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Luca's Key Ingredient - Season 5 Episode 2 - Episode 02
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00:00After 25 years as a chef, cooking is still my passion.
00:05Lifting our lid. Look at that.
00:08I'm constantly exploring new ways to reinvent the classics.
00:12Come on, this is Christmas in a cup.
00:15But the secret to an Italian dish
00:17always starts with the best produce.
00:20The one and only Prosciutto di Parma.
00:22In this series, I'm going to share my key ingredients
00:25to quintessential Italian cooking.
00:27This is the part where I get really excited.
00:30And of course, I'll show you how to make those ingredients shine
00:34with some creative and delicious recipes
00:36that will take your Italian cooking to the next level.
00:40So please stay tuned, sit, relax, and let me do the cooking.
00:50Buongiorno, everybody, and welcome back
00:52to Luca's key ingredient.
00:54Today's key ingredient is zafferano.
00:56Zafferano, zafferano.
00:58So today we've got three beautiful recipes.
01:00A traditional risotto la Milanese.
01:02Then we're going to move on to a very simple penne pasta dish
01:05with a creamy, zafferano, luxurious sauce
01:07with a bit of Prosciutto di Parma crumble.
01:09We've got a pear, buffalo ricotta, and zafferano cake.
01:13And then, along with it, we're going to make a delicious
01:16zafferano gelato with extra virgin olive oil.
01:19Yes, you heard right, zafferano gelato.
01:22I'm feeling a little bit of pressure here
01:24because I'm cooking a real Italian classic,
01:26but I'm cooking a real Milanese classic where I'm coming from.
01:29So I really want to do it justice.
01:31A nice knob of butter, actually even two.
01:33It's never too much.
01:34I'm going to keep this butter for the end.
01:37You'll see why.
01:38Then onion.
01:39So we do a classic soffritto.
01:41We just try to chop pretty fine.
01:44Do the best you can with a nice sharp knife.
01:47And then I won't need much of this.
01:48So I probably just gently run the knife through it.
01:52My onion goes straight in my saucepan.
01:55While all of this is happening,
01:57we're going to get a classic wooden spoon.
01:59Give that a stir.
02:00And the idea is to really get the onion nice and slowly cooked.
02:04So I'm going to turn the heat down.
02:05Now, I've also brought these into the studio today,
02:09which I don't want to scare people out,
02:11but traditionally you must have some bone marrow going in there.
02:15Now, I'm not suggesting that you got to go and get this massive bone.
02:19Just simply ask your butcher
02:21if you can get a couple of tablespoon worth of bone marrow.
02:25I mean, what it does is going to melt through it
02:28and the extra additional flavor that is going to deliver to your risotto.
02:32So gently, this is cooking down.
02:35And now, very important.
02:37In these days, everybody knows about arborio.
02:40Can you make a good result with arborio?
02:41100% yes, but carnaroli is a higher quality
02:46and during the cooking process has the ability to definitely retain a bit more of a bite.
02:51We want to just toast the rice until it's nice and hot.
02:54So we're going to go in straight with the wine.
02:58There you go. We're going to let it evaporate.
03:00And now that it has already had some moisture,
03:03I'm going to go in with some saffron threads.
03:06All the alcohol has evaporated and that's really what we need.
03:09Decent white wine, dry white wine usually.
03:12And as soon as that dries off, ladle of stock.
03:16And once we get to this level and we see bubbles, turn it down.
03:20And I want to have at least maybe I'll say a finger, a centimeter of stock on top of the
03:24rice.
03:25And that is it.
03:27Now to the next ingredient.
03:28Where I come from is in my household.
03:31We used to go foraging for mushrooms.
03:33And luckily enough for us, we used to get a lot of porcini mushroom in summertime.
03:37I'd like to chop them a little bit.
03:40This is goodness, right?
03:42We never want to throw away any type of stock.
03:44We got mushroom stock.
03:46So just a splash of this mushroom stock.
03:50We'll save this for another time.
03:52And while that is in, at this stage, I'm going to go in with my mushroom.
03:57So I'm going to clean all of this up.
03:59And then I'm really going to focus the last couple of minutes on getting the rice grain cooked to perfection.
04:03And I'll show you how to finish it off with a traditional mantecatura.
04:08Baza and parmigiano reggiano.
04:13Very, very happy.
04:15If you can see the liquid right here, it's kind of, you know, disappeared.
04:19It's leveled up with the rice.
04:20At this stage, turn the heat off.
04:23You're going in with the unsalted butter.
04:25Start stirring it in.
04:26And then finally, good parmigiano reggiano, obviously.
04:30And just to make it a little bit more luxurious, probably this is not really a must,
04:35but I love to incorporate.
04:37If you have a little bit of extra virgin olive oil,
04:41it will give a little bit of a shine and additional flavor.
04:43In Italy, we say that a good risotto should be allonda, wavy, meaning this, okay?
04:49So what I'm doing now, we're creating a bit of starchy mixing motion.
04:55I'm going to let it sit here for literally a minute.
04:57It needs that minute just to relax a little bit.
04:59Always, traditionally, a flat plate.
05:02Choose any plate of your liking.
05:04A flat plate.
05:05We don't want to serve it into a big bowl.
05:07Straight in the middle of the plate.
05:09And this is what I'm talking about.
05:11Flat plate.
05:12You tap the bottom until it's all leveled up.
05:18It's a great way to have saffron introduced into your daily cooking by simply making a risotto.
05:23And if you got a dry porcini on hand in your pantry, as you should, give this one a crack,
05:29because not only brings me back to my childhood, but it tastes super delicious.
05:47My second recipe, very, very simple, simple as my risotto that I just cooked.
05:53So what we got is saffron, this beautiful spice, so fragrant, immersed into cream to make a great creamy sauce,
06:01with some prosciutto di parma that I love so much.
06:04And I think the two combo, the savory of the prosciutto with the sweetness of the cream,
06:08with the fragrance of the saffron, is going to work so beautifully.
06:10We're going to use a dry pasta.
06:13So finally, I get to do a simple dry pasta dish instead of always making fresh pasta during the TV
06:19show.
06:19I'm going to use my beloved prosciutto di parma.
06:23In this case scenario, I'm actually cooking with prosciutto.
06:26I normally love to, you know, just put it on a platter with the grissini and whatnot.
06:32But today, as you can see, I'm making a little bit of a mess of my prosciutto slices.
06:36That's why I roughly grab it, because I really want to chop it up in small, small pieces.
06:41I'm going to call it prosciutto di parma crumble, where I cook my prosciutto until it loses most,
06:49if not all, of its moisture.
06:52And basically what it does, you still get an enhanced flavor of prosciutto di parma.
06:57It becomes a textural part of the dish because, of course, we're going to make it dry out until it
07:05becomes crumbly.
07:05And slowly, slowly, letting this cook through.
07:09While this is cooking away, I'm going to come back to my ingredients for the recipe.
07:14I'm going to turn the heat on on the larger frying pan.
07:18And straight away, a little knob of butter, a little bit of extra virgin olive oil.
07:24And this really brings me back a little bit to my childhood.
07:26I can probably say that I stole this recipe from mom, meaning that, you know, it was one of those
07:32recipes that she was making by simply opening the fridge and, you know, see what was in there.
07:38Instead of onions, I love to use a little bit of spring onions.
07:41I find them a little bit sweeter when you get to use them into a pasta dish instead of just
07:46straight onions.
07:46You can put garlic, I chose not to, in this one.
07:50Meanwhile, I just want to check my prosciutto again.
07:53You can see it's already slowly cooking away.
07:57The smell is becoming quite exciting.
07:59And as you can tell, using a nonstick of high quality, it's really, really important.
08:04We always got our Swiss diamond encrusted with real diamond makes it extremely durable and extremely nonstick, as you can
08:12tell.
08:12So that will make your life easier, much, much easier in the kitchen.
08:16And while that is cooking, what I'm going to do, I've got some white wine, which I will need for
08:20the recipe, and saffron, the key ingredients of today's episode.
08:24I'm going to simply have these infusing with my white wine.
08:28So it will soften up and it will release the color much, much better.
08:32Artichokes.
08:33Why I say that, you know, mom used to make that out of the pantry, because, you know, you always
08:38have some tin artichokes that you can use up.
08:40While I'm cutting this up, I can actually start throwing them in.
08:44They obviously, they don't need any real cooking, because they've tin artichokes.
08:49But, you know, they will pick up flavor of whatever you put in here.
08:52Pinch of salt, pepper.
08:54So now we're going to deglaze the pan with some white wine and saffron.
08:59Now we're going to hear that big sizzle.
09:01Look at the yellow color coming out from the beautiful saffron.
09:05Next step, we're going with the pasta before we complete our sauce.
09:12Going over there with my salt.
09:14Drop salt in boiling water, plain till boiling water.
09:18Now we're going to drop probably about half a packet for what I need today.
09:24We got a pan of pasta in there.
09:26Very good stir, straight from the get-go.
09:29Very, very important.
09:30The main starch really is happening right here, right now, so it's good to give it a good stir.
09:33The wine has pretty much all evaporated.
09:36So now we're going to go in with our beautiful chicken stock.
09:40We made it today, because that's what we're here for.
09:43If not, you can use some stock cubes at home.
09:47Stock already made, not a big deal.
09:50Now, chicken stock has reduced down.
09:52Cream.
09:55I think that's plenty for this.
09:57So back to my prosciutto crumble.
09:59I can see that this is pretty much perfect.
10:02And we're going to just put the prosciutto di parma on a paper towel.
10:08So all the fat will be absorbed.
10:10Now, I'm going to give a bit of a clean up.
10:11And then we're going to toss the pasta in the sauce and plate it all up.
10:17My pasta is ready.
10:18I'm going to come close to my big pot.
10:22At home, I'll leave you go over the sink, drain it.
10:25Always recommend to always save some of the cooking water.
10:28Cooking water has flavor, nutrition, and mainly the starch, which will allow pasta and sauce to bind together extremely well.
10:37And also, very important, if you ever, ever wash your pasta, meaning rinsed under cold water or warm water after
10:45it's cooked, that's a big no-no.
10:47All right?
10:47You go to jail where I come from.
10:48It washes away the starch from the pasta and really takes away all the beauty that pasta with the starch
10:54on the outside has to offer.
10:56Okay.
10:58So you should, you know, traditional Italian shouldn't be swimming in sauce.
11:02Never.
11:02Especially when it's a cream sauce.
11:04Okay?
11:05So I'm going to pile this up.
11:07Nice, generous.
11:08This is really, you know, home cooking at its best.
11:13Then my beautiful prosciutto di parma crumble.
11:17So I'm simply just going to grab some.
11:19It's nice and crispy.
11:21Sprinkle that on top.
11:24Oh, mamma mia.
11:25It's so simple.
11:26And honestly, it's just that I'm being transported by myself back home.
11:30Pick up a little bit of micro herbs for a bit of, you know, pretty look on top of my
11:36beautiful pasta.
11:37And last, because, you know, you cannot have a beautiful parmigiano reggiano on top of your pasta,
11:44I'm going to make a couple of shavings just here on the table.
11:48And very, very carefully, I'm going to place some, just like a little garnish.
11:54This, ladies and gentlemen, is how we're going to get a simple spice, but delicious spice, like some fresh shine,
12:00with some prosciutto di parma crumble in a simple, simple penne pasta dish.
12:04You can make this any day of the week.
12:07You will never disappoint.
12:21And today's last saffron recipe, it's an amazing cake with a saffron gelato.
12:28Yes, you heard that right.
12:29And you'll see how we're going to make this gelato by simply bringing up to boil some cream and milk,
12:35already in my beautiful cookware.
12:38So as soon as that comes up to a cima, as you can see right now, we're going to go
12:42and infusing our saffron.
12:44Remove these from the heat, and we're going to let it sit aside.
12:47And we're going to allow these to lose the temperature a little bit.
12:51Meanwhile, really quickly, I'm going to go with caster sugar with my egg yolk.
12:56So we're going to break our egg yolk, and then we gently start stirring this up.
13:00The flame is still on because I need to return the egg mix, the custard, back to 82 degrees.
13:09Now, back to my cream, milk, and saffron.
13:13A very gentle splash to begin with, a little bit more.
13:17And as you can see, we're starting getting almost like a custard-like texture.
13:22And the smell is very, very saffron-y.
13:26All of that goes in.
13:28Now, very, very quickly, gentle, don't burn your fingers.
13:31We quickly return the whole mix into our cookware.
13:37That's it.
13:39And simply, we're returning these to heat.
13:42Now, just to give a little bit of a stir, but just to be very safe,
13:47I'm going to move onto a little spatula.
13:51And what I want to do, I want to go on the edges of my saucepan.
13:55Yeah, making sure that there's no, you know, egg getting clumped up at the bottom.
13:59But there's nothing better than your old best friend, chef's best friend.
14:02A little kitchen thermometer, which I'm going to turn this on just like so.
14:07And now, very, very gently and wait for the magic number.
14:1181, that's it.
14:12It's already 82.
14:13So what I want to do is quickly transfer this mixture.
14:20I do want to keep those threads of saffron because they look so amazing through the gelato.
14:27So now that I got no major lumps, I'm going to re-add those threads in here.
14:32Pick up a few more, and this will be plenty.
14:35So removing this for a sec.
14:38And I want to show you again how beautiful and silky our custard looks like.
14:43There should be no lumps whatsoever.
14:46And the only ingredient missing now is extra virgin olive oil.
14:49So I told you it was a saffron and extra virgin olive oil.
14:52So it's very important.
14:53You want to get yourself great quality extra virgin olive oil.
14:56For a gelato with extra virgin olive oil, I strongly recommend for you to use something mild.
15:04Let's describe it mild.
15:05Nothing too aggressive, because if you go with something a little bit too aggressive,
15:08what the end result can be is a little bit too overpowering with extra virgin olive oil.
15:12So now I'm going to go back, grabbing my little whisk just to make sure that I've got all of
15:16that extra virgin olive oil whisked up in it really well.
15:20And while this is happening, I'm going to grab a little bowl that I've organized before with a little bit
15:25of ice in it.
15:26We're going to move these straight in here.
15:29And what I'm going to do now, I'm going to put these into my fridge every five minutes.
15:35I'm going to get in the fridge, give it a little bit of a stir.
15:38If you have plenty of time, you can definitely do these the day earlier.
15:41And I encourage you to do that earlier.
15:43So the colder this will be, the easier and quicker it will be to make gelato afterwards.
15:48OK, next, cake time.
15:50Very easy.
15:51Same amount of butter, icing sugar and flour.
15:54We're going to start by going in with my unsalted butter.
15:58As always, good quality, right?
16:00You always hear me saying that.
16:02Icing sugar.
16:03Simply, if you've got a beautiful mixer like the one I have, gently allow the room temperature butter to slowly
16:12mix in with the icing sugar.
16:14Now, I've got some buffalo ricotta because I love it.
16:17I love the texture.
16:18I love the very interesting, richer flavor profile against the cow's milk ricotta.
16:23Just gently soften this down.
16:25And while we're doing that, we're going to add even further saffron.
16:29And I have a little bit of sugar to go and sweeten our ricotta.
16:33OK, so this is going to sit aside.
16:35Now, back to my beautiful mixer.
16:37I'm going to bring it a little bit closer.
16:39And now I've got my three eggs over here.
16:41Very gently.
16:41I mean, I'm trying to do the best I can to pour one egg at a time.
16:46Increasing perhaps the speed a little bit.
16:48Now we're going to go in with the second egg.
16:50And just waiting for the butter to pickle up that up with the icing sugar.
16:54OK, last egg goes in.
16:56Excellent.
16:56And of course, I've got some plain flour with a little bit of baking powder.
17:01And I give it a stir with a finger.
17:04Lift this up.
17:05We're going to add the flour and the baking powder all in.
17:10OK.
17:11This one goes back down.
17:13And while that is mixing, I'm going to use a microplane and a lemon.
17:18I'm going to go just on top and gently just work the lemon on the microplane.
17:26You can do this before.
17:27You can do this after.
17:28As long as we get a little bit of the lemon zest inside our beautiful cake.
17:32And that's it.
17:33Everything looks nice and combined.
17:36The cake batter is ready to go.
17:37I've got my beautiful pears.
17:39I'm going to drain them a little bit from this water and lemon solution.
17:43And now I'm just going to fold that through just like so.
17:48Now, I've got my round, beautiful cake tin lined up, ready to go.
17:52And now it's just this simple.
17:54We're going to go straight in the middle of it.
17:57And I'm going to spread this out a little bit here.
18:00So once I get to this stage, that's where I want to go in with my ricotta-saffron mixture.
18:07So the idea is quite simple.
18:10Just a few dollops here and there.
18:11And then back with my spoon.
18:14That's it.
18:15And now the second layer of the cake goes on top.
18:18All in one go like that.
18:19Again, same as before.
18:21Like I really want the two of them to combine really well.
18:26And still, the saffron will come through with all of these beautiful layering of ricotta, the batter, and the pears.
18:36Okay.
18:37And now the last final bit of these dollops.
18:42And last, we got a little bit of raw sugar to go on top.
18:47This will kind of make it caramelize a little bit on top and give it a very crispy top.
18:53I preheated my beautiful oven at 180 degrees.
18:57We're going to kiss this goodbye for about 40 to 45 minutes.
19:00And meanwhile, we'll be churning the gelato.
19:12And here's my saffron and extra virgin olive oil castor.
19:17So now I'm going to carefully remove this from the ice bath.
19:22Nice and chilled.
19:23I'll do the cooler disease and the quicker will churn into the churner.
19:28So what I'm going to do, I'm going to put this down, turn this on.
19:33And now gently, I'm going to pick up the custard and pour it in.
19:38That's what this attachment is for.
19:40Just to make sure that I don't make too much of a mess.
19:43Meanwhile, my cake is cooking, so everything is under control.
19:51The cake looks fantastic.
19:52It's still a little bit warm, but we let it settle a little bit.
19:55I'm going to open the tin.
19:58Okay.
19:59Now we're going to peel this off.
20:02Yep.
20:03Looks pretty good.
20:04Oh, wow.
20:04Can you see the saffron already?
20:06There's some of the bits of ricotta with saffron.
20:09This is exactly what I'm looking for.
20:11So just to soften the crust, you just want to melt some butter, unsalted butter, and then
20:17gently just paint it all over.
20:21Now to make it look even extra pretty, we've got a little bit of icing sugar.
20:25And now I'm going to cut this in half, totally in half, just for you to see what's in the
20:30inside.
20:32Oh, it's very soft.
20:33So I really need a sharp knife that can cut through it.
20:37Okay.
20:38Ready?
20:39One, two.
20:39One, two.
20:40And there you have it.
20:42Still smoking.
20:43Plenty of ricotta.
20:45You get the yellow, the saffron, and the random pears.
20:48So what I'm doing now, cutting a beautiful slice, putting my beautiful cake.
20:53It feels so soft and so moist.
20:56Of course, the ricotta and the fruit in there.
20:58Then we're going to go with our beautiful saffron and extra virgin olive oil gelato just
21:04next to the cake, just like so.
21:06A little bit more icing sugar on top of my beautiful cake and a little drizzle of honey.
21:14Now, come on.
21:15How good does this look?
21:17This is the perfect way to finish an epic episode about saffron.
21:21We started with a traditional saffron risotto with our porcini mushroom.
21:25We did that beautiful pan and pasta dish, so simple, with the crumbled prosciutto and
21:30artichokes.
21:31And here it's a double up.
21:32We got pears ricotta in a cake with saffron in a saffron and extra virgin olive oil to die
21:39for.
21:39Please, guys, if you haven't really cooked much with saffron, get on it.
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