Some super comfort food: "French onion soup" grilled cheese

Well, amici, we HAVE been through a whole lot haven't we?  OH MY.  Locked at home, not working, not seeing friends, lives upended.  Annalena may have been pushed into retirement slightly earlier than she expected, which is not necessarily a BAD thing.  Perhaps the hardest thing for all of us is to accept, is that this monstrous thing is very much out of our control.  Stay well, friends, Annalena will wish you that again.

We are all cooking more, because, well, we have no choice.  Annalena likes to go out on the weekends.  Not happening.  So, we cook.  And Annalena wants to focus today and tomorrow and Sunday, on foods that bring us comfort.   This recipe, brought to Annalena by the NY Times, combines two of her favorites:  grilled cheese, and French onion soup.  It is as easy as you can imagine.  All you need are a few ingredients, and time.

First, let's look at our starting ingredients:

What you see are 2 pounds of onions:  use all red or all yellow, if that's what you have, and salt and pepper.  Slice the onions: 

Take them, and add them to the pot with the butter  :  that's four tablespoons more or less, and a good pinch of salt and a few shakes of pepper:

Our next ingredient, is time.  See the flame below?

You don't want that.   Lower the flame to the lowest you can possibly can.  Cover the pot for about 3 minutes, and then, we begin cooking.  Let's follow progress.  Here we are after 5

Doesn't look like much, huh?  Well, keep with me kindern.  Stir the onions at the 4th minute, and each of the following steps  (10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, ), do the same thing:

Do you see how they've cooked down and browned?  Onions have more sugar in them, than any other vegetable.  You can see that here. 

For the last five minutes, add a glug of a dark vinegar.  Annalena used cheap balsamic, and cook for another five minutes:

What we have, at the end, is here: 

 Quite a reduction, huh?

So, now we're going to make sandwiches.  The onions above, will make four sandwiches, but Annalena could very well eat the whole portion.    Put  half of those onions into a bowl, and grate about 4-6 ounces of good quality cheese - Annalena used aged cheddar, and mix.   Then pile the stuff onto two slices of bread.  Annalena had some homemade European sourdough around (of course she did), but you can use any good bread you have.  Then, put those slices into a pan, where you've melted a few tablespoons of butter, and fry for 3 minutes: 

The cheese will begin to melt, and the bread will toast up.  Now, cover the stuff with new slices of bread, and flip them over into that pan.  Add more butter if you see fit, and fry for another three minutes.  You'll get:

 They're a bit unwieldly to eat as they are.  So, if you want to show some manners: 

Perhaps if you made this for dinner tonight, you'll show us.  DARN IS IT GOOD.  And you probably don't have to shop for the ingredients. 

FRIENDS, WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS.   We have gotten through worse.  As a lady who shoveled shit in AIDs wards in the 80s, Annalena knows your concern.  And she knows your fear.  She would give you inspirational music, but find your way.  And eat well, ragazzi.  Again, repeat after Annalena:  WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS.

Annalena does Tina Turner: first we'll do easy then we'll do rough: simple bean soup

Ciao ragazzi.  Annalena is  here earlier than usual, because her, and the universe's schedule is wacky this weekend.  First, we have the loss of an hour tomorrow (which Annalena really needs), and on the good end, Annalena is making her annual trip to look at orchids, with the Guyman and a wonderful friend (and hopefully a wonderful friend to be).  So, she's a bit under the gun, getting things ready.  And, as she makes her "triumphant" return to the music studio tomorrow, there is more to do.   Hence, she needed a recipe that was very quick to help her through.

"When the Universe speaks, you MUST listen"  said at least one person, and it's true ragazzi.  Perhaps the biggest problem in the world today is a lack of attention being paid to .. EVERYTHING.  Sometimes, we are given signals, or instructions, or suggestions, that we don't follow because we just don't listen.  Annalena was made aware of this at least twice this week,  in a good way, both times.  One of them was this recipe. 

Years ago, Annalena watched a program hosted by David Rocco called "L'avventura."   She also man crushed on him mightilly.  Indeed, she would be lying if she said that she didn't think , more than every now and then, of taking a gondola ride (she's using euphemisms children), with this Canadian hunklet, even though he was very happily married, with children.  Years later, Annalena maintains that crush.  And wants to offer David that gondola ride whenever he wants it.  If he doesn't want to sail, Annalena will offer him this soup.

Ragazzi, Annalena has said this before, and she will say it again:  BEANS ARE YOUR FRIENDS AND YOUR SAVIOR. Mr. Rocco posted this recipe for bean soup on Mr. Rocco's instagram page.   The universe spoke, she listened.  And  in less than 15 minutes, she had this soup.  

Here are your ingredients:

What you see are two quarts of cooked white beans, a jar of passata, olive oil, and rosemary. 

"Passata," best explained, is pureed, strained ripe tomatoes.  Raw.  This is not sauce, which changes the fresh flavor of the product.  Annalena's is yellow because she is a snob.  Usually, it is red.  You may need to hunt for it, and when you find it, stock up.  It IS seasonal, and no, cooked tomatoes will not substitute. 

Annalena used small white beans from the folks at Rancho Gordo.  She cooked them.  Again, ragazzi, learn  how to cook beans.  It is  not hard.  They freeze well, and they will save you in the kitchen.  And why cook them instead of using canned?  Ok:  pick up a can of beans, even organic ones, and look at the ingredients.  Then, open that can, and look at them.   It will convince you. 

So, justs under 2 quarts of beans:  maybe 7 cups, cooked.  3 cups of passata.  A few sprigs of rosemary.  And olive oil.

Now, you can make this soup, simply by combining  the beans and passata with a stalk of rosemary, heat it up, and you're done if you've poured some fresh olive oil over it.  But we're getting a little fancy.  First we're going to puree those beans in a blender, and then we are going to pass them, through a food mill:

What you see above are the pureed  beans from the blender.  You can proceed with your soup at this point, or you can mill the beans  You will get a very creamy, skin free puree at the end.     And you'll get about six cups of it.    

Once you have that, stir in the passata.   Just stir it in.  (Or, stir it in to the pureed beans).  Add a few stems of rosemary, and put it all in a pot.  Bring this just to the point where the soup bubbles:

Pull the rosemary sprigs out.  This is important, because rosemary is strong.  It will continue to infuse that soup and possibly make it unpleasant.  And given how hard you've "worked", well, you don't want that now, do you?  

Ragazzi,  get out the bowls, because you're done.  Seriously.  Give yourself a spritz of "Italian gold," on the top, but seriously, you have a soup that will taste as if  it's loaded with cream, and you AND ONLY YOU WILL KNOW  how deliriously healthy it is:

Annalena hopes you realize how many variations there are on this.  She used white beans. Don't have them?  Use another one.  Got some left over vegetables around, like carrots, or green beans, or broccoli?  Well, you know where they can go.  

Make yourself some toasted bread, and you've got lunch, or dinner, or... well, maybe a healthy snack. 

Easy, huh?  Well, good.  Because the next recipe, is going to be ROUGH

It's time to reconsider stuffed peppers

Ragazzi, we all have dishes from our past which haunt us, for good or bad.  One dish shared by many of us , is "stuffed peppers".  WHAT was used to stuff them, and what kind of peppers were used, will vary, from  person to person.  For example, Annalena's nana either stuffed "frying peppers" with bread and herbs (Annalena's favorite), or she would use the fixings from leftover meatloaf to stuff green ones.  At Annalena's home, there were never red peppers:  too expensive.  

In Annalena's version here, totally hers, no borrowing of which she knows,  she does use red peppers.  She also substitutes ground beef for ground turkey.  Why?  Because the ground turkey had been in the freezer for a while, and she had to "use it or lose it."  You know that, don't you?  And there were leftover tomatoes, bits of cheese, a bag of frozen peas.... Beginning to get the idea?  

So we start with the turkey. When you cook with ground turkey, see if you can ascertain from what part of the bird it came. Turkey breast is very low fat, as compared to thighs or the more generic "dark meat."  It will determine  how much fat you use to cook it.  Annalena had breast meat, so she upped the olive oil.  

Ground poultry produces a sort of "meat glue" that can make it difficult to fry it.  So as  you go along here, break up the pieces with a spatula, a fork, something, to make them edible.  And don't worry about finishing up the cooking.  This will all be going into the oven later.

When your turkey meat is just about completely absent of pink,  put it aside.  In the flavored fat, add a sliced onion, and some tomatoes;

Cook these until the tomatoes begin to soften and the onions get much softer and a little brown.  

Now stir all your turkey back into this.  Residual heat will cook it some more.  You should taste the mix at this time, and add the salt you need.  You might also get a feel for how dry or moist the turkey is, and add some olive oil if  you need it.  

Have two red peppers , halved lengthwise, and cleaned ready, in a glass baking dish, that has been coated with oil.  One need not be surgically precise here, and add your filling:

Remember those instructions on tests, "neatness counts?"  It doesn't.  (Annalena always failed that part). 

Cover this will foil, and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.  This is a lower temperature, because everything is cooked, and really, your sole aim here, is to soften the crispy pepper shell:

If you look at those, you may think they are a bit "skimpy."  Annalena agreed. So, out came her ace in the whole, frozen peas.  They sort of fit themselves all over the lacunae in the peppers. Then, she added smoked cheddar, and fontina cheese to the top:

NOW you put up a foil cover, and take a peek a after 15 minutes, to see if the cheese has melted enough to your taste:

If this is all you're eating, a healthy appetite can put away two.  If you put out some greens and starch, one is more than enough.  

Abbastanza per oggi, amici.  Cook some good food this week.  You deserve it.  ALLA PROSSIMA!

Easy elegance: chicken thighs with artichoke hearts, onions, and wine

CIAO RAGAZZI E FELICE DOMENICA.  Annalena has some good news to share before we start cooking today.

For years, Annalena dreamed of attending graduate school, and getting a Master's Degree - the one she couldn't afford at the end of her studies as a giovanessa.  And now, amici, it's happening.  Yes, Annalena has been accepted to the graduate program in Food Studies at NYU this autumn. She wells up a bit writing that even though she has known now for five days.  OH, she is very,  VERY excited.  Her retirement will have a purpose now,  something other than memorizing episodes of Judge Judy.  She hopes to be able to continue to visit with you all through this blog.   Time shall tell.

Now, before we begin with the first of these recipes, Annalena does want to tell you all that this was published in the NY Times, and it is a very  clearly written recipe.  There is also a video, on facebook, by the author (Ms. Alison Roman, one of Annalena's new heroes), that leads you through this very smoothly.

OK?  Now no comments along the lines of "It's so interesting that there was an article in the Times..." and that kind of blather.  Go read a book instead.    Annalena is going to tell you where she diverged from the recipe, where she agrees with Ms. Roman, and where she disagrees. 

The finished dish is above.  Here are your ingredients:

The Guyman is the family photographer, so these are not as well presented as they could be.  What we have, however, are four chicken thighs, with skin, on the bone;  two CANS of artichoke hearts , sliced in half.  A bottle of white wine (we will not use it all), a red onion, and some fresh herbs.

Ms. Roman says, and Annalena agrees, that you must use chicken on the bone, and with the skin, to make this recipe.  The directions will call for thighs, but you may substitute an equivalent quantity of another cut (2 pounds in total), keeping in mind that you will have to adjust timing.  There are guides, which  you may google, to tell you how to do that.  We shall proceed with thighs.

CANS???? ANNALENA???? some of you may be thinking.  Yes, yes.  Preparing fresh artichokes is a time consuming, less than rewarding process, of which Annalena has written before.  So, read the ingredients in your can, and when you dump out the artichoke hearts, wash them.  Then slice each one, lengthwise.  Let them drain whilst you prepare the other things you will need.  You will want some fresh herbs of some kind, and also, you will need a heaping (and Annalena means heaping) cup of white wine,  and a red onion, which you will slice into rings. 

Yet another Annalena digression on cooking with wine.  Have you heard the rule  "if you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it?"  It's a good rule.  Now, Annalena does NOT recommend taking out the 90.00 bottle of wine and pouring that in your pan.  Rather, what she does, is to save leftover wine from meals, and pour it into a cooking wine bottle.  This does m ix the various types together.  Then, every month or so, she dumps it out and starts again. 

Annalena did not use a non stick pan to do this.  If you feel more secure with one, use it.\

  And to see if your  pan is going to be big enough, here's a professional tip:  dump all your ingredients in your chosen pan, BEFORE you begin to cook (the solid ones).  If they fit, you're good.  If not, size up. 

Ok, now to the mechanical end of things .  Preheat your oven to 425.  Put a bit of olive oil into your pan, and add your chicken thighs, SKIN SIDE DOWN, to the cold pan.  Bring the pan to medium heat.  You'll increase it later. 

Chicken thighs are rich with fat.  YET, you need to add a bit of fat at the beginning , to get the cooking process going.  As the chicken begins to make its frying sound, you can up the heat, to medium high, and you will see how the quantity of fat increases in the pan.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, unless you have very fatty chicken.  If it looks like too much, at some point, you'll have to ditch some.  We'll get there. 

It takes about 6-8 minutes for the chicken to brown nicely on the skin.   So time that, and when it looks good, turn it over, and cook another five minutes or so.  You will get:

(That is not all of them, ragazzi.  The plate was not big enough). 

Ok, so now, eyeball the fat in your pan.  Make your judgement.  And then bravely add the artichoke hearts, the sliced onion,  a few strands of thyme, or oregano, or something of "medium strength."  Rosemary might very well overwhelm this dish.  Sage certainly would.   

So you have the vegetables in there, and now, you'll want to stir them a bit, until you just see edges of brown.  Then put the chicken back in.  Find spaces for it, or just put it on top of the veggies, don't decorate Buckingham Palace.   Now, move your face away from the pan, just in case, and add the wine. 

Does that look good or what?  Not done yet. We need 10 minutes in the oven.  That will finish up the chicken and also probably reduce your liquid a bit.  

PROTECT YOUR HANDS, take the pan out of the oven, and then, heat it gently for about another 5 minutes to reduce the liquid.  And here's dinner:

Now, if that is not the height of simple sophistication, well, what is?  

Do go to youtube and look for Ms. Roman's video.  It is incredibly well made and entertaining.  And look for the printed page.  Ms.  Roman is not old, and she has accumulated so much wisdom, and presents it so bluntly and clearly, you should all be fans. 

Soup exhaustion: mixing Venetian and Cantonese, in Vegetable Rice soup

Those readers who have been with Annalena in the past, know that Monday night , for about 7 months of the year, is soup night.  The Guyman has rehearsal, comes home late, and dinner needs to be light, filling and tasty.  So, it's soup.  Annalena, with her seasonal bent, tries to design the soups that way:  in September, there will be corn soup.  In November, butternut squash.  And she tries not to repeat herself.  

This all becomes challenging in February and March.  T.S  Eliot wrote "April is the cruelest month."  Clearly, he did not cook.

Confronted with a refrigerator full of root vegetables and winter greens this weekend, Annalena began to cast about for what to do.  Cooking soup with root vegetables is easy.  So is cooking one with winter greens.  But we'd had them already this season.  What to do that's new?

Years ago, Annalena learned how to make a Northern Italian soup called "polentina"  (Little polenta).  It's a corn meal based soup, where the amount of polenta is just enough to make it thick and smooth.  You then add vegetables. 

So, Annalena went to the cabinet to get the polenta.  And she saw an almost finished container of rice.  Hmmmmm.  For reasons that will always remain obscure (the workings of Annalena's mind have defied many).  She began to think of that Chinese classic, congee (or juk, depending on where you're from).  Essentially, it's overcooked rice, with leftovers.  Well, could Annalena combine the two? 

Yes, she could, and she did.  This is an original Annalena recipe and, for those who worry about this kind of thing, it's gluten free, vegan, and if you don't use the tofu, fat free.  What's not to like?

First,  you need some liquid.  You can use water, you can use packaged broth of any kind, but why not try your hand at making it?  Here's how Annalena made hers.  She took 2 large leeks, and chopped them roughly (you can use a big onion too), a couple of stalks of ugly celery, two big ugly carrots, a couple of turnips, and a potato.  All of these got chopped into  irregular pieces, and covered with 2.5 quarts of water.   Then she brought it to a boil, simmered for 20 minutes, and ... BROTH.  If you make yours, do get the veggies out as soon as possible, because the longer they stay, the "greener your broth will be.  That isn't necessarily a good thing.  

Once you have your stock/broth, you are really just about done.  The rest is easy.  Go into your fridge and pull out the veggies you have, that aren't enough for a meal, or that are beginning to look snarky.  Annalena found turnips, carrots,  spinach, and dandelion greens.  She took the carrots (two kinds), and turnips, and diced them into bite sized pieces and tossed them into the broth to simmer:

While this was happening, she cooked a pot of rice.  Now, ragazzi, this is important.  If you have cooked rice before, or read the instructions on thee side of a box of rice, you'll see that, for white rice, the "rule" is one part rice, for two parts water.  For this soup, you're going to change that to 1:5, or even 1:6.  What you are hoping to do, is to OVERCOOK the rice (you'll see this word in Italian sometimes, as stracotto.  It doesn't mean overcooked to the point something is inedible, it just means it's more cooked than normal).  You'll get rice like this: 

You're also going to have a LOT of stuff in that pot.  Annalena used one cup of rice, and she had enough "gruel" to feed her whole apartment.  

What you're now going to do, is spoon off 2-3 cups of this stuff, rice and water.  It will be hot, so work in small batches, and puree it in a blender.  As you puree it, pour it into your broth and veggies:

Then, take the remaining rice, and either drain it or don't, and combine it with the other ingredients.  Stir this all together, and make any necessary salt corrections you want.  NOW, if you have greens from that fridge dive, add them.  Spinach, chard, etc, will cook right there.  Dandelion greens will need a few minutes, kale and collards, a lot longer.   (Incidentally, you could push this more Venetian, by adding frozen peas instead of greens).  Your soup looks like this, and you have a lot of it:

If you've gone through this recipe, you have not seen any olive oil, any animal products, any dairy, etc.  So this soup is rather lean.  For lunch, Annalena took a pound of tofu and seared it hard.  The Guyman called the result  "beancurd croutons," which is not wrong.  

You should feel free to add what you want, if you in fact want to add anything.  If you leave it simple, you have a winter tonic, but you will be hungry later.

And as St. Julia once said  "that's all for today."  More is coming ragazzi ed amici.  Patienza.

Is it Sicilian? Is it Tuscan? Fish in tomato olive sauce

Ciao amici e ragazzi.  Do you remember Annalena?  If you felt that she abandoned you, she did.  She was tired.  And, honestly, some of those people out there never learned any manners.  Annalena would say "were born in a barn," but truth to be  told, having spent some time in barnyards, Annalena would choose the residents over some of the people who felt they had carte blanche to say whatever they wanted.  Annalena was accused of stealing recipes (she does:  but she always credits the source), of being an elitist (she is.  And sees nothing wrong with that), and of not writing the recipes "in contemporary style"  (also guilty.  ).  BUT... the machinations of a sort of wicked Canadian/Italian have gotten Annalena back.  She does issue an edict/warning:   THIS time around, she will make sure you are banned if you break protocol twice.  She will warn you once. You won't know it after that.  Trust her.

The title of our (newly) initial blog post, comes from discussions Annalena had when she learned how to make the sauce for this dish. She learned it from her little sister from a different  mother, a wonderful Sicilian woman who is a cooking teacher and runs her own school.  Should you go to Sicily, look her up.  The link is at the bottom of this entry.  And if  you happen to be in a city she visits during her annual trip to the United States, TAKE THE CLASS.  You will learn SO much.  Annalena is serious.  She has taken 3, and learns, at every single one.

When we made this sauce, in class,  Annalisa told us that  "you may think of sauce Livornese, and it IS very similar."  Annalena had heard of sauce Livornese, but she only had the faintest idea of how to make it.  When she looked it up, she learned that, like so many "classic" or "named" dishes, there were about a million variations.  All contained tomato, and all contained olives.  Beyond that....  And ragazzi ed amici, that's what cooking is about. Seriously, Annalena wants to stress:  there are very few "right" and "wrongs" about cooking.  There are opinions, just like with Broadway shows.  What Annalena likes, you may not.  What you like, Annalena may not.  So if you feel you've made a Livornese sauce and it needs "something," next time, add the something.  You may be right, you may be wrong, but you'll now have TWO sauces. And if you were wrong in your choices, at some point, you will have a third sauce. 

You will also hear, not without reason, that Italians are very protective of their cuisines.  For example, if you go to Rome, you will get the cooking of Lazio.  Amatriciana anyone?  And if you go to Venice, you will get the wonderful golden cookies called zaletti.   This is not to say you will not get these dishes elsewhere;  rather , with typical Italian ingenuity,  Italians will take a dish, claim it as their own, and rename it.  Then they can fight, internally, over who was there first, and who makes it right.

This sauce is a good example.  Annalena learned it from a Sicilian woman.  She cited to Livorno.  Now, if you look at a map of Italy, you will find Livorno on the coast of Tuscany:   WAY up north ,  far away from Sicily.  BUT... Livorno is a port.  Sailors went to sea (and if you want to eat well, ragazzi, marry a sailor), and we know Tuscans were in Sicily.  The dish, as we will see, does not rely on anything particularly regional to make.  In fact, Annalena thinks of it sort of as "piatto della dispensa" or a pantry dish:  when you see the ingredients, you will recognize immediately that every self respecting Italian cook, has these ingredients in his or her home.  So, ragazzi, let's get to work.

As promised, here are our ingredients:

What you see is a red onion, behind the capers, green olives, canned tomatoes, and a can of olive oil.  Salt and oregano are going in besides these, but those were Annalena's choices.  

Do you see why it's a dispensa/pantry sauce?  EVERY Italian has olives, capers, onions, and tomatoes around.  ALL THE TIME.  Need Annalena speak of olive oil?  How many kinds do you have?   So all you need to do on the way home, is get your fish (or maybe not:  we'll get to that below).

Now, to cook this dish, you first slice the onion in half moons  

Next , you have to reconcile yourself to one of the major distinctions between ITALIAN cuisine, and American Italian cuisine.  Italians do not measure.  Also - and this is a tough one, even for Annalena - Italians use much more olive oil than Americans do.  Indeed, when Annalena watches Annalisa cook, she sometimes watches the eyes of other students widen, as her sorellina pours the "Sicilian gold" into the pan.  So, ragazzi, no tablespoon measures here. Cover your pan, which is preferably non stick, with good olive oil, add the onions, and cook them at medium low.  You don't want them to brown, but you want them to soften:

If you compare the onions in the pan, to the ones on the cutting board, you shall see what  Annalena means.  

While the onions are cooking, prepare the olives.  Correctly, this dish requires those green olives with a pimiento in the middle. Annalena did not have those.  So she took green olives, smashed them, and pulled out the pits.  If you are using the pimientoed variety, cut them in thirds.  

How many?  Chissa'?  (who knows).  Do you like olives? Use a lot.  Not fond of them?  Don't use many.  You're going to combine these with drained capers:  don't use the ones preserved in salt here, ragazzi.  Sott'olio,  sott'aceto, sott'aqua (if you must), are fine.  How many?  Think about the olives .  Add these to the onions:

Technically both olives and capers have already been "cooked" because they are "cured."  So you won't need to spend too much time here.  Annalena suggests you just toss them into the onions and get them warm. 

Now, you add the tomato sauce.  Annalena was cooking for two:  she and the Guyman, so she only used one 16 ounce can.  All she had were pre-diced tomatoes, so she used them.  If you have whole tomatoes, they are better, and do a really Italian thing and crush them with your hands (Annalena has a wonderful photo of her friend Daphne playing in the sandbox of canned tomatoes.  If you want it, Annalena will ask if you can have it.  ).  

Now, stir this all together, lower your heat to really, really low, and let it sit for:  ok, now we're going to be Italian again, ragazzi.  The recipes Annalena has seen say 30 minutes.  What you're trying to do is drive most of the water off of the dish, and that may happen in 20 (as it did with Annalena), or 30.  You're looking for something like this: 

Now, let's presume you're a vegetarian.  If you are, you now have your sauce for pasta.  And since we haven't added cheese, this is also vegan.  If you don't like fish, but you like chicken, replace the fish Annalena talks about below with skinless chicken (skinless, because cooking raw chicken, with skin on it, in a liquid like this, will give you flabby, disgusting skin.  Maybe on your chicken too). 

BUT... if you are doing a Sicilian version, now you add your swordfish.  Let us say, however, that there was no swordfish at the market.  Or, there WAS swordfish but you refused to pay the ridiculous price they were asking.  Or, let's say that your Orthodoxy says swordfish is forbidden.  Then, think about the texture of swordfish, and pick something else.  Annalena had monkfish in the house, which is very firm, and very meaty, just like swordfish.  You could use cod (which Annalena has seen), if it's cut in a big thick piece.  You could use bass, but then you need to watch the cooking time. 

See what Annalena means about rules?  

Now, lay the fish into the sauce, raise the heat to medium, and don't cover the pan:

How long does it take?  Annalena cannot answer that question.  She cooked her fish like this for five minutes.  Then she turned the pieces over, for another five.  She probed one piece (which was for her cat) and found the fish not quite cooked, so she turned it again for two more minutes on each side.  So, at about 15 minutes, she had:

Speak truth, bambini:  does that not beg you to eat it?  Two pieces for each of Annalena and the Guyman, and one small one for Annalena's beloved cat Oliver.  (He got leftovers too). 

And there we are.  In the time it took Annalena to write this, you could have this on the table.  

So, ragazzi, get to work.  Call it Livornese, call it Siciliano.  Call it good.  Call  it dinner. 

Baci ed abracci a tutti. 

You can find Annalena's sorellina at:  https://www.go-sicily.it/

Tony's big... bread (or something like that): adventures with panettone

BUON NATALE RAGAZZI E RAGAZZE.   Yes, Annalena is back, by request, to lead you through a recipe with which she has, literally, more than 30 years experience with, but only 2 days a year: panettone.
You know the stuff:  you see it everywhere.  Annalena's Nana , who had no patience for things Northern (and this bread or cake is from Milan), called it  "fancy shmancy raisin bread" when she was being polite.  Indeed, much of it is bad.  Both here, and in Italy, where more than 117 million loaves of it are sold every year.  How much of that is EATEN is another question, to which Annalena does not  have an answer.  Bad panettone, however, is REALLY bad.

This recipe is a mountain, and when Annalena made it the first time, she made it with baking powder, using a "quick panettone" recipe.  It took 2 hours, and it was ok.  She then read a recipe (more below) which took upwards of 8 hours to make.  Her typical comment was  "it BETTER be good."  It was. 

In typical  Annalena fashion, she quickly went from making 2 loaves a year, to about 36 of them.  All over two days.  Annalena overloaded, and stopped.    Then, a few years ago, in response to Annalena's question, a friend (that'd be you Rene), said that it wasn't Christmas for him without panettone.  As said friend was coming to Christmas dinner, Annalena's response was not so polite, but she kept it to herself, and got to work.  THIS year, however, is the first time Annalena thinks she got it right.  The answer , in brief, is that old  acronym  KISS.  You all know what that means, right?  It does NOT mean that  you sing Kiss songs all day, or that you kiss someone (which is still a good idea: there's not enough kissing going on these days).  There are so many variations of this recipe,  but essentially, Nana was right: it's fancy shmancy raisin bread. 

The name "panettone" is shrouded in myth.  One story, the more anthropological one, is that the dialectical word for bread in Milan, was "panett"  (standard italian uses "pane').  Putting "one" at the end of it, makes it a BIG bread.  "BIG" because it is loaded with things that are not normally in bread.
The more romantic story, is one of how Tony (not the Tony in West Side Story), was in love with a baker's daughter, and he prayed for inspiration on how to win her.  An angel brought him the recipe for what became "Tony's bread"  (panettone).  Use the story you like.

Annalena's recipe comes out of a classic:  the much missed Carol Field's "The Italian Baker."  This book is essential to the serious baker.  It, however, brings up a question to those of you in publishing:  both in the US and Italy:  Ms. Fields' book is over 30 years old.   Nothing new has been published, either in the US or Italy.  WHY NOT?    (By the way, Annalena is receptive to receiving a grant to write one.  Just saying).  Get the book. 

Also, get those panettone papers.  Seriously, bambini . Amazon has them, and you can't really make a good panettone without them.  Annalena has tried.  Structurally, the bread/cake seems to need precisely what those flimsy papers provide. Double them when you're baking.

Annalena URGES you to read this recipe through, all the way, and to have ingredients ready. You'll be glad you did.  This recipe will make you two loaves in six inch panettone paper.  It doubles well.  Beyond that,  Annalena suggests you schedule two baking days, because these are big loaves, and they take a lot of time.

You're going to need 7 eggs, and three sticks of butter, at room temperature, to use along the way.  The rest of the stuff is water, flour, sugar, yeast:  the usual stuff of bread making.

We start by making a sponge:  a sort of 'biga' to Italian baking pro's.  Take 2.5-3 teaspoons of yeast (that's about a tablespoon.  If you insist on using those yellow packages, make sure the expiration date is still effective, and it's one package).  Mix it with 1/3 cup of cold water and 1/2 cup of plain all purpose flour.  Use cold water:  your apartment is swarm enough.  Mix this all together in a big bowl, cover it, and go and gather your ingredients for the next step.

Those ingredients are another package or tablespoon of yeast, 3 tablespoons of cold water, 2 large eggs,  1/4 cup of sugar, and 1 stick (four ounces) of unsalted butter.  Add the new yeast to the sponge you made, and the watea, the eggs, the four and the sugar.  Use your stand mixer to blend all of this, and then blend in the stick of butter.  Get it uniform:  it will take longer than you think; probably 6-10 minutes.  Cover it, and go and do something for 1 1/2 hours. 

Now, we get to the fun stuff.  You're going to have a big puffy bowl of very soft dough.  Add 2 whole eggs to this, and 3  egg yolks.  Also add 3/4 cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of honey (use a light one), half a tablespoon (1.5 teaspoons ) of vanilla extract, and a teaspoon of salt.  Mix this all up -  it will take about two minutes.  Then add two sticks of soft unsalted butter, and incorporate it until it's uniform, just like the first step.  Then, add 3 cups of flour.  Do it a cup at a time.  Get your dough hook out to help with this. 

You've got dough!  Now it takes a long rest.  This is going to need 4 hours to rise.  So go read Dante, or War and Peace or do your Christmas shopping, etc.  Don't worry if you leave it for more than 4 hours.  6 hours is fine, too. 

One thing you WILL Want to do is get your fruit together for this.  You'll need 3 cups of dried fruit, the grated peel of a lemon and an orange, and the juice from both of them.  Traditionally, panettone is made with only golden fruits:  golden raisins, candied orange peel, and candied citron.  Use what you like.  Most of the ones you can buy, are just raisins, and if they're good raisins, you'll be fine.  Annalena mixes golden and black raisins.  Sometimes, she adds currants, sometimes, candied lemon peel, sometimes, candied grapefruit peel, etc.  She has seen versions with chopped dates, chopped figs, etc.  Have some fun with this. 

After  your long rising time has passed, wet your hands, and incorporate the fruit into the dough by just folding gently.  Annalena finds that using the mixer, deflates the dough too much, and you won't get a good rise. 

Now, you're gonna let it rise again, in the paper.  Divide the dough in half, or as close to half as you can get, form balls, and put them in the papers.  Cover the paper with a towel, and go away for another 2  hours.    The dough will come close to doubling.

About 90 minutes into the rising, preheat the oven to 400.  After two hours,  put the panettone on a baking sheet, and slide it into the oven.  Bake it for ten minutes.  Then lower the temperature to 375 for another ten.  Finally,  lower the oven to 350, rotate the sheet, and let things bake for another 30 minutes.

Your panettone probably will NOT be done at this point.  You can tell by taking a soft knife, and going to the center.  If it's wet, let it bake for another 15 minutes.  It should be done by now.  If it's not, turn off the oven, but leave the loaves in . 

You're going to have burned raisins at the top.  Eat them, toss them,  leave them.  It's all good.  You just made panettone!  You should feel very proud of yourself.   Eat this fresh, or use it for French Toast, or bread pudding.  The bread pudding you make with panettone, will make you wonder how you lived without this.

Enjoy your holiday everyone.  And make some panettone.