What do with leftover panettone: or making trifle in Italy

As part of the famous Christmas hamper, we have been left with a panettone which is slowly making its way towards its use-by date. Apparently, Tre Marie panettone is good stuff, but I’m not a big panettone fan (unless we’re talking about one handmade in a pastry shop and then it’s a totally different kettle of fish - like real sweet bread, it has so much more texture compared to the boxed stuff you get in supermarkets).

We are coming into the Easter period and generally in Italy that means colomba cake although really, panettone and colomba are not different in their essentials – it’s mostly the shape that changes. So before we get to Easter and someone gives us a colomba or does something equally silly, I want to finish our panettone.

So I’m going to try and make trifle. Now, while the Italians have their own word for trifle – zuppa inglese, or English ‘soup’ – it’s actually very difficult to get the ingredients for it. Jelly? Forget it – you can only get gelatine strips. Custard? Make it yourself or get a powdered mixture. Tinned fruit? It’s winter so perhaps pineapple is not really what we’re looking for. Liqueur? It’s marsala or nothing.

Anyway, I have procured an eclectic mix of ingredients and in the interests of not making a fool of myself on the internet (although it wouldn’t be the first time) I’m going to take a stab at making a trifle in Italy this afternoon and then I’ll let you know how it goes. The post will probably go along the lines of: “successful” followed by a full list of what I did, or “unsuccessful” followed by nothing. For other, less complicated things of what do you with your panettone, see Blogdolcevita and the chocolate sauce version. Yum!

Photo | Flickr

After the Christmas hamper wine

I’m on the last bottle of our Christmas hamper wine, excluding the bubbly that has remained which will hopefully be used at some stage to celebrate our engagement (just six weeks before the wedding, but we can’t be too picky). Which means I’m now back to buying wine after a month of free stuff my fiancé didn’t drink at Christmas.

Some white wine that I bought recently I have thoroughly enjoyed, although I must say the supermarket choice can be quite limiting if you’re looking for budget, but not too budget. A recently discovered varietal which I have known about since the days of my sommelier course is pinot bianco, with this particular example from Alto Adige.

I was pleasantly surprised. The pinot bianco is fresh with plenty of fruity bouquet and decent acidic structure. Apparently it has been getting some good results as a sparkling white as well, and I’ll be interested to try it if I come across one in the future.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to do much food and wine matching recently, especially given that my fiancé rarely drinks wine and I’d be stuck finishing off anything that turned out to be a little too experimental for our tastes. We’re also a little hamstrung in our finances in that department, which could be a lasting reality for us so I may as well get used to it now. However, I’m looking forward to choosing the wines for our wedding lunch and there could be asparagus on the menu, so that means a nice white. More on this later (when we actually get the proposed menu).

In the meantime, I can enjoy a short period of cheap wine before my parents get here and I’m required to buy something a little more decent for my Dad. Which hopefully he will pay for, and then I can enjoy a short period of good wine before he goes away again and I’m back to budgeting.... Life is difficult and short for wine choices.

Homemade cotoletta

Cotoletta is really just another word for schnitzel, but while the idea is the same, there’s a difference between commercial schnitzel and the homemade variety. Given that a recent trip to the supermarket resulted in the lady getting my bread order wrong and therefore an excess of the stuff, I thought the best way to finish it and try another experiment in Italian cooking, was to make my own cotoletta.

Luckily I had the opportunity to try one at home last night myself, meaning this time around I was the guinea pig and not my fiancé. I bought some veal scaloppine, although I actually don’t know if the Italians use veal or another white meat. Chicken or pork would probably do as well, as long as they’re thin slices.

I was pleased with the bread I was using, although I would have to make cotoletta again in the future with different bread to see if it makes any difference. The bread was a golden loaf made from corn flour, and while it didn’t grate easily for breadcrumbs, I felt it made for a tasty option. It had a few seeds in it, too, but they either got grated as well or didn’t stick properly.

So on grating the bread, I dipped the veal into raw egg and then into the breadcrumbs. Generally, I’m not a fussy person but stupidly I tried all of this without getting my hands dirty with egg. I was halfway through before realising that this was an impossible endeavour, and that not only this, the breadcrumbs wouldn’t stick properly unless pressed onto the veal by hand.

Later, into a pan with a little bit of oil and you have a very nice homemade schnitzel which beats any of the pre-cooked stuff you get at the shops. On the other hand, I could actually discover a butcher who might do this all for me, but that would take the fun out of it.

PS While my suggestion of cotoletta was first met with scepticism by my fiancé, I managed to conquer the man via my breadcrumb technique. Very nice, crunchy cotoletta, I believe was the response. The fact that the bread was difficult to grate might have less to do with the type of bread, and more to do with the fact that the bread should be quite dry....

Photo | Flickr

My friend Armando

In my campaign to be more culinary competent for the next big step in my life, my father came to the rescue at Christmas with a very handy gift in the form of a recipe book. I had suspected that Armando Percuoco of the legendary Buon Ricordo Italian restaurant in Sydney was originally from southern Italy, if not Naples. Luckily though, I escaped northern Italian prejudice for long enough to read the recipe book and the recipes, and be inspired to know that they will work just as well in my northern Italian home with my northern Italian (prejudiced) fiancé.

As it turns out, my fiancé is so impressed with the recipes and my first baby steps in making them, he refuses to believe my friend Armando is from Naples (impossibile! He must be a northerner). I have put it down to the steadying influence of Australia, and am anyway pleased to say that Armando is a man who loves Australia and Australian produce.

In honour of Armando’s southern Italian origins though, the first recipe I made was that for his napoletana sauce. I ignored the fact it is still winter and he recommends making it only in summer with fresh, sweet tomatoes, or otherwise using tinned tomatoes. I bought fresh tomatoes, sticking to Italian hot houses, and it still turned out better than tinned tomato pasta sauce. I even used garlic.

The second and third recipes though, were the real winners in the house. A kind of aperitif snack with red chicory is perfect for the season, and combined with prosciutto crudo and mozzarella (my addition), has fast become my fiancé’s favourite and only homemade happy hour snack.

That was followed by two beef fillets and Armando’s fiorentina sauce with beef stock and balsamic vinegar. I don’t have proper beef stock, but I do have proper balsamic vinegar – the slightly expensive stuff although it’s still a supermarket purchase. I did thicken this with a little flour and ended up with a couple of lumps, but it was still lovely. What’s more my Anglo roots have come through and been accepted by my fiancé in the most unlikely form of Brussels sprouts.

This is totally out of left field because first of all they are green and my fiancé generally doesn’t eat anything green, and secondly “cavolini” in Italian rhymes with “caccolini” which means ‘little shits’, or something to that effect. They have become his new favourite vegetable, although I have been told not to go telling anyone he eats them. So just for the record, I’m putting it here on my blog. My mum has also furnished me with another way to cook them – sliced in butter with a little salt and pepper – which I think could be more appreciated than boiled. Thank you Mum!