Made in Italy

by Locatelli, Giorgio

• ISBN13: 9780061351495
• ISBN10: 0061351490
• Format: Hardcover
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

In this exquisitely designed, contemporary Italian food bible, Britains favorite Italian chef combines recipes and family stories with highlights of dishes from his celebrated restaurant, Locanda Locatelli. Full color throughout.

Excerpts

Made in Italy
Food and Stories

Potato gnocchi with black pepper and goat cheese sauce
(Gnocchi di patate al pepe nero e salsa al caprino)

Ingredients:

½ recipe quantity of potato gnocchi dough
About 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper, plus extra to taste
3 tablespoons milk
About 5 2/3 ounces soft goat cheese, broken into pieces
Small bunch of chives, half of them chopped and the rest cut into matchsticks
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan (optional)

Instructions:

When shaping your gnocchi, mix 2 teaspoons of freshly ground pepper into the flour. Warm the milk in a saute pan, add the goat cheese and let it melt gently to form a thick sauce. Grind in black pepper to taste.

Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil, put in the gnocchi and keep stirring until they rise to the surface (a minute or so), then lift them out carefully with a slotted spoon or a skimmer and put them into the sauce.

Sprinkle in the chopped chives and toss the gnocchi around very carefully, just to coat them in the sauce. Add the Parmesan and a little of the cooking water, if you think the sauce needs loosening, but don't leave the gnocchi in the sauce any longer than about a minute, or they will start to break up.

Serve garnished with the matchsticks of chives.

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Sweet pastry (pasta frolla)

Ingredients:

Makes enough for two 11-inch tarts or eight 4-inch tarts
1 cup butter
1 cup confectioner's sugar
2 eggs
3 cups plus 2 tablespoons flour

Instructions:

This is a very good, very easy pastry that isn't difficult to work with and won't break if you roll it. We use it to line a nonstick tart pan and bake it "blind", i.e., empty, so that it can cook a little and crisp up before you add a wet topping of fruit, frangipane, etc. We use ovenproof plastic wrap, filled with rice, dried peas or beans to weigh it down, rather than baking paper, as it is tricky to keep this touching the pastry everywhere and keep it completely flat, whereas plastic wrap immediately sticks to it. Six minutes at 340 degrees F is enough to start setting the pastry, then you can take out the plastic wrap and return the tart case to the oven for about 15 minutes, until just golden. Make sure you preheat your oven for a good half hour before you start.

With the paddle attachment on the mixer, blend the butter until soft. Add the sugar and continue to mix until the mixture turns pale. Add the eggs one by one, and when they are incorporated, add the flour. Continue to mix until all the flour is incorporated. Divide into 2 balls.

Made in Italy
Food and Stories. Copyright © by Giorgio Locatelli. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from Made in Italy: Food and Stories by Giorgio Locatelli, Sheila Keating
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.