MY PUGLIA DIARIES #3 - Cooking & Storytelling with Carmela

I started the Puglia Diaries to share the experience of the traditional way of cooking of the Puglia's mums and grandmas.

The first person I asked to was Carmela. 

She represents the stereotype of the MAMMA, because she is the mother of three friends of mine and she is the typical Italian mum always welcoming everybody at her table, with the concept that I already explained of "where we eat in two, we can also eat in three".

When I asked her "what are we gonna cook, to show our traditional food" she quickly said "obviously Stuffed Squid with Tomato Sauce!".

And here we are, we go together to LEONE, the best fish shop in town, and we are ready to start.

According to the tradition this is the dish of the "domenica delle Palme" that is the Sunday before Easter, but also good to eat in every moment of the year.

Carmela welcomes me in her house, she offers me a delicious aperitif with Campari and Prosecco (we all love this drink here!) and we take all the ingredients which we'll need to cook.

Squids (we have 8 of them)

3 eggs

1 onion

1 garlic

Pecorino Cheese

Bread crumbs

White Bread

Fresh Persil

Milk

Tomato Sauce passata (this is hand-made by Carmela with the sweet tomatoes of August)

Evoo

Salt

Black Pepper

First we start preparing the stuffing for the squids by softening the white bread with milk and adding eggs, bread crumbs, pecorino, salt and pepper.

She also adds some squid's tentacles in the stuffing saying

"This is how my mom used to prepare it, because it gives love to the stuffing".

She got me. Storytelling is part of our way of cooking, is the way to preserve our culture, is an act of love and Carmela today is sharing with me the secrets of her mum and I'm so thankful to be part of this ritual.

Stuffing is ready, then we start filling the squids. I love this part! Carmela Says: "hold it from its head, and don't fill it too much". Yes Sir! I proceed following meticulously her instructions, she is the boss!

She closes the top of each squid with a steel stick which makes emerging in my mind the gesture of my grandpa Stefano while closing the holy "brasciole", the typical horse-meat rolls of the Sunday family Lunch (calm down, I'll post it tomorrow :) )

Our babies are ready to be cooked. We can proceed to next step which is making a saute' of onions in evoo. 

After have cut one whole onion, Carmela starts grinding an half garlic in the pot together with the onion and evoo saying: "My mum used to put the garlic as well because it takes away the wildness of the squid". 

She got me again. I love to think of having an intimate connection with the wildness of the sea.

When onion and garlic are frying we add the squids and then a bit of white wine. We let them cooking for 10 minutes, covering the pot.

When they gets solid, we can add the tomato sauce. 

This tomato sauce home made by Carmela is so sweet that I start eating it with the spoon from the jar, as you normally do with Nutella. 

Then she stops reminding: Don't eat it all! we need it for the squids! Yes Sir.

We will eat this sauce with some pasta, the traditional way, so before to put the water for the pasta to boil, we remove the squids from the sauce and we put them "resting" on a deep plate.

Then the door opened and and all my friends (kids and grandkids of Carmela) came in, kissing carmela and saying the divinatory sentence: "MAMMA! SMELLS GOOD!" 

Then the bash starts,the house is full of joy, laughters, rounds of drinks, memories and so much love and friendship. 

Then we take the time to take some pictures:)

All this to say that I was so overwhelmed by being with people I love that I forgot to take pictures of the final result. 

But no need to say it was de-li-cious

Curious to know the full menu? because of course Carmela doesn't welcome guests without cooking 5 courses! 

This is the Italian Lunch baby! Not peanuts!

- Inevitable Mussels

- fried sweet olives 

- Borage frittata

- Home made focaccia

- 5 kinds of different cheeses

- Fruit

- Coffee

- after-coffee

                      

   

MY PUGLIA DIARIES #2

This is my Puglia diary.

This is the moment when you need to go back to your roots,to your place, to spend time with the friends of your childhood and family and scream to yourself who you really are and what is your real nature.
This is mine. This is where I come from, this is why Hello Stefy was born: to not forget what I belong to. 

I belong to Puglia.

I belong to this corner of heaven, where the sunlight blinds you, where food tastes sea and history and people use to say "where you eat for two you can also eat for three" which also means mi casa es tu casa.

I'd love you all to follow me in this journey between olive fields, caring grandmas and young dreamers because I can't keep all this beauty for myself.

Puglia Diaries #2 Sky, Sea, Tomatoes and Mussels 

If you'd ask me "How do you experience your going back to Puglia as expat?" I'd certainly answer "OVERWHELMED BY THE SUNLIGHT". 
Stepping out from the plane I feel like the sunlight comes to pick me up from the airport, takes my hands saying "Welcome back Stefi". This may happen in July as in January, because the Sun of Puglia doesn't make the difference between summer and winter, It's always there, to warm up your soul.
I needed to go back to my Castle, the Castle of Barletta, this powerful treasure. I know exactly how the view looks like from the top of the castle, that's the why I go there. 
Not many colours: the Blue of the horizon and the White of the stone. I am surrounded by the history, I am surrounded by my own story.

Then I go back home for lunch and I remind to my self that maybe the reason why I live in Belgium is the culinary tradition they have in common: Mussels. Delicious, sexy, tasty, strong mussels. 
My father always welcomes his two daughters with this dish, which is the dish of all maritime towns of southern Italy : Spaghetti con le cozze. 
Not much ingredients: Mussels (Cozze), tomatoes, garlic and fresh persil. 

Welcome Back home Stefi.

MY PUGLIA DIARIES #1

This is my Puglia diary.

This is the moment when you need to go back to your roots,to your place, to spend time with the friends of your childhood and family and scream to yourself who you really are and what is your real nature.
This is mine. This is where I come from, this is why Hello Stefy was born: to not forget what I belong to. 

I belong to Puglia.

I belong to this corner of heaven, where the sunlight blinds you, where food tastes sea and history and people use to say "where you eat for two you can also eat for three" which also means mi casa es tu casa.

I'd love you all to follow me in this journey between olive fields, caring grandmas and young dreamers because I can't keep all this beauty for myself.

I will start this Puglia Diaries with a place I love, a new born star in the universe of places to be. I will start from "Il Cappero" (literally The caper) a music bar/food bar/wine bar veggie oriented and most of all quality & humans oriented. This precious stone is owned by Felice (his name means Happy, can you believe that??) and his bent for the creed of "sustainable food, good wine for long friendships". I completely share his vision and need of cooking local, drinking local and loving global :)

Puglia Diaries #1 Il Cappero Piazza Della Sfida, 17 Barletta

Puglia Diaries

This is my Puglia diary.

This is the moment when you need to go back to your roots,to your place, to spend time with the friends of your childhood and family and scream to yourself who you really are and what is your real nature.
This is mine. This is where I come from, this is why Hello Stefy was born: to not forget what I belong to. 

I belong to Puglia.

I belong to this corner of heaven, where the sunlight blinds you, where food tastes sea and history and people use to say "where you eat for two you can also eat for three" which also means mi casa es tu casa.

I'd love you all to follow me in this journey between olive fields, caring grandmas and young dreamers because I can't keep all this beauty for myself.

I will start this Puglia Diaries with a place I love, a new born star in the universe of places to be. I will start from "Il Cappero" (literally The caper) a music bar/food bar/wine bar veggie oriented and most of all quality & human oriented. This precious stone is owned by Felice (his name means Happy, can you believe that??) and his bent for the creed of "sustainable food, good wine for long friendships". I completely share his vision and need of cooking local, drinking local and loving global :)

Puglia Diaries #1 Il Cappero - Barletta

PESTO DI STEFI

We yet can enjoy the last joys of the summer, so why to miss this chance?
I have found this gorgeous fresh basil at the bio market, and I couldn't resist. After all, all of you knows my weakness for fresh basil (I'll give you a proof with the Puglia's diaries).

Back home with my scented rich bouquet, I realised that there are no better ways to worship fresh basil than preparing a fresh pesto.

Pesto means literally "mashed" and in the case of the traditional "pesto alla genovese" we mash fresh basil together with pine nuts, garlic, parmigiano and evoo.

I wanted to give to my pesto a stronger accent, a more "apulian" identity, so I added few ingredients that made this salty cream from God becoming the kitchen's queen of the week.

Ingredients

Want to know the process?
Easy peasy: just mash/blend all the ingredients together and enjoy it on a slice of bread or with pasta!
Buon appetito!

BON BON CHAMPIGNON

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Cute, rounded, delicious. 
Here it is Mr mushroom, in all its sexy rounded shape to show you another way to use stale bread, our new best friend.
Preparing this dish won't take you more than 30 minute, therefore you can use all the saved time to learn dancing before your romantic dinner (you can thanks me later).

Each time I prepare this recipe I think of my best friend Pia, the biggest mushrooms eater ever known. While planning a dinner together in Italy she always says : "Ti prego, i funghi ripieni!(please, cook stuffed mushrooms!).
So here are FUNGHI RIPIENI for Pia!


Ingredients

As you can see you only need few ingredients.
Start softening the bread with water as usual and then squeeze it removing the exceeding water.
Proceed gutting the mushrooms from their core helping yourself with a knife or teaspoon.

Heat up some EVOO with garlic in a pan on medium fire and cook the parts of mushrooms previously removed.
When they are ready mix them with softened bread, one egg, thyme, cheese and salt.
You can also add a second kind of cheese for example a smelly one like gorgonzola, or goat cheese.
Now you can start filling your empty mushrooms with the holy stuffing with the help of a spoon.

Sprinkle a baking pan with some Evoo and lay down all the mushrooms. End up seasoning the top of each mushroom with some pecorino cheese or parmesan cheese and some breadcrumb if you have it.
Bake for 2o-25 minutes on 180°.

Bon Bon Champignon, c'est très bon! 

TUNA STUFFED PEPPERS

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Come to me, pepper of my heart!
Why do I post this recipe? Because there are all my favourite ingredients: PEPPERS, TUNA and our best friend STALE BREAD.
The best moment to eat it? The day after of course, cold from the fridge!
Now I will give you a super suggestion: before to start eating stuffed peppers, make sure you have some bread at your table, this plate is never empty until you clean it with the legendary SCARPETTA, a piece of bread to collect the olive oil left on the bottom, pepper flavoured.
The SCARPETTA (literally little shoe) is the best compliment that you can offer to the cook, the biggest recognition of success of his work.
So, keep it in mind for the next time you'll be my guest!

Ingredients:

Start softening the bread with water until it gets the texture of a sponge, then squeeze it to remove the surplus water.
Mix the bread with the rest of the ingredients, so add olives( previously pitted), garlic, tuna, mint or basil, salt + pepper.
Mix them very well making sure to not have big pieces in the mixture.

Now we can proceed filling the peppers. 
Give an horizontal cut to the top of the peppers (core part) and remove the seeds that you'll find inside. Fill the peppers with the mixture that you have prepared helping yourself with a spoon, pushing the mixture inside to fill till the bottom.
When your peppers are ready, sprinkle some Evoo on the bottom of the baking pan and lay down the peppers.
Bake for 40/45 minutes on 180º turning them during the baking to make sure that all the sides are well cooked.
Eat them straight away, and keep one for the day after, you'll be surprised!

Buon Appetito!!