Recipes from a depleted store cupboard

Dandelion (dant y llew) is a diuretic, isn’t it? Hence the Welsh folk name blodyn pipi’n y gwely. :slight_smile:

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…and in French It’s “piss-en-lit” / “Wee-wee-in-bed” :grin:

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Sorrel (acetosa) and nettles (ortiche) both make excellent additions to soups and salads. The nettles must be picked (carefully) when they are young.

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Ortiche/nettles, we use it soups here too, and also risotto!
I remember nettles well, because they’re pretty common and I’ve had several unwanted encounters during pic nics, walks etc! :grimacing:

I have to go see what sorrel/acetosa is cause I don’t remember it right away.

Dandelion:
every time I hear the English I just automatically think of the Rolling Stones. :laughing:
The Welsh is way more similar to Italian (dente di leone)

I didn’t remember that peculiar thing about the dandelion. But I’ve just found out there’s a similar name in Italian (piscialetto) and even Piedmontese (pissalet and also pissacan - which translates as wee-wee-dog, not sure why!)

So many different things we’re learning on this Forum!

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To continue with the “wonder of words”, :smiley: the English word comes from the French “dent de lion” which is common to many languages. I believe it refers to the outline of the leaves.

I wonder if you can find out the commitment of your amore in Italy as children do in the UK. You blow on the seeds (see picture) until all the seeds have been blown away and, on each successive blow you say either he/she loves me or he/she loves me not. If your final blow to clear the stem coincides with he/she loves me not, you’d better start looking for someone else. This, in fact, is the prime method of dispersing dandelion seeds in the UK. :rofl:

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Afterthought. In France, girls (mostly) recite “Il m’aime un peu, beaucoup, passionellement, pas du tout” / “He loves me a little, a lot, passionately, not at all” while plucking petals from a certain flower (can’t remember which). :grin:

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This flower:
bellis-perennis-pratolina-600x400

In Italy we don’t have nuances, like in the UK, just “m’ama, non m’ama”.
Er…one (poor) flower after the other until desired result is achieved. :face_with_hand_over_mouth:
(the previous ones must have been mistaken.) :pleading_face:

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In English, it’s pretty much the same as Italian - it’s in French you have the nuances. :smile:

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Diolch yn fawr am hynny, Rob. I’m a big offal fan ,but have found it more and more difficult to find since mad cow legislation. I went a while back into the reputedly best butchers in Aber and asked for tripe and they were very sniffy. I asked where else I could try and the owner said “a pet shop”. I used some of my more exotic Welsh and left (not been back since). My local butcher in Tregaron, though, goes out of his way to get anything I want including sweetbreads (pancreas or thymus glands - NOT testicles) and hearts and all the ingredients for faggots (even haggis) but I don’t want to bother him at the moment. Liver and kidneys are always available, though.

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Heart takes me back to my childhood. We weren’t poor, but we were a traditional country family with habits handed down from previous generations who had had to live on whatever the people in the big house didn’t want. So, offal, rabbit, even pigeon. Seems crazy now that this was only fifty years ago, but there we are.

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Same in Italy! But also 40, 30 years ago very common in any country-rooted family I can tell for sure.
And don’t forget frogs, snails, eels… :laughing:

By the way (apart from a few years when mad cow was all over the news), most of those…well…ingredients can be found fairly easily in shops and several traditional restaurants over here.

This is today’s offering “Pitsa gyda phopeth i Bawb” / “Pizza con tutto per tutti” :grin: It’s got Mozzarella, Salami Milanese, Olives, Anchovies, Artichoke hearts, grilled peppers and, above all, my home-made Saws Tomato Huw / Salsa pomodoro di Hugo. I had to leave a segment anchovy free for my granddaughter.
The one thing I have never mastered is how to get my pizza base thin enough - I don’t have the courage to spin the dough on my finger :smile: Any tips?

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Pizza con tutto per tutti is a bit too messy for my taste. :laughing:
But it looks tasty and Saws Tomato Huw just fine :+1: and…as long as those who eat it are happy it’s good, isn’t it? :wink:

BTW you know the most classic misunderstanding for Italians abroad and foreigners in Italy, right? Pepperoni vs peperoni?

As far as making pizza base thin, sorry me got no tips.

By the way, over here for us from Gog Eidal, classic home pizza and childhood memories pizza is not Napolitan pizza (thin and round), but pizza rossa:
baked in a tin, thicker and just tomato and oil on top - like the one I did or even more often square/rectangular shaped.
Next time, I’ll take a photo of how thick it actually is to give you an idea for comparison!

Also old ladies from Campania make thicker pizzas at home cause standard ovens cannot reach high temperature to cook it in about a minute and a very thin pizza tends to get too dry and hard or “cracker”-like instead of soft as it should!

But you can try some spinning just for the fun!

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Don’t use fingers but knuckles! Get it thin by pushing your fingers into the centre while it’s on a surface, then when the big bubbles are gone pick it up and hold it with two fists and slowly pull it while rotating. Hard to explain without showing it :smiley:

Another way is to have a large bowl upside down with already fairly thin dough on it and pull the edges down carefully to stretch (working your way round the pizza)

Also for anyone who is interested, you can make a pretty good thin neapolitan pizza by putting the pizza in a Crêpe pan and first cooking the bottom quickly on the stove and then holding the pan right under the grill (you’ll have to actually hold it there, not just put it in the oven). Hold it there until the cheese is just melted and the crust has black spots. Will definitely need some experimenting to see what works with your kitchen.

These are excllent tips - grazie tanto. :smiley:

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Vintage “pizza rossa del panettiere” style test!

A bit too thick, and forgot the olew olewydd before taking the pics, but to give an idea of what I meant when I said I don’t make pizza very thin!

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Pitsa blasus iawn :yum:

As far as thickness is concerned it’s just a matter of taste. I prefer my pizza base thin whether I’m in Napoli or Ystrad Meurig. I’m looking forward to applying @Novem 's tips next time I make them and then I might open a Pizzeria / Pitsaty. :laughing:

As you may know, there are a host of takeaway Pizza chains in the UK but I haven’t found one I like mainly because of the thick base problem. The best pizze I have tasted in the UK (after my own :grin:) are in an Italian restaurant near my daughter’s home in Tottenham, London. They have a proper Pizza oven and they like cooking for “Il Gallese”.

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