Skip to main content

Smoked Cheese in Parma Ham

I first tried this meal back in Italy, and fell in love with it instantly. It is a great example of how to get the maximum of flavour with minimum of ingredients. Usually, we either have a small portion of it as a starter, followed up by the main course (most often involtini di pollo), or a large portion of smoked cheese is the main course, after a pasta dish first (pomodoro e basilico is my natural choice here). Today, however, as the temperature has hit over 30C, we decided to go for a small meal.

You need:

a large piece of smoked cheese
a handful of fresh sage leaves
5-6 slices of parma ham
a dash of olive oil
salt and pepper

Cut the cheese into slices of about 2cm thick. Place a sage leave on each slice of cheese, and wrap a slice of ham around it and season. Put the slices into a bake dish, or a small baking tray, sprinkle them with a dash of olive. Grill it for about 15-20 minutes.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Gingerbread Layer Cake

This Christmas I decided to "pimp up" my gingerbread a bit, after a last minute inspiration. I saw a photo of this cake, literally a day before making the cake and decided it's an absolute must this Christmas. I really like how the cake combines gingerbread and gateau type cake features, it's both presentable and delicious. The cake (4 layers): 150 g honey (liquid) 200 g butter or margarine 500 g plain flour 3 yolks 4 tbsp milk 1 tbs purified soda 100 g sugar 1 tbsp ground ginger 1 tbsp ground cinnamon 1 tsp ground nutmeg 1 tsp ground cardamon 1tsp ground cloves a pinch of ground black pepper Combine the ingredients in a large bowl - as it's really hard to do, you may be best off using dough whisks on a food mixer. Cover the bowl with cling film and put into the fridge for 24 hours. After that time, divide the dough into 4 parts, place on a baking paper-lined baking tray and bake in 180C for about 15 minutes. Leave to cool.   The cream: ...

Home made pasta

I got a pasta maker for my birthday and we seem to be eating nothing but pasta since! Though the every first attempt was far from successful, I quickly sussed it out. The fact that I naturally tend to start with the most complex things, didn't help here, either. Instead of taking baby steps and making simple spaghetti or tagliatelle first, I had a go at making ravioli :-) Well, I ate my humble pie and next time I made simple soup pasta. Successfully! :-) It reminded my of the childhood days when my gran would make a delicious soup with home-made pasta when I stayed with her. Of course, I keep hearing questions, like: why bother making something you can buy in every single shop? Well, I bother as the home-made pasta is incomparably better! :-P To make basic pasta dough you need: 1 cup of flour 1 egg a pinch of salt a dash of olive oil water if the dough is to dry more flour - if the dough is to sticky, also to sprinkle on the worktop The proportions above are enough fo...

Pork with Gorgonzola

I came across this meal in one of my mags, and it looked cool enough to give it a go. Worked so well that it has become one of our staple dishes since. Though the original recipe had Gorgonzola cheese in it, we've tried it with a variety of other blue cheeses and it worked equally well. Also, the first time I made it I used rose, instead of white wine, and must say that it probably worked even better. You need: about 0.5 of boneless pork chops 3 cloves of garlic salt pepper some dry basil and thyme a handful of fresh parsley leaves 3 tbsp of oil 5-6 slices of Gorgonzola 200 ml of wine (white or rose) Slice the meat and season it, sprinkle the herbs on top. Pre-heat the oil on  a frying pan, seal the chops on both sides (fry about 1 minute on each side, or until it turns golden brown), then move into a bake dish. Peel and finely chop garlic and parsley, place them on frying pan and fry them on a small heat in the remainder of the oil from dealing the meat. Pour in ...