London

Just a quick update on my blog, which I'm afraid I won't be able to keep updated as much as before. Infact on November the 18th I moved back to London, and now I'm back to work for Cinesite . The movie I'm working on at the moment is

"Clash of the Titans" ( trailer ).

Moving to London after spending the last months in Sarajevo is quite something...

By now the only conclusion I could say is that I'm really, really happy to have had the chance to know more about Sarajevo.

How's the food in Bosnia? It's great I'd say, both for your body and your soul.

What's the special ingredient? The people, in both cases.

Below you'll find some pictures from my new place (crappy pics, but just to give you an idea).

I hope I'll be able to cook a couple of recipes I have in mind, in the while time have a great time and see you soon!

Enjoy!

Mostar

Ciao!

It has been a long time since my last post. I've been travelling a bit lately, that's why I didn't have a chance to update the blog.

A small selection of pictures from my trip to Mostar, a small but beautiful town in Hercegovina.

Enjoy!

Portraits

Carpaccio di porcini, formaggio di Travnik, suho meso e poprskuša

Ciao!
Today I've been around in the old part of the city and on my way back home I passed trough one open market.
I was thinking..."Autumn is coming, and it's the season for porcini mushrooms...I'm wondering if they have some here"... and there you go! Fresh porcini mushrooms!
I decided to make some carpaccio out of them mainly for two reason:
1) Beatrice never had raw mushrooms before
2) That's one of the best way to taste them, (in my opinion).

On the way back home, I also stopped to buy some "suho meso" (bosnian smoked dry beef) and some Travnik cheese. It's a fresh and salty cheese, similar to the italian "quartirolo" but a bit less dry.

All this stuff went vet well with the poprskuša I made yesterday.
Poprskuša is a pie made of flour, oil, milk and salt, without yeast. Delicious with this kind of food!

So, this is how I make the Porcini's Carpaccio:

Ingredients
for 2 persons

• 3 small porcini mushrooms (about 5-6 cm tall)
• Olive Oil
• Pepper
• (optional boiled potato)
  

You have to be careful and be sure that the mushrooms are very fresh and healthy.
Clean the mushrooms without washing them with a small knife, removing all the dirt.
Use some paper towel if necessary.

Cut each mushroom in half, to be sure inside are healty without any bugs.
With a peeler start to slice them.
Create few layers of thinly sliced mushrooms, olive oil and pepper.

As an alternate version you can put some finely sliced boiled potatoes and Parmigiano flakes, but be careful because you may overlap the delicate taste of the mushrooms.

Enjoy!

p.s.
A quick technical note. I used a brand new 50mm 1.8 lens to take these pictures...I'm loving the sharpness and brightness of this baby!!

Trofie al pesto

Hello everyone!

It has been a while since the last update, I've been around a bit... I played a gig in London with Mann Friday and then I spent few days in Italy. Now I'm back in Sarajevo!

My mom gave me some of her amazing home made pesto! So I wanted to use it properly on some home made pasta of course!

The best kind of pasta to have pesto with is trofie without a doubt. So here's the recipe:

1. Flour 1/2 Kg
2. Boiling water
3. Salt

Make the dough pourinf just a bit of boiling water in the middle of the flour well.

When the dough has cooled down, knead it until it gets elastic and homogenic.

Then take some of the dough and roll it between your hands and make small stripes of pasta.

Put on some water to boil and add 2 spoon of olive oil to avoid the trofie to get stuck to each other.

Few minutes after take them out of the water and dress with some pesto and a lot of Parmigiano Reggiano!

Enjoy!

Sunset in Sarajevo

Hello everyone!
Today no recipes, but I wanted to share with you some pictures I took two days ago here in Sarajevo. The light was really nice!

Hope you enjoy it.

A presto.

Bosanski Lonac

Hi everyone!

Few days ago me and Beatrice have been invited at friend's house for dinner. The food was awesome! We had Bosanski Lonac, which is a typical bosnian recipe ( based on meat and vegetables) cooked in a pot like the one you see in the pictures.

Actually the one you see here is MINE lonac! In fact they gave it to me as a present!
It's great to cook Dolma as well. I tried it already but I didn't have time to take picture of it because we were too hungry to wait!

Thank you Salem and Vedrana!
Take care!

Crostata

I love crostata! It's one of my favourite cakes. So simple but so good!
This is the way my mom uses to make it.

Well of course will never be like my mom's but I try :-)
By the way I'd like to thank her for the recipe! Grazie mamma!


Ingredients:

• Butter: 13o grams
• Flour: 350 grams
• Sugar: 120 grams
• Baking powder: half sachet
• Grated lemon skin
• Sweet liquor
• 1 egg and 1 yolk
• whatever jam you prefer
  

Mix all the ingredients and make a compact dough. Don't work it too much, otherwise the butter will melt. If too solid add a bit of milk.
Leave the dough in the fridge for 30 mins. After that keep 1/3 of the half for the decorative stripes.

Put some butter on a baking tin and roll out the dough directly on it. Cover the base with jam and finish with some dough-stripes.

Put in the oven at 200 °C for about 20 mins. You'll see when it gets gold and crisp!


Enjoy!

Risotto con mirtilli al profumo di caffe' - Blueberries and coffee Risotto

Ciao a tutti!
Sorry for not uploading new stuff lately but I've been a bit busy.
Today I tried an experiment. As usual I'm always searching for something new and weird. So I tried this combination of blueberries and coffee. It sounded a bit strange to me also, but when I tasted it the two flavours combined in my mouth very nicely! Believe me!
So here what you need.

Ingredients
3 persons

• Meat Stock (boil meat with carrots, onions, celery) or you can make it from cubes.
• 1 and half glass of rice (half for each person)
• 1 onion
• Butter: 50 grams
• Olive oil
• Grated Parmigiano Reggiano
  
• Phyllo pasta: 2 sheets
• Red wine: half glass
• Blueberries: 150 grams
• Moka coffee: half coffee cup
  
• Flour: 2 spoons

Start boiling the stock.
Then smash the blueberries until they release some liquid and make them rest in the fridge.
Chop the onion and put it in a pan with 20 grams of butter and some olive oil.
When golden and soft put the rice and make it toast for 3/4 minutes. Then add the wine.
When it's evaporated start adding the stock.
While the rice cooks, let's make the coffee sauce! It's pretty much like making besciamella.
So in a small pan (keep the heat off by now) mix flour and milk until it becomes smooth.
Turn the heat on but very low, and add the butter and salt. Keep mixing the sauce. After 2 minutes, when the butter is completely melted, turn off the heat and add the coffee.

Let's prepare the "bed" for our risotto.
Take the phyllo sheets and make them nest-shaped.
Put some grated Parmigiano Reggiano on top.
Turn on the oven at 200 °C and bake the phyllo sheets for 10 mins.

Just few minutes before the rice is done, put the blueberries smashed in to our almost-done risotto.
Turn off the heat and put the remaining butter in it and cover with a lid.

Pour the risotto inside the phyllo pasta "dishes".
Take the coffee sauce with a spoon and pour it in the centre of the risotto.
Decore with blueberries and grated Parmigiano.

Enjoy!

Dolma

Dolma means "stuffed" in Turkish.
Today I cooked peppers and zucchini, but you can also try with other vegetables like onions, tomatoes etc...
It's quite easy to prepare, just a bit time consuming when you have to clean and chop the vegetables.

Ingredients
3 persons

• 7 small peppers
• 2 young medium zucchini
• Ground beef 250 grams
• 2 onions
• 1/2 cup of rice
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Tomato puree or (even better) 2 fresh tomatoes
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive oil

First of all wash your vegetables and slice the zucchini lenghtwise in thick slices (5/6 cm).
Remove the seeds and spongy centre using a small spoon. Then move to the small peppers, removing the top, paying attention not breaking the sides of them.

Put some water to boil in a small pan and boil the 1/2 cup of rice.

In the whiletime fry 1 finely chopped onion and 1 clove of garlic in a pan. When softened add the ground beef, salt and pepper.
Cook until the liquid evaporates.
When ready add the boiled rice.

Turn your oven on 250 °C.
Start stuffing the vegetables with the meat and rice dough.
Put them in a casserole with some oil and water (just to cover the bottom in order to avoid the vegetables to get stuck on it).

When you're done stuffing the veggies, use the same pan where you cooked the ground meat, add a bit of olive oil and fry one onion (roughly chopped) and the other clove of garlic.
When golden and soft add 300 ml of water, salt and the tomato puree (or the 2 fresh chopped tomatoes).

When the sauce start to boil pour it over the vegetables and bake in to the oven for 20 mins.

Enjoy!

Čimbur di carne - Meat Čimbur

Egg: that's what "Čimbur" means in Turkish. Another incontrovertible evidence of the Ottoman Empire influence on the Bosnian culture.

This recipe is very quick and easy to do. Infact is used by the housewifes when in lack of time, but believe me it's really tasty!

Ingredients
3 persons

• Ground meat (the best would be veal) 300 grams
• 1 Onion
• Salt
• Rosemary
• 3 eggs (one each)
• Olive oil
• white yogurt (to drink)
  

Chop the onion and fry in a pan until golden and soft. In the whiletime turn the oven on at 200 °C.
Put the meat, salt it and cook until the liquid evaporates.
Add rosemary.
When the liquid from the meat is almost gone, transfer to a greased casserole and make 3 wells (one for each household).
Break one egg per well. Put in the oven for 5-10 mins until the eggs bake.
Serve with white yogurt.

Enjoy!

Southafrica

In April I toured for 10 days Southafrica with my band Mann Friday.

These are some shots from that great trip.

Pictures in Sarajevo

This is a selection of some pictures I took in Sarajevo so far.

Some stuff I've been working on...

Hello everyone, speaking a bit more about myself, I wanted to share with you some videos of mine.

The first one is my showreel: a selection of the best shots I've been working on.

It's not really updated but it'll give you an idea.

The second one is a music video I written, directed, edited and postproduced for my band "Mann Friday" (www.mannfriday.com). I'll talk about them in a new post.

Malfatti di ricotta al pomodoro - Ricotta Malfatti with tomato sauce.

Ciao a tutti,

today I'm going to share with you a really nice recipe which is something I learned from my mom, and I cook quite often. As some friends asked for some "light" recipes, here we go:

Ingredients

3 persons

• Ricotta 500 grams
• Fresh Spinach 700 grams
• Grated Parmigiano Reggiano 100 grams
• 1 egg
• 1+2 glasses of water
• 1 cup of flour

For the sauce

• 1 Onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• Chopped tomatoes 300 grams
• Smoked dry beef or bresaola (bosnian suho meso) 40 grams
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Sugar
• Fresh Basil

Start cleaning the fresh spinach, put them in a pan with 1 glass of water and make them boil until you can easily spear a fork through them (around 8/10 mins). Then squeeze them with your hands and chop them. Put some water in a big pan and make it boil with the lead on.

Put the ricotta, the egg, the Parmigiano Reggiano and the spinach all together in a bow and mix with a wood spoon. Then add the flour, until everything start being more solid.

Now, with two spoon make some small balls with the mixture. Put them straight in the boiling water and wait until they emerge from the bottom. Drain them out with a strainer.

The sauce

The best thing is of course to prepare it before making the Malfatti.

Put some olive oil in a pan, the chopped onion, the garlic and the smoked dry beef and fry.

Add the chopped tomatoes and two glasses of water. Let the sauce to thicken, and add some salt and a vegetable cube.

When the Malfatti are ready, pour the sauce on top and decor with some fresh basil.

Enjoy!

Insalata croccante di calamari su rustica di zucchini - Crunchy calamari salad on zucchini "rustica"

Ciao, two days ago I went to a fishmonger in front of Ciglane Market, close where we live.

We have been eating meat since we arrived here and we wanted something different.

They only had whole sea bass or calamari.

I didn't want to spend too much time in cleaning sea basses and cut fillets...so I bought one kg of fresh calamari.

I've never cleaned calamari before, but I thought it was easier than cleaning a seabass from scratch, and actually is! Check out this video.

Once I cleaned all the calamari, it took me around 40 mins, I started wondering how to cook them. I couldn't find any interesting recipes quickly online, so I decided to give a look around the kitchen. Here's what I found:

Ingredients

3 persons

• Calamari 1Kg
• 1 big potato
• 2 medium white zucchini
• 4 cloves of garlic
• Olive oil
• 1 cup of flour
• Salt
• Rosemary
• Basil
• Chopped tomatoes or tomato puree

First, chop the potatoes in very tiny pieces, then cut the cleaned calamari in stripes.

Put some oil in a pan and start fry the potatoes with 2 cloves of garlic . Roll the calamari stripes in flour, put them in the pan with the potatoes and add some rosemary. Let them fry until they get golden and crispy. Salt them.

In the whiletime, chop the zucchini, put them in a different pan with some oil and the rest of the garlic. When they start to release some water add some fresh chopped tomatoes or 1 teaspoon of tomato puree melted in half glass of warm water.

When the zucchini are softer but still a bit crunchy, turn off the heat and cover with a lid.

After few minutes you can start preparing the dish.

Put the zucchini sauce in the middle of the plate and border it with some calamari stripes.

Then put the calamari stripes on top of the sauce. Use some fresh basil leaves to decor.

Enjoy!

Polpettine affumicate all'ortolana - Smoked meatballs with vegetables

After a while here in Sarajevo I'm really starting being contaminated from the Bosnian Kitchen.

I started cooking with the idea of something light and less heavy than the usual meatballs...no eggs, no breadcrumbs, but basically let emerge the amazing flavours of the bosnian basic ingredients: meat and vegetables.

Here in Sarajevo I discovered the real taste of vegetables and meat...something I couldn't find even in the most "organic" shop in London, something that is disappeared from pretty much all over the world. So this first "fusion" recipe is a tribute to these flavours, I hope you dig it.

Ingredients

3 persons

• Ground meat (preferably veil): 500 grams
• 1 onion
• 2 small zucchini
• 1 small potato
• 2 small aubergines
• Grated Parmigiano Reggiano (100 grams)
• Suho Meso (bosnian smoked dry beef meat, you can use breasola instead) 50 grams
• White Yogurt
• Chives
• Fresh Basil
• Olive Oil

First of all wash the vegetables and chop them in tiny pieces (the tinier the better, especially potatoes).

Mix all the ingredients: ground meat, vegetables, chives, Parmigiano and the suho meso (or bresaola).

Knead all the ingredients with your hands for few minutes, so the meat and the vegetables become a big thick meatball. Put some flour on a dish and roll the meat-dough in it.

The best option would be to leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours, but if you are hungry, well start making meatballs straight away!

I love my meatballs small, actually the smaller the better...so they cook faster and better.

Next fry them in a pan with a bit of olive oil for 10 mins. An healthier option is to cook them in the oven instead (15 mins at 200°) .

When ready let them rest on blotting paper for 1 min.

Then put some white yogurt on a plate, decorate with some chives, distribute the meatballs and put some fresh basil on top.

Buon Appetito!