Mexican restaurant (again!)

meat enchiladas

Yesterday night I went again to the Mexican restaurant Anahuacalli in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. They have interesting food and margaritas there, and every time I like to try something different.. I also forced my friend Simone to try something that I didn’t took a photo yet.. the blog is the priority!:)

guacamole

camarones boca del rio

mexican coffee

Ilaria & Francesco wedding

Last weekend I was invited to the wedding of my friend Ilaria in Portofino. Unfortunately the weather was rainy, but their happiness brought the sun on that Sunday morning!

Wedding cake was a millefoglie with vanilla cream inside, very good and so beautiful.

apple sorbet

my friend Chiara eating the sorbet

As the Italian tradition wants, before the wedding cake we had a sorbetto, usually is a lemon sorbet but this time was a green apple sorbet. We appreciated his freshness before the final cake because we eat so many things since we arrived at the restaurant!

detail of the door of San Giorgio church in Portofino

Je ne sais pas ou va mon chemin, mais je marche mieux quand ma main serre la tienne.

Alfred De Musset

Gaufres

Gaufres is a French cake easy, soft, versatile and good. You cook the batter in a special electric pan and you decorate it as you prefer. My favorite version is nature, just with a little dusting of icing sugar, but for the restaurant I use them as base to present ice creams, customers  are so happy with this little extra sweet!

with ice cream



with nutella and chantilly

with blueberry jam

Curiosity. How the pan looks like?

Bugie

Lift your hand if you have never told a lie.. and now lift your hand if you have never eat a lie! In Italy we eat a lot of bugie (lies) for Carnival in February; I use to buy them almost every day in the bakery near my house. It’s a easy dessert, very crunchy, just one problem.. when you start eating its hard to stop.

before thick

How to do it? Mix 500g flour, 1/4tsp salt, 2tsp baking powder, 80g caster sugar, 1tsp vanilla, 50g butter, 3tbsp rum and 4 eggs until dough is formed. Refrigerate overnight.

after thin

With your pasta machine roll the dough (everybody for the 18 birthday should get a pasta machine, very useful and fashion!)

Tips: roll it bit by bit, not all together, start with thick opening (for ex 1) and finish with thin one (for ex 7), you will have to roll every piece at least 3 times before getting a compact consistency, don’t add too much flour while doing this or it will be a flour bugie.

ready for the jacuzzi?

Cut as shown in pictures and fry in hot oil until golden brown. Dust with icing sugar.

Japanese tea time

matcha cake

I love Japanese food, the raw, the cooked, desserts, even seaweeds! Of course also “drinks” are very interesting.. green tea is so healthy and tasty that once that you try it you’d like to have one as often as you can.

japanese tea

anata wa Hitomi San desu

This afternoon I tried the Japanese café Nanashi with my friend Hitomi in the 10 arrondissement of Paris. I had a Genmaicha, the Japanese name for green tea combined with roasted brown rice, it was so good that I will buy very soon an entire box of it. We had some wonderful onigiri (just in case) a matcha cake with white chocolate, sesame and raspberry (I bought a second one for the evening) and a chocolate cake with candied yuzu (the Japanese lemon). Thanks Hitomi to make me discover another great Japanese place!

onigiri

chocolate and yuzu cake

Lemon bars

Lemon bars are the American version of tarte au citron. The dough is a little bit mixed with the cream, which is tangy and so lemony. The important thing is to use fresh lemon juice and zest, to give that zing flavor!

My American friend Jacklyn, who is a vegan pastry chef, makes vegan lemon bars, with tofu instead of eggs and margarine instead of butter, it’s a good alternative. Next time I’ll use her recipe so we can compare texture, color and.. taste!

Bostonian Apple pie

There was a time, some centuries ago, I was in Boston to study, learn and enjoy the American way of living. The apple pie is an important part of American cooking, I don’t know if this recipe is really from Boston but because I learned it there I like to call this pie “Bostonian”.

Peel 10 apples (crunchy ones) and cut in half. In a saucepan melt 170g butter, 170g caster sugar, 2tsp cinnamon, 1tsp vanilla, 4tbsp calvados. Add apples and 150g raisin and cook for 5 minutes. Let it cool out of fire. Make the crust: mix 4tbsp caster sugar, 1tsp salt, 1tsp vanilla, 500g flour, 220g cold butter. Then add 4tbsp cold water. Divide the dough in half, roll it in 2 discs, fold the pan with the first one and put both in the fridge for 2 hours.  Fill the pie with cooled apples, cover with second disc, brush with egg wash and caster sugar. Put in the preheated oven (170°C) until golden brown.

Leave it to cool before serving with vanilla ice-cream.. enjoy!

Sculture di cioccolato

Non ho mai lavorato una materia difficile come il cioccolato, é delicato, sensibile e capriccioso come neanche il piu complesso dei soufflé. Innanzitutto deve essere di ottima qualità, potete sceglierlo fondente, bianco o al latte ma in ogni caso per poterlo utilizzare come copertura di cioccolatini o per creare una scultura dovrete prima temperarlo.. e qui vi assicuro che la strada é in salita. Niente é improvvisazione, ogni tipologia di cioccolato deve rispettare un percorso di temperature che lo renderà brillante e «croccante», non é possibile barare o sbagliare.. il risultato finale rivelerà tutti gli eventuali errori di percorso !

Una volta che si riesce a gestire «la curva del cioccolato» si puo anche giocare con colori e forme, in questi due esempi ho optato per la semplicità.. nel dubbio «meno é meglio»! La forma del coniglietto é stata ottenuta grazie ad uno stampo, mentre la rosa sulla roccia é interamente frutto del mio lavoro.. ci credete che dopo non ho avuto il coraggio di mangiarli?

La Galette des Rois

Epiphany, (from Greek "manifestation”) which falls on 6 January, is a Christian feast day that celebrates the revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus Christ. In this day we commemorate the visitation of the Biblical Magi (les Rois Mages) to the Baby Jesus. In France we use to eat the 6 and all the month of January a special cake called “la galette des rois” created to celebrate this event.

Is a cake made with puff pastry and almond cream, inside is hidden a little ceramic toy, if this toy will be on your slice of galette you’ll be the king! Of course a paper crown is provided with the cake..

Yesterday afternoon I bought a galette in a delicious pastry shop of Paris.. guess who found the toy?

The cat Carlo of course..  definitely the King!

Supervising his kingdom..

Tiramisu à la châtaigne

Voici une belle alternative pour les supporters du Tiramisu. C’est une version très apprécié en hiver car ce fruit nous rappelle les feux de cheminée et les balades dans les bois pour en faire la cueillette. De plus la châtaigne a des propriétés nutritionnelles remarquables et son gout est délicieux.

Tarte Tatin

Tarte Tatin was created by accident by two sisters, Stéphanie and Caroline Tatin who baked a caramelized apple tart upside-down by mistake. Now, to continue to make the same mistake I bought a special pan that can go both on fire and in the oven!

In France this cake is very famous and you can find it in almost all french restaurants of Paris.

preparing the caramel

add apples on the fire

and after in the oven

Tips: use reine des reinettes apples and never forget to put a little bit of calvados in the caramel..

..ready for the upside-down?