Banana Nutella Tempura

Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy and Michelle from Bleeding Espresso (and Shelley from At Home in Rome, in spirit) solemnly declare Thursday, February 5th “World Nutella Day 2009″ - a day to celebrate, to get creative with, and most importantly, to EAT Nutella.

There you have it, in a nutshell, what Nutella Day is all about. Nicolas and I participated last year with a couple of recipes, and we had a lot of fun doing it. This year, this recipe, is solely my fault! You wouldn't want a young boy deep frying anything, will you? He is happy to be my main taster though.

I have to be honest with you, this recipe is a hit with my tastebuds, but it is not a good looking, photogenic, piece of cooking. I have some suggestions at the end, which I will try next time. I was happily making some tempura vegetables the other night, when it occurred to me that I could try frying the bananas with the extra batter (my Colombian readers could relate: aborrajados!!!) Then, another bolt of lightning stroke me, and Nutella became an essential ingredient for this experiment.


Ingredients

1 egg
250 ml ice cold water
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour

5 or 6 medium size bananas
Nutella (about 3 Tablespoons per banana)
Vegetable oil (for frying)


Peel and cut the bananas into long slices. Apply the Nutella in between, secure with a toothpick. When all the bananas are assembled, place them in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.


Heat the oil on a deep fryer, or a frying pan to about 375 F. Mix all the batter ingredients together with a whisk until free of lumps. Do not let it stand long. Deep the banana-Nutella sandwiches into the batter, and fry them until golden. (Some Nutella melted away, making the oil dark, and the tempura batter darker.)


That is it! Eat warm and enjoy. My suggested alternative would be to fry the battered bananas without Nutella, and to add warm Nutella as a sauce over them. Sounds doable, doesn't it?

La cucina di Nicola: Chocolate chip - Nutella cookies

Welcome back to "La Cucina di Nicola," we have a delicious recipe for you. As it happens World Nutella Day is almost here (February 5.) Its creators Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy and Michelle from Bleeding Espresso (and Shelley from At Home in Rome, in spirit) have challenged every Nutella lover out there to join in the celebration. You can read more about it here. Personally I would like to invite my friend Paola to participate, as I am sure she will come up with something absolutely glorious for all to try. If you have never visited her blog before, you are up for a treat.
Of course we had to participate as we are HUGE Nutella fans (I don't mean it literally, but if we keep celebrating I could just as well mean it!) We invited Nicolas' good friend Gabriel to join us this time. The two of them were very excited by the possibilities of adding Nutella to a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe. It took some brainstorming to figure out how we were going to include the creamy hazelnut spread, at the end we chose two different options. On the first one we made a thumbprint in the center of each cookie, and then we dropped a dollop of Nutella in there, stirring a little for cohesion purposes. On the second one we decided to add the Nutella to the dough leaving streaks of chocolate color in it. We all liked the second option the best!

CHOCOLATE CHIP-NUTELLA COOKIES


3/4 Cup granulated sugar
3/4 Cup packed brown sugar
1 Cup of margarine and/or butter, melted
1 egg
2.1/4 Cups of flour, sifted
1 Teaspoon baking soda
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
1.1/2 Cups chocolate chips
Nutella, as needed

First, heat the oven to 375.

In a bowl add both sugars and the melted margarine/butter, mix at low speed for about three minutes until creamy. Add egg and vanilla and mix again.

On another bowl mix flour, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones and stir with a wooden spoon. Dough will be stiff (Nicolas needed some help with the stirring.) Stir in the chocolate chips. (At this point you can also add some Nutella to the dough, just don't mix it all the way, you want a "marble" effect.)

Drop rounded tablespoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet, about 3 inches apart. Use the palm of your hand to flatten them some.

Bake until light brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Let them cool slightly and remove to a cookie rack.

I would like to thank Maña for sending us a fabulous care package that included chocolate chips and vanilla extract, and my friend Debbie for providing the brown sugar and a simple recipe to start from. Thanks!

La cucina di Nicola: Crepes with nutella and banana

Welcome to Nicolas' kitchen! My son and I have started "cooking lessons" together; I am the teacher and he is my only student. I singlehandedly decided that this was a good idea, and Nico is willing to give it a try. I want him to learn, but mostly I want him to enjoy cooking. Based on this premise, recipes are chosen solely by Nico and I should warn you: there would be lots and lots of desserts. Wednesday afternoons are from now on, our time to make something together (and eat it together.)
I will share each recipe with you on Thursday.
So without further ado, our first installment of "La cucina di Nicola"



CREPES WITH NUTELLA AND BANANA
(Makes around 20 crepes)
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
3 eggs
2 cups milk
2 oz unsalted butter, melted

Mix all dry ingredients in a big bowl and make a well in the center.

In a second bowl beat the eggs (this is fun!) and add 1 cup of the milk a little at a time. Incorporate. Pour this mixture into the larger bowl with the flour and whisk (at full kid's speed) until there are no lumps in the batter. Now, add the melted butter and the rest of the milk a little at a time.

Here is the secret to great crepes: let the batter stand for at least an hour. Believe me, you are better off leaving it alone.

Now for the cooking... You will need a flat non-stick pan. They sell special crepe pans, but we use our seasoned and trustworthy cast iron skillet. It NEVER sticks, it is flat and wide, but it is heavy. Nicolas did a great job at lifting it to spread the batter evenly all over the surface. Good workout!

Heat the skillet (add a dab of butter if needed) and pour enough batter to cover the entire surface evenly. If you pour too much, you can always pour off the excess batter. You want thin crepes. Cook over moderate heat until the pancake comes loose when the pan is shaken. Flip with a spatula (another highlight of our class) and cook the other side for about a minute.

We had pre-warmed our nutella in the microwave (but you can use a double boiler to keep it warm) and we had some bananas already cut into slices. Chef Nick spread nutella over half of the crepe, and added the banana onto a quarter of it. He then folded in half, then again. He added some whipped cream and cocoa powder on top (It looks so much better mom!)

This is it! Simple and delicious.

World Nutella Day