Meat ball deluxe!

Fast, healthy, colorful and absolutely perfect! That's this meat ball. The secret is a combination of  mint and cinamon. Does it sound weird? After you  will try it,  you will fall in love with it like I did.

The preparation is easy. First off, we need a kitchen robot or a hand blender, a good deep pan or pot and the willingness to eat something good.  :-)

Put the minced meat (the best choice would be beef, but any will like the mix of beef and pork; about 500 grams), one onion chopped into large pieces, a clove of garlic, egg, a handful of mint and sea salt into a dish . If you like nutmeg, add some. Blend everything. Make your hands wet and create spherical meat balls from the mix. After then, put  them to rest for few minutes in a cold place.

Heat the olive oil on pan and roast the meat balls few minutes from all sides. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes (about 400 g), a tablespoon of vinegar (preferably apple vinegar or wine vinegar) and pour a little broth or  red wine (about 80 ml, depending on the pan) if you like.

And here is the interesting part! Add about one fourth af teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of oregano. I recommend to add to the sauce two handfuls of black olives. According to your taste add salt. Bring it to a boil. Cook until the sauce thickens before (around 30 minutes).

As a side dish to meat balls you can have piadina spilled by olive oil and sea salt. But I'm sure it will be tasty even with basmati rice!

Do not forget to sprinkle the meat balls by some fresh mint!

Colomba di Pasqua (2/2)

STEP 1 (I started to make the dough at 4:30 p.m.)

Crumble the yeast into a bowl and add 25 ml of warm milk, 50 grams of flour. Mix well and put it to grow in a bowl covered with a plastic wrap in a warm place for at least 30 minutes.

STEP 2 (5:00 p. m.)

Take the leavened dough and mix it with 40 ml of warm milk and 50 grams of flour: you'll have to make a soft dough and leave to rise in the same conditions as the previous one for at least 30 minutes.

STEP 3 (5:30 p.m.)

Unit leavened dough 75 g flour, 40 g sugar, 50 ml of warm milk and knead the dough for at least 15 minutes, then add 80 grams of softened butter, little by little until complete absorption of the dough. When you obtain a homogeneous and elastic dough, form a ball and put it inside a bowl covered with plastic wrap and keep it in warm place for at least 2 hours.

STEP 4 (8:00 p.m.)

Add to dough a bit of salt, 50 grams of sugar, the vanilla, the grated peel of citrus fruits, 25 grams of honey and 3 egg yolks, alternating adding flour 100-150; finally add 85 grams of softened butter a little at a time. Knead well until the mixture is smooth and elastic, then finally joined 75 g candied orange and citrus cubes. Form a ball and let rise the dough in a large bowl brushed with softened butter for about 12 hours

STEP 5 (8:00 a.m. second day)

Take the leavened dough and knead for a few minutes, then lay them in the form of a paper dove and let rise until doubled in volume (at least 3 hours). 

Meanwhile, prepare the icing for the dove. Beat with a fork the egg whites in a bowl, gradually adding the 50 g sugar  and 40 g the almond flour. You will need to obtain a thick that once you put on the dove does not leak to the sides.

(11:00 a.m.)

Bake the dove in oven preheated to 200 degrees for the first 10 minutes and then lower the temperature to 180 degrees continue for another 40 minutes.

Colomba di Pasqua (1/2)

The first recipe on a blog should be interesting, catchy and fast. I had some initial ideas about different recipes such as cheesecake, meat balls, vegetarian burgers, home made pasta...but then it came to my mind a traditional italian pastry, the Colomba di Pasqua (in translation "The Easter Dove"). This is something I really like and that I will miss during this Easter. 

So I said to myself, why not making it at home? Ok, after reading different recipes I found that this one requires time, a lot of time. Preparing it takes around 20 hours!  It is quiet hard to prepare, but I like challenges in kitchen.

Easter is coming and to celebrate the creation of The Hungry Pigeon making a dove-shaped pastry seemed very appropriate. :)

In the end it looks like this recipe will be interesting but for sure not fast! so I apologize to all the readers which were expecting a fancy burger.

INGREDIENTS (dough):

90 ml warm milk (cca 37°C)

6 g (beer) yeast

125-135 g soft butter

275 g flour

25 g honey

3  yolks

90 g sugar

vanilla

orange and lemon skin

cca 75 g candied citrus (orange, lemon, citrus)

bit of salt

Before starting, something interesting about Colomba:

Colomba has a long tradition in Italy. The inhabitants of Pavia offered this pastry to king Alboin like a symbol of peace in the sixth century. Last time this recipe was changed was in the start of the 20th century. The company Motta from Milano started to offer this pastry like Easter pastry. The traditional recipe of Colomba contains candied citruses and oranges and it is covered by almond crust.

Italians protect the original repice and the name of Colomba by law, in short if you name something colomba it must follow certain rules and ingredients. They have also a strong tradition, which means that you can buy Colomba only during Easter.

Introduction

About me and the Hungry Pigeon...

My passion is food and obviously also cooking it. I also  like to use  old cameras and take pictures, especially by Lomo, and traveling. All these hobbies will be combined into one: international food recipes that i came across during my travels will be described with plenty of pictures. Since  I just finished school and because I am having more free time I finally realized my old dream - to have a blog about food (and pigeons).

Why did i choose the name Hungry Pigeon? Because this bird never said NO to food and it can be found mostly everywhere in the world, experimenting all the different „cousines“ :).

About the blog...

This blog has been created mainly thanks to my friends who often were curious about what i cooked or they simply supported my dream to have a blog.

I will try to write about different cuisines of the world, because I cook and bake really everything.