Orange Upside Down Cake

Right.. so on saturdays I love preparing desserts in advance for the family sunday lunch (And believe me.. italians have a BIG sunday lunch.. starting with appetizers, first dish, second dish and to top it all...DESSERTS). Since I had so many oranges to spare in the backyard of my house, I decided to try baking an orange cake for a change. This delicious recipe is good for any occasion. Topped with caramel and oranges, this orange cake is surely delicious! You can also substitute oranges with pineapples :D

Part A: Ingredients for the cake base:
150 grams of sugar

200 grams of all purpose flour
200 grams of grounded roasted almonds
170grams of butter
3 eggs
1 tablespoon of yeast
Juice of 1 large orange
Grated zest of 1 orange

Part B: For the caramel upside down topping:
130 grams of sugar
1 orange. Sliced into an O shape
Red cherries (you can omit this if you dont want)

Part C: For the glaze:
orange marmalade
3 tablespoons of water

In a large bowl mix all the ingredients for the cake base in part A until combined well. In a separate pan,create the caramel base in part B by heating up the sugar. You can see that it is caramellized by the color. Once its brown color and the sugar grains have all melted, its ready .In the baking pan, preferably rounded, place baking paper or grease the pan with some butter. Place the oranges and the cherries on the base of the cake pan. Pour the caramel onto the base until coated thoroughly.

Preheat oven at 180 degrees celsius. Now pour in the cake mixture into the pan. Place pan in the oven and bake for 40-45 minutes until cooked. Use a toothpick to check the consistency of the cake (this helps to see if its cooked or not).

Once cooked, wait cake to cool down for 1 hour. Place a serving plate underneath the cake pan and turn cake pan upside down. You will now be able to see the oranges on top of the cake. Mix ingredients in part C together and glaze the cake. Now you have a delicous treat for the weekend =D.

Struffoli recipe (Ricetta per struffoli)

Its struffoli time :D......... yum yum! This neapolitan dessert makes my mouth water.. and its really good to eat during winter. Struffoli is a Neapolitan dessert that is made of small fried dough balls (the size of pearls) coated in honey. Its normally made during the christmas-easter period here in Naples. Struffoli is then topped with colored rice (diavulilli), cherries and cinnamon confection. It is quite easy to prepare but will need a necessary amount of patience (especially when slicing the dough into little pearl balls). My husband goes crazy when he sees a plate of struffoli... he just loves cracking this in his mouth!

Here is the recipe:

For the dough:

600 grams of flour

4 eggs and 1 yellow

2 tablespoons of sugar

80 grams of butter

5 tablespoons of limoncello or rum
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon
A pinch of salt

Oil for frying 

For decoration:

400grams of honey

Colored confection (called diavulilli - means little devils in italian)

cinnamon confection (confettini cannellini) 

candied cherries (ciliegia candita - you can also use candied oranges/peaches)

Method:

Mix all the ingriedients for the dough together in a bowl. Combine with the hand mixer using the dough mixer hook. Once combined, knead using hands for about 10 minutes. Later form dough into golf ball sizes. Roll the golf sized dough into long cylindrical strips using your hand (diameter about 5cms - not too small, bigger is ok but not too big, or else it wont be so tasty). Slice dough (about 5cm apart).

Heat up oil in a wok. Fry dough in hot oil until dough is brown and crispy. Place fried dough on paper towels to remove excess oil. 

Once frying of the dough balls are complete, In another wok, heat honey. Pour the fried dough into the wok and mix throughly until all the dough balls are coated with honey. Stop the flame on the stove and stir in the cinnamon confection and mix thoroughly..

Place the mixture onto a plate. Top the mixture with colored confection and place candied cherries. Struffoli is served!! 

Winter in the countryside.. (Inverno in campagna…)

    I know this blog post is a wee bit late.. Christmas and new year is over… and I have been a bit busy with the holidays and so.. my blog was also on holiday :P. Well.. its not my first winter experience in Europe, but I’ve got to say that when you LIVE here.. its much more different than just spending a holiday here.. Heating and energy efficiency to keep  warm is the utmost priority during winter as the temperature can get below freezing point. Gas gets expensive during winter and it is important for the people that live here to conserve and use energy efficiently. Daylight is also short and the sun comes up around 7.30 am and sets way early around 4pm.

     Mount Vesuvius is covered with SNOW!!! Yup.. that’s right folks… its WINTER here in Naples… the coldest point so far has been -2 deg (in naples according to Paolo – my brother in law). Thank goodness it doesn’t snow often here… I like snow, but after a while snow just gets so cold and your hand starts to feel the pain of frostbite.. a feeling which I cant describe, but its not really a good feeling and yeah.. your nose also starts to freeze..  

      

     Brrr… its so cold here and as I write this blog I am sitting next to a portable stufa (stove) wearing 4 layers of clothes!!  There is no fireplace where I stay but there is one at my aunt’s Giuseppina’s home. Firewood is normally collected towards the late September-October when mid-autumn starts and the leaves of the nocciola (hazelnut starts to fall).

     Fruits of this season are oranges, pears, pommelos, clementines, mandarins, kiwis and tangerines (full of vit c… good for winter flu..hehe). Winter vegetables instead are radishes, fennel, artichokes, broccoli and kale (just to name a few). You can see in the photo, the view from outside my house… the leaves of the hazelnut trees have all dropped and the oranges are in full season! Broccoli grows with abundance beneath the orange trees.

    Since I didn’t have much winter clothes.. I had to do some winter shopping (a good excuse of course). Guess where I went to do my shopping… to a VOLCANO!!! That’s right folks… hehe.. Worried? Well, its not really a volcano but instead its a shopping centre which was designed after mount Vesuvius. The name of this shopping centre is volcano buono which translates to good volcano in English and is located in the district of Nola. There are many awesome shops here.. like Zara, Gucci, Guess,  etc.. (reminds me of KLCC and Midvalley  in Malaysia...). The beauty of this shopping complex is that there is grass growing outside to depict the hillside of the volcano… only there is a crater full of shops inside :P  Apart from that this centre also has a hotel, cinema and fine selection of restaurants. That’s all for now. Stay tuned for more updates from my blog. :D

Volcano Buono Shopping Centre

The Tiger of Malaysia (La Tigre Della Malesia)

    Well, if you guys were thinking if I am writing on the tigers of malaysia… well.. sort of... not the animal TIGER.. but more of a beautiful story written by an Italian author..

    "Sando.. what?!!" was my exclamation when I first heard the word SANDOKAN. I have heard of Sandakan (Its a beautiful region that lies at the Borneo Peninsula of Malaysia - You can check more information on Sandakan here ) but not Sandokan. Apparently Sandokan is an Italian novel masterpiece that was writtten by Emilio Salgari and is a fictional pirate of the 19^th century. You can get some of Salgari’s books on amazon.com: 

Salgari

    Emilio Salgari is said to be the father of Italian adventure fiction and the grandfather of Spaghetti Western. Spaghetti western is not Spaghetti in tomato sauce or spaghetti in aglio olio (yum yum..) but is the sub genre of movies named after movies directed by Italians in America. Some of the famous spaghetti western movies include ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ and ‘Man With No Name’ (I just drool to clint eastwood when I watch these movies.. hehehe..).

    Even though Salgari never left Italy, he managed to describe places around the world in such detail that you would have thought he has been to these places. In most of his novels, Salgari opposes colonization. In his novel, the Pirates of Malaysia, Salgari’s most famous creation, Sandokan a.k.a ‘the tiger of Malaysia’ is a bornean prince turned pirate together with his loyal lieutenant Yanez de Gomera lead their band of pirates to attack the Dutch and British fleets. They declared war on James Brooke the white rajah of Sarawak (well..this part is not fictional – the white rajah did exist) and tried to force him from his throne. His one and only love is the lady Marianna Guillonk. The novel has all the appeal of a bestseller… war, revenge, bravery, sacrifice, romance… and is very famous especially here in Italy. Thus book has also been made into a movie. You can check the first episode here on youtube: 

Sandokan

   Well the love for this particular novel (and perhaps because of the fact that I come from Malaysia) made my hubby to actually name our first dog together as Sandokan. Sandokan joined our family before I came to Italy and grew up at my hubby's home. Sandokan now lives at my father in law’s house as he is well liked there and has a nice kennel all for himself =D. 
   After we got married and moved to our new house, we wanted to have another dog… one that would guard our new home.. and guess what.. there was a stray german shepherd that gave birth to 8 cute puppies. Initially there were10 pups - according to one of my relatives living nearby, 2 pups went missing, presumably dead :( .

Yanez

Marianna

      So we decided to take one pup and we named him Yanez (which is Sandokan’s lieutenant and loyal sidekick - just look at his pic... so adorableeeee!!!)…. Soon after that an orange-white striped kitten appeared out of the blue.. it was really strange.. she didn’t want to leave little yanez.. and was always playing with him (and  of course eating his food too). After seeing those two (dog and cat) in constant company and comfortable together, we decided she can join our little family. She was named.. guess what —MARIANNA. So now we have a complete Sandokan family together...

Marianna and Yanez    

   A public appeal to anyone living near San Giuseppe, Poggiomarino or in the Naples region who is caring and loves dogs, Yanez’s mom gave birth to 10 puppies.. yup.. that’s right TEN. Two went missing (presumably dead), we took one (Yanez) and another 2 pups have now found homes. Now there are 5 puppies left. If anyone is kind enough to want a german shepherd mix breed, please feel free to contact me on my blog. Those poor puppies need a good home. 

Linguini with Clams in tomato sauce (Linguini alle vongole con pomodoro) Recipe

This is the first recipe of the many more to come and is dedicated to my aunt Giuseppina who taught me the secret of Napolitan cuisine… Cooking with Passion! (Italians do everything with passion! *Wink*). This dish is a traditional Napoletan dish that is very popular here in the province of Naples and especially in the Campania region. There are two different ways to prepare this dish… with tomatoes (con pomodoro)  or without (bianco).

In this recipe, I am preparing the linguini alle vongole con pomodoro.. (the sounds of it makes my mouth water even as I write this blog!!)  You can also substitute linguini with spaghetti. It goes well with both. =D

What you will need:

 For the clam sauce:

500g of Vongole (Clams)

¼ cup of white wine

3-4 pieces of pomodoro pelati (Just used the pieces of tomatoes in the can.. do not put the tomato paste – I use canned tomatoes instead of fresh ones. You can also use fresh ones, if you can find them at the supermarket. Make sure its ripe pelati or cherry tomatoes. When using cherry tomatoes, increase it to 6/7 pieces). We want the sauce to have a hint of tomato and not too overpowering to keep the original flavour of the vongole.

2-3 cloves of  Garlic, sliced

2-3 tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)

1 Chilli

Few leaves of Parsley (Prezzemolo)

  

For the Linguini:

250grams of Linguini 18 (18 here depicts the thickness of the linguini, you can also use other sizes-of course each size differs in the time it takes to cook)

Salt to taste

Cooking method:

For the Linguini:

    In a large pan, boil 8 cups of water. Once the water starts to boil, put in the linguini and the salt. Put enough salt to taste and wait for the linguini to cook. Make sure to cook the linguini ‘Al-dente’ (‘Al-dente’ means cooking something and retaining its firmness but not hard or too soft. In the Italian language, the word ‘Al-dente’ means 'to the tooth’ literally means when chewing, it sticks to the teeth)

For the sauce:

    Heat a medium saucepan in medium-high flame. Pour the EVOO into a fairly saucepan and wait for it to become hot. Put in the slices of garlic and chilli into the pan. Wait for the aroma of the garlic to be infused with the chilli and oil.  Once infused, put in the live vongole into the saucepan and cover it. DO NOT PUT SALT. The vongole is already saltish as it was sitting in salt water. If you put in salt, it will become too saltish.

    Cover the saucepan, set cooking flame to medium-low and wait until the clams open, once open, pour in the white wine and tomatoes. Stir for about 10-15 minutes. Pour in the cooked ‘Al-dente’ linguini into a straining colander and then place the cooked linguini into the saucepan with the vongole sauce. 

     Mix well and serve hot with chopped parsley . This dish goes very well with white wine. 

Yum yum… Linguini con Vongole anyone? :P

The Beginning: Winds of change...

As Heraclitus (a Greek philosopher) said... Nothing Endures but Change... This phrase is ever so true. Well my life has changed considerably in the last 6 months! I quit my job as a senior consultant, hopped onto a plane to Italy and got married to my one true love. (Sounds like a romantic soap opera right?) I know the line sounds cheesy... but truthfully, it’s worth every bit!

I remembered the moment I decided to take this step... I was in the carribbean (santo domingo) on a working trip. I went back to the hotel one day after work and pondered about my life... where my relationship was heading, what is in store for me in the future...I felt really lonely... I remembered the plush carpets and smell of luxury at the hotel and it didnt give me any comfort.

That very night, I had a horrible nightmare, I lost my love and i woke up with suffocation in my mouth and tears in my eyes. It was THAT moment it hit me that I coulndt live without my love. And the reality of it hit me big in the face as I was a career minded woman. I like being independent and being in control of myself. However, love and perhaps fate is greater than all these things put together. 

There is a saying Don't marry the one you can live with, marry the one you can't live without.  

I remembered my first month in Italy as an invalid...he he.. I was not able to convey my expression in words and I had to use hand gestures (Thank goodness Italians love to use hand gestures!! ) And after that, thanks to my La Famiglia support and a few good English-Italian books.. I somehow managed to pick up some words and communicate in broken Italian-Napoletano (Napoletano is the local dialect of the province of Naples)...

At the moment I am settling down in my new home and I am trying to figure out my next move... I am now in the process of acquiring the permesso di soggiorno and after that with a lot of luck.. A NEW JOB!! (The unemployment rate in Naples is quite high). In the meantime... I am learning the art of Italian cuisine!! Yesss! I am so in love with the FOOD (I put on quite a bit this past few months!! tsk.. tsk.. time for a diet) 

This is my first post... stay tuned for more posts to come!!! I will be posting more of my adventures here in Italy!!