Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Ingredients: 100 g ground almonds 100 g sugar 100 g butter (at room temperature) 50 g rice flour plus some for dusting candied cherries (optional) Mix all the ingredients and make into a dough, then make some small balls, walnut size, roll them in rice flour (otherwise you will get some flat biscuits when they bake in the oven) and place them on a oven tray lined with baking paper. If you like add a piece of candied cherry on top. Bake at 160 ° for about 20 minutes, but check the oven often as they can bake quickly (depending on size). Let them cool down completely and then enjoy. They keep well in a container, but if you want to store them for longer bake them a few minutes more. And now the flowers from my garden (old photos, most of these flowers have gone now...) Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

The Florence Fennel seeds from NewWorld Supermarket's Little Gardener have grown into big long fennels, not the round fat fennels unfortunately. So I decided to pick them before they became too tall and create something with them. I washed them, removed the leaves and cooked them with a tbs of butter and a little light vegetable stock until they were tender, and then I added another tbs of butter I blended them into a cream which I used to dress pasta with. It was delicious! I have a couple more fennels in the garden and this will be their destiny too!  PS: The leaves are just for decoration Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Sage flowers are beautiful and have a delicate taste of sage, lighter than the leaves. They are perfect for sprinkling on food like risotto, pasta, bean salads and roasted vegetables. I also like to make sage flower butter, which is also a way to make the petals last longer (sage butter will keep in the fridge for a couple of months, depending on the expiring date of the butter, of course!). There are two ways to make this: one is to melt the butter completely (a bit like making ghee) and then insert the flowers little by little while the butter is cooling, and then pour it into a container before it is completely solid. This way you loose a little aroma, but the butter lasts longer. The other is to soften the butter at room temperature and then work the flowers in with a fork or spatula, and then roll the butter up into a log and refrigerate. I love this but then I end up using too much butter as it is so good on warm bread...). In either cases every time you need a bit of flavoured...

When asked what is my favourite vegetable sometimes I reply that it is a  fresh  porcino  mushroom ( boletus edulis ) , and I say this knowing very well that mushrooms do not classify as vegetables... they are fungi, neither fruit nor vegetable. But no one in New Zealand ever asks me what is my favourite fungi (they do in my village in Italy, for sure), only what is my favourite vegetable, and mushrooms are usually defined as a side vegetable (even eaten at breakfast! This thing still puzzles me).   The fact is that to me mushrooms rarely take the place of a side vegetable, but they tend to be the main player: pasta with mushrooms, risotto with mushrooms, polenta with mushrooms, mushroom fritters, mushroom burgers, mushroom dumplings, stuffed mushrooms...  For a vegetarian they substitute meat, and in the old days in my mountains in Italy they used to be called  carne di bosco  'meat of the woods'. We never bought mushrooms when I was ...

One of my favourite dishes from my village in Italy, borlenghi or berleghi. A bit like a savoury crepe, made with a simple batter, just flour, a pinch of salt and enough water to thin it down to a glue consistency (in fact the batter is called  colla , i.e. glue!). Then it is cooked between two very hot and greased flat iron plates called  cotte  and turned several times until cooked (still flexible and soft but a little crispy on the borders). For the dressing traditionally lard is used, but since I don't eat meat I use salted butter mixed with finely chopped fresh rosemary and garlic. Then add parmigiano reggiano and fold. Eat immediately, and patiently wait for another one!  Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

The smoked scamorza is from  Il Casaro  and it is made with vegetarian rennet. To prepare the vegetables: I washed and quartered the fennel bulbs and passed them in butter, then I added a ladle of vegetable stock and cooked them slowly slowly, with the lid on, until soft. I used some of their juice to steam a bunch of asparagus, and then I cut the scamorza and put it on the hot pan for a couple of minutes, turning them after one minutes, just to soften and sizzle (but not melt). Serve with crusty bread if you like. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

This recipe is from my book  Savour ,  it is really easy and the result is guaranteed to make your dinner guests go WOW! All you need is ordinary brown onions (one per person for a main or just half per person for a starter). Peel the onions and boil whole for about 10 minutes (or until half cooked but not too soft) then cut in half horizontally. For every two onions melt about 50g of salted butter in a pan and add 2 to 4 tsp of brown sugar (it depends on your taste). Put the onions, cut side down, into the pan and them place them into individual ramekins (still cut side down. Add the remaining butter. Cover each onion with a disk of flaky puff pastry (your own or bought, I used  Paneton ) and press down well until you get a 'bowler hat' shape around your onion. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 20 minutes, or until the pastry is golden. Reverse over a serving plate (or individual plates, they will pop out easily). Serve hot, they are deliciously butte...

In Uruguay I have discovered  this vegetable , and I thought of using it to create a pasta sauce before going back to New Zealand (where I guess that I could use zucchini or small marrows??? We'll see). Ingredients 3 zapallitos 1 tbsp butter 500 ml vegetables stock 2 garlic cloves, peeled Half cup parsley leaves salt and black pepper to taste Pasta Parmesan to serve (optional) Wash and cut the zapallitos, then put in a pan with half of the butter and one garlic clove. Sauté and when the zapallitos start to dry up add the vegetable stock and cover. Cook until all the liquid has been absorbed and the zapallitos are creamy. In the meantime finely chopped the last garlic clove with the parsley and cook the pasta al dente. I used egg  Farfalle  (bow ties), made in Uruguay. Add the remaining butter and chopped parsley to the sauce and season with salt and pepper, then drain the pasta and mix. Serve immediately.  For vegans just substit...

Lemon Soy Butter mushrooms, Japanese Mountain Style Now, I say "Japanese Mountain" because once I went for a hike in the mountains in Japan and stopped in a lovely wooden tavern for food. The mushrooms were fresh Shitake, so the taste was different, but I liked how they were cooked so much that I do it often with portobello mushrooms (or portabello??? The  producer's website  uses both spellings, maybe they are two types but I cannot tell the diffence), to give them more taste. 1 x 250 g pack breakfast portabello mushrooms 1 tbsp rice bran oil 2 tbsp Japanese Soy Sauce (not Chinese, only use the Japanese one) Juice of half a lemon Lemon slices to decorate 20 g butter, cubed Clean the mushrooms removing the outer skin as much as possible, and brushing them with a paper towel. Heat a skillet or a frying pan with 1 tbsp of rice bran oil and then add the mushrooms, cap facing down, stalks up. Make sure that you move the mushrooms around with a s...

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.  ...

This is the last  baby bear pumpkin  that I harvested last Autumn from my garden, and kept it in my potato draw for months (the others got eaten during Winter). Yesterday I finally cut it. I planted  baby bear pumpkins  for three years, and loved them, they are little so when I cut them they are perfect for one meal. To be honest last year I had a new mysterious pumpkin too in my garden (possibly from a seed in my compost), and my baby baby bears were quite different! Some were green and some were gray... A friend told me that I may had some cross pollination going on.  This year I planted a different pumpkin, a big Italian one, and had no more space in the garden for baby bears... I regret it now, when I cut my last tiny pumpkin inside it was fresh and perfect and sweet smelling... what a perfect veggie to grow since it can be stored for months!  For the sauce I used 20 g or dried porcini mushrooms soaked for 30 minutes in water. I c...

I don't do it often, but to cook Florence fennels in milk is a very Italian method, not really used much overseas (or at least, I haven't noticed it!). The fennels seem to acquire a really special taste when cooked in milk, and after this first 'stage' they are usually baked in the oven or placed under the grill, with or without toppings. A big tray would have several fennels, but becasue I only had three fennels I decided to add some lasagna sheets to make sure that they would not 'dry up' too much in the second cooking stage in oven.  Fennels Cooked in Milk Wash three Florence fennels and cut like in the photo.   Gently (very gently) simmer the fennels in milk (about half a litre) until they are quite tender (about 30 minutes). Watch the pot at all times: the milk may boil out. Lift out the fennels, but keep the milk in the pot. I didn't want to put the fennels straight into a pan, so I placed ...