Important: the potatoes are cooked slowly in oil at low temperature. They are neither fried or cooked first in water, or anything like that. Patience always adds flavour!!

Clovis, that also makes a real good one by the way, ate this one with me in Berlin for lunch and a series

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What a challenge! After making son many breads and being obsessed with my sourdough, this 2011 I decided to finish the year making il Panettone. Of course, with natural sweet sourdough starter, the traditional way. Not only that, but I decided to sell them (If they worked out well of course) as now I am also selling my bread each week with pâtés, cheese, marmalades and home-made things. Anyway, lots of nerves. I started Wednesday to convert a portion of my liquid 100% hydration sourdough starter into a stiff one (50% hydration). Y finished baking on Sunday, 9 kgs of panettone, which ended up being 16 panettone. They were soft, spongy, and really tasty. Of course I have some critiques of my own and would like to improve some things for next time -> January, that way, next year I’m an expert Are you ready for a fully detailed recipe???

Ok. But first, I’d like to tell you my favorite story about where this delicious sweet bread came from. There are many, this one is my favorite: It’s Christmas eve, and the 1500’s. Duke Ludovico, known also for the “Lord of Milán” is hosting a huge party. Time for dessert is coming, but turns out the cake is ruined. However, Antonio one of the dishwashers took some leftover fruits from the party and was baking a sweet bread for him and his family. The kitchen smelled so nice, the cook decided to serve his bread as dessert. The Duke liked it so much, he entered the kitchen asking for the cook that had made the dessert. …’Antonio’, ‘il pane di Toni’, and so today we know it for ‘Panettone‘.

It is very important that you manage well your time. You will be needing a 2-day early start to get your sourdough ready and ‘sweet’ (no acid).

The result was a very spongy soft crumb. Maybe next time I’ll add a bit more starter and I will feed it longer to get it more active. I feel the fact it took so long was this one. I’ll let you know!! They were really amazing and tasty. Great experience. Giving it a second one in January for sure.

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The ocassion couldn’t have been better: my close friend Evita invited me to Becerril de la Sierra, a beautiful place outside Madrid, for lunch with her husband and her two beautiful daughters. And if you want to win the children and conquer the adults, I think no-one does that job better than chocolate. On the bus ride, everyone looking at me, or well, the dessert, because to be honest (you can judge by the picture!) it turned out perfectly beautiful and delicious!!

The recipe has a really nice spice touch, that goes so nicely with the chocolate: the crêpes have some Cointreau, clove and cinnamon and the chocolate mousse is made with a fresh ginger-infusioned milk and orange zest. Exquisit. The inspiration came from FOOD52.

It requires time and organization, but if you have an afternoon off and guests or you are a guest for next day, believe me when I say you’ll have everyone in love with you by the first bite. The crêpes with the mousse make and elegant and fun dessert.

Ok!! Let’s go to the step by step recipe.

Delicious!!!!

Thanks to Evita and Fer for a lovely day!!! I leave you with some pictures from  their daughters!

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Always when I go out for tapas, we order patatas bravas. Sometimes they are really dissapointing, but sometimes they turn out to be spectacular. That’s when you know your coming back to the bar. Believe me, if you make them right your a winner!! So here is my version of a winning recipe!!

Delicious!

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This recipe actually is from 2011, from the latest Christmas, which I spent with my family in Berlin. So, given the circumstances this German Potato Salad could not miss this year. I’ve been cooking it for many years now, this recipe though has new important ingredients such as broth and the juice from the bacon.

Adding the vinegar while still warm not only keeps the potatoes firm but enrichens the flavour, as does the broth and bacon juice. It is a simple salad, delicious to eat with nothing more, with a grilled fish, with sausages, with turkey, etc…. and it is also very simple to make! So here you go, the step by step recipe.

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Let’s go step by step, first the pastry, then the cream and finally making the strawberries and ending the dessert. It is important that it stays in the fridge until before serving and to add the syrup when it is cold.

Delicious!!

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Just to feed a few minds and become a little more wise in the culinary world I want to tell you a few curiosities about milk and cheese making. Milk is composed mainly of two proteins that determine its behaviour in cooking: the curd (caseins) and the whey. Another interesting property of milk is that we can heat it up at very high temperatures but it won’t coagulate (like egg proteins that do, for example) unless the environment becomes acidic. That’s why during ricotta cheese preparation lemon or vinegar is added to the milk. This generates the acid environment that causes all the curd proteins to clump together to form a solid mass, while the whey proteins remain suspended in the liquid. This is the base for making cheese. Isn’t it great to learn and understand more about what happens when we cook? I love it! Anyway, let’s get to ingredients and preparation Enjoy!

There are a thousand ideas for recipes with the home-made ricotta cheese. I leave you some pictures of what I’ve donde with it and some of the top of my head: for a cheesecake (can’t wait), for a salad with pears, pizza, malfatti, all alone, for cauliflower and butter, pasta with artichokes and dried tomatoes, for these delicious ravioli with spinach… and more and more.

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And on Friday, my friends took me to a surprise ‘gastronomic’ trip to Salamanca, and I took a box with cupcakes for them to eat on the road…

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Brainstorming for picnic: sandwiches, fruit, cold pies, beer, pallets, cards, picnic basket, fun straws, bucket, squared blankets, muffins, etc. So I decided to try doing my own sandwich loaf and from there 4 different kinds of sandwichs (easy but ‘gourmet’ style). I also made a leek quiche (recipe coming up soon!), some fruit in different presentations and other Picnic stuff.

The sandwich loaf was a complete success. It came out so lovely that I only thought about singing outloud when I got it out of the oven and saw its crumb. So I made 3 of those for the sandwichs. Unfortunately everything could not be perfect and Saturday was a rainy rainy day. But we never give up (specially me!) so we celebrated the Picnic as an Indoor Picnic. That way we have the perfect excuse to make an outdoor one a.s.a.p!

So here’s the recipe for my sandwich loaf and 4 different kinds of sandwiches that I prepared and that are perfect for this type of occasion: birthday parties for you or your kids, for grownups, indoors, outdoors, wherever. The first two are typically present in Perú b-day parties, the other are new ideas! Piece of cake (you can buy a good bread if you don’t want to do it) and very very nice.

I manage to make like 200 sandwiches and there were so delicious they were all finished in half an hour!!!

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