We are back with Barilla US Chef Assistant Yury Krasilovski for another exclusive cooking demo for our Italian Food Lovers blog!

Chef Krasilovski today will prepare another recipe sent by Giada De Laurentiis, who is staring experimenting new recipes using her new Italian gourmet food product line, Giada De Laurentiis Selected by Academia Barilla.

Giada last week proposed an interesting dish, Giada’s Balsamic Chicken Drumettes, where she used her new Giada’s Balsamic Vinegar, while this week Giada sent us a new recipe where she uses her new Giada’s Tuscan herb Mix, alongside Academia Barilla’s Parmigiano Reggiano: Giada’s Parmesan Popovers.

Are you ready? Let’s go to the kitchen with Chef Iuri Krasilovski.

GIADA’S PARMESAN POPOVERS
A recipe by Giada De Laurentiis
(makes 6-8 servings)

INGREDIENTS

- 3 eggs
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon Giada’s Tuscan Herb Mix
- 4 tablespoons chopped parsley leaves
- 1 cup whole milk
- 3/4 cup grated Academia Barilla Parmesan (about 5 ounces)

PREPARATION 

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. In a blender, combine eggs, flour, salt, pepper, Giada’s Tuscan Herb Mix, milk, and cheese.  Blend on medium speed.  

Spray a mini-muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.  Pour the batter into the muffin cups, filling each cup 3/4 full.  Bake until puffed and golden brown, about 20 to 25 minutes. Remove popovers from muffin tin and cool on a wire rack.

Thank you Giada for this interesting recipe, and again thank you also to Chef Yury Krasilovski for his step-by-step guidance in showing us how to prepare the dish.

As you have seen from our latest post activity, we have been very busy both at Academia Barilla and at the Italian Food Lovers blog team. We didn’t forget about it, we are only late - so let us introduce you the ingredient of the month… for the month of June: strawberries!

Don’t worry, we won’t skip a month just because we are late, so expect another ingredient and recipe of the month post this month of July.

As usual, Chef Matteo Carboni from The Academia Barilla Culinary School offered to show how to make a gourmet dish, in this case a dessert, using a video recipe - we love this! So welcome today Matteo with a step-by-step preparation video on how to make a Strawberry Mousse with Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena.

As Matteo tell us in the video, the ingredients we will need are about 1 pound of fresh strawberries for 6 servings, plus fresh cream, mint, icing sugar, food gelatin and Traditional Balsamic Vinager of Modena (Matteo here uses Academia Barilla’s 25-years Balsamic, which you can find at the Academia Barilla online store.

After cleaning and cutting the strawberries, Chef Carboni put them in a blender, while preparing the gelatine using a bowl of warm water and food gelatin (1 pound of gelatin for 1.3 pounds of warm water approx).

While the gelatin soaks, Che Matteo heat on a stove a third of the strawberry puree, then simmers, adds the gelatine and waits to completely melt before adding the rest of the puree. 

While the strawberry mixture cools down, Chef Carboni whips the cream, then mix it with the pure and finally filles single serve molds with the final cream. Chef Carboni suggests to prepare the mousse in advance,as the molds need to refrigerate for at least one day.

Final presentation and tasty details: some slices of strawberries, mint leaves and the final Chef touch, a few drops of a Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena aged 25-years!

Buon Appetito from the Academia Barilla Culinary School and the Italian Food Lovers blogging team - Strawberry Mousse Forever!

New summer wine classes and updates from our friends at Learn About Wine, a good opportunity to discover wine culture or just enjoy a wine tasting event in the great Los Angeles Area and in Southern California.

After the successful TASTE Italy event at the D+D Museum at LACMA in LA few weeks ago, today July 11 Learn About Wine propose the second TASTE evening: TASTE Paso Robles & BBQ at A+D Museum with LACMA, time 7-9:30PM, entrance $55. More info here.

Academia Barilla Italian Culinary Specialist Francesco Zimone, who is often present for food demos at the events organized by Learn About Wine, sent us a full summer schedule of Wine Tasting Classes and events in LA and Southern California organized by Learn About Wine, so make sure to mark a few of these dates down:

7/13 Sunday School: Palate Builder, 3-5:15PM, $75. More info here.

7/19 Vintage Burgundy in Orange County, 2-4:00PM, $125. More info here.

7/20 Sunday School: Vintage Burgundy, 3-5:15PM, $125. More info here.

7/26 “STARS of France” at Two Rodeo, 7-10:00PM, $140. More info here.

7/27 Wine Business 101 - “I Want to Work in the Wine Business!”, 3-5:15PM, $129. More info here.

8/1 TASTE Sonoma at A+D Museum with LACMA, 7-9:30PM, $55. More info here.

8/3 Wine Camp - Intro to Wine, 3-5:30PM, $50. More info here.

FOUR SUNDAY SESSIONS - L.A.W. School, Aug. 10th, 17th, 24th & 31st, $400. More info here.

8/16 Vintage Champagne at Josie Restaurant, 3-5:15PM, $175. More info here.

8/23 “STARS of California” at Two Rodeo, 7-10:00PM, $140. More info here.

8/30 Vintage Cult at Bill Lowe Gallery, 4-6:00 PM, $190. More info here.

9/5 TASTE ABC & Tango, 7-9:30PM, $55. More info here.

9/6 Rosenthal Malibu Estate Tour - Members First Ticket Access until July 15. More info here.

9/7 Wine Camp - Intro to Wine, 3-5:30PM, $50. More info here.

9/14 Sunday School - Top Wines of Paso Robles, 3-5:15PM, $75. More info here.

9/18 Vintage Bordeaux at Bill Lowe Gallery, 3-5:15PM, $95 (price subject to changes). More info here. 

9/21 Sunday School: Wine, Cheese & Chocolate, 3-5:15 PM, $59. More info here.

9/28 Vintage Pinot Noir at STK, 4-6:00PM, $95* (price subject to changes). More info here.

For more info, sign up and booking, you get directly in touch with Learn About Wine through their website, or just give them a ring at +1 (310) 451-7600.

The perfect companion drink for the crispy Parmigiano Flatbread just introduced by Chef Tony Mantuano? According to wine expert Cathy Mantuano, Tony’s wife and also co-author of the cookbook Wine Bar Food, is the Bellini Cocktail, an Italian classic.

Today Cathy Mantuano will teach us how to make the perfect Bellini cocktail - not only, she also give us a great tip on how to make little changes to the original recipe to prepare also Rossini and Tiziano cocktails!

We know you are going to love all of them, so go ahead and enjoy the three cocktails, just please remember to drink responsibly. Wine expert Cathy Mantuano suggest to serve these cocktails at brunch, or at cocktail hours.

BELLINI COCKTAIL
A cocktail recipe by wine expert Cathy Mantuano
(makes 1 cocktail)

WINE EXPERT NOTES AND TIPS

This sparkling wine drink, invented at the famous Harry’s Bar in Venice, is made there with white peach juice, though yellow peach juice would also be delicious.

INGREDIENTS

- 2 ounces chilled peach juice or peach nectar
- 4 ounces chilled Prosecco or other dry sparkling wine

PREPARATION

In a champagne flute, combine the juice and the wine.

ROSSINI COCKTAIL

To make this fruity sparkling wine drink, substitute strawberry juice for the peach juice.

TIZIANO COCKTAIL

Perfect for fall, this refreshing cocktail substitutes Concord grape juice for the peach juice.

Thanks Cathy, and cheers to all Italian Food Lovers!

Remember that today, July 2, wine expert Cathy Mantuano and her husband and cookbook co-writer Chef Tony Mantuano have a book signing and demo beginning at 2 p.m. as part of the Taste of Chicago event. They will be located outside the Zagat pavilion signing copies and showcasing recipes from Wine Bar Food, their latest cookbook. Can’t miss this!

Just a final note from the Italian Food Lovers blog team, as you know we live and breath food culture but we also love Italian culture overall. Did you know that the cocktails are named after three major Italian artists?

When the famous Harry’s Bar in Piazza San Marco, Venice (Venezia, not LA), created the Bellini cocktail, it was dedicated to Venetian Renaissance painter and Maestro Giovanni Bellini, while the Tiziano cocktail is named after another Venetian Reinassance painter, Tiziano Vecelli (Titian).

The Rossini cocktail honors a more recent artist, the Italian opera composer and Maestro Gioacchino Rossini, the author of famous operas such as The Barber of Seville (Il Barbiere di Sivilla), William Tell (Guillaume Tell) and Tancredi. Maestro Rossini was born in Pesaro and not in Venice, but has performed a lot in Venice, granting him the honor of a virtual Venice honorary citizenship and… naming a great cocktail!

These final images are taken from Wikipedia and so are the links, that we invite you to explore to get to know more about the three Italian Maestros. Maybe while sipping their drinks!

Summertime is here, at least according to the calendar since today is June 21. Not much according to the season, as in Italy this year we experienced a very slow start of the season, with heavy showers up to a couple of days ago alternated to beautiful sunny days, but not so hot as we had up to last year (this is actually good news, as last year we couldn’t even breath for the high temperatures!).

What’s the most characteristic summertime food icon? Nine out of ten would say Ice Cream and sure gelato plays a big role in Italian gastronomy and food culture, so we decided to serve you a video on an event we hosted at the Academia Barilla Culinary School last month, for the Academia Barilla Short Film Awards, a satellite event to the well-know Brescello 2008 Film Festival.

During the gala event, Academia Barilla Executive Chef Nicola Bindini, helped by Chef Matteo Carboni of the Academia Barilla Chef Team, prepared and served to the participants of the event a very particular ice cream: liquid nitrogen ice cream.

We managed to get some video footage of the Academia Barilla Short Film Award Gala from TV Parma, who was partnering, filming and broadcasting the event. After some editing for the web format, and with the help of Chef Matteo Carboni whose voice-over comments the making of ice cream using the nitrogen freezing process, we are happy to present you the video on how to make a gourmet ice cream using liquid nitrogen.

Used in creative cuisine, as well as in many other applications including surgery, liquid nitrogen has the power to freeze instantly and, in the ice cream making process, really helps in reducing preparation time, while not affecting the ice cream flavor nor its organoleptic properties.

As Matteo comments, liquid nitrogen has a boiling point at -320 Fahrenheit degrees, and this is why the Chefs have to use protection gloves to handle the preparation. So please don’t try this at home before taking all due safety precautions.

The ice cream base is composed by milk, cream, sugar and egg yolks. As Chef Matteo Carboni reminds in the video, it is important to pour the liquid nitrogen very slowly and keep mixing the ingredients to avoid crystallization, and to keep the ice cream homogeneous and smooth.

All the fog you see in the video and in the picture above is the product of the fast evaporation of the liquid nitrogen, and it is safe to breath for the few minutes of preparation. As Matteo says, the ice cream made with liquid nitrogen has a fresher flavor and a finer and smoother texture than the traditional ice cream - yummy!

Happy summertime to all Italian Food Lovers from the Academia Barilla Culinary School!