Back in October, I flew on Lufthansa to go to Milan for work-related business.
As soon as we landed in Frankfurt my sense of smell guided me to the smell of freshly baked goodness…. I wanted a pretzel! I could smell it and could already taste it…
And I did…
I’m on a mission to recreate all dishes that I fell in love with in Milan. This time, it’s pasta with porcini mushroom.
I discovered a coffee drink in Milan. On our last morning there, I ordered it twice because I didn’t want to let go but I had to.
The next morning, back in Kuwait, I recreated this drink. The moracchino. You see I thought I took a picture of it in Milan and whatsapped it to my cousin but I think that was all in my head?
No trip to Milano would be complete without a visit Chocolate….
Spicy chocolate gelato anyone?
I wanted to write this post when I got back from my Italy trip but decided to wait because this dish is the perfect Ramadan dish. Pappa la pomodoro is a traditional Tuscan bread and tomato soup.
The first time I saw it was on a food TV show a couple of years ago and I was intrigued. I took my copy of The Silver Spoon and searched for the recipe but I didn’t quite like the method. I kind of remembered how they made it on the show so I picked and chose what ingredients and method of cooking I was more comfortable with and created this recipe.
I have made this dish numerous times and every time it’s a little bit different because I never follow a recipe so it was always a couple of this , a pinch of this, a handful of this but yesterday I measured everything to have a recipe people can actually follow!
Of course when I was in Florence, I had this wonderful soup so let’s make a comparison.
Florence's pappa la pomdoro
Budour's pappa la pomodoro
A box was waiting for me today when I came back from work with my most prized souvenirs from Italy…..
The olive oils!
There are a million and one ideas going through my head as to how best use the olive oil and the truffle down to the very last drop!
One of my dream holidays is to go to the Tuscan countryside, rent a house on a farm, pick fresh fruits and vegetables, make delicious food and eat. So when we went to Florence, I just had to go to the Tuscan countryside and eat. I want to accomplish just even a little bit part of my dream and that’s what we did.
We took a beautiful car ride to a medieval town that I completely forgot its name and don’t feel like googling (ok I googled it, San Gimignano) and then off to Chianti, Tuscany’s main wine region. Our driver took us to a vineyard and olive oil producing farm as they called it.
We had a light lunch there but it was in no way light! It was very filling and very amazing!
To taste the olive oil they gave us a plate of a traditional tuscan bread (the non-salted one) soaked in their olive oil and the freshest chopped tomatoes and melt in your mouth cubes of mozzarella cheese.
Let me tell you about this great, no-fuss, restaurant in Rome that we absolutely fell in love with that we had to go back again!
I’ve used my sometimes trusty Rome Wallpaper guide (iPhone edition) to pick our restaurants and this is the one time it did not fail us.
I’ll just show you what we had during our two visits…
Now wasn’t that mouth-watering?
Posts coming up: regional italian dishes and the best meal we have ever had!
This is my first post on my trip to Italy and naturally it’s on gelato!
I consumed so much gelato during my trip that sometimes they constituted as meals. They slab the gelato, and not scoop, on your cone until it forms a mountain!
I don’t think I will write much in these posts because these images speak for themselves…
In Milan, we accidentally stumbled on a gelato/chocolate store (in the most unexpected area)
and with the quirkiest logo…
They had mostly chocolate flavored gelatos with exciting additions!
I had chocolate gelato with candied orange peel and my friend N. had chocolate gelato with chili.
I’m hopefully going back to Milan in October and this is one shop I can’t wait to go back to!
More posts coming soon..
The Oven Experiments 