It doesn’t get more authentic than this Italian dish! Hailing from the beautiful streets of Venice, Rebetzin Shachar Banin has hosted and nourished thousands at their Chabad Center and two restaurants in the city. Today, she teams up with Naomi to chat about Jewish life in Venice while preparing a simple yet incredibly flavorful dish of fondi di carciofi!
Get the recipe https://www.kosher.com/recipe/fondi-di-carciofi-artichoke-bottoms-with-vinaigrette
[Music] you got this try again fondi fondi fondi deoi fondi deoi that’s pretty good hi I’m naami nashman and this is [Music] [Applause] [Music] sunny then venuti to Sunny Side Up and that means welcome to Sunny Side Up welcome to Sunny Side Up with Na and shakar banin I’m so happy to have you on the set this is Ritson shakar banin she’s actually the rabbitson of Venice kabad and she is joined us she came special to us today to film a great episode you are almost one of the iconic Ritson of this day and age you’ve hosted thousands of people that have come through Venice for a holiday and you’ve hosted them in your restaurant gumgum and the rabbi has taken care of them in the shaw you have really bought so much light to Venice and we’re really thrilled to have you on the show kind of you to say and I’m so happy to be here oh my goodness so I love Italian food and we’re going to make something today with two of my favorite ingredients tomatoes and Kopi that’s it right which is abolutely also AR chokes one of the famous vegetables that come from Italy so uh should we get cook absolutely let’s do it one of the things I love the most about artichokes is that it is a very versatile dish it’s really high in nutritional value packed with vitamins packed with minerals and nutrients it’s high in fiber and it’s one of those vegetables that you can make simply or really dress it up so we actually just going to use the oke stems what are they called stems the bases the bottoms are the bases okay it’s much easier cuz it’s very hard to peel and turn and it’s called Turning an out of Choke and it’s much easier to just to buy it Frozen it’s much you know no bugs to check just go straight into using the bottom so that’s what we’re going to do today it is an easy way to do it and when all of your guests do come and your viewers do come to Venice you can see as you walk down the Venetian streets because you can only walk there are no cars in Venice when you go down the street you can see the fru vendi the the people who are selling the vegetables they can cut artichokes really quickly they can cut a whole artichoke in under 10 seconds most of us it takes it’s a little bit longer to do but as Naomi said if you use the bases it makes it very easy and let’s go we’re going to cook the first thing you want to do is boil the artichoke bases so you can put them in some water to boil and what I like to do is to add a little bit of lemon juice they all go in you can do all of them yeah okay cuz I love AR CHS we’re just going to eat them on afterwards I love it I love it I add a little bit of lemon juice this is very important when you’re using yes when you use a fresh artichoke is very important but I always add it anyway it helps the artichoke retain its color right cuz they do go Brown like an apple so you always want to work very quickly with ar chokes ex exactly so while these are boiling it takes about 10 to 15 minutes it’s on high and you want to boil them until they’re fork tender so we have a little bit of time and in the meantime we can make the Tomato vinegar the SAU tomato it’s tomato when it’s sunny side yeah the tomato and fond we’re Lear I’m learning Italian and you’re learning Australian yes there you go so we want to use some extra virgin olive oil okay with uh some onions should I so I’m going to start eating perfect how much a lot am I generous so that’s a pretty good amount okay good we’re going to kind of eyeball everything I could drink this off a spoon it’s really smooth and delicious I love it very very nice so you want to add some onion probably for the quantity that we’re going to use um maybe half of that okay half of this okay terrific I’m going to let this get nice and hot how long has the kabad center been open we are there about 30 years wow it’s a long time yeah time really flies when you’re having fun okay having fun I like to hear that cuz you work really hard yes okay so you want to do you don’t want to caramelize the onion but you want to cook it until it’s translucent and a little sweaty you don’t want it to stand out so much in the dish it’s obviously there to complement in the way that an onion does add that delicate sweetness to the dish you should know every recipe I say every good recipe starts with a lot of my viewers know this everything starts off we say an eish fried onion is the best so is this on what temperature have we got we can lower the temperature I’m going lower that temp because olive oil does burn fast but also we we just want it to be translucent more of a clear golden not so uh caramelized yes going to because we want the artichoke itself and the Tom and the little fresh parsley that we’ll put on top we want that to really stand out and be the star of the dish one of the things I love about this the most it’s as I said before you can keep it simple or you can dress it up and make it an elegant dish um but one of the things that I usually do is make double batch because not only is it wonderful as an appetizer or a side dish but it’s really great as a midday snack too so when you open the refrigerator and you’ve made a double batch and you have some extra for the next day it really reheats very well and easily and that’s a big plus for a lot of people you serve this at the restaurant a lot I I as one of I’ve been lucky enough to come to visit you quite a few times in Venice and I always order this dish um but when I asked you to prepare a recipe and you had to turn one of the recipes in to the producers of the show you like make these in huge batches right so we were saying before coming here together was saying that it’s hard to reduce something that makes like for a restaurant like yeah absolutely for hundred servings down to like eight right like for one for one recipe they said and what are the quantities and I said the quantities I don’t know I have to think about a little of this and a little of that especially when you make but with a restaurant you’ve got to be exact because you want it to come out every time right but you guys have done that through experience yeah consistency is very important in the restaurant how long have you had the restaurant for the restaurant is over 20 years by now so you you first you started the community the Shaw and then you started the restaurant and tell me a little bit more you have a fles Chic restaurant which is gum gum and you also have now a dairy one yeah for about 14 years or so we’ve had just a few doors down from gumgum there’s gum gum goodies which you can come early for breakfast and have cappuccino real Italian cappuccino and uh we have all kinds of cookies and baked goods and of course real Italian kosher pizza our pizzolo you know what a pizo is pizo is the pizza so our pizza YOLO has been making pizza for over 40 years so the person who makes the pizza is called a pizza YOLO yeah oh okay good to know everyone write that down and remember that I like that okay and so you’re going to get a real quality Italian product that also happens to be kosher okay we have sat we’ve taken your pizza we’ve sat we took it with us we sat in the ghetto and we just observed away what was going on around us and the the ghettos pronounced jetto right don’t you pronounce ghetto GTO came from the the Italian word jet which means to throw and the background is that the area was uh where there were iron foundaries where they would produce cannons and things of iron so in English you say like to cast iron to throw iron so in Italian it’s jet and the first person is jetto and from the dialect it became ghetto and so the word ghetto that the whole world knows actually originated from Italian from the ghetto in so from from about the 15th century right yeah from the 1500s to the 1800s so yeah we today we are doing history and cooking so the perfect combination okay these are nice and clear now yes it looks great so now you can just add in the rest of the ingredients we have some dry white wine and also some water so we’re going to create a sauce and we’ll wait for it to reduce a little bit oh watch this this is some very nice white wine okay it’s a cooking wine tuscanini from pedmont area very nice it’s pedmont far from Venice not so far Venice in general you know it’s not so huge Italy in general is not so huge right from the top to the bottom right yeah I’ve only done the north one day I’ll get to the South we have to make a girls trip we need a girls trip and then now that we’ve announced it you know then who’s coming with us and don’t have to worry go for it go ahead and add the liquid ingredients all this water of water well we’ll see go ahead and let’s see even a little bit more okay that’s good and maybe the same amount of wine and you can add in the fresh garlic hold on right so this was not all I didn’t use water I just I’ll eyeball it may I okay please don’t worry the recipe will all be up all measur so nice oh my God my is watering you can go ahead with the garlic you can put it all in there and for the salt I would put in I don’t know we’ll see we call it a Pito of Sal a little bit of salt P say it again pizo Pito pizo P okay another word we got to remember and we can crank on let’s crank on the gas a little bit more a little higher so that we can get this reduced and we’ll add add some gorgeous fresh chopped parsley I think there’s nothing nicer than using fresh herbs in Rees I love it really makes a difference and then garnish it with a leftover absolutely this already looks stunning and a lot of people think that you have to check and cut all the each time that you’re going to use but you can actually cut two or 3 days in advance and if you wrap it properly fresh herbs whether in um a damp uh paper towel and keep it in the refrigerator and I would even say fresh dill you can even freeze it believe it or not you know I’ve used it obviously it’s not as strong as when you buy it originally um fresh and you use it fresh but it it does last and in a place where in Venice I have trouble finding fresh dill so really there’s not a lot of fresh dill there’s not a lot of fresh dill I guess they’re just not making a lot of matab Bal soup around town yeah so do they what’s the hers that you find around or or what are the vegetables that you find around when you walk around well the artichokes are really popular all kinds of peppers in every shape and size and color of peppers you can find everywhere and you’ve probably seen down the streets they have them the the fruit and vegetable vendors they have the peppers in like bouquet they look like bouquet of flowers gorgeous unbelievable they are gorgeous I have I took a lot of photos when I was there last year but you know what I noticed in in Venice that you’re not allowed to touch maybe many other places it’s you’re not allowed to pick up the fruit and bag it yourself 100% so I started touching the vegetables so I could pick some to buy and then no no no they was screaming at me you you point to what you want and he touches it and bags it for you the the vegetable keeper yes and a lot of people think it’s because of hygiene but a lot of it has to do with when you actually touch the fruit and vegetables eventually you know similar to if if an apple gets dropped it gets a bruise so they want all the fruits and vegetables to stay as beautiful looking as they are delicious and for that alone it’s worth to come to Italy if you have a long weekend Thursday to even Monday it’s all you need to yeah and we have the prayer services three times a day in the kabad sh so everybody’s needs are met whatever they may be this is looking really really great I would go ahead and add a little bit more water if there’s anything left reduce the um go ahead and reduce the flame add in a little bit more cuz you want a little bit Li of liquid to be the dressing right yeah exactly because we don’t want it to be too thick so just like think you’re adding a lot of wine and with such a great product might as well okay I’m just yep go for it good it’s also well salted and we can also add a little bit of black pepper okay okay salt and pepper Basics yeah and um you can go ahead with the grinder and we want to grind it as thin as possible I use this a lot and I always try to have it on the smallest one maybe a lot of people don’t know that they can actually um adjust it yeah here’s the Turner here guys and I think there’s nothing nicer than fresh look how gorgeous this is you’ve got the golden color of all the liquids coming together the olive oil really sets the base for that you’ve got the gorgeous Reds the greens and you see how that’s the most prominent part the onion it just takes a little bit of a back seat so when you’re Kopi when the fondi are ready you can put those on the plate and then we’ll just pour this on top it’s that simple and from start to finish we’re talking about 15 minutes if you’re not chatting with a wonderful friend right exactly we met when my first came to Venice in 2011 and we’ve stayed in touch for many many years and during Corona we would actually talk on FaceTime uh what’s it on Instagram live and we you know we’ talk and get people involved and hearing what was going on because Italy was uh a little quiet from a vacation spot so we kept each other entertained as well let’s go ahead and take this off the flame put this over here just so it we don’t want it to reduce too much and um shut shut let’s get a fork and see if our Kopi are ready okay let’s let’s so you want to test one of the bigger ones okay my my my Fork went to the bottom perfect let’s go let’s plate it up I’m going to shut that off okay I’m going to put this over here okay do you want to Plate it up sure with pleasure okay so let’s I’ll great so excited it’s like let’s go ahead and take the bigger [Music] ones do you eat this dish hot cold or room temperature or it’s good anyway that’s a really good question it is good anyway um we serve it warm okay not but you could definitely serve it if you’re taking it right from pot to table you could definitely serve it hot and for those people who are in a hurry and just need a quick nutritious snack that take it right out of the fridge you could actually eat it right out of the fridge too okay but I would recommend a little bit of heating it up if you can okay and okay so let’s just go ahead with these okay and our sauce we have our beautiful tomato vinegret it smells amazing isn’t that beautiful so you want to fill each of the fondi fondi am I saying it fondi deari f fopi each of the artichokes a little bit of this magical goodness and then with the rest you can just pour it over and let it go through like this and of course finish it off with some fresh parsley parsley beautiful all right can we can we eat now yes absolutely go for it and we say before anybody eats it’s a very big thing in Italy to say btio so Naomi BTO okay hatama it’s like a little taste of Heaven it’s incredible [Music] huh this is amazing and so simple oh my gosh I love it I just feel like I went back to Italy on an amazing trip to Venice which we had only a few months ago I feel like I’m right there now my tongue is tickling it is full of flavor simple easy delicious fresh that’s what it’s about keep it clean keep it simple you can go fancy and complex also but if you use ingredients in their natural state and uh as I said before if you use high quality products to supplement them this is what happens you end up with really good tasting food I didn’t grow the artichoke so I can’t take too much credit for that does a lot for us and we should eat it way but if you pull it all together with with fine quality ingredients and it comes out delicious amazing thank you so much for coming on the show how do you say Thank you in Italian pleas you saying gra graat for coming important to add the at the end a lot of people think it’s gra but it’s gra you said it for coming today to Sunnyside Up and for recipes and more like this go to kia.com Alima until the next time
1 Comment
Tzvey fayne vabaleh ( sorry Rebbetzens). You are so cute! Thank you for the recipe!!!