008 Sicilian rolls (Cannoli siciliani)

Ingredients (for 15-18 rolls):

• 2 glasses of white wine (or Marsala whine)
• 375 g flour
• 31 g butter
• 31 g sugar
• 500 g ricotta (Italian fresh cheese)
• 190 g powdered sugar
• 150 g candied fruits or jelly babies
• 1 egg white
• oil for frying

Process flour, sugar, butter and whine to a firm dough. Let it rest at room temperature for an hour. Put the ricotta cheese through a sieve and mix it with powdered sugar and candied fruits. Then roll out the dough, cutting out squares 10x10 cm. Put them on wooden rolls wrapped with aluminium foil, fix the edges with egg-white and fry them in hot oil. When cold, put the rolls of the wood and fill them with the ricotta cream.

Decorate it with powdered sugar and candied fruits.

007 Potato-mushroom-gratin

Ingredients:

• 800 g potatoes
• 500 g mushrooms
• 1 lemon
• parsley
• 50 g freshly grated pecorino
• 50 g breadcrumbs
• olive oil
• salt, pepper

Peel potatoes and slices them. Chop mushrooms and drizzle it with the juice of the lemon.

Cut parsley and mix it with breadcrumbs and pecorino.

Preheat the oven to 175°C. Oil an oven pan, and put it layers of potatoes and mushrooms. Salt and pepper every layer. Cover it with the breadcrumb-cheese mixture. Drizzle a lot of olive oil on top.

Bake it 30-45 min until the potatoes are soft. Serve it immediately.

006 Bolzano cuts

Ingredients:

• 100 g butter at room temperature
• 100 g sugar
• 100 ml milk
• 100 g block chocolate
• 3 eggs
• 150 g flour
• half package baking powder
• plum jam
• whipped cream
• powdered sugar

Mix butter and sugar in a bowl. Melt chocolate in a water bath and stir it with the rest. Add the eggs one by one and stir the mixture. Mix flour and baking powder and sieve it over the bowl. Add milk under constant stirring.

Preheat the oven to 200°C , butter the loaf pan, put in the dough and bake it for half an hour.

Take it out of the pan and let it cool.

Then cut off the top, put a layer of plum jam on the bottom and put the top back on.

Sprinkle it with powdered sugar and serve with whipped cream.

005 Lasagne

Ingredients (for 4-6 ppl):

• 500 g minced meat
• 2 onions
• 1 carot
• ham
• canned peeled tomatoes
• tomato sauce
• oregano, basil
• garlic
• butter
• lasagne plates
• creme fraiche
• grated cheese

The evening before, prepare the meat sauce. Chop onions, carot and ham. Fry all in butter. Add the minced meat. When fried, add the peeled tomato and tomato sauce. Let it cook for an hour and season it with garlic, oregano, basil and tabasco/ chili if you wish. When cool, put it in the fridge until the next day.

Get the bechamel ready or mix bechamel and creme fraiche and heat it, then cover the lasagne form on the bottom with it, then put some lasagne plates on it, then meat, Bechamel-Creme fraiche mix, then lasagne plates again and the same again. On top put grated cheese and put for half an hour in the oven.

004 Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients:

• 40 g butter
• 40 g flour
• 400 ml milk
• pinch of salt
• pinch of nutmeg

Melt the butter, put in flour and mix with it milk. Let it boil and keep on stirring. Put in salt and nutmeg, let it boil for 10-20 min. The sauce should get thick and loose its floury taste.

003 Bavarian Cream

Ingredients (for 4 ppl):

• 200 ml milk
• 1 vanilla bean
• 3 egg yolks
• 40 g sugar
• 200 ml cream
• 4 leafs of gelatine.
• 250 g raspberries
• sugar

Scrap out the vanilla from the vanilla bean and put it with milk on the stove and boil it brief. The rest of the vanilla bean you can put in some sugar to make vanilla sugar for some other recipes.

Then you mix egg yolks with sugar. Put half the milk to it and stir till it is smooth. Mix it with the rest of milk and put it back on the stove at medium heat, it should not get warmer than 85°C or the egg will flocculate.

Pour it through a sieve and add wringed gelatin (put the leafs in cold water so they get flappy). Now let it cool over ice water, but before it firms, stir in whipped cream.

Then put it in the fridge for several hours.

Shortly before serving prepare the raspberry sauce. Put 200 g raspberries and a little sugar in a pot and heat it. Sieve the mixture.

Serve the Bavarian Cream with some raspberries and drip some sauce on and around it.

(Picture to follow).

002 Mandarin Chicken with rice

Ingredients (for 5 ppl):

• 375 g Basmati & Thai rice (Uncle Ben's is just fine)
• 400 g chicken breast fillet
• 200 g mushrooms
• 2 small cans of mandarins
• 4 garlic gloves
• 6 cl cognac
• red and yellow bell peppers
• two hand full of sugar snaps
• lemon grass powder, oil, salt, pepper

Prepare the rice according to the instructions.

Slice and dice chicken breast, mushrooms, bell peppers, sugar snaps.

Marinate the meat in some mandarin juice mixed with soy sauce, oil, cognac, garlic, salt, pepper. Fry the meat in a hot pan, then add vegetables and the rest of the marinade and saute them.

Add rice and mandarins to the pan and season all with salt, pepper, lemongrass powder and soy sauce.

001 Wan Tan Soup

Ingredients (for 3 ppl main course, 5-6 starter):

• 150 g freezed Wan Tan plates
• 100 g chicken breast fillet
• 100 g mushrooms
• 20 g cornstarch
• 1,5 l chicken broth
• 1 hand full of Mu-Err Chinese mushrooms
• soy sauce
• 1 spring onion
• oil, salt, pepper, sugar

Thaw the Wan Tan plates at room temperature (Best take it out the night before).

Put the chicken broth on the stove. Cut the chicken breast, Mu-Err mushrooms and spring onion. Mix it with a table spoon of oil and one of soy sauce, a pinch of salt, half a teaspoon of sugar, pepper and cornstarch.

Place a teaspoon of the mixture on each of the Wan Tan plates. Moisten the edges, fold triangles and press the edges together. Put the Wan Tans in the chicken broth together with sliced mushrooms and season the soup with soy sauce. Simmer it for 5 minutes, then serve the Wan Tan soup with some chopped green of the spring onion.