The Italian Voice

I am bolognese, so I was born with the bolognese habits, one of them is using massive quantities of the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese onto the dishes, it is perfect for their taste and it is wonderful also if eaten alone!

I tried to search for foreign online news about the “Parmigiano Reggiano case“, but it seems that anyone abroad knows nothing of what happened, so I am here to inform you and to find a solution for my own little world.

Some months ago, Greenpeace published an article with the news item that the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese woud be at risk of OGM; it does not mean that it is made with OGM, but the problem is due to the fact that the cows which produce milk eat the genetically modified soy produced by the Monsanto company (read the translated article HERE, if you find errors it is because the translation has been made by the Google’s automatic service).
By now, this Monsanto firm is famous to work with OGM without scruples only to get rich.

Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

I will not write here my thoughts, even if you can easily imagine, together with the citizens’ reactions to this bad news item, especially because it is about a famous great product which everybody abroad envy us, but I wondered how will I act when I will move to low Piedmont.
Now I am already trying to avoid the Parmigiano Reggiano, here we do not have a great choice which could replace that cheese, but other Italian regions surely have!

My boyfriend, who lived with his family in low Piedmont for more than 20 years, affirms that there is a great valuable product which comes from Lombardy with a nice flavour and even a nice price, if compared to the Parmigiano Reggiano: it is called Bella Lodi.

Bella Lodi cheese

Well, the unique evident difference is the rind; while the Parmigiano Reggiano’s one is yellow-light brown like the rest of the cheese appears, the Bella Lodi’s one is black.

Absolutely nothing to say about the flavour, as my boyfriend told me that, every time I visited his parents, I ate it onto the first courses.

Well, I can not be 100% sure about its cows’ nutrition, but they seem reliable, I also found their website which is available in 3 languages.

Extraordinary discovery, I am pretty satisfied today, I can not wait to buy and use it again, when we will establish into the new flat.
For me, without doubts, Bella Lodi knocks down Parmigiano Reggiano!

P.S. I would like to thank the wonderful Joy O’Hare who some days ago wrote a nice review about my blog and the ABolognaNet’s staff which discovered my previous entry and mentioned it into their Italian blog, thanks a lot for your kindness!!

You already know that I am going to move to low Piedmont, but you do not know yet that my boyfriend’s parents are from Catania, in Sicily, living in low Piedmont.
Everytime I visit them, I learn something about that wonderful island of the Southern Italy.
Today I want to write about the ricotta cheese.

In Italy, we have different regions which produce that fantastic versatile cheese, but I think Sicily has a real primacy for its taste and value.
Sicily uses the ricotta for several typical dishes, especially for pastries and desserts; you can easily remember the heavenly taste of the cannoli siciliani, which are cylinder-shaped pastries stuffed with ricotta, chocolate drops and sometimes also patties (candies).

In my region, which is the Emilia-Romagna in Northern Italy (where the capital of province, Bologna, is situated just between Milan and Florence), people use the ricotta cheese, but especially to eat it as normal cheese, maybe together the second course; its use is connected mainly to its salty flavour.

Well, my future parents-in-law teached me to eat ricotta during the meal, tasting it together with sugar.
So what do you understand? Yes, that you can eat pasta which is salty and immediately after a sugared cheese and maybe just after them even another salty dish!!
This mix can sound a bit odd, but I guarantee that an attempt is surely worth the while.

Just to explain better what I mean, here is my suggestion of what you have to do with your ricotta cheese:

usual shape of the ricotta cheese

First of all see that you buy a shape of ricotta made by sheep (avoid any other kind of cheese, such as the one from cow or mixed types, because its taste is the best one).
Then simply put it into a bowl or a dish, add some spoons of powdered sugar (avoid any other one, so that the sugar can be totally absorbed by ricotta) and mix it for some minutes with a spoon.
All you have to do now is enjoy your dish!

To me, this seems to be originally a poor dish, which could be prepared in the past as meal by poor families because they had sheeps and beets for sugar and just because it is quick and easy to serve; in addition, it offers immediate energy given by the cheese together with the sugar.

The unique expedient to remember is to eat just a few spoons of ricotta, because its calorific value is quite high: 170 calories for 100 grams of ricotta (produced by sheep, so simply made with serum and not with the add of milk and cream)!

Anyway, I thought to hand down this nice “recipe” to the ones who are interested in typical Italian dishes because I imagined that you will be happy to discover, like I did, this Southern Italian habit to add sugar to the ricotta cheese everytime, even if it is tasted during normal meals. I hope you will enjoy it.

And if you want to try other great recipes with Italian foods, you can visit GaidaR’s blog (for example, her latest entry reports a fantastic recipe of “mushroom tortellini bake recipe“), you will not be disappointed! She is a new dear friend from Sydney, I met her on BlogCatalog and she is going to cooperate with HerProBlog as blogger.

The Aemilian cooking is one of the most tasty and ancient in Italy, it has several famous dishes, especially for the first course.

Today I am here to suggest you the sublime ragù bolognese. Everybody tries to imitate it, but they do not know the secrets of its recipe.

Now you have the chance, like me, to try the official recipe, which a delegation from Bologna of the Accademia Italiana della Cucina (which means “Italian Academy of the Cooking”, editor’s note) has issued to assure the continuity and the observance of the bolognese gastronomic tradition in Italy and in the world.

There is nothing like the taste and the satisfation given by an homemade dish, especially with this sauce, you will see it!

Ragù bolognese
(official recipe)

shot by teresa_gennarino

Ingredients for 4 persons

- 300 g of beef pulp (part between the lungs and the ribs)
- 100 g of sweet bacon (so not the smoked one)
- 5 spoons of double or triple tomato paste
- 1/2 glass of red wine (the Sangiovese secco is ideal)
- 1 glass of meat broth (but it is ok also the veggie one)
- 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 stalk of celery (50 g each one, minced)
- salt and pepper
- milk
- extra virgin olive oil

Preparation

Let the minced sweet bacon and the vegetables fry together in a pot with a few spoons of extra virgin olive oil, then add the minced beef pulp and, after they have browned abundantly, pour 1/2 glass of red wine.
When the wine has finished to boil off, add 5 spoons of tomato paste, with desired salt and pepper, 1 glass of bouillon and continue the cooking at low flame for a couple of hours, during which you have to reshuffle and to add every time some spoons of milk; the milk is added to avoid that the sauce appear too red and to let it take the typical brown colour and the typical sublime taste of the ragù bolognese.

The modern version mixes the beef meat with the pork meat (for example, the fresh salsiccia, which is the sausage).

You can use immediately the tasty ragù onto your dishes of pasta and you can also put it into glass jars to preserve into the freezer so that they will be available every time you need and you want them, remembering to take them out some hours before the meal, letting them defrost naturally.
Someone even affirms that the ragù bolognese have a better taste the day after its cooking.