The best arancini recipe around As I come from Napoli, one of the ‘street food’ items that I most love is arancini, rice balls. We call them arancini in Napoli, in other parts of Italy they change gender and become arancine, and have different versions. From the massive rice balls eaten in Sicily, full to the brim with mince meat ragu and peas (the best in my childhood memory used to be on the ferry between mainland and the island,…
Regional flavours Many moons ago, when I used to ski with school friends on the slopes of Abruzzo, I use to love stopping in cafes and enjoy a hot chocolate with one of the local chocolate cakes called bocconotti. Since this year we will unusually not spend Christmas in the region, and will not be skiing and eating those delicacies, I was feeling a little ‘homesick’ and decided to give them a try. In fact, even on Danilo Cortellini’s recently published…
A dish that brings back memories of home.. As a southern Italian, I grew up eating plenty of vegetable dishes using locally grown aubergines, peppers and courgettes. One of the dishes which recently I have often recreated in our London summer is a classic pasta dish whose origins are said to be from Nerano, on the Amalfi coast. Of such dish, many variations of course exist, but the main star of the show is always the courgette, with its beautiful…
Recently I came across a vegan and vegetarian recipe on the Identita’ Golose website, which really caught my eye. Gnocchi made with lentils, which I found interesting and decided to try out. Chef Simone Salvini, a vegan chef who is a regular contributor to the site, describes this recipe as inspired by Indian Ayurveda philosophy where rice and pulses are married in a perfect combination to balance our internal system. I don’t particularly follow or believe in this, and I don’t know…
One of the most interesting Instagram accounts is Symmetrybreakfast. A relatively simple idea (but then why did I not have it myself?) of photographing their identical breakfast everyday has propelled Michael and Mark into the social media wall of fame. They have a ton of followers and they seem really nice guys as well (unfortunately I have not had a chance to meet them in person yet). Apart from mouth-watering photos of breakfast food, they really love the history of food. We…