Bresaola con rucola

Bresaola con rucola

Bresaola con rucola or Bresaola with arugula is an Italian dish even I have learned to make.

I made it for the first time right after my friend with a broken foot got her foot surgery.... with her dictating each every step to take on preparing this dish.

1. Put Bresaola on the plate
2. Pour a whole lot of olive oil over the Bresaola
3. Put Arugula on top of the Bresaola
4. Pour much more olive oil onto the salad and some freshly squeezed lemon juice
5. Spray Parmesan cheeses on top
6. Pour even more olive oil or lemon juice if you wish
7. You can also add some pepper to it...

Che palle-- di spinaci

My mom and I had some palle di spinaci at my friend with a broken foot's the other day.  She had made them palle di spinaci herself and explained to me how it was made..

First of all, you cook spinach, drain it and mix it with ricotta cheese.  You might also need to add a bit of flour because it would make it stickier and easier to shape the ingredients into balls.  If you can't eat it all fresh, you can store them in the freezer.

To serve these balls, you have to first bring the water to a boil before putting these balls in, when them palle float to the surface, they shall be done.

Apparently, if these balls are wrapped inside of pastry, it would turn into Ravioli. (See... we learn something everyday...)

For the sauce, she added some herb into butter or the I can't believe it is not butter.

When serving the dish, you simply pour the sauce on top of palle di spinici and some parmesan cheese as well.

As usual, my mom was very impressed by the Italian immersion experiences!

Capers

My friend with a broken foot made us some Vitello Tonnato when I took my mom to visit her again...

This time, she decorated the dish with some gigantic Italian capers... if I recall correctly, she might have brought it all the way back from Italy herself.

Apparently, with these capers, you have to soak it in water for something like over night or a day.  Otherwise, it might be too salty.

As you can see, the capers are almost as big as the cornichon. When I first saw these big-behind capers, I though they were figs... lol

Acqua di Parma Blu Mediterraneo Foglie di Basilico polvere di sapone

Back to my friend with a broken foot's place and I decided to try out again.... the Blue Mediterraneo Basil soap power by Acqua di Parma.

I googled all around and the only place I found that sells the Acqua di Parma Blu Mediterraneo Foglie di Basilico polvere di sapone is an online store in Italy.

I used it once before and sort of like it...

So I added some of the soap powder to my Epsom salt bath today, the way it smells... it makes yours grumpy old hen feel like a happy baby after a nice hot bath!

Vitello Tonnato

Tried quite a few new Italian dishes nowadays cooked by my friend with a broken foot...

Vitello Tonnato is one of the specialty dish she cooked for my mom and I.

Essentially, Vitello Tonnato is veal with tuna sauce.

To prepare this dish, my friend cooked the veal she got from Freshdirect and cooked it with all different kinds of vegetables and herbs for over an hour or so at low heat.

The funnest story about the veal she got was that it was already sliced into pieces-- wrapped in paper to keep them seperate.  It was not until when all was ready did she realize that... oops... the meat was still frozen, which makes it difficult to take the paper out.  So, we simply cooking all things together... with the wrapping paper.  8-O lol

Regarding the sauce, I think she mixed two cans of tuna, mayo and capers together to make the sauce.

My mom cut the baby carrots and cornichon pickles (Italian baby pickles) in half to serve as decoration.

 What you see in the left is a picture of of the completed dish... veal covered with tuna sauce decorated with carrots, pickles, and capers.

Looking good and tasting nice!

Both my mom and I think that my friend with a broken leg should go with us to open an Italian restaurant in Taipei.  lol

Caffé d'orzo

Back to keep my friend with a broken foot company and she made some Orzo Orzo for me.. as opposed to Orzo and Coffee.

This is the first time I try it out...

What does it taste like?

I think that Orzo along tastes and smells very much like barley tea... or... 麥茶...

So, how does caffè d'orzo differ from barley tea if both can involve the consumption of roasted barley?

So I found a writing about Barley beverages on Italian Wiki- correct me if I am wrong but... it seems like that the differences might reside in people's attempt to either make the drink more coffee-like or tea-like...

Maybe you only need to roast barley for a shorter time if what you want is roasted barley tea? (Feel free to correct me since it is only a guess)

BTW, check out the following link in case you would like to make your own Caffé d'orzo...

Orzo

My friend with a broken foot came from Italy originally and drinks Orzo all the times.

Caffé d'orzo... qu'est-ce que c'est?

Orzo, itself, is a kind of roasted grain beverage made from barley-- thus, caffeine-free.

The kind my friend drinks all the time, though, is Orzo & Caffè, which is equivalent to decaffeinated coffee... I guess...

So I was told by my friend with a broken foot... during the war, there was a shortage of coffee and many more people drank Orzo instead in Italy... such as my friend's parents.  Interestingly, it never became big outside of Italy, if not Europe.

Unfortunately, despite of my diligent efforts, I have some problems finding any info over the Internet to either support or refute the validity of the above statement.  Please feel free to correct me.

The two pictures show you what my friend's instant Orzo & Caffè by Ristora looks like... though the looks might be different, the ingredients are the same... barley 46%, rye, chicory, malt, instant coffee 35 % and low fat cocoa.