After a brief consultation with the Chef Team at the Academia Barilla Culinary School, there were no more doubts about it: our ingredient of the month for the month of April is the Asparagus.

As reported by the Wikipedia, Asparagus has been used from very early times as a vegetable and medicine, mostly for its delicate flavor and diuretic properties.

There is a recipe for cooking asparagus in the oldest surviving book of recipes, Apicius’s 3rd century AD “De Re Coquinaria, Book III”. Asparagus was cultivated by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, who ate it fresh when in season and dried the vegetable for use in winter.

Asparaguses lost their popularity in the Middle Ages but returned in the European culinary tradition in the seventeenth century.

Today we invite you to try a gourmet recipe with our ingredient of the month. We found a great recipe at BIGAB, the Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library, in a cookbook titled “L’Asparago bianco di Bassano - Le ricette dei ristoranti Bassanesi” (Bassano’s White Asparagus - recipes from Bassano’s Restaurants). The image below is taken from the same cookbook edited by Terra Ferma, and the picture of the final dish is by Cristiano Bulegato.

The recipe we propose today involves the use of Pasta Brisé or pasta sfoglia salata, something similar to Southern piecrusts. Pasta Brisé is widely used in both Italy and France for food presentation and balance of savory food, and is not used with sweets. Pasta Brisé makes also a great base for miniature pies as appetizers, to cover and encompass finger foods, to wrap cuts of veal and seal in the juices and to make self contained casseroles.

Ready? Let’s go to the kitchen!

CRISPY LASAGNE WITH ASPARAGUS, SAUTE OF PRAWNS AND VESPAIOLO
(serves 5)

INGREDIENTS

- 12 oz Pasta Brisé
- 1.8 oz of Asparagus
- 15 prawns
- 1/2 green onion
- 1 garlic clove
- 5 tablespoon besciamella, white sauce
- 1 small glass of Brandy
- 1/2 glass of Vespaiolo wine
- 2 tablespoon of parsley
- 1 ripe tomato
- 2 sprigs of chives
- 3 sprigs of thyme
- Academia Barilla Riviera Ligure D.O.P. Extra Virgin Olive Oil, to taste
- salt and pepper, to taste

FOR THE BESCIAMELLA SAUCE

- 3 3/4 cups, whole milk
- 1 stick, butter
- 1/2 cu, all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon, grated nutmeg
- salt, to taste

BESCIAMELLA PREPARATION

Heat the milk in a pan until almost boiling. Separately, in a medium saucepan, heat the butter until melted. Add flour all in once, stirring until smooth.

Cook gently over medium heat until light golden brown, 6-7 minutes. Add milk to the butter mixture 1 cup at a time, whisking continuously until no lumps left.

Bring to a boil and let it cook for a couple of minutes, continuing to stir, until a smooth sauce is obtained.

Remove from the heat and season with salt and grated nutmeg.

In order to have a more liquid or thicker sauce, reduce or increase of 1 tablespoon the quantity of flour.

MAIN DISH PREPARATION

Prepare a thin layer of Pasta Brisé and cut it to shape 12 round pieces of about 2 inc hes of diameter and cook them in the oven for 7-8 minutes at 350° F.

In a separate saucepan with two tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, brown the garlic clove then sauté the prawns for few minutes, flame with brandy and eventually add the Vespaiolo wine. Eventually, add the minced parsley, salt and pepper to taste.

In a casserole with extra virgin olive oil, brown the green onion finely minced, add the asparagus, previously washed and cut in small pieces, season with salt and pepper and let cook.

When done, add the prawns and at last, the previously prepared, besciamella sauce.

On the serving plate, place a piece of Pasta Brisé, pour over a spoon of asparagus and prawns, then add a second piece of Pasta Brisé and two prawns on the very top.

Decorate the plate with some fresh cubed tomatoes, two sprig of chives and thyme.

The dish is now ready to be served! Buon Appetito from Academia Barilla and Italian Food Lovers!

The ingredient of the month for February is Pumpkin, as suggested by our friends at the Academia Barilla Culinary School. Today Chef Matteo Carboni presents on video how to cook another simple but delicious pasta dish using our ingredient of the month: Pennette with Pumpkin, Bacon and Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena.

Here is the transcription of the video recipe prepared by Chef Matteo Carboni, so you can print it to have it at reach while cooking.

PENNETTE WITH PUMPKIN, BACON AND TRADITIONAL BALSAMIC VINEGAR OF MODENA

INGREDIENTS
(4 servings)

- Barilla Penne Rigate pasta, 12 oz.
- brown onion, to taste
- pumpkin, 8.5 oz.
- smoked bacon, 7 oz.
- Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena aged 12 years, to taste
- Academia Barilla Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated, to taste
- black pepper, to taste
- parsley, to taste
- rosemary, to taste
- garlic, 1 clove
- Academia Barilla Monti Iblei Extra Virgin Olive Oil, to taste
- salt, to taste

PREPARATION
(preparation time: 30 minutes)

Peel and remove the seeds from the pumpkin. Cut into cubes of about 1 cm/0.5 inch each side.

Place the discards of the pumpkin, the onion, and a little salt in a pan and cover with water until it boils. When the vegetable is cooked, whip until you obtain a cream.

First cut the smoked bacon into pieces of about 3mm in length and then cut in Julienne style. Mince the rosemary, garlic and parsley.

Put a pan on medium heat, add a drop of oil and fry the pumpkin adding salt and pepper to taste.

Remove the pumpkin from the pan, add the smoked bacon and cook until browned. Add garlic and rosemary to the bacon and pumpkin and after 2 minutes of cooking, add the pumpkin cream.

In plenty of salted boiling water cook the pasta, drain and add with the previously prepared sauce.

Add the minced parsley, plate the pasta and drizzle with Traditional Vinegar of Modena before serving.

Buon appetito from the Academia Barilla Culinary School!

And of course, here is the video version of this recipe.

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We introduced a new series of blog posts this month, dedicated to the Ingredient of the Month - Cauliflower, in its local Roman version Cavolo Romanesco.

In the previous video, Chef Matteo Carboni from the Academia Barilla Culinary School reveals how to easily clean the cauliflower separating all the florets, which allows for better cooking and presentation.

Today Chef Carboni demonstrates in a new video recipe how to cook a simple but yummy pasta dish using our ingredient of the month: Spaghetti with Romanesco Cauliflower.

After separating all of the florets, Chef Carboni suggests to chop them in halves, and to place them in boiling water for about 2 minutes.

Other ingredients used in this recipe are anchovies, garlic, thyme, Academia Barilla Monti Iblei DOP extra virgin olive oil and Academia Barilla Pecorino Cheese.

As a first step of preparation, Chef Matteo Carboni places the pasta into boiling water in a medium sauce pan. He immediately begins preparing the cauliflower-based sauce with a sauté of garlic and anchovies in a hot sauté pan.

Once the anchovies are melted Chef Carboni adds the cauliflower. Stir fry this for a couple of minutes while seasoning with salt and black pepper to taste.

When the pasta reaches the “al dente” cooking time as described in the pasta packaging (here Chef Carboni uses Barilla Spaghetti), drain it and add it to the sauce for a final sauté, to which is added olive oil and Pecorino cheese.

The final touch before serving is adding some more Monti Iblei D.O.P. extra virgin olive oil, cauliflower florets and a sprig of thyme.

Buon Appetito from Academia Barilla!

We are pleased to introduce to you a new series of blog posts that we hope will entertain and inspire you across the entire year: The Ingredient of the Month.

You know Italian cuisine is all about fresh ingredients, and every Italian Chef will tell you that one of the most important steps in cooking actually starts outside of the kitchen, browsing local marketplaces and farmers’ markets in search of the freshest ingredients of the season.

With the support of the Chef Team of the Academia Barilla Culinary School, we’ll introduce to you each month a fresh ingredient that can be of inspiration for your culinary creations.

Today Chef Matteo Carboni will introduce the ingredient of the month for the month of January: a classic veggie of the Italian cuisine, the califlower, in a local Italian version called “Cavolo Romanesco“, a variety also available in the United States.

Chef Carboni shows us in this video how to properly clean the cauliflower, that doesn’t have to be cut with a knife. First step is to take the leaves off, then chop the bottom part and cutting away the inner core, so that it will be easier to get the flowers, by picking them from the bottom to the tip.

Chef’s final tip on cooking the cauliflower: you can eventually chop the biggest flowers in halves so that the flower pieces are more homogeneous and you can cook them all together.

Thank you Chef Matteo Carboni for the presentation of the Ingredient of the month. We will publish soon a cabbage recipe, so you can have a try with it.

We would like to hear from you about your experience, recipes and culinary creations using the califlower. Please feel free to send us your input using the comments of this post!