Colazione a casa alla ligure.
Questa è la mia colazione preferita quando sono a casa: prima di tutto la focaccia all’olio (essendo difficile averla fresca va benissimo anche quella del giorno prima riscaldata nella macchinetta per toast, nel microonde rimane troppo molla); una bella tazza di caffè e latte (molto latte e poco caffè); sigaretta appena finito il caffe.
Un signore!
I ravioli al sugo di funghi della trattoria Marchin.
Una divagazione dei classici ravioli liguri al ragù di carne è fare i ravioli al sugo di funghi. Se poi si è in autunno i funghi è facile che siano freschi e raccolti nella zona.
Tra l’altro sul sito ci saranno diverse foto di funghi freschi che ho trovato andando a cercarli in zona.
Hai mai mangiato in questa trattoria? Aggiungi un comment or go to the bottom of the site to read what other visitors have written.
Photo taken with iPhone 6.
Questi sono dell’ottima trattoria Marchin a Mezzanego.
Il raviolo è un prodotto tipico della cucina italiana. Si può descrivere come un quadrato o tondo di pasta all’uovo ripiegato a contenere un ripieno a base di carne, di pesce, di verdure o formaggio, a seconda delle varie ricette locali.
Il raviolo può essere servito in brodo o asciutto accompagnato da sughi o salse. La scelta dipende anche dal tipo di ripieno.
Continue on Wikipedia
The real Pasqualina cake of my house, the recipe.
The Pasqualina cake is a typical Ligurian dish that we make quite often in my house and that my wife Emmi makes perfectly, perhaps not following the recipe perfectly but in a way that we (and our guests) like very much.
It is a vegetarian dish that was once made for Good Friday, which was eaten that day because it was vegetarian but which could be taken on a trip to the countryside or to the seaside that, weather permitting, was done on Easter Monday.
Nowadays this cake is rightfully part of the great series of Ligurian cakes that are made and eaten throughout the year.
I also have a wonderful memory of this dish from many years ago: the Pasqualina cake from Marcenaro's shop, but regarding the specialties of this great shop, so many memories are coming to mind that it would be better if I talked about it on another occasion... but I promise I will.
Unfortunately I have never seen Mr. Marcenaro prepare the Easter cake so you will have to settle for reading how we make it at home.
First of all, we need to talk about the puff pastry: once it was said that the layers of the puff pastry should be 33, like the years of Christ, but we do something much simpler, using a dough made with flour, a little olive oil, water, a pinch of brewer's yeast (dissolved in water) and a pinch of salt. To do it even faster, you can also use a puff pastry from the supermarket, but it is better to choose one of the best quality. At home, however, we make the dough ourselves first and let it rest for the entire time dedicated to preparing the dough.
The ingredients are always the same but it is important that the vegetables are very fresh and always in season.
Swiss chard is available all year round but during the Easter period it would be a shame not to use, in addition to Swiss chard, artichokes and, if possible, borage.
After boiling the vegetables separately, we cut them quite finely and the artichokes more coarsely, then sauté everything in olive oil with sage and a clove of garlic. Afterwards, once the vegetables have cooled, we mix them with ricotta, beaten eggs, and grated parmesan cheese. We check that the mixture is salty and add a pinch of pepper.
We then roll out the pastry on an oiled baking pan, cover with our dough (depending on the quantity the cake will become higher, preferably at least three centimeters), make some small depressions in each of which we break an egg, being careful not to break the yolk ... the idea would be that each nice slice also corresponds to an egg. We cover with at least two or three more layers of pastry, as thin as possible.
Once the cake is closed, we will make a small braid of rolled dough around it and finally brush everything with beaten egg slightly diluted with water. A classy touch would be to put a straw in a little hole under the topmost sheet of pastry and blow delicately so that this sheet of pastry swells and gives a more important appearance to the cake. We will then cook everything at 180° until the Pasqualina takes on a nice amber color.
Here are four beautiful photos of the cake:
Sestri Levante vista dalla zona delle Mimose.
Cogliendo al volo il sabato pomeriggio nettamente primaverile, al dispetto delle previsioni, ho fatto un giro su dalle Mimose per poter fotografare la nostra Sestri Levante dall’alto, che è sempre un bel vedere.
Cogliendo l’occasione per augurare a tutti Buona Pasqua vi posto questa che credo essere una bella foto (leggermente corretta in hdr).
Pansoti with walnut sauce from Settembrin: among the best.
One of the specialties of the trattoria from Ou Settembrin in Carasco are pansoti with walnut sauce. And they are perhaps among the best in the area.
Where do you think you can taste the best pansoti with walnut sauce? Add a comment or go to the bottom of the site to read what other visitors have written.
If you prefer ravioli, go and see my article with my personal ranking of the restaurants where I ate the best ravioli with ragù in the Province of Levante Genoa.
I certainly couldn't help but publish a nice photo of it:
Photo taken with iPhone 6.
Here's where the restaurant is located:
Pansoti, pansòti in Ligurian, (from the Ligurian pansa, in Italian “belly”), are a typical stuffed pasta of Ligurian cuisine, similar to ravioli, from which they differ essentially in size and the absence of meat in the filling. Pansoti with walnut sauce (pansöti co-a sarsa de noxe) are one of the cheapest and most characteristic dishes of the Genoese tradition. Since pansoti do not contain meat, they are a lean dish, once considered suitable for the penitential period of Lent. They are often mistakenly also called “pansòtti”, as in some Ligurian provinces there is verbal emphasis on the last syllables; the double letter is therefore to be attributed to an exclusively vocal language.
Continue and learn more on Wikipedia
Ravioli with walnut sauce: the recipe.
The variation on the more classic pansotti are lean ravioli with walnut sauce. A typical Ligurian dish with an unmistakable taste.
Outside our area I have seen this sauce prepared in many ways but here, or rather, in our coastal hinterland, the walnut sauce is accompanied by the even more classic "pansotti" or "pansoti": vegetable ravioli or ravioloni of different shapes that can be small like ravioli or large and closed like tortelloni but, in any case, prepared with the typical Ligurian low-egg pasta and stuffed with wild herbs, ricotta, eggs and grated cheese.
This pasta was born in Rapallo and its hinterland and then spread throughout the province of Genoa. I have a fond memory of the Valle family who had an old and small restaurant in the Ne' valley, in Frisolino. The grandfather was a wise expert on hunting and his countryside (very well known throughout the valley and in Chiavari). The first son who also helped in the restaurant, the second son a bachelor, a specialist in preparing rabbit, and little Enrico who is now a grown man, married with a family. The pearl of this group of men was Enrico’s mother, wife of the first son, a great cook of the poor and very tasty cuisine of the hinterland. Now that the restaurant no longer exists and that the whole family group is cooking in the valleys of paradise, before talking about the dishes that Mrs. Valle prepared, I can tell you some anecdotes…
English: You couldn’t think of “da Valle” as a real trattoria but rather as a family reunion with other guests/friends and these memories are very vivid because over the years I’ve had all sorts of things: the cutlery was all assorted, like the napkins and it could happen that, like the tablecloths, they were holed or broken but still very clean. Another time, when I had guests, we were greeted by the uncle who prepared the rabbit, sitting on the entrance step, who was putting on his shoes and who, unperturbed, greeted us saying that the rabbit was ready… Between all of them, Enrico aside, they must have had about thirty teeth. The public relations were by the grandfather and the very clever Enrico while the first son waited tables. The greatness of this place consisted in the cuisine, in the poor ingredients, in the parsimony of the oil made in the family but especially in the great mastery of that woman who prepared excellent things with little. The menu was always the same: an appetizer of homemade cold cuts, pansotti with walnut sauce, ravioli with sauce in which you often saw a colombina or another mushroom added to enrich the sauce, roast or cima or mixed fried meat (a little) and vegetables (lots and delicious) and a homemade dessert.
The pansotti were made like ravioli but twice as long and a little wider and the sauce had a scent which is the trick that is never mentioned in its preparation.
Now let's get back to the walnut sauce. To prepare it we need good walnuts, bread soaked in milk and then squeezed, a little garlic and then the final aroma... I like to crush everything in the mortar but you can also use an immersion blender but little by little so as not to heat the sauce. I immerse the kernels in boiling water for about thirty seconds and as soon as I remove them I immediately put them under cold water to then peel them more easily. In the meantime I squeeze the breadcrumbs soaked in milk and add them to the walnuts, a little garlic without the inner core, a little salt and the typical Ligurian aroma, the erba persa, which I like in abundance. Just like Mrs. Valle did. After having crushed everything well and mixed it with excellent Ligurian extra virgin olive oil and the sauce is ready. I don't like to add, as many do, grated cheese to flavor and dilute the sauce but dilute it with half a spoonful of cooking water and then put the cheese on the pasta after serving it. Enjoy!
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Photo taken with Canon 600D and lens Canon EF 40.
Portobello al tramonto il 27 novembre 2015.
Ho già postato una foto scattata l’altro ieri della stessa serie di scatti ma ieri la ho inserita direttamente tramite iPhone per cui oggi, con calma, e con un po’ di pazienza le ho salvate e pubblicate dal Mac.
Portobello è sicuramente un soggetto fantastico. Al tramonto come all’alba, d’estate come d’inverno. Col sole o con la luna…
Queste foto, almeno la prima che è originale, sono state scattate attorno alle 18:00.
La seconda è in bianco e nero e aggiustata in hdr.
Photo taken with Canon 600D and lens Canon EF 40.
La mappa di Google:
