Proud Italian Cook

Dinner Party Worthy, Shrimp and Artichoke Risotto

December 12, 2012 by Marie 17 Comments

I made this recently and it was such a big hit I wanted to share! Succulent tiger shrimp with fresh artichoke hearts, sitting on a bed of creamy risotto.

The flavor was super enhanced by this fabulous roasted garlic olive oil I received from Colavita. I love their olive oils but I never tried their roasted garlic version, all I can say is you need a bottle of this in your kitchen! I had a few fresh artichokes ( you could use frozen, I wouldn’t use canned) that I cut, quartered and steamed, then tossed them into the garlic oil and placed them in a 375 degree oven for 10 minutes, the flavor is addicting!

I did the same thing with the shrimp, tossing them into the roasted garlic oil, sprinkling them with salt, pepper and a little peperoncino. I roasted the shrimp Ina’s way on a baking sheet for 5 or 6 minutes at 400 until the shrimp are cooked through. This method is full proof, cooks perfect every time!

The risotto itself was made with 1 box of chicken stock that was warmed in a pot on my stove and
1 1/2 cups of arborio rice.
In a heavy bottomed pan heat 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil, sweat 1/2 diced onion. Add the rice, stirring and coating it with the butter and oil. Saute for a couple of minutes but don’t brown it, then add 1/2 cup of white wine and let it absorb. Add a ladle of hot chicken stock to the rice and let all the liquid absorb, then add another ladle and repeat the process stirring constantly.
I tossed in a handful of frozen peas along the way, added fresh snipped basil and parsley and a touch more butter in the end.
Pour your creamy warm risotto on a nice big platter and lay your roasted artichokes and shrimp all around.
The roasted garlic flavor took the risotto to another level, there wasn’t one grain of rice left!

17 Comments Filed Under: Party Foods, Rice and Risotto, Seafood, Uncategorized Tagged: artichoke, Colavita, risotto, roasted garlic olive oil, shrimp

Holiday Baking has Begun!

December 5, 2012 by Marie 19 Comments

I don’t consider myself a baker, using exact measurements is a difficult thing for me to do, as regular readers of my blog well know, but there are certain things I must bake every holiday season and one thing is Italian fig cookies or Cucidati, they’re truly a family favorite.

I’ve posted them a few times before but since my blog chronicles my life in food I thought I’d share some recent pic’s of the day we made them. I say “we” because I never make them alone, always with family, we make a day of it, we start early, I usually always make a pot of soup or chili to eat for lunch because we go way beyond lunch time!

I have a big dining room table, I clear everything off and cover it with wax paper, after they cool on racks they get placed there waiting to be frosted.

There were four of us, we ended up making a little over 400, we started at 9:00am and ended at 4pm, not bad! We each took 100 plus for ourselves.

We started off drinking coffee as we worked.

But as the day went on we were sipping this! Have you tried? Dumante, it’s a pistachio liqueur, luxurious, smooth and might I add, it went very well with our cucidati taste testing!

I love it so much I made a zabaione with it a couple of days later, a light boozy custard usually made with marsala wine, but I replaced it with Dumante Verdenoce.

Here’s how you make it in case you happen to pick up a bottle.
1/4 cup of Dumante** 1/4 cup granulated sugar** 1/4 cup heavy cream** 3 egg yolks**
Set up a pan of simmering water** place a heat safe bowl on top of the water filled with all the ingredients** whisk the mixture continuously over simmering water, not boiling.** cook until you get a consistency of a thin pudding with the internal temp of 145 degrees** remove and continue whisking until you reach room temperature** if it’s too thick add cream or water.**

I make the same recipe every year for the fig cookies, it’s so similar to my mother-in laws except butter is replaced for the Crisco that she always used, here’s the link.
We never made them in the form of X’s but rather like above. You can change up the nuts, sometimes I use walnuts instead, and in place of orange peels I find a good orange marmalade to work wonderfully, you could also replace whiskey for the rum. As I mentioned before we never put chocolate in ours but it’s optional.
We always glaze them by using confectioners sugar mixed with water or milk, vanilla, and sometimes a little anise extract. Non- perils for sprinkling.

Happy Holiday Baking!

19 Comments Filed Under: Cookies, Desserts, Drinks, Seasonal Tagged: Christmas cookies, Christmas traditions, cucidati, Dumante, italian fig cookies, pistachio liqueur, zabaione

Tis The Season to Make Ravioli Again

November 29, 2012 by Marie 57 Comments

A few days ago my cousin, sister-in-law and I spent the day together making ravioli for an annual party that we’re having. This is a family recipe that my mother and aunt use to make. I have vivid memories of clean white sheets on dining room tables and beds filled with ravioli when I was young, and although I do things a little bit different then they did, I follow their recipe exactly, which I still have on a very yellowed index card.

They kept it simple, they would always make two kinds, a meat and a cheese version. The meat ravioli were filled with ground round or sirloin, romano cheese, spinach and a little onion. The cheese version was always made with ricotta cheese, eggs, romano cheese and fresh parsley.
I like to make all my fillings the night before as it takes time to mix everything together, tasting and getting the flavors just right. After the meat cools down I like to pulse it in a food processor so it’s more uniform and not lumpy. I also like to put my fillings into disposable pastry bags, it goes much faster than a spoon when you’re filling the forms.
I know you can use many different flours but Ceresota unbleached flour was always their flour of choice, so that’s what I use!

The morning we were making them I got up early, took my eggs out of the fridge (so they could get to room temperature) set up the pasta machine and everything else we would be using. Before they came I made 10 batches of dough, it’s very important to let the dough rest before you start rolling it.
I make all my dough using my food processor, I could never do the well method, for one thing I don’t have the patience, and I know I would have eggs dripping all down my counters, besides using the food processor is so quick and it always comes out perfect!

Ceresota flour, eggs, a tiny bit of salt, olive oil and a little bit of water creates the perfect dough for me, I didn’t have one problem with it all day!

We were in the zone, drinking coffee, listening to Christmas music, each one of us doing our specific jobs.

Squirting the cheese mixture into the the ravioli forms is super speedy with a pastry bag!

We were cranking them out left and right!

Aren’t they cute?

Because they will be cooked this weekend I froze all of them, which is very easy to do.

I lay them single layer on a baking sheet, stick the whole tray in the freezer, the meat ones take about a half hour to freeze and the cheese about 1 hour.
When frozen I take them off the tray and place them into zip lock freezer bags.

We ended up with 400! It took us only 4 hours, so that’s about 100 an hour, not too bad, although it took me 2 hours to clean my kitchen, flour was everywhere, but it was worth it because there’s nothing like homemade rav’s!

We had to taste test them to make sure everything was just right, so I heated up some marinara and boiled up a few, even in their frozen state they only take about 6 minutes to cook.