Long and short pasta

What to use when?

In case you aren't familiar with the terminology, long pasta refers to spaghetti, linguine, fettuccine, angel hair, etc. Short pasta refers to farfalle, shells, rigatoni, penne, so on and so forth...

The rule is simple but not necessarily intuitive:

Long pasta for creamy, more fluid sauces. Short pasta for chunkier sauces.

For example: meat sauce, which has chunks of ground beef, goes well with short pasta. Pesto, which is made of finely chopped bits of basil, goes well with long pasta.

How about a sauce made with chopped spinach? Depends on how you prepare the sauce. If you simply saute` the spinach with some garlic and olive oil, then you'd want to use short pasta. If you decide to put the cooked spinach through a food processor, thus making it creamy, then you could use long pasta instead.

The best way to understand how the consistency of the sauce decides the pasta is to try it out. I am confident you'll pick it up right away.

The Tuscan Coast at Castiglione della Pescaia

Tiramisu`

• 450 grams of Mascarpone
• 6 eggs (at room temperature)
• 10 tablespoons of sugar
• 24 savoiardi (ladyfingers)
• Espresso coffee (to soak the ladyfingers)
• Cocoa Powder (optional)

Equipment:

• 6 inch x 9 inch x 3 inch (depth) casserole dish
• Hand mixer or whisk
• Spatula
• "Moka Express" stovetop espresso maker or any other espresso machine

Procedure:

Leave the eggs at room temperature for a couple of hours. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites – putting the egg yolks into a large mixing bowl and the whites into a medium mixing bowl (the egg whites will later be transferred into the larger mixing bowl with the egg yolks).

Beat the egg whites until they have risen and are firm. It must be noted that when trying to fluff the egg whites, the mixer/whisk should be completely clean and free of any egg yolk. When egg yolk is mixed into the egg whites, the egg whites won’t fluff.

Add the sugar to the large mixing bowl with the egg yolks and mix. Add the mascarpone to the large bowl and mix. Mix until you have a completely creamy consistency.

Carefully fold in a couple of dollops at a time of fluffed egg whites into the creamy mixture. If some of the egg whites reduced back into their liquid form, make sure to whisk them into fluff before folding them in. Again, make sure the mixer/whisk is completely clean.

Brew 3 "Italian cups" (1 italian cup = 2 US fluid ounces; so 6 US fluid oz total) of espresso so that you can soak the ladyfingers in it. Start by creating a first layer of soaked ladyfingers in the casserole dish. Pour on top the egg/sugar/mascarpone mix until the layer of ladyfingers is no longer visible. Gently place another layer of soaked ladyfingers on top of the mix, making sure not to press down – keeping the layers even. On top of the second layer of ladyfingers add another layer of the mix, covering the ladyfingers until they are no longer visible. Do this until you run out of the mix – making sure that the mix is the last layer to be added.

For decorations you can sprinkle some cocoa powder on the top of the tiramisu.

Enjoy!

Lemon Chicken (Pollo in Fricassea)

• 2 Chicken Breasts (Cut into cubes) – Any other cutlet works fine
• 1 small onion or ½ of a large onion – diced finely
• Olive Oil
• 1 lemon (squeezed) – or equivalent in lemon juice
• 1 tbsp of flour
• 3 egg yolks

Procedure:

Heat a large and deep skillet at medium heat.

Add enough olive oil to create a thin layer covering the whole bottom surface of the skillet. Throw in diced onion and chicken pieces at the same time. Cover the skillet. If skillet doesn’t have a lid you can use aluminum foil to cover the skillet. Uncover every few minutes to stir – making sure nothing burns. If the chicken and onion mix seems to get dry, you can add some water to keep it moist.

When the chicken is thoroughly cooked (take a piece and cut into it to check that it is cooked all the way through), take the cover off, raise heat to medium-high or high. For a few minutes stir frequently to make sure nothing burns. The goal is to slightly brown the chicken.

When the chicken has a nice golden color, turn the heat to simmer.

Mix the lemon juice with the egg yolks. Take some of the hot/warm liquid from the skillet and pour it spoonful by spoonful in the lemon-egg mixture while continuously mixing. The reason we want to do this is so we will slowly raise the temperature of the eggs so that when we finally mix them into the chicken, they won’t curdle (like scrambled eggs). Make sure not to put too much of the hot liquid in at one time since it will cook the eggs. 4-5 spoonfuls of the hot/warm liquid should be enough for the eggs not to curdle later.

Sprinkle the flour over the simmering chicken.

Add the lemon juice and egg yolk mixture and quickly turn everything with a large spoon or spatula (this is where the depth of the skillet comes in handy).

The resulting product should be something like gravy. If the sauce is too liquid, add more flour. If too dry, add more lemon/egg yolk mixture (make sure to slowly raise the temperature of the eggs before throwing them in!!).

Enjoy!