Mascarpone and Marsala spaghetti (freely inspired by Nigella Lawson)

Today we'll bring you a delicious pasta recipe!

To start April at best, we will show you our own take on a recipe by the great chef Nigella Lawson we found in her last book, "Nigellissima", about italian-inspired recipes.
We changed a little bit here, a little bit there, and here you are our own version, shared with you!

We informally call it "pasta mmm!", and that's not just because it it just sooo yummy, but also because of the three Ms that are the main ingredients for this recipe: Marsala sweet wine, Mascarpone cheese and Mushrooms.

Even Nigella Lawson loves our version of her recipe!

Marsala is a delicious sweet wine from Sicily, often used in southern italian cuisine, that really deserves to be rediscovered. Mascarpone is the creamy cheese from Lombardy northern region, quite famous because it is a key ingredient for Tiramisù...and mushrooms...well...we all know them because of Super Mario he he!

You can use many types of pasta, for example today we've used the classical spaghetti, a sure win, and specifically we choose our favourites: the spaghetti from Garofalo, created in Gragnano, near Naples.

Ingredients: (for two people)                                                    

• 4 or 5 fresh button mushrooms                           
• 60 ml. of Marsala wine
• 60 ml. of water
• 125 g. of mascarpone cheese
• Salt for the water
• 250 g. of pasta*
• 1 clove of garlic
• Parmigiano cheese ( or Grana Padano)
• nutmeg
• Black pepper
• Parsley
• half spoon of olive oil

* This recipe originally was specifically made for fettuccine pasta in Nigella Lawson's book, but you can also do it with bucatini or spaghetti, and it will just taste as good, but be careful, because in italian cuisine "different shapes creates different tastes" and not every kind of pasta deals well with every kind of sauce!

Preparation:

1º- Wash and cut your mushrooms, in my case I laminated them. Put them on heat in a pot with water and Marsala wine. Let it reach boiling temperature and then turn off the heat and keep it aside, without removing the mushrooms from the Marsala, in order to get more flavour.

2º- Put the water on heat to prepare your pasta. Do not add the salt until the water is boiling, otherwise the water will take longer to boil.

3º- Put your mascarpone cheese in a bowl, along with black pepper and nutmeg, according to your taste. It will taste better if the spices are zested at the moment. Add the mushrooms and the mix composed by water and Marsala, and stir it well.
 
4º- Pour a drizzle of olive oil in your pan, add the minced garlic and let it cook until it golden brown, but be careful not to burn it. Add then your sauce of mascarpone and Marsala, and let it all boil (it will not not take longer than some two or three minutes). Add parsley according your taste.

 
5º- When your pasta will be al dente, take out of the pot your spaghetti and put them in the pan with the sauce you've prepared. If you want you sauce to be more liquid or less dense, you can add a glass of the cooking water from the pot where spaghetti has been cooked. In this way it will just taste better!

6º- Serve it all dividing the spaghetti (or the fettuccine) in two dishes, adding a lot of parmigiano cheese above your pasta and, if you want, another little bit of minced parsley and...eat it all!

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If you can't find mascarpone cheese, you can eventually change it for Philadelphia creamy cheese, and you could change the Marsala, not yet so well distributed, with Oporto or Jerez sweet wine. But in this case, it will not quite taste the same!

Buon appetito!

 Greetings and have a wonderful April!

AnGie

Guinness beef stew

Hello everybody, and happy Saint Patrick's day, the Irish feast! To celebrate this beautiful day we bring to you a traditional irish dish, the Guinness Beef Stew, made with the traditional Dublin Stout Beer. It's a dish perfect for rainy and cold winter sundays, and perfect for every other day of the year too!

Guinness beef stew and Champ

two pints of Guinness stout

The Guinness stew seems to have naturally evolved from the traditional Irish Stew, which was made from readily available ingredients in Irish markets, like for example lamb or mutton, parsley and onion. Vegetable roots increased the taste, while the stock was made out of trimmings. It was a very traditional recipe back then in the old days, but after XVI century  potatoes coming from the Americas were added, and after Anno 1759, someone unknown had the best idea of his life adding the Guinness Stout to the Irish stew, creating the epitome of Irishness: the Guinness Beef Stew.

As we alway tell you for traditional recipes, every single house has a different way to make it, and everyone of them -of course- is the original one. As a Spanish-Italian household in love with everything Irish, we have our own version of it too! In this case, we're gonna add some ingredients typical from both our Countries. Here you are the recipe, we hope you'll enjoy it as we did!

Ingredients:

italian concentrated tomato sauce

• 1 Kg of stewing diced beef
• 3 onions
• 3 or 4 carrots
• 1 big leek
• 200 ml. beef stock
• 500 ml Guinness Ale (peferably Guinness extra stout in bottle)
• 3 spoons of concentrated tomato paste
• Salt & pepper
• 1 spoon of meat extract (Bovril)
• 1 laurel leaf
• thyme
• rosemary (optional)
• olive oil

the southern touch

Procedure:  

-put a cooking pot on the fire with twor or three spoonful of olive oil and add the onion, previously diced (brunoise cut) amd add the salt on them, to let the mix simmer better.
-When the onion starts to simmer and begin to seem transparent, we add the diced beef (you can ask the butcher to cut it for you to have it ready for the stew).
Let the meat simmer until it change its colour and start to look like golden brown, without leaving it too much, otherwise it would result overcooked, just 10 minutes or so.
-Next step is to have the carrots peeled and julienned. Cut the leek brunoise and add all to the pot for other 10 minutes approximately, together with the concentrated tomato paste. In my case, I always use the triple concentrated tomato paste by Mutti, an italian quality brand from Parma highly recommended.

the final result

-Add the spices, I tend to use a pinch of thyme and a leaf of laurel, but you can add rosemary too if you want. Spices are just a matter of taste...but you know, sometimes "less is more".
-After 10 or 15 minutes since our veggies started poaching, we add the Guinness ale. At this point, increase the heat, and after other 10-15 minutes add the meat stock and a spoonful of salt, in order to avoid that our stew becomes too acid because of the tomato and the veggies.
-Put a lid on the pot and let it cook at medium high heat for at least an hour. Remember stirring once in a while the stew with a wooden spoon. In this phase the sauce will start to densify, and the sauce will densify better if you decided to use bottle Guinness ale instead of tin can, since the bottle of Guinness export extra stout is heavier. The beef stew will be particularly soft and tasty. This happens when we cook meat with beer, since beer allows the stef not to dry out. If you don't like to taste alcohol in your dishes, don't panic! The Guinnes stew will not have taste of alcohol at all! We'll have an easy different and tasty sauce home made. Come on, let's try it! It just so super tasty!

Some Irishmen adds potatoes to his Guinness stew since potatoes are without a doubt the star ingredient of Irish gastronomy. The vast majority of all Irish dishes have potatoes in it. If you want the potatoes, you can add them halfway through our cooking, in the last 30 minutes, more or less. In this way, potatoes will simmer and gets the flavour of the sauce completely. Another option is to fry the potatoes, dice them before they completely fry and add them to the stew. As for the side dish, that's a matter of taste too! In Ireland they use to cook the Guinness stew along with a kind of tasty mashed potatoes known as "Champ", and that is how we love it too!

Our leprechaun Paddy loves Guinness beef stew

Once you've cooked the Guinness Stew, your house will taste like heavens, your neighbors will ring at your door eagering for some stew! This dish is even tastier if prepared a day before it is served. It might be a long process, but really it is a self-made dish! Put it all into the pot and let it bubble!

Slainte everybody and...enjoy it!

Happy Saint Patrick's day!

Angie