Italy In SF

I am not the best baker in the world, so for making pan di spagna I recruited the very expert help of Lucia, one of the owners of La Bottega in Menlo Park. Making pan di spagna is not hard, but it requires discipline- mix the ingrediens in the right order, warm up the oven to the right temperature, wait till the cake pans are cool before taking the cakes out, and so on. The ingredients are simple (and awfully low-fat!):

For each egg, you will need 1 oz each of sugar and flour. You will need about 8 eggs to fill a 10in pan, and a bit of butter and flour to grease the pan. That’s it! How simple is that?? Easier said than done, for sure, but it can be done!

Start separating the egg yolks from the whites. Mix the reds with the sugar till it looks almost whipped. A KitchenAid comes in handy, but an old-fashioned mixer will do the trick!

Meanwhile whip the egg whites till they are firm. Add the customar pinch of salt to make the process easier. When the yolks and sugar are well-whipped, swicth to a larger bowl and slowly fold in the egg whites with a whisk- slowly being operative word!!

Now it is time to add the flour- still by hand with a whisk, gently mix a bit of the flour at the time- making sure you sift it, so it doesn’t make clumps (is this the way you say it in English?). At the end of the process, you should get a bowl of dough naturally aerated (notice how we didn’t add any yeast?), and when you lift it from the bowl it should make a “ribbon”. This is the point where you could add a teaspoon of baking powder if you’d like, but Lucia says that’s cheating!

Now it is time to get the dough into the oven! Warm up the oven to 400 F, and grease a pan wth butter and a light veil of flour. The pan di spagna needs to get in the oven right away, otherwise it looses the natural rise that the whipped eggs give it (see the natural air bubbles?). Set the timer for 40 minutes, and make sure you do not open the oven while the pan di spagna cooks!

After the cake starts looking brown, switch the oven off but keep the door shut and the cake inside- the principle for which this works is the same that makes the souffle’ rise, so you want to be careful with it. Don’t take the cake out after cookingor the souffle’-effect will deflate! Leave inside for about 15 minutes or so, and then you can take the cake out. Don’t take the cake out o the pan quite yet, but let it cool down.

Once the pan di spagna has cooled down, you can do all sort of wonderful things with it! Cut it in half, soak with your favorite mixture, fill with whipped cream or custard and/or fruit, serve it for breakfast- the possibilities are endless! Now, remember you didn’t add any butter or oil or cream, so nutritionally as far as dessert goes this is a pretty nice deal, carrying only the fats in the eggs. In my book, it means I can be more generous with fats in the filling!In our case, we cut it…

Then we soaked it with blended strawberries mixed with a bit of rum:

Then we added a homemade crema, an Italian custard. We picked a glass bowl for assembly so the dessert would look really pretty!

Fresh strawberries marinated in a bit of sugar:

Then another layer of pan di spagna that we soaked with the same mixture of the base layer:

We finished off the pan di spagna with whipped cream:

Finally, let it rest for a few hours in the fridge before serving. Thanks Lucia!

Filed under: Traditional Foods | 1 Comment »

For a fiercely localized culinary tradition like the Italian one, the fact that two staples of the Italian desserts carry foreign references is an utmost disgraceful thing. However, Pan di Spagna (literally “bread of Spain”) and Zuppa Inglese (”English Soup”) are among the most well-known and loved desserts around Italy. Quite hironically, pan di spagna is used to make zuppa inglese.

My first attept at Pan Di Spagna!

Pan di spagna is a yellow sponge cake, traditionally made  with egs, sugar and flour without yeast. It is the base of pretty much everything that in Italy is universally defined as torta, “cake”. Legend has it that it was invented by a pastry chef from Genova who was sent to Spain to serve a fabolous meal to the court. He served his creation to the court, and found his glory in this spongy cake. Nowadays, in many parts of Italy the yeast preparation is favored because it yields a softer base more prone to be soaked in water and sugar or liquor.

Zuppa Inglese, despite its name, is a traditional recipe of Romagna. It is a dolce al cucchiaio, a dessert that is eaten with a spoon, of  very old tradition. In essence, it is a mix of pan di spagna soaked in alchermes liquor and layered with the traditional Italian egg custard, crema, some left in its original form and some flavored with chocolate. The bright red of alchermes, the yellow of the egg custard and the brown of the chocolate make a very visually exciting dessert, ususally prepared and served in glass bowl to better appreciate the color combination. Its origin is very debated- quite surprisingly, English-language references point to an 18th century invention in Naples, but all Italian sources point to a Renaissance creation at the court of the Este family, in Ferrara. Pellegrino Artusi, the great 18th century food historian, reports the Renaissance origin of this very popular dessert.

Despite their foreign names, both pan di spagna and zuppa inglese are very loved traditional desserts, and quite surprisingly they seem to be among the very few Italian dishes that went beyond regional preparation to be nation-wide staples in all pasticcerie. How to make them? Simple! Tomorrow you’ll find a brief photo-essay on my first attempt at making pan di spagna!

Filed under: Culinary Culture, Traditional Foods | No Comments »

Finally, finally, finally the Peninsula is getting back a good, high-quality Italian restaurant! Ever since Donato Scotti, former chef of La Strada in Palo Alto, left to start his own venture, Donato Enoteca, we’ve been left waiting for it to open. And finally, tonight’s the night!

Donato is an excellent chef, a business partner for my parallel venture, Global Epicurean (watch out for a few trips to Donato’s native Lombardia in the Spring of 2010!), and also and foremost a friend whose kinness for good and hearty Italian foods got us to go along from the get-go! That said, I might be biased in my review, but you will soon see reviews appearing in Chow and many other Bay Area’s blogs soon! The menu is a mix of northern Italian dishes, with the addition of a wood-burning pizza oven that promises to be a delight!

While tonight was the official opening of the spacious Redwood City location of Donato Enoteca, on Friday night there was a friend and press preview and mixer- a wonderful evening with lots of people, a lot of Italian speaking, and delicious food and drinks! I can’t wait to try the full menu, meanwhile just a few amuse-bouche. Above, ravioli with fresh asparagus filling. Below, Risotto al Nero di Seppia (seafood risotto with squid ink).

Delicious Agnolotti da Plin (my favorites!):

…and the man himself!

DONATO ENOTECA
1041 Middlefield Road
Redwood City, CA 94063
(650) 701-1000

Filed under: Peninsula, Restaurants | 1 Comment »

Last week I was writing about Italy and how I usually loose weight when I am over there. Andrea was telling me in the comments that it sounds too good to be true, and so I ended up thinking what exactly I was eating differently. In fact, I am much more active in Palo Alto than in Cesenatico, at least in terms of workouts!, so it needs to be a food thing. My husband, who spent the same amount of time in Italy but visiting his family, gained 4 pounds in the same time frame.

I have been considering what it might have been when it occurred to me I hadn’t eaten a single processed food. Nothing- cookies and pies were homemade and so was the gelato. Pastries and breads were made fresh every morning, pasta didn’t come out of a box but was handmade, no frozen anything- just plain, made from scratch foods I could easily track down to the last ingredients. Sure, I had salami and mortadella and prosciutto, which are technically processed foods, but they have been processed in the same way for centuries, so no chemical addictive were used in their making. Could that be the answer? Is my body really more sensitive than average to chemical and preservatives and sulfite and all those industrial ingredients that make the writing on the boxes longer and longer and smaller and smaller?

One thing is for sure- it is a refreshing time when you can visit a country and never once have to resort to food that comes out of a box, that has to be shelf-stable and where choices for your consumptions are so varied, and still still the same available maybe 50 years ago, before the industrialization of the food chain really took over the kind of foods we put in our bodies…

Filed under: italy | 3 Comments »

As you have gathered, I was in Italy for the past two weeks. I ate to my heart’s content and dropped 4 pounds- do you think that is a magical land? In any case, I am kicking myself for not taking pictures for this story, as it was so quintessentially Italian…

As I was driving around my town, I had to stop for gas. I paid € 1.095 for a liter of diesel fuel, which is about a quarter gallon. Even with the current exchange rate, that is about 4x what we pay in the US. As I was pulling out of the gas station, I noticed a board that a small grocery store on the corner had put out to advertise its products. It said “Un litro di Albana, €1.065“- a liter of Albana wine, a typical Romagna white wine, cost less than a liter of gas.

There is something awfully beautiful in a country where gas is more expensive than wine. And then you wonder why nothing is ever efficient in Italy???

Filed under: italy | 4 Comments »