Cooking w/ Cheese

We love cheese at Mama's Gelato & Pizzeria. It's a staple ingredient ini our recipes and gives flavor to our dishes, from lasagna, pizza to pasta. Here are some tips we collected over the years that we think you would find useful for your home kitchen. 

Choosing:

- Shop with your eyes. Always, always, always look at the expiration date of cheese, or any other product for that matter, that you buy. 

- Some cheese, like parmesan, are better purchased on the rind than pre-grated. A little exercise with the grater makes all the difference. Not to mention toned arms!

Keeping:

- To keep cheese moist and mold -free, always double wrap it when storing it in the fridge/freezer. You can use parchment paper first then wrap it with aluminum foil. 

- Type of cheeses that can be kept frozen: parmesan, mozzarella, goat cheese, cheddar, gruyere. Soft cheeses, like brie, are best not frozen.

Cooking:

- Remember when cooking w/ parmesan cheese, make sure to follow the recipe if specified. The grate size, such as fine, medium or coarse, can impact the way your food tastes because it alters the weight and volume. 

- It's easy to use a grater with hard cheese, but what if the recipe calls for soft cheese? Semplice! Just brush on a bit of oil on the side of the grater/grate box. 

Cleaning:

- Having a hard time getting those bits of cheese off your grater? Soak it in hot, soapy water for about 10 minutes dan use a soft brush to clean the grate holes. 

Happy cooking!

SUGAR FREE-DIABETIC GELATO: Sweet Treats for Everyone

We received a lot of requests from loyal customers to bring back our series of SUGAR FREE - DIABETIC GELATO and SORBETTO, so here they are just in time for summer!

Our gourmet DIABETIC GELATO is made from imported ingredients from Italy. It is milk based and sweetened with fructose, which is a natural simple sugar found in fruits, honey and vegetables.

There are three kinds of sugars that a person normally consumes:
1. Glucose: made when your body breaks down starches (such as rice)
2. Fructose: sugar found naturally in fruits or fruit juices
3. Sucrose: table sugar

We make our DIABETIC GELATO without added sucrose, which means it is SUGAR FREE. This gelato series is ideal if you are trying control your weight, with diabetes or just prefer a healthier option when satisfying your sweet tooth.

Always remember to take everything in moderation to protect your overall health.

Over the next few months, we will continue to launch new flavors of our  SUGAR FREE - DIABETIC GELATO & SORBETTO series. Make sure you taste each one!

New Menu: ITALIAN QUICHE LORRAINE

We always love to bring an Italian twist into classic dishes such as the Quiche Lorraine, which originally hails from the region of Lorraine in France.

Our selection of Quiche range from spinach, beef salami, and chicken mushroom. We've added Italian cheese to our pies, which we hope you will love as much as we do!

Available at Mama's Gelato & Pizzeria, Pondok Indah Mal 1, Ground Floor or call for delivery (021) 32477987.

This delightful dish is perfect for breakfast, lunch or as an afternoon snack. Buon appetito!

Italian Twist on Quiche Lorraine:

Beef salami, Chicken mushroom, Spinach

Come Support "Bulir Padi: Enlighten & Empower Book Drive"

Books are a gift that enlighten and empower.

We at Mama's Gelato & Pizzeria, together with 71 Sandwich House, are proud to support Bulir Padi Foundation in another charity project called "Enlighten & Empower Book Drive".

Come join us to support this wonderful cause, which will help build a new community library for low income kids and families in West Jakarta.

If you or your children have gently used books piling up at home, please donate them to our book drive. New books are also welcome! Book drive drop off points between 23 June - 18 June:

- Mama's Gelato & Pizzeria, Pondok Indah Mal 1, Ground Floor, East Entrance (Across ATM BCA), or
- 71 Sandwich House, Jl Gunawarman no. 71, Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta.

Since 2002 Bulir Padi Foundation has provided merit-based scholarships to over 400 low-income kids in Jakarta with the support of its big brother and sister sponsors. For more information go to www.bulirpadi.com or email bulirpadi.foundation@gmail.com

ENGLISH e-flyer (click to enlarge)

BAHASA INDONESIA e-flyer

"Like" Us on Facebook!

Come visit our Facebook fan page and "Like" us at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mamas-Gelato-Pizzeria/193284914045558

You will find updates and photos on our menu, products and more!

Baking with Bananas

Inspired by several tweets of a friend of ours that we read in our @mamasgelato Twitter timeline recently, we decided to share tips and tricks on how to bake with this fabulous fruit. We've had several baking mishaps in an effort to create the perfect recipe for our "Banana, Chocolate & Walnut Loaf" (which we have added on to our Mama's Gelato & Pizzeria 'DESSERT BAR MENU' by the way). Here are some tricks we learned along the way.


We hope these tips will help you make better desserts for your loved ones. Keep us posted on the results!


1. ALWAYS USE OVER-RIPE BANANAS. Yes, we mean the darker and heavily speckled fruit, which equals to sweeter and moister bananas. You may want to make sure to adjust the sugar used in the recipe, so keep an eye on the sweetness level. 
2. REV UP THE PROCESS. Your local supermarket most likely will not be well-stocked in over-ripe bananas. So, what you can do is speed up the ripening process, and place the bananas in a paper bag out on the kitchen counter (not refrigerated). They will be ready for use in a few days. 
2. NOTHING GOES TO WASTE. If you have some over-ripe bananas that you don't need to use right away, just seal them in a plastic bag and freeze. Thaw them out to room temperature before using. 
3. SMOOTH OPERATOR. We always soften our bananas with a fork before incorporating it with other ingredients. Sometimes it helps to mix it with the wet ingredients in a separate bowl before folding it into the dry ingredients. 
4. FOLD DON'T MIX. Lightly fold the banana and wet ingredients mixture into the dry ingredients. Don't over-mix, or the end product will be tough and rubbery. The consistency we look for is thick and chunky batter. 
5. THE HEAT IS ON. The key for a cake or any other dessert to be baked thoroughly well is that it needs even and all-around heat distribution. Professional ovens are definitely better at doing this than household ones - but do not worry! Try insulating the cake pan by placing it on a thick baking/cookie sheet. Or, you may also want to try and wrap aluminum foil on the outer sides of cake pans as well. 


One more thing; always remember never take recipes at face value. Local produce and ingredients are different everywhere, so adjust recipes as you see fit and make them your own!

Sorbetto: All About Fruit

This delightful thirst-quenching frozen dessert is made from fruit puree and whipped to achieve an ultra light and smooth texture. Sorbetti (plural form of sorbetto) is all about fruit and then some. These frozen desserts rely on fresh fruit juice and sugar for flavor and contain no eggs, cream or milk (dairy free), so don't confuse sorbets with sherbets, which have milk added for creaminess. For those of you who are lactose intolerant or counting calories, sorbetto is a delightful dessert that is perfect for you.

You will find popular gelato flavors, such as hazelnut, pistachio, chocolate, straciatella in Northern Italy, whereas the South prides itself with bringing mouth-watering and refreshing sorbetto flavors, such as strawberry, watermelon and lemon.

Our Lemon Sorbetto is just oozing with freshness

If you go to a respectable gelateria (ice cream parlor) in Italy, like Giolitti in Rome, you will find that your taste buds will be titillated by vast choices available of milk/cream-based gelati (Italian ice cream) and fruit-based sorbetti (Italian ice/sorbet).

Jakartans, you don't have to travel all the way to Italy to have a taste. Drop by Mama's Gelato & Pizzeria at Pondok Indah Mal 1 - Ground Floor, and let our gelati & sorbetti do the work and transport your taste buds there!

Gelati and Sorbetti to please your palate 

- only at Mama's Gelato & Pizzeria