Say buongiorno again to Chef Matteo Carboni of the Academia Barilla Culinary School, who’s back on Italian food Lovers to introduce the Ingredient of the Month for the month of March ending today: the sunny, Mediterranean eggplant (aubergine for our readers in the UK and Australia).

Today Chef Matteo Carboni will show not only how to cut an eggplant in thin slices, but also how to make a perfect and easy finger food dish in few minutes, with the help of few other ingredients: extra virgin olive oil (Academia Barilla’s Monti Iblei, of course), grated Pecorino cheese (try Academia Barilla’s Pecorinos from Tuscany or Sardinia for an authentic Italian flavor) and Prosciutto di Parma.

Add chives as final touch for presentation, and a arucula salad on a side, and you have the perfect antipasto.

Check out the video recipe!

Chef Carboni first slices the eggplants, then spread some extra virgin olive oil on both sides of each slice before grilling them for two minutes max on a pre-heated grill.

While the eggplant slices are still hot off the grill, Chef Carboni sprinkles some grated Pecorino cheeses, then pairs the slice with a slice of Prosciutto di Parma, and carefully roll them together, using chives to secure each roll, adding a final touch of flavor and presentation.

CHEF TIPS:

Serve it with an arucula salad (rocket salad) on a side, adding just some Italian extra virgin olive oil and Balsamic Must of Modena aged 8 years, like the one you can find at the Academia Barilla online store.

Today we have another yummy pasta recipe from the Academia Barilla Culinary School, an easy recipe for a delicious gourmet pasta, Tagliatelle with cream of walnuts, hazelnuts, pistachios, olives and prosciutto di Parma.

Ref: The source of the image above is the already quoted Marianne Paquin’s cookbook “La cucina degli innamorati” (Lover’s Cuisine), edited by Fabbri Editori, and available at the Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library in Parma, Italy.

Ready to cook? Print this recipe or take the laptop with you to the kitchen, we are ready to go!

TAGLIATELLE WITH CREAM OF WALNUTS, HAZELNUTS, PISTACHIOS, OLIVES AND PROSCIUTTO DI PARMA
(serves 2)

INGREDIENTS

- 1/2 lb fresh tagliatelle
- 2 slices of Academia Barilla Prosciutto di Parma
- 4 walnuts
- 8 peeled hazelnuts
- 12 peeled pistachios
- 8 green olives (without the pit)
- 7 tablespoons of cream
- 2 tablespoons Academia Barilla Riviera Ligure DOP extra virgin olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION

Preparation time - 10 minutes
Cooking time - 10 minutes

Chop the walnuts, hazelnuts, pistachios and olives together. Cut the slices of Academia Barilla Prosciutto di Parma into strips.

Stir the cream, Academia Barilla Riviera Ligure DOP extra virgin olive oil, mixture of chopped nuts, salt and pepper into the serving plate.

Cook the Tagliatelle in salted boiling water. When ready (check the cooking time on package), drain the pasta and pour it in the serving dish, stir gently and add the Academia Barilla Prosciutto di Parma strips. Serve immediately.

CHEF TIPS

Add a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil in the cooking water so the pasta doesn’t stick together.

More Italian Easter recipes for your Easter Day menu. As we told you yesterday, the Easter Dove is one of they key symbols of the Italian Pasqua, both in religious iconography and in holiday food tradition.

Symbolizing both peace and the Holy Spirit, the Dove, has become the shape of the famous traditional Easter cake, Colomba Pasquale (Easter Dove), a classic dessert at any Easter meal in Italy. Here is the recipe for our Italian Food Lovers readers!

Ref: The source of the image above is Iginio Massari and Achille Zoia’s cookbook “Cresci - L’arte della pasta lievitata” (Grow - The art of baking dough), edited by Pavoni, and available at the Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library in Parma, Italy.

COLOMBA PASQUALE
(serves 8-10)

INGREDIENTS - for the dough

- 11.6 oz flour
- 1 oz yeast
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 8 oz of lukewarm milk
- 3 oz butter
- 1.3 sugar
- 4 egg yolks
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2.7 oz candy lemon zest finely minced
- 1/2 grated zest of fresh lemon

INGREDIENTS - for the syrup

- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 tablespoons water

OTHER INGREDIENDS

- flour to the base
- margarine to grease aluminum foil
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 oz sifted powdered sugar
- 1.4 oz peeled almonds
- 2 raisins

PREPARATION

Preheat the oven to 360 °F

For the dough

Place the flour in a large bowl, forming it into a mound. Add the yeast, sugar, 4 oz of lukewarm milk in the middle of the mound and knead the dough.

When completely incorporated, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place for 15 minutes so that the dough is puffy.

While the dough is rising, melt the butter in a small pan or microwave it in a microwave safe container. In another small bowl, beat the yolks with the sugar.

When the sugar is completely mixed with the yolks, add the melted butter to the mixture and mix. Add the mixture of the yolks, sugar and butter and the remaining milk and flour to the dough, and continue to knead vigorously until the dough is firm and compact, making sure it is not sticky.

Subsequently, add the fresh lemon zest and candied lemon to the dough, and form a ball. Set aside and let the dough rise for approximately 30 minutes in a warm place.

For the syrup

In a small pot, bring the 2 tablespoons of water and 2 tablespoons of sugar to a boil; remove from heat and let cool.

For the dough

When the dough is ready, divide it in half and make 2 rolls (approximately 7 to 8 inches in size). Shape each roll into a dove. You may also choose to place each roll in a dove-shaped mold.

Cover the dough and let each dove-shaped roll rise for about 20 to 30 minutes until each is double in size. When the dough is ready, brush the surface with the syrup mixture and sift the powdered sugar over the top. Top each dove-shaped roll with almonds, pressing them in slightly.

Add one raisin to each dove-shaped roll in order to make the eyes of the dove. To preserve the shape, wrap the cake with greased aluminum foil. Place the dove-shaped rolls in the preheated oven on the lower rack for 40 minutes.

When ready, gently remove the aluminum foil and allow the Colomba Pasquale cool before serving.

Buon Appetito and again Buona Pasqua from Academia Barilla!

Academia Barilla is proud to introduce three new Italian gourmet products dedicated to the tastes of regional Italian cuisine.

Introducing Sapori Italiani, authentic Italian Flavors, a line of Italian gourmet specialties made exclusively by hand on small regional estates in Italy, using only local, typical ingredients. Sapori Italiani allows finish any dish with real Italian flair and taste.

The first product is Academia Barilla’s Sapori Italiani Mix, an exclusive selection of Italian herbs from small Tuscan and Sicilian estates.

Hand packed with wild oregano, capers and cured olives, this all natural mix gives true Italian taste to any dish and is ideal on a variety of dishes and perfect for every day use. Try on pasta, pizza, salads, bruschetta and grilled meats.

A great add-on to the Academia Barilla family of Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oils (EVOO) is the brand-new Unfiltered Oil, a product of Sicily, in the heart of the sunny Mediterranean. Made from Sicilian olive varieties Cerasuola and Nocellara del Belice, Academia Barilla’s Unfiltered Oil offers a medium fruitiness and very fresh aromas, with strong undertones of green grass, pachino tomatoes and oregano.

The most natural EVOO available from Italy, this oil is produced with innovative methods that surpass traditional centrifuge processes, leaving the oil’s original flavors and properties intact, with no sediments or pulp. Versatile, for everyday use, Academia Barilla’s Unfiltered olive oil gives his best on marinades, dressings, cooking, dipping and bruschetta.

Last but not last new entry in the Academia Barilla line of Italian olive oils is the new 100% Organic Oil. Produced in Umbria, in the heart of Italy, 100% Organic Oill is one of the few organic olive oils available made from 100% Italian, organic olives. With a medium fruitiness, and mild hints of ripe olive, grass and sweet almonds Academia Barilla’s 100% Organic Oil is the perfect companion for versatile, everyday use organic marinades, dressings, cooking and dipping.

We’ll publish some recipes soon with the new Academia Barilla ingredients, so stay tuned! In the meanwhile, do not forget that the new gourmet Sapori Italiani are available at the Academia Barilla online store!

Last December a group of American students from NY Universities (Monroe College and Paul Smith College, NY) spent some time in Parma to study Italian Cuisine at the Academia Barilla Culinary Center .

The group of students were headed by Giacomo Berselli, President of the Marco Polo Foundation, the organization who sponsored the students’ trip to Italy. After spending 7 weeks in Otranto (Puglia) and 3 weeks in Ferrara (Emilia-Romagna), the students attended cooking classes at the Academia Barilla Culinary School in Parma for additional 2 weeks.

During their Parma residency the US students of the Marco Polo project studied the typical products of the Parma region, and attended classes of olive oil tasting, Parmigiano Reggiano and Prosciutto di Parma tasting, as well as Balsamic Vinegar of Modena and wine tasting. After theory and tasting classes in the morning the young Chefs spent some time researching Academia Barilla’s Gastronomic Library, with the support of the Library Curator Giancarlo Gonizzi and his team.
The afternoon were generally spent in the kitchen, trying dishes and recipes containing the ingredients the students have been working on all day, under the guidance of Academia Barilla Executive Chef Nicola Bindini and his Chef team.

To complete the students’ full immersion into the art of Italian gastronomy, Academia Barilla organized also culinary and gastronomy tours for the students, allowing them to discover the secrets of producers and farmers of authentic regional products, and to meet the countryside traditions and history of the Emilia-Romagna region, that certainly is a key ingredient of our traditional recipes.

At the end of the 2 weeks of classes the Academia Barilla Culinary School released to each student a certificate of completion of studies that, join with the other certificates awarded by the students at the other learning locations across Italy, would have grant them the formal recognition of the exams and classes by their respective original colleges (Monroe College and Paul Smith College, both in the NY State).

Here below a couple of testimonial notes from the Marco Polo students, as written on the Academia guest book, pictured here above with more Marco Polo testimonials:

“Thank you Barilla for such an informative 2 weeks. I enjoyed myself thoroughly would tell my family friends about this wonderful place. Thank you so much.”

“Ciao, this school has taught me that food to the Italian is religion and the kitchen is their church. Thank you Academia Barilla.”

To know more about the student program we interviewed Marco Polo Foundation President Giacomo Berselli who firmly says that “Academia Barilla is state-of-the-art of the Italian Cuisine“!

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