Manuela Darling-Gansser Recipes

POLLO CAPRICCIOSO  (capricious chicken) for six  people

Ingredients:
5 organic chicken breasts
1 red capsicum
1 yellow capsicum
2-3 celery sticks
2-3 carrots
1 young ice berg lettuce or radicchio
1 small bunch of baby rocket leaves
1/2 cup pine-nuts, lightly toasted
2 cups home made mayonnaise

Marinade:
1/2 cup virgin olive oil
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 garlic coves, crushed
1 chilly, thinly sliced ( optional)
2-3 fresh bay leaves

Method:
Mix together all the marinade ingredients in a shallow dish and marinate the chicken breasts for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius.

Heat a large iron griddle or pan and sear the chicken breasts to brown them, then finish off in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes, or until done.

Cut all the vegetables into thin julienne strips.

On your serving dish arrange the baby iceberg or radicchio leaves.  

Mix the celery and carrots with 1/2 a cup of your mayonnaise and place onto the leaves, followed by the capsicums.

Cut the cooled chicken breasts into 2 cm slices, arrange them on the vegetables, salt and pepper them.

Put a handful of rocket leaves on top of the chicken and lastly scatter the pine nuts and chilly over.

Serve the remaining mayonnaise on the side.

 
For dessert Manuela Darling-Gansser has chosen a moist ricotta cake.  This recipe is out of her book, 'Spring in Sicily':

TORTA ORNELLA (ricotta, almonds and lemon cake)
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius.

Ingredients:
400 grams ricotta
250 grams almonds, roasted and then ground
70 grams self raising flour
250 grams unsalted butter at room temperature
250 grams of caster sugar
Six organic eggs, separated
finely grated zest of five organic lemons and juice of 4 lemons one pinch of salt
Butter a 25 cm  round cake tin.

Method:

Beat the butter and sugar with your electric beater, until light and fluffy, then add one egg yolk at the time, beating constantly.

Combine the almond meal, lemon peel, flour and fold into sugar, butter and egg yolk mixture.

Combine the ricotta with the lemon juice and with a whisk, whisk it to a light and airy consistency. Fold it in with the rest of the cake batter.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks.  

Fold them carefully in with the rest of the cake mixture.

Now pour the mixture into the buttered cake tin and bake in a preheated oven for about 50 minutes.

Test by inserting a skewer into the cake, it should come out clean Remove the cake from the tin and let it cool on a cake rack.

This cake will remain nice and moist for a few days.