Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘fruit’

Cantucci with pistachio and mandarin olive oil

Posted in Dolce recipes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 23, 2013 | 3 Comments »

Nudo Mandarin Olive Oil home made cantucci recipe

This biscuit is a tasting tour of Italy minus the carbon emissions.  The pistacchio is a superb Sicilian sensation, the mandarin olive oil a creation unique to the Apennines in Le Marche, the almonds evoke the intoxicating amaretti of the north , and the citrus peel is pure Amalfi coast. But these erstwhile warring factions unite and sing in sweet harmony in this delicious biscuit, which should really be eaten dipped in a glass of Vin Santo. And fine health to you too.

Ingredients for about 30 biscotti

Almonds – 60g/2.2oz whole blanched

Pistachios – 80g/2.8oz shelled.

Eggs – 2 large

Flour – 250g/8.8oz

Caster sugar – 150g/5.3oz

Baking powder – 1 tsp

Mixed peel – 4 tsp

Vanilla bean paste – 1 tsp (an alternative is 1 tsp vanilla extract)

Extra virgin olive oil crushed with mandarins – 6 tsp

Icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 180oC/GM4/350oF. Spread the almonds on a baking tray and roast them for 5 minutes. Make sure that you don’t burn them though, they turn in an instant. I like to then skin the pistachio – it’s time consuming but makes the biscuits so much prettier. Toss them into a bowl of just boiled water, leave for 10 minutes, then start slipping the loose skins off.

Nudo Mandarin Olive Oil home made cantucci recipe

Lightly beat the eggs, and then grab a big mixing bowl and chuck in the flour, sugar and baking powder. Give a quick mix and then add the nuts, eggs, peel, vanilla and mandarin olive oil. Mix it all well together with a spoon. Then with your hands scoop out a quarter of the mix and mould it into a thick sausage shape. Roll this in icing sugar and place it on a baking tray lined with bake-o-glide or parchment paper. Press down on the top of the sausage to flatten it a bit. Repeat this process with the rest of the mixture, and make sure you leave a decent space between the 4 sausages. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Once they are ready take them out of the oven and using a decent serrated knife carefully cut the sausages into 1cm thick slices. It’s tricky cutting through the nuts, and if it starts to fall part squash it back together into the right shape. Lay these out on the baking tray and pop them back in the oven for a few minutes. Leave to cool and store in a sealed container or eat once they’ve cooled down. I like to bake extra and give them as gifts in one of our Nudo tins.

Get your Homemade Cantucci Box now for the special price of $11.50 from Nudo-Italia.com

Read Full Post »

Fruit service

Posted in Stories from the Olive Grove, tagged , , , , , , , on April 14, 2011 | 6 Comments »

In my small world, there is little as pleasing as being given a piece of fruit on a plate with a sharp knife. There is no fruit that isn’t immediately improved by at least a factor of 10 with these two small additions. An orange ‘untooled’ is not a fun fruit – that first bruising, finger-staining penetration of the skin, the unsatisfying picking at layers of pith, the disheartening cleaving of segments torn apart revealing their pulpy innards. But an orange with a knife – well it’s a different game altogether. You can go for the straightforward kids’ football quarters and get your face stuck in, you can score the skin into a few segments and peel it back with a satisfaction almost as great as when as a kid you could pick that dried copydex glue from your fingertips, or you can give yourself the challenge of the ‘all off in one’ helter skelter skin peel. There is no bad option.

I offer ‘fruit service’ to my family. I usually first ask if anyone would like some fruit – a pear? An orange? Some apple? A bit of melon? ‘No thanks,’ they all say. ‘Nothing thanks’. Then I take a plate, or two, and a piece of fruit, or two, and a sharp knife. And I prep the fruit. Peel it, take seeds out, de-pith, cut it into bite sized chunks. No sooner is it prepped than it is eaten. Absolutely without fail. ‘But you said you didn’t want any fruit’ I occasionally say. They just smile. ‘So what?’ they reply, juicily.

I shouldn’t present this as a great surprise. I recently saw in a sandwich shop a tiny, hermetically sealed pot of assorted fruit selling for £2.99. £2.99! I mean seriously, this constitutes a mark-up of at least 400%. I saw a lady reach up to take one, to actually buy one. I was seriously THIS CLOSE to inviting her home to borrow my sharp knife instead.

Read Full Post »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 400 other followers

%d bloggers like this: