GOOD MORNING to all you wonderful people over in the states. I know I have been saying I would post a blog and still have been having the hardest time finding decent internet to update all of you on my life. Italy is absolutely amazing. The tourist attractions are breathtaking, but the narrow streets and greeting from the people of Italy are the moments when i have to take a deep breathe and realize that this experience is not just a dream. I have been cooking in our cooking lab and making the most interesting foods and eating ingredients I never dreamed of trying.
Our first experimental food: Crepes with Spinach filling and Bechamel Sauce.
The ingredients for the crepe:
150 gr flour
375 ml milk
3 eggs
salt
butter for frying pan
Beat the eggs in a bowl, whisk in the flour and salt. Slowly pour milk into the batter. The batter needs to be whisked continuously until the batter is thin enough to be able to stick a spoon in the batter and pull it out leaving very little batter on the surface of the spoon. Let this batter sit for about 30 minutes.
Melt a little butter in a non-stick pan after the thirty minutes, and spreadin a ladle of batter, making sure the whole bottom of the pan is covered and spread out. cook until lightly golden on both sides.
Filling:
400 gr spinach
200 gr ricotta cheese
salt, peper, and nutmeg
45 gr parmigian reggiano cheese
1/2 garlic clove
45 gr extra virgin olive oil
Rinse the spinach well. In a large pan, brown the garlic in the extra virgin oil. Toss in the raw spinach, salt and cook with a lid for a few minutes (until soft). Then drain, cool, and SQUEEZE out the excess water. Chop the spinach into very fine pieces and mix with ricotta cheese, pramigian reggiano cheese, pepper and nutmeg.
Bechamel Sauce:
50 gr flour
50 gr extra virgin olive oil or butter
1/2 liter milk
45 gr grated parmigiano reggiano cheese
salt peper, and nutmeg
Heat the extra virgin olive oil and add flour, mixing. Add the milk (PREVIOUSLY HEATED, not boiling) to the mixture and simmer for about 2 minutes. Add salt, peper, nutmeg, and parmigiano reggiano cheese.
Put the filling in each crepe. Grease a fireresistant glass pan with butter. Place filled crepes in pan. Cover witht he sauce and parmigiano reggiano cheese (if you want you can add some mozzarella cheese as well), cook in the oven at 220 degrees C until the surface is golden brown.
These crepes were absolutely amazing. The thin layer around the spinach filling and the Bechamel sauce on top was amazing. The Bechamel sauce is supposed to be a creamy, kind of thick substance. The crepes can also be folded into triangles or into thirds.
Hope you all enjoy.
CIAO.
