Wednesday, January 30, 2008

pizza special!!

                           

There is no recipe today, just a quick post to tell you about our pizza special!! Sarah recently asked me to do a little post on the specials in La Cucina so I've decided to do a regular post!! We are also changing our menu at the moment and have added a few new pizzas and taken off some of the less popular items. The food business always amazes me, the very minute we decide to take off something because it's not selling everyone starts ordering it????

We've had to reduce the menu a little as there was just too much on it and this was putting pressure on the kitchen!! One of the main problems we are having at the moment is that everyone keeps changing the dishes, we could get an order for 3 boscaiola, 1 no mushroom, 1 no bacon and 1 normal, the problem here is this requires 3 different pans instead of 1 and we only have 4 gas rings so it slows the whole thing up!! It's gotten to the stage where every order has a different requirement, I'm amazed by the amount of people who don't like mushrooms or tomatoes! The thing is you can't go into any of the franchises and change the dish but because we make everything fresh people like to mix and match e.g. adding peppers and mushrooms to Carbonara, adding chicken to spaghetti bolognese!! You can imagine how happy our Italian chef Alessandro is making all these changes to his authentic Italian dishes!! Originally when we opened first and were fairly quiet it was no problem but now with it being so busy it is becoming an issue but what can we do???? If we were to refuse there would be uproar and we have done it for so long now I don't think we can turn back, we're hoping by reducing the menu a little it might help even though I know there will be problems with that too and we''ll probably still have to do some of the items we have removed  so we'll just have to wait and see!!

Back to the pizza special, I had it today myself and it is delicious, we have a really good Italian sausage in stock at the moment coming through a small Italian distributor based in Dublin, we are getting an excellent buffalo mozzarella from him too!! The special is:

 - Italian sausage
 - fresh rosemary
 - pancetta
 - parmesan
 - tomato sauce
 - mozzarella




and here's 2 happy members of staff - Alessandro and Bruno:)

                               

p.s. pizzas never hold their crisp base "takeaway" so I always put on my oven at home at the highest temperature and then pop it in for 5 mins when I bring the pizza home and it comes out perfect!!

p.p.s. - red blush oranges are in season at the mo and Superquinn have an Italian orange available in their Superior range which are really good!! They also have San Marzano tomatoes originating from Italy in stock too!! I should really be on commission:)

Ciao:)
Posted by LOR&BRU at 22:32:20 | Permanent Link | Comments (20) |

Sunday, January 27, 2008

zuppa di porri e patate!!

                                          
I'm going to apologise in advance for the amount of soups that will be on this blog over the next few weeks as I have  decided to make a new soup every Monday!!! I just find it so handy to have a container of soup in the fridge both for myself for lunch and for the princess. She's loving soup at the moment and it's a great way to get some veg into her, I just add some baby pasta and lots of freshly grated Parmesan cheese and she nearly licks the plate clean. We always add Parmesan to soup when serving as it gives it that extra flavour, I highly recommend you do it, you'll never go back:) I know you have all seen leek and potato soup a million times and it has definitely been over used and abused here in Ireland but it is still one of my favourites!! This recipe can also be served like a minestrone but I'm still liquidizing for the "boss"!!!

what you need:

 - 5 medium potatoes peeled and chopped into cubes!! I like this soup really thick!!

 - 3 leeks, white parts only sliced.

 - 1 onion finely chopped.

 - 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock - I used vegetable stock cubes from La Cucina!!

 - olive oil

 - 25g butter (optional if you are on a diet or healthy eating plan)

 - sea salt and black pepper.

what to do

 - heat some olive oil and your butter in a pot and add your onions and leeks and cook until softened but not coloured.

 - add your potatoes and stock and leave to simmer until all your vegetables are tender.  This takes about 30 mins.

 - take off heat,  liquidise(optional) and season.

 - serve with freshly grated Parmesan!!!

                                      
buon appetito!!!

p.s. just looking for new ideas so would love to know what your favourite soup is????
Posted by LOR&BRU at 21:29:08 | Permanent Link | Comments (10) |

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

italian greens!!!!

                                      

One thing I always love when I'm in Italy is the sauteed greens, I would eat a plate of them on their own with just some crusty bread which I often do when I can't fit a "secondi"(meat or fish)!! They do a really good version in Bru's aunt's restaurant Il Viccolo in Atina. We were actually watching some old home movies on Sunday in Bruno's house of his Nonno and Nonna's 50th wedding anniversary when he was about 10. It was so nice to watch as the whole family were there, about 30 of them all dressed up in their 1980's finery and of course the whole video was taken in a restaurant in the local hotel which is where they still go even now to celebrate family birthday's etc. This is what I love about Italy as an outsider - the family traditions whereby all generations of the family come together frequently to eat good food and spend quality time together, maybe I have a romantic image of it from the outside looking in or that it just didn't happen in mine, either way I like it!!. 

That same hotel hasn't been updated or modernised since and it only costs about €25 a night, my own family stayed there a couple of years back. We've eaten there lots of times and to this day they still don't have a menu or much staff, the dining room is as simple as you can get, no candles or music, the atmosphere is provided by the local families and their "loud" conversations!! It's run by a local couple, he serves and she cooks and you basically eat whatever she has made that day which for some reason always seems to be an antipasto of parma ham and mozzarella, pasta fagioli and then rabbit done in white wine which I love, bring on the holiday!! I am now counting the days until "I'm leaving on a jet plane" lalalalala (sorry couldn't help it) - I bet you sang along though;)

As most of you know I live near Superquinn so it is where I do most of my shopping, they all know me at this stage with all the requests and questions I'm always asking. The veg guy just laughs when he sees me on Monday mornings as most of their stock isn't on the shelves yet so there is always something he has to find for me. My latest request is purple sprouting broccoli as it's in season and they had it last year so I asked for it last week so I'm waiting in anticipation!! I was delighted to see Kale in stock last week so teamed with spinach I decided to make this dish that I love to have as a "contorno" with fillet steak. 

what you need:

 - spinach & kale  - you can also use swiss chard and purple sprouting broccoli!!!

 - 1 chilli finely chopped

 - 1 garlic clove finely sliced

 - juice of 1 lemon

 - sea salt and black pepper

 - olive oil

what to do:

 - wash your spinach and kale thoroughly, the large leaf spinach tends to be quite dirty.

 - bring a a pot of water to the boil, add salt and cook your greens for 3-5 mins. Drain and rinse under cold water, squeeze out excess liquid and chop.

 - heat some olive oil in a pan, add your garlic and chilli and cook over a low heat until soften. Add your greens, season and saute until heated through.

 - add your lemon juice and serve!!!


                                       
buon appetito!!
Posted by LOR&BRU at 21:48:31 | Permanent Link | Comments (8) |
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