vegetable side Archives - Dinner in Venice

Bianca’s Super Veggie Medley

April 1, 2014 By dinnerinvenice 12 Comments

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My 5-year old loves Brussels sprouts and broccoli, and this is her favorite way to eat them! It’s so delicious that I thought I’d also share it with you guys.

After all the cheesy pasta dishes I posted this winter, I really owed you a recipe with some vitamins and fiber…..

Bianca’s Super Veggie Medley

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

25 minutes

serves 4

Ingredients

1 small cauliflower (or ½ one large)
1 head broccoli
about 12 Brussels Sprouts
1 red onion
12 black or red grapes
12 white grapes
½ cup pine nuts
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 thyme sprig
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Cut the cauliflower and the broccoli into pieces, and halve the Brussels sprouts. Cook all three vegetables separately until tender but firm: you can steam them for about 10 minutes or cook them in your microwave (covered with plastic wrap, leaving an opening for the steam) for about 4 or 5.

Halve the grapes, and eliminate any seeds.

Heat the oil in a skillet. Cut the onion in very thin slices and sauté them in the oil with the grapes for about 5 minutes. Add the cooked cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts, and cook for 8 more minutes. Toast the pine nuts in the oven or in a second skillet brushed with little oil. Add the pine nuts to the veggie medley, season with salt and pepper, and cook for 1 more minute. Decorate with the thyme and serve.

https://dinnerinvenice.com/2014/04/01/biancas-super-veggie-medley/

Filed Under: Side Dish, Vegetarian Tagged With: alessandra rovati, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, dinnerinvenice, healthy side dish, superfoods, vegetable side

Silvia’s Fennel and Red Onion Gratin

April 30, 2013 By dinnerinvenice 21 Comments

Photo by Ryan Bartley; Recipe by Silvia Nacamulli

Today I have a special surprise for you: I am quite thrilled to introduce you to my friend Silvia Nacamulli. Silvia, who grew up in Rome, is a fellow foodie, who learned all her tricks from three generations of talented Jewish nonnas. In London, where she lives with her husband and adorable daughters, she runs the successful cooking school La Cucina di Silvia – Cooking for the Soul, and caters very chic private parties (so chic, in fact, that she was featured in Elle magazine).

Silvia Nacamulli at Relais dei Ciclamini

However, Silvia is probably most famous for her culinary vacations in Italy (she is now getting ready for the next one, coming up in June), during which English-speaking Italophiles from all over the world learn how to cook a variety of Italian, and Jewish Italian dishes while relaxing in the gorgeous setting of Relais Nature La Tenuta dei Ciclamini.

City-dwellers, in particular, can’t get enough of the all-encompassing food experience that Silvia offers beyond the cooking lessons, including truffle or mushroom and chestnut hunts (depending on the season), lessons in cheese- and jam-making, fresh vegetable picking, and great wine. Luckily, the Relais has a giant gym and swimming pool where they can burn it all off!

Relais dei Ciclamini, Umbria (Italy)

Last September, Silvia and I were both part of a panel at the Museum of Jewish Heritage here in New York, organized by Jayne Cohen and including the über-talented Cara de Silva and Walter Potenza. Before the event we were exchanging favorite recipes, and I practically begged her to guest post this one on my blog. As you may have heard, Italians like to procrastinate – that’s how, between the two of us, it took about six months… but at last Silvia’s recipe is here, in all its mouthwatering splendor!

Silvia’s Fennel and Red Onion Gratin

Ingredients

3 large red onions
3 heads fennel
Garlic powder, to taste
4 tbsp freshly minced flat parsley
4-5 tbsp breadcrumbs or panko
Salt and pepper, to taste
Extra virgin olive oil

Directions

Preheat the fan (convection) oven to 375 F and line 2 large sheet trays with parchment paper.

Peel the onions and wash the fennel, eliminating the choke.

Cut the fennel in half thorugh its root and boil it in salted water for 10-15 minutes. Drain and cut again lengthwise: you will have 4 long slices for each head of fennel*.

Cut the onions crosswise into 1 inch-thick slices.

Arrange the fennel and onion on the baking sheet as a single layer.

Sprinkle salt, pepper and garlic powder on top of each onion and fennel slice. Cover with breadcrumbs and parsley, and drizzle with the olive oil.

Bake for about 45 min or until golden. .

*If the fennel is large, cut it into more slices.

Distribute the onions and fennel slices

https://dinnerinvenice.com/2013/04/30/silvias-fennel-and-red-onion-gratin/

Filed Under: Appetizer, Jewish Italian Cuisine, Shabbat, Vegetarian Tagged With: fennel, Italian recipe, red onion, vegetable side, Vegetarian

Sweet-and-Sour Seder Carrots

March 18, 2013 By dinnerinvenice 23 Comments

Passover, or Pesach in Hebrew, is an eight-day (seven in Israel) holiday that celebrates freedom, by retelling the story of the ancient Israelites’ liberation from Egypt. Special symbolic foods are arranged on the seder table, and we read out loud the haggadah, a book that tells the story of the exodus. One of the main goals of having a seder is teaching children about the exodus, encouraging questions from them in the hope that they will learn to appreciate (and fight for – my father would add) the gift of freedom. It’s not that hard to keep kids interested and involved, as this is one of the rare occasions when they are allowed to stay up REALLY late at night, which in itself feels like a big deal to the young ones. However, if a family seder with a couple of cousins can be fun, a whole community seder with a couple of hundred people and a bunch of kids of different ages can be a total blast, and if you ever visit Venice for Passover and make sure to reserve a spot on time, you will be able to witness just that (you may want to bring ear plugs). The tradition of the public seder in the social hall in Venice goes back to 1891, making it the oldest in Italy. Apparently, it was nothing short of revolutionary, for a traditional community with an orthodox rabbi to have a public seder (which is generally more of a reform tradition, unless one is at a vacation resort). However, the Venetian mutual aid society “Cuore e Concordia” (heart and concord), which initially created the seder only for children and the poor or people left without a family, later realized that, with the increasing level of assimilation, there were many families that lacked a person capable of leading a traditional seder and reading from the Haggadah in Hebrew, and opened the event to the whole community.

Fast-forward more than 120 years, and every Passover, about 200 people (half of the Jews of Venice… plus some tourists, of course) celebrate with a degree of energy and joy that are rarely seen in a smaller context, culminating in the children’s loud singing of “Capretto” (Little Goat), the local version of the famous Passover song “Had Gadya“. One of the consequences of having a large public meal every year is that the traditional menu for the whole community has become crystallized, and changing any item would feel like converting to a different religion. In particular, we are all very attached to the vegetable sides: artichokes, of course; stewed fennel; and this sweet-and-sour carrot stew, which will remind some of you of Tzimmes, but it’s much less sweet. Make sure you use the best organic carrots you can find, and to cook them until they are quite soft: they are supposed to be stewed, and not sautéed.

Sweet-and-Sour Seder Carrots

Ingredients

2 lb carrots, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup raisins, plumped in hot water
1/4 cup pine nuts
4-5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (or a mix of olive oil and schmalz, for the tastier classic version!)
2-4 tbsp white wine vinegar, or to taste
salt and pepper
water

Directions

Place the oil (or oil and chicken fat) in a pot or skillet with the sliced carrots, and drizzle with about 1/2 cup water.Add salt, and cook on low heat, covered, stirring occasionally, for about 10-15 minutes. Add the raisins and pine nuts and some black pepper, and cook uncovered, over high hear, for 2 to 5 minutes longer or until desired tenderness (the carrots should be soft). When they are almost done, add the vinegar and cook for one more minute or until it's absorbed.

https://dinnerinvenice.com/2013/03/18/sweet-and-sour-seder-carrots/

More Vegetable Side Ideas for your Passover Seder (or any time!) from some of my favorite blogs:

Tori’s Stovetop Tzimmes

Levana’s Artichokes and Carrots

Sarah’s Passover Dumplings

Jasmine & Manuel’s Fennel & Cauliflower Soup