Tag: Campania

Migliaccio: recipe from Campania | Yummy Recipes – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

The Migliaccio it is a classic Campania dessert prepared for Carnival. Soft and with a ricotta and semolina filling that melts in your mouth. It is a traditional Neapolitan dessert, poor and very simple, but rich in taste.

The name of this traditional dessert comes from mile, an ingredient with which it was once prepared. In fact, our recipe offers a more current version, where semolina is used instead.

The soft filling of thegliaccio resembles that of another very famous dessert of the Neapolitan tradition, the puff pastryanother timeless classic of Neapolitan pastry, with a shortcrust pastry base and a creamy heart of ricotta, semolina and candied fruit.

You can prepare Migliaccio for your breakfasts or for a special occasion, but in any case Shrove Tuesday in Naples and in the other cities of the region will never be missing! And to keep him company there are also the Chatter!

This dessert with an ancient soul is very simple: it is prepared by cooking the semolina in milk and then adding eggs, sugar and vanillin… one batch and off you go! Ready to be enjoyed in company, perhaps with a cup of tea or a fruit juice prepared at home.

Pasta alla Genovese, the recipe as they make it at home in Naples – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

You don’t necessarily have to be from Naples to understand the profound meaning of a dish like this Genoese. Of course, for a Neapolitan, its smell will always be linked to endless Sundays with the family; but in reality that perfume remains impregnated even on those who are just passing through, even just once. Because in an era where speed and efficiency remain the imperatives, they are needed to make the Genovese hours and hoursmove on to peeling kilos of onions with tears in his eyes; tears that don’t stop even amidst the fumes of its long cooking times; tears that are enough for a breath. This is why in the Genoese area there is Naples and its intrinsic ability to always find solutions, in life as well as when faced with remains, waste or overabundance of food; that same genius that has always characterized so-called kitchens poor, which in reality have absolutely nothing poor about them and always reveal themselves to be the quintessence of creativity, as history shows us. Because it’s when you have nothing that you can do everything, mo, ambress ambressin an eternal present: “the future doesn’t belong to us, what if I don’t wake up tomorrow? So I’d better do the Genovese today”. This is the philosophy of Patrizia, known to everyone as an aunt, one of the many women who has been preparing it all her life, because her mother, Angela, and even before her grandmother, Fortuna, taught it to her, according to a tradition handed down with the simple know-how. Over the years you have prepared it throughout Italy for various occasions and everywhere it has always been a great success. But it remains a doubt: why is one of the most Neapolitan recipes there is called that?

Why is “la Genovese” called that since she is from Naples?

There are various hypotheses, from the Aragonese period in which it seems that the port of Naples was full of Genoese chefs, to a Neapolitan chef who cooked it and was nicknamed “or Genoese”, up to those who think that the name derives from Geneva in Switzerland and not from the Ligurian city…

But the reality is simpler: Genovese belongs to Mediterranean and dates back to that era when exchanges between ports were so common that sharing a dish was a habit. Even more so if it was a city like Naples that made him, incapable of not giving confidence, with its innate nature predisposed to meeting without preconceptions and contamination without hesitation.

Therefore, the origin or belonging of something that ultimately has its roots in the middle of the sea, imbued with an ancient and profound sense of sharing, matters little; the same one that today makes sure no one misses the table when she is finally ready.

How to prepare Genovese

For the preparation of Genovese, it is essential to choose the meat well, which must always be as tender as possible: Aunt Patrizia prefers the pig henamong the lesser known, but equally valid cuts, near the shin, in the lower part of the leg, where the muscle masses embrace the posterior aspect of the tibia.

Ingredients for 4/5 people

500 g large penne (or ziti and candles)
1 kg of pork gurnard (or tender beef rump)
2 kg of onions
2 carrots
1 celery
1 glass of white wine
5 cherry tomatoes
basil – salt – parsley – Parmesan – extra virgin olive oil

Method

Peel the onions and cut them into small pieces.
Then clean the carrots and celery and cut them into small pieces too; Put the extra virgin olive oil in a pan and brown the previously cut meat.
After about a quarter of an hour, remove the meat and in the same pan add a little more oil with onions, carrots and celery and cook with the lid closed for a few minutes.
Then add a glass of white wine, then add the meat with five crushed cherry tomatoes; Season with salt, add a little more white wine and leave to cook over low heat for at least an hour, although the time depends on how well the meat is cooked.
Once the meat is almost ready, boil the water, throw in the pasta and finally season directly on the plate, never forgetting a sprinkling of parmesan ‘ncoppa.

Ciro Di Maio, not just the Mano de Dios pizza for Maradona. Interview – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

We reach him in one of the few, very few, breaks he takes from work. «I go into the pizzeria at 9 in the morning and leave at 1 in the morning. I haven’t taken a day in months and I’m happy like this”, He says. And so it has always been: 33 years of which 19 were spent kneading, Ciro Di Maio started making pizzas at a very young age, at 14, because even then he needed another path. An alternative after a complex childhood in the popular buildings of the suburbs of Naples with a father with a stormy past. A father who then in turn found a new path and gave him an example, showing him that a better life also comes from helping those in need. Ciro now does the same in his own way with prisoners, with the kids who live in the disadvantaged neighborhoods where he grew up, with those who knock on his door. He teaches an art that is for many still the path to redemption, training new generations of pizza chefs to whom he explains that pizza can also be a way to tell about oneself and one’s origins. Like he did with the Hand of Godin conclusion. We talked about it in this interview:

The interview with pizza chef Ciro Di Maio

As well as on Instagram, did you like Mano de Dios pizza in real life?
«It’s going very well, customers like it, partly because it’s scenic and partly because it’s good. Many Neapolitans who live in Brescia ask for it, but also many people from Brescia.”

Is the football quote immediate for everyone?
«Of course, it is impossible not to know Maradona. He was an idol. I grew up watching Maradona. I still remember that when I went to school on the bus they showed videos of his goals. Maradona was not just a footballer. He was a love for football, for life, for people. He united Naples and Argentina. I once asked an Argentinian client “why are you so good at football?”, and he replied “because we have Italian blood”.

Do you have other special pizzas like this on the menu?
«We make the classic cartwheel, in all the classic flavors and with typical Campania products. This Mano de Dios is one of a kind not only for the shape, but also for the culture it contains. For me it’s a way to talk about Naples.”

What did it mean for you to bring the art of Neapolitan pizza outside of Naples?
«For me it meant many things: not only making real pizza known, but also the true Neapolitan culture. There are still many unjustified stereotypes about Naples and those who live there, which with our work we can help to dismantle. Naples is beautiful and ugly at the same time, like people who can be good and bad at the same time. Certainly if I hadn’t been born in Naples I wouldn’t be who I am. There is a saying that “Oh Neapolitan if it’s bad but he won’t die“, that is, “the Neapolitan can become skin and bones but not die”. We know how to resist, even in absolute poverty. Like we all have to learn, but I believe that the uniqueness of Neapolitans also lies in the ability to get up again. A bit like I I made it”.