Homemade semifreddo: Italian cooking disasters part one

You may think I’m on a mission to try every recipe in my Buon Ricordo recipe book and you’d be right, although it’s not actually a stated aim of mine (and I’ll probably skip the tripe – if there is one). But recently my friend Armando has abandoned me in full swing and I have discovered that my cooking skills, or instruction following capabilities are not quite up to the task.

The first home cooking disaster I’ve had is with homemade semifreddo. I quite like semifreddo and as Armando points out, it’s a great alternative to gelato which you really need an icecream making machine for if you’re going to do it properly.

Semifreddo is essentially cream and sugar (whereas gelato is made from milk) and shouldn’t prove too difficult to make. What happened to me, however, was quite unexpected. Firstly I had about triple the quantity I had expected and we only have so many containers and so much room in our bar fridge/freezer to fit stuff in. Secondly, while the semifreddo was not a total disaster, it did turn out less creamy and icier than I had anticipated.

I have thought this over and have concluded it could be the result of a couple of things. Firstly, over whisking of the cream which made it too light and fluffy, therefore stuffing up the semi freezing process, and secondly, addition of my own touch of fresh strawberries put through the blender which may have created extra water.

In any case, the bowl I had selected for the process wasn’t big enough and I had copious amounts of cream that I then had to alternate between freezer and fridge, and half of which got thrown out. And to think that Armando advises not using too much alcohol because it may interfere with the freezing process – he didn’t mentioning over whipping or strawberries though! My fiancé at the time, and now husband, said he quite liked it, and we still got married so I can only assume that for every culinary success, he has accepted there will be a failure in inverse proportion.

Photo | Flickr

Italian weddings: don't forget the moscato

You may wonder where I’ve been for the last month but keeping weddings simple is not as easy as it seems. After weeks of haphazard planning and then entertaining family, it was all over in one day and I probably didn’t savour it as much as I should have done, but I certainly ate and drank enough to remember a lovely lunch.

The biggest challenge for me was the menu and the wine but I have to hand it to my new husband. His instinct of keeping the menu simple, almost rustic, went down a treat with both Italian and English guests. Risotto is always appreciated and you can never go wrong with tagliata, so keeping the troops happy on that front wasn’t difficult.

For the non alcoholic drinkers we provided a fruit aperitif which I ignored on account of having chosen a nice Franciacorta for the sparkling wine. I can’t say whether it was a hit or not, but it should have given some guests something to think about compared to the usual sparkling wine consumed during happy hour. I forsook champagne because I figure I may as well start practising my new patriotism – not difficult to do when we’re talking wine.

I went into crisis on choosing the white wine because of recent tasting experiences on the pinot bianco front. You may remember I tried some pinot bianco recently that I quite liked (fresh and fruity), and then I tried another which I didn’t like as much. It seemed more like a hot climate wine, semi-aged and lacking in acidic structure. Other than proving that you need to taste lots of wine to get to know them, it also proved that I had no guarantees on choosing pinot bianco for my guests. So I went for an old favourite and picked a pinot grigio from Friuli (and you can never go wrong).

For the red obviously something local, meaning nebbiolo for us, and while my local wine merchant tried to convert me to Grumello, he didn’t quite manage. It was good, but Sassella still remains supreme for me, for its lovely perfume. In fact, our driver told us he was happy to be there given that it is his favourite wine which might bring you to ask what our driver was doing drinking but that’s another story (the night finished well with no drink drinking so things were fine).

My local wine merchant did manage to convince me that moscato is an indispensable part of an Italian wedding and he did have a nice one that we took to the restaurant the day before. Frankly, if you’re having a Saint Onoré cake, or practically any Italian dessert, this is the combination you’re looking for. And you can never beat bubbles for a wedding toast.