Italy Part 24

Once upon a trip to Greece, crepe shops were as ubiquitous as Starbucks in Seattle.  Just imagine the sweet smells of thin pancakes wafting through narrow streets around the clock. Stuffings varied from sweet to savory, with combinations of vegetables, eggs, fruits, cheeses, sweet creams, and chocolate. Perhaps the most memorable for me were the Nutella and banana crepes. They were impossible to eat without hazelnut goodness oozing down your arm and leaving your face as messy as a toddlers! 

Living like Grecians,  June 2008.
Getting our AM crepe fix.

Much to my surprise and utter excitement, my Italian-cooking challenge required the preparation of a savory crepe meal!  This recipe is called, Crespelle ripine (p. 114), which means "stuffed crepes." Enjoy the following photo progression of my own crepe-making ventures and recipe to follow!

The story starts with beautiful batter.
Flour, salt, milk, and eggs. 

Butter-up a non-stick skillet (or crepe pan if you have it). 

Pour a thin layer of batter into the hot pan (about 1/4 cup)
and quickly tilt the pan back and forth to evenly distribute.
Shake the pan vigorously after the batter has set to
release the crepe from the pan while it continues to cook.

After about 1 minute, it is time for flipping!
This step required a few,  "OH, CREPE!!" outbursts.

The growing stack of fancy pancakes.
You can make crepes ahead of time and either refrigerate
or freeze them until use, but don't forget to place a piece of
parchment paper between them to prevent sticking.

These naked crepes needed some attire.
In this case, it was a cheese spread: ricotta,
mozzarella, parmesan, nutmeg, and parsley. 

My crepes were folded into wedges, placed into a
baking dish, and generously topped with a tomato-herb
sauce (made ahead of time), extra parmesan, and drizzled
with olive oil before baking 20 minutes at 400 degrees F. 

These Crespelle ripienes were
rush-to-the-table worthy!

Yum...

Basic Crepe Recipe
Makes 1 dozen

1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 Tbsp. butter, melted
1/2 tsp. salt

Sift or mix flour and salt well in a large bowl. Make a well in the flour and gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until the batter becomes smooth (press out lumps with the back of a spoon). Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well until smooth. Cover and set aside for at least 30 minutes before using. This batter can also be refrigerated overnight. To prepare, brush a non-stick skillet or crepe pan with butter over medium heat, so that the butter sizzles when added. Pour about 1/4 cup of crepe batter into the pan, turning the pan so that the thin layer of batter covers the bottom of the pan evenly. After the batter has set (about 20 seconds), shake the pan vigorously to detach the crepe from the pan while it continues to cook. After about 1 minute (or until the bottom of the crepe is golden), quickly flip the crepe, without using a spatula, and let cook another 1 minute. Once the crepe is cooked on both sides, turn out onto a plate, stacking them as you go. Continue cooking crepes, remembering to brush the pan with butter each time, until the batter is gone.  Note: Batter can be easily prepared in a blender and stored overnight in the refrigerator before cooking. I would suggest making extra crepes to freeze for later. Just place a piece of wax paper in between crepes and seal in a freezer bag.  That way, just pull out a few crepes as you wish to eat them!

Crazy About Culture

Yogurt. What a weird name! It can also be spelled yoghurt or yoghourt depending on geographical location. And if you think about it, what a weird food too... fermented milk. Sounds gross, but oh boy, most people would agree to how wonderfully delicious it is. Thick, creamy and tangy is how I prefer my yogurt. During my undergrad years I started making my own yogurt to cut costs with my grocery bill. I would love to share the recipe with you too!

Homemade Plain Yogurt

1 liter milk (estimated to 1/3 a medium sauce pan)

1 carton of Greek-style yogurt

Cheesecloth optional

Step 1: Scald the milk over medium heat in a sauce pan, stirring constantly so that it won't stick and burn on the bottom of the pot. I prefer to use whole milk, but any milk type will do. After scalding, remove from heat and allow the milk to cool to room temp, or luke-warm temp. During this cooling step, stir occasionally to prevent any "skin" from forming on the top surface. 

Scalding the milk.
"Scalding" = heating to about 180 degrees Fahrenheit, or in other
words, just before boiling occurs.  This heating process kills bacteria and live
enzymes that may be present in the milk to extend shelf life and decrease
food borne illnesses.  It also denatures milk proteins to prevent
curdling from occurring during fermentation. 

Step 2: Stir in the yogurt to the cooled milk. Make sure to remove any clumps of yogurt so that the mixture is uniformly mixed together. This will allow for even fermentation to occur. 

The yogurt I used was by Kroger (it was on sale for 50 cents)!
Any yogurt will do as long as it still contains "live and active cultures."
Usually the rule of thumb is about 1/4 cup yogurt for every quart of milk.
Adding a little extra yogurt won't hurt though. 

Step 3: Pour the yogurt (if you haven't already) into a non-metallic bowl and cover with a tea towel. Place the bowl in a "warm" place to help encourage fermentation. I prefer to place my bowl on top of my refrigerator.  Let your milk sit for 12 hours. Sometimes I let it sit for about 24 hours if I'm making a larger batch (as I have in these photos).  This may feel odd to let dairy be unrefrigerated for that long, but a warm temperature is required for the live bacteria from the added yogurt to ferment the fresh lactose sugars in the scalded milk. 

My bowl of milk-yogurt mixture on top of my refrigerator.
The bacteria is having a party: getting drunk on lactose sugar and producing
acid as a by-product that allows the milk casein proteins (containing calcium)
to aggregate to form "yogurt", while as the same time squeezing out
whey proteins (that watery liquid) to the top.  

Step 4: Pour off the water liquid containing the pushed-out whey proteins and viola!  You have a beautiful bowl of fresh yogurt. If you desire really thick yogurt ("Greek style"), strain it through a cheese cloth to remove more of the watery whey liquid. Sometimes I take a generous scoop out of the center of my bowl of yogurt and then I let it sit for a few days in my refrigerator to continue to thicken. If you do this, just drain the whey that collects in the scooped-out center hole daily until it reaches the consistency you desire. Did I mention that you can drink the whey? I love this tangy liquid!

Note: Reserve a small batch (1/4 to 1 cup) or your new yogurt to be used as culture starter for the next batch of yogurt that you make!

My homemade yogurt ready for eating.
Putting a spoon into this fresh, untouched yogurt reminds me of running out into a
yard covered in fresh-laden snow. Isn't there something compelling about being the
first person to introduce chaos into something so perfect? 

Step 5: Dress your yogurt in flavor or enjoy it by itself! Yogurt is so versatile by which it can be eaten plain, introduced into smoothies, drizzled with honey or topped with fruit, and even combined with fresh herbs like dill or mint and parsley for savory dip, Mediterranean style. 

A smart-start breakfast yogurt combo that I love:
Homemade yogurt, honey, sliced ripe peaches, toasted
almonds and a hearty dash of cinnamon.
Your gut and your taste buds will rejoice!

Italy Part 11

Getting Squirmy with Squid!


Curiously, I peeled back the lid of the soggy, aqua blue cardboard box to take my first peak at the sea creatures that I was going to be preparing for the following day's dinner. It had been a hot afternoon and with a short walk home from my neighborhood grocery store, the frozen mass of squids had begun to thaw, making my fabric grocery bag smell like spoiled fish parts. Can't they at least package them in a plastic liner?! I decided to dump the solid block into a large pyrex dish and left them out to thaw completely while I prepared their marinade and other parts of the meal.

I was making Grilled squid with salsa verde (p. 123), to be served along with Bean and rosemary dip (p. 88) to accompany some left over Focaccia bread, salad, and some Macerated oranges (p. 143) with Almond semifreddo (p. 142) for dessert.  It was a Thursday. Spending the day in the kitchen with NPR radio is my usual desire during these long days while Joe is admitting, or in other words, working a 16-hr shift at the hospital. I wanted to make something special for us to look forward to for Friday in celebration of his last day as an internal medicine intern (until September...)!  As the squids slowly shed their ice blanket, I was mixing their lemony marinade, pureeing the salsa verde, whipping cream and egg whites for the semifreddo, and slicing orange wedges.

Three pounds of frozen squid. 

Three pounds of thawed squid.

Once all of these additional recipes were prepared and properly stored in the freezer/fridge, the remains of my simple dinner finished, and all of the dishes cleaned, I once again stood over the dish teaming with squids. Other than eating fried calamari, which is so chopped and breaded that it doesn't resemble its original form in the least, I could only recollect handling squid in my college biology dissection lab. Standing over these cephalopod mollusks, now soft and slimy, I admired their odd physiology. Their ten extremities (eight arms and two tentacles) strayed carelessly from the base of their heads, entangling other squid's arms. Their heads were attached to inner organs hidden within a long, smooth hood.  I reached down with both my hands and dug my fingers into them, feeling their freckled skin and admiring their tiny jaws located in the middle of the base of their legs. It wasn't until I picked a single specimen up to study in greater detail that I noticed the relatively large, doll-like eye balls that were implanted within the head region. My stomach churned. Their sour stench suddenly bloomed in my nostrils, and all I could focus on where 20 pairs of dull pupils staring up at me. I'm going to need my apron... and a fan in this kitchen. 

I was beginning to question why I hadn't purchased the neighboring box of squids on the
frozen grocery store shelf labeled, "cleaned, cut, and ready for cooking!"
After personally experiencing these cleaning and cutting processes,  "fingernail scrubber"
and "sugar scrub" was scribbled down, and underlined, next to the ingredients list of
this recipe as a reminder of the contagious stink that squids posses. 

I'll save you the gory details from converting those limp, slimy squids into the familiar smooth muscle rings that are pictured below, but it did require a full kitchen wipe down and hot shower afterwards. In the middle of separating heads from hoods, I was thinking about how glad I was that my dinner partner was out of the house for fear of appetite hinderance!  As for myself, after the initial moment of disgust, I was actually quite pleased with the knowledge gained from the experience. It almost felt like a science experiment, minus sterile gloves and lingering goggle lines. Once the squids were prepared, I put them in a clean pyrex dish and left them to refrigerate in a minced garlic, oregano, lemon juice and olive oil marinade until the following evening.

With all of the preparation that was completed Thursday night, Friday's dinner was a breeze! The grilling steps were quite simple. Again, having no "real" grill, I heated my cast iron panini grill on the stove. After draining the marinade from the squid pieces, they were placed in batches onto the hot grill to cook for about 5-7 minutes, turning over a few times. 

I was amazing at how quickly the squid shrunk with heat! 

Once all of the squid pieces had been grilled, they were placed onto a serving dish and lightly seasoned with salt and fresh cracked pepper while hot. The Salsa verde, composed of blended mint, parsley, basil, capers, anchovies, garlic, vinegar, and olive oil, was generously poured over them and tossed to coat. The final presentation required fresh lemon slices. My husband was quite curious about this recipe, trying to remember if he had ever tasted calamari before. He has whole-heartedly embraced the tasting adventures that accompany this trip through Italian cuisine (we keep frozen pizzas in the freezer "just in case").  

I challenge you to get squirmy with some squid this summer (or get the pre-prepared stuff)!
This dish resonated with flavors and a lemon-garlic fragrance that brought the
Mediterranean Sea right to the dinner table.
 It also gives quite a topic for dinner conversation :)

For laughs, 

Naxos, Greece 2008.

Me and a handsome octopus hanging outside the door of a local seafood restaurant. Later that night, one of my fellow travelers ordered calamari for dinner.  When her order arrived, a giant squid body (about as big as the eight-legged cousin I'm admiring above), was plopped down in front of her.  It was battered and fried but looked as if the cooks just threw a whole squid into the hot oil (no tiny rings that we Americans are so familiar with). The poor girl was so shocked by the site that he burst into tears and excused herself from the table for the remainder of the meal.