Italian Food Lovers

The 1st Monday of the month at Palmieri Ristorante, in Brentwood, Los Angeles, is turning into a classic night for both LA residents and traveling gourmands. We already blogged about the gourmet menus prepared by Chef Ottavio Palmieri, but the Chef’s creativity never stops, so you can enjoy every week new dishes and a new menu concept designed by the Sicilian Chef.

Academia Barilla partners Palmieri Ristorante for the Wine and food pairing nights, that feature creative and traditional dishes put together by Chef Palmieri, with the help of Academia Barilla gourmet ingredients, every first Monday of each month including today, February 4.

Check out today’s menu, with the dishes’ names in Sicilian:

Pani (breads)

Semolina and Sesame seed bread

Pi N’Cuminciari (starters)

Brusciuvia
Vegetable soup with Fava, Garbanzo and Pinto beans, lentils, peas
Drizzled with “Academia Barilla” Sicilian extra virgin olive oil

Carpacciu di Pisci Spada chi Finocchi e Aranci
Smoked Swordfish “ Carpaccio”; Fennel and Orange salad sprinkled with Academia Barilla Orange sea salt from Sicilia

Wine pairing: Donna Fugata Anthilia 2006

Primi Piatti (pasta entrees)

Involtini di Pasta chi Milinciani
Spaghetti, smoked mozzarella, tomato sauce, Almond-basil Pesto, wrapped around sliced eggplant and baked in the wood-burning oven

Pasta ca’ Buttarga
Spaghetti with chili flakes, garlic and Academia Barilla Sicilian extra virgin olive oil, “Bottarga” and “Mollica”

Wine pairing: iGurrida Triumph Grenace 2002

Pisci (fish)

Involtini di Pisci Spada
Rolls Swordfish, “Piacentino Ennese”, bread crumbs, herbs, salmoriglio and caponata

Wine pairing: Sedaca 2005

Carni (meat)

Viteddu
Braised Veal medallion with eggplant, mozzarella, in a tomato and herbs sauce

Wine pairing: Tancredi Donna Fugata 2003

Cosi Duci (dessert)

Cannoli
Chest ”Mamma Dorotea” Tangy Orange flavored ricotta cheese and Pistacchios

Wine pairing: Ben-Rye 2006

Academia Barilla Italian Culinary specialist Francesco Zimone will be available on site for Italian culinary tips; ask him about the several ways to use the Academia Barilla Natural Sea Salts from Sicily, or other Academia Barilla products.

The dinner cover is $55.00 per person (+ tax & gratuity) and you’ll better book your table in advance by calling the Palmieri Restaurant at (310) 442-8446, as seats are limited.

The address is Palmieri Ristorante, 11650 San Vicente Blvd., Brentwood, Los Angeles CA - we provide a Google Map here below, so you can get accurate driving directions to the restaurant.

We really like interactive stuff, especially when it’s related to Italian food, of course. So we couldn’t help but notice that our friends of Barilla USA published a nice interactive minisite called Discover Barilla, that you can easily find at www.discoverbarilla.com.

The website, with catchy graphics that remind of Italian traditional cookbooks and authentic popular cooking, presents a virtual gastronomic and culinary tour of some among the top gourmet (and cultural) destinations across Italy. An itinerary that will take the online book readers on a trip starting in Parma to proceed to Cinque Terre, Lake Como, Verona, Tuscany, Umbria, Naples and Amalfi.

At each destination the book will unveil local gastronomy traditions, and reports local traditional recipes as well as a review of local restaurants where you can surely enjoy traditional local gourmet cuisine.

We explored for you one of the gourmet itinerary, and of course is… Parma! The Discover Barilla book gives an overview of the city in a page that includes slideshows of images and videos, before introducing to local specialties such as Parmigiano Reggiano and Prosciutto di Parma, and presenting two local recipes (two new regional recipes are provided at each destination of the Discover Barilla virtual culinary tour).

The Discover Barilla recipe we explored for you is Barilla Farfalle with Prosciutto and Green Peas.

BARILLA FARFALLE WITH PROSCIUTTO AND GREEN PEAS
(a traditional recipe proposed by Discover Barilla)

INGREDIENTS

- 1 box Barilla Farfalle
- 2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 2 cups prosciutto, cut into strips
- 1 1/2 cups green peas (may use frozen)
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 2 cups half-an-half
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese
- salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION

Cook Farfalle according to package directions.

Meanwhile, sauté the onion in the olive oil over medium heat for 5 minutes

Add the prosciutto and peas, sauté 3 minutes.

Add white wine, simmer until mixture has reduced by about half.

Stir in half-half and heavy whipping cream, season with salt and black pepper; simmer for 1-2 minutes.

Drain pasta, toss with the sauce.

Stir in Parmesan cheese before serving.

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Thank you Barilla USA and DiscoverBarilla.com for the recipe. We invite you to browse them all, and also have a look at the final section of the Discover Barilla online book, which is of course about discovering Barilla, its family, history and traditions.

Enjoy the virtual Italian gourmet trip, and stand by for a calendar of the real gastronomy and gourmet tours offered by Academia Barilla - we’ll publish soon our 2008 calendar of gourmet events!

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!

Academia Barilla and Italian Chef, cookbook writer and TV celebrity Giada De Laurentiis started the New Year with a great announcement that we actually anticipated on this blog: the launch of a new product line of high quality, authentic Italian gourmet food products.

Giada De Laurentiis, a long-time friend of Academia Barilla, designed in partnership with us an exclusive gourmet product line of authentic Italian specialty food that opens, of course, with an Italian classic: 100% Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil, made exclusively with olives from Italy.

The gourmet product line goes further with a Balsamic Vinegar of Modena obtained from gently cooked grape must, grown and processed solely in the Modena area, and an hand-harvested, all-natural Sicilian Sea Salt with Fresh Lemon Zest that comes from a combination of the pure Sicilian sea water and the freshest lemons grown under the sun of Sicily, in the middle of the Mediterranean.

The “Giada for Academia” product line gets its cherry on the pie with Giada’s Tuscan Herb Mix, a mix of refined appetizing herbs that brings to your dishes tastes and aromas you can only find in the gourmet hills of Tuscany.

All these products are available through exclusive distribution at the Crate & Barrel stores in the United States.

Crate & Barrel made of Giada’s line the highlight of the month, as she presented the Academia Barilla gourmet food line alongside other hand-picked kitchen items from the Crate & Barrel catalogue, featuring Giada as cover star.

If you don’t live close to a Crate & Barrel Store, you can request their catalogue online, and then proceed to place your order from the web when you’ll have the catalogue (you will have to report a catalogue code to be able to place your order). Don’t forget to add to your Crate&Barrel order the new Academia Barilla / Giada De Laurentiis gourmet products!

We will be updating you soon on the availability of Giada’s products outside the US, or through the Academia Barilla online store – and, promised, we will publish some new gourmet recipes from Giada soon!

Late for a Christmas present or looking for January Sales? Early shopping for a present to your gourmet food lover valentine?

In both cases we invite you to have a look at the Academia Barilla online store, where you can find great gift ideas at several price ranges, from luxury gourmet gift boxes to smaller gifts such as the new Sicilian Gourmet Sea Salt, now boxed also with a designer glass cup and steel spoon.

Or the Pinzimonio set, that puts together in an elegant box a bottle of Italian extra virgin olive oil, a Balsamic Vinegar of Modena, a Sicilian Sea Salt with Black Olives, accompanied by a glass cup and steel spoon to serve the pinzimonio.

Other gift ideas might include cookbooks, Chef tools such as a personalized Chef jacket or a cheese lover’s knife set or, why not? an Academia Barilla gift certificate redeemable online.

Come visit the Academia Barilla online store at shop.academiabarilla.com.