Marina's Bloggariffic

Recently, I was hankering for a good burger. We found an awesome butcher in Mercato Piazza San Giovanni di Dio where you could get grade cuts of meat. I got for myself some ground meat for the patties. But the problem was the buns!

(This is a cheat picture as it’s a vegetarian burger)

In Italy, the ingredients for regular, freshly made bread are flour, yeast, water and salt.

Any other additional ingredients (like sesame seeds, eggs, milk etc.) are legally required to be called ‘special bread’ instead. Which is why it’s a good habit to read, or ask about the ingredients on the labels, especially when you are on a special diet.

Anyhow, one rule of thumb that I’ve discovered is that if these speciality breads (like sandwich breads, burger buns and hotdog rolls) are packaged in plastic, and are kept in the non refrigerated section, a big chance that these breads were treated with alcohol to make them soft.

While there are some thoughts that it is justifiable to consume, as alcohol evaporates in high temperatures, I prefer to avoid it where I can. It’s such a chore trying to find speciality bread without ingredients that I do not consume, so imagine how enraptured I was when we found sandwich bread which was good for us!

Anyhow, I was so unhappy and feeling so indignant about unfair the whole situation was, that I was pleasantly surprised to find that Chef John, (who I adore) actually published a video on how to make burger buns. It looked so easy too. I was so intrigued that I was compelled to make them ASAP!

By the way, in Italian, yeast is lievito. We only managed to find the fresh cube ones rather than the dry ones. Not sure if one is better than the other. I’ve never worked with yeast before nor made bread, so it was fascinating to see them grow …

And grow … At one point, I was concerned that the dough would get too big for the sheet tray.

But I think we just need a bigger sheet tray :p

Oh gosh everyone, if only you could smell the kitchen as the buns were freshly made. It was so lovely! So rustic! So comforting!

I’m so amazed I made these! They are so pretty! Plus the taste easily beats the one you get from the stores. Do try them out! You’d be so happy and proud of yourself when you make them.

At the moment, 4 of the cooked buns are in the freezer so we could defrost them when we are in the mood for burgers again (You need to consume fresh bread immediately as they turn hard after a few days) But I’d definitely make a new batch again in a heartbeat. They are amazing!

Sidenote : Look who followed me on instagram. I feel so omg-fangirl-moment. HAHAHAHA!

I cannot sleep now :p

If you are in Rome around July, you’d see a lot of these types of tomatoes being sold.

These are called pomodoro da riso and they are really big compared to the regular tomatoes that you usually use. The skin is firm, making them specially for stuffing rice. So today, I’ll show you how to make Pomodori Ripieni al Riso – which literally means, tomatoes filled up with rice.

You could use regular tomatoes too, but be sure that the tomatoes are big and firm – so that it doesn’t collapse under the oven.

First cut off the top and leave them to one side. Then take a spoon and dig a out the pulp inside. Be careful not to break any part of the skin – it’s a little tricky when it comes to the bottom part.

When you are done, it should look like this. Try to scrape and remove as much seeds away.

(If you were wondering, yes that is a computer. I like watching videos while doing chores :p )

Lightly salt the caps and the insides of the tomato and lay them upside down – this will remove the liquid from the tomato.

This is the troublesome part – trying to remove as much seeds as possible from the pulp. I normally use two bowls for these (one for the pulp and the other for the cleaned pulp) and painstakingly scrape off the seeds with a dining knife.

It’s time consuming and annoying. You could of course leave some, but too much seeds can make your tomatoes taste bitter.

And here is the cleaned pulp. Yes. This picture is necessary because of the amount of time I took for achieving this. Nowadays, I give Cart a black face whenever he wants to buy pomodoro da riso from the market :p

But the tough part is done!

If you like, you can sieve the seeds, and rub a spoon over it for the juice to filtrate out, since that’s where most of the liquid is trapped. No need to be overzealous though.

Now with the juice and the cleaned pulp, pulverize them together with some salt and garlic – about a garlic for two tomatoes. Some people might not like too much garlic, so you could just limit to one clove for your entire batch. But I like mine garlic-y.

No kisses for a while I guess :p

When you are done, you should have an aromatic pink liquid that looks like this :

Now separate the liquid into two containers. As one part will be used for the rice and another part for the potatoes. For each tomato that you have, add about a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil in the larger container.

Next we use some rice. I’m using Riso Roma here, but you could also use arborio or carnaroli. Or any rice that is of the short and fluffy type.

Depending on the size of your tomatoes, you use about 30 – 50g of rice for each tomato. It should be enough to almost fill the tomatoes completely. Let it rest in a cool place for at least 3 hours.

After which, you could leisurely peel and cut some potatoes. I used 3 medium sized potatoes in the pan below. But if you like more, feel free to add more of course :p

Salt it generously and add enough olive oil to coat them.

After 3 hours have passed, the rice would have expanded after absorbing the tomato juice.

Now pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees.

And spoon the rice and juice mixture into the tomatoes. When it is half full, you can tear one fresh basil leaf into small pieces and drop it in each tomato. By the way for those in Singapore, I don’t know if Thai Basil makes a good substitute. I found some in Giant. But if you can’t find fresh basil, dried ones will work too.

Another variation is to use mentuccia – these are the ones we have growing in the kitchen. The purple flowers are so pretty! When cooked, it gives a sharp taste with tones of mint and oregano.

Once the tomatoes are filled up, tear up some more leaves and place them on top.

And cover them with their respective caps. Remember the reserve tomato juice in the other container? This remaining tomato juice is to be poured on the potatoes – giving it a savoury taste.

Cook in the oven for about 40 minutes or till the potatoes are cooked. The last 10 minutes, you might want to put them on grill function to crisp up the potatoes. And it will look like this!

So delicious! A yummy and hearty meal 🙂

By the way, these are great be it eaten cold or warm – making it great for picnics or preparing it in advance if you have guests coming over. No need to use too much plates for these are they come in their own natural packaging that you eat!

 

In Italy, there is this bean called ‘Fagioli Borlotti’ and call it odd, but I find them really cute.

Unlike the typical green coloured beans, the pod for fagioli borlotti is red and the inside is a beautiful red and white marble pattern which I love.

With the beans, you could use them in a lot of dishes like minestrone, or pasta fagioli. But one of the things that Cart loves to make with them is Fagioli Borlotti all Ucceletto – A hearty and rustic dish that originated from Tuscany.

It’s quite straight forward to make. You will need :

• 400g Fagioli Borlotti
• 2 Cloves of Garlic
• 200g Tomato Sauce (Pure tomato! Not ketchup!)
• Fresh Sage
• 2 tbs of EVOO
• Salt and Pepper

In a pot, heat up the extra virgin olive oil and fry the garlic and sage. When the garlic turns golden brown, add the fagioli borlotti, and then the tomato. Add salt and pepper and lower the fire and let it cook till the gravy thickens up.

Serve with a bit of extra virgin olive oil on top and eat it with some toasted bread. And enjoy!

Nom! I like them as much as I like baked beans. I wonder if Cart would flip if I added a fried egg to eat it with :-p