Cook sister!

Fregola Sarda with a tomato, anchovy, chilli and olive sauce

 

Many wealthy people are little more than the janitors of their possessions

- Frank Lloyd Wright

 

Stuff.  Why are we so addicted to it - acquiring it, having it, keeping it?  On my recent trip to Cape Town I visited a good friend at his house in Cape Town. It was the most calm, serene and lovely space I have been in for a very long time, all muted colour and clean lines.  I felt at peace.  I daydreamed wistfully that I would return to London and recreate this sort of space in our home... and then about a millisecond later the phrase slipped out of my mouth: "But what about all our STUFF?".  You see, I have been a collector of stuff all my life.  It started with rocks, crystals and minerals; moved through Hello Kitty merchandise, writing paper and fancy erasers; continued through pop paraphernalia from Duran Duran, Wham! and (of course) A-ha; extended into vinyl records; and now extends to the occasional silver inkwell, props for food photos, and exotic foodstuffs. And both Nick and I have an obsession with art and posters, so our collection far exceeds the available wall space.  Oh, and we have a weakness for oriental rugs. Just...stuff, you know??

But on another day during our holiday, I also spent time at my late parents' house.  All the things in the house were the things that I grew up surrounded by - from the furniture to the art to the crockery (Arabia Ruska, no less!).  And I guess because I was surrounded by them every day, I did not really see them while I lived there.  It's only now that I no longer live there and that my parents are both gone that it is dawning on me just how much STUFF they had, and how much that stuff had come to define who they were.  My father was probably worse than my mother - he refused to throw out anything.  After his death, I discovered every suitcase my family had ever owned stashed away in various cupboards, down to the ones they took to Thailand and Iran when I was a baby, covered in beautiful tags and stickers from airlines, hotels and cruise ships from another age. It was kind of like discovering a carbon dating system for our family holidays. My father's cupboards were full of vintage silk cravats collected on many trips abroad - and yet I am struggling to remember when last I actually saw him wearing one.  But when we suggested that they might want to downsize, one of the arguments was always "but what will we do with all our stuff?".

So to accommodate the stuff and maintain their image of themselves, they kept the house when it really was no longer a practical or safe choice for them.  My father had to build ramps and winches to get my mother up the numerous small steps in the house when she was confined to a wheelchair; and the broken hip that eventually led to his own death was the result of a fall down one of these many steps as he ran for the telephone. I often wonder whether, in the end, he ever saw clearly that his self-appointed role as curator of his stuff led him to his final hospital stay? I somehow doubt it.  But I am pretty sure that he did not at the final moment cry out: "If only I'd acquired more stuff in my life!". I doubt anybody ever does. 

 

 

And so I came back from our holiday with a renewed sense of the futility of stuff, and a fervent gleam in my eye as I talked about using up the exotic ingredients we have hiding in cupboards in our kitchen!  One of the things that the lovely Virginia from The Good Fork sent me to try earlier this year was a packet of fregola Sarda (currently available in their Italian Islands box) and it was this that my eye alighted on earlier this week, as the reality of the non-arrival of Spring had set in and I felt in need of a bowl of comfort food. Fregola (or fregula) is a traditional Sardinian pasta, presumably of Moorish origins, made from hard durum wheat, and resembles giant Israeli cous cous. The pasta dough is rolled into tiny, nearly-round balls and toasted lightly, giving it a golden colour and a nutty flavour.  It also has a slightly rough texture, like a cat's tongue, which means that creamy sauces will stick to it really well.   It's a versatile ingredient that can be used in any recipe where you would use small pasta, as well as in recipes calling for cous-cous. It's great when cooked like a risotto, or cold in a salad - or even just as a side dish for grilled meat or fish.  

 

 

I had originally planned to prepare the fregola in a traditional Sardinian dish, topped with steamed clams in a tomato-based sauce; but alas, no clams were to be found when I went shopping.  So instead I went for puttanesca-inspired sauce that would be warming and hearty to go with the chilly weather we are having here in London.  The recipe is super-simple to make and as the ingredients are all pretty strongly-flavoured it needs very little seasoning or tweaking. The fregola really is nutty and delicious and I am thrilled that I still have half a packet left so that I can make it into a salad when the weather warms up - I am thinking the nuttiness will work well with mushrooms.  Don't be alarmed if you do not like anchovies - the anchovies literally "melt" into the sauce, leaving only their umami-rich flavour behind. 

DISCLOSURE: The Fregola Sarda used in this recipe was a free sample sent to me by The Good Fork.

 

 

FREGOLA SARDA WITH TOMATO, ANCHOVY, CHILLI & OLIVE SAUCE (serves 2 hungry people)

Ingredients:

200g uncooked fregoloa Sarda (or substitue other pasta)
2 litres water
2 tsp salt
one medium onion, thinly sliced
1 large clove of garlic, minced
1 Tbsp olive oil
pinch of chilli flakes (more if you like it spicy!)
200g chopped tinned tomatoes (more if you want a soupier sauce)
1 small tin of anchovies
100g sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, drained
100g good quality olives (I used Sicilian Paterna cracked green olives) 
black pepper

Method:

Slowly bring the water to boil in a large pot.  Once it is boiling rapidly, add the pasta and salt - turn up the heat if necessary to achieve a nice rolling boil.  Cook for about 15 minutes or until al dente.

In the meantime, heat the olive oil in a large pan. Add the chilli flakes, onions and garlic and sautee over low heat, adding a little water whenever the pan dries out.  Cook for 10-15 mins until the onions are very soft, then add the drained anchovies and stir until they "melt" into the onions and garlic.  Add the chopped tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes and olives and heat through.

When the pasta is cooked, drain in a colander and spoon into bowls.  Divide the pasta and the sauce equally between the bowls and serve with a robust Italian red wine and a green salad. 

Notes:

The sauce would also make a great topping for crostini, if you have any left. 

Confetti rice salad - celebrate!

A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn’t see the clouds at all – he’s walking on them – Leonard Louis Levinson

It's a simple fact that there are those of us in this world for whom the glass is half empty and those for whom the glass is half full; think about the people you know and I will bet you can put each and every one of them into one of these two categories. Me?  My glass is almost always half full.  There may be an hour or two of yelling and swearing before I drink the glass (!), but I am seldom in any doubt that it is half full. It's always interested me - how some people with relatively problem-free lives can spend practically all day moaning;  while others soldier fairly cheerfully on through all manner of disasters with seldom a complaint.  With all the recent interest in happiness, its pursuit and how we measure our own happiness (witness the slew of books on the topic available on Amazon), there have been some studies into the topic - and the results may surprise you.  

We've all heard that your weight has a natural "set point" - the equilibrium at which your body is most comfortable.  Yes, you can gorge or diet and change your weight, but left to its own devices there is a weight at which your body is comfortable and which it will gravitate towards if given the opportunity.  Similarly, there is apparently a set point of happiness for each individual, which remains roughly the same despite external variables.  For examples, studies have shown that both able-bodied people who become paraplegic and lottery winners who become millionaires overnight will experience an immediate decrease or increase in their levels of happiness - but within a few years both groups return to being about as happy as they were before the life-changing event.  It's like we all have a built-in self-righting mechanism that returns us to our natural equilibrium level of happiness. Of course, different people may take more or less time to recover; different events take longer to recover from; and some things like chronic pain or long-term extreme poverty can permanently decrease your level of  happiness.  But I always think of my mom who spent the last 7 years of her life on dialysis and in renal failure (and eventually in a wheelchair) but continued to have more joie de vivre in her little finger than my perfectly healthy father had in his entire body!

So where does our tendency to be happy (or unhappy!) come from, if not from outside events?  A large portion of it is determined by genetics - so if you had pessimistic parents, it is unlikely that you will be a raving optimist.  Still, genes don't determine all of your capacity for happiness - they simply offer you a range of potential happiness and it's up to you whether you operate at the top end or the bottom end of the range of your happiness.  A nice analogy I've seen describes it like this:  you may live in the house you inherited from your parents, but you make the choice of whether to live in the dank basement with a bare lightbulb and rats for company; or in the lovely big, airy room on the top floor with a view of the mountains.

 

 

It's often easier to play the "glass half empty" role.  When Jane asks Mary how she is and Mary says "terrible - my boyfriend cheated on me and my car broke down!" then this naturally leads to an outpouring of sympathy from Jane (which makes Mary feel better) and the chance to share stories about how Jane's ex-boyfriend also cheated on her and her car also broke down once, and the chance to bond over these shared misfortunes. If Mary replies "I'm doing great!", bonding over shared misfortunes is unlikely. If you look at Twitter, Facebook and blogs you will find them choc-a-bloc full of people sharing every detail of their relationship, midlife crisis, health, financial and other troubles. My own husband comes home and every night and tells me only about the annoying or frustrating things that happened at work! But for all my swearing, slamming of doors, and uncanny ability to generate worst-case scenarios in my head (thanks for that, dad...!) I am generally embarrassingly happy.  It's kind of unfashionable and was a positive handicap in my brief career as a Goth at university - but I would not have it any other way.  I go to bed at night and before I go to sleep I try to focus on three things for which I was grateful that day: a friend, a great meal, a lovely walk in the sun - small things thayt made the day worthwhile. And when I wake up in the morning and swing my strong, healthy legs out of bed without thinking about it for a second, I remind myself of all the people for whom getting simply swinging their legs out of bed is an almost insurmountable task. People who were denied the possibility of a good night's rest by chronic pain. People who do not have a bed to sleep in. And then I ask myself "do I feel happy today?". It kind of puts all your worries in perspective.

Life is short and we spend too much of it obsessing about the negative.  Nobody that has ever met me would describe me as a manically grinning Pollyanna type, but I loathe it when people do not appreciate what they have - and every person reading this blog has something to be grateful for today - even if it is just internet access which millions of people in the developing world do not have.  So why not grab any chance whatsoever to celebrate while you can?  Champagne with dinner?  Why not!  No point in saving it for high days and holidays. Singing on the Tube? Yes, people think you are nuts but damn it's fun!  Dancing badly but with great enthusiasm?  Nothing feels better!  And when there is an unexpectedly sunny Sunday in March in London, when all your crocuses are flowering and the scent of your hyacinths is almost overpowering, laugh off the laundry, forget about the blog post you were meant to write and spend the day in the garden, being grateful for this sunny corner of London that belongs to you. Oh - and make something celebratory for lunch, like this confetti rice salad.  The word confetti comes from the Italian word confetto meaning small sweetmeats (e.g. sugared almonds) traditionally thrown at the couple at a wedding celebration.  Today, there is confetti available for every celebration, so I thought this salad with its colourful, confetti-like diced vegetables would be suitably celebratory.  It's crunch, colourful, relatively good for you, and a great way to use up leftover cooked rice.  Enjoy with a glass of bubbly for no reason whatsoever - and remember to drink a celebratory toast!  

 

 

CONFETTI RICE SALAD (serves 2 happy people)

Ingredients:

about 2 cups cooked basmati or long grain white rice
1 large red bell pepper, finely diced
2 spring onions, finely diced
2 large carrots, finely diced
about 7-10cm of a cucumber, finely diced
1 large stick of celery, finely diced
2-3 Tbsp mayonnaise (you can use less and thin it with milk)
mild curry powder to taste
salt and pepper to taste 

Method:

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl.  Check for seasoning, season as necessary and serve. Ours was delicious served with some smoked peppered mackerel fillets.

Note:

You can use different colour vegetables or indeed, add different vegetables as you wish - peas and corn kernels would work well, as would other colours of bell peppers. 

 

Did you miss our our super-successful  Tuscany Plate to Page workshop last October? Well, registrations are open for Plate to Page Somerset to be held in the UK in Spring 2012!  Have a look at the programme (I'll be teaching food writing), details about  accommodation, and if it looks like something you'd like to attend, register here - but hurry: places are limited to 12. It would be great to see you there!

Steak on a blue cheese, spinach & pecan risotto

 

As I have said before, I do love a good simile.  One of my favourite wine-related similes is this: Men are like a fine wine. They all start out like grapes, and it's our job to stomp on them and keep them in the dark until they mature into something you'd like to have dinner with.  Sexist?  You bet.  Amusing?  Every time.  In fact, if you look around, there are all sorts of relationship and wine similes. 

• Husbands are like fine wine - they mature slowly. 
• Marriage is like wine - it just gets better with age.
• Marriage is like wine - you don't always know what its ageing potential will be: whether it will develop ripe round flavours or an acid astringency
• Marriage is like matching wine with food - you don't know whether it will be any good until you try it.  

It was this last one that I was pondering over the weekend.  Pages and pages both on paper and on the internet have been filled with thoughts on food and wine pairing. "You must have white wine with chicken", "You must have red wine with meat"... I'm sure you've all heard the highlights - and let me assure you that the rules are nowhere near as rigid as that.  But it's also true that all taste involves an element of chemistry and it is a fact that, although experiments with unexpected food and wine pairings might yield amazing results, some food and wine pairings simply work together - so why mess with them?  And once you have tasted a truly successful pairing, you will understand to what an astonishing extent the wine brings enhances the taste of the food, and vice versa.  

 

 

If you are new to food and wine pairing, I should probably point out that there are two ways to choose a wine to match a particular food: you are either looking for similarities in flavour (e.g. a buttery wooded Chardonnay with a rich buttery lobster thermidor sauce); or contrasts in flavour (the sweetness of a fortified wine and the saltiness of cheese). And although I am all for experimentation, you first need to know the rules before you can break the rules. So here is the Cooksister Ten Second Guide to food and wine combinations that are tried and tested and really do work:  

• zesty, slightly acidic white wines like Sauvignon Blancs and Pinot Grigios will match any food that you usually squeeze a lemon over (think most grilled fish, seafoods and salads)
• full-bodied, wooded whites like Chardonnays or Vouvrays will match fish or chicken (or even some pork) dishes in a creamy sauce
• with spicy foods like Thai curry, slightly sweet low-alcohol wines like dry German Rieslings work really well 
• softer reds like Beaujolais or Pinot Noir work with full-flavoured fish like tuna or salmon; or simply grilled pork dishes
• spicy, fruity full-bodied reds like Zinfandel or Syrah will match meat dishes with spicy or sweetish sauces, like BBQ or Asian marinades and basting sauces
• big tannic reds like Cabernet Sauvignon or Bordeax-style blends are robust enough to match heavy red meat dishes like roast lamb and beef, casseroles, and game
• sweet wines like Port or Sauternes are a good match for salty cheeses. 

But the bottom line is that it is your palate, and what works for one person might not work for another.  There is absolutely nothing stopping you drinking chardonnay with your steak, or a pinot noir with a fish dish, if they enhance each other's flavours on your palate.

Last week I found myself in the lucky position of having to conduct a little food and wine matching experiment of my own when I was sent a bottle of 2010 Septima Malbec and a couple of steaks and asked to come up with a dish to match the wine.  Septima winery (so named because it is the seventh vineyard opened by Grupo Codorniu) was established 1999 in the Mendoza region of Argentina.  The vineyards cover 300 hectares in the cooler climate regions of Argelo and the Uco Valley, home to several of Argentina's top producers.  The Septima Malbec in paticular comes from vineyards at 3,600 feet above sea level and is hand-harvested in the early morning when temperatures are cool.  The finished product is 100% Malbec and spends 6 months in American oak before release.  

 

The big question was what dish I could create with my steaks that would be a little more interesting than plain grilled steak, but that would be an interesting match with the Malbec. Having seen that this particular bottle contained a whopping almost port-like 14% alcohol, and knowing that Malbecs are often full of rich, ripe berry flavours, I thought I would take a chance and pair it with the robust flavours of blue cheese and pecan nuts.  Not, as you'd expect, in a salad, but in a risotto. Obviously, steak and Malbec are a classic combination, with the tannins in the wine standing up to the robust flavours of the meat - but would it work with the cheesy risotto?  First, I tasted the wine without food:  a deep red ruby colour and a nose full of ripe red berries with some vegetal rosemary notes.  The palate was full-bodied and featured Ribena-like blackcurrant flavours, with vanilla notes on the long, long finish.  The wine was still a little tannic and closed, and I did think to myself that I would have liked to lay it down for a couple of years.  With the food, though, the wine lost all its tannic edges and became meek, mild and super-accessible:  the rich cheese balanced the tannins and seemed to emphasise the juicy fruit flavours.  A very happy marriage indeed.

Even if you aren't lucky enough to have a bottle of Septima Malbec floating around, I can't recommend this risotto highly enough.  Nuts, spinach and blue cheese have long been a classic salad combination and they work as well if not better in a risotto - do try it out as a show-stopper next time your vegetarian friends come over for dinner - just remember to leave out the steak on top ;)

DISCLOSURE: The bottle of Septima Malbec and steaks were provided to me as free samples.

 

STEAK ON BLUE CHEESE, SPINACH & PECAN RISOTTO (serves 2)

Ingredients:

50g pecan nuts, roughly chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 large clove of garlic, crushed
2 tbsp olive oil
20g +20g butter
200g of risotto rice (I used Riso Gallo carnaroli, provided by our Plate to Page sponsors)
100ml medim sherry
600ml vegetable stock
100g fresh baby spinach leaves, washed
50g blue cheese, crumbled
salt and pepper to taste

FOR THE MEAT (can be omitted for a vegetarian risotto):
2 steaks (rump or sirloin)
a little olive oil for brushing
coarse salt (I use Maldon)
 
Method:

Place the crushed nuts in a non-stick pan over medium heat and toast until beginning to turn golden and fragrant - keep an eye on them as they burn easily.  Set aside.

Read my tips on how to make a perfect risotto; then melt 20g of the butter together with the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan.  Add the onion and garlic and saute until the onion is translucent and soft but do not let it brown. Add the rice and cook for a minute or two, stirring constantly stir so that each grain is well-coated with oil/butter.  Add the sherry and keep stirring until the liquid has been absorbed almost completely. 

Add the hot stock a ladleful at a time (probably about 150-200 ml per ladle).  Keep stirring until each ladleful has been completely absorbed, but do not let the rice dry out and stick to the pot.  Once each ladleful is absorbed, add the next until the stock has all been added.  The rice should be soft but each grain should retain some bite in the centre, perfectly al dente, which should take about 20 minutes. 

If you can multi task, do the steak yourself while manning the risotto (here are my tips on how to cook a perfect steak).  Alternatively, ask your dinner companion to tend the risotto while you do the steak! When you have used up about half the stock, heat a ridged griddle pan over high heat until it sizzles when you sprinkle a drop of water into it.  Brush the steaks with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and lay flat in the pan.  Cook until moisture droplets start to appear on the upper surface, then brush with oil, salt it and turn over. After 3-5 minutes (depending on the thickness of the steak) test for doneness by pressing on the meat with a close pair of tongs. For rare, the resistance should feel like pushing on the fleshy part of the base of your thumb;  for medium, like pressing in the centre of your palm. Remove from the heat and allow to rest, keeping warm.

Once all the stock has been added to the risotto, stir in the spinach and crumbled blue cheese.  Once the spinach is wilted, stir in the pecan nuts and remaining 20g of butter. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Divide the risotto between two plates, top each plate with a steak and garnish with toasted pecan nuts.  I also drizzled some utterly gorgeous Rickety Bridge smoked balsamic drizzle on mine and that added a wonderful smoky dimension to the flavours.  Get some if you can.

 

Did you miss our our super-successful  Tuscany Plate to Page workshop last October? Well, registrations are open for Plate to Page Somerset due to be held in the UK in Spring 2012!  Have a look at the programme, details about  accommodation, and if it looks like something you'd like to attend,register here - but hurry: places are limited to 12. It would be great to see you there!

 

 

Artichoke, caper and lemon risotto and a Good Fork Italian box

Perspective.  So much of our experience of this thing we call life is coloured by it.  Where some people see problems stacking up against their business as the economy rollercoasters, others see new opportunities presented by the challenging times.  I love travel, focusing on the new people I get to meet, the new foods I get to eat, and the lovely photos I can capture; a good friend considers travel to be some sort of mediaeval torture full of funny foreign food, annoying strangers, and inconvenient transport. Where my mother heard meaningless, primitive, thump-thump noise, my teenage self heard adrenalin, sex and lyrics that expressed my gentle teenage rebellion (i.e. black nailpolish and lipstick!).  Where my husband sees an ugly broken cupboard in a junk shop with flaking paint, I see a covetable photographic background for blog photoshoots.

It's all a matter of perspective.

Consider the dandelion. I see it as a total nuisance - a weed with a cheeky yellow flower sent specifically to mock me and then clog up my lawn with its invasive roots and spoil the grass I have worked so hard to nurture.  My friend Sally, on the other hand, sees it as a salad waiting to be picked.  Or the little yellow-flowered plants on the walk to our station that most passers-by regard with contempt as just another east-end weed, but that I secretly know to be the pepperiest wild rocket in London.  Or the nettle (one of the first plants I swore at shortly after my arrival in London as it brushed past my hand setting off those mini-electric shock tingles in my skin that lasted for hours):  I regard it as a bloody menace, positively dangerous - while others regard it as the basis for delicious soups and teas.

The artichoke falls into much the same category.  I mean when you get down to brass tacks, it's a thistle:  one of those prickly, unfriendly weeds that grow wild in the English countryside and whose prickly demeanour is not softened one bit by the spiky geometry of their purple flowers. So yes, to some it's a weed.  But grow the right variety - and to others it's a sought-after delicacy, to be carefully prepared and then dipped leaf by leaf into melted butter and messily, delightfully consumed.   So who decides what is a weed and what is a delicacy?  Probably the first (brave! or desperate?) man who hit upon the idea of boiling up the big spiky flowers and taking a tentative bite ;)

 

 

Given how much he loves them, I do believe that the abovementioned man may have been a distant ancestor of my husband's.  Nick totally delights in the entire process, from carefully selecting The Right Artichoke at the market, to the challenges of keeping the damn things submerged as they boil, to the making of the dip, to the slow, methodical consumption of the entire flower leaf by leaf. Me?  Call me lazy, but I've always been more of a marinated artichokes kinda girl...  And I recently came into the possesion of a particularly delicious jar of marinated artichokes, courtesy of Virginia of The Good Fork, as part of one of their Intensely Italian hampers. Virginia started the Good Fork after having worked in France and Italy, returning home to England and finding it frustratingly difficult to find great authentic Mediterranean ingredients here.  She set about researching European suppliers as focused on quality as she is and set up The Good Fork to provide customers in the UK with the opoporunity to order either a regular monthly or a one-off boxed delivery of Mediterranean deli goodies. You can choose from a Good Fork deli box (7 items for £28.50) or a Bigger Fork box (9 items for £35.50) - both prices include mainland UK delivery.  

The box I received was a limited edition Intensely Italian one-off box (A Thoroughly French box is also available with a Festive Fork and a Gorgeous Greek in the pipeline - all priced at £39.50) and contained:

• whole black summer truffle from Ellesse
• mostarda from Barbieri & Co. (mine was mandarin)
• Sapori do Casa hand-made pappardelle pasta
• rustic marinated artichokes from La Conserve Toscane
• fregola (toasted pasta grains) from Rustichella d'Abruzzo
• crema di peperoncino piccante hot pepper sauce from Pralina
• a bar of torrone (Italian nougat)
• Occhialino salted capers from Sicily

The box also includes a handy leaflet explaining a little more about each ingredient and suggesting a few recipes.  The box was ever so neatly packed and I was also pleased by the eco-friendly shredded card packing material rather than the ubiquitous buble-wrap.  Although I have not yet tried all the contents, all the products impressed me with their apparent quality - these are definitely not the kind of things you will find on the shelves of your local Tesco.  For what I received (if you exclude the cost to the company of postage and packaging), the price works out at an average of about £4 per item - which is not dirt cheap but works out at the same or less than retail prices of similar imported products (and of course, this box would be a luxury treat, not your weekly grocery shop!).  As a Christmas gift for a foodie, it's a wonderful idea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only remaining question was what I should make first!  I could see a couple of meals being formed from the selection I received and the obvious first choice was to make a pasta dish.  But seeing as Darling Husband had already made me pasta the night before when I got back late from speaking at Bite 'n Write in Birmingham (bless him!), and seeing as I have some carnaroli rice that Riso Gallo sponsored for the recent Plate to Page workshop in Tuscany, I decided to go for a risotto instead.  The combination of flavours was fantastic - the earthiness of the excellent artichokes, the little salty explosions of the capers, and the creamy mouthfeel of the carnaroli rice, all lifted by the lightness of the lemon. Perfect harmony, from any perspective.

For my tips on how to make a perfect risotto, click here.

DISCLOSURE: The artichokes and capers were free samples provided by The Good Fork as part of their Intensely Italian box, and the rice was a free sample from Riso Gallo as part of their sponsorship of the recent Plate to Page workshop 

 

 

ARTICHOKE, CAPER & LEMON RISOTTO (serves 2)

Ingredients:

180g marinated artichoke hearts, cut into 1/8th wedges 
2 Tbsp capers
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 large clove of garlic, crushed
Juice from half a medium lemon 
300g of risotto rice (I used carnaroli from Riso Gallo)
60g Parmesan cheese, grated
100ml dry white wine
2 Tbsp olive oil
20g +20g butter
600ml vegetable stock 
Lemon zest to garnish

Method:

If using salted capers (as opposed to capers in brine) like I did, soak for at least 15 minutes in cold water, drain and rinse before using.

Melt 20g of the butter together with the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan.  Add the onion and garlic and sauté until the onion is translucent and soft but do not let it brown.  Add the rice and cook for a minute or two, stirring constantly stir so that each grain is well-coated with oil/butter.  Add the white wine and keep stirring until the liquid has been absorbed almost completely. 

Add the hot stock a ladleful at a time (probably about 150-200 ml per ladle).  Keep stirring until each ladleful has been completely absorbed, but do not let the rice dry out and stick to the pot.  Once each ladleful is absorbed, add the next until the stock has all been added.  The rice should be soft but each grain should retain some bite in the centre, perfectly al dente, which should take about 20 minutes. 

5 minutes before the rice is ready, in a separate saucepan gently heat through the artichoke wedges and capers for 3-4 minutes. Stir the artichokes, capers and lemon juice into the risotto. Continue to cook over a low heat, stirring constantly, until heated through and the juice has been absorbed. 

Remove from the heat and stir in the grated Parmesan cheese and the remaining 20g of butter. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary - beware of adding salt as the capers, cheese and artichokes are all salted already, but a good grind of pepper does not hurt.  Garnish with lemon zest and a little more grated Parmesan and serve immediately.

 

I am also thrilled to announce that after our super-successful Tuscany Plate to Page workshop last month, we have today opened registrations for Plate to Page Somerset due to be held in the UK in Spring 2012!  Have a look at the programme, details about accommodation, and if it looks like something you'd like to attend, register here - but hurry: places are limited to 12. It would be great to see you there!

 

Pasta with creamy chanterelles and toasted almonds

They say that travel broadens the mind.  I can certainly attest to that, but I could also add a few other talents that travel has.  It empties the pockets and fills the camera memory card. It broadens the beam (so to speak!). And it decks the halls with useless knicknacks from a thousand eager street vendors in strange and exotic lands.  Knicknacks that need storing or dusting or cleaning.  Or that can break.  I myself had a lovely collection of breakable knicknacks (many shaped like cats - let's draw a veil over that!) as a teenager - but these soon dissipated when I moved home and had to do my own dusting/storing/cleaning!  But I still have friends who indulge.  One friend brings back fridge magnets from every destination she visits; another brings back a coffee mug; and yet another collects snow globes from everywhere she's been. 

 

But the wise ones among us (myself included) have realised that there is only so much space in your house and time in your life that you can devote to storing and caring for these mementos, however quirky and covetable they may initially look.  Far wiser (and easier on the storage space) to bring back FOOD!  Take me to a tourist tat shop in foreign parts and I will easily walk out with nothing.  Take me to a foreign supermarket... and the airlines will already be rubbing their hands in glee at the thought of the giant contribution my excess baggage fees will make to their coffers. You'd think with the rampantly globalised world in which we live there would be very little by way of supermarket items that would not be available everywhere.  But you'd be wrong. Sure - you can usually get things in speciality shops if you really try, but I am talking about buying stuff that is considered boring and everyday in one country that is a major speciality item (or unobtainable!) in another - and it's seldom what you expect it to be.  Friends from Switzerland and Sweden have both  left London with their suitcases stuffed with Galaxy Minstrel chocolates. Another friend in South Africa longs for Jaffa Cakes. And me? I leave South Africa with my suitcase full of green figs in syrup, Melrose cheese spread, and Peppermint Crisp chocolates.  In fact, wherever I travel I make sure I come back with some sort of foodstuff that I struggle to get over here in London.

Which is precisely how I came to be standing at Frankfurt airport a few months ago, being told to unpack my hand luggage by a fairly humourless German gentleman in uniform (is there another kind?!).  As I unzipped my bag, I racked my brain for what could have set off the security alarm bells.  My camera (the usual culprit)?  My metal keyring that is unhelpfully shaped like a pointy star that clearly looks like a lethal ninja weapon on an X-ray machine?  Erm, no.  The offending item was a parcel wrapped in damp newspaper.  My heart sank as he lifted it out of my  bag.  When I had left Meeta's house, the parcel had been neatly wrapped in those frozen ice packs that consist of a number of cells of liquid.  After a 2 hour train journey and the usual crawl through airport formalities, this had all defrosted and had turned from solid ice into liquid of considerably more than 100ml.  The whole soggy mess looked about as suspicious as can be and was clearly in contravention of security regulations.  Gingerly, he unwrapped one corner until he could see the cells of liquid.  "And what is this?",  he asked.  "Erm... Bratwurst", I said in a small voice, helpfully adding "from Weimar".  "Ah, Bratwurst. OK", said he, carefully rewrapping my contraband non-frozen liquid and handing the package back to me with a smile.  Evidently it's fine to violate airport security regulations if you are merely doing it to enjoy some authentic German cuisine in the comfort of your own home!  

My two subsequent forays into the world of cross-border food trafficking have been somwehat more circumspect and have steered clear of messily defrosting sausages. The first involved arriving back at Heathrow from a weekend in Rome with numerous packs of strozzapreti pasta.  Yes, you can get pasta here in the UK.  No, it is not the same quality as the stuff from Italy.  And besides, when last did you see Sainsbury's call a line of pasta "priest chokers" (which is exactly what the name means)?  Too good to pass up.  My other recent edible souvenir was carried back from Munich, cradled in my arms like a newborn:  half a kilogram of fresh chanterelle mushrooms.  Most people come back from Oktoberfest with a beer mug, a novelty hat and a hangover.  Me?  I come back with mushrooms.  In the UK they cost about £16 per kilo. In Munich?  Less than £10 per kilo - and they are available on every street corner, not only at places like Borough Market.  Can you blame me for buying them?

Wanting to use these two edible souvenirs together in one dish, I decided on a creamy chanterelle pasta.  I wanted to add some crunch as a conterpoint to the almost meaty mushrooms and the al dente pasta but did not have any spring onions in the house - so instead I added some lightly toasted almonds which worked a treat to bring out the nutty flavour of the mushrooms.  The dish felt super-decadent because I used a lot of chanterelles, but you could easily get away using less. Add a fresh green salad and a glass of wine (the mushrooms are meaty enough to cope with even a Pinot Noir) and you have an indulgent midweek meal for two.  

    

CREAMY PASTA WITH CHANTERELLES & TOASTED ALMONDS (serves 2,generously) 

Ingredients:

160g dry pasta
1/4 cup slivered almonds
15g butter
2 large shallots, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
400-500g fresh chanterelle mushrooms
50ml white wine
75ml single cream
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method:

Carefully wash the chanterelles - they have lots of nooks and crannies and easily collect dirt and foreign particles, so they do need a good wash.  Do not immerse them in water - they will absorb it and become unappealingly soggy - far better to rinse them under running water and carefully pick off any stubborn bits of dirt.  Lay them out on kitchen towel to dry and slice larger ones in half.

Cook the pasta in plenty of salted water, according to the package instructions. 

While the pasta is cooking, toast the almonds over medium heat in a dry non-stick frying pan.  Watch them like a hawk and turn frequently so that they don't burn, and remove from the heat when they start to brown.

In a large heavy-bottomed frying pan, melt the butter and add the shallots and garlic.  Once the shallots are translucent, add the chanterelles and cook for about 4 minutes, until they are heated through. Add the wine and allow the liquid to evaporate before adding the cream.  Allow the cream to heat through and remove from the heat (if you want to add more liquid to the sauce, add ladlefuls of the pasta water and mix well).  Test for seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste.  

Drain the pasta and return to the cooking pot.  Add the chanterelle sauce and mix well.  Spoon into serving bowls and top each bowl with a handful of toasted almonds.   



Nduja, bell pepper and basil risotto

If you enjoy this recipe, please VOTE FOR ME in the Nduja challenge on Facebook - voting open till Friday 19 August!

It's often been said that the world can be divided into two types of people - although just where the dividing line lies has been the subject of much heated debate!  Some suggestions over the years have included:

• realists and fantasists;
• those who make things simple and those who make things complicated;
• those who achieve things and those who claim to have achieved things;
• optimists and pessimists;
• those who follow the rules and those who make the rules; and
• those who give and those who take.

 

Me?  I think the world can neatly be divided into people who laugh at unintentionally rude sounding phrases and those who don't (but roll their eyes at people like me!).  Call it a juvenile sense of humour, if you must, but I can find humour in the most unlikely situations.  My computer geek friends talking about floppies and stiffies (or hardware and software); golfers and all their talk about balls and shafts; people ordering a stiff one in a bar; my friend Donald arriving at a barbecue at my place via the back garden gate on Saturday and telling us he came in via the back passage - you get the picture.  Or the time when I was at Pizza Express with a bunch of girlfriends ordering pizza, and the unsuspecting waiter asked "would you like some soft, spicy Italian sausage on your pizza, madam?".  As you can imagine, utter chaos erupted at our table shortly afterwards. So what do you suppose I said when I was asked if I would like some of this soft spicy Italian sausge to be delivered to my door, to be enjoyed alone, in the privacy of my own home? 

 

 

Yes, yes, YES, oh YESSSSS! ;o) (and, as always, I'll have what she's having...!).  

Nduja is a soft, spicy, spreadable Italian sausage considered one of the most famous typical foods from the southern region of Calabrian. Nduja originated in the small town of Spilinga and its surrounding areas, although it is now made throughout the mountainous Monte Poro region. The name nduja is a corruption of the French word andouille, a type of spicy sausage made with offal. Nduja is typically made with ground pork including the shoulder, belly and jowl as well as tripe, kneaded together with salt and Calabrian chili pepper, stuffed into natural animal casings.  The sausage is then slightly smoked and allowed to rest and season for a number of months.  But unlike salami, nduja is made to a very soft, spreadable consistancy, and the hot, smoky chilli flavour makes it unlike any other Italian cured sausage you may have tasted - closer to a soft chorizo than a salami.

Unearthed is a company started by three friends in 2008 to share with the world their favourite regional food finds and artisanal products.  Today they offer a range of cheeses, sweets, meat, antipasti, patés and more - including the nduja which they very kindly sent me to try.  I'm submitting this recipe to their nduja challenge where they have challenged four bloggers to come up with their best nduja recipes - voting for your favourite will open soon on the Unearthed Facebook page.  The recipe, even if I say so myself, is quite outstanding.  The nduja and the red wine together give it a rustic, robust flavour that is hard to resist, and the sweetness of the peppers offsets this nicely.  Don't skip the fresh basil either - the peppery freshness really lifts the entire dish. 

 

 

NDUJA, PEPPER AND BASIL RISOTTO (serves 2 as a main or 4 as a starter)

Ingredients:

90g Unearthed nduja sausage  
1 medium onion, finely chopped 
2 large cloves of garlic, crushed
1/2 a red bell pepper, finely chopped
1/2 a yellow bell pepper, finely chopped 
300g of risotto rice (Arborio or Carnarolli)
60g Parmesan cheese, grated 
150ml red wine 
2 tbsp olive oil 
20g +20g butter 
600ml vegetable stock 
2 Tpsb fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
salt and black pepper 

Method:

Melt 20g of the butter together with the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan.  Add the onion, garlic, peppers and half of the nduja (broken up into small pieces) and sauté until the onion is translucent and the nduja has released some of its red oil.

Add the rice and cook for a minute or two, stirring constantly stir so that each grain is well-coated with oil/butter.  Add the red wine and keep stirring until the liquid has been absorbed almost completely. 

Add the hot stock a ladleful at a time (probably about 150-200 ml per ladle).  Keep stirring until each ladleful has been completely absorbed, but do not let the rice dry out and stick to the pot.  Once each ladleful is absorbed, add the next until the stock has all been added.  The rice should be soft but each grain should retain some bite in the centre, perfectly al dente, which should take about 20 minutes. 

As soon as the rice is ready, remove from the heat and stir in the remaining 20g of butter, the rest of the nduja (also broken up into small pieces), the grated Parmesan cheese and the basil. Taste and season with salt and black pepper as desired.

Garnish with a little more grated Parmesan cheese and fresh basil leaves and serve immediately. 

If you liked this risotto, you may also want to try my:

• Prawn and lemon pepper risotto
• Roasted butternut and sage risotto
• Asparagus, lemon and mint risotto

If you enjoyed this recipe, please VOTE FOR ME in the Nduja challenge on Facebook - voting open till Friday 19 August!

 

 

Asparagus, lemon and mint risotto

If there is one language I long to speak, it is Italian.  It is a language that you don't just speak - you inhabit it with your entire body.  Watching people at a train station talking on their mobile phones, it is impossible not to guess immediately who the Italian is.  Most people will walk while talking on their mobiles; some may even use the odd hand gesture.  But the Italian will be the one who is shrugging, throwing his hands up, rolling his eyes heavenward and talking with his whole body as he makes a particularly strident point.  It is more like watching a carefully choreographed piece of modern ballet than something as banal as a phone conversation. 

And anyway, words just seem to sound better if you emphasise them with the appropriate lilt to your voice and rhythm to your speech (Lu-iiiii-gi!  Giu-seeeeee-ppi! Mangi-aaaaaa-mo!).  Plus you have to love a language that comes up with delightfully eccentric food names like:

• Tiramisu ("pick-me-up") - a dessert of mascarpone, cocoa and coffee & booze soaked savoiardi cookies
• strozzaprete ("priest-stranglers") - a large variety of pasta.
• ligue di gatti ("cats' tongues") - sweet cookies
• spaghetti puttanesca ("whore's style spaghetti") - a pasta sauce with chilli, anchovies, tomatoes olives and capers
• Sospiri di Monaca ("nun's sighs") - a type of macaroon
• Le Palle de Nonno ("Grandfather's balls") - a kind of knobbly salami

 

 

 

The Italians also gave us the far less eccentrically named dish of risotto - rice cooked in a soupy broth until al dente and suffused with the flavours of the cooking liquid.  Rice was brought rice to Sicily and Spain by the Arabs and made its way across the Italian border to the Po Valley in the fourteenth century, where it found the perfect combination of environment and climate: flat lands, an abundance of water, and high humidity. Rice cultivation became so intensive in the area that rice is now considered a staple food of this part of Italy, and risotto is certainly its flagship dish.

Yet all that risotto recipes require are four basic components: soffritto (sautéed vegetables), broth, flavoring ingredients, and Italian rice. The soffritto consists of a combination of finely diced vegetables and onion, butter and oil sautéed in the same pot or pan in which the rice will be cooked.  The broth can be beef, chicken, vegetable or fish, depending on the flavour of the finished recipe, usually with some wine included. The flavoring ingredient is what will give the finished risotto its unique flavour (mushrooms, butternut squash, truffles, shrimp etc etc). The Italian rice varieties (e.g. Arborio, Carnaroli, Vialone) all have short grains, are rich in starch, and can absorb a considerable amount of cooking liquid while still remaining firm.  The final result is a flavourful, glutinous dish where individual grains of rice remain firm but stuck are stuck together because of their high starch content. 

 

 

 

People have this impression that preparing a good risotto is hard, but it really isn't - and here are my top tips for the perfect risotto:

• Choose the right rice.  No, you cannot make a proper risotto with basmati or par-cooked long-grain rice!  It needs to be short-grained and starchy.  Arborio, Carnaroli and Vialone might be expensive where you live, but they are a necessary extravagance if you want a good risotto. 
• Do not wash the rice before cooking as washing would eliminate a large part of the starch that gives the risotto its texture.
• When you are sautéing the soffrito/onion, do not do so for too long (2 minutes or so is sufficient) and stir constantly so that the onion does not catch, otherwise  the burnt/caramelised taste will permeate the whole risotto and spoil it.  
• Do not stint on the broth.  There is not much else going on, flavour-wise, in a risotto so if you use a cheap-tasting broth, that will be the predominant flavour of your risotto.  A good homemade broth or premium instant broth is best.  
• Add the broth a ladleful at a time, not all at once and keep the heat at medium - too fast, and the rice will not have a chance to absorb enough moisture!  Add more broth as soon as the last lot has been absorbed, otherwise the rice will stick to the pot/pan.  
• When the rice is close to being fully cooked, taste it for readiness.  It should be neither too hard nor too soft, but just al dente (cooked on the outside but still slightly resistant in the middle) - it should take about 20 minutes.  Once the texture is right, remove the risotto from the heat, otherwise it overcooks. 
• If you want a creamy risotto, do not skip mantecare - the final step where you stir cubes of butter into the finished dish!

This particular risotto (based on a Jamie Oliver recipe) is perfect for Spring and early Summer, when English asparagus are in season.  Although risotto is often seen as a starchy and possibly heavy comfort food, the addition of lemon juice and mint makes this one seem as light and summery as a warm summer evening in the garden. Mangiamo!

 

ASPARAGUS, LEMON AND MINT RISOTTO (serves 2)

Ingredients:

200g fresh asparagus, ends trimmed and cut into 2cm lengths, plus a couple whole for garmish  
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 large clove of garlic, crushed
Juice from half a medium lemon 
300g of risotto rice (see above for types)
60g Parmesan cheese, grated
150ml dry white wine
2 tbsp olive oil
20g +20g butter
600ml vegetable stock 
1 tbsp fresh mint leaves, finely chopped

Method:

Melt 20g of the butter together with the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan.  Add the onion and garlic and saute until the onion is translucent and soft but do not let it brown.

Add the rice and cook for a minute or two, stirring constantly stir so that each grain is well-coated with oil/butter.  Add the white wine and keep stirring until the liquid has been absorbed almost completely. 

Add the hot stock a ladleful at a time (probably about 150-200 ml per ladle).  Keep stirring until each ladleful has been completely absorbed, but do not let the rice dry out and stick to the pot.  Once each ladleful is absorbed, add the next until the stock has all been added.  The rice should be soft but each grain should retain some bite in the centre, perfectly al dente, which should take about 20 minutes. 

5 minutes before the rice is ready, cook the asparagus pieces in boiling water for 3-4 minutes, or until tender.  Drain and reserve.

Stir the asparagus, mint and lemon juice into the risotto. Cook over a low heat, stirring constantly, until heated through. Remove from the heat and stir in the grated Parmesan cheese and remaining 20g of butter. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Using a vegetable peeler, slice your reserved whole asparagus into thin ribbons.  Garnish the risotto with this and a little more grated Parmesan and serve immediately.  In keeping with the Italian theme, I paired this with a Morrisons Best Italian Gavi, which had enough fruit flavours to pair well with the creamy rice.  

 

If you liked this risotto, you may also want to try my:

• Prawn and lemon pepper risotto
• Roasted butternut and sage risotto
• Sausage and fennel risotto

 

Jewelled couscous with pomegranate and almonds

 

One of my favourite books of all time is Tom Robbins' Still Life With Woodpecker.  I remember borrowing it from a friend, reading it, and being enchanted right from the start by Robbins' quirky, memorable characters and poetic way with words.  Without giving the game away too much, the book asks the question "how do you make love stay?" and serves up some truly inspired observations along the way.  One of these is the notion of the romance of objecthood, and I love it because it presupposes that there is romance and mystery in every single thing around us, not only in candlelit dinners and moonlit nights. 

 

"The romance of new love, the romance of solitude, the romance of objecthood, the romance of ancient pyramids and distant stars"

 

Have you ever held an object in your hands that encouraged you to think not only about the object itself, but about the place it came from; the people that made it; and how it came to be in your hands?  I have an empty ostrich egg that is covered with a fine mesh of tiny gold and black beads that neatly crosses the defining line between craft and art.  My mom and I bought a number of these from a woman in KwaZulu Natal (South Africa) who in turn sourced them from rural Zulu women who were employing their ancient tribal art of beading to create them.  I often cup it in my hands and run my fingers over the intricate beadwork; I hold it up to my face and I can still smell the faint smell of woosdmoke from the house where it was beaded.  I wonder about how on earth the beading was done so seamlessly; I wonder about the woman who made it and the little hut with the woodsmoke in the green hills of KwaZulu Natal; and I think about my mom and our last trip together to Durban to buy it. 

On the bookshelf by my front door are two little midnight blue Moroccan bowls with silver metal trim.  They are perfectly shaped and sized to fit into a cupped hand and I often find myself absent-mindedly picking one up and running my fingers over the metal while I am talking on the phone or watching TV.  They were bought not in Morocco, but in Granada on one of the best holidays I have ever had.  In the summer of 2005 my two closest friends from South Africa and I rented a tiny house in the Albaicin (the old Muslim quarter of Granada) with a minuscule roof terrace and a view over the Alhambra palace.  I expected nothing more than a joyful reunion, but instead I got a collection of memories and images so vivid that they can (and do) transport me back to that weekend completely, even now years later.  As I turn the little bowl over in my  hand, I think of my friends in South Africa and wonder what they are doing.  I think about our little house in the Albaicin and who is living there now, gazing at the Alhambra every night while sipping Rioja and eating olives on the terrace.  I remember the serene beauty of the Nazarene palaces of the Alhambra in the early morning before the tourist buses arrived, and the sound of the swallows.  I remember baking hot afternoons and three crazy girls walking up the steep, empty streets of the Albaicin while sane locals napped.  I remember sitting in our tiny garden sipping lemonade and listening to the muezzin reciting the call to afternoon prayers from the nearby mosque's minaret.  I think about the jumble of market alleys around the cathedral, full of Moroccan merchants and Moroccan merchandise like my little bowls; and I wonder about the long journey that brought them from Africa to London, just like me.

 

 

 

Last week I shared with you my Moroccan lamb shank tagine with apricots and ras-el-hanout; today I am sharing the recipe for the jewelled couscous on which I served the tagine.  Couscous is popular throughout north Africa and consists of dry granules about 1mm in diameter.  The granules are made by rolling and shaping moistened semolina wheat and then coating them with finely ground wheat flour. Although traditional couscous requires a long preparation time and is usually steamed, more processed, quick-cook couscous is available in supermarkets and takes almost no time to prepare.  No prizes for guessing which method I used! There is considerable scope for customising this recipe with the addition of spices, sultanas, chopped apricots or pistachios; but I kept it simple as it was being served with the lamb tagine that already had some strident flavours of its own.  My only indulgence was the pomegranate arils - for their colour and for their associations with my beloved Granada.  My couscous was a side dish, but with the addition of some spices and some chicken, this could be a wonderful main course too.

 

 

JEWELLED COUSCOUS WITH POMEGRANATE (serves 6 as a side dish)

Ingredients:

2 cups dry couscous
3 cups boiling water (can also use stock)
salt
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 cup pomegranate arils
olive oil

Method

In a dry non-stick pan, toast the almonds over medium heat until beginning to brown.  Watch them like a hawk as they burn easily!

Place the couscous in a large pot.  Add salt (I add about half a teaspoon) and boiling water and cover with a lid.  Leave to stand for 10 minutes or until all the water has been absorbed. 

Add a good glug of olive oil and fluff up the grains with a fork.  Mix in the almonds, parsley and pomegranate arils and serve hot.

And in other news...

It is with great pleasure that I announce the 2011 Food and Wine Blogger Indaba! This event was held for the first time in 2009 and I was honoured to be asked to speak.  The good news is that I will be speaking again and hosting workshops at this year's event in Cape Town!  Bookings are streaming in and tickets are selling fast - so if you are a food or wine blogger or if you are interested in becoming one, the Indaba is the place to be on 20 February 2011. Book now!

Dont forget to check out the series of posts we are running on the Plate to Page workshop blog featuring a review of 2010 and plans for 2011 from our four workshop instructors Ilva, Jeanne, Meeta and Jamie. The May 2011 Plate to Page hands-on food writing and photography workshop is now sold out - but register now if you are interested in Plate to Page II in Italy in Autumn 2011.

My 2011 calendars are now available!  They are A3 size, printed on high quality heavy paper and make the perfect gift - for foodies, for those who love London or Italy or the beach - or those who simply love my Saturday Snapshots! And at £15.51 each they are an affordable luxury.

Prawn and lemon pepper risotto

 
 
 
There is a wonderful poem by Philip Larkin (a poet who was offered the position of Poet Laureate in 1984 but turned it down) called "This be the verse" that starts like this (warning - profanity ahoy!):

 

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
  They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
  And add some extra, just for you.

 

There are two more stanzas, but it is the first one I return to again and again. At first glance , the opening sounds like a shocking, angry thing to say.  But as you read the poem you realise that it isn't angry as much as sad: that the poet is saying that parents are neither malicious nor cruel but merely pass on to their children their own faults, fears, hopes and aspirations. And it is this theme that I often return to when talking to my friends and family with small children. 

In the film Inception, the entire plot revolves around planting an idea in somebody's mind so that eventually they believe it to be their own idea.  All very far-fetched and fictional - but if you think about it, this is what parents around the world do, day in and day out.  If your mother told you from a young age that cats are dirty and steal your spirit when you sleep, you are unlikely to be a cat lover in adulthood.  If your parents were deeply mistrustful and suspicious of strangers, it is likely that you will not be the most gregarious person in the room.  And if your dad told you repeatedly how dangerous everything is, you are unlikely to be a life-long risk-taker.

The last sentence pretty much describes my childhood.  Everything was described as mortally dangerous.  Riding a bike (except in our own garden!); rollerskating; horse riding; swimming in the sea, or going to the movies alone (!).  The problem with telling your child this is that it not only stops them taking part in these activities, but also stops them taking other risks in life - so I am guessing that my first million will not be made on the stock market! And astonishingly, although I am closer to middle-age than my teenage years, my father still dispenses bits of fear-inducing advice when I visit, particularly when it comes to food.  "Yoghurt?  You want to eat something that contains bacteria?  Biltong?  It's raw meat!  Think of the salmonella! Eating shellfish? Russian roulette, plain and simple.  One day you will get The Bad One and die right there in Michelin-starred splendour."

 

 

I have still never rollerskated or ridden a horse; and I am not much of a bike rider (although, astonishingly, I learnt to ski when I was 37!) - but at least as far as food is concerned I have become a risk-taker.  I breakfast every morning on yoghurt; I consume biltong by the kilogram; and I don't believe I've ever met a shellfish or a crustacean that I did not like. Who knows - this culinary risk-taking may eventually infect other areas of my life.  Look out for my bungee jumping podcasts in 2011 ;)

My father would no doubt be horrified to hear the when I opened my fridge last week to find something to make for Kavey's spice challenge, the first thing that caught my eye was a bag of death-defying prawns!  When my sister-from-another-mother Meeta and Saucy Spice Jamie came to visit in December, we arranged a blogger brunch at Village East (soon to be blogged!) where the lovely Kavey gave us each a packet of mystery spices which we were to use in a dish by mid-January.  Out of a dozen or so packets of spice, there were only 2 that were the same... and of course, these were the ones Meeta and I picked:  lemon pepper. Meeta chose to make macarons with hers (no surprises there!), but I knew mine would end up somewhere savoury: a lemon pepper and prawn risotto.  I have to say that the Danish Hedebogard lemon pepper is the best blend I have ever tasted and  included not only enough other spices to make it intriguing but also dried lemon peel that tastes like lemon, not like chemicals.  It lifted the prawn risotto into the realms of the stratospherically good and is definitely on my shopping list from now on.  Thanks, Kavey - for the pepper and the fun challenge!

If you liked this recpe, you should also try my:

• Roasted butternut squash and sage risotto
• Sausage and fennel risotto
• Wild garlic risotto

If you are wondering where I got the pretty little bamboo scoop holding the lemon pepper, it was kindly sent to me by Restaurantware, who make an attractive range of bamboo disposable crockery for catering professionals.  

 



PRAWN & LEMON PEPPER RISOTTO (serves 2, generously)

Ingredients:
2 large shallots, finely chopped
1 large clove of garlic, crushed
20g butter, plus 20g cubed for later
2 Tbsp olive oil
300g short-grain risotto rice (I used arborio)
100ml dry white wine (I used a Sauvignon Blanc)
2 Tbsp lemon juice
750ml fish stock
250g cooked, peeled prawns
olive oil
50g grated Parmiggiano
lemon pepper

Method

Heat a little olive oil in a pan.  Season the prawns with seasoning of your choice (I used the lemon pepper) and heat through for a few minutes over low heat. Keep warm.

Melt the butter together with the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan.  Add the shallots and saute until translucent and soft but do not let them brown.

Add the rice and cook for a minute or two, stirring constantly stir so that each grain is well-coated with oil/butter.  Add the white wine and lemon juice and keep stirring until the liquid has been absorbed almost completely. 

Add the hot stock a ladleful at a time (probably about 150-200 ml per ladle).  Keep stirring until each ladleful has been completely absorbed, but do not let the rice dry out and stick to the pot.  Once each ladleful is absorbed, add the next until the stock has all been added.  The rice should be soft but each grain should retain some bite in the centre, perfectly al dente. 

Before you add the last ladle of stock, stir in the prawns.  When the rice is cooked to your liking, stir in the Parmiggiano and remaining butter in cubes.  Check for seasoning and season with lemon pepper.  Serve in wide,  shallow bowls, garnished with grated Parmiggiano and fresh lemon wedges.  I paired mine with a 2009 Auckland Bay Sauvignon Blanc and i have to say, it brought out the flavour of the prawns unlike any other wine I've ever had with seafood - highly recommended!

Dont forget to check out the series of posts we are running on the Plate to Page workshop blog this week featuring a review of 2010 and plans for 2011 from our four workshop instructors Ilva, Jeanne, Meeta and Jamie. The May 2011 Plate to Page hands-on food writing and photography workshop is now sold out - but register now if you are interested in Plate to Page II in Italy in Autumn 2011.

My 2011 calendars are now available!  They are A3 size, printed on high quality heavy paper and make the perfect gift - for foodies, for those who love London or Italy or the beach - or those who simply love my Saturday Snapshots! And at £15.51 each they are an affordable luxury.

Smoked salmon, vodka and pea pasta - and a Kinvara salmon hamper

I have been reading a few articles lately about "the expat experience" in London (as if there is only ONE experience expats can possibly have!).  With all the fantastic vibe that has been generated in South Africa with the tremendously successful FIFA World Cup 2010, it seems to have become fashionable to paint South Africans living abroad as delusional fools and cowards.  The net and the press is awash with articles quoting SA expats in London who talk mournfully of feeling unable to integrate here but unable to go back; of "grimly hanging on" in London, despite the abject misery; of having no friends; and of the grass not being greened on the other side. 

I have only one question:  who are these people?! 

I certainly don't know any of them or (God forbid!) feel as if I am one of their number.  Here's a newsflash for all those who think they can lump all South African expats under one category and make glib generalisations about them: we didn't all "run away" from South Africa because we thought life would be easier elsewhere; and for heaven's sake stop telling us how miserable we all are! Me?  I am happy as a hungry cat in a flightless bird sanctuary.  I came over here for a look-see and found a list of fabulous things to do as long as my arm.  The list isn't finished yet, so I'm still here - end of story. And I am perfectly comfortable with the fact that loving London and loving South Africa can comfortably co-exist in the same brain. 

Mostly, though, I think I stay here for the readily available and very affordable smoked salmon (and maybe for the Ben & Jerry's Phish Food ice-cream!).  Smoked salmon was a treat when I was growing up back in South Africa - you either had it at restaurants, or on occasions like birthdays and Christmas, as part of a very special meal.  Imagine my surprise on my first visit to London when I found smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches available for under £2 in the fridges of supermarkets!  I realised then that I had truly arrived in the land of milk and honey (or smoked salmon and cream cheese, at any rate!).

Smoked salmon is freshly caught salmon that undergoes salting and smoking in a kiln order to extend the period of time for which it remains edible - a very important consideration in the days before refrigerators.  These days, we have freezers that can preserve even untreated fish, so although the necessity of smoking salmon has fallen away, it tastes so damn good that we are still doing it!  Salmon can be hot-smoked or cold-smoked - in both cases the fish is first submerged in a brine, rinsed and left to dehydrate for a couple of hours, before being placed in a smoker.  The only difference between the two processes is the temperature: for cold smoking, it is kept below 38C, and for hot smoking it goes up to 74-85C.  Cold smoked salmon is still uncooked, but has taken on a deep pink colour and the unctuous texture that is so uniquely delicious.  Hot smoked (or smoke-roasted) salmon is in fact cooked and has a paler pink colour and a flaky texture.

Last week, I was lucky enough to be on the receiving end of a gift hamper of salmon goodies, courtesy of the lovely folks at Kinvara, a family business that takes its name from the seaside village on Galway Bay on the west coast of Ireland. Kinvara uses only the finest organic Irish salmon and employs traditional smoking techniques in a state of the art smokehouse to produce their top quality organic smoked salmon products.  The salmon are fed no GM feed and no growth promotors, and are stocked at 2 fish per cubic metre (about half the density of conventional farms).  The result is a premium product which was described by my hero Nigel Slater as the best smoked salmon he'd had all year.  High praise indeed!

In my hamper I had: 100g of organic smoked salmon; 100g of roast smoked organic salmon; 100g of organic gravad lax, 300g of organic smoked salmon, and a tub of salmon paté.  A veritable feast of salmon!  I am slowly working my way through the products and so far they have all been fabulous.  The roast smoked salmon is deliciously meaty and not excessively salty - a little goesw a long way. The texture of the cold smoked salmon is silky and muscular - not disintegrating like some cheaper brands - with a deep, attractive colour.  The flavour is wonderful - smoky, but never to the extent that the smoke overpowers the essential flavour of the fish.  I am in love.  Have a peek at their full product list and maybe treat yourself - you won't regret it!  They deliver to a slwe of countries including most of Europe, USA, Canada, Hong Kong and Japan.

Here's a quick weeknight dinner using some of the delectable cold smoked salmon - although it's quick and easy, you will feel as if you are pampering yourself.  And it certainly takes a little of the abject misery out of living in London ;-)

SMOKED SALMON AND PEA PASTA (serves 2)

Ingredients:

enough pasta for 2 people (I used chitarra pasta which really grips the sauce)
3 shallots, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1-2 Tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup fresh (or frozen) peas
25ml vodka
a little flour
125ml single cream
100g smoked salmon, 3/4 chopped and the rest roughly torn)
a few basil leaves, finely chopped
freshly ground black pepper

Method:

Prepare the pasta according to the package instructions.

Heat the oil in a large heavy frying pan and add the shallots and garlic.  Sauté over medium heat until the onions are soft and translucent but do NOT brown them.

Add the peas and continue stirring for a few minutes.  When the peas start to soften, add the vokda and turn up the heat so that it cooks away.  Once most of the liquid is gone, turn the heat back to medium and stir in the flour - enough that all the liquid in the pan is absorbed.  Stir constantly to prevent lumps.

Stir in the cream a little at a time, stirring continuously.  If the sauce is too thick, thin it with a few spoonfuls of the pasta cooking water. 

When the sauce has reached the desired consistency, stir in the chopped salmon and allow to heat through.  Turn off the heat and stir in the chopped basil.  Check for seasoning and add black pepper - be careful of adding salt as the salmon will already be salty.

Drain the pasta and return it to the cooking pot.  Add the sauce to the pasta and mix well. Divide the pasta among two serving bowls and and top with the remaining smoked salmon, torn into rough strips. 

If you liked this recipe, why not try my smoked salmon eggs benedict, smoked salmon paté parcels, or smoked salmon mini-quiches with sour cream and caviar?

I am submitting this as my entry into this week's edition of Presto Pasta Nights, the event created by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast and hosted this week by Helen of Fuss-free Flavours.  Make sure you swing by Helen's to see the roundup on Friday!