Genoese Pastry

Genoese Pastry

Ingredients: Eggs, sugar, butter, flour, almonds, orange or lemon, brandy.

Weigh four eggs, and take equal weights of castor sugar, butter, and flour. Pound three ounces of almonds, and mix them with an egg, melt the butter, and mix all the ingredients with a wooden spoon in a pudding basin for ten minutes, then add a little scraped orange or lemon peel, and a dessert-spoonful of brandy. Spread out the paste in thin layers on a copper baking sheet, cover them with buttered paper, and bake in a moderately hot oven.

These cakes must be cut into shapes when they are hot, as otherwise they will break.

Frittata di Riso

Frittata di Riso (Savoury Rice Pancake)

Ingredients: Rice, milk, salt, butter, cinnamon, eggs, Parmesan.

Boil quarter of a pound of rice in milk until it is quite soft and pulpy, drain off the milk and add to the rice an ounce of butter, two tablespoonsful of grated Parmesan, and a pinch of cinnamon, and when it has got rather cold, the yolks of four eggs beaten up. Mix all well together, and with this make a pancake with butter in a frying pan.

CELERY WITH BUTTER (Sedano al burro

CELERY WITH BUTTER

(Sedano al burro)

Two heads of celery for each person.

Clean and trim, removing the sprigs that are too hard, and the leaves, that are to be cut where they begin to be green. Finally trim the stem. Then wash repeatedly in running water, drain and put to boil in salted boiling water. Remove when cooked and drain again.

About three quarters of an hour before serving, melt a piece of butter in a saucepan and brown the celery, turning them often for about ten minutes. After that pour over hot stock (soup stock or chicken broth) cover the saucepan and parboil. A few moments before serving season with brown stock, if you have any at hand, otherwise with salt and pepper only
.

LEG OF LAMB (Agnello all'Orientale)

LEG OF LAMB

(Agnello all'Orientale)

This is a way to cook lamb in use in the Orient and adopted by the Italians, especially in Southern Italy. The leg of lamb is to be larded with the larding pin with slices of bacon seasoned with salt and pepper, greased with butter or milk, or milk alone and salted when half cooked.

The Arabs, who are very fond of this dish, do not lard it, as pork is forbidden by their religion, but cook it with an abundance of milk.

• 1,5 kg di polpa d’agnello
• 1 cipolla
• 2 spicchi d’aglio 2 arance
• 1 vasetto di coco milk 
• 1 pizzico di cannella
• 1 pizzico di zenzero
• 6 cucchiai d’olio
• sale e pepe
• 150 g di cuscus

Preparazione per 6 persone:
Preparate la marinata mescolando insieme il succo di 2 arance, yogurt, cannella, zenzero, cipolla e aglio tritati finemente, olio, sale e pepe. Aggiungete la polpa d’agnello tagliata a dadini e marinatela per una notte intera.
Passate le 24 ore, sgocciolate i pezzetti d’agnello e metteteli al forno oppure sulla griglia.
Nel frattempo cuocete il cuscus al vapore.
Servite la carne poggiandola sul cuscus pronto, irrorando tutto con la marinata.

CAULIFLOWER WITH BALSAMELLA (Cavolfiore colla balsamella)

CAULIFLOWER WITH BALSAMELLA

(Cavolfiore colla balsamella)

Remove from a good sized cauliflower the external leaves and the green ribs, make a deep cut crosswise in the stalk and cook it in salted water. Then cut it in sections and brown with butter, salt and pepper. Put it in a  baking tin, throw over a small pinch of grated cheese, cover with the balsamella  and brown the surface.

Serve this cauliflower as an entremets or as a side-dish with boiled chicken or a stew.

PEAS WITH HAM (Piselli col prosciutto)

PEAS WITH HAM

(Piselli col prosciutto)

Cut in two one or two young onions, according to the quantity of the peas and put them on the fire with oil and one thick slice of ham cut into small cubes. Brown until the ham is shrivelled; then put the peas in, season with a pinch of pepper and very little salt, mix and complete the cooking with broth, adding a little butter.

Before serving, throw the onion away.

(Funghi in umido

STEWED MUSHROOMS

(Funghi in umido)

For a stew the mushrooms ought to be below middle-size. Clean, wash and cut as for the preceding. Put a saucepan on the fire with olive oil, one or two cloves of oil and some mint leaves. When the oil begins to splutter, put the mushrooms in without dipping in flour, season with salt and pepper and when they are half cooked pour in some tomato sauce. Be sparing however, with the seasoning, in order that the mushrooms do not absorb it too much and so lose some of their own delicate flavor.

PUDDING GENOESE ] STRING BEANS AND SQUASHES SAUTÉ

PUDDING GENOESE

]

STRING BEANS AND SQUASHES SAUTÉ

Brown in butter some string beans, that have been previously half cooked (Fagiolini e zucchini sauté)in water and some raw squashes cut in cubes. Put the squashes in only when the butter is beginning to brown. Season moderately with salt and butter and add some brown stock or good tomato sauce.

Il segreto del successo delle nuove tecnologie? E’ il porno

Oggi come in passato è l'industria pornografica a spingere le innovazioni

• 4Condividi su Facebook (Si apre in una nuova finestra)4
• Clicca per condividere su Twitter (Si apre in una nuova finestra)
• Clicca per condividere su Google+ (Si apre in una nuova finestra)
• Clicca per condividere su LinkedIn (Si apre in una nuova finestra)

Chi non ricorda come, dai primi anni ’80 in poi, le novità tecnologiche legate alla fruizione video siano state indissolubilmente legate alla diffusione della pornografia. Basti pensare ai primi VHS e in seguito ai primi DVD, il cui successo è stato inizialmente trainato proprio dall’industria del cinema porno, in seguito affossata dalla tecnologia stessa allorchè i video a carattere pornografico hanno trovato dimora sui cosiddetti ‘pornali’, gratuiti e fruibili in qualsiasi momento.

Oggi il paradigma è cambiato per quanto concerne il cinema porno, ma in ambito tecnologico il sesso è ancora in grado di trainare le maggiori novità. Basti pensare alla realtà virtuale, che proprio nel ‘sesso a distanza’ sembra avere la propria declinazione più diffusa.

I siti porno con film in ‘realtà virtuale’ e relativi software stanno infatti generando parecchio interesse fra i consumatori, stando ai dati diffusi dalla data company Similar web. While Oculus, HTC e Sony stanno tutte per far uscire le proprie maschere per la realtà virtuale (ed i siti porno si stanno attrezzando per ire i loro contentuti a questi supporti), ed i ricavi sono in costante crescita. I siti specializzati in porno realtà virtuale (virtualrealporn.com, BadoinkVR, SexLikeReal) hanno avuto una crescita del 202% fra gennaio e novembre 2015.

In perfetta simbiosi agisce l’industria dei ‘giocattoli erotici’, che connessi alle piattaforme di realtà virtuale diventano dei veri e propri devices per il piacere erotico.

Nel grafico sottostante, la crescita del mercato relativo all’industria della porno realtà virtuale nell’ultimo anno. Il calcolo riguarda i siti: sexlikereal.com, virtualrealporn.com, badoinkvr.com, virtualporno360.com, vrpornmovies.net, vrsmarsh.com, vrpornlist.com, vrsexlab.com, vrgirlz.com, 3dxchat.com.

Leggi anche:
Tra futuro hi-tech, i 5 gadget più strani visti al Ces di Las Vegas
Miliardari del tech finanziano la ricerca dell’immortalità

Gnocchi alla Romana

Ingredients: Semolina, butter, Parmesan, eggs, nutmeg, milk, cream.

Boil half a pint of milk in a saucepan, then add two ounces of butter, four ounces of semolina, two tablespoonsful of grated Parmesan, the yolks of three eggs, and a tiny pinch of nutmeg. Mix all well together, then let it cool, and spread out the paste so that it is about the thickness of a finger. Put a little butter and grated Parmesan and two tablespoonsful of cream in a fireproof dish, cut out the semolina paste with a small dariole mould and put it in the dish. Dust a little more Parmesan over it, put it in the oven for five minutes and serve in the dish.

EGG-PLANTS IN THE OVEN

EGG-PLANTS IN THE OVEN

(Melanzane al forno)

Skin five or six egg-plants, cut them in round slices and salt them so that they throw out the water that they contain. After a few hours dip in flour and frying oil.

Take a fireproof vase or baking tin and place the slices in layers, with grated cheese between each layer, abundantly seasoned with tomato sauce .

Beat one egg with a pinch of salt, a tablespoonful of tomato sauce, a teaspoonful of grated]
cheese , two of crumbs of bread, and cover the upper layer with this sauce. Put the vase in the oven and when the egg is coagulated, serve hot.

lampascioni

in the market in Syracuse we came across a traditional food that is common in Puglia, though less so here in Sicily – 

lampascioni.  Similar in appearance to little onions, lampascioni are actually the bulb of a tassel hyacinth, the muscari comosum.  These are a common wildflower especially in southern Italy, though few people realize that you can eat the bulb.  Lampascioni are a classic example of Italian peasant cuisine, using free ingredients combined with a fair amount of labor and know-how to  turn an odd edible food into a delectable dish.  Or so we hoped.

Emanuele remembers lampascioni from his childhood in Puglia, though he remembers little of how his Pugliese mother prepared them, other than “cutting a cross in the bottom.”  I remember eatinglampascioni that had been preserved in vinegar and oil as an antipasto in Puglia, but neither of us had ever cooked them.Though it felt like we were cheating to buy the lampascionirather than dig them up, we decided it was worth it to try them out (and since this wild hyacinth is already blooming in our fields, we have the excuse that it is too late to dig them up anyway.) 

Emanuele began to clean them and was soon grossed out by the clear sticky liquid that came oozing out of each lampascione.  Sound unappetizing? It gets worse. 

We decided the sticky substance must have a scientific name, and settled on “goo”. Peeling thelampascioni with this goo oozing out makes everything stick to your hands – dirt, peel, roots, and, soon, fingers against fingers.  This is what I imagine it’s like working in a glue factory, only dirtier.  “Che schifo”- how revolting, said Emanuele in disgust as he got fed up trying to clean them, and decided to toss the rest of the lampascioni into the garbage -  I rescued the bulbs and planted them in a corner of the garden. If all else fails, we should have some pretty tassel hyacinths next spring.

Emanuele decided to boil the cleaned bulbs for a short while, after which he put them – still oozing goo – into a bowl and stared at them, trying to will the goo to go away.  This proved ineffective. 

Since Emanuele’s older sisters had spent much of their childhood in Puglia and learned to cook from their pugliese mother, I decided it was time for a lampascioniconference call.  After much discussion, in which both sisters corroborated the story of the cross cut, I decided to follow this procedure:

1. The lampascioni had already been cleaned and parboiled for 15 minute. Cut a cross in the root base of each bulb – work quickly as lots more goo will start seeping out of the cross cut. 

2. Put the lampascioni in a large bowl of water.  Change the water 3 times a day for 2 days. The water had a slimy texture (that goo again), so I rinsed the lampascioni in a colander each time I changed the water. 

3. In a stainless steel pot, make a mixture of ½ vinegar and ½ water that will amply cover the lampscioni bulbs.  (I  used my very strong homemade red wine vinegar, so used less vinegar.  Red wine vinegar will lend a  pinkish color to the lampascioni.) Bring to a boil with the lampascioni and let simmer 20 minutes, skimming off any foam.

4. Drain the lampascioni in a colander and rinse well in running water. Make another batch of water/vinegar (or just plain water if you like them less vinegary- this is what I did.)

5. Simmer the lampascioni for another 20-30 minutes until they are tender when pierced with a fork, but still hold their shape. They are resilient little buggers, so it’s hard to overcook them. This is also a dish which is impossible to make if there is water shortage.

6. Drain the cooked lampascioni and rinse well. Pat dry of excess water.  There should now be no more goo seeping out of the lampascioni-hurray!

7. Put the goo-free lampascioni in a serving bowl. Like most edible things, they will immediately be improved by a good dousing of extra virgin olive oil.  Add salt.  Timidly taste. If they need more vinegar, add a teaspoon or two. The bulbs themselves will have a mildly bitter taste which is pleasantly countered by the vinegar and oil. If they are very bitter, you did not do a good job of getting rid of that bitter goo, and should reconsider using lampascioni in their blooming stage as decorative flowers only.

I brought my bowl of lampascioni to a family lunch in Sicily, where Emanuele’s sister Elisa was the guinea pig.  I was thrilled that she proclaimed the lampascioni to be“buonissimi! ” After eating several, she then said she would add a bit more vinegar.

So, all in all the gooey lampascioni mess was a success!  “Si”, Emanuele agreed, who reluctantly ate one, then looked relieved that they tasted okay and ate a few more-”sono buoni”.  But next time, he swore, you can find someone else to clean them.

Gnocchi alla Lombarda

Gnocchi alla Lombarda

Ingredients: Potatoes, flour, salt, Parmesan and Gruyere cheese, butter, milk, eggs.

Boil two or three big potatoes, and pass them through a hair sieve, mix in two tablespoonsful of flour, an egg beaten up, and enough milk to form a rather firm paste; stir until it is quite smooth. Roll it into the shape of a German sausage, cut it into rounds about three quarters of an inch thick, and put it into the larder to dry for about half an hour. Then drop the gnocchi one by one into boiling salted water and boil for ten minutes. Take them out with a slice, and put them in a well-buttered fireproof dish, add butter between each layer, and strew plenty of grated Parmesan and Cheddar over them. Put them in the oven for ten minutes, brown the top with a salamander, and serve very hot.

Frittata Montata (Omelette Souffle)

 Frittata Montata (Omelette Souffle)

Ingredients: Eggs, Parmesan, pepper, parsley.

Beat up the whites of three eggs to a froth and the yolks separately with a tablespoonful of grated Parmesan, chopped parsley, and a little pepper. Then mix them and make a light omelette.

Insalata alla Navarino

 Insalata alla Navarino (Salad)

Ingredients: Peas, bean onions, potatoes, tarragon, chives, parsley, tomatoes, anchovies, oil, vinegar, ham.

Mix a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, a teaspoonful of chopped onion, a teaspoonful of tarragon and chopped chives with half a gill of oil and half a gill of vinegar. Put this into a salad bowl with all sorts of cooked vegetables: peas, haricot beans, small onions, and potatoes cut up, and mix them w ell but gently, so as not to break the vegetables. Then add two or three anchovies in oil, and on the top place three or four ripe tomatoes cut in slices. A little cooked smoked ham cut in dice added to this salad is a great improvement.

Patate alla crema (Potatoes in cream)

 Patate alla crema (Potatoes in cream)

Ingredients: Potatoes, butter, Parmesan, white stock, cream, pepper, salt.

Boil two pounds of potatoes in salted water for a quarter of an hour, peel and cut them into slices about the size of a penny, then arrange them in layers in a very deep fireproof dish (with a lid), and on each layer pour a little melted butter, a little good white stock and a dust of grated Parmesan. Reduce a pint and a half of cream to half its quantity, add a little pepper, and pour it over the potatoes. Put the dish in the oven for twenty minutes. Serve as hot as possible.

Risotto all'Italiana

 Risotto all'Italiana

Ingredients: Rice, an onion, butter, stock, tomatoes, cheese.

Fry a small onion slightly in butter, then add half a pint of very good stock. Boil four ounces of rice, but do not let it get pulpy, add it to the above with three medium-sized tomatoes in a puree. Mix it all up well, add more stock, and two tablespoonsful of grated Parmesan and Cheddar mixed, and serve hot.

Lattughe farcite alla Genovese (Lettuce)

Lattughe farcite alla Genovese (Lettuce)

Ingredients: Lettuce, forcemeat of fowl or veal, ham, Espagnole sauce.

Prepare a lettuce as above, and spread on each leaf a spoonful of forcemeat of fowl or veal, add a little cooked ham chopped up, roll up the leaves, and cook as above. Drain them on a cloth, arrange them neatly on a dish, and pour some good Espagnole sauce (No. 1) over them.

Risotto alla Spagnuola

 Risotto alla Spagnuola

Ingredients: Rice, pork, ham, onions, tomatoes, butter, stock, vegetables, Parmesan.

Put a small bit of onion and an ounce of butter into a saucepan, add half a pound of tomatoes cut up and fry for a few minutes. Then put in some bits of loin of pork cut into dice and some bits of lean ham. After a time add four ounces of rice and good stock, and as soon as it begins to boil put on the cover and put the saucepan on a moderate fire. When the rice is half cooked add any sort of vegetable, by preference peas, asparagus cut up, beans, and cucumber cut up, cook for another quarter of an hour, and serve with grated Parmesan and Cheddar mixed and good gravy.

Macaroni alla Livornese

 Macaroni alla Livornese

Ingredients: Macaroni, mushrooms, tomatoes, Parmesan, butter, pepper, salt, milk.

Boil about four ounces of macaroni, and stew four or five mushrooms in milk with pepper and salt. Put a layer of the macaroni in a buttered fireproof dish, then a layer of tomato puree, then a layer of the mushrooms and another layer of macaroni. Dust it all over with grated Parmesan and Cheddar, put it in the oven for half an hour, and serve very hot.

zuppe d;erba

Zuppa d' Erbe (Lettuce Soup)

Ingredients: Stock, sorrel, endive, lettuce, chervil, celery, carrot, onion, French roll, Parmesan cheese.

Boil the following vegetables and herbs in very good stock for an hour: Two small bunches of sorrel, a bunch of endive, a lettuce, a small bunch of chervil, a stick of celery, a carrot and an onion, all well washed and cut up. Then put some slices of toasted French roll into a tureen and pour the above soup over them. Serve with grated Parmesan handed separately.

Frittura Piccata al Marsala (Fillet of Veal)

 Frittura Piccata al Marsala (Fillet of Veal)

Ingredients: Veal, butter, Marsala, stock, lemon, bacon.

Cut a tender bit of veal steak into small fillets, cut off all the fat and stringy parts, flour them and fry them in butter. When they are slightly browned add a glass of Marsala and a teacup of good stock, and fry on a very hot fire, so that the fillets may remain tender. Take them off the fire, put a little roll of fried bacon on each, add a squeeze of lemon juice, and serve.

Insalata di patate (Potato salad)

Insalata di patate (Potato salad)

Ingredients: New potatoes, oil, white vinegar, onions, parsley, tarragon, chervil, celery, cream, salt, pepper, tarragon vinegar, watercress, cucumber, truffles.

Steam as many new potatoes as you require until they are well cooked, let them get cold, cut them into slices and pour three teaspoonsful of salad oil and one of white vinegar over them. Then rub a salad bowl with onion, put in a layer of the potato slices, and sprinkle with chopped parsley, tarragon, chervil, and celery, then another layer of potatoes until you have used all the potatoes; cover them with whipped cream seasoned with salt, pepper, and a little tarragon vinegar, and garnish the top with watercress, a few thin slices of truffle cooked in white wine, and some slices of cooked cucumber.

Ravioli alla Fiorentina

Ravioli alla Fiorentina

Ingredients: Beetroot, eggs, Parmesan, milk or cream, nutmeg, spices, salt, flour, gravy.

Wash a beetroot and boil it, and when it is sufficiently cooked throw it into cold water for a few minutes, then drain it, chop it up and add to it four eggs, one ounce of grated Parmesan, one ounce of grated Cheddar, two and a half ounces of boiled cream or milk, a small pinch of nutmeg and a little salt. Mix all well together into a smooth firm paste, then roll into balls about the size of a walnut, flour them over well, let them dry for half an hour, then drop them very carefully one by one into boiling stock and when they float on the top take them out with a perforated ladle, put them in a deep dish, dust them over with Parmesan and pour good meat or game gravy over them.