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Luca's Key Ingredient - Season 5 Episode 2 -
Episode 02
Episode 02
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00:00Lifting our lid, look at that!
00:03I'm constantly exploring new ways to reinvent the classics.
00:07Come on, this is Christmas in a cup!
00:10But the secret to an Italian dish
00:12always starts with the best produce,
00:15the one and only Prosciutto di Parma.
00:17In this series, I'm going to share my key ingredients
00:20to quintessential Italian cooking.
00:23This is the part where I get really excited.
00:26And of course, I'll show you how to make those ingredients shine
00:29with some creative and delicious recipes
00:32that will take your Italian cooking to the next level.
00:35So please stay tuned, sit, relax, and let me do the cooking.
00:45Buongiorno, everybody, and welcome back to Luca's Key Ingredient.
00:49Today's key ingredient is zafferano, saffron.
00:53So today we've got three beautiful recipes,
00:55a traditional risotto la milanese,
00:57then we're going to move on to a very simple penne pasta dish
01:00with a creamy saffron luxurious sauce
01:03with a bit of Prosciutto di Parma crumble.
01:05We've got a pear, buffalo ricotta, and saffron cake.
01:08And then, along with it, we're going to make a delicious saffron gelato
01:13with extra virgin olive oil.
01:14Yes, you heard right, saffron gelato.
01:17I'm feeling a little bit of pressure here
01:19because I'm cooking a real Italian classic,
01:21but I'm cooking a real milanese classic where I'm coming from,
01:24so I really want to do it justice.
01:26A nice knob of butter, actually even two.
01:28It's never too much.
01:30I'm going to keep this butter for the end.
01:32You'll see why.
01:33Then onion.
01:35So we do a classic sofrito.
01:37We just try to chop pretty fine,
01:39do the best you can with a nice sharp knife.
01:42And then I won't need much of this,
01:43so I probably just gently run the knife through it.
01:47My onion goes straight in my saucepan.
01:50While all of this is happening,
01:52we're going to get a classic wooden spoon.
01:54Give that a stir.
01:55And the idea is to really get the onion nice and slowly cooked.
01:59So I'm going to turn the heat down.
02:00Now, I've also brought these into the studio today,
02:04which I don't want to scare people out,
02:06but traditionally you must have some bone marrow going in there.
02:10Now, I'm not suggesting that you've got to go and get this massive bone.
02:14Just simply ask your butcher if you can get a couple of tablespoons worth of bone marrow.
02:21I mean, what it does is going to melt through it
02:23and the extra additional flavor that is going to deliver to your risotto.
02:27So gently, this is cooking down.
02:30And now, very important.
02:32In these days, everybody knows about arborio.
02:35Can you make a good risotto with arborio?
02:37100% yes, but carnaroli is a higher quality
02:41and during the cooking process has the ability to definitely retain a bit more of a bite.
02:46We want to just toss the rice until it's nice and hot.
02:50So we're going to go in straight with the wine.
02:54There you go. We're going to let it evaporate.
02:56And now that it has already had some moisture,
02:58I'm going to go in with some saffron threads.
03:01All the alcohol has evaporated and that's really what we need.
03:04Decent white wine, dry white wine usually.
03:07And as soon as that dries off, ladle of stock.
03:11And once we get to this level and we see bubbles, turn it down.
03:15And I want to have at least maybe I'll say a finger, a centimeter of stock on top of the rice.
03:20And that is it.
03:22Now, to the next ingredient.
03:24Where I come from is in my household, we used to go foraging for mushrooms.
03:28And luckily enough for us, we used to get a lot of porcini mushroom in summertime.
03:32I'd like to chop them a little bit.
03:35This is goodness, right?
03:36We never want to throw away any type of stock.
03:39We got mushroom stock.
03:41So just a splash of this mushroom stock.
03:45We'll save this one at a time.
03:47And while that is in, at this stage, I'm going to go in with my mushroom.
03:52So I'm going to clean all of this up.
03:54And then I'm really going to focus the last couple of minutes on getting the rice grain cooked to perfection.
03:58And I'll show you how to finish it off with a traditional mantecatura.
04:03Baza and parmigiano reggiano.
04:09Very, very happy.
04:10If you can see the liquid right here, it's kind of, you know, disappeared.
04:14It's leveled up with the rice.
04:16At this stage, turn the heat off.
04:18You're going in with the unsalted butter.
04:20Start stirring it in.
04:21And then finally, good parmigiano reggiano, obviously.
04:26Okay.
04:27And just to make it a little bit more luxurious, probably this is not really a must, but I love to incorporate.
04:33If you have a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, it will give a little bit of a shine and additional flavor.
04:39In Italy, we say that a good risotto should be allonda, wavy, meaning this.
04:44Okay.
04:45So what I'm doing now, we're creating a bit of starchy mixing motion.
04:50I'm going to let it sit here for literally a minute.
04:53It needs that minute just to relax a little bit.
04:55Always, traditionally, a flat plate.
04:57Choose any plate of your liking.
04:59A flat plate.
05:00We don't want to serve it into a big bowl.
05:02Straight in the middle of the plate.
05:04And this is what I'm talking about.
05:06Flat plate.
05:07You tap the bottom until it's all leveled up.
05:12It's a great way to have saffron introduced into your daily cooking by simply making a risotto.
05:19And if you got a dry porcini on hand in your pantry, as you should, give this one a crack.
05:24Because not only brings me back to my childhood, but it tastes super delicious.
05:28My second recipe, very, very simple.
05:46Simple as my risotto that I just cooked.
05:48So what we got is saffron, this beautiful spice, so fragrant, immersed into cream to make a great creamy sauce.
05:56With some prosciutto di parma that I love so much.
05:58And I think the two combo, the savory of the prosciutto with the sweetness of the cream, with the fragrance of the saffron, is going to work so beautifully.
06:06We're going to use a dry pasta.
06:08So finally, I get to do a simple dry pasta dish instead of always making fresh pasta during the TV show.
06:14I'm going to use my beloved prosciutto di parma.
06:18In this case scenario, I'm actually cooking with prosciutto.
06:21I normally love to, you know, just put it on a platter with the grissini and whatnot.
06:27But today, as you can see, I'm making a little bit of a mess of my prosciutto slices.
06:31That's why I roughly grab it, because I really want to chop it up in small, small pieces.
06:36I'm going to call it prosciutto di parma crumble, where I cook my prosciutto until it loses most, if not all, of its moisture.
06:47And basically what it does, you still get an enhanced flavor of prosciutto di parma.
06:53It becomes a textural part of the dish.
06:56Because, of course, we're going to make it dry out until it becomes crumbly.
07:01And slowly, slowly, letting this cook through.
07:04While this is cooking away, I'm going to come back to my ingredients for the recipe.
07:09I'm going to turn the heat on on the larger frying pan.
07:12And straight away, a little knob of butter.
07:16A little bit of extra virgin olive oil.
07:18And this really brings me back a little bit to my childhood.
07:22I can probably say that I stole this recipe from mom, meaning that, you know, it was one of those recipes that she was making by simply opening the fridge and, you know, see what was in there.
07:33Instead of onions, I love to use a little bit of spring onions.
07:36I find them a little bit sweeter when you get to use them into a pasta dish instead of just straight onions.
07:42You can put garlic, I chose not to, in this one.
07:45Meanwhile, I just want to check my prosciutto again.
07:48You can see it's already slowly cooking away.
07:52The smell is becoming quite exciting.
07:54And as you can tell, using a nonstick of high quality, it's really, really important.
07:59We always got our Swiss diamond encrusted with real diamond makes it extremely durable and extremely nonstick, as you can tell.
08:07So that will make your life easier, much, much easier in the kitchen.
08:11And while that is cooking, what I'm going to do, I've got some white wine, which I will need for the recipe.
08:16And saffron, the key ingredients of today's episode.
08:20I'm going to simply have these infusing with my white wine.
08:24So it will soften up and it will release the color much, much better.
08:27Artichokes.
08:28Why I say that, you know, mom used to make that out of the pantry, because, you know, you always have some tin artichokes that you can use up.
08:35While I'm cutting this up, I can actually start throwing them in.
08:39They obviously, they don't need any real cooking because they have tin artichokes.
08:44But, you know, they will pick up flavor of whatever you put in here.
08:47A pinch of salt, pepper.
08:49So now we're going to deglaze the pan with some white wine and saffron.
08:53Now we're going to hear that big sizzle.
08:56Look at the yellow color coming out from the beautiful saffron.
09:01Next step.
09:02We're going with the pasta before we complete our sauce.
09:06Going over there with my salt.
09:09Drop salt in boiling water, plain till boiling water.
09:13Now we're going to drop probably about half a packet for what I need today.
09:18We've got a pan of pasta in there.
09:21Very good stir, straight from the get-go.
09:24Very, very important.
09:25The main starch really is happening right here, right now.
09:27So it's good to give it a good stir.
09:29The wine has pretty much all evaporated.
09:31So now we're going to go in with our beautiful chicken stock.
09:36We made it today, because that's what we're here for.
09:38If not, you can use some stock cubes at home.
09:42Stock already made.
09:43Not a big deal.
09:44Now chicken stock is reduced down.
09:47Cream.
09:48I think that's plenty for this.
09:53So back to my prosciutto crumble.
09:54I can see that this is pretty much perfect.
09:57And we're going to just put the prosciutto di parma on a paper towel.
10:03So all the fat will be absorbed.
10:05Now I'm going to give a bit of a clean up, and then we're going to toss the pasta in the sauce and plate it all up.
10:09My pasta is ready.
10:10I'm going to come close to my big pot.
10:14At home, I'll leave you go over the sink, drain it.
10:19Always recommend to always save some of the cooking water.
10:23Cooking water has flavor, nutrition, and mainly the starch, which will allow pasta and sauce to bind together extremely well.
10:31And also, very important, if you ever, ever wash your pasta, meaning rinsed under cold water or warm water after it's cooked, that's a big no-no.
10:41All right?
10:42You go to jail where I come from.
10:43It washes away the starch from the pasta and really takes away all the beauty that pasta with the starch on the outside has to offer.
10:51Okay.
10:52So, you know, traditional Italian shouldn't be swimming in sauce.
10:57Never.
10:58Especially when it's a cream sauce.
10:59Okay?
11:00So I'm going to pile this up.
11:02Nice, generous.
11:03This is really, you know, home cooking at its best.
11:07Then my beautiful prosciutto di parma crumble.
11:12So I'm simply just going to grab some.
11:14It's nice and crispy.
11:16Sprinkle that on top.
11:18Oh, mamma mia.
11:20It's so simple.
11:21And honestly, it's just that I'm being transported by myself back home.
11:26Pick up a little bit of micro herbs for a bit of, you know, pretty look on top of my beautiful pasta.
11:33And last, because, you know, you cannot have a beautiful parmigiano reggiano on top of your pasta,
11:39I'm going to make a couple of shavings just here on the table.
11:44And very, very carefully, I'm going to place some, just like a little garnish.
11:49This, ladies and gentlemen, is how we're going to get a simple spice, but delicious spice, like some for shine,
11:55with some prosciutto di parma crumble in a simple, simple penne pasta dish.
12:00You can make this any day of the week.
12:02You will never disappoint.
12:03And today's last saffron recipe, it's an amazing cake with a saffron gelato.
12:23Yes, you heard that right.
12:24And you'll see how we're going to make this gelato by simply bringing up to boil some cream and milk already in my beautiful cookware.
12:33So as soon as that comes up to a simmer, as you can see right now, we're going to go and infusing our saffron.
12:39Remove this from the heat, and we're going to let it sit aside, and we're going to allow this to lose the temperature a little bit.
12:46Meanwhile, really quickly, I'm going to go with custard sugar with my egg yolk.
12:51So we're going to break our egg yolk, and then we gently start stirring this up.
12:55The flame is still on because I need to return the egg mix, the custard, back to 82 degrees.
13:04Now, back to my cream, milk, and saffron.
13:08A very gentle splash to begin with, a little bit more.
13:12And as you can see, we're starting getting almost like a custard-like texture, and the smell is very, very saffron-y.
13:21All of that goes in.
13:23Now, very, very quickly, gentle, don't burn your fingers, we quickly return the whole mix into our cookware.
13:32That's it.
13:34And simply, we're returning these to heat.
13:37Now, just to give a little bit of a stir, but just to be very safe,
13:41I'm going to move onto a little spatula.
13:45And what I want to do, I want to go on the edges of my saucepan.
13:50Yeah, making sure that there's no, you know, egg getting clumped up at the bottom.
13:53But there's nothing better than your old best friend, chef's best friend.
13:57A little kitchen thermometer, which I'm going to turn this on just like so.
14:02And now, very, very gently, and wait for the magic number.
14:0681, that's it.
14:07It's already 82.
14:08So what I want to do is quickly transfer this mixture.
14:11I do want to keep those threads of saffron, because they look so amazing through the gelato.
14:21So now that I got no major lumps, I'm going to re-add those threads in here, pick up a few more, and this will be plenty.
14:29So removing this for a sec, and I want to show you again how beautiful and silky our custard looks like.
14:38There should be no lumps whatsoever.
14:40And the only ingredient missing now is extra virgin olive oil.
14:44So I told you it was a saffron and extra virgin olive oil.
14:46So it's very important.
14:47You want to get yourself great quality extra virgin olive oil.
14:50For a gelato with extra virgin olive oil, I strongly recommend for you to use something mild, let's describe it mild.
15:00Nothing too aggressive, because if you go with something a little bit too aggressive, what the end result can be is a little bit too overpowering with extra virgin olive oil.
15:07Now I'm going to go back, grabbing my little whisk just to make sure that I've got all of that extra virgin olive oil whisked up in it really well.
15:15And while this is happening, I'm going to grab a little bowl that I've organized before with a little bit of ice in it.
15:21We're going to move these straight in here.
15:24And what I'm going to do now, I'm going to put these into my fridge.
15:29Every five minutes, I'm going to get in the fridge, give it a little bit of a stir.
15:33If you have plenty of time, you can definitely do these the day earlier, and I encourage you to do that earlier.
15:38So the colder this will be, the easier and quicker it will be to make gelato afterwards.
15:43Okay, next, cake time. Very easy. Same amount of butter, icing sugar and flour.
15:50We're going to start by going in with my unsalted butter.
15:53It's always good quality, right? You always hear me saying that. Icing sugar.
15:59Simply, if you've got a beautiful mixer like the one I have, gently allow the room temperature butter to slowly mix in with the icing sugar.
16:09Now, I've got some buffalo ricotta because I love it. I love the texture. I love the very interesting, richer flavor profile against the cow's milk ricotta.
16:18Just gently soften this down. While we're doing that, we're going to add even further saffron.
16:24And I have a little bit of sugar to go and sweeten our ricotta.
16:28Okay, so this is going to sit aside. Now, back to my beautiful mixer. I'm going to bring it a little bit closer.
16:34And now I've got my three eggs over here. Very gently. I mean, I'm trying to do the best I can to pour one egg at a time.
16:40Increasing perhaps the speed a little bit. Now we're going to go in with the second egg.
16:45And just waiting for the butter to pick all of that up with the icing sugar.
16:48Okay, last egg goes in. Excellent. And of course, I've got some plain flour with a little bit of baking powder.
16:57And I give it a stir with a finger. Lift this up. We're going to add the flour and the baking powder all in.
17:05Okay, this one goes back down. And while that is mixing, I'm going to use a microplane and a lemon.
17:13I'm going to go just on top and gently just work the lemon on the microplane.
17:21You can do this before. You can do this after. As long as we get a little bit of the lemon zest inside our beautiful cake.
17:27And that's it. Everything looks nice and combined. The cake batter is ready to go.
17:32I've got my beautiful pears. I'm going to drain them a little bit from this water and lemon solution.
17:38And now I'm just going to fold that through just like so.
17:43Now, I've got my round, beautiful cake team lined up, ready to go.
17:47And now it's just this simple. We're going to go straight in the middle of it.
17:52And I'm going to spread this out a little bit here.
17:55So once I get to this stage, that's where I want to go in with my ricotta-saffron mixture.
18:02So the idea is quite simple. Just a few dollops here and there.
18:07And then back with my spoon. That's it.
18:10And now the second layer of the cake goes on top. All in one go like that.
18:14Again, same as before. Like I really want the two of them to combine really well.
18:20And still, the saffron will come through with all of these beautiful layering of ricotta, the butter, and the pears.
18:32Okay. And now the last final bit of these dollops.
18:37And last, we got a little bit of raw sugar to go on top.
18:42This will kind of make it caramelize a little bit on top and give it a very crispy top.
18:48I preheated my beautiful oven at 180 degrees.
18:52We're going to kiss this goodbye for about 40 to 45 minutes.
18:55And meanwhile, we'll be churning the gelato.
18:58And here's my saffron and extra virgin olive oil castor.
19:12So now I'm going to carefully remove this from the ice bath.
19:17Nice and chilled.
19:18I'll get the cooler disease and the quicker will churn into the churner.
19:23So what I'm going to do, I'm going to put this down, turn this on.
19:28And now gently, I'm going to pick up the custard and pour it in.
19:33That's what this attachment is for.
19:35Just to make sure that I don't make too much of a mess.
19:38Meanwhile, my cake is cooking, so everything is under control.
19:46The cake looks fantastic.
19:47It's still a little bit warm, but we'll let it settle a little bit.
19:50I'm going to open the tin.
19:53Okay.
19:54Now we're going to peel this off.
19:57Yep.
19:58Looks pretty good.
19:59Oh, wow.
20:00Can you see the saffron already?
20:01There's some of the bits of ricotta with saffron.
20:04This is exactly what I'm looking for.
20:06Just to soften the crust, you just want to melt some butter, unsalted butter,
20:12and then gently just paint it all over.
20:16Now to make it look even extra pretty.
20:19We've got a little bit of icing sugar.
20:21And now I'm going to cut this in half, totally in half, just for you to see what's in the inside.
20:27Oh, it's very soft.
20:28So I really need a sharp knife that can cut through it.
20:32Okay, ready?
20:33One, two.
20:35And there you have it.
20:37Still smoking.
20:38Plenty of ricotta.
20:39You get the yellow, the saffron, and the random pears.
20:43So what I'm doing now, cutting a beautiful slice.
20:46Putting my beautiful cake.
20:48It feels so soft and so moist.
20:51Of course, the ricotta and the fruit in there.
20:53Then we're going to go with our beautiful saffron and extra virgin olive oil gelato just next to the cake.
21:00Just like so.
21:01A little bit more icing sugar on top of my beautiful cake.
21:06And a little drizzle of honey.
21:09Now, come on.
21:10How good does this look?
21:12This is the perfect way to finish an epic episode about saffron.
21:16We started with a traditional saffron risotto with our porcini mushroom.
21:21We did that beautiful panne pasta dish.
21:23So simple with the crumbled prosciutto and artichokes.
21:26And here it's a double up.
21:27We got pears, ricotta, and a cake with saffron.
21:30And a saffron and extra virgin olive oil to die for.
21:35Please, guys, if you haven't really cooked much with saffron, get on it.
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