Tag: typical

Prato Peaches: a typical dessert from Prato – Italian Cuisine

Typical dessert, brought to the fore thanks to the TV and to the maestro Paolo Sacchetti. Three elements, such as tiramisu, and no crunchy parts: the magic formula of Italian pastry

The Peaches from Prato they are not a fruit. I'm a sweet, typical of the city of Prato, and one of the attractions of the city. Thanks to a pastry chef, Paolo Sacchetti.
The first historical mention written on peaches is when in 1861 at the Contrucci inn in Piazza del Duomo in Prato, the inn served a menu dedicated to the recipes of the peninsula during the feast for the Unity of Italy. This was the dessert, hence the name Pesche di Prato.
The sweet it is apparently simple, composed of two hemispheres of Brioche dough immersed in a liquor bath with alkermes, covered with sugar and stuffed with custard, so that it comes out to tie the two halves: a third of dough, a third of syrup, a third of cream, only the best ingredients, for a perfect result. It's a sweet of tradition, it is sweet, soft, crunchy on the surface, never cloying thanks to the liqueur, interesting to every bite thanks to the different consistencies. In the fifties and sixties, with the economic boom and the routine of cabaret of pasta on Sundays, even the Peaches had their moment of glory, then they were almost forgotten. Too long to do, not very innovative and cosmopolitan, too rooted to be renewed … We had to wait for the rediscovery of the typical product, the renewed regional pride, the fashion of tradition to see them appear in the windows of pastry shops, even in those of his city where they had gradually fallen into oblivion. The Tuscany Region has included them in the list of traditional agri-food products (PAT) for the provinces of Florence and Prato but the merit is however above all a pastry chef, not even a Prato but Florentine, who in his pastry shop has dedicated himself to the good and the right without compromises.

The rebirth of peaches

Paolo Sacchetti opened the Nuovo Mondo pastry shop in Prato with his wife Edi in 1979, an outsider with an obsession with quality that managed to bring the “peaches” to the forefront.
"It all started with Dolcemente Prato, the first pastry event at national level, in 2003, Italian TV stations arrived but also English, Japanese … and I, who was one of the organizers, had brought my peaches. By now no one in the city made them any more … They intrigued because they were a typical dessert, then in 2006 with the book Le pesche di Prato (Claudio Martini Editore) their fame spread even more. They started buying me all the restaurants and trattorias, the other pastry shops in the city started to go back to them trying to follow the same recipe and I taught them to do them even to colleagues of the caliber of Sal de Riso ”.

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Merit of television

He tells Sacchetti “Up until the 1980s, there was no talk of pastry in Italy. The first name was that of Ernst Knamm, because he was the pastry chef of Gualtiero Marchesi. When Luigi Cremona came to me, I had just opened, he told me I was worthy of joining ANPI, the Academy of pastry chefs who had just been born and told me to go to Iginio Massari. I didn't even know who he was, yet he is the master of masters for thirty years! But the magazines were few, and there was talk of cooking, pastry was excluded ”. "The press and the television change your life, since 2000 I have been vice-president in the Academy and yet it is from 2012, when I was elected Pastry Chef of the Year, which magically the schools propose to send me the boys on stage, before I do not they were spinning mica! "

The secret of success. The Holy Trinity

But why this happened? "Because they are the classic Italian dessert. It's like tiramisu, it's a genetic thing we have in our hearts, alcohol gives freshness and makes us want to eat them again. My secret, my diversity is that I make them well balanced, with alchermes bono, the best ingredients and balance everything to reach balance. The tiramisu has a third of Savoyard, a third of soaking and a third of mascarpone. Today they tell us what's needed is the crunchy part, the acidity … they don't really serve, it needs to be good and the good is in the tradition because it speaks to us instinctively ”. He cooked them alongside Massimo Bottura, taught them at the ANPI Academy of Italian pastry chefs, served them at events, fairs, dinners and congresses. He studied the recipe, understood chemistry and physics, discovered the magic formula to make them perfect and can't stop, because if it doesn't bring them it's a popular insurrection. "But I can do other things too!" He points out in front of a pastry shop full of sweets. They are magical because they awaken ancestral memories, flavors engraved in national DNA and childhood memories. They awaken the senses, even for those of sweets that do not nourish a passion, explode in the mouth and then leave that sweet spicy and bitter aftertaste.

Word of Iginio Massari

It is foolish to give them the recipe, there are things that it is useless to try to do at home and instead they should be eaten by those who have found the magic formula to do them over the years. "A harmonious, soft dessert, for lovers of tradition – writes Iginio Massari in the book Le Pesche di Prato (Claudio Martini editor). "Quality is not just a point of arrival of a noble mix of ingredients, but a way of thinking, of existing. In practice it means choosing to work with the heart, sensitive and attentive to the well-being of men, creative and imaginative in satisfying desires ". Difficult to find a better definition, the Prato Peaches satisfy desires, even those you did not know you had, and thus make you unexpectedly happy.

typical recipes from appetizers to desserts – Italian Cuisine

Do you want to impress your guests tonight, cooking them something they don't expect? Try a menu all inspired by the Chinese cooking. Here is a complete menu from appetizer to dessert!

Chinese appetizer: spring rolls

Inevitable, they are one of the most loved dishes of this culinary tradition. For spring rolls, first of all, take care of the vegetable filling, which is nothing but onion, carrots and cabbage, finely chopped and sautéed in seed oil wok. When cooked, add a dash of soy sauce and bean sprouts, which give crispness. Cut the filo pastry into rectangles and garnish with the vegetables, taking care to seal the edges well. Then fry the bundles in hot seed oil and dry them in absorbent paper.

First course: soy spaghetti with seaweed and mushrooms

Soy noodles are a must in Chinese cuisine. These we offer are accompanied by Goma Wakame seaweed and shiitake mushrooms. Cut the latter into strips, pass them in sesame oil. Finally, add the previously boiled seaweed and spaghetti. Season with a dash of soy sauce. Here is a light dish suitable also for those who observe a vegetarian diet.

First course: Cantonese rice

Do you prefer rice to pasta? Serve Cantonese rice, of course. You need basmati rice, but you can also do it in the red rice variant. Boil the rice, and in the meantime, sauté peas in a pan with cooked ham cut into small cubes. Separately, prepare a thin omelette. Once the rice is ready, add it to the rest of the ingredients in a wok and sauté in a little oil. At the end, to add flavor, add a dash of soy sauce.

Second course: chicken with almonds

Hand polls, almond chicken is one of the Italian recipes that Italians like best. To prepare it, it is very simple: just cut the chicken into cubes and marinate it in a mixture of beaten egg, salt and wine. Then it should be sautéed in a wok with almonds and at the end of cooking, it should be flavored with soy sauce and sautéed in potato starch dissolved in water, to create the sticky effect.

Dessert: fried ice cream

When this recipe arrived in Italy, we all asked ourselves: but how does ice cream stay cold inside the hot batter? Now we reveal it to you. Take your favorite ice cream and prepare some balls, to put in the freezer for half a day. Now concentrate on the batter: prepare it by mixing 1 egg, 150 g of soft wheat flour and 50 g of starch and adding to the mixture of icy water, to thicken it. Dip the balls of ice cream in the batter and then refreeze them in the freezer for another 5 hours. Take them out and dip them in hot oil until golden. Dry them with absorbent paper and serve.

Typical Easter sweets – Italian Cuisine

Pastiera, cassata and more. From the great classics like the dove to the delights to be reinvented, the recipes of Easter desserts light up the imagination

Pastiera, cassata and more. From the great classics like the dove to the delights to be reinvented, the Easter recipes light up the imagination, stimulating the desire for sweet. We can grant it, it's time to savor a moment of sweetness with friends and rediscover the good cuisine with the ancient traditions of this period.

When was the dove born?

Not everyone knows that the Easter cake perhaps most famous and widespread throughout Italy, it was conceived in the 1930s in Lombardy. Thanks to an idea by Dino Villani, director of advertising, one in Milan is starting to be tested recipe based on flour, eggs, butter, sugar, candied orange and almonds, a classic preparation that still exists, with an intense and simple taste. Today there are many variations, with the addition of ingredients as the limoncello, chocolate or fruit. It is possible to prepare the dove also at home: the secret? Do not rush. Because for things done with love it takes time. Symbol of peace and renewal, the dove through its name carries a benevolent wish.

Easter cakes in the Mediterranean

In the Ragusa area the ancient recipe of the real pasta, born in the Norman era thanks to the nuns of the Martorana convent, it was preserved for centuries with care transforming the baked cassata in the typical Easter cake. But the ricotta cheese is also present in another well-known preparation of southern Italy, the pastiera, widespread in the Campania region, but also in the province of Reggio Calabria, a delight based on stuffed shortbread and candied fruit.

Easter sweets in Europe

The Easter chocolate bunny, which only in recent years began to spread also in Italy, in other countries constitutes an ancient tradition, together with the egg hunt of chocolate, organized for children on the occasion of Easter. From Germany to the United Kingdom, in Northern Europe the rabbit, as well as theegg and thelamb, is recalled in the Easter sweet recipes. Linked to pagan rituals and ancestral mythological figures, in connection with the time of spring rebirth, its shape is recreated with pasta, sugar and eggs or lots of chocolate. The glazed cakes and i Chocolate sweets decorated by sugar eggs, up to the Easter braid, widespread in the German world, complete the delights of this period, during which, since ancient times, we celebrate the end of the cold winter by welcoming the sun and the new season that begins.