Posts Tagged ‘Italian’

Parmigiana di Melanzane

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

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Here’s another meat free offering for your bad selves. Don’t worry, I’m not going veggie, but this baked aubergine classic is a winner, and might even make it into my top 5 Italian dishes. Failing that comfortably top 10.

The mozzarella and the aubergine give great texture to the dish, and I like to griddle my aubergine before layering to add a bit of a smokey flavour.

Lets do this.

Ingredients (serves 2)

2 tins of chopped tomatoes

1 onion, finely chopped

2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1/2 glass of white wine

1 tablespoon tomato puree

Small bunch of fresh basil

1 large aubergine, or 2 small

180g mozzarella

Salt & pepper

Parmesan

Olive oil

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Veal Escalope Milanese with Courgette & Potato Cake

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

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Veal had a bit of a bad rep in the 80s, but that didn’t stop the veal escalope becoming one of my favourite things to eat when I was growing up. There used to be this great Italian restaurant called La Baita up the road from my folk’s place in North London that we’d to go to on a pretty regular basis. I pretty much always ordered the veal escalope, which was served with sauteed potatoes and deep fried courgette. Not exactly healthy, but very tasty.

This is a bit of a remix of that childhood favourite. The prep is a bit fiddly, but well worth it.

Ingredients

For the Veal

2 veal escalopes

Seasoned plain flour

Thyme, finely chopped

Breadcrumbs (enough to coat both escalopes – 250 ish g)

1 egg, beaten

For the Courgette & Potato Cake

1 large potato, grated

3 courgettes, grated

1 medium onion, finely sliced

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Spaghetti & Meatballs

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

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I seem to be on bit of a Italian tip at the moment, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

This recipe is kind of inspired by that bit in Goodfellas where the coked up Henry Hill is running all over town convinced he’s being trailed by a helicopter, whilst also preparing a homecoming feast for his sick brother. He’s there making the meatballs (or polpette), a vat of tomato sauce, aubergines and so on, and despite his paranoid state, all the food looks really tasty. I think Henry’s polpette were made with beef;  these are a mix of veal and pork mince, but whaddaya gonna do?

Ingredients (Serves 4)

For the meatballs

400g veal mince

400g pork mince

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