Another recipe from the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Chef Series.

Today, Barilla USA Executive Chef Lorenzo Boni who shares another recipe he performed at the Chicago Chef Show: Rotini Pasta with Braised Fennel, Carrots and Spring Onions. Ready? Let’s go to the kitchen!

ROTINI WITH BRAISED FENNEL, CARROTS AND SPRING ONIONS

(Rotini integrali con finocchio e cipolline fresche)
A recipe by Chef Lorenzo Boni
(serves 4)

Preparation Time: 5 min
Cooking Time: 25 min
Season: Spring/ Summer

INGREDIENTS

- 4 tablespoons, Academia Barilla Toscano extra virgin olive oil
- 2 Cloves, Garlic
- 2 Fennel bulbs with tops
- 1 medium carrot
- salt, black pepper, to taste
- 1 bunch, spring onions
- 1/2 cup, Academia Barilla Parmigiano Reggiano, grated
- 1 tablespoon, Fennel frawns, chopped

PREPARATION

In a medium pan, sauté the minced garlic in the olive oil until it turns slightly yellow, about 3 minutes. Meanwhile, slice the fennel bulbs in half, then into thin slices.

Add the sliced fennel to the skillet, along with the carrot, sliced into roundels, about 1/8 inch thick. Braise the ingredients for about ten minutes over medium high heat, covered.

Season with salt and black pepper; cover with a lid and cook through stirring occasionally.

Slice the onions into 1/2 inch strips and stir them into the mixture and cook an additional three minutes.

Meanwhile cook the pasta according to the instructions on the package. Drain and toss with the sauce. Stir in the Parmigiano Reggiano and the fennel frawns before serving.

Thank you for sharing with us the recipe, Lorenzo. See you soon again on Italian Food Lovers!

Be ready, as we have a hot series of recipes from the Chicago Botanic Garden Chef Show to share with you this week.

Let’s welcome Chef Mark Grimes, Executive Chef at Pinstripes, an intriguing venue located in Northbrook, IL. Basically Pinstripes is an indoor bocce ball destination with bowling lanes and a top gourmet restaurant. Check out their website at www.pinstripes.com and also this restaurant review we found online.

Chef Mark Grimes is a celebrity Chef, with 25 years of culinary pedigree and Corporate Chef positions at RDGChicago/Restaurants America, Fox Sports Grill, ESPN Zone/Disney, and previous experience at The Windsor Court Hotel and The American Club resorts, among others. Here below Chef Grimes is pictured during his Barilla Italian Cooking Weekend cooking demo.

Today we will share with you a gourmet recipe by Chef Mark Grimes, Lobster Bread Salad, a dish he prepared at the Botanic Garden Chef show (sorry we don’t have a good picture of the final dish, but we got you a nice picture of lobsters!).

LOBSTER BREAD SALAD
A recipe by Chef Mark Grimes
(serves 4)

INGREDIENTS FOR WHITE BALSAMIC DRESSING

- 1 oz shallots, chopped
- 1 cup white balsamic vinegar
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
- 3 cups Academia Barilla Riviera Ligure extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard
- Salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste

BALSAMIC DRESSING PREPARATION

Mix with hand blender the vinegar, mustard, shallots and honey, add an ice cube and slowly drizzle olive oil in to create an emulsion. Season with salt and pepper.

INGREDIENTS FOR BREAD SALAD MIXTURE

- 1 loaf of your favorite bread (brioche, sesame semolina), cut into 1 inch cubes
- 4 cups heirloom tomatoes, chopped
- 2 cups fresh corn
- 1 cup of homemade pickles, chopped
- 1 pound of cooked lobster or shrimp, chopped
- 2 cups of white balsamic dressing
- 1 oz roasted garlic, chopped
- 2 oz caper berries, chopped
- Academia Barilla Riviera Ligure extra virgin olive oil, to taste
- Academia Barilla Balsamic Must, to taste
- Salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste

BREAD SALAD MIXTURE PREPARATION 

Mix all ingredients well and serve immediately as a salad or place on plastic wrap and mold into a roulade and let it sit 24 hours for Hor D’Oeuvres and then slice into rounds.

FINAL PREPARATION: ASSEMBLE

Take bread salad rounds and place on small plate or platter and garnish with crispy Academia Barilla Riviera Ligure extra virgin olive, Academia Barilla Balsamic Must and micro arugula.

Thank you Chef Mark Grimes and Pinstripes for sharing with us this recipe - you Italian foodies stay tuned, more gourmet recipes to come in the next days!

There is no better symbol for summer than a watermelon, at least in Italy where its sweet and juicy pulp refreshes million of Italians (plus all the tourists) every summer - in July and August you can even buy watermelon by the slice in many public squares and beaches across Italy!

The Italian name for watermelon is anguria, but in Central Italy it is also called cocomero while in the South people calls it melone. No matter the name, everybody loves the juicy watermelon in summertime!

This is why we picked up a very summer-ish recipe for this Ferragosto (the Italian public mid-summer holiday on August 15) which is fresh, easy to prepare, and mostly made out of watermelon.

We browsed the Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library and found a cookbook by Italian celebrity Chef Gianfranco Vissani, “Il Vissani - 400 recipes in 100 menus proposed by Gianfranco Vissani” (2002, RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana Editions).

Our Ferragosto recipe of choice here at Italian Food Lovers definitely is Watermelon Chill with Sugar Grate, a recipe proposed by Chef Vissani and based on the very popular Sicilian summer dessert Gelo di Mellone. Ready? Let’s go to the kitchen!

WATERMELON CHILL WITH SUGAR GRATE

A recipe by Chef Gianfranco Vissani
(serves 4)

Preparation: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes

INGREDIENTS

- 21 oz Watermelon
- 5.3 oz Icing sugar
- 2.8 oz Dark chocolate grains
- 3.5 oz Sugar
- 1 fl oz Water

PREPARATION

Using a food processor, blend the watermelon into a fine pulp. Then, slowly mix in the icing sugar.

Distribute the watermelon mix into cups, decorate with the dark chocolate grains and let it store in the fridge until it has reached the right consistence (approximately one hour).

When the watermelon mix is ready, decorate with an abundant amount of icing sugar on top.

To prepare the sugar grinds cook the sugar with water until it reaches a temperature of 200°F. Continue cooking until it has caramelized.

Place the pot into a container filled with cool water in order to stop the cooking process. Then spread the caramel onto parchment paper.

Using a fork, shape some crossed stripes obtaining a grind made of sugar. Put the sugar grind on top of the watermelon chill and serve.

Happy and fresh Ferragosto to all Italian food lovers from our blog team and from the Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library!

Here we are finally with Barilla USA Executive Chef Lorenzo Boni, who we have called in at Italian Food Lovers by mistake a couple of days ago - sorry Lorenzo!

Chef Lorenzo Boni and his team have been the spine of the Barilla Italian Cooking Weekend at the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Garden Chef Series. Pictured here below, you can see Lorenzo in action during the cooking demo, surrounded by an attentive crowd and… the full range of Academia Barilla gourmet products, which are all available online at the Academia Barilla online store.

As “resident Chef” for Barilla USA Lorenzo proposed several recipes to the participants to the event, and we are glad to be able to share with you the first one today, an easy-to-prepare pasta salad: Farfalle Piccolini Pasta Salad.

FARFALLE PICCOLINI PASTA SALAD
A recipe by Chef Lorenzo Boni
(serves 4)

INGREDIENTS

- Barilla Farfalle Piccolini pasta, 1 package
- Academia Barilla Monti Iblei extra virgin olive oil, 4 tablespoons
- 1 ripe avocado
- Cherry tomatoes, 2 pints
- Red onion, julienne, 1 cup
- Pine nuts, 1 tablespoon
- Academia Barilla Pecorino Sardo Gran Cru, grated, 1 cup
- Basil, 5 leaves
- Lemon juice from 1 lemon
- Salt, black pepper, to taste

PREPARATION

Cook pasta according to directions, drain one minute prior to the lowest cooking time; drizzle with a little oil in order to prevent the pasta from sticking together and allow it to cool down flat on a sheet tray.

Meanwhile, sauté the onion with 1 tablespoon of oil. Set aside.

Slice the tomatoes in half, season with salt and let drain in a colander.

Sauté the pine nuts over medium heat till lightly brown.

Dice the avocado. Combine all the ingredients with pasta, season with salt and pepper.

Allow the salad to rest for half hour at room temperature before serving.

Thank you Lorenzo for sharing with us your pasta salad recipe - we’ll publish more recipe of yours soon again!

More recipes from our Italian Food Lovers Chef Network. After yesterday’s wrongly attributed recipe, here is a new recipe from Chef Doug D’Avico of Trattoria N. 10 in Chicago.

Chef D’Avico today shares with us another recipe from the Chicago Botanic Garden show: Grilled Baby Octopus with Watercress Salad and Oranges. But since Chef D’Avico is also a Guest Chef participating to the Italian Food Lovers Chef Network, this time we file this post under the Chef Network category.

GRILLED BABY OCTOPUS WITH WATERCRESS SALAD AND ORANGES
A recipe by Chef Doug D’Avico
(serves 8)

INGREDIENTS

- 2 lb Tenderized baby octopus
- 4 limes, juiced
- 1 cup Academia Barilla Monti Iblei Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1/8 tablespoon Crushed Red Chili Flake
- 2 tablespoon Italian Flat Leaf Parsley, chopped
- 1 tablespoon Rosemary, no stem, chopped
- Fresh Ground Black Pepper, to taste
- 1 Bunch Hydro or Organic Watercress, Trimmed
- 1/2 Head washed Radicchio leaves
- 2 Oranges, segmented and juices saved
- 1/4 cup Toasted pine nuts
- Academia Barilla Sea Salt flavored with Blood Orange, to taste

PREPARATION

Remove the head and beak from the octopus and put into a metal bowl.

To make the dressing, take the juice from the limes, olive oil, chili flake and chopped parsley and rosemary, combine and season to taste. 

Pour one third over the octopus and cover. Refrigerate for a couple of hours. Before grilling, drain any liquid off the octopus so you don’t cause a flare up on the grill.

You can season the octopus before you grill it. Grill the octopus over a medium high heat and weight it down a little bit so it gets a little bit of char.

To serve, arrange the watercress and radicchio in the center of a serving platter. Cut the octopus up in small pieces and pile in the center of the greens. Garnish the plate with the pine nuts and orange segments. Drizzle the salad

With the rest of the dressing, add a little bit of the Monti Iblei olive oil and fresh ground pepper, and a pinch of Academia Barilla Sea Salt flavored with Blood Orange. Serve.

Thank you Chef D’Avico for this new recipe and sorry again for yesterday gaffe!

We look forward to having you again as guest at our Italian Food Lovers Chef Network!