Italy: Gastronomic Weekend in Arroio Teixeira (1st Part)

Last weekend I went to Arroio Teixeira – the beach I've been spending my summers since I was little. It is a really small beach, and, because of that, there is almost no people there and nothing to do in the winter. That means, in order not to be really bored I had to cook, what a shame… hehehe My beach house is really modest, but it is a comfortable and pleasant place both in the winter and in the summer. The kitchen is not that nice, but it is good enough to prepare everything I want to…

Last year I bought a collection of gastronomy books, a weekly one which you can buy at a newsstand. The collection's name is "Cozinha do Mundo" (World Cuisine), and each week there were recipes from a different country.

I’ve already done some recipes from this collection, but now I’ve decided to do it in a more organized way. Each week I’ll choose one or more recipes from one of the books. As I don’t feel like choosing which country goes first, I'll follow the order in which they were released.

So, our first trip is to Italy. I'm friends with a girl who has a blog and inspired me to create mine, Carla (blog: Cucina Artusiana), she is specialist in Italian cuisine, so, if you want an expert, give a look at her blog. I’ll just do some recipes from the book, but I’m not a specialist… hehe

Every time I think about Italian food pasta and pizza come to my mind, that’s not the only kind of food they have there, but it is the one most of people associates with Italians:  Una buona pasta. It is said that the pasta was originated there, between the 10th  and  11st centuries, in a locality with Islamic occupation close to Palermo. Pasta consumption spread through Italy over the centuries, but its production center was close to Naples. (source: Cozinha do Mundo) Today we can find pasta everywhere in the world and it is in the gastronomy of many countries, probably because pasta is something easy to prepare (at least the ones we buy on the supermarket).

That’s why I’ve decided to prepare some pasta, some that is not that easy: ravioli. The result was not perfect, and the picture from the book was not similar to mine, but it was tasty.

Menu:

First dish – Onion Soup

Main dish – Napolitano Ravioli 

Dessert – chocolate Easter egg ;)

Recipes:

Onion Soup

160 g onion

50g butter (I used margarine because I didn’t have butter)

20g plain flour

1 liter vegetables broth

1 leaf basil to decorate

Slice onion and sauté it in the butter (there is no mention about that in the recipe, but you have to melt the butter before putting the onions) in a large saucepan, until well browned. Add the plain flour and mix it. Add the vegetable’s broth (I dissolved the vegetable broth, one of those broth cubes, in warm water.) Serve immediately; use the basil leaf to decorate.

Ravioli

Filling:

2 tablespoon oil

20g onion thinly minced (I think that is about ¼ of a medium onion)

1 clove garlic, minced

220 g ground beef

Salt;

½ tablespoon plain flour

Fresh herbs, minced

Dough:

320g plain flour

3 eggs (I ended up using 4)

1g salt (guys what is 1 g? I ended up using one teaspoon)

Sauce

(my own recipe, on the book it was said to use any tomato sauce)

1 onion, minced

2 clove garlic, minced

2 tomatoes, minced;

1 cube vegetable’s broth

1 tablespoon plain flour;

I put the picture for you to take a look at the sizes.

Make the dough: sift the flour on a flat surface. Form a well in the flour and break eggs into it. Add salt. Mix the combination with your hands, adding the flour from outside to inside, until it becomes a smooth dough. (I was not able to get a dough, it was too dry, so, I put one more egg and it worked. The dough is really hard.) Knead for a few minutes; wrap it in a damp cloth and let sit for about an hour.

Prepare the beef filling: In a saucepan over heat, cook onion and garlic in oil until browned. Add ground beef, mixing it.  Season it with salt and sprinkle plain flour, to get creamy. Cook it for five more minutes, add fresh herbs. Set aside.

Prepare the sauce: in a saucepan over heat sauté onion in oil, when it is almost browned, put garlic. Let them brown. Next, add tomatoes and vegetables’ broth cube. Let it cook in low heat for 15 minutes. Add plain flour and mix it. Add ½ cup of water and let it cook for a while. Set aside.

Prepare the raviolis: roll out the dough in two squares about 3mm thick (I did it and it was too thick. The day after I gave it another try, I rolled out the dough till about a sheet of paper thick and it was better). Place the filling in one of the "sheets" and cover it with the other one. Press the edges to glue, and with a square cutter (I used a knife), cut raviolis around the filling. 

Cook raviolis in salted boiling water removing them (there was no mention o cooking time on the book) after the raviolis float. It took about ten more minutes, but it is better to try one and see if it is cooked.) Drizzle with melted butter, put the sauce over it and sprinkle some grated cheese. Serve immediately.