Danilo's Polpettone

A style of meat balls with a hint of curry.

200 veal
100 pork
Passed once through mixer don't over work
300 gms cold mashed potatoe
100 gms chicory Leaves chopped
Parsley chopped
180 gms Parmesan and Pecorino mix ( to our taste it is too salty so add in cheddar cheese and reduce other 2 )
1 teaspoon curry powder
Mix together form balls and squash then dry fry. Served with a salad.

The next day he used the same mix and patted it into a square slab about 8mm thick on some cooking paper, layer with cold cooked beans and roasted capsicum in the centre and roll to make a loaf wrap and tie. Cooked like a meat loaf in a pan with good amount of oil bake 180 deg 45 min in the last 10 mins add white wine.

For me I think it was a waste of wine as he did not serve the pan juices .... So I asked Sandy what she would do.

Sandy said she would pierce the paper 1/2 way through the cook once the roll was set so the juices could then blend with the oil in the pan and with the white wine to create a sauce and drizzle the finished product.

Italians use curry flavours very sparingly so you know it's there in the flavour but not to over shadow the actual flavours of the raw ingrediance.

The curry powder had a very keens curry powder smell I look on the liable and can work out most of the ingredients so coriander, Oregano, mustard, cardomin, fennel, turmeric, ginger, clove and salt...also trigonella....need to confirm what this is....

Some home work for some of my commenters please...

Danilo's Secret To A Good Pesto

Pesto for gnocchi
70 gms rocket
30 gm almond (as this region is in the south they have no pine nuts but grow loads of almonds) it is a more grainier texture but did go well with the gnocchi I must admit.
30 gms pecorino
50 gms Parmesan

Blitz for 20 sec all above ingredients on a "high speed".

Add 110 gms EVO oil and salt to taste blitz "slow speed" for 20 sec so it doesn't get hot and it will hold it green colour, when ready to serve thin with ricotta and heat together toss in gnocchi

Danilo's Gnocchi

There is certainly an art in making gnocchi and Danilo has perfect soft pillows!
Sounds funny but back home I won't eat gnocchi as it is to hard and floury and like glue. I did post a recipe from Prato degli  Angelo from the Emilia Romagna region but there's was more of a pasta style and being small cooked right through and tasted fine, buy still not the soft gnocchi I have been looking for.

Here in Pulgia we found the best soft gnocchi and Danilo is here to give us the technic and his recipe. He uses much less flour and the result was wonderful, soft and fluffy gnocchi.


1kg potato cooked, mashed and "cold" The secret is use cold potato and it won't start to cook the flour prior to actually forming and cooking the gnocchi. Make sure your potato is dry so you "don't need" as much flour, so prepare it several hours before.
200gms flour
1 egg
Salt

Mix together very very gently till it comes together. Turn out in to very lightly floured surface cut of a section and roll into a sausage say 20mm dia the cut into 20mm pieces and squash and very gently roll on the back of a folk to give lines for the sauce to stick to.

Bring salted water to a boil and cook for one minute more after they come back to the float.
When you place them in the boiling water they will sink until they are nelly cooked, never stir just be patient and when they are nelly cooked and if the are light enough they will pop to the surface of the water, and as I said wait the one minutiae for a cooked, light and fluffy gnocchi...wonderbar...

Serve tossed in pesto or tomato passata is traditional.

Danilo's Recipes From Masseria Santa Lucia

To follow will be is a small selection from the cooking classes at Masseria Santa Lucia
The kitchen was huge and again set out with all the mod cons. Dinner here is very southern and first food service is never before 8.30pm. Down south they still believe in the siesta and shops open from 9 to 1pm and then again from 4pm till 9pm or even later and dinner is never served before 8.30pm. Very layback and relaxed not sure if the same hours apply in winter!

Restaurant Lunch at Tricase di Marina

Lunch out before classes this afternoon
Red lobster the male one with the big nippers sorry before and after shots, they insist that you see what you are buying!!!
Cute little Marina and another great drive around the rugged south coast line.

Service Stations

I love the service stations here as they even wash all the windows, our car over the last few days has come across lots of dirt roads and with a slight shower overnight it was getting hard to see out the muddy windows.
Petrol here is around €1.50 to €1.80 so about $2.20 to $2.60 bit ouchy ... And you pay around .08 to .12 € cents per Lt. extra for the service but it is so worth it.

Teal Waters

Everywhere you go you see the teal waters of the Adriatic Ocean but is hard to capture it on the ipad camera but I think this one shows a bit of it. Sandy has some cracker shorts on here camera so it may be a slide night and vino at The Retreat with friend when we get home.

Can't Get Any Further South In Puliga

This morning we are off for a day trip to explore the southern most tip of the Pulgia region before this afternoon cooking classes begin.
Looking at a map of the heal the western side is long sandy beaches and the eastern side is the rocky side it was just breathtaking. But this time with my driving skills getting better it wasn't too breathtaking for Sandy in the passenger seat.

Masseria Santa Lucia

We arrive around 5pm into a little Masseria Santa Lucia 6km from the southern most tip of Puglia for our next 4 days cooking and sightseeing adventures.  Heading slightly inland but as the heal of the boot is fairly narrow it's still not to far either way to the coast anyway.

We are greeted by a beautiful lady our age and who with her partner have also started up in agrotourisum, leaving the north some 10 years ago to start a fresh in Southern Italy. Lucania  was in sales and Danilo traveled the world and into Australia  in the pearl industry. Danilo is the chef and he will be doing the classes each afternoon with us prior to food service.

This Masseria has only 7 rooms so more our size business and Lucania like me does front of house so I can already tell that the four of us are going to get on famously. With them both speaking great English one can start to have more of a chat.
Here they grow olives, almonds, veges and their own black wheat (ancient grain a old style which has been bought back into production by little organic farmers) which they grind to make flour for the pasta and breads for the small restaurant.
Since the GFC not so many locals come out much for dinner anymore so most of their trade is the tourism sector being mostly in-house guest.

I Love Tomatoes

This Masseria Montenapoleone has 17 rooms spread around in many outbuilding and the main house so there is lots of people to feed. It is set on top of a cave system and dates back to the 15th centre. Under the building is the breakfast area in the caves. It had been laying abandoned for 15 years when a local plumber took it on and renovated. What an amazing undertaking and who ever said there is no money in the trades...

Found another weed in the garden this morning and I'm told its Stevia a natural sweet sugar replacement, munch out and it starts out sweet and than turns a bit bitter I'm thinking it's a bit like a sackren tablets, so it definitely won't be on my garden planting list...

They are picking little tomatoes at the moment and boy are they yum... It's a strange thing to say but they do have a very different taste to what we are used to back home. Because the soil and the air are full of salt from the sea the flavour is also transported into the tomatoes. But not only in the taste but also in the shelf life they hang them inside and because of the salt content they keep well into the winter.
That's it ... I'm moving to Southern Italy just so I can eat tomatoes that taste like tomatoes in winter even if they are a little salter.

Southern Plants

Just loving the different plants down here all so adapted to the hot dry but sometime humid climate. The olive trees as I keep saying are everywhere and all so ancient but lots of the older one are being just left as some of the bigger corporation are flooding the market with cheep labour oils so it's had for some of the original farmers to survive. That + the GFC and we are seeing places just abandoned. But there is a small resurgence coming through in the name of agrotourism that is helping both the farmers and the local southern communities solder on. Some pictures from seen to not seen, some prickley some not and lastly 2 beautiful Bougainville in flower.

Cooking Classes At Masseria Montenapoleone

Over the last few days we have had some great one on one classes at the Masseria so I will post the pictures now and I will have to post some recipes later. This area is best known for Antipasto and Orakettie yep I'm sure once Sandy edits this post that spelling mistake will be corrected... So it's a paste like little ears.

What's Behind That Door

It's amazing you will be walking in a ancient car less little village and come across a very uninspiring doorway, hidden away amongst the other drab buildings but only to reveal the most amazing hidden treasures inside. So above is the door and the next 3 pictures below, the view is from the ceiling and then down to the alter if you get my drift.

Cedro Lemon

Another interesting and different fruit that we experiences at the Masserina was a Cedro Lemon.

You peel the skin away to reveal a thick hard pith which has the texture of a hard apple and this is the section you eat.

The centre juice section is sooooo sooooo bitter and not edible, but like me I still had to see just how bitter it was, I should have trusted my Italian guide !!!!
Now what you do with the pith is you cut it into slithers add lemon juice, a sweet one with some olive oil, salt and pepper and strangle enough it was quite good.
Again may look into wether I can get one back home.
Here they have to grow them in the orangery as the winds on this hill in autumn are quite strong and today we got to experience such a wind, so jackets on and it won't be a pool day. But they tell us this is usually for this time of the year and tomorrow it will be stinking hot again.

The Orangery

Hill Top Town Of Ostuni

This morning we are heading out for a tour around some of the hill top towns in the Puliga region. Cute little towns perched high on hills once as fortified towns.

Ostuni is know as the white town and is one famous in this area over looking the Adriatic Ocean some 6km to the south half way between Bari and Brindisi.
A day trip may not take you many miles as the roads are narrow but the scenery and the buildings are all so spectacular and ancient. My driving skills with the help of the sporty one are becoming a pleasure, she just purrs up the hills.

Preserving Capers

Pick as a tiny to small bud
24 hrs in water
Drain
Dry
Add salt turn every day until they turn colour about 7 days
Use as is as the salted variety
OR
Cover with white wine vinegar....seal

Simple as ... if I can grow them or be able to get the fresh ones in Aussieland...

Its A Weed!!

So now I know what to do with a weed that we have in our garden ...
You eat them ....
Sandy and I were in the kitchens today doing another one on one cooking class so as we had them all to ourselves so the questions are coming thick and fast.
It's been great as the cook here is again totally Italian and non English speaking so through the translator the 25 year old son of the owner of the Masseria we are getting all the southern tips.
I wander off down a few steps to see a young lady and guy cleaning what looks like a pile of weeds. They called them portulacas, hmmmm so thats what they are ...
But I still call them weeds as they are not the pretty flowering ones we propagate back home but the wild ones that grow rampant in early spring that are a real pest.

These are weeds to us but here in this arid climate are a great replacement for salad greens at the end of the season when it's just too hot for other salad greens to survive.

So what to do with them ... it's the typical marination of olive oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper and well the taste is not bad so when we are back home I will give them a try. Proberly won't be on the menu of The Retreat, but you never know what the future may bring.

Growing Capers

Growing Capers Amazing ...
Just loving the cooking classes at the agrotourisum Masseria Montenapoleone as it also touches on my passion the edible garden.
On our garden walk today and picking things for the cooking class we come across my first ever sighting of Capers and they are growing here naturally. They are growing like weeds, with a pretty white flower and long purple stamens on long cascading branches with lush green leaves.
 The ants carry the seeds into the crevices of the limestone and from a small stone hole on a rocky wall or natural outcrop comes this amazing plant surviving in what appears to be no soil at all.
 Hmmmm must look into how I may be able to recreate this stone wall affect back at The Retreat as we do have a very similar hot and dry climate "except for the humidity" so very well may be able to grow them back home in a pile of limestone.
Here the winters get down to sometime 6 deg over night and sometimes even a frost, but as the plant is deciduous maybe it's still worth a shot even though we get a month of frosts. Perhaps the rocks will warm enough during the day so a mission is now planed so lets give it a try.

Glenda & Malcolm

We have meet a great couple from England here at the Masseria and over the past  4 days have found ourselves sitting with them at dinner and relaxing by the pool between classes. Today we took them out with us to go the the Trilie Town, they are here for 2 weeks without a car and not to keen to drive on the continent !

So us crazy driving Aussies adopted them and we have been having a blast. The night time meals at the masseria are only a couple of times a week so on the others we cook. Tonight we took them to a little village and managed to communicate well enough with the locals, so with many a laugh we got some fruit and veg, chicken + the ever so important Vino Roso.
Glenda started to work for Good House Keeping in the 60' in the recipe development kitchen so Sandy and her have just clicked. With both of their passions for food we all are cooking up some Thai in the communal kitchen at the masseria and sitting under the fig trees ... what a multicultural mix.

Sandy's stash of fish sauce, coconut milk, red curry paste makes for a great Thai Red Curry. Being away for such a long time every so often we just need that hit of spice.

Malcolm lit his first ever mozzie coil and was amazed that we seam to travel very prepared but thank goodness as the mozzies down here are very friendly. Glenda prepared some poached peaches in some cinnamon sticks that we found in Venice so a great dinner all round

The Trulli buildings were "truly amazing" sorry for the pun but one can't refuse, so I will now leave you with some pictures.

The first 4 pictures was of a non tourist one that we come across the other-day in a locked paddock and is dated 1836. It consisted of several rooms all roundish and all with very tall conical ceilings with dirt floors. As we were looking from the road a old man drove by and under his Italian instruction I think we were given permission to have a look around so opened the gate and in we were. Felt like we had stepped back in time as the place was over grown but still had bits and pieces in the old cupboard and all with a dirt floor and white washed walls, it was fascinating.

The next pictures are from the tourist town of Albero????? This was also interesting as the town all with walking only streets was cutie large and again a great look back into history.

Lindsay Woolveridge Comment On Primitivo Wine

"Primitivo the great variety known to us Australians as Zinfandel. Two that you should try upon your return to Australia are Piggs Peake (Hunter Vally) and Cargo Road (Orange). Still looks like you are enjoying yourselves keep it up"

Thanks for that Lindsay, Sandy LOVES the Primitivo ... do you or anybody else out there in Comment World have the heads up on the other variety Negroamaro can we get that in Australia???