Yesterday I cooked up an improvised cacuicco, which, if you do not know, is an Italian fish soup. I’d had this soup several times, so I though I’d have a go at making it, in order to use up some seafood that had been left over from our New Year’s festivities.
I did not follow any particular recipe, although I had a quick look at one such recipe on the Internet, more or less to confirm how this soup is made. All I did was to pour a bottle of tomato pulp into a pan, add a little salt and pepper, a dash of garlic, a little chilli powder and then a glass of white wine. Then I just let the mix simmer for half an hour or so. Result? Very tasty, and even my Italian other half said it was ‘excellent’. Not bad for some improvisation.
Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
Today, again in order to use up some of the left overs, my other half, following a recipe, created some salmon stuffed with cheese. It cooked in a jiffy, looked great, but, as I realised as soon as I put a piece into my mouth, the salmon had gone off. Just as well I managed to prevent other half from feeding our little one a nice chunk of rancid salmon.
Oh well, you win some, and you lose some. At least we tried to use up this goodies, without throwing them away.
And, this evening, I ran up some vin bruleè, which is the Italian version of mulled wine. I found an ‘Alpini’ vin bruleè recipe on the Internet (great source of genuine Italian recipes – especially if you can read Italian) , and had a go. Result? Highly drinkable, if a little sweet. Less demerara sugar would have made it more tangy, as would have a little more lemon. Still, it’s going down very well, and is just the thing to sort out my annoying little cold, I can tell you. At least that is what I’m telling myself….
