LET'S TALK HEALTHY FOOD

Few years ago, while attending a course at the Academy of Healing
and Nutrition in Manhattan, I discovered the power of seeweeds!
This food was not in my kitchen yet, but it became a steady presence
in my pantry after then.
Seeweeds are full of trace minerals and vitamins and are very good
to eliminate toxins and radiations from our system.
Today I'm going to give you a recipe to use the seeweed called
HIJIKI, rich in dietary fiber and minerals like iron, magnesium
and calcium.

HIJIKI CAVIAR
(recipe of Melanie Ferreira)

Ingredients:
½ cup dry Hijiki
2 TBS sesame oil
2 TBS soy sauce
2 TBS olive oil
2 shallots (or 1 onion)
1 clove garlic
lemon juice
1 TBS grated ginger
salt
baguette

Soak hijiki in water for 30 minutes.
Remove it from water and sautee’ it in sesame oil for few minutes.
Add water to cover, bring to boil and add soy sauce, cook till
liquids evaporate.
In another pan sautee’ shallots and garlic.
Chop hijiki and season with lemon and ginger juice.
Add shallot and garlic and mix well.
Serve on sliced baguette, top with a dollop of sour cream and
decorate with chives.

The "Pastiera napoletana"

Today is Palm Sunday and I have celebrated it preparing the
"Pastiera napoletana".
Eggs and wheat berries are the key ingredients of this Easter
recipe, because they represent the beginning of life so they
are also symbolic of resurrection.
I started preparing the pastry, that is very similar to the one
I make for the crostata, only difference is: more eggs!
Then I prepared the filling mixing the grains with ricotta and
eggs. Usually it takes a long time because you have to cook the
wheat berries first, but this time I was lucky enough to find
them pre-cooked at an Italian gourmet shop close to my house.
If you leave outside Italy and in an area where there are not
too many Italian products available then you have to prepare
the wheat in this way:
soak overnight 450 grams of dry wheat berries in water , then drain
and cook them covered with water till soft (45 minutes).
Drain excess water and let them boil in 1/2 cup of warm milk for 5
minutes or till milk is absorbed. Cool it down.

Following you will find the full recipe!

PASTIERA NAPOLETANA

Ingredients for pastry
(it's enough for 2 big pies):
3 sticks of unsalted butter (400 gr)
800 gr flour
4 yolks + 2 eggs
2 TBS liquor (Martini)
2 TBS water
peel of 1 lemon

Ingredients for filling:
1 1/2 pound of ricotta (750 gr)
1 tin of pre-cooked wheat
(or 450 gr of dry one to be cooked)
1/4 cup milk
1 cup sugar
peel of 1 lemon
half candied citron (or candied lemon peel)

To prepare pastry, dispose flour on a wooden board, make a hole in the middle,
add sugar, eggs, water, liquor and lemon peel and start mixing taking in little
by little some flour.
Add butter at room temperature and mix with the rest of flour in order to form
an homogeneous dough.
Cut dough in two parts, cover with cling paper and let it rest in fridge for
30 minutes.
To prepare filling, boil cooked grains in milk for 5 minutes (if you have
cooked grains at home you can skip this step). Transfer grains in a bowl and
cool them down.
In another bowl mix ricotta with sugar, egg yolks, lemon peel and candied citron.
Whip egg whites to transform them in soft peaks.
Mix well wheat berries with ricotta mixture, then fold in the egg whites little by
little.
Prepare pastry flattening dough with a rolling pin.
Butter a round baking tin and add in pastry. Fill pastry with half filling, then
on top form a grid with thin dough stripes.

Bake "pastiera" in oven at 375 F (or 200 C) for 1 hour. If top it's not brown yet
leave it for other 15 minutes.

Serve it cold with a sprinkle of powder sugar!