Sorrento recipes

Sorrento Gnocchi (serves 6)

1 kilo of Potatoes - 200 g. of Flour - 2 Eggs - 1 tablespoonful of Olive Oil or Butter - a pinch of Salt.

Prepare the dough with the boiled potatoes mashed and cooled, flour, eggs, oil or butter and a pinch of salt, and mix to a stiff dough. Roll out into sausage lengths about 1 inch thick and cut into small equal pieces, then press each one down the back of a fork in such a way that the dough is dented and will eventually absorb more sauce and therefore be more tasty.

Put into salty boiling water and when ready they will float to the top.

Once surfaced, skim and place in an oven dish, or small individual dishes, pour over some tomao sauce, sprinkle wih grated Parmisan cheese and small cube size pieces of mozzarella cheese. Place in oven till golden brown and serve wih fresh basil.

Spaghetti with courgettes (serves 6)

500 g. of Spaghetti - 800 g. of Courgettes - 3 dal. Olive Oil - 50 g. Butter - 100 g. Parmisan Cheese - 100 g. Caciocavallo cheese (or sliced white cheese) - Salt - Basil.

Fry the courgettes, cut into small pieces, in hot olive oil a little a time until golden brown. Once fried place in layers in a dish and sprinkle wih salt, grated Parmisan cheese and basil.

Flavour with two tablespoons of the fried oil and leave for one hour.

Now boil the spaghetti as to be firm when eaten and put them back onto the ring adding some boiled water with the ladle, then the butter, courgettes and thinly sliced caciocavallo. Flavour with basil. The paste of the Caciocavallo cheese will melt to form a creamy mixture to enhance the spaghetti.

Spaghetti with nuts (serves 6)

500 g. Spaghetti - Oil of Oil - 1 Garlic clove - 100 g. shelled Nuts - 1 Anchovy - Parsley.

Lightly brown a piece of crushed garlic in the frying pan, then remove and replace with the kernels.

Cook the nuts on a moderate flame for four or five minutes bearing in mind that the oil contained in the kernel keeps toasting the nuts even after the flame has been extinguished.

Lastly add the anchovy which will crumple in the heat. Cook the spaghetti, drain leaving them slightly humid and add to the ingredients in the pan with tomato sauce. Sauté mixing thoroughly and add plenty finely chopped parsley.

Mozzarella in carrozza

Sliced Bread - Flour - Milk - Eggs - Mozzarella cheese - Frying oil.

Remove the crusts of bread and cut each slice in two or four parts; dip the crusts in milk, then in flour, dip in egg beaten with a pinch of salt and place on a plate.Sandwich the mozzarella cheese between two pieces of bread.

Dip in egg again and fry in fairly hot oil until the cheese melts.

Stuffed sorrentine cuttlefish

1 kG. Cuttlefish - 2 Eggs - 100 g. grated Parmisan Cheese - 100 g. Mozzarella cheese - 50 g. Sultanas - Salt - Pepper - Olive Oil - 1 clove of Garlic - Hot Peppers - Parsley - 300 g. Tomatoes.

Scoop out the impurities contained in the pouch of the cuttlefish. Remove the cartilage inside and cut the tentacles. Combine all the ingredients in a basin and mix with a good helping of Parmisan cheese, eggs so as to obtain a thick creamy dough, add a pinch of salt and pepper, the mozzarella cheese cut into small cubes, and the sultanas.

Fill the pouch with the mixture and stitch tight with white thread. Put crushed garlic and red peppers in frying pan.Fry slightly until the oil absorbs the fragrance then remove both ingredients and replace with the tentacles. Leave to fry slowly before adding the stuffed cuttlefish and cook on a high flame.Add the crushed tomatoes, salt to taste, lower the flame and cook for aprox. 20 minutes.Before serving remove thread, place on a dish and cover with the sauce, sprinkle with parsley.

Babà

300 g. Flour - 50 g. Sugar - 6 Eggs - Salt - 10 g. of yeast.

For the Punch: 0,500 l. Water - 100 g. Sugar - 1 glass of Rum - 1 Lemon skin

Sift the flour in a basin, take a quarter part and sieve with the yeast melted in tepid water (half glass). Leave to rise in a place away from draughts and if necessary first cover with a cloth and then with a woollen one as well.

When the dough has risen because of the effect of the fermentation produced from the yeast, add the beaten eggs, sugar and melted (not warm) butter, pinch of salt, then slowly sift the flour using a fork. A soft dough will be attained and should be kneeded well, even if using a mixer, before laying into a well greased tin cake which has previously been sprinkled with flour and sugar.

The dough should take up a third of the cake tin. Cover with a woollen cloth and leave to rise again. Put in oven until it has reached slightly more than half the height of the tin; should take about 1 hour and a half. Keep oven heat low until it thoroughly cooks the babà and allow it to double its bulk. Then increase heat (from 100° to 200°) to bake perfectly.When the Babà is cooled, remove from oven. To moisten the Babà, boil half a litre of water with finely cut lemon skin spiral shaped and sugar. When almost cold add a glass of rum.

With this punch keep moisturing the Babà until the liquid is absorbed.

Sorrentine cream horns

500 g. Flour - large spoonful sugar - knob of Lard - pinch of Salt - sufficient white Wine or Marsala - Peanut oil for frying - Pastry Cream.

To prepare the dough for the cream horns sift together the flour on a work top with the lard in the centre, add salt and sugar and amalgamate with wine, or Marsala, until a soft elastic dough is attained.

Spread out thinly and cut into small squares to be rolled round the shapes: little tin tubes, in a way that the sides of the dough are laid one upon the other. Press lightly with fingertips to crimp the edges to seal and dip the tubes covered in dough in abundant hot oil. The cream horns will brown in a few seconds, remove them and drain well. When lukewarm slip them delicately off the tube. Fill both ends with desired cream and sprinkle top with icing sugar.

Pastiera "Easter pie"

It is a particular cake, containing hard wheat been soaking for three days in fresh - to be changed
often - water.

Ingredients:
For the "pasta frolla": 300 gr (tender) wheat flour, 150 gr soft butter, 150 gr sugar, 3 yolks of egg, salt
For the filling: 200 gr hard wheat, 500 gr ricotta, 200 gr sugar, 150 gr candied fruit in cubes, 40 gr orange flower water, 1/2 It hot milk, 1 lemon skin (half grated, half in thin strips), 4 eggs; salt

Filling: make the hard wheat to soak, changing often the water, at least for 3 days; strain it off, put it in a saucepan with cold water and cook on medium flame for 15 minutes. Strain it again, put it in a saucepan with the hot milk, the strips of lemon skin, a pick of chinnamon, a little spoon of sugar and cook sweetly - low flame - till the milk should be soaked. Pour it out in a large dish in order to make it cold. In a bowl work the ricotta to get it soft, add 4 yolks of egg, the sugar, the grate lemon skin, the candied fruits in cubes, the salt, the cooked wheat.
Prepare the pasta frolla mixing all togheter the listed ingredients quickly. Lean a round baking pan - after having greased it - with a part of pasta frolla.
Whip the white of eggs as snow and mix them - with care - to the filling. Pour out the filling in the baking pan.
Roll out the remaining pasta frolla and cut it into strips. Cross them on the filling and fold the exceeding pasta frolla - that foult down out of the pan - forward the inside, over the strips. Put in the oven at 180° for 1 hour. Remove the pastiera fro the mould, sprinkle with podwered sugar.

Sfogliatelle "curly pastry shells"

Ingred. For 6 sfogliatelle
For the pastry: 250 wheat flour, 125 gr strutto ( the original recipe requires it, but you may replace it with butter), cold water, salt
For the filling: 30 gr semolina, 150 gr water, 70 gr powder sugar, 50 gr ricotta, 50 gr candied fruits in cubes, 1 egg, salt, chinnamon

Make a circle with the wheat flour, put in the rniddle about 80-90 gr soft strutto and salt. Work the strutto by the fingers so that it can absorb the flour. At this point, add some water to get a rather hard pastry. Make a ball and let it to rest.
Meanwhile prepare the stuffing. Boil water with a pick of salt, let the semolina to fall down slowly, cook about 5 minutes, let it to get cold. Add the candied fruits, the powdered sugar, the chinnamon. Work the ricotta to get it soft and add it to the stuffing.
Take the pastry and roll it out, as rettangular as possible. You can cut the border in order to have a suitable shape. Cut into strips, as below.
Brush the strips with the remaining strutto melt in "bagnomaria" (in a saucepan inside one other full of boiling water), put each over the other and roll them all togheter. Let the roll to rest in a fresh place.
Cut the pastry into round slices and mould to get them concave. Fill with the suffing, close them as a shell. Beat one egg and brush it on the "shelles" surface. Put in the aIready hot oven at 250% than low it at 210' after ten minutes and low it al 170' after ten minutes again. Remove off the oven after 20 minutes more and sprinkle with powdered sugar.