Tag: Prepare

How to prepare raw burgers (ie without baking anything) – Italian Cuisine

Can tasty burgers of only raw ingredients be prepared? We can try with vegetables and seeds (and not only)

Today it is all the rage raw food cuisine, the one that provides that the dishes are not cooked, if not a very low temperatures.
Some recipes are very practical and fast and many children can also like them Raw burger.

100% raw food burger

These are the ones we present to you now totally raw burger. No ingredient in the dough is previously cooked.
The secret of these burgers is the use of Chia seeds or flax seed that once crushed to the mortar they become a kind of flour with a thickening power, releasing a particular gel in contact with water.
To prepare a completely raw food burger then you have to pound or even chop two or three tablespoons of flaxseed or chia and then mix them with a cup of water and with the vegetable pulp of your choice like carrots, leeks, celery and whatever you prefer and that can be eaten raw.
These burgers are made by blending all the ingredients together and once they are made they are cooked in a dryer or in an oven, but at a very low temperature, at less than 50 °!

50% raw food burger

In this case we always talk about raw burger even if we actually use the legumes in glass to prepare the base compound.
For a compact mix, in fact, it is necessary to use something that keeps all the ingredients together as precisely chickpeas, or lentils or beans, which however have been previously cooked.
We suggest you always choose the legumes stored in glass that should be rinsed very well and then shakes.
Burgers prepared with a legume base go stored in the refrigerator in order not to lose compactness.

Other uncooked ingredients

You can add other raw, uncooked ingredients to your raw or partially raw burger.
Among the vegetables you can opt for zucchini (but only the green outer part), cauliflower, carrots and celery.
For a bit of flavor, aim at capers, dried tomatoes and olives.
In spring and early summer peas and broad beans they will be magical ingredients!
Finally, if you like strong and somewhat strong tastes, don't give up onion and garlic.

Spices and herbs to play with flavors

The most creative part of this really basic recipe is the addition of colors, flavors and aromas.
With the spices and the herbs you can do a lot of things and above all you can avoid adding too much salt.
Some idea? Chickpeas are great with curry and paprika, the beans with the parsley and the lentils with the mint.

How to compose raw burgers if not with bread?

Not being able to use the bread that is cooked, you must necessarily opt for fresh or cooked ingredients in a dryer. Try to put the burgers inside a tomato or avocado cut in half, for example. Two original and very funny ideas that will leave your guests speechless.
If you want something crunchy, then use a portobello mushroom, always divided into two parts like a sandwich, dried at 40 ° for about 10 minutes.

Raw sauces

As in any self-respecting burger, even in raw burgers can not miss sauces.
Prepare them with lo yogurt or even with the avocado pulp or with soy milk, lemon juice and seed oil to make one Vegan mayonnaise, even if the classic mayonnaise is equally raw, therefore absolutely granted.

Some possible combinations.

Some idea to prepare raw burger compounds?
Try, for example, by blending the chickpeas with dried tomatoes, fresh oregano, a little oil and a little feta.
Good also the one based on Spanish beans smoothies with leek, pre-cooked red turnip, oat flakes softened in water and dried thyme.
With the lentils instead we suggest you blend Tropea onion, a little oil, mint, avocado pulp and black olives.
All three compounds are left in the refrigerator for at least an hour before being shaped to become burgers.
With the crushed and softened flax seeds in water you can blend carrots, a piece of onion, celery and courgette peel, also adding oats softened in water to give a little more compactness.

How to prepare meat loaf – Italian Cuisine

The meatloaf it is a dish that contains within it flavors and memories of family lunches, warmth of cooking, loving hands careful to enclose gourmand fillings in the coils of meat. Although it looks like a simple dish, perfect for retrieving leftovers and achieving a regal result, even meatloaf hides pitfalls in its preparation. Find out how it is cook the perfect meatloaf with the advice of Sale & Pepe!

Beef mince and more: the ingredients

To prepare the meatloaf you will need to minced meat (also mixed) such as veal, beef, chicken and and turkey or pork. Ask your butcher to chop it more than once.

Add this to the mix bread crumbs soaked in milk and well squeezed, a beaten egg, some chopped parsley and some tablespoons of Parmesan or grana padano. And, to achieve the correct consistency, add some breadcrumbs, little by little. To flavor the base you can naturally let your imagination run wild and add cheese cubes, capers, olives, mushrooms, chopped vegetables, aromatic herbs, spices and various aromas to taste.

Can the leftovers of cooked meat be used?

Sometimes it can happen to overdo the portions and, therefore, to cook much more meat than necessary. Not sure what to do with leftovers? Salt & Pepper helps you! With the advanced meat you can always prepare something good, from the meatballs to a gravy, passing for precisely for a sumptuous Meatloaf. In fact, turkey slices and boiled leftovers are perfect for this recycling dish. Chop the meat together with a sprig of parsley and a clove of garlic. Then add an egg, some grated cheese and breadcrumbs.

Create a firm mixture, similar to a large oblong meatball. After that sprinkle it with breadcrumbs and align it in a pan with a little oil. Cook the meatloaf, taking care to turn it from time to time.

How to prepare it for 4-6-8-12 people

Prepare the Meatloaf for four people it involves a proportion of 800 grams of meat compared to 200 grams of breadcrumbs. You will then need 30 grams of cheese. While for the smells and the spices you can always adjust yourself to the eye, for the main raw materials necessary to prepare the meatloaf, you will need to make proportions.

So to calculate the right ones doses for a meatloaf, keep in mind that to each diner there are 200 grams of meat and 50 grams of breadcrumbs. Holding this ratio firmly, for 6 people you will need 1 kg of meat and 300 grams of bread crumbs, for 8 people you will need to use 1.4 kg of meat and 400 grams of bread, for 12 people you will need 2 kg of meat and 600 grams of breadcrumbs.

What to prevent the meatloaf from opening

Despite being a very simple and rich preparation of variants, preparing this dish is not easy. Now we will explain to you what to do for do not open the meatloaf.

First of all, if you have decided to prepare a stuffed meatloaf, you must perfectly seal the meat so that the filling does not leak out. Start spreading the meat, giving the mixture a rectangular shape. Stuff and roll up the meatloaf. As you create the coils, push the meat in on both sides, compacting it with your hands. Press the closing flap well. Wrap it all in one sheet of parchment paper and let the meatloaf rest in the fridge for half an hour. Then bread it with flour and brown it in the pan first, which will ensure that the filling remains inside. After that you can either continue cooking in the pan or put everything in the oven.

Baked meat loaf

To prepare the baked meatloaf, you will have to follow the technique just explained. Once given the form, Bake the meatloaf at 200 ° C and leave it cook for 45 minutes. A spectacular variant, which cannot be done in the pan, is that of the Meatloaf In Crust. In this case you have to wrap the roll of minced meat in the puff pastry or in the brisée dough just before baking it.

If you have prepared a stuffed meatloaf, cooking in the oven must be carried out at 180 ° C for 45 minutes, but only after a short time pan fried to avoid the leakage of the filling even in this case.

Meatloaf in a pan with meat

Cooking the meatloaf in a pan is a choice aimed at having one moist meat, soft and juicy. To cook it without the passage in the oven, help yourself with some vegetable broth, which you will need to wet the mixture during cooking.

While you are cooking the meatloaf in the pan, you can also add gods pepperoni, of basil and other vegetables that will give a fresh taste to this dish already of his greedy. After preparing the mixture and heating a spoonful of extra virgin olive oil and a knob of butter in a pan, arrange the meat and let it evaporate with white wine.

Meatloaf with meat sauce

Among the many variants available in the Italian culinary tradition, there is also that of the meatloaf with meat sauce. Preparing it is very simple and the result will amaze your guests.

After following the basic procedure to prepare the classic meatloaf or a recovery meatloaf, created by exploiting, for example, advanced boiled meat, prepares for vegetable broth with fresh vegetables or to the limit of the nut.

Prepare the meat mixture with all the necessary ingredients: eggs, parsley, bread crumbs softened in milk, grated cheese, salt, black pepper and nutmeg. If you want a richer and more appetizing result, add to the mixture even the crumbled pieces of sausage. Give the meat and ingredients mix the classic elongated shape of the meatloaf and place it on a cutting board. The meatloaf must be cooked with a sauce in a very large pan.

Fry crushed poached garlic, add the meatloaf and leave it brown for a few minutes. Remove the garlic and add a few tablespoons of tomato sauce. Shrink the sauce for a few minutes and add salt. At this point dilute of the tomato concentrate in the vegetable broth and add it to the meatloaf in cooking, thus feeding the cooking juices which, as they are, will narrow.

Cook in the pan for 45 minutes and only at the end add some fresh basil leaves. Serve the stewed meatloaf with a tasty side dish, for example gods mushrooms, which will enhance the already delicious flavor of the meat.

Stuffed meat loaf

It is possible to prepare infinite variations of meatloaf with the addition of stuffed meat based inside cheeses, vegetables, cured meat is sliced, hard-boiled eggs but also real omelettes. The combinations are really many. The only care is to never forget the passage in the pan to seal the meat roll and not let the filling "escape".

Light meat meatloaf

You can prepare a light meatloaf meatloaf using only 3 ingredients. For this quick and easy recipe spread thin slices of grilled courgette in a non-stick plum cake pan or in a previously oiled cassette mold by making them overflow. Mix 500 grams of chicken meat ground with 500 grams of ricotta cheese. Plasma this mixture with your hands in the center of the vegetable base, filling the shape, and then close the zucchini on the meat. In a pan pour a glass of water and place the mold with the meatloaf in the center. Bake for 200 ° C for about 20 minutes.

Another way to prepare a light version of this great classic is the vegetable meatloaf and in general all the vegetarian or vegan recipes, without meat. Try for example the baked eggplant meatloaf.

How to prepare the béchamel of the right consistency – Italian Cuisine

From cooking times to possible lumps, here are our tips for preparing bechamel, but also other sauces (such as Mornay) that are made with this preparation

The recipe seems simple, yet on bechamel everyone has his say. Why? Because it is a great classic, for which each chef (or mother) has their own tricks. The fact is that those who know how to cook must be able to prepare a béchamel, as Bruno Barbieri reminded us several times in the various editions of Masterchef when, merciless, he asked the competitors to point-blank what the basic ingredients were. We all agree on this: milk, flour and butter they are the protagonists of the bechamel sauce. But how to get the right result? Here are ours advice.

The basic recipe of bechamel

The rule that you must always remember is that for every 10 grams of flour it will take 10 grams of butter is 1 deciliter of milk. The preparation is simple: melt the butter over a low heat in a small pan with high sides, then pour the flour, all at once, and let it lightly brown (this base is called roux). Then pour the milk at room temperature or slightly cold, even in this case in one stroke, and continue, to break up any lumps, with a whisk or a wooden spoon. When the consistency seems right, lower the heat and let the béchamel cook for five minutes with the lid. If you sail the spoon then the sauce is ready.

Bechamel sauce: is there the right consistency?

Yes and no. Or rather, it all depends on what preparation you want to get. For the lasagna for example the density must be classical, so follow the proportion 5 decilitres of milk, 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of butter. If instead you have to stuff croquettes or soufflé you will need a firmer sauce and to have it you can slightly increase the dose of flour, reaching 60 grams per 50 of butter (or decreasing the milk), or you can cook longer.

How to cook the bechamel?

To obtain the right béchamel density it is important to evaluate the cooking times. The more it will remain on the fire, the more it will thicken. The important thing is never to lose sight of it, so as to check how the consistency changes and find the right one for the dish you want to prepare.

In extreme evils …

Don't tell Barbieri, but, if you're really desperate, for the lumps that you have formed in your béchamel you can give in to blender until it becomes smoother, then continue heating it in a saucepan. When the bechamel cools it can form on the surface one pellicina: attention, if it falls into the compound it risks creating lumps. So try to remove it with a spoon. In any case, once ready, if you don't have to use it right away, cover the béchamel with the film.

Bechamel sauce and more

This extraordinary sauce is the basis for many dishes, from first to second courses, from lasagna to sufflé. Not everyone knows, perhaps, that the béchamel is also perfect as the main ingredient for the preparation of other sauces: we discover the three most famous with the correct doses for preparation.

Mornay sauce

Let's start with a great classic, the Mornay sauce. Of derivation French, this delicious sauce adds taste and creaminess with bechamel sauce. How? With the cheese! It can be used to accompany vegetables au gratin or for example for delicious crepes. Here are the correct doses to prepare it.

Ingredients
450 ml of béchamel
2 egg yolks
60 g of butter
120 g grated cheese (parmesan, pecorino cheese, grana cheese)
120 ml of liquid cream
Salt and Pepper To Taste.

Method
You will need a few steps to prepare the Mornay sauce. After making the béchamel, add the eggs (only the egg yolks), the grated cheese (also a mix of those you have chosen) and the cream. Cook on a low heat and gradually add the butter until it is completely melted. Season with salt and pepper and your Mornay sauce will be ready.

Aurora sauce

If you want a sauce to accompany it with taste vegetable and the meat or to season in a different way than usual a traditional first course like le noodles or the ravioli, the Aurora "sauce, created by the famous French chef Escoffier, can do it for you. Here's how to prepare it.

Ingredients
500 ml of béchamel
300 g of tomato sauce passed
50 g of butter

Method
Separately prepare the two sauces according to traditional recipes. Then add the tomato sauce to the béchamel while it is still hot – and let it cook together for a few minutes. Then add the butter into small pieces little by little and cook until it is perfectly melted inside the Aurora sauce. Pour then still hot to season. A little tip: if you season a first course, add a little more flour in the preparation of the béchamel, it will make it a little less fluid.

Parmesan cream

If you want a cream with a strong taste to combine with a crouton of bread, a vegetable parmesan or a risotto, the Parmesan cream is the one for you. It is prepared in no time and is versatile and very appetizing.

Ingredients
750 ml of béchamel
250 g of grated Parmigiano Reggiano
60 g of butter

Method
Prepare the béchamel and, still on the heat, add the butter. Continue to turn the sauce until it is free of lumps, then add the Parmigiano Reggiano and stir vigorously. A few minutes to completely melt the cheese and your parmesan cream sauce will be ready to season your dishes.