Italian Food Lovers

We asked our guest Chefs from the Italian Food Lovers Chef Network to share with us some gourmet recipes that can be the centerpiece of you Christmas meal. Today Chef Doug D’Avico from Trattoria N.10 in Chicago teach us how to prepare a yummy pasta dish: Farfalle Pasta with Duck Confit, Crimini Mushrooms, Asparagus and Parmigiano Reggiano. 

Ready? Let’s go to the kitchen!
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Happy Thanksgiving from Academia Barilla and Italian Food Lovers! We wish you and your families a nice and warm family day around some of the best traditional and innovative culinary eats of the year (at least in the United States, as in Italy we have several occasions to indulge in gourmet food all along the year!).

As you have noticed, this week we celebrated Turkey Day proposing a lot of gourmet recipes from our Italian Food Lovers Chef Network, but none of them with turkey! Well, we published a recipe for the tratitional Thanksgiving roasted turkey, but we left our guest Chef free to propose alternative, innovative Thanksgiving recipes.

Today we have with us Chef Doug D’Avico of Trattoria n. 10 in Chicago with a new Thanksgiving gourmet creation: Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Cinnamon and Orange Zest. Ready? let’s go to the kitchen!

SWEET POTATO GNOCCHI WITH CINNAMON AND ORANGE ZEST
A recipe by Chef Doug D’Avico
(serves 4-6)

INGREDIENTS

- 3 lbs light fleshed Sweet Potatoes
- 1/8 cup good quality ricotta, drained
- 1/8 cup Academia Barilla Pecorino Gran Cru, grated
- 1 ea large egg
- 1/2 tablespoon Academia Barilla Sicilian Sea Salt with Orange Zest
- 1/4 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 tablespoon nutmeg
- 3-4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
- 1 orange
- 1 medium size leek, white part only
- 2 tablespoon cinnamon-sugar mixture
- 3 tablespoon european style butter
- 2-3 tablespoon Academia Barilla Riviera Ligure Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- some fresh herbs for plate garnishing

PREPARATION

Take the 3 sweet potato, wash the outside well and bake in a 375 degree F oven till soft to the touch, remove from the oven and let cool. When the potatoes are cool enough to handle remove the skins and put the flesh though a potato ricer to break up any large clumps and place into a large enough bowl to mix all the ingredients in.

Mix all the ingredients, except for the flour, into the sweet potato and combine well with your hand.
Take 2 cups of the flour and fold into the sweet potato mix half a cup at a time, making sure the flour is thoroughly incorporated before adding the next 1/2 cup. Check the dough it should be a little sticky, if it is too wet add a 1/4 cup more flour and mix. Wrap and let rest in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.

After resting take the remaining flour and use some to dust the work surface. Take the dough out of the bowl and place on the floured surface, sprinkle a little more flour over top and knead a few times so you can handle the dough.

Flatten the dough out to about 3/4 of an inch and cut strips every 3/4 of an inch and then roll each strip a little bit to round out the corners, set a side and finish the rest of the dough. Use a little more flour if the dough starts to stick to the table. Use a damp towel to cover the dough strips while you work.

Have a corn meal coated tray ready to store the gnocchi’s on after they are cut. Using a small knife cut the strips into 3/4 inch pieces and you can use either the back of a fork or a gnocchi board to roll the gnocchi off of or just take your finger and poke a little indentation into each one and then place on the corn meal coated tray.

Finish the batch and then freeze the gnocchi or cook and serve.

To serve bring a large pan of salted water to a boil. In the mean time while you are waiting for the water to boil, remove the root end of the leek and cut the leek on a bias about 1/4 of an inch thick until you get to the green part, discard or use for homemade stock. Separate the layers of the leek and wash under cold water to remove any sand set aside.

Using a zester, zest 1 orange and set a side. Preheat a 12 inch sauté pan and warm over medium heat, when hot add 1/2 the butter and add the washed leeks to the melted butter, do not let the butter burn, and cook for about 3-5 minutes or until the leeks are tender season with a little salt and pepper and remove from the pan set aside. Remove the pan from the heat.

Check the seasoning in the pot of boiling water and adjust with the salt to taste. When the water is at a rolling boil add the gnocchi and stir well so they don’t stick to the bottom of the pan. They will take about 5-8 minutes and are usually done about 30 seconds after they start floating. Just before they are done put the large sauté and back on the fire over medium high heat.

Drain the gnocchi and add to the sauté pan with the remaining butter. The pan should be nice and hot as you will want to add a little bit of color to the gnocchi. Cook for about 3 minutes then add the cooked leeks and cook for 2-4 more minutes and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar and add the orange zest and mix well, pour into a serving bowl and garnish the plate with fresh herbs, just before serving drizzle the Academia Barilla olive oil over the whole dish. Serve immediately. You can serve some extra Academia Barilla Pecorino Gran Cru on the side.

Thank you Chef D’Avico for this yummy Thanksgiving recipe. Thanks again also to Chef Tony Mantuano and Chef Mark Grimes for the gourmet recipe shared with us this week. Thank you also to our friends at BIGAB, the Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library, for providing us with the traditional Thanksgiving roasted turkey recipe!

And again, Happy Thanksgiving to all Italian food lovers from Academia Barilla and our Italian Food Lovers blog team!

Another Italian Food Lovers Chef Network recipe today, this time from Chef Doug D’Avico of Trattoria #10 in Chicago, Illinois (address: 10 N. Dearborn, Chicago IL 60602; +1 312-984-1718 for booking and info).

Chef D’Avico today surprises us again with an awesome gourmet recipe: Grilled Wagyu Shirt Steak with Arugula, Raw Mushrooms and Meyer Lemon Dressing.

Wagyu Beef meat is consider to be one of  the most delicious beef cuts in the world, and comes exclusively from cattle from the Kobe region in Northern Japan. A characteristic of the Waygu Kobe beef is the marble fat that gives also a particular, buttery flavor to the meat, as reported by the Wikipedia.

Ready? Let’s go to the kitchen.

GRILLED WAGYU SHIRT STEAK WITH ARUGULA, RAW CRIMINI MUSHROOMS AND MEYER LEMON DRESSING
A recipe by Chef Doug D’Avico
(serves 4)

INGREDIENTS

- 1 lb Kobe skirt steak or best available quality
- 1/4 lb Arugula, cleaned and washed
- 1/4 package Crimini mushrooms (2 to 3 pieces)
- 1/2 cup Academia Barilla Monti Iblei extra virgin olive oil
- Juice from 1 Meyer Lemon
- Academia Barilla Natural Sea Salt with Italian Black olives, to taste
- Freshly ground pepper, to taste

PREPARATION

Preheat grill to medium high. Make sure the meat is cleaned of any sinew or extra fat.

Combine the juice from the lemon and the olive oil together and season to taste with the salt and fresh pepper; set aside.

Use a sharp knife or mandoline and thinly slice the mushrooms. Mix the mushrooms and arugula together for the salad, make sure the arugula is dry before using, do not dress the salad until you are ready to serve the dish.

Clean the preheated grill and grill the meat to the desired temperature. Remove from the grill and let rest for 3 minuets before you slice the meat.

Season the meat with a pinch of sea salt and a turn or two of pepper. Cut the meat into 4 inch lengths and then slice into thin strips (about 1/4 inch) across the grain, divide onto 4 plates.

Dress the salad lightly (you are not going to use all the dressing on the salad); season with salt and pepper to taste.

Divide between the four plates, drizzle with a little bit of the dressing and serve right away.

Thank you Chef D’Avico for sharing with us another gourmet recipe. We look forward to publishing more of your gourmet recipes soon!

We run out of recipes from the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Garden Chef Series and the Barilla Italian Cooking Weekend, at least for this year - next year we’ll make sure to have one of our bloggers from the Italian Food Lovers editorial team on site, so we can actually video the Chef demos and interview the Chefs (not while they demo, of course).

First of all, we would like to say thank you to Barilla USA’s Chef Lorenzo Boni, Trattoria N. 10’s Chef Doug D’Avico, Francesca Restaurants’ Executive Chef Laura Piper, Pinstripes’ Chef Mark Grimes and Mado’s Chef Rob Levitt for sharing their recipes with us. Thank you again, see you again on Italian Food Lovers!

Just to recap, this year we had the pleasure to publish on Italian Food Lovers recipes for 7 gourmet dishes. Did you try any of them at home? 

• Sautéed Wild Mushrooms Bruschetta
• Grilled Baby Octopus with Watercress Salad and Oranges
• Farfalle Piccolini Pasta Salad
• Linguine Fagottaro Pasta Salad
• Lobster Bread Salad
• Chicken Parmesan with Campanelle Pasta
• Grilled Peach and Prosciutto with Parmigiano-Reggiano and Bulsamic Must

Also, we have to say thank you to Stephanie Sette from the Academia Barilla USA Marketing Team (in the picture above) for getting all the content together for us (she does it all the time with the US events content, by the way) and of course also to Academia Barilla Italian Culinary Specialist Mario Rizzotti, who has been conducing several rounds of educational and tasting demos during the Barilla Italian Cooking Weekend.

In these pictures taken during the Barilla Italian Cooking Weekend Mario Rizzotti shares his Italian culinary knowledge with the show participants, teaching them how to professionally taste some of the best Italian gourmet products, such Italian extra virgin olive oils and traditional Italian cheese specialties such as Parmigiano-Reggiano and the several varieties of Pecorino, from Sardinian Pecorino Dolce to Pecorino Toscano DOP and Pecorino Sardo Gran Cru. Follow the link to see more pictures of Mario Rizzotti’s tasting demos at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

A final thank you goes of course also to all the guests and visitors and participated to the Chicago’s Chef show. If you liked the Italian cooking and Italian food culture you experienced at the Chicago Botanic Garden, you now you can find it also here on Italian Food Lovers all year round!

Also remember that you can experience the flavor and taste of Academia Barilla’s Italian gourmet food specialties all year round too, they are all available at the Academia Barilla online store, where you can also find Italian cookbooks, Chef tools, Italian gastronomy gift boxes and gift certificates!

As the Chicago Botanic Garden carried on with the Garden Chefs Series until the end of summer, we still have several recipes from the Barilla Italian Cooking Weekend we already introduced here on Italian Food Lovers.

After presenting recipes from Chef Lorenzo Boni and Chef Doug D’Avico, today we introduce one of the other participant Chefs, Chef Laura Piper, Corporate Chef at Francesca’s Restaurants in Chicago, pictured here below during her Chicago cooking demo.

Chef Laura Piper today shares with us a classic pasta dish from the Francesca’s Restaurant menu, Linguine Fagottaro Pasta Salad.

LINGUINE FAGOTTARO PASTA SALAD
A recipe by Chef Laura Piper
(serves 6)

SAUCE INGREDIENTS

- 10 large (peeled, seeded and diced)
- 1/2 oz. Fresh basil (chopped)
- 1/2 oz. Raw garlic (chopped)
- 1/2 can Tomato juice
- Academia Barilla Riviera Ligure extra virgin olive oil, to taste
- Academia Barilla Natural Sea Salt with black olives, to taste
- black pepper, to taste

PASTA INGREDIENTS

- 4 lbs. Barilla Linguine pasta (cooked)
- 3 tablespoon Garlic (chopped)
- 3 tablespoon Shallots (chopped)
- 12 Fresh basil leaves (julienne)
- 3 oz. White wine
- 3 tablespoon Academia Barilla Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (grated)
- 3 tablespoon Fresh parsley (chopped)
- 5 tablespoon Academia Barilla Riviera Ligure extra virgin olive oil
- 12 oz. Academia Barilla Pecorino Dolce
- Academia Barilla Natural Sea Salt with black olives, to taste
- crushed red chilies, to taste

PREPARATION

Start preparing the sauce. Set aside 1/4 of diced tomatoes. Combine all remaining ingredients in a food processor and pulse to a chunky consistency. Add remaining tomatoes and fold into mixture.

Season with salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate sauce until ready to assemble with pasta.

In a sauté pan, sweat garlic and shallots in 2 tbsp. of extra virgin olive oil. Upon garlic and shallots becoming translucent, add white wine to sauté pan. Allow to reduce for 2 minutes. Add cooked linguine, parsley, basil and remaining extra virgin olive oil to sauté pan. Toss with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and season with salt and crushed red chilies to taste.

To assemble, spoon the pasta onto your serving platter. Pour chilled sauce over the pasta and top with fresh pecorino dolce and garnish with a sprig of basil.

Buon Appetito!

Thank you Laura - more recipes and pictures from the Garden Chef Series at the Chicago Botanic Garden will be coming up soon!

Just stay tuned and keep cooking with us!