Gurto
Family
Recipes
Recent Uploads
These are some of the most recently posted family recipes
Traditional Favourites
These are the recipes that we remember from our childhood.
Snacks, Appetisers and Antipasti
From anti pasti to chips and dips. Great to serve before the main meal
Soups
From a traditional first course, to hearty main dish stews. Soups are best on cold days, or for a light lunch.
Salads and Dressings
Hot, Cold, Simple, Compound and everything in between. The varieties of salads are endless.
And a yummy dressing is what makes salads special.
Pasta
Pasta is traditionally the first formal course of an Italian meal, before the main course is served. For a banquet the range of dishes included in this category can include, Pasta, Risotto, Potatoes, Polenta just to name a few.
Main courses
The main course is usually the star of the show. Usually the meat dish, although many delicious non-meat main courses are popular.
Side Dishes
These are the food items that are served along side the main course. They often include hot vegetable dishes.
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Dolce - Sweets and Desserts
Dolce is the sweetest part of the menu. The numerous sugary sweets that we would all like ‘just a taste of”.
Sauces, Condiments and Miscellaneous
These accompaniments not only enhance, but sometimes make the dish.
Never Waste Bread
Stale bread has many uses; it can be used in soups (Tuscan Bean) or Salads (Panzanella) It can be made into breadcrumbs – Soft breadcrumbs are used in meatballs and dry breadcrumbs can be used as a coating for fried items. .
Types of Flour
Strong flour – also known as 00 flour or bread flour has strong gluten proteins. Gluten is what allows dough to stretch and capture CO2 from yeast, so it is best for successful breads and pizza dough.
Plain flour is suited to cakes and pastries.
Self-raising flour is simply plain flour with baking powder added.
Yeast
Yeast are single-celled microorganisms that multiply quickly with warm water and sugar. The more yeast a recipe calls for, the faster the dough will rise, smaller amounts of yeast will rise more slowly, but produce more flavour.
Quick Breads
Quick breads are made without yeast. They rely on baking powder or baking soda to rise.
Common Quick Breads include: Banana Bread, Corn Bread, Waffles, Pancakes, Muffins and Biscuits (Scones)
The Italian Meal
The traditional Italian Meal has 9 ‘courses’:
- Apertivo – Drink before dinner
- Anti pasto – Appetisers before the meal
- Primo – This is the Pasta course
- Secondo – This is the main course, usually the meat dish.
- Contorni – These are the side dishes, usually the hot vegetables.
- Dolce – Sweets or dessert
- Frutta and Fromagi – Fruit and Cheese
- Digestivo – After dinner drink, usually grappa or limoncello
- Caffe – Coffee
Antipasti (before the pasta)
Consists of assorted cold meats, cheeses, stuffed vegetables, crostini, breads, olives and more.
How to make fresh pasta
1 egg to every 100gm (4 oz) bread flour
I usually mix mine in a food processor for 30 seconds or so then knead it for a few minutes. Then put through a pasta roller, starting thick then going thinner and thinner. The dough will form a velvety texture.
Traditionally dough was made by putting the flour on the table, making a well, adding the egg(s) to the center and incorporating the flour with a knife until a dough is formed, then kneading it.
The Italians traditionally kneaded their dough on a wooden table or a tablcloth to develop a texture in the dough that would better absorb the sauce.
Other 'Primi' dishes
Although Primo refers to the pasta course, in a large Italian banquet, other starchy foods are also served at this time. They include; potatoes, risotto, polenta, gnocchi, lasagna, ravioli, rice, etc.
Video Recipes
Sometimes it helps to watch someone actually making the dish.