Mulled Wine - Vin Brulé at Toffia Festival

Image courtesy of giallozafferano.it

Mulled wine for 150 people? No problem at all! I (Sally) was in charge of making the vin brulé for the 2 day 'Festa di Natale' recently held in Toffia. This Family Christmas Festival was held to raise funds for the local primary and infants schools here in Toffia and I am pleased to say it was a huge success. The mulled wine was my idea.... so I got to make it too! After selling over 15 litres or about 150 glasses of vin brulé (the Italians use the French word for mulled wine),  I think I can say it was a great success! To help you celebrate the forthcoming Festive Season and New Year with good cheer.... here's the recipe so you can try it for yourselves.

Vin Brulé
Serves approx. 50 glasses
Ingredients:
5 litres of dry red wine ( we used the local red grape called 'Sangiovese')
1/2 litre of orange juice
1 expresso coffee cup or 125 g sugar (according to taste)
8 cloves
15g cinnamon sticks (about 5)
1 teaspoon nutmeg powder
2  or 3 large oranges, peeled and sliced

Method:
1. Pour wine and orange juice into a large saucepan. Add the sugar and mix well.
2. Add the cloves, cinnamon sticks, nutmeg powder  and thinly sliced oranges to the wine. Stir.
3. Heat gently for about 15 to 20 minutes without allowing the mixture to boil. Stir occasionally and taste for sweetness. Add more sugar if desired.
4. Serve the vin brulé hot red wine in heat-resistant glasses.
Enjoy!

Auguri di Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo

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Torta di Ricotta alla Romana - Roman Style Ricotta cheese cake

Photo taken by Todd Gallop

This is the most traditional dessert of Rome and we often prepare it during our cooking classes. Ricotta is mostly whey, which separates from milk during the cheese making process. Being neutral and creamy, it's suitable for both sweet or savoury dishes. In Rome, as we discuss during our cooking classes, ricotta mainly comes from sheep's milk. For this recipe I prefer cow's milk ricotta as it's sweeter. This cake is eaten hot out of the oven, during our Rome cooking classes, however I would try it cold as well. It keeps in the refrigerator for a few days.

Torta di Ricotta alla Romana (serves 6 )
For the pastry: 150g of butter, 300g of flour, 150g of sugar, 3 egg yolks, vanilla flavour, 8g of baking powder, salt. For the filling: 400g of ricotta, 2 egg yolks, 100 g of sugar, lemon or orange zest, a drop of single cream or milk, dark chocolate (to your taste).

For the short pastry, mix flour with softened butter, add sugar, citrus zest, 3 egg yolks, vanilla flavour, 8g of baking powder and a pinch of salt. Make the dough in to a ball, wrap it in film and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Mix ricotta until smooth, add sugar, flour, two egg yolks, cream and fold in the whipped egg whites. Then add chocolate chips. Roll the pastry and line a cake tin with it. Pour in the ricotta mix and bake at 150C° for 30 minutes, until golden. Sprinkle some icing sugar.

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Preparing fresh tagliatelle with 130 eggs!

I have been preparing fresh home made tagliatelle pasta with a team of local villagers to use for the forthcoming Family Christmas Fair 'Festa di Natale' to be held in Toffia on Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th December. Over 130 eggs where used in the process! With all that mixing, kneading, rolling and cutting we have enough fresh pasta, to be served with a local Sabina pasta sauce, for over 200 people! Of course we had to 'sample' the fresh pasta yesterday over lunch with the other cooks and their children - and believe me it tastes great! According to a local tradition, the pasta wasn't served in a plate, but directly on a number of large wooden cutting boards and each one of us had just a fork to help ourselves. This was such a great experience and what a great idea: eat as much as you can!

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What's really important in life?

The beautiful and inspiring images of 'Terra Madre', a video from award-winning Italian director Ermanno Olmi. It's about food, love, nature and slow living.

photo courtesy of cultomedia.org

See the trailer to this great movie:
https://youtu.be/Iv0kO2tKXys

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Fresh Tagliatelle (and no machine in sight!)

Making pasta by hand is, nowadays, a rare art. This is why, when I moved to Sabina from Rome years ago, it was important for me to learn this art directly from my next-door neighbour Lina, who has been making fresh pasta since she was little. Now I'd like to share this fresh pasta recipe with my blog readers. You can experiment with different types of flour, such as regular wheat, semolina (durum wheat), wholemeal, spelt. With practice, the whole process shouldn't take more than half an hour from start to finish: just enough time to let your favourite pasta sauce cook on the side.

Tagliatelle Fresche - Serves 6
350g of flour, 3 to 4 eggs (according to size).

Create a well in the middle of the flour and break the eggs into the centre. Carefully mix the eggs with a fork as if you were making an omelette. Once eggs and flour begin to mix, start working the dough with your hands until mixture is smooth but firm. Let dough rest for 20 - 30 mins. Roll out mixture with a rolling pin until thin and as circular as possible. Keep dusting with flour. Gently roll it up and cut into thin slices with a knife to make tagliatelle. They will cook in salty boiling water in a few minutes.

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