Italian Cooking II & Turin Shots

Hi friends! I realize my posting has been a little erratic and I'm sorry for that. Special apology to Frances Valdez who gently reminded me of my responsibilities by saying "update your blog, bitch." Friendship is so important.

I've been spending a lot of quality time with my roommates lately (hi Dara, Petra, Edo, and Giacomo!) and trying to see more of Torino. Recently Pam and I went for lunch at a charming little bakery. I had a sandwich with prosciutto and cheese on this amazing freshly baked bread. Pam had pizza with caramelized onions. We followed it up with some yummy cookies.

We also recently celebrated Giacomo's birthday - he turned 19! - by getting burgers at M**Bun which is the Slow Food Movement's answer to McDonalds. And no, I have no idea how to pronounce M**Bun. They had a pretty cool array of organic food and the burgers were tasty, plus they had the most complicated waste disposal system I've ever seen.

Of course, we followed dinner with some gelato. Happy birthday Giacomo!

Thanks to having a Sicilian roommate, I've been learning some more basics of Italian cooking. Giacomo made me pasta with sugo all'amatriciana AND carbonara. Luckily for you, I took pictures. For amatriciana, you need olive oil, garlic, pancetta, and tomatoes. For carbonara you need olive oil, onion, pancetta, eggs, and panna (like a thick cream).

I didn't get too many pictures of the amatriciana process, but from what I remember, you sautee minced garlic in olive oil until it starts getting golden. Then you add small cubed pieces of pancetta and cook it until it's nice and crispy. Then add tomatoes (we used cherry tomatoes cut in eights) and cook until they're soft. Add to pasta and eat!

For the carbonara, start finely cut onions sauteeing in olive oil. When golden, add cubed pancetta. Cook it until the pancetta is crispy, and then add it to your pasta. Soon after, you want to add a few beaten eggs and the panna and stir everything up. Make sure you go quickly, because you don't want the eggs to set! We were a little slow so we had some egg clumps, but it was still delicious. Add parmesan cheese and enjoy!

We also went out for a nice roommate dinner. We shared an antipasti platter of vegetables, polenta, sausage, cheese, and vitello tonnato, which is thin sliced veal with tuna sauce on top and is not my favorite. The picture of the platter looks kind of gross, but it was really delicious! I had tajarin with sausage and broccoli. Tajarin is a regional egg noodle of Piedmont that's rich and light at the same time. Of course, we made friends with the employees at the restaurant.

Torino is gearing up for the holidays, and there are lights and beautiful things everywhere. I really love this city after dark! Here are a few pictures of the things I've seen recently.

Ciao for now!
xo,
R

Italian cooking lesson & other food

Ciao!

Recently my Italian friend Tommaso and I decided to have a cooking party (hi Tommaso! thanks for cooking with me!). The deal was that he would teach me to make some Italian food, and I would make Mexican. We decided to make risotto al radicchio trevigiano because it's not too hard - I think he doubted my cooking abilities. I made chicken enchiladas and black beans. I was really excited to find the one Mexican store in Torino.

I'd never made risotto before, so I let Tommaso be in charge. First we sauteed onions in olive oil on low heat. Apparently this is an extremely important part of Italian cooking called.... something that I forget. We also cooked the radicchio in oil on low heat.

The next step was toasting the rice with the onion, and then we slowly added chicken broth. Then you stir... a lot.

Here are the finished products! The risotto was amazing.

Edo's lovely girlfriend Carmel was visiting, so we all spent some time bonding.

It was Dara's birthday on Tuesday, so we had a wine and cheese appetizer and then went out to dinner. Pam had a pretty outrageous pizza with an egg on top, and I had Chinese food. Yes, the restaurant was a hybrid Chinese-pizza place. Happy birthday Dara!

Pam and I also had a lovely lunch in the neighborhood. We've been a little lonely since Joan and Jenn have been traveling!

I've been cooking a lot lately to save money - here's my most recent dinner! The chicken was baked in the oven with garlic, olive oil, and tomatoes. Add mashed potatoes and eggplant sauteed with lemon and you've got a delicious meal :)

In my next post I'll be teaching you how not to look like an idiot in an Italian supermarket. Stay tuned!

xoxo,
R