Tag: advice

Tiramisu: Tiramibloom's advice – Italian Cuisine

A tiramisu school for foreigners (basic course) and for Italians. Here are the valuable tips that the pastry chef Giacinta Trivero of Tiramibloom gave us. Follow them, and your favorite dessert will be perfect!

Eggs, sugar, mascarpone, coffee, ladyfingers: an extremely simple recipe, but traps are not lacking. How many times did it happen that the cream did not firm up properly or that the Savoyard was not wet enough? To resolve any uncertainty, we tried to prepare the tiramisu in one of the masterclasses of Giacinta Trivero, a young Italian chef trained in France by Paul Bocuse, who recently opened his tiramisu boutique, with an annexed single-cuisine school. Two courses: for Italians and foreigners. "For the latter," says the pastry chef, "we start from the basics, teaching them even to make coffee. For the Italians, who naturally already have a certain familiarity, let us give the tips to never make mistakes and some ideas to vary the recipe . Here, precisely, what are the recommendations of Giacinta Trivero?

Prepare the ingredients according to the temperature

In pastry, order and discipline are fundamental. First you need to decide whether to use biscuits or, as they do from Tiramibloom, a kind of sparse little sponge cake. And even if you used the ladyfingers ("the good ones, please!" Says Giacinta), you will still have to take care of the base well enough to allow it to cool down. Ditto for coffee or any other wet that you plan to use in the event of a change: because they are always hot liquids that need time for cooling.

Not a drop of yolk in the egg whites

Everyone knows that whites must be whipped until they are stiff, but that this process is made more difficult by a possible contamination of red in whites is less known or, at least, is often ignored because of haste. But in the kitchen, and especially in pastry, you don't have to hurry.

Sugar in reds little by little

The reds, for their part, must be mixed with sugar, after having turned them vigorously with a whisk. Red must literally change color, becoming yellow. But to do this in the best way, it is useful to always remember to pour the sugar in the yolks little by little, turning quickly. In large quantities, sugar tends to "cook" the yolks. Ditto the mascarpone, it must be inserted little by little, but in this case to check that the cream does not make lumps.

After mounting reds and whites, whisk away

If in the first phase reds and egg whites need the energetic contribution of whips, in the second phase we must change the instrument. Both when adding the mascarpone to the reds and, even more, when it is the turn of the egg whites to enter the mixture, the operation must be performed with a spatula and not with a whisk. In the case of mascarpone because with the spatula it is better combined with reds and helps to avoid lumps, in the case of egg whites instead it is the moment when the cream imposes delicacy. Pour the egg whites in 2-3 moments and make movements from the top to the bottom, to incorporate the whipped whites without removing them.

Don't be afraid of wetting the base too much

For Giacinta Trivero the better the Savoyard is soaked, and to be absolutely certain of the result she suggests using a transparent container, so as to be able to check that the bottom is also wet. With coffee it is easy to tell if everything is evenly wet, with less transparent bagne. In that case, you have to do the "finger" test, if it sinks slightly and the Savoyard gives in means that it is well wet.

Green light for the imagination: but always try!

The classic tiramisu has its own granitic recipe (don't add the cream, for example), but it is not certain that you cannot think of variations on the theme. In the masterclass, Giacinta Trivero proposed a late-summer tiramisu, with the last September figs. With the fig leaves he prepared the syrup by boiling the chopped leaves (two in a liter of water with 50g of sugar) and letting the liquid cool. For the cream, he used the classic recipe for 12 ladyfingers, with 500g of mascarpone, 2 eggs, 100g of sugar, but he added at the end a couple of spoonfuls of fig jam and 10 chopped walnuts. To garnish, instead of the classic cocoa sprinkling, a few more walnuts and slices of fresh fig. The same pattern can be used for all types of fruit: a consistent wet, a few spoonfuls of jam, dried fruit to give crispness and fresh to decorate. «However, Giacinta suggests, «always do the tests before subjecting the experiments to your guests.

Service and storage times

Even if the gluttony wears you down, don't rush, because you have to give the cream time to firmly firm up in the fridge. It takes at least three hours, even better if you prepare it in the morning for dinner or the day before for lunch the next day. Obviously, the opposite rule also applies, although it is difficult to have these problems: do not sip it, because the eggs are raw and should be consumed as soon as possible, of course the tiramisu not consumed must always be in the refrigerator.

Autumn velvets: ideas and advice – Italian Cuisine

This season is always the right time to bring queso comfort food to the table. Here are some ideas and our tips to cook it to perfection

There is no best season of autumn to bring to the table delicious velvety prepared with the best ingredients that this year gives us.

Velvety: not just pumpkin

One speaks only of pumpkin soups because the pumpkin is the queen of the table in autumn, but you can also prepare some excellent velvety with broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, leeks, carrots and apples, you know that?
You can too mix more vegetables and give it a magic touch with the addition of some spice or accompany your velvets with croutons, sour cream, sautéed mushrooms or crispy bacon.
The beauty of this dish is that you can really do it by following your own tastes and using what you have at home.

Cream and potatoes

The velvety is soft yield as its name says from theadding fresh cream, but for one lighter version you can replace the cream by adding one boiled potato to the other vegetables to give the mixture a more creamy consistency.
For a velvety with an ethnic flavor you can add coconut milk and if instead you want a boost in taste then try with yogurt or sour cream.

velvety

Some advice for a perfect velvety

Watch out for lumps! If you want to bring a very soft velvety to the table pass it in a colander to eliminate all vegetable residues that are not perfectly blended.
Remember that the velvety vegetables of delicate vegetables such as those in leaf need the addition of a ingredient that gives consistency, like potatoes or pumpkin, otherwise they will always remain too liquid. If the cream should still be too liquid, prolong cooking for a few minutes.
As for the temperature, remember that the velouté should not be served cold or hot, but hot at the right point to be able to eat with pleasure.

We offer you now some recipes tried by our editorial staff, prepared with typically autumnal ingredients.

Zucchini or courgette flowers? Advice from harvest to table! – Italian Cuisine

But now let's get back to the big dilemmma: zucchini or courgette flowers? Every summer does this doubt grip you so much that you resign yourself to simply calling them flowers? Do not despair here is how to recognize them with this little guide.

Pumpkin or courgette?

We are used to call them generically pumpkin flowers but it would be reasonable to make a distinction, since both the pumpkin plant and the courgette plant produces edible flowers, very similar. The difference is in fact minimal, i zucchini flowers they tend to be larger, they have pointed petals of a bright yellow tending to orange, but they have almost no fragrance. THE courgette flowers instead they have smaller dimensions, pale yellow rounded petals and a more accentuated fragrance. Having said that, there should have appeared in the head the clear image of zucchini flowers, which are those that we usually find on the market. Large and capacious, they are certainly more satisfying to the eye and to the palate, for this supermarket and greengrocers keep the courgette flowers and rarely the pumpkin ones.

How to pick flowers

Both the courgette flowers and the courgette flowers should be harvested early in the morning because they open at dawn and close again after a few hours, so those who sleep do not take flowers. However, a further distinction must be made between male flowers and female flowers. The latter are those attached to the fruit, or to the pumpkin or courgette, and allow the fruit to grow, when it has reached full maturity the flower dies and falls. The male flowers instead grow attached to their own stem, called peduncle, and do not lead to fructification, but contribute to the pollination of the plant, since the pollen contained in the stamen of the male flowers reaches the pistil of the female flowers. In summary, if we collect the female ones attached to the fruit it will stop growing, while if we detach the male ones we risk stopping the production of the plant itself. The advice is therefore to make an intelligent and reasoned collection, always leaving at least one male flower for each plant in this way there will be neither flowers nor fruits.

How to store them

Collect the flowers no later than 8 am, when they are still well open, so you will be able to clean them better and with ease. Rinse them gently, remove the pistil without spoiling the corolla and dry them from both sides with absorbent paper or a clean cloth. Once they are dry put them in a large container with an airtight seal and without overlapping them too much, put them in the fridge, use them over two days, no more. If your garden is producing it in large quantities you can make a special gift to neighbors and friends, or stuff them, bread them and put them directly in the freezer, spacing one layer and the other with plastic wrap, in this way they won't stick and just in case, just remove them from the freezer and fry them without even having to thaw them.