Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

A daikon is quite a lot to go through, really. Initially I got one to grate a bit for a tempura sauce, then I made  this salad , then I used it  here ... and I still had half left. So today I decided to eat more in salad, with red beetroot. I used a Japanese plum flower cutter, and a small heart cutter. I just added a drop of olive oil and salt before serving. Sill have lots of daikon left, maybe I could make Chiarina-ina  rawvioli  (the cutting with a biscuit cutter is the same, in fact when I saw it today I thought, modestly, two great minds think alike :-D), or maybe I can cook the rest in a Japanese broth... any ideas? Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

In my mind  Pâté is something made with leftovers: mince finely and add fat,  and  voilà le  Pâté! But leftovers in this household are very scarce indeed, so I needed to create some! Obviously my p âté has a vegetable base, Kazuyo gave me some runner beans, and I had some green beans myself, so I cooked them with carrot, onion and celery, and water and salt. That was going to be blended into a creamy soup, but I could use some veggies first.  Then in a saucepan I cooked a couple of zucchini with a green and a red capsicum, garlic, salt and olive oil. This ended up on top of a place of potato gnocchi (after keeping a couple of spoons for the p âté). Ok, so these weren't exactly leftovers, I worked in reverse, the main meals were the leftovers from my p âté!   How much to use? Well, a bit of all of the vegetables (without the stock) to fill a 500ml jag, to start with. Then I blended the veggies.  ...

Peel a carrot and a piece of daikon as big as two carrots with a vegetable peeler. Discard the outer skin, and then continue 'peeling' to obtain long thin orange and white vegetable 'ribbons'. As you work drop the carrot and daikon strips into a bowl filled with water and lemon juice. Let the vegetables soak for about 30 minutes. In the meantime toast a tbsp or so of sesame seeds in a hot frying pan, and then mush them lightly with a mortar and pestle (I have a Japanese one for this, but any mortar and pestle will do). Set aside. In a small bowl thin one tbsp of miso (white or red) with a little hot water, or hot vegetable stock, into the consistency of a salad dressing (i.e.: not too runny, but not as thick as to be impossible to fold into a salad). Add 1 tbsp of soy sauce too, if you like (or gluten free tamari sauce). Drain the vegetables and add the miso dressing. Mix and divide between 4 bowls (if eating immediately, otherwise store in the fridge, covere...

I got the idea from  Zero in Cucina , recipe  here , so thank you  Chiarina-ina  :-).  Chiarina's version called for some yogurt, mushed cardamom seeds and saffron (I used a sachet of Italian saffron) and she adds a little icing sugar just before serving. I did it a bit differently, I added a tbsp of bush honey to my. I use Cyclop yogurt, thick and creamy. Put everything in a gauze or fine cotton cloth and let it drip for a night (I did it for a bit more). It tastes delicious and quite... citrusy!! In fact it is difficult to guess the ingredients, everybody said lemon!! I liked it like it was, but the rest of the family added some maple syrup to it (I guess that it was a bit too... sour for their taste). After straining the yogurt I had all this saffron 'juice' left. OK, it is not that much, but still, not something that I would want to discard! So tomorrow I will show you what I did with it! Photos and Recipes by Alessand...

Instead of filling  Brandy snaps  with cream, I like to fill them with ricotta, like the  Sicilian Cannoli . Today I chopped a few pieces of candied fruit (green melon and papaya, because I didn't have any candied citrus fruit) and mixed it with ricotta. I also added 1 tsp of vanilla icing sugar (icing sugar kept in a tin with a vanilla pod) and then I wanted to add 1 tbsp of orange blossom water, but it was out of date, so I added rose water instead. I will use the old orange blossom water for my bath (why through it away when you can have a sweet smelling bath!). I thinned down the ricotta with a little milk until it was soft, and piped it inside the Brandy snaps. But you don't have to stick to this recipe: add what you like, for example chopped dark chocolate, ground pistachio nuts, a little cinnamon... anything that sounds Mediterranean! I hope that you will like the idea! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

butterflies A pot of love Farm animals This is very easy and gives you a perfect and professional finish: just use the same cookie cutter for the biscuits and for the icing! After baking your biscuits roll out your fondant icing and cut it with the same shapes. You can secure the fondant onto the biscuits by brushing them with a little jam or marmalade first.  Also we tried out a little Japanese cookie stamp set that Arantxa got for Xmas from Yosuke. This is great, you just need to place in the  hiragana  symbols and compose the word/sentence that you like. We started easy, with arigatou (thank you). Actually, the set instructions were for using the stamps before baking the biscuits, so we tried, but after baking the biscuits it was a little hard to read the words. Maybe next time we will need to press the stamp harder, or bake the biscuits a bit more, so that the words are legible, but it works fine on icing, since you do...

 The most famous borlotti beans are from the village of  Lamon  (not far from my Mum's place). Fagioli in Padella Soak the borlotti beans overnight, rinse and then cook with plenty of water and a bay leaf. Usually I add salt only at the end of cooking, then I keep the broth and a few beans for soup, and drain the rest to cook separately or use them in salads. Here I made them ' in padella ' (in a skillet). Sauté a shallot (sliced) or a couple of peeled garlic cloves with two tbsp of olive oil. Add the cooked borlotti beans, then about one cup of Italian tomato sauce (passata) and one cup of bean broth (or vegetable broth). Simmer on low for about 20 minutes, when the sauce thickens add half a tsp of smoked paprika (or some black pepper), adjust for salt and then finish everything with some more olive oil and plenty of fresh chopped parsley.  In the past I didn't use chopped parsley with the paprika, but I do now, if I can: I find that par...

I have to say that the ingredients and cooking method are very similar to mine (and my mother's). We call it Roman style, possibly because both my Mum and my Aunt learned to make this in Rome (and I learned from them). But there are two main differences between my usual recipe which I always make in New Zealand (recipe  here ) and this one, simply due to ... availability!!! In NZ artichokes are still rare and quite expensive, so when I get a few I cook them with all the hard outer leaves (to be scraped with teeth at the table until you reach the heart) while here in Italy artichokes abound and so we can discard the outer leaves and cook only the tender hearts.  The other difference is that while I cooked the whole artichokes " flower side up ", the artichokes hearts with stalks are cooked "flower side down", and in this way you can leave a bit of the stalk in too, they are yummy and tender! All you need to do is to: Clean very well the ar...

First of all I have to inform you that I was raised on chestnuts, and chestnut flour. We made many things with the flour, mostly fritters (you can find the recipe  here ) and castagnaccio. There are so many versions of castagnaccio, the main being just chestnut flour and water, with a pinch of salt (optional) and a sprig of rosemary on the top. The best thing is that chestnut flour is naturally sweet, and that you just need water to mix it, making it the perfect low fat (chestnuts are the only low fat nuts) high protein, gluten free and vegan treat! I mixed chestnut flour with enough water to make a batter, and this time I added 2 tbsp of cocoa (cocoa also go well with chestnuts) and a very small pinch of salt. No sugar needed. Pour the batter into a large baking pan lined with baking paper and bake everything at  180°C  until the cake is ready (about 20 minutes, check with a toothpick). Let it cool down before serving. Unfortunately I forgot to take the photo o...

What do vegetarians eat? Lots of vegetables! Some people call it rabbit food, I don't know why, I swear to you that we are not rabbits!  Let's start with the red radicchio, my brother made this: cut the red radicchio into strips and place onto an oven tray lined with baking paper. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, salt and dried oregano (he says that dried thyme is better but we didn't have any).  Bake until the red par of the leaves is crispy (and most of the bitterness is gone!).  And what about this lovely green cauliflower? I think that green cauliflowers taste 'sweeter' than the white ones, and this one did! I just boiled it  al dente , let it cool down and dressed it with extra virgin olive oil, salt and  Aceto Balsamico di Modena . Simple but perfect! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini and her brother  ©