transcultural communication meets Italian food

Passport & Plate - zucchini filled with polenta

Austria | Friday, March 14, 2014 | 3 photos

Ingredients
For the stuffing:

30g dried yellow boletos

50g celery stalks

150g carrots

100g spring onions

1 garlic clove

1/2 of red paprika

2 tablespoons olive oil

100g polenta

400ml vegetable stock

1 tablespoons fresh chopped thyme leaflets

1/2 tablespoons fresh chopped rosemary

1 tablespoons salt and white pepper

In addition:

20g butter flakes

50g fresh grated parmesan

as decoration a branch of parsley

 

How to prepare this recipe
Step 1 preparation:

Cut off the zucchini stipes, cut them in half lengthways and hollow them out with a spoon. Use the

pulp later on for the stuffing. Wash all the vegetables, peel the carrots and the garlic and chop everything into small cubes.

Step 2 cooking:

Heat olive oil in big pan and light steam carrots, dried yellow boletos, zucchini, celery, garlic and spring onions and add polenta, vegetable stock. Let everything boil up briefly and soak the polenta covered up at low heat for further 15min. Add thyme, rosemary, salt and white pepper.

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Pour the stuffing into a casserole over the zucchini halfs and dredge it with parmesan and butter flakes.

Let it bake until the polenta stuffing is golden brown and crispy. (~25min).

 

The story behind this recipe
Dear Judging Panel,

My name is Nora Negrea, I am 20 years old and I am a student from Vienna, Austria.
These are the hard facts which I have to cover at the beginning before I continue to tell a little bit about myself and my super delicious recipe.
Although the deadline is going to expire already tomorrow, a good friend of mine has sent me a link for this sensational opportunity to win a scholarship in Italy in short-term.
As I was reading through the description for Passport&Plate: Italy 2014, I got more and more excited because I could not believe how much it suits me, I am going to stress that below.

But now to my multicultural recipe: Why multicultural? Because for me it unites France, Italy and Spain. The celery stalks, the olive oil and the aromatic parmesan (which is by the way my favourite cheese) imported from Italy, the flavoursome garlic, thyme and rosemary, which are typical for Southern France (Le Midi) and the creamy, soft polenta, which is a classic basic ingredient in Spain, combine a cheap, healthy, quick and super delicious vitamin bomb.
The story behind this recipe is that I am studying transcultural communication with German, English, Italian and French. Preferably also Spanish but I will start learning this language someday step by step. For now, I should be satisfied with my 6 languages that I speak.
Because I was raised trilingual (Romanian, Hungarian and German) I learn easily languages, plus I am very interested in different cultures, in travelling and of course my big love for: fooood!
This recipe might not be the most elaborated but for me it is special because I love bringing diversity and experiments into my daily life and every time a dish succeeds I share it with my friends.
This is exactly what represents me: trying to make the best out of simple ingredients or even difficult situations in life.