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Cacio e Pepe
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To my granddaughter, wishing that you
may finally find a husband, I leave you my
recipe for Cacio e Pepe:

-Crush peppercorns with a pan, then fill
the pan with water.

-Salt the water until it tastes of the sea,
then boil it.

-Place into the water enough spaghetti to
feed a strong Italian man and cook until al
dente.

-Drain all but a ladle of water, then
add the peppercorns and enough pecorino
to kill a donkey.

Stir and serve with a kiss to the forehead.

Ingredients:

400 g spaghetti
2 tsp peppercorns
150 g pecorino
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Saltimbocca alla Romana

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Giovanni,
Here is a recipe suggestion for you. I tasted
this when I visited the Lombardi region last
spring.

It was delicious!

-Antonio
Ingredients:

4 veal cutlets
4 prosciutto slices
4 sage sprigs
100 g butter
glass of white wine
salt and pepper to taste

Season veal cutlets with salt and pepper. Place
a sprig of sage over each cutlet, followed by a
slice of prosciutto, then skewer them with a
toothpick to hold the ingredients together.

Saute the cutlets in butter. Add a dash of white
wine and let it evaporate.

There you have it – a simple and tasty dish.
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Risotto ai Funghi

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Risotto ai funghi recipe. Do not touch!
-Giovanni

Pick some fresh chanterelles in the forest.
Clean and slice. Heat a pot of vegetable
broth and infuse with dried porcini. Melt
some butter in a wide pan and saute
chopped onion. Add rice to the pan and
stir.

Once it has changed color, pour in a dash
of white wine, and let it evaporate. Now,
ladle the pan with broth a little at a time.
Stir continuously. In a separate pan, saute
chopped garlic and shallots until fragrant,
then add the chanterelle and stir until
they’ve released all moisture.

Once the risotto is creamy, mix in grated
parmesan. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve
in a bowl with the sauteed chanterelles and
sprinkle fresh parsley on top.

Ingredients:

Lots of butter
1 onion
400 g rice
A glass of white wine
2 to 2.5 litre vegetable broth
80 g porcini, dried
2 garlic cloves
2 shallots
250 g chanterelles
200 g grated parmesan
Salt and pepper
Fresh parsley
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Fattah

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Shoukry,
You will help me make fattah for the
celebration of Assia’s first childbirth. Look
at the list of ingredients. Don’t forget to
buy! And do not deviate from the
instructions like last time. It was a disaster!

Instructions:
Cook chunks of lamb in a large pot of
water for 2 to 3 hours until tender. Save
the flavorful broth when it’s done!

Simmer rice in a pot of water with oil
and salt for about 20 minutes.

Fattah sauce! Saute crushed garlic and
pureed tomato. Add salt and pepper,
vinegar – taste and adjust as needed.
Simmer until the sauce thickens.

Brush baladi bread with butter and bake it
until it is crisp.

Make garlic dakka – saute chopped garlic
in oil and add some vinegar and cumin
and some water, then cook it for a few
minutes.

Layer crisp baladi, garlic dakka, rice,
then drizzle fattah sauce and finally
spread the lamb chunks on top. Then
you take a big spoon of flavorful lamb
broth and pour over everything.

Drizzle some more fattah sauce over
and serve the guests cups of extra
fattah and dakka sauce.

Ingredients

(this serves 6 – adjust to the size of the party)
1 kg chunks of lamb meat
About 3 litres of water
1 onion
3 bay leaves
6 cardamom pods
Salt

Rice:
500 g rice
5 dl water
salt
1 dl vegetable oil

Bread:
4 baladi breads, cut into squares

Fattah sauce:
12 garlic cloves
1.5 dl vinegar
1 litre pureed tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste

Garlic dakka:
5 garlic cloves
1 dl vinegar
pinch of ground cumin
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Hamam Mashi

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Dear granddaughter,

Your mother told me you wanted the recipe
for my Hamam Mashi. Just follow my
instructions and it will be wonderful!

First, fry onions with butter and mastic.
When translucent, add offal and spices
and cook until the meat is brown. Add
washed rice and mint and toast for a
while.

Stuff the rice mixture into the pigeons.
Make sure to get stuffing beneath the
skin or it will not be good! Seal the
opening in the birds or the stuffing
will leak.

Boil them in water with onions and
spices until the birds are flexible. Do
not throw the water away! It is
delicious stock and should be treasured.

Fry the birds in oil until crispy all over, then
serve and enjoy!

Ingredients:

3 small pigeons

For the stuffing:
The offal from the pigeons
1/2 onion
1 tbsp butter
1 pieces of mastic
salt and black pepper to taste, one cardamom pod and a sprinkle of grated nutmeg
175g rice
1 tsp mint

For the stock:
1 onion, 1 bay leaves, 1 garlic cloves, a teaspoon of black peppercorns, three cardamom pods
2 litres of water
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Ful Medames

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I was having breakfast at the wife’s family
home, and watched her mother make her
famous ful. I finally have the recipe! Now I
can have it for breakfast without having to
listen to my father-in-law rant about the
British. I thought you’d want to know it too.

Soak the fava beans in water overnight.
Cook the fava beans with water, tomato
and cumin in your idra until they are tender
and you can bite through the skin. This will
take many hours, so best to get up very
early to start it. Don’t worry, it’s worth the
trouble.

Take the cooked beans and some of the
liquid and add diced onion, tomato and
chili and a clove of minced garlic. Mix in
salt, cumin and black pepper and the juice
of a lemon, along with some of your best
olive oil.

Now for the secret ingredient. You’ll never
guess what it is. She finely chops and
mashes pasterma into tahini and mixes
that in at the end. That’s why it always
tastes so meaty and rich.

Don’t tell her that I told you, or she’ll
whip me with that broom again!

Ingredients:

250 g dry fava beans, soaked overnight

Cook with:
Enough water to cover
1 tomato
1 tsp cumin seeds

Reserve liquid and combine beans with:
3 tablespoons of the cooking liquid
1 diced onion
1/2 tomato
1 chili
1 clove garlic
Salt, cumin, black pepper to taste
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsp olive oil
30 g diced pasterma
1 teaspoon tahini
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Xiaolongbao

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These famous dumplings from Nanxiang
are delicious and soothing for the soul.

First, prepare the aspic. Simmer chicken
bones for an hour. Clean chicken feet,
then add to the pot. Simmer for two hours
until the bone starts to break down. Filter
the broth and let it cool to become a gel.

Combine minced chicken meat, shaoxing
wine, sugar, salt, light soy sauce, sesame
oil, white pepper, minced ginger, and 3 dl
aspic. Mix everything together well and
keep cool.

Next we make the dumpling skin. Mix
flour, salt, and water until everything
comes together nicely. Let it rest for 15
minutes beneath cover. Roll it out into a
cylinder shape, then cut into smaller
pieces. Make disc shapes from each piece.
Keep under damp cloth while you make
the dumplings.

Put a tablespoon of filling in the middle of
the dumpling skin. As you cover the filling,
pleat the skin with multiple folds until it
looks like a little bag. Make the rest of the
dumplings.

Steam the dumplings and serve with a
dipping sauce consisting of zhenjiang
vinegar and finely sliced ginger. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

For the aspic:
A dozen chicken feet
1.5 kg chicken bones
Water to cover
1 roughly chopped scallion stalk
Handful of sliced ginger
1 tbsp Salt
1 tsp white peppercorns

For the filling:
450 g minced chicken
2 tbsp shaoxing wine
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3 tsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
Pinch of white pepper
1 tbsp minced ginger
3 dl aspic

For the dumpling skin:
150 g flour
1 dl warm water
Pinch of salt
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Thot Man Pla

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Remember to eat, my dear Nephew. Your mind
needs food to function properly.

This is how you prepare fish cakes:

Catch a good bounty of clown featherback fish.
Fillet the fish, then turn it into a paste. Add red
curry, fish sauce, chopped kaffir lime leaves,
sliced green beans, holy basil and egg. Mix
well with your hand, then slap it until firm.

Fry the fishcakes in plenty of oil. Cook until
golden, then let drain.

How to make the dipping sauce:

Pound chilis and garlic to a fine paste. Add
a splash of water, vinegar, salt, and lots of
sugar, then mix well until the sugar is
dissolved. Let the mix simmer for a little bit.

When serving the fish cakes, pour the chili
sauce in a bowl of sliced cucumber, sliced
shallots, and roasted peanuts. Dip the fish
cakes in the sauce and enjoy!

Ingredients:

For the fish cakes
500 g clown featherback fish
3 tbsp red curry
2 egg yolks
2 tsp sugar
1.5 dl green beans
0.5 dl holy basil
7 sliced kaffir lime leaves
1 tbsp fish sauce

For the chili sauce
4 garlic cloves
Plenty of chili (I know you like it spicy!)
1 dl sugar
0.75 dl vinegar
Pinch of salt
0.5 dl water
cucumber
shallots
roasted peanuts
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Tom Yum Goong

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Wattana,

That rude German asked for food. Because
I want to watch him burn, we will make my
famous Tom Yum Goong.

This is how you do it. You prepare a batch
of shrimp, and make stock out of the shells
and heads.

Strain out the bits and add three stalks of
lemongrass, seven lime leaves, a large
root worth of ground galangal, and twenty
roughly chopped chilies (including seeds).

After five minutes add the shrimp and take
off the heat.

Add chili paste, fish sauce and lime juice
until it tastes right.

Serve and watch him squirm.

Ingredients:

Go to the market and shop this:
15 shrimps
3 stalks of lemongrass
7 lime leaves
Thumbsized root of galangal, sliced
Normally I would use 10 chilies – double this
Chili paste (until it is spicy enough)
3 tbs fish sauce
Juice from 4 limes
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Pla Pao

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Noo,

This fishing rod is now yours. Even if your
father never showed you how to fish, you will
learn. When you catch a big one, here’s my
recipe for grilling it:

Gut and clean the fish without slicing open
the belly, and leave the scales on. Stuff the
fish with a few stalks of lemongrass and a
handful of lime leaves. Then cover it in a
shell of coarse salt that has been mixed
with a bit of water and flour and cook it
over a low fire for about 30 minutes on
each side depending on the size of your
fish.

While the fish is cooking, make a sauce.
First you pound garlic and bird’s eye chilies
to a paste. Then you combine the paste
with fish sauce, lime juice, a little water
and sugar.

Once it is cooked, cut open and eat the
flesh with the sauce and a bowl of steamed
rice. It is fresh and simple food, unlike what
you’re used to eating in Krung Thep!

Good luck,
Sunan

Ingredients:

4 whole fish
A dozen lemon grass stalks
A handful of lime leaves

Salt layer:
2 tbs of flour
1 tbs of water
500 g coarse salt

Seafood sauce:
Two dozen garlic cloves
Double the amount of bird’s eye chilies
1 dl lime juice
0.5 dl fish sauce
3 tbs water
1.5 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
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Mersu

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To please the King, we make Mersu.
You grind pistachios. You deseed and
pound dates. You mix date paste with
pistachios. You take a bit of mixture and
form into balls in your palm. You roll the
balls in chopped pistachios. This we call
Mersu, meal for the King.

Sounds simple, but delicious. We have the
ingredients, so I will try to recreate this dish
tomorrow. Perhaps even Voss would like to
taste it.

Estimated measurements for making 10-15 balls.

Ingredients:

5 dl fresh dates
5 dl pistachios
1 dl finely chopped pistachios (for coating)
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i have not cooked any of these and the images are just ones i grabbed offline that i assume are correct. feel free to correct me if im wrong.
wanted to cook SOME of the meals at some point.