Tag: cook

How to cook Brussels sprouts – Italian Cuisine

Brussels sprouts they are the sprouts of Brussels cabbage, a very different botanical variety from the cabbage we are used to know. In fact, the sprouts are small buds that grow along the stem of Brussels cabbage and ripen to become as large as a walnut, keeping the leaves well attached and compact and dark green.

The sprouts are collected at different times because they do not all mature at the same time. They are winter vegetables, and they are present on the market between November and March. The most widespread varieties are: the Early Dwarf, the Late Dwarf and the Half Dwarf, almost all imported from the countries of Northern Europe, despite the tradition that narri originates from Italy (they would have been introduced in Belgium by the Roman occupation troops).

How to prepare Brussels sprouts

Brussels sprouts are eaten only cooked and boiled in salted water. If you plan to continue cooking in another way (in the oven, for example), keep them in water for 15 minutes. For a complete cooking, leave it for 25 minutes instead. Before cooking, cut the hardest core at the base and remove the outer leaves.

Sprouts are very often used as a side dish to combine with boiled or roasted white meat (chicken, turkey, veal). Alone they can be served with a cream cheese, with raisins or raisins, or dressed with a cream and nutmeg sauce, or accompanied by chopped almonds or walnuts.

To remove the flavor a bit 'bitter, after boiled can caramelize them with a tablespoon of brown sugar or a tablespoon of maple syrup and a drop of water: they will be crispy and with a sweetish background. Another method to eliminate bitter notes is to cook them with bacon and anchovies.

We have prepared them this way

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How to choose, clean and cook the prawns – Italian Cuisine

The scampi are the shellfish most appreciated in Europe after lobsters. They have a pinkish or pinkish white color, with red and brown hues. Inside the carapace, the meat of the tail, soft and delicate flavor, is a real delicacy. Suitable to create tasty appetizers, succulent first courses, but also second courses of grilled fish, baked or steamed, here are some tips on how to cook shrimp.

Scampi, lobsters, prawns, lobsters or cicadas: how to choose

The escape It is a crustacean that belongs to the family of decapods (ie 10 legs). The body can reach 25 centimeters and is equipped with an armor that can take varied colors.

But the family of crustaceans is rich in numerous species, many of which are edible. In addition to the scampi there are the canocchie (or cicale), protagonists of the most rustic and popular soups like the caciucco and the bouillabaisse.

Then there are the prawns, excellent for risotto and sauces for pasta dishes such as tagliolini with béchamel with prosecco and prawns. For the grilled fish you use the prawns, bigger version of the prawns, with a more full-bodied tail.

Lobster and lobster are the crustaceans used on special occasions. THE'lobster it is similar to lobster, but is different due to the presence of two large claws. It has a body covered with a thick armor that turns red when cooked. It is less expensive than lobster and is highly prized for its white-pink firm flesh. It must stay alive during cooking, but if it impresses you, you can always buy it frozen. 60% of this animal will lose it as waste, but its pulp – low-calorie, among other things – will enrich your recipes with a unique flavor.

Precious and expensive the lobster, at the purchase, must be alive, heavy (a sign that has just been drawn), not too big and possibly female (it is recognized by the double row of wings placed under the tail). Even the lobster should be cooked still alive, like lobster, whatever it is recipe to which it is intended.

How to recognize if they are fresh

If you have decided to cook the prawns, at the time of purchase you will need to make sure they are fresh. These crustaceans waste very quickly, so be careful that at the time of purchase have a nice appearance: they must be swollen and must have a shiny shell and a head well attached to the body. THE'smell it must be seawater. Eye to the scampi that smells of ammonia: it means they are wasting away. The eyes must be bright black and not fogged. The legs must be clear: avoid the scampi with blackened ends.

How to measure (how many scampi per kg)

Like all crustaceans, even the scampi have one high waste, equal to about 60% of their weight. This factor may not be a problem when the recipe requires a precise number of scampi.

However, if the weight of the necessary pulp is mentioned in the list of ingredients, it is good to keep in mind that the net weight of a scampi is obtained by multiplying the quantity by three. So for 500 g of pulp you will have to buy 1.5 kg of scampi.

The scampi scraps can be useful to make a broth in which to cook the shellfish or to create a sauce with which to dress them, if you want to serve them warm. Just put shells, claws and heads with half water and half white wine. Add salt, parsley and aromatic vegetables, cook for 15 minutes and filter everything, crushing the shells with a pestle. It is excellent for flavoring risottos and sauces.

Once you have the brodetto, you can create one sauce hot by blending the cooked shells with a glass of liquid and adding a teaspoon of potato starch and 4-5 tablespoons of cream. Put on a gentle fire for two minutes.

If lobster, lobster and crabs are cleaned only after cooking, scampi, shrimp and shrimp are always peeled after cooking. The part that interests us is the tail: this is where the pulp appetizing necessary for our recipes.

For clean the prawns, first detach the part of the head with a slight twist. Then you can proceed by eliminating the shell and the tail by taking the scampi in hand, with the armor facing down. Helping yourself with kitchen scissors, carve the cartilage of the belly on both sides, detach it and then slowly pull out the pulp, pulling it out like a glove.

Another system for remove the pulp from the carapace is to take the scampo in his hand with the back facing down, removing the first and second ring of the cartilage of the abdomen. Then push with your thumb at the end of the armor, right in the center of the small fan "tail" and pull the pulp from the other side. Be careful not to pull too sharply: you could damage the lobster meat.

If you wish to leave the carapace intact, you can tuck one toothpick between the attachment of the head and the rest of the body and slide off with the help of a toothpick the intestine, that black gut that crosses the tail of the mollusc.

How to cook the prawns

To cook the scampi boiled boil water, taking care to leave 3-5 cm of water covering the legs. The liquid will be enriched with apple vinegar, a pinch of salt and 3-4 spoons of spices and aromas.

After boiling the water with the aromas, pour the prawns into the pot. Some people prefer to cook whole, still with the carapace, in order to preserve all the flavor of internal juices, giving the pulp a genuine and full flavor. Remove your armor at the end of cooking.

When the scampi will start to surface (after about 5-7 minutes, depending on the size), you can drain them. Stop cooking immediately by pouring ice over it.

The flavored water can be used for cooking steamed escapes. Place the prawns in a steamer, cover with the appropriate lid and cook over medium heat. Then it lowers to the minimum to prevent the water from being consumed before the end of cooking. With steamed tails, you can prepare one scampi, artichoke and potato pie.

Let's find out how to cook them scampi in the pan. This technique allows you to add ingredients that enrich the flavor – as in the case of couscous with citrus pesto, dried fruit and shrimps – or to create one tasty fry.

For cook the baked scampi just clean them, place them in a large pan with a broth obtained from the emulsion of lemon, oil, parsley, salt and black pepper. After seasoning, bake at 200 ° C for 10 minutes.

Baking also allows you to prepare excellent prawns gratinated, preparation that will give the crustacean a crispy breading.

You can cook it scampo al cartoccio, wrapping it in tinfoil. By properly condimenting the crustacean, with this technique the sauces will be retained from the wrapper and will continue to flavor the scampi. You can add capers, tomatoes and aromatic herbs.

Cook the fish on the grill it is not an impossible undertaking, but some precautions must be taken into account. The scampi are perfect for fire and embers. They can be cooked with the shell after having eliminated the heads and left them to marinate for half an hour with oil and lemon.

How to eat

Once you have chosen the recipe and cooked the prawns, remember that if you have chosen to serve the already shelled pulp, the guests will simply have to bite it. In case you have cooked the crustacean in its carapace, it will be up to the guests to slip off the various armor rings. If you have engraved the lower part of the tail, you will only have to place the knife in the middle and take out the pulp with the fork. Otherwise, the lower part must also be engraved with the knife.

Fresh prawns, frozen prawns: what changes?

The scampi are divided into very fresh, fresh is frozen foods. THE fresh it's the crustaceans you've caught, or someone you trust so much. You can also buy them on the dock or at the port market. If you have chosen this type of crustacean, remember to chop them down in the freezer before consuming them.

The fresh scampi they are available in very small quantities. In fact, most of the product arrives on the desks – and must be reported on the package – frozen or deep-frozen. If you buy them at the fishmonger or at the supermarket, you will find them lying on ice mountains. In that case they are called "fresh": they are shellfish caught some time ago that have undergone an instant freezing process, to be then thawed by those who run the fish school. Which means that they are becoming less and less fresh with the passing of the hours.

If you do not trust fresh and fresh crustaceans, tip on frozen prawns. Unlike freezing (preservation with the subzero cold of domestic type), freezing is an ultra rapid freezing that only industrial technologies can practice, observing specific rules.

Once the scampi are caught, the angler immediately puts them under ice, freezing them in real time. Then it goes to immediate freezing on board, which allows maintenance at a temperature below 18 ° C. This process starts the cold chain, a real guarantee of quality for the consumer who will find in the freezer counter the fresh taste of shrimp and other crustaceans. But choose raw frozen foods: they will be a better raw material than cooked and then frozen.

Appetizer ideas with scampi

A versatile ingredient in the kitchen, langoustines lend themselves very well to preparing recipes for tasty appetizers such as i sandwiches with scampi, i aspic of scampi with mint flavor or an elegant one scampi tartare with peach granita for summer menus.

How to choose and cook a steak – Italian Cuisine

True protagonist of the grilled, protein dish par excellence, the beef steak it is a large slice of meat attached to a bone, cut from the fine parts of an animal's back. It is generally preferred to cook beef steaks, but also pork, horse and even tuna they can offer pieces of meat up to this cut. The most famous remains Florentine steak, but there are many other secrets to discover on this preparation. Here are the best ways to cook the steak.

Because it is called steak and what is meant by Florentine steak

Second Pellegrino Artusi the word beef steak owes its name to the evolution of the English expression beef steak what does it mean beef rib. The steak is nothing but one chop to which his bone is left. It must be roughly a finger. It can be of beef, veal, but also of horse, pig, tuna and salmon (in this case, without bone).

In his Science in the kitchen and the art of eating well, Artusi explains that still in the first decades of the twentieth century the steak was prevalently prevalent in Tuscany, known as Florentine, why "in many provinces, almost exclusively old and working animals are slaughtered", writes the gastronomist, in those cases he used only the fillet steak as a serving cut, while they called steak "a wheel of the same cooked in wire rack", that is to the embers.

Beefsteak with or without bone

There beef steak can have thebone, but also be deprived of it. This term refers to meat that is minced from the loin and is sold with or without bone. In the second case it can still be called steak for the cut of origin, but it would be more correct to call it chop.

Which cut of meat to choose

If you want to cook a good steak, we begin by distinguishing between the various cuts among which we can choose. Let's start by saying that one rib and a Florentine are not the same thing. Although both are obtained from the loin (muscle mass that covers the back of the animal, where the meat is interspersed with ribs), what is cut from this part of the body gives rise to different steaks.

from front of the loin are obtained steaks without fillet: these will be called ribs with bone. from rear we will get the steaks with fillet and sirloin, that is the Florentine classics. So what makes the difference is the presence of the fillet, but not only.

There Florentine steak it also has a T-shaped bone, which in the Anglo-Saxon countries gave rise to the name of T-bone steak: it is about half vertebra left attached to the meat. If the fillet part is reduced, the T-Bone becomes Porterhouse steak. The bone of the rib is larger, but does not have the same shape as that of the Florentine.

Pay attention to the fat: buy a steak that has a thick white vein, deta also moire. Only the best meats are covered by this lattice, which will give you an exceptional result in cooking, enriching the meat with a unique taste.

From the sirloinby removing the bone, you get the right meat for one cut: it should be cooked whole on the grill and then cut into strips before being served. Another good piece to eat is the chump steak: it is obtained from the homonymous piece, between the loin and the leg. Savory roast beef, braised and stewed are also obtained from the chump.

How to cook it best in the pan

Not everyone has a barbecue at home, so – in the absence of plate or soapstone – touch fold up Pans. But be careful: do not use non-stick, but only those made of cast iron or metal. In fact these are the perfect materials to trigger the Maillard reaction and create the perfect crust around the meat. Make sure the pan is hot and keep the heat high at the beginning and medium during cooking, to prevent the meat from burning quickly.

How to cook it best on the grill or on the plate

For cook the grilled Florentine steak first of all meat must be flavored. You will need two sprigs of rosemary and two peeled garlic cloves: add everything to some crushed pepper grain. Sprinkle the meat with these aromas and spray it with oil: let it rest for at least half an hour.

At the time of cooking, the temperature of the steak must be around 30 ° C: to raise the temperature, use a cake dome to protect the meat. Now heat the cast iron or soapstone plate well – the grill must be glowing – and cook the Florentine for 3-4 minutes on each side over high heat.

In the absence of the barbecue, iron and cast iron they are the best materials to rely on for cooking with fire. This way you will get the famous one Maillard reaction, which causes the meat to brown on the surface, remaining tender inside and taking its typical flavor. For this to happen, the temperature of the pan must reach at least 140 degrees. The reaction in fact occurs only at high temperatures, and put the ribs on the fire prematurely can mean compromising the cooking.

Can it be baked?

Cook the steak in the oven it is a fashion that has been affirming itself in recent times. Thanks to the pitmaster Gianfranco Lo Cascio, even in Italy we start talking about reverse searing and gives the meat a strong external crunchiness and an excellent internal juiciness.

Take the Florentine steak and put it in the oven at 45 ° C for about 60-90 minutes: to know if you have completed this step, measure the internal temperature of the piece. It must have reached 45 ° C. Eye to the color of the meat: it must not become gray. The purpose of this passage in the oven is to make the meat is softened inside.

After passing in the oven, take out the meat and dry it with some blotting paper, brush with extra-virgin olive oil and place it on a hot grill for a few minutes per side. To get a blood steak, remove the meat from the grill when the inside temperature is 55 ° C.

As you understand the degree of cooking

THE cooking times they are essential when talking about steaks: just one minute escaped count can overturn the final result. For a medium cost, about 4 cm high, if cooked on the grill, will be enough for 3 to 5 minutes per side. According to the famous butcher Dario Cecchini it starts by putting the steak standing, so that the meat inside is warm and not cold. The heat penetrates through the bone, propagating on the sides, and the juices are distributed. Then it goes to cooking the sides.

The classic question that is asked to the restaurant when ordering a steak is that of the desired degree of cooking: rare, medium or well cooked? The criterion for determining the exact execution of the cooking is the measurement of the temperature. For a blood cooking, the temperature measured should be around 50 degrees, around 60 if you love medium cooking, 70 degrees for the "well cooked" option.

When it is better to salt the steak

Another long-standing question about the cooking of the steak, concerns its main seasoning: the salt. When is it better to salt the steak? Before, after or during cooking? Here the opinions are discordant. According to the "king of the grid" Luca Bini the salt should be added in small quantities only after cooking in order to make beef meat tasty. In this way the juiciness of the steak is kept intact. If you add too much salt, you risk making the meat dry and not very soft at the time of tasting.

But salt can also be added before, only in small doses. It is not true that it completely dehydrates meat – it would take a mountain! – furthermore, the small crystals automatically eliminate any bacteria present on the raw material. If you exaggerate, you could get a hard, dry and stringy meat.

Because it becomes hard

It can happen that one happens in the pot tough steak, the classic "shoe sole", even if tall and with a bone attached. What happened? The cut purchased may not be the best. Maybe he does not have the moire, that internal fat that softens the meat, or the animal may be older than permitted by the rules of good cooking.

Also breeding he plays his part. In fact, the more the animal moves, the greater the hardness of the meat. For this the fillet steak it is the softer cut, because it is a muscle that works very little. Also there frollatura can change the consistency of the meat: for this served by a butcher who follows the most appropriate criteria for this operation.

During cooking, the proteins of the steak coagulate and lose water: if you cook your piece of meat for a long time, it could then become hard and dry. The low temperature cooking help: when we act on meat over 100 °, the raw material loses water too quickly, while with lower heat, the meat is softened gradually, retaining its softness.

Because it makes water during cooking

Pay attention to before cooking the steak dry the meat cut well: water and humidity are the enemies of perfect cooking and do not allow to reach the Maillard reaction. Dab the steak with some absorbent paper. But it is much worse if the water manifests itself during cooking: these liquids could damage the taste of the meat, especially if you are cooking it in a pan (strictly of cast iron) or on the plate.

The best regional recipes

Between meat seconds, the steak is one of the most popular dishes in the menus of all regions, each with its variants. If we are sure that the Florentine steak is only to be grilled and that this is the most common recipe in the whole boot, we discover which regional variations are applied to this cut of meat.

TO Modena for example, the steak does not even go on the grill, but is used as a basic meat cut for the steak steak tartare. In Piedmont few know the secret of steak in carpione, a marinade obtained by mincing sage or mint, and garlic, then seasoning the meat with vinegar and white wine. This marinade is known in the South as scapece or saor in Veneto. In Umbria we cook the cured steak, without bone and dressed with a very aromatic sauce.