Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

I have quite a few zucchini in the garden but not so many flowers yet, and I love fried zucchini flowers (you can find the step by step recipe  here ). So I decided to pick a few little zucchini with the flowers still attached and to stuff them. Clean the vegetables and flower, remove the stigma and the styles. Do not detach from the young zucchini. Mix a few tablespoons of ricotta with a pinch of salt, pepper, roughly broken basil leaves and a drop of olive oil. Stuff the flowers and twist the top to seal. Make a batter with egg, flour, a pinch of salt and thin with a little cold beer of water. Dip the zucchini and flowers in the batter to coat and then pan fry with olive oil, turning them so that they cook on all sides. They should be golden and crispy. Drain on kitchen paper, sprinkle with salt and serve. Use the remaining batter to coat zucchini slices, or sage leaves ( look here! ) or anything you like.   Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

I was back in the Italian Apennines recently and in the market I bought some fresh strawberries and some local ricotta which was so creamy it was almost like mascarpone, so I thought of 'marrying' the two. I marinated the strawberries with lemon juice and a little sugar for a few hours, long enough to make a nice sweet smelling strawberry joyce and enhance their flavour. Then all I had to do was to put a slice of ricotta in a dessert bowl and top it with the strawberries and their juice. Mmmhhh! It was so good I am still thinking about it! I also loved the colour combination, the red of the fruit with the snow white of the ricotta… which made me think of both spring and winter! In fact when I arrived in the mountains the fields and woods where full with flowers... …and after a few days I woke up in the morning to find everything covered with Spring snow! I was back in the Italian Apennines recently and in the market I bought some fresh strawberries an...

Too hot to cook but I still feel like pasta, so the solution is fresh pasta, which doesn't take long to cook, just a couple of minutes boiling instead of 10-11 minutes. You can make your own fresh pasta (there is a recipe  here ) or if you are in Auckland you can go to  Pasta & Cuore  and bring home some really yummy super fresh pasta, made daily! And for sauce? Too hot to make a sauce too, but fresh pasta doesn't need much if it is good: top with some ricotta, cubed or crumbled, salt, black pepper, extra virgin olive oil and fresh basil leaves. If the ingredients are good you don't need many, nor big amounts.  Simple is best! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

I love ricotta cheesecake, and it has less calories that regular cheesecake. This recipe is very simple and calls for many variations: here I used rum and raisins, but it is great with lemon zest, or vanilla, or candied citrus peels... Ingredients 1 sheet sweet butter pastry for the base 1 handful raisins (or sultana) 50 ml rum 3 eggs 3 tbsp sugar 500 g ricotta Line a square or rectangular baking tin with baking paper and the sweet butter pastry, pinching the pastry so that it lightly comes up to the borders (it doesn't need to come up all the way through, just about 2 or 3 cm.). Soak the raisins with the rum. Beat the eggs with the sugar until they are foamy and pale yellow, then add the ricotta and beat for one more minute. Fold in the raisins and rum and pour over the pastry. Place immediately in a preheated oven at 160°C for approximately 45 minutes, or until the borders look golden. Let the cake cool down for several hours before cutting.   Photos and recipes...

This is a no-cook dessert that can be made in two minutes, and with three ingredients. Also, it can be served as fruit, or cheese! Place a spoon of creamy ricotta in a glass or verrine, add some blueberries and a little bit of honey. Repeat with a second layer. Refrigerate until serving time. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

I am trying to eat more wholemeal pasta, something that I am not really used to. But for some reason I like wholemeal spaghetti, as long as they have a rich creamy sauce, like this one! Toast a handful of pine nuts in a frying pan until they start to get brown and oily. Using a mortar and pestle mush half of them with a clove of garlic (peeled), a few leaves of basil (not too many, this is not a Genovese pesto) and then thin everything down with extra virgin olive oil. Add a few tbsp of ricotta and adjust with salt and pepper to taste. Cook the wholemeal spaghetti al dente, then thin the ricotta sauce with a little hot water from the spaghetti pot. Drain the spaghetti and mix in the sauce. Top with the remaining pine nuts, and with some parmesan cheese, if you like.  For a vegan version instead of ricotta you could add some soft tofu: the pine nuts, basil, olive oil and garlic should be able to flavor the tofu sufficiently (unless you are one of those crafty pe...

Making mozzarella and ricotta at home is possible and you don't need any special equipment except for a brewer or cheese maker thermometer. The basic recipe comes from my book Savour  (page 12-13), it is quite detailed, so here I will do a quick step by step explanation, with a little trick to cut down time.  Start with 2 litres of full cream  not  homogenised milk, if it looks too fat take away some of the cream at the top. Gently heat the milk to 38°C (110.4°F). Add 4 heaps tbsp of live yogurt, in New Zealand I only use Cyclops Yogurt (thick and creamy type) to make cheese. I tried with a variety of yogurts, but this really seems to have the right bacterias kicking into curd action! Stir. Usually I only add yogurt, and then the waiting time after cutting the curd is about 4 hours. if you want speedy results add a little citric acid too. I am not sure how many cheese makers would do this, on the other hand I am not sure how many ...

Instead of filling  Brandy snaps  with cream, I like to fill them with ricotta, like the  Sicilian Cannoli . Today I chopped a few pieces of candied fruit (green melon and papaya, because I didn't have any candied citrus fruit) and mixed it with ricotta. I also added 1 tsp of vanilla icing sugar (icing sugar kept in a tin with a vanilla pod) and then I wanted to add 1 tbsp of orange blossom water, but it was out of date, so I added rose water instead. I will use the old orange blossom water for my bath (why through it away when you can have a sweet smelling bath!). I thinned down the ricotta with a little milk until it was soft, and piped it inside the Brandy snaps. But you don't have to stick to this recipe: add what you like, for example chopped dark chocolate, ground pistachio nuts, a little cinnamon... anything that sounds Mediterranean! I hope that you will like the idea! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

I have very little time to write on the blog these days, too busy working on the cookbook... so I would like to re-post this topic, since it it the most read post on this blog, and on my other blog also! According to the 'statistics' it get visits every single day... I cannot believe it! So many people are interested in making Halloumi (and RIcotta) at home? Do you? It is easy to make Halloumi and ricotta at home, no special equipment required except for a cheese or brewer termomether. I started with 2l of milk, full-cream and not homogenized (unfortunately not raw...) In a large stainless steel saucepan heat the milk to 32C (use the termometer) and then add the rennet (animal or vegetable). I used 2ml dissolved in 2ml of cold water, but if you use industrial rennet you may need less. Follow the manufacturers' instructions. Let the milk set for 45-60 minutes, covering the pot with a lid and keeping the temperature constant on 32C (you may like to place t...