Kaffir-lime risotto with saffron mussels and roasted hazelnuts

It slipped almost unnoticed but our little baby just turned 3.
It doesn't look like right? Still so small and full of promises, rough around the edges but with a softy heart.

It came to life amongst the street of Paris between a narghile pipe and a chai, between wild chemistry talks and calm heart-pouring sessions between friends.

In 3 years it found many friends and supporters to make its parents proud of its stumbling through the virtual life. Still uncertain of where to go, a fall every now and then, a seldom cry for help or out of frustration.

Top 24 recipes of 2011

And this year is gone and it is almost my blogversary too! Many (but not too many) are the recipes I have proposed you across the past 12 months and it was very hard to choose some that have stuck in my flavors library.

After skimming my picture catalog I have reduced them to a Top 24. With one new recipe every two weeks may this list help you bringing a little more happiness into your 2012.

Top 24 of 2011

Risotto with broccoli, poached prawns, roasted sesame seeds oil and dark chocolate shavings

From the streets of Sicily a sticky and sweet comfort food

My dear friend Asha some time ago asked me if I was willing to participate to her street-food month to celebrate her blog anniversary.
No doubts I wanted to be part of such fun and deserved celebrations though I was a bit doubtful about venturing into German street food. You see, what passes for street food here is mostly grilled sausages in a bun, with French fries or with a curried ketchup sauce. Not really my cup of tea as concerning experimentation.
Sicilian street food was the way to go.

Lately I have seen quite a number of Arancini posts around the blogospheres so I thought I should give it a try but in one of those blissful moment of inspiration I remembered of another street food that I simply adore:

Crispelle di riso di San Giuseppe (St. Joseph's sticky rice fritters)

For the recipe let's head over to Asha's.

Broccoli for a long-awaited come back

It has been quite long time since my last post; it has been a long pregnancy but finally here I am.
Yesterday night I felt the need to get back to cooking for you all, creating new unusual and enticing dishes for your table, memories, dream (nightmares?).
When I came back from Sicily, last Saturday night, I bought a head of broccoli and few other things to be able to survive on Sunday. Half of it went into a reshaped classic: soupy broken linguini with broccoli, garlic, olive oil and parmesan; a soul food of my childhood that speaks to me of my mother and our meal together when I wasn’t able even to cut a slice of bread. The time of happy, free thoughts over a sparkling future, run in the grass with my neighbour friends, cry over a scratched knee after a fall, laughter watching my baby sister running on the hallway with her puffy diaper and head full of goldie locks.
We want to grow up; we do it eventually. We take the sceptre from our mothers preparing those simple meals that made us what we are.
Do not worry, this post isn’t about “pasta e broccoli” rather risotto with broccoli. Not any risotto though! Scavenging my freezer I found a bag of sweet prawns to use and…some Valrhona chocolate was still lying around.
Is that enough to entice your curiosity? Come on; say yes… you won’t be disappointed, promised!
Here I give you my:

Risotto with broccoli, poached prawns, roasted sesame seeds oil and dark chocolate shavings

PaperChef 54 with a magic quartet

Zucchini, raspberries, beans and cereals; these are the actors of today' show.
As every first weekend of each month, it is PaperChef time! If you remember I have already taken part to this creative challenge, quite a few months back. Voids of memory and travels have impeded me to rejoin the happy crew for the monthly ride.
Miraculously this month I remembered of it and checked the dedicated blog  even before the host and ingredients were disclosed; I told you it had something of a miracle, no?
This month host is Karen of Prospect the Pantry and she is the responsible for the weird combination of toys I had in front of me. To be honest, fate is the responsible but, have you read of the power of thoughts on stochastic event? if not, it is a pretty cool scientific/philosophical topic to delve into. Anyhow, the whole ingredients list (Zucchini, raspberries, beans and cereals) didn't look so strange if it wasn't for the raspberries.

Daring Sushi

This is my first attempt at tackling another of the monthly daring challenges; this time we talk about Daring Cooks and Sushi!As with the Daring Bakers, the Daring Cooks virtually meet once a month to share their results on a chosen dish to realize following a specific recipe. This month it was the turn of sushi.
It was not the first time for me, since I already had a go at it when I was in Florence 5-6 years ago. As with Macarons, this recipe is a lot about skills and technique.
It is always said, at good reason, that the heart of a good piece of sushi is the rice. The short grained Japanese rice has to be slightly sticky so to keep its shape but loose enough to crumble once in your mouth. The rice itself doesn’t leak much starch when cooked, even because it is carefully rinsed beforehand; so to supplement it with taste and stickiness, a syrup made with water, rice vinegar, sugar and salt, is added to the rice during the cooling process. The rice keeps its loose identity, each grain recognizable and not smashed into a pulp but still quite sticky to give you trouble in laying it out on the sheet of nori seaweed (to avoid this you keep on wetting your hands when you handle the rice).

TweetPost #3: Cuban Picadillo

Few nights ago I was browsing the website of my friend Bren Herrera when I stumbled upon a video tutorial on how to prepare a staple Cuban dish: Picadillo.

Watching it I found that the combination of ingredient can easily be mistaken for a Sicilian dish; I was particularly struck by the use of green olives and raisins (that we use also in Sicily for a recipe calling for salted cod). So tonight I decided to give it a try and here you are the first draft of its recipe.

Cuban Picadillo

The pistachios post

We in Sicily are quite blessed by the production of yummy almonds and pistachios. The city of Agrigento has a festival for the blossoming of the almonds tree that grow in its countryside and in the Noto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noto valley. Pistachios are instead grown on the sides of the Etna volcano in the city of Bronte. We use both nuts quite a lot both in savory and sweet recipes but while almonds are more assertive, pistachios are quite subtle in taste (and more expensive too).
Almonds are omnipresent in my pesto sauces but I have not worked extensively with pistachios before; I have then decided that it was due time to face the nut.
In this post, you will find a series of experiments I made with them, mostly savory with a great classic as sweet. Let me know what you think of them.

Double potato salad with green onions and pistachios

TweetPost #1: Chickpeas & Mussels; a couple made in Heaven!

So here we go with the fast post composed, posted and eaten without much fuss :P
The first one is about tonight's dinner. It was long time since I last had chickpeas with rice so today I decided to swig that way. This is what I came up with:
Chickpea Risotto with Tarragon and Mussel

Dining in Prague - 1st day (02/08/09)

We are in Prague! Well, I was more or less 2 weeks ago.
Arrived at the airport we looked and looked and looked and, guess what?, looked again for our name on a piece of paper hold by the guy of the shuttle service sent from our hotel but we couldn’t find any. Too bad, we took one of those taxi-vans that can fit up to 8 people and we even spent less than thought.
The ride was great! It was such a warm day, too warm probably. The land on which Prague was built is quite varied (it goes from 100/328 to 400/1312 m/ft above the sea level) and the airport is built on the highest plateau. The taxi brought us trough a bit of the countryside and near what seemed to be a lonely McDonald standing in a desert road. At a closer looks we noticed few people with beach-towels. Most probably behind the McDo there was a lake of which we could perceive part of the surrounding wall: a nice cut in the bare rock otherwise covered with luscious green vegetation.
Traveling downhill, we started seeing villas that once should have been almost in the countryside; the German architectonic heritage was evident in some of them.
All of a sudden, tourism buses appear to queue on the right side of the road; we later understood that that was the location of the famous Castle of Prague. Going still downhill through almost now desertic streets (did I mention already that it was a Sunday?), we reached the Vltava/Moldava river. We crossed it on one of its Art Nouveau bridges that brought us directly into the heart of the city: the Old Town Square (astronomical clock anyone? ). We got even a tour through the old city included with the taxi ticket, yuppie!!
Gosh, is Prague beautiful or what? Not always suited for car travels though, some streets have tiny steps along them for instance.