Monthly Archives: December 2023

Eaten out

“Butterfly”, with some new friends.

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A couple of weeks ago we made new friends. Lara and Sergio, parents of Izzie’s friend from school, Ilan, entered our orbit right before the school’s Christmas spectacle. After 5 minutes we have agreed to have pizza after the performance and chat some more. Lara, Sergio and Ilan, true Italians love their food and talk about it eagerly. Ilan is the only 9 year old I knew of, who orders a rare pidgeon in the restaurant and deals with it within minutes. I also loved when he referred to American food as “spazzatura”. 🙂

Last night, as per Sergio’s suggestion, we went to “Butterfly”, a posh little place outside of Lucca, boasting a star. We’ve never been there before, but happily obliged.

This was by far the poshest place we have dined in in Italy so far. The service was excellent. There were lots of small plates between courses, all beautifully presented and explained. Water was constantly topped up, as was wine. I must read up on Sauvignon; the chap brought us a bottle of local Sauvignon from 2013, which surprised me; I remember from wine training in Dinings, that Sauvignon Blanc should not be served older that 2 years old, is Sauvignon different? Homework to be done!

My favourite thing in Butterfly was bread. A good selection of it, different flavours and textures, aniseed grissini, but the sourdough rolls they brought were phenomenal. Wonderfully crusty and moreish. I wish I could eat more of that bread…

We had lots of seafood, I loved my prawns, cooked so delicately I couldn’t get enough. Lobster, which followed didn’t wow me, it was barely cooked. Florek had some wagyu, which I tried too. Very good, but light years away from anything Masaki cooks in Dinings.

The dessert, pannacotta, looked spectacular, but tasted disappointing and was barely set, very unconvincing.

Izzie and Ilan had a great time, playing Kluster on the table and making a bit too much noise for that kind of place, but nobody kicked us out onto the rain.

Lovely evening in a lovely company, in terms of food however that meal we had in Dinings in April 2022 remains on top spot for us and its top position is not in any danger.

Sergio was being naughty and annoyingly grabbed the entire bill on his way “to the bathroom”, so next time we will pick the place and make sure he leaves his wallet at home.

A handsome end to a delicious year.

Good Food

Natale 2023.

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That was our first Christmas in the new house.

We invited Alice and Ken, who brought Caroline along and thank God for that, is all I will say! 🙂

Food wise it was a bit challenging- lots of cooking for 6 people most days, no Mariusz, no Bozenka, no sous chefs, solo io. One fussy vegetarian.

I decided not to make tons of food, like my mum always has for Christmas, I did a few classics, but opted out of trying too hard. Vino sfuso was drunk, also one good bottle of Chianti we have brought from Greve. I would have loved some sledzik, I missed my mum’s cooking, next year we will try hard and get them over here.

For Christmas Eve I’ve served some excellent barszcz (Caz loved it) with paszteciki, recipe of Robert Maklowicz. I felt zero urge to slave and make uszka, not for this crowd. Paszteciki were excellent and I’m keeping the recipe; 200 g of plain flour, 120 g of soft butter, a tbsp of sour cream, quite a serious sprinkling of salt and 2 egg yolks. All this kitchen aided and chilled in the fridge for an hour. The filling for them were porcini and cup mushrooms. Important to seal the edges with some egg white before sticking together. Baked for 20-25 mins in 180 degrees. Lovely and crumbly.

I also made “ryba po grecku”, which was enjoyed by every fish eater at the table. Some golabki with rice and mushroom filling, clementine cake with creme fraiche to finish.

Christmas Day was again all mine to prepare, the main event were turkey wraps with mushroom filling served in a creamy, luscious marsala sauce, roasted veggies, baked red cabbage, pigs in blankets. Orange creme brulee and cantucci for dessert. Grappa bottle was unexpectedly finished.

On Boxing Day we went to Trattoria Nonna Clara, lots of lasagne was eaten, I however had some wonderful chestnut pasta with duck ragu, oh yeah! A real treat!

Izzie and Caz became best of friends this Christmas, here seen enjoying some focaccia in Lucca.

Also worth mentioning are those fabulous oranges we get in Esselunga, the juice from them is pure perfection. Gino enjoyed the box. 🙂

12 months to go, but I think we will aim for The Stronie Team to be here next winter.

Baking

Riciarelli.

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Recipe from moje wypieki.com, found while looking for something sweet to take to LauDe tomorrow. Something, that would look good next to the lovely bottle of Amarone that is waiting to go too.

They need to be started the day before, the almond dough rests in the fridge overnight for the flavour to develop.

2 egg whites get whipped stiff with a pinch of salt. To this I added 1 tsp of lemon juice, 1 tbsp of freshly grated orange rind and some of my candied orange too( not in the recipe). Some vanilla paste, 160 g of icing sugar – 200 g in the original recipe- and 200 g of ground almonds. I skipped almond extract, yuk! All this nicely combined waited until today.

More icing sugar was needed to roll out, generously dust and roll them out, like gnocchi,shaped roughly like diamonds, then placed on the baking paper and into the oven at 150 degrees. After 6 mins the temperature goes up to 170, then after 6 minutes again down to 150. Mine baked for 20 minutes in total, developed a nice skin, cracked nicely and did not brown up at all.

I like them, in spite of the huge amount of sugar, but I’d probably crank up orange flavour, maybe with Grand Marnier if I had it? Now must put some away for LauDe, before Florek sees them. 🙂

Good Food

Pierogi for beginners.

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Last Saturday The Boaratis came over for a pre- Christmas get-together, as they will be flying off to America for Christmas. They are mostly non meat eaters, so I thought I’d make some pierogi. I have no more twarog though, used up all my stash from the freezer, so I had to get creative. I substituted it with feta and made a batch of “Greco- Ruskie”, not too bad, but twarog really is the best option. I had some festive Ula Pedantula on youtube, big glass of water and quite enjoyed making pierogi for Molly, Enrico and the kiddos.

The other batch I filled with a combo of dried porcini mushrooms and some cup mushrooms too, these were my favourite and I’ll be making more for Christmas eve.

What made my evening were the kids, Nina, Elio and Izzie, happily stuffing their faces with my effors, eating, and helping themselves to more. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Molly brought the dessert, a lovely, creamy, simple and very well made vanilla cheesecake, plus some very posh cherries in syrup to go with it. It was very much enjoyed.

A certain Gino took to Enrico and made himself very comfortable on his lap.

It was a lovely evening!

The remaining pierogi panfried the next day made us a lovely lunch. 🙂