diameter of about 3 cm and a length of about 30 cm. Put them well spaced on a baking sheet.
  3. Cook them in the oven already hot at 180° for about 20 minutes and till gold colored. Once cooked cut the little loaves transversely into slices of 1 cm with an oblique cut to give the biscuits their characteristic shape. And for a final touch to have more crunchy biscuits just put them back again in the oven for 5 minutes. Enjoy cold.

Posted by Nicoletta and Tiziana.

The Real Italian Food. Buon Appetito!

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Categories
Basic Preparations or How To Pasta

How to Make Tortellini Pasta with Ham from Scratch

How to prepare the real Italian recipe of Homemade Tortellini Pasta with Ham from Scratch or “Tortellini al Prosciutto fatti in Casa”

Tortellini Pasta is one of the best dishes of the Italian tradition. Typical of the region of Emilia Tortellini are often cooked for dinner parties and especially for the Christmas lunch or New Year celebrations. Often we eat tortellini with broth but there are also other variants with delicious sauces, with tomato or cream for example. Learning the fine art of rolling, stuffing, and shaping these fetching little dumplings is easier than what you might think and the results will be outstanding!

Ingredients for 400 Tortellini Pasta, for 20 People

  • The main ingredients for Pasta and Filling as follow below.

Ingredients for Fresh Pasta made with Egg or “Pasta all’Uovo”

  • 8 Eggs
  • 800 grams of Flour

Ingredients for Meat Filling with Ham

  • 150 grams of Chicken
  • 150 grams of Veal
  • 150 grams of Pork
  • 150 grams of Beef
  • 150 grams of Parma Ham (just 1 slices of 150 grams)
  • 150 grams of Parmesan Cheese grated
  • 3 tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Salt, Pepper and Nutmeg as you prefer
  • half glass of White Wine

Preparation of the Fresh Pasta with Egg or “Pasta all’uovo”

By Hand: On a clean wood surface make a well with the flour. In a measuring cup mix the eggs, pour the wet mixture slowly into the flour and mix with your 2 fingers until all of the wet is incorporated. Do not force the dough to take all of the flour. If you are going to use a pasta machine to roll out the dough you may at this point form the dough into a ball and cover with plastic wrap. Place in the refrigerator for 1 hour to rest. If you going to roll this by hand you should knead the dough on a floured work surface for 8 to 10 minutes.

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Preparation of  Tortellini

In a pan verse Oil, chicken, veal, pork and beef previously diced. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes after that verse white wine and cook for 10 minutes more. When ready putt all in a mixer, add the parma ham cut and mix for 5 minutes. In a bowl verse the meat, add the parmesan, salt, pepper, nutmeg, eggs and mix well. Let rest into the fridge for 5 hours.

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Using the fresh pasta recipe, roll out your dough either by hand or by machine. Cut into 3 or 4-inch rounds with a round cookie cutter. Place 1/4 teaspoon of the meat into the center of each round. Brush water wash, on the bottom half of the round, and fold over to seal. Fold back around your finger and turn down the edge to form a tortellini. Ready to freeze or cooking directly and served with your preferred sauce of choice. Enjoy.

Posted by Nicoletta and Tiziana

The Real Italian Food. Buon Appetito!

 

TIPS:

Don’t over-stuff your pasta: This gets tempting because, half of what we love about tortellini is the soft and tasty filling. But more often than not, over-stuffing makes it tricky to seal the tortellini and leads to dumplings that burst in the cooking pot. Stick to about 1 teaspoon of filling for each pasta wrapper.

Keep the pasta covered: Pasta dries out surprisingly quickly if left uncovered, which makes it difficult to work with and prone to tearing. Keep both the remaining pieces of dough, the rolled out sheets of pasta, and the shaped tortellini covered with a piece of plastic wrap or a clean dish towel.

Use ample flour: Ironically for something that dries out so quickly, the shaped tortellini love to stick to the tray and to each other. Be sure to keep both the tray and the tortellini dusted with a good amount of flour and don’t let the tortellini touch each other once you have shaped them.

Give yourself enough time: Making tortellini is definitely not hard, but it takes time. Give yourself at least a few hours to make an entire batch. Tortellini freezes beautifully, so you can make them and keep them frozen until it’s time to party.

Categories
Christmas Dinner Gluten free Veal

Delicious Veal with Tuna Sauce or Vitello Tonnato

How to prepare the real Italian recipe of  Veal with Tuna Sauce or “Vitello Tonnato Tradizionale”

The Veal with Tuna Sauce or Vitel Tonné is a very Italian dish typical of Piemonte cuisine. Tasty and very fresh ideal for a starter in a gala dinner or even in the summer as a main course. A popular starter,  “Vitel Tonné”, which despite the French resemblance, is a dialectal form of Italian Vitello Tonnato which is basically a carpaccio of veal meat with a rich tuna sauce. Simply one of the most beautiful and classic dishes of Italian cuisine. This beautiful veal dish is festive and tastes superb. You can eat Vitel Tonnè as a main dish, or as an appetizer, it is a very appreciated cold dish in Italy.

 Ingredients for 6 people

  • 1 kg 500 grams of Veal
  • 1 blonde Onion
  • 1 sprig of Celery
  • 2 cloves of Carnation
  • 1 Carrots
  • 5 stalk of Parsley
  • 2 leaves of Bay
  • Salt and Pepper as you prefer

Ingredients for the sauce

  • 300 grams of Tuna Canned
  • 3-4 Anchovies
  • 30 grams of Capers
  • 4 tablespoons of Mayonnaise
  • 1 Lemon juice
  • 3 tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 1 sprig of Parsley
  • Salt and Pepper as you prefer

Preparation

1. Bring to a boil in a saucepan with salted water, onion, cloves, carrot, celery, parsley, bay leaf and peppercorns. Immerse the meat, previously tied with kitchen string and boil for about 2 hours. Once ready, drain and keep the broth, I recommend let cool wrapped in aluminum foil. Wipe the meat thoroughly, remove the wire and only when it is well-chilled cut into very thin slices and arrange on a serving platter.

Now we prepare the sauce

2. Rinse the capers, to remove the excess salt, wash and clean the anchovies, drained tuna oil. Blend all ingredients together slowly adding the meat broth, previously filtered, until a creamy consistency, cover the veal cut into slices with the sauce and decorate as desired with slices of lemon and parsley.

Posted by Nicoletta and Tiziana

The Real Italian Food. Buon Appetito!

 

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