The Shared Kitchen

Saffron Risotto

This is a very traditional dish from northern Italy. It’s a very basic risotto with saffron. Saffron is a relatively common in Italy, thus it’s much cheaper than it is here. Here’s a picture of the saffron package from Italy that I used (that’s 0.1 g of saffron, that is just a pinch):

Ingredients (for 4 to 6 people):

- 13 oz of arborio rice

- 4 tbsp of butter

- 1-2 onions

- 1/2 cup of white wine, sake or any cooking wine

- 1 qt of vegetable stock (can be replaced with vegetable stock or bouillon)

- a pinch of saffron

- 1/2 cup of grated cheese (parmigiano or romano)

- salt

Chop the onions. Melt the butter in a large pan and add the onions. Fry at medium high heat stirring often.

When the onions are golden, add the rice and keep stirring. At this point you can choose to toast the rice as long as you like without adding any liquid. I usually toast it for less than 5 minutes. Add the wine and let it evaporate. The wine will add some flavor, so keep experimenting with different wines!

After the wine has completely evaporated, start adding the stock. The secret for a good risotto is in this step: make sure there’s always liquid in the rice until it’s completely cooked. In fact, you don’t want the final product to be dry, but moist and creamy. Slowly add the stock a little at a time, stirring often, until the rice is cooked. The rice should not be hard, but not even mushy. If you run out of broth, just keep adding water instead. 

When the rice is almost ready, mix the saffron in with some of the broth and add it to the rice, then add the cheese. The saffron gives to the risotto its characteristic bright yellow color. I recommend adding salt during this step: all the ingredients are in and you can balance the dish with as much salt as necessary.

This recipe makes a relatively big amount of risotto. It will easily feed 6 people if you add a side dish or an appetizer.

Buon appetito!

Eggplants “alla Norma”

This is a variation on a very popular Sicilian recipe that I have developed (successfully, attending to the people who ate it!) in the past few months.

Ingredients

• 1 big onion
• 2 long eggplants
• 2-3 tablespoons of goat cheese (I use humbolt fog, but any squishy kind would work) or 4-5 tablespoons ricotta
• 1 small can of crushed tomatoes, no seasoning
• olive oil
• oregano (dried) or basil (a few fresh leaves)

This dish can be either an appetizer or a side dish for up to 4 people. It takes about 40-45 minutes to prepare.

Chop the onion and cook it in olive oil in a large pan at medium heat. You are gonna need enough room for the eggplants in there as well. Chop the eggplants in long slices as in the picture.

When the onion is soft and golden, toss the eggplants in the pan and season with oregano (shown in the picture below) or basil. The eggplants will have to cook down for a while in order to get soft. This usually takes 20-30 minutes: they should feel soft to the fork and under the teeth, not crunchy as when they are raw. Stir frequently and make sure that the heat is not too high.

When the eggplants are soft, you can add the crushed tomatoes. In the directions I suggested to use one small can (or half a big can) but this is not a strict rule: the tomatoes help balance the acidity in the dish and shouldn’t overpower the flavor. You can season with some salt at this point, but without exaggerating if the goat cheese is very salty.

Once the tomatoes cook for a few minutes and the flavors are blending together nicely, the dish is almost complete. You can add the goat cheese or ricotta to the pan and mix in order to melt the cheese quickly and uniformly. The choice between the goat cheese or ricotta is personal, although I have to say that the traditional Italian dish calls for ricotta. I suggest to use less if using goat cheese because the flavor can be much stronger. After adding the cheese, cook for a couple of minutes, adjust the seasoning if necessary and serve.

Bon Appetit!

Spicy Pan Fried Chicken Thighs on Crispy Onion Bed

Ingredients for 4-6 people:

• 8 chicken thighs
• 1 big onion
• fresh or dry rosemary
• hot pepper flakes
• olive oil
• salt

Sorry about the kind of blurry pics, but I was using my phone and the lighting was bad, but this recipe is definitely worth being posted!

Heat up the olive oil in a large pan, chop the onion and put it in the hot oil. Cook the onion down until soft.

Toss the chicken in the pan on top of the onion and sprinkle it with the rosemary. Cover with a lid and cook for 15-20 min.

Once the bottom of the chicken has changed color, turn it around. Season with salt and hot pepper flakes. Cover again and keep cooking.

Once the bottom of the chicken is crispy, turn it once more and get the other side crispy. It can get as dark as you want, it will taste delicious! Cook until the chicken is ready: cut open one of the thighs to check.

Enjoy your meal!

Pan Fried Tilapia with Crispy Kale

Ingredients:

• 2 tilapia filets (can be frozen)
• 1 bunch of fresh kale
• 1 table spoons flour per filet
• 1/4 cup sake
• the juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1-2 scallions
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• 1 handful of fresh parsley
• olive oil

Preparation time: about 1/2 hour, feeds 2 people.

Saute the garlic in a pan. Toss the kale in and cook at medium-high heat for a few minutes until the kale is soft and starts getting crispy.

Get the kale out of the pan but keep the garlic in. For the fish you can use the same pan. Add some more olive oil if the pan is dry.

Chop the scallion and the parsley. Put the tilapia filets on a plate and cover both sides with flour, then put it in the pan and cover with lemon juice, sake, scallion and parsley. Cook for about 5 minutes and turn the fish.

Baste the fish with the liquid in the pan and wait for the other side to be done. Make sure the fish is not rare in the middle, especially if frozen.

Enjoy your meal!

Ragù alla Bolognese

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of ground meat
• 3 cans of whole peeled tomatoes or crushed tomatoes (no seasoning)
• 1 big yellow onion
• 2-3 carrots
• 2-3 stalks of celery
• 5-6 leaves of basil
• olive oil
• salt

Preparation time: about 3 hours. I usually make a big bulk of this meat sauce and freeze part of it. I then use it to season pasta. This recipe makes a whole pot of sauce which I think would make up to 12 meals.

Chop the onion, carrots and celery. In a big pot, heat up some olive oil and toss the chopped vegetables in when hot.

The oil must be enough to be absorbed by the vegetables but not to deep fry them. Cook for about 30 minutes on medium-high heat.

After 30 minutes, add the ground meat to the pot stirring frequently and if needed breaking apart chunks of meat. Cook until the meat turns brown.

At this point add the canned tomatoes. I usually mix 2 cans of whole tomatoes and 1 of crushed tomatoes, then stir and crush the whole tomatoes in the pot (using a potato masher helps), but you can use just crushed tomatoes or even tomato puree if you want. This will change the texture of the sauce, so the choice is up to your personal taste. Cover with a lid and let simmer at medium-low heat for 2 hours.

Stir every 30 minutes or less and make sure the sauce doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot: you need to turn down the heat if that happens or you might need to add a little bit of olive oil. As you can see from the picture above, the sauce has a fair amount of oil in it.

Directions to cook the pasta

I recommend about 1/2 cup of sauce per 100 grams of pasta (3.5 oz): bucatini, spaghetti, penne, rigatoni or paccheri are my favorite choices for this meal. Heat up the sauce in a pan while you boil salted water for the pasta in a separate pot. Once the water is boiling, toss the pasta in and when done (“al dente” is recommended!) strain it and put it in the pan with the heating sauce. Just saute for a couple minutes, stirring frequently. Serve with fresh grated parmigiano or pecorino romano cheese.

Enjoy your meal!

Quick and Easy Artichoke Hearts Fresh Ravioli

Ingredients for 2 people:

• 1/2 pound of fresh cheese ravioli (ricotta and spinach is the best)
• 4-5 canned artichoke hearts (cooked)
• 1 small can of crushed tomatoes (with no seasoning)
• 3 oz of pitted calamata olives
• 1/2 bunch of parsley
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• olive oil
• salt

Preparation: 1/2 hour, feeds 2 people.

Note: if you are in State College, PA, I recommend trying Fasta’s ravioli for this recipe. They are delicious! And I haven’t got paid to say that online (yet).

In a pan, saute garlic and olive oil on medium heat until the oil’s hot. Chop the artichoke hearts and toss them in with the olives. If the artichoke hearts are a little sour and you don’t like that, just soak them in cold water for a couple of minutes. Once all the liquid in the pan evaporated, add the crushed tomatoes, chopped parsley and salt. Keep cooking until you get a homogeneous sauce.

In a separate pot, bring to boil some salted water. When boiling, add the ravioli and simmer. Fresh ravioli take about five minutes to cook, you will know when they start floating. You don’t want to overcook them or they will fall apart. Strain when they are done.

Toss the ravioli in the pan with the sauce and saute for a couple of minutes at medium-high heat. Stir frequently. You can serve with some freshly grated Parmigiano cheese if you like.

Enjoy your meal!

Zucchini alla scapece

Ingredients:

• 2-3 green zucchini
• white wine vinegar or rice vinegar
• 4-5 cloves of garlic
• a bunch of mint leaves (can be replaced by parsley)
• olive oil

Preparation: about 1 hour. Serve as an appetizer or a side dish.

Using a mandolin, cut the zucchini in thin round slices. In a wide pan, heat up about a quarter of an inch of olive oil. Fry the zucchini in the pan avoiding multiple layers. When brown and crispy, accurately strain the zucchini and put them in a flat bowl or plate. Add more of the raw zucchini to the pan. Repeat until you have no more zucchini left. You might need to add more olive oil during this process since the zucchini absorb a lot of it.

When all of the zucchini are cooked, chop the garlic and the mint (you can use parsley instead, although it will change the flavor) and toss it in the bowl. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, add a little olive oil and about 1/2 cup of vinegar. Make sure the vinegar doesn’t overpower the flavor though (you might need to put more or less depending on the amount of zucchini). Refrigerate for a couple hours and serve cold.

Hot Italian sausages with rapini (aka broccoletti or rappi)

Ingredients:

• 1 package of hot Italian pork sausages (4-6 sausages)
• 3-4 pounds of rapini (rappi at Wegmans)
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• hot pepper flakes
• olive oil and salt

Preparation time: about 1 hour. Feeds 4 people

Fill for 3/4 a big tall pot with water, add salt and bring to a boil. The pot has to be big enough to hold all of the rapini. Cut the stems from the rapini and put them in the boiling water. Keep simmering until the remaining part of the stems is soft. This takes about 30-40 minutes.

Meanwhile, saute the garlic with olive oil in a separate large pan. Once the oil is hot put the sausages in. Make holes in the sausages with a fork so that the juice comes out. Keep cooking at medium heat and turn the sausages until they are brown. When brown, you can turn the heat up a little bit to make them crispy.

When the rapini are soft, strain them and add them to the pan with the sausages once those are crispy. Sprinkle the rapini with hot pepper flakes and add salt if needed. Even if you strained the rapini, they will still carry a lot of liquid. Keep cooking at medium-high heat and wait for most of the liquid to evaporate. You can get the rapini to be a little crispy too, but make sure nothing burns.

Enjoy your meal!

Let’s start with a bang: pork short ribs and beans with pasta

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds pork short ribs
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 bag of dry cannellini beans
• 1 small can of peeled whole tomatoes (with no seasoning)
• 1 cup of wine or 1/2 cup cheap sake
• salt and pepper

Preparation time: 2 1/2 - 3 hours, feeds up to 6 people

Separate the ribs one from the others if not so already. Peel the garlic cloves and saute them at medium heat with olive oil in a big tall pot. The olive oil should be enough to cover the bottom of the pot. Once the oil is hot, put the ribs in and add some rosemary. Keep the heat high enough for the ribs to fry but not too high.

After the ribs have browned, add the white wine or sake and simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated. Add the canned tomatoes: I recommend adding no more than 4-5 tomatoes and some of the tomato juice, but it’s up to your personal taste. Crush the tomatoes and cover with water. Keep it simmering at medium heat.

Cook until the meat falls off the bone, about 2 hours. Meanwhile, you can start boiling the beans in a separate pot. Soaking the beans for 6-12 hours makes them cook much faster, but it’s possible to cook them right out of the bag. Put the beans in a pot and cover with water. Add salt and cook at medium heat. Cook the beans alone until they are at a medium firmness. If the beans have been soaked, this might take about half a hour, it takes a couple of hours otherwise.

Once the meat falls off the bones, add the cooked beans to the pot with part of the water they have been cooking in. There should be enough water to cover the ribs and the beans. Add salt and pepper. Keep cooking for 15-20 minutes based on how soft you want the beans to be. It’s also important that the meat cooks with the beans for a while as you want the flavors to blend together.

If you are cooking for less than 6 people (as I usually do) you might want to put just part of the ribs and beans in a separate smaller pot to cook the pasta in. A third of the whole thing easily feeds 2 people.

I recommend using 50g (about 1.7 oz) of pasta (any kind of short pasta or spaghetti broken in 1 inch pieces will work here) or 25-30g (about 1 oz) of arborio rice per person. Add a little more water to the ribs and bring to a boil. Add the pasta or rice and make sure it’s covered with water adding more if needed. The pasta takes 5-7 minutes to cook, while the arborio takes usually 25-30 minutes (in this case make sure it’s always covered with water). Once the pasta/rice is ready you can serve. You can adjust to taste the amount of liquid you want. I usually make it so that it’s pretty “sticky”.