Scoop of the Week: Banana Ice Cream

I've always loved bananas and eat one or more a day. They go against my goal to always eat sustainably and locally, but it's one of the exceptions I make. If bananas were ever in season in Italy I'd wait patiently, but they aren't. So I eat them a lot, all year round.
Lately I've been trying to make ice creams that recall something sweet and delicious that I love. Banana bread is one of these things, but it's only recently, thanks to Cook's Illustrated, that I now make a perfect banana bread.
My approach to ice cream (in this case banana) is to look at the ingredients in banana bread and try to use them in my ice cream. Bananas have to be over-ripe to achieve a rich banana flavor, but Cook's Illustrated takes this one step further. They suggest microwaving the bananas for five minutes and then using a fine mesh strainer to separate out the banana juice. The banana juice is then cooked until it is reduced by half and added back to the bananas. What you achieve is a deeper, richer banana flavor and a banana bread that is much lighter. I used this same approach in my ice cream and it worked divinely.

Ingredients:

• Over-ripe bananas (black and soft), peeled and mashed - 2 1/2 cups, about 6 bananas (600 grams)
• Cream, 1/2 liter
• Sugar, 1/2 cup ( 100 grams)
• Eggs, two whole
• Toasted pine nuts, 1 cup (125 grams) - optional
• Dark rum, 1/8 cup (30 ml) - optional

Procedure:

• Use a potato masher to mash the bananas. Don't process the bananas: you want to have some bits of banana in the ice cream.
• Whisk the sugar, cream and egg together in a saucepan.
• Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens enough to coat a wooden spoon.
• Place the pan, lidded, in an ice bath and cool thoroughly, stirring occasionally.

• Cook the mashed bananas in the microwave on high for 5 minutes.
• Strain the bananas for about 30 minutes over a fine mesh strainer.

• The banana juice, once cool, has a gelatinous appearance. Cook it in a saucepan until reduced by half.

• Whisk the cream mixture, banana pulp, banana juice and rum together until well amalgamated.
• Place the mixture in the freezer.
• Every half hour whisk, or stir, the mixture vigorously until frozen solid to avoid the formation of ice crystals.
  
• Place the pine nuts in a frying pan and toss gently until just golden. Cool.
• Once the ice cream is almost frozen solid stir in the pine nuts.

I made the ice cream in four different ways: without pine nuts and rum, with pine nuts only, with rum only and with pine nuts and rum. It was great all four ways. This ice cream is so tasty, and the texture of the bananas so luscious, that I think I like it best just with bananas.



If you are allergic to dairy or eggs try this recipe using only bananas.
David Lebovitz uses brown sugar and coconut milk in his version of banana ice cream.

Edible Lazio: Sagre this week-end

I spent the morning, as I always do on Saturdays, with my husband. Enjoying a coffee and cornetto, reading the paper, driving around to different towns in northern Lazio to run errands...and just for the pleasure of it. Fiano Romano, pictured above, is one of my favorites.
I also spent a bit of time tweeting about the different sagre (food fests) going on in the fabulous Lazio region this weekend.
The tomato is the star of most sagre as in one way or another it usually appears in the signature dishes each town is showcasing over the weekend.



The essential element of the sagra is that it features the town's tastiest, locally produced, in season food or beverage. In other words it's all about sustainability. Many of these sagre have been going on for decades and are a time for the town to celebrate with music and dancing and other activities. The main event, however, is the food and everyone gathers in the town square to enjoy a feast.
I love snails, both the sea and field variety, and happily a few sagre feature them this weekend.

• Monte Rotondo's Ciummacata (field snails) will be prepared with tomato sauce and peperoncino.
  

• Valmontone is celebrating its 31st field snail sagra.

Some of the other sagre happening in the Lazio region this weekend:

• Rocca Priora is hosting its first ever clam sagra, and will also prepare fried moscardini.

• Sipicciano's 6th sagra features something sweet: the bombolone casareccio, fried and filled with cream, jam, nutella and white chocolate.

• On this hot weekend head to the hill town of Montelibretti for the town's wine fest featuring wines from local grotte antiche (antique wine caves).

• Nerola offers up pappardelle al ragu' di cinghiale (wild boar sauce) as part of their sagra of homemade pasta and game.

• Faleria hosts its second summer tartufo fest today and tomorrow.

• Valcanneto's arrosticino (skewered lamb) sagra will also be its second ever.

• Pizze fritte for the 28th sagra della frittella in the Laziale town, Terrignano, today and tomorrow.

• Ardea will feature spaghetti cacio e pepe, served at the town's Sforza castle.

• Lazio's abundant sagre are not just ebible fests: check out the infiorata artistica (flower display) in charming Poggio Moiano.

If you'd like to keep up to date on the various sagre going on throughout the year in Lazio there are a few websites you can look at: http://www.sagreinitalia.it/sagre-in-lazio.asp or http://www.laziofeste.it/

Scoop of the week: Cherry Ice Cream

When I was little we used to spend part of the summer at our grandparents' home in Downers Grove, outside of Chicago. I haven't been back since, but at the time Downers Grove was a small suburban location, almost rural.
Two of my strongest memories from those visits pertained to food. Pepperidge Farm was located in Downers Grove and I used to love walking by their baking facility; the aroma of baking bread was almost tangible. The other memory was cherries. My grandmother used to can cherries from her trees and her pantry was laden with quart-sized jars of cherries. I can't recall what my grandmother looked like, or anything about her, but I do remember the shelves of canned cherries. They were delicious eaten right out of the jar and to this day I don't think there's anything tastier than a cherry pie made with fresh cherries.
Cherry season in Rome doesn't last long, just a month or so from mid-May to the end of June. It's unbearable that cherries are available for such a short time period, but it makes them all the more desirable when they are in season. I plan to bake a cherry pie this week, but today I opted for cherry ice cream. We're doing an 80th birthday dinner for one of our clients and her family, and I've baked her a luscious chocolate birthday cake for the event. Cherries and chocolate are a natural together, so cherry ice cream seemed a grand idea on this hot June day.
My ice cream is in the freezer now and every half an hour or so I give it a good stir with a wooden spoon. It should be frozen solid by dinner time.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• Cherries, pitted - 525 grams (3 cups)
• Sugar - 65 grams ( (1/4 cup)
• Cream - 410 ml (1 3/4 cups)
• Milk - 180 ml (3/4 cup)
• Egg yolks - 2
• Sugar - 65 grams (1/4 cup)
• Salt - a pinch
• Cherry syrup - 30 ml (2 tbsp)

Procedure:

• Pit the cherries using a cherry (olive) pitter, like the one below.
• Toss the cherries in the sugar and set aside.

• Cream the egg yolks and sugar together until the yolks are a pale yellow.

• Put the cream, milk and cherries in a blender and process until the cherries are roughly chopped.
• Cook the cream, milk and cherry mixture several minutes on medium until warm.
• Add the salt, egg yolks and sugar and cook several minutes over low heat until the mixture coats a wooden spoon.
• Stir in the cherry syrup.
• Place the pan in a sink full of ice water and stir occasionally until cool.
• Put the pan in the freezer and stir every 30 minutes until frozen solid.

You might want to try the Simply Recipes version of cherry ice cream with chocolate chips.
Another cherry ice cream recipe you might want to take a look at: Canadian Living

A Sicilian Pasticceria in Rome

I take the train a lot. It's a relaxing way to travel and frankly airport security procedures are starting to weigh heavily on me. With the train you show up fifteen minutes in advance of departure time and off you go. I can easily metro my way over to the station but usually my husband drives me there and then picks me up when I return. Traffic is always a mess right around the station so yesterday I decided to save my husband a little bit of aggravation by walking a block away from the station.
I parked myself on the corner of Via Volturno & Via Solferino, just in front of the Caffe Giuliani.



The display of cannoli in the window was enough to draw me into the pasticceria. I ordered myself a coffee and a cannoli: they're small and I like that. Perfect for a mid-afternoon indulgence.
But it doesn't end there. There's a whole row of glass cases displaying other tempting pastries, and the aroma of chocolate about the place made it hard to step out the door and into our car, with cannoli in hand for my husband.
I think this will be my new pick up point at Termini, making train travel all the more appealing.

Trains and Dining and Great Things Gone By

I'm sitting on the Frecciarossa three and a half hour high speed train from Milan to Rome. It's great: I've got free wifi, a plug outlet for my computer, all the techie things we now look for in train and air travel.
And my lunch? I just ate a hard-boiled egg I pocketed from the hotel breakfast buffet and I also have some fruit, yogurt and a few beverages to tide me over until I arrive in Rome.
My meal reminds me of a story covered just two days ago on Italian television about London's Kings Cross to Leeds full dining car service. On May 20th the East Coast main line railway dinner service came to an end. There's something imminently sad and nostalgic about seeing the disappearance of railway dining. It's another form of slow food that you hate to see go.
Instead we have roll-away carts with soft drinks, potato chips, candy bars and occasionally some not-so-fresh sandwiches on sale. My train goes on to Naples after Rome so instead of a roll-away food cart an entrepreneurial Neapolitan man is selling homemade panini and water out of a water bucket.

It's great to get a lot of work and extra reading done on the train, but honestly I'd prefer to mosey up to a dining car for a full dinner service.
My brother-in-law is a train fanatic so when we were in California in January we trained our way up to Sacramento to visit the state capital's train museum. It might not be the first place that comes to your mind to visit when you're in California but it's well worth the visit. There's a whole slice of American history within the museum, but what I was most drawn to was the history of American railway dining. Railway dining was an event in and of itself, replete with great food, waiters, a la carte menus, and cutlery and dinnerware featuring the insignia of each line.
The charming guide we had dates back to the days of railway car dining and enthusiastically showed us all the menus and dinnerware of the various lines.



Here is a sampling of what you would have found in some of the West Coast's railway dining cars.
The cover of the San Francisco Overland Limited menu featured a detailed pen and ink drawing of its train. The line's cutlery was exquisitely and intricately designed.



The Mimbreno china could be found exclusively on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Dining Car No. 1474. The dining car was named Cochiti, after a 1,000 year old Indian pueblo in New Mexico. The car was later used as a restaurant in Tea, South Dakota.



This delicate, flower-painted dinnerware was featured on the California Limited. Of note are some of the appetizing, and exotic, menu choices: Green Turtle a l'Anglaise, Larded Tenderloin of Beef, Perigueux and Sweetbread Cutlet.



The healthy adage, "eat an apple a day", was artistically conveyed on the Southern and Northern Pacific Railway plates.



Although cooking space was tight on-board, the railway kitchens were probably no smaller than many restaurant kitchens.



Although the days of fine dining on trains have mostly come and gone I thought it might be nice to capture the moment by owning some of the old dinnerware and cutlery. It is available, not inexpensively, through antique dealers buying and selling on-line. "The Official Guide to Railroad Dining Car China", by Douglas W. McIntyre, will tell you everything you need to know on the subject. Careful though: this out of print book, published in 1990, currently sells for about $150.00, used.

Let me digress from food for a moment...

I met Karen almost a year ago, on-line at first. We both belong to AWAR, a club for American women in Rome. Although there aren't many events I participate in with this group it does have one great thing: a list serve. For those of you who don't know what a list serve is, it's a way to put a question or comment out to a closed group and receive input back. It's a great thing. Especially if you live overseas and have questions about your new environment: restaurant advice, housing, local events and so forth.
Karen is a loquacious, curious and sometimes quirky American woman (married to a lovely Japanese man) living in Rome now for almost a year. She posted so frequently on our AWAR list serve that I eventually teased her about being a list serve spammer. Her insights and curiosity about everything Italian have made me notice things I'd never taken the time to contemplate.
Karen is now part of a monthly cooking group I run and I've gotten to know her quite well. She is a warm and insightful person and her posts to our list serve are often thoughtful and touching, like this one posted for mother's day, which she has allowed me to share with you:

Most of the time, the news is just terrible.

And New Yorkers are thought of as a pretty tough bunch, their thoughts concentrated on making it in a crowded, pushy, fast-paced, competitive place.

But this spring, all of New York has been watching the webcam of a Washington Square nest of a red-tailed hawk couple, named Violet and Bobby. The city (with untold watchers around the world) has been waiting for their eggs to hatch, watching the parents dutifully incubate and turn the eggs. They waited, and waited, and were collectively grieved when on Tuesday the eggs were termed by the experts to be duds.

But then, the unexpected happened....and all of NY has rejoiced! A baby hawk, the rather unattractive ornithological term for which is eyeass, emerged on Friday! Siblings are expected momentarily!

A happy Mother's Day for Violet! And just think of how this avian maternity and this little bit of new life has brought pleasure and smiles to millions!

I hope you human moms have a good Mother's Day, too!

You can read about Violet and Bobby and see pictures here.

(I love the fact that the parks department has stopped poisoning rats in the square so that the babies will have healthy food! And that the strawberry festival planned for the square will have signs up asking people to keep the noise down to be less stressful for the newborns and their parents! What a town!)

So that's Karen. I read her post first thing this mother's day and it started my day off just right. I've been rejoicing motherhood, birth and renewal for the last few weeks of our marvelous Roman spring. Births have been happening everywhere around me and here are some pictures I have captured that celebrate what mothers everywhere, of all species, bring into the world.

These six baby birds were born two days ago on my terrace; right next to my cooking group as we sat and dined...

These two kittens are part of a large litter; the mother is breast feeding her own, plus kittens from another litter who lost their mother.



Baby lambs are everywhere on our hillsides this spring:



A brown and white, spindly legged baby donkey with its mother.



Baby Alfredo was born ten days ago to a dear friend and his wife. Newborns aren't always beautiful but this baby boy is exquisite.

You say "all'amatriciana", and I say "alla matriciana"...

Amatriciana or matriciana, the sauce is still the same: rich,spicy, with crunchy bits of guanciale. The name varies based on who is trying to lay claim to this pasta sauce's origins. The sauce is supposedly named after the town of Amatrice in the Appenine hills to the North East of Rome. Whether true or not, this sauce has become one of the signature dishes of Roman culinary tradition.
I know it must seem that I'm using guanciale for just about everything these days and it's probably true. But it's just so good and flavor-enhancing in many savory dishes. It gives a certain oomph to otherwise bland vegetables and provides smoky, crunchy flavor to pasta sauces. So it's true, I am using it a lot.

To prepare the sauce correctly (and it will make all the difference to the successful outcome of the sauce to use the right ingredients) you need:

• Fresh or canned, peeled tomatoes, 500 grams
• Guanciale, 150 grams, finely cubed (or cut into thin, inch long strips)
• One peperoncino (red chili pepper), minced
• One medium onion, thinly sliced
• Bucatini or spaghetti, 500 grams
• Pecorino Romano cheese, about 75 grams, grated
  

• Cook the guanciale in a heavy-weight frying pan over a very low flame until the guanciale starts to become golden and crispy.
• Add the sliced onion and minced red pepper and cook until the onion is soft and translucent.
• Add the tomatoes and cook over medium heat until the sauce thickens.

• While the sauce is cooking put the pasta into boiling, salted water and cook until al dente. The original recipe calls for bucatini, a long, hollow pasta. I find it too unwieldy and always end up with sauce on my clothes so I opt for the more manageable alternative: spaghetti.

• Once the pasta is cooked, drain and add to your pasta sauce.
• Toss well and serve with grated Pecorino Romano cheese.