Foodvice: restaurant Le Stelle

Maria Tarantino inspects restaurant Le Stelle, owned by Antonio Di Servi. It is a typical Italian restaurant that uses fresh and high quality products, both from the north and the south of Italy.

by Maria Tarantino

:: Le Stelle, Louis Bertrandlaan 53-61, 1030 Schaarbeek, 02-245.03.59

Our Magic Box contained manioc, pomegranate and a live carp. The cook will have to improvise a delicious dish with these ingredients. All purchased in Brussels of course, but to know more about these exotic ingredients, take a look below.

Bitter melon (gourd)
- Culinary uses
A small green bitter melon (front) and a scoop of Okinawan gôyâ champurû stirfry. Bitter melon is often used in Chinese cooking for its bitter flavour, typically in stir-fries, soups and also as tea. The vegetable is cultivated extensively all over India and a type of chips called karela chips are quite relished.

Bitter melon is rarely used in mainland Japan, but is a significant component of Okinawan cuisine, where it is known as gôyâ (Okinawan) or nigauri (Japanese, lit. "bitter melon"). It is called ampalaya and prepared into various dishes in the Philippines.

Bitter melons are seldom mixed with other vegetables due to the strong bitter taste, although this can be moderated to some extent by salting and then washing the cut melon before use.

Bitter melon grows in tropical areas, including parts of the Amazon, east Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, and is cultivated throughout South America as a food and medicine. It's a slender, climbing annual vine with long-stalked leaves and yellow, solitary male and female flowers borne in the leaf axils. The fruit looks like a warty gourd, usually oblong and resembling a small cucumber. The young fruit is emerald green, turning to orange-yellow when ripe. All parts of the plant, including the fruit, taste very bitter.

- Tribal and herbal medicine uses
In the Amazon, local people and indigenous tribes grow bitter melon in their gardens for food and medicine. They add the fruit and/or leaves to beans and soup for a bitter or sour flavor; parboiling it first with a dash of salt may remove some of the bitter taste. Medicinally, the plant has a long history of use by the indigenous peoples of the Amazon.

Coconut Milk
Coconut milk/cream (gkati): Coconut milk is not the juice found inside a coconut, but the diluted cream pressed out from the thick, white flesh of a well-matured coconut.

To make coconut milk, finely grated coconut meat is steeped in hot water until it is cool enough to handle. It is then squeezed until dry; the white fluid is strained to remove all the pulp. When allowed to sit for a while, the coconut cream (hua gkati) rises to the top. Commercially, coconut cream is obtained by pressing grated coconut flesh by itself without water, using a specialized, heavy piece of machinery.

More hot water is added to the pulp and the process is repeated to yield a lighter fluid, or coconut milk (nahm gkati). Frequently, a third pressing is done to obtain a light coconut milk (hahng gkati), which is used for stewing meats or for thinning coconut milk to make a coconut soup or a light curry. An average mature coconut yields about one cup of coconut cream and one to two cups of coconut milk depending on how light a milk is desired.

For most working American families with limited time to cook, making fresh coconut milk from scratch from a whole coconut is too laborious a process, especially when it can be easily substituted with canned or bottled unsweetened coconut milk.

Lemongrass Leaves - Kaffir Lime Leaves
Kaffir lime leaf adds an unmistakable, refereshing taste that is essential in many Thai soups & curries. The combination of lemongrass and lime leaf is a fantastic blast of flavor. The leaves have a strong fragrance and flavor that can not really be substituted. To experience the wonderful aroma, sliver the leaves with a knife or scissors and you'll begin to understand just how wonderful this plant is.