The February Menu

Ricotta and Spinach Quiche

Serves 4:

– 1 roll of pastry dough
– 250 g Ricotta
– 2 spoons of grated Grana Padano PDO
– 1 package of freezed spinach
– 1 egg
– Milk
– Salt

Roll out the pastry dough in a pan with its greaseproof paper.
Put the spinaches in a pan with salted water for 10 minutes. Drain the spinaches until they have left water.

Pour Ricotta on the pastry dough and arrange it in an homogenous way. Put the spinaches on the Ricotta and arrange them on the surface.
Beat the eggs with a spill of salt and a spoon of milk. Add Grana Padano PDO. Pour the mix on the spinaches.
Close the sides of the pastry dough and put in the oven for 30 minutes at 180°C.

Hearts of Caprino and Chives

Ingredients for the dough:

– 300 ml Milk
– 180 g Flour
– 30 g Butter
– 1/2 spoon of salt

Ingredients for the filling:
– 120 g Caprino
– 2 spoons of minced chives
– Salt and Pepper

Ingredienti for cooking:
– 2 small eggs
– Breadcrumbs
– Vegetable oil

To prepare the hearts, pour the milk in a pot. Add the Butter until it is about to boil. Remove the pot from the fire and add the flour. Mix all the ingredients until you get a compact mix.
Let it stand. Transfer it on the pastry board with some flour and knead until you get an homogenous dough.

Prepare the filling for the hearts by mixing the Caprino, salt, pepper and chives in a bowl.
With a rolling pin, roll out the dough creating a rectangular shape of dough, with an height of about 1-2 mm. Take a spoon of filling and put it on the dough, at 10 cm one another.
Cover the filling with the dough. With a heart-shaped mould, cut out the hearts. Take two plates: put the breadcrumbs in one and the egg in the other.

Put each heart in the egg, the in the breadcrumbs and fry them in the vegetable oil until they are golden. Drain the hearts, put them on the absorbent paper and serve immediately.

Castagnole

Ingredients :

– 200 g Flour
– 50 g Sugar
– rind of ½ a lemon
– 40 g Butter
– 2 Eggs
– 1 spill of salt
– Powder yeast
– Liquor
– Vegetable Oil
– Icing sugar

In a bowl, mix the flour with the yeast, the salt, then the sugar, the eggs, the butter, the rind of the lemon and the liquor.
Mix the ingredients, then put the dough on a pastry board with flour and knead.
Let it stand for some minutes. Create a line of dough and cut them in small pieces (size of a hazelnut). Create little balls with your hands.

Fry the Castagnole in some vegetable oil until they puff up and they start staying afloat.
Drain them with some absorbent paper and then pour icing sugar.

Honey glazed pears and Gorgonzola DOP skewers

Serves 4:

2 pears
150 g Ciresa Mild Gorgonzola DOP
2 spoons of honey
30 g Ciresa Nostrano Butter
Pepper
Toothpicks

Peel the pears and cut them into 4 wedges. Remove the core and cut into small cubes.

Melt Ciresa Nostrano Butter in a large non-stick frying pan. Gently brown the pear cubes. Add the honey and turn often until caramelized. Sprinkle with a little ground pepper and then transfer to a tray lined with parchment paper.

Cut the Gorgonzola DOP into cubes, same size as the pears. You can create a miniature skewers by threading pear and cheese cubes onto toothpicks if you don’t have appetizer spoons.

Spinach Gnocchi with Taleggio DOP

Serves 6:

700 g potatoes
400 g spinach
200 g Ciresa Taleggio DOP
100 g flour
250 ml Ciresa Single Cream
Salt
White pepper

Wash and boil the spinach in a pot with little salted water. In the meanwhile, in another pot, boil the potatoes for 30-40 minutes.

Drain and squeeze the spinach. Chop them up with a knife.

When the potatoes are cooked, peel them. Mash the potatoes with a potato ricer and gather the potato into a mound on the counter (in which you have put some flour), sprinkle with salt and add the spinach.

Mix all the ingredients, adding the flour until you get a compact dough.

Divide the dough in small cylindrical rows. With a knife, divide the rows in small pieces, called “gnocchi”. Put “gnocchi” on a floured rag.

In the meanwhile, prepare the sauce with Ciresa Taleggio DOP. Cut Taleggio DOP in small cubes and put it in a pan with a little Ciresa single cream. Let all the ingredients melt and then let the sauce thicken. Sprinkle with white pepper.

Cook “gnocchi” in salted water, drain them and then add the Taleggio DOP sauce.

Ham and Fontina Omelette

Serves 4:

8 eggs
4 slices of ham
4 slices of Ciresa Fontina
Ciresa Nostrano Butter
Salt and pepper

Heat skillet on medium and melt Ciresa Nostrano butter.
In a bowl, beat the eggs until you get an homogenous mixture.

When butter melts, pour two spoons of the egg mixture into skillet. As the omelette begins to set, lift up edges with egg flipper so that the uncooked portion of egg can flow under the cooked portion.

When eggs are set but the top is still moist, put a slice of Ciresa Fontina and a slice of ham over it.

Fold one edge of the omelette over the cheese. Slide omelette onto the plate and serve.

Do the same with the mixture that is left.