ITALIAN FOODIES

So after coming clean about my food magazine addiction, Laura (a.k.a Ms HHDD queen) arrived into La Cucina with a copy of a new Irish magazine called Intermezzo. It’s great to see another Irish food magazine on the shelves, I really like the Fine Food and Wine magazine that comes with the Irish Independant also, it always has great articles on the Irish food scene.

Sticking with the addiction theme we tend to watch a lot of food programmes, UkTV Food is on in our house permanently even though it’s getting a bit of competition from the Baby Channel at the moment. I have to say we really miss our daily installment of  Jenny and Great Food Live. Market Kitchen is their new offering and although I complain a lot about it I still watch it every evening.

I enjoyed it last week as Angela Hartnett was on, promoting her new book on Italian food so it was Italian recipes for the week. I never knew she had Italian connections, her style of cooking is great -  down to earth, easy to cook Italian food. She made a really nice veal dish with a caper and parsley sauce which is definitely going to be reproduced in the “Italian foodie” household!

 On Tuesday night “the urban chef” was in the Borough Market cooking with local produce and he made a sandwich with local sausages and duck eggs. We hadn’t decided what to eat at this stage so it was straight down to La Cucina for the ingredients for an Italian version - sometimes owning your own business has it’s advantages especially at 9 o’clock at night.

To all you foodie lovers out there this sandwich is a must! I can’t describe how tasty it was. It’s great when something unplanned and thrown together turns out so well. The 2 of us sat in the kitchen in silence at the breakfast counter at 10pm stuffing our faces, it’s one of those messy ones with lots of finger licking, lots of napkins and lots of oohing and aahing!

WHAT YOU NEED!

• Italian sausages - we sell packs of 4 in La Cucina. We used 2 per sandwich.
• free range eggs
• Italian bread - we used our bruschetta bread which was perfect as we sliced it thinly but you could use ciabatta or a country style bread.
• rocket
• spicy ketchup - we found this great ketchup in Superquinn called Stokes Spicy Tomato Ketchup, it was perfect a match.

WHAT TO DO:

 - take the skin off your sausages and cut them in half. Cook them on a grill pan.

 - fry your eggs - cook them soft but not runny.

 - we cooked the bread on the grill pan in the juices of the sausages.

- put it all together and “MANGIA MANGIA”!

Buon Appetito!!

There are so many things we love about Italy, the culture, lifestyle, family, food, coffee and the WEATHER!! We have the Italian TV channels and every evening we have to depress ourselves as we watch the Italian weather forecast and features about the beaches and summer festivals on the news. The weather is so bad here at the moment it’s pretty depressing, Laura wrote about it on her blog also because the weather does affect our quality of life and influences what we eat!

 Bruno’s cousins love Ireland, they don’t like the weather but they get over it! They are amazed by the economy and how everyone owns their own house! Most of the under 30’s still live at home and go to college and it is very difficult to buy property or get a well paid job if you don’t live in the big cities! In relation to food there are also a few things Bru’s cousins like:

• milk and butter - due to our green pastures as a result of all the rain Irish dairy is much creamier than Italian. They go mad for cereal with milk when they are here and bread and butter.
• fillet steak - once again Irish cows feed on greener grass so the steak is different here!
• Guinness - pretty obvious!
• Garlic chips and cheese and a doner kebab from Abbrakebabra- I know! but they love them, you don’t get them in Italy so it’s a novelty for them.
• Coleslaw - they are amazed by it, ever Italian who has worked for us loves it!

And last but not least smoked salmon on brown bread! I have never seen brown bread in Italy , it is virtually unheard of, smoked salmon is pretty rare too, the only smoked fish that I’ve had is smoked swordfish in Sicily!! Every time Bru’s cousins are here we have it as a starter for dinner, they love it because they get to put loads of butter on the bread which is never done in Italy! We love it ourselves and often have it  for dinner if the weather is nice or if we’re too lazy to cook!

WHAT YOU NEED!

• good quality Irish soda bread or a wheaten loaf - we usually buy the wheaten loaf in Superquinn, it’s difficult to buy good soda bread anymore! We had a good brown loaf in Avoca last week!
• good quality Irish smoked salmon - once again it’s Superquinn organic for us!
• butter or philadelphia cheese - I love philadelphia cheese with smoked salmon, I don’t know if I’m committing a cardinal sin here but I don’t care!
• squeeze of a lemon
• thinly sliced red onion
• black pepper

We usually have it with a rocket salad

• rocket
• good quality cherry tomatoes
• red onion
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• salt

BUON APETITTO!!

I think everyone in the Western world owns a George Forman grill or something similar, in Ireland I thing most people probably use it for the traditional “toastie”. Our relationship with the toastie goes way back to the little plastic bag days when you had a choice of ham & cheese or ham cheese and onion.  Bruno can’t understand my need for mustard with my toastie, it’s obviously an Irish thing.

I still have my toastie with mustard on the odd occasion but I have upgraded it to gourmet status and now use red onion. I have to say I have welcomed the Italian version of the toasted sandwich with open arms. We have a huge range of panini in La Cucina and I’m delighted to say the staples of the Irish diet - chicken, bacon, garlic mayo have been replaced by the finer Italian fillings. Our fascination with garlic mayo in this country still amazes me everyday. Our best sellers now are:

• Italia - parma ham, rocket, sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella and pesto.
• Grigliatta - roasted aubergines, roasted peppers, rocket, mozzarella and pesto.
• Tonno - tuna, brie, rocket and sun-dried tomato mayo.
• Pollo - breaded chicken fillet, lettuce, tomato and mayo.

In Italy you would never find these combinations as they tend to eat their panini quite simple with just meat and cheese and absolutely no dressing. In Ireland pesto has become the new mayo, we make it every second day. My staff curse me when they are plucking the leaves off 1kg of basil for about an hour. We eat ours the Italian way and most of the time we just have a toasted ciabatta with parma ham and buffalo mozzarella but every now and again we go crazy and add rocket!! ” crazy kids”

What you need:

• ciabatta - Dunnes do a really good ciabatta, it even has the grill lines on it.
• good quality parma ham
• buffalo mozzarella - we have a really good one in La Cucina and Olio e Farina on little Catherine St now stock organic buffalo for anyone that can’t get to Castletroy!! Just ask for Susan and tell her Lor&Bru sent you!!!
• rocket
• olive oil

How to make it:

 - I’m not going to insult you by telling you how to make a sandwich, I’m sure you know how. One tip though, pour a little olive oil on your machine before grilling.

 - on a sunny day serve with a “Peroni” beer  while dining “al fresco”.

Buon Appetito!!