copyright 2009, Maria Liberati. The Basic Art of Italian Cooking 

ahhh..it is getting closer to Valentine’s Day..I can smell the roses and taste the chocolate..

Don’t forget the wine. My choice is Orvieto Classico..perfect for risotto or fish or chicken..My suggestion would be a risotto al mare.seafood risotto.

Well it contains clams and they are an aphrodisiac.

Here is the recipe and more on Orvieto Classico shortly.

Risotto al Mare

1 cup arborio rice

4 -5 cups vegetable broth

1/4 cup finely chopped parsley

4 pounds small fresh or fresh frozen clams

1 slice onion chopped finely

1 clove garlic

2 cups Orvieto Classico or dry white wine

1 tablespoon butter (unsalted)

5 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

salt & pepper to taste

Place 1 tablespoon of olive oil in saute pan and heat,place in clams and pour in 1 cup white wine. Saute til clams open. Take out any that do not open.  Set aside sauteed opened clams.

In another saute pan, place in 1 tablespoon olive oil, heat, place in chopped parsley and the juice from clams that have just cooked. Saute for 2 minutes.

 Place vegetable broth in soup pan, add in parsley mixture to broth. Stir and heat to boiling. In another saute pan, add in remaining olive oil chopped onion, garlic clove whole, and saute till onion begins to turn golden.Add in dry rice, pour in 1 cup white wine. When liquid is absorbed, add in 3/4 cup of broth and stir continuously, Repeat this process until rice is al dente (about 15-20 minutes).Add in cooked clams, stir. Place in butter, stir till melted, serve with Orvieto Classico

Join me on February 18th at 6PM at Whole Foods Market in Marlton NJ. Book signing & The Basic Art of Italian Cooking by Maria Liberati tm cooking school. Join us for a cooking class-Pasta & Their Sauces- after book signing.

To register call the store at 856-697-7191 or email events@marialiberati.com

Join me also on February 19th at Whole Foods Market, Philadelphia,Pa at 6 PM for a book signing and The Basic Art of Italian Cooking by Maria Liberati tm Cooking school. “Cooking on a Budget The Basic Art of Italian Cooking.Cook a 4 course authentic Italian meal on a budget from the best selling book The Basic Art of Italian Cooking. To register email us at events@marialiberati.com or call the store at 215-599-9735

Join me on February 26th at 7 PM at the Whole Foods  in Princeton, NJ-Book Signing and The Basic Art of Italian Cooking by Maria Liberati tm Cooking School. “Every Pasta Has Its’ Sauce” Cooking Class includes lesson on pairing pasta withtheir sauces, how to cook perfect pasta and making 4 separate pasta dishes. recipes,samples and lessons provided. To register call the store at 609-799-2919 or email events@marialiberati.com

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See Valentine’s day around the world

Mangia Bene Vivi Bene

Maria

Italy has  always been considered the land of wine and rightly so. It was the Romans who further perfected wine for their use as a military strategy..great concept..no guns no ammunition….just use wine to conquer them.

Wine is so important and the perfecgt accompaniment to a great Italian meal. We have been including more and more wine pairings  in The Basic Art of Italian Cooking by Maria Liberati tm Cooking Programs and visiting and tasting many wines here I wanted to post some interesting tips on wine and serving wines.

When you seeve more than one wine with a meal, since many of us today pair wines with each course of a meal, here is the correct progression form first to last wine:
The corrrect procedure is  so that the wine before the next wine does not over power its’ predecessor.

*Serve new wines before aged wines

*If you are serving both light and robust wines, start out with light ones and gradually progress to more robust wines

*If you are serving dry and sweet wines begin with the dry wines and progress to sweet ones

*If you are serving aromatic wines begin with least aromatic and end with most aromatic

*If you are serving white, rose and red wines begin with white then progress to rose then finish with reds

More on wines in my next posts..

For more great recipes get your copy of my best selling book The Basic Art of Italian Cooking at http://www.marialiberati.com

copyright, 2009, Maria Liberati, The Basic Art of Italian Cooking

 After our cooking program in a little town called Baschi, right outside of Orvieto (more on that tomorrow) and meeting with my good friends there Domenico and Paola at Borgo le Fontanile and Velia & Gianluca at La Champagnerie in Orvieto we headed for the Autostrada to continue our visit in Umbria..We headed in the direction of  Todi- to  a nearby little village called Sismano. A ‘piccolo paese’ of only 300 residents. Most of the land is still owned by a Contessa. part of the town is a beautiful natural reserve that has been preserved for truffles and hunting. Some of the old buildings are being renovated into private villas.

 As I was there to visit a friend of mine Susan Evans at her villa- La Veranda, once owned by an Italian Contessa. Susan is an American who fell in love with the beautiful scenery of Umbria. She is the real life version of the ‘Under the Tuscan Sun’ story of finding an old building and renovating it into a beautiful villa.

Needless to say my stay at La Veranda this weekend was wonderful…we  could only visitifor 2 days but they were filled with everything possible..cooking in the beautiful kitchen at La Veranda to relaxing outside and taking in the view of the Umbrian Hills on a warm January day to a walking tour of a natural reserve and a  view of wild cinghiale (boars)  to a tour of the castello of Sismano and its’ renovation  and getting a taste of local foods.

But my visit was also to map out the site of The Basic Art of Italian by Maria Liberati tm Cooking school.  La Veranda not only has a large open kitchen for the cooking classes but also a wood burning oven outside in the courtyard  perfect for cooking pizza, chicken, bread.  The setting is perfect for giving anyone an experience of eating outdoors in Umbria at night or under the Umbrian sun for an afternoon picnic.

The villa is a perfect way to experience living in a true Italian villa and getting the full experience of the beauty of not only cooking Italian food but eating at  home (and a beautiful one I might add)..

Our last lunch was held at on Osteria de la Posta..that was opened by a former postman (hence the name  ’de la posta’) that loved to cook. But while waiting for our lunch we were entertained with some history about the ‘Osterie de le Poste’ that were once typical places to be found throughout Italy. They were places that you would travel to in horse and carriage- to get your mail, send your mail and also get feed and water for your horses but also stop to have a meal. And sometimes ,yes, the mailman might also have been your chef…

Umbria is famous for Tartufi (truffles) my favorite dish this weekend there  was a plate of Fettucini al Tartufi.  This recipe is sometimes made with a pasta that is traditional to Umbria (known as Strangozzi) because there is an Umbrian legend connected to it.

Legend has it that during medieval times, in a castle in a town called Pissignano, the conqueror Barbarossa was there because he was planning to destroy Umbria. But legend has it that the cook in the castle served Barbarossa a plate of Strangozzi al Tartufo so good that it convinced him not to destroy Umbria (or something like that)…

Here is the recipe, but if you can’t find trufffles- use a drizzle of truffle oil to add some truffle flavor..

Fettucini al Tartufo

*1 lb of fresh fettucine pasta

*1 black truffle-(finely chopped)

*3 tblsps olive oil

* 1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese

*1 clove garlic (whole)

Place extra  virgin olive oil in a saucepan and heat, place in cloves of garlic. Saute garlic till just about golden. Remove garlic. Place in chopped truffles and let saute for approx 3 minutes. Remove  from heat. Toss in cooked pasta. Serve with freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese.

And for a perfect accompaniment-serve with Orvieto Classico white wine.

Mangia Bene, Vivi Bene

Maria

For more great recipes get your copy of the best selling book The Basic Art of Italian Cooking at http://www.marialiberati.com

copyright,2008, Maria Liberati

The Basic Art of Italian Cooking 

Today’s lunch was a light pasta dish with dried porcini mushrooms, fresh parsley and extra virgin olive oil, (If you want the recipe just send me an email at maria@marialiberati.com)> Of course the topping was freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese.Unfortunately I left my office about15 minutes before the stores close here and almost did not get the parmigiano-reggiano cheese.

It is not easy to walk down narrow streets at lunchtime.. just envision the narrow sidewalks covered with people talking but also talking with their hands….difficult to pass by quickly. Of course we are so expressive, it is quite difficult to talk without using our hands.

But,yes I made it into our local cheese store a minute before closing..lucky for me because the cheese really adds something to this dish.

However, the perfect wine to accompany this is called Est! Est! Est! it is a wine celebrated all over the world. This wine dates back to the 12th century. And as the legend goes, a noble knight-  Martino told his patron to let him know what the best ‘osterie’ are -(they are similar to what we would call a tavern) for wherecer he was going ,but he wanted to know the best ones that had the best wines.

He asked his patron to have placed on the doors of the best ‘osterie’ the word Est! to signal that they had great wines. However ,he asked to have placed on the doors of the ‘osterie’-  Est! Est! if they had very good wines. But in a town called Montefiascone, the patron found such exeptional wine that he said that Est! Est! was not good enough he decided to put  on the door of the local ‘osterie’Est! Est! Est! to signal just how exceptional the wine was here.

The legend continued that the patron that found this exceptional wine in Montefiascone said that he wished to die by drowning in a pool of Est! Est! Est! in Montefiascone.

The wine has a brilliant yellow color. it is a dry white wine and has an alcohol content of 11% and acid content of 5-7%.

I wine, I saw I conquered.. I think that any trip to Italy could best be described in these words.   Each day has its own special wine and I attempt to pair every day’s lunch with a new wine. I am partial to light white wines like Trebbiano D’Abruzzo and Fallenghina and the favorite of the ancient Romans- Est!Est!Est! However, I have a new favorite white wine- Pecorino. It is an heirloom wine produced from an heirloom grape. Pecorino is also the name of a cheese that comes from the same region in Abruzzo.The name Pecorino refers to sheep. The milk of the sheep is used to produce the Pecorino cheese here and flocks of sheep dot the landscape here. However, wine from the Pecorino grape was produced in the past and then phased out.  But the art of producing Pecorino has been revived. The Pecorino grape is found in Abruzzo and Le Marche regions of Italy.

Pecorino is produced in small quantities. I have not been able to find it in the US yet.  White wine is my favorite ingredient to add to risotto and Pecorino makes and excellent risotto.  And is a great wine to pair with risotto.  Pecorino has a slight  citrus flavor and goes especially well with seafood-risotto, seafood and pecorino together   in a recipe make an indescribably delicious delight!

Today for ‘pranzo’, lunch was a sublime  ‘risotto a la pescatore’ -(risotto with seafood). Pecorino made a great ingredient. See recipe below, but here are some websites to check out for info on Abruzzo and Pecorino

http://wikitravel.org/en/Abruzzo

saveur.com/wine/wine-reviews/farnese-terre-di-chieti-abruzzo-italy-pecorino

http://www.agriturismo.abruzzo.it/Z_Sito_ING/Home2.htm

 And if you are interested in wines and wine tastings, see the interview I recently did in

  A Wine Storyhttp://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/01/09/003128.phphttp://www.AWinestory.comThursday’s ‘Risotto a la Pescatore’Risotto A La Pescatore

copyright, The Basic Art of Italian Cooking 2007,2008, Maria Liberati4 tblsps. 

(2-3 servings) 

2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 lb of cleaned squid rings
1/2 lb of cleaned shelled shrimp
5 mussels, scrubbed and cleaned
1/2  onion, finely chopped
1 cup of Pecorino wine (if not available use a dry white wine)

2-3 cups vegetable broth  

Place oil and  onion in a saute pan, heat just until  onion begins to  become golden.
Add white wine and reduce by half.
Add  1/2 cup vegetable broth and squid, cook for 5 minutes or until liquid almost dissipates. Stir in rice, place shrimp and mussels . Add broth to cover and stir unti liquid evaporates. Add in liquid, constantly stirring and repeat until cooked -about 18 minutes  Serve with Pecorino wine or another dry white wine. If you can find a bottle of Pecorino, it will be  worth the effort.Ciao for now!! 

 More recipes like this can be found in the best selling book The Basic Art of Italian Cooking by Maria Liberati. Order at http://www.marialiberati.com  and receive free shipping and $5 off retail price..