Gnocchi di ricotta

One thing that immediately strikes one on arriving in Italy is that everyone is beautiful. And nobody is fat. How is this possible, in the land of gnocchi (not to mention dried pasta, and pizza, and ice cream, and every other damn thing)?

Well, the answer, as you might expect, is that, A/ they eat small portions of pasta as a primo, and B/They take a lot of excercise, much of it in the shape of dodging Vespas and waving their hands.

This quantity makes a starter for four. You don´t want to gorge on gnocchi, just to have a small bowlful and then go on to something else. Just make sure that the something else is wonderful, because these babies are a pretty hard act to follow.

As taught by Fabrizia at the Anna Tasca Lanza school, they seem a little bit intimidating. For starters, the day begins with a morning trip to see the ricotta being made. A sheep farm on a hillside, bees buzzing, almond trees in bloom, sheep and lambs milling about, and, once inside, the shepherd, in pristine white,  stirring a cauldron of whey and milk. Milked that very morning.

A spoonful of that stuff will quickly convince you that nothing you have ever had before is ricotta, if this thing is ricotta. And these gnocchi are mostly ricotta, so it seems a no go.

Well, despair not. I have made these with the so-called sad supermarket ricotta available in Aberdeen, and I can assure you, they are beautiful. 

You can also try them with requesón, as made with this recipe. It´s not ricotta, but it´s a fresh  cheese that everyone is calling ricotta, so why not?

So anyway, the way to make them is to mix 250 gr. of ricotta with an egg, two tablespoonfuls of grated Parmiggiano and 3 tablespoonfuls of plain flour. This makes a paste that looks delicious but you doubt will ever hold any shape. But it will. I am very clumsy, and my sous chef is three years old, and yet we make very passable gnocchi.

Now put a big pan of water to boil.

The thing to do is sprinkle your work surface with flour, and put a spoonful of the mixture on it. Roll it to make a long shape, then cut it into gnocchi. Lay them aside on a floured clean kitchen towel, and work quickly to make the rest. 

Then put them gently into the boiling water and wait for them to start floating up. When you can fish them out from the surface, they´re cooked.

Douse with herbed butter, or tomato sauce, and eat straight away.

If it seems to you that I have been a bit cavalier in my explanation, let me point you towards Nicky and Oliver´s blog. They have photos, and you can see the whole process very well. Or, take a look at Béa´s. Not that her food is ever less than spectacularly pretty, but it might help.

I promise, it´s very easy and much quicker than you´d think.

Pasta with broccoli, anchovies and pine nuts.

I made this pasta when I was in Spain last. We´d had a long meeting, were hungry and, as Monday is not a good day for bars and restaurants, decided to go to my friend P´s house. "We can have pasta", she said, "although there´s nothing in the cupboard". Aglio olio, I thought, happily, for I love me a good aglio olio.

Turns out that P´s "nothing" is a broad, sweeping comment. There was oil and garlic, of course, but also broccoli. And a further rummage around netted anchovies, almonds and raisins.

Almost all the ingredients of one of the first dishes I ever learnt how to make, from a Sardinian flatmate in my university days.

Happily for my slapdash blogging methods, it is a sister recipe to this one of a few weeks back for pan steamed broccoli, so kindly read that over first if you need to.

While the pasta (long, ideally, but anything goes) boils, you cook the broccoli, with crushed garlic and a tin of anchovies, and add the raisins towards the end. The original calls for capers but I hardly every remember them.

If you can be bothered, toast pine nuts, or almonds, as it was what we had, in a separate pan. Get someone else to lay the table, not forgetting a bottle of oil, a pepper mill and some parmesan and the grater.

When the pasta is al dente, grab it with tongs or strain it, but make sure there´s some water, which will help to make a sauce. Put it in the frying pan with the broccoli, toss it well, then put it in a bowl.

My secret touch is a lump of butter tossed at the end, when the pasta and broccoli meet. It is not essential but helps it out no end.

Scatter the pine nuts or almonds over and eat away.

This is as popular with starving students as with startup app developers.

Chickpea and stuffed pasta salad

A great salad, easily made from ingredients from the pantry, and long lasting fridge goodies. You can see my own (far from perfect, of course) pantry in Lydia´s blog, which features a section called "Other people´s pantries".

This has become my get out of jail free card. Whenever I have to make a meal for the four of us in five minutes, counting from putting my key in the door to sitting down at the table, this is it.

I know purists scoff at supermarket fresh pasta, and yes, I know it´s nowhere nearly as good as home made fresh pasta, and lacks the toothy character of good dried pasta. But that doesn´t matter here; what matters is speed. Provided you boil the water in an electric kettle, the dish is done in three minutes flat. You have time to lay the table, but only just.

The only non-negotiable ingredients are a packet of stuffed fresh pasta, whatever you like, and a tin of chickpeas. One packet is too mean, but two means waiting a long time for the water to come to the boil, and anyway the mixture of grain and bean is a winner.

While the pasta boils, open the tin, drain it, put it in a big bowl and begin the dressing. By far the easiest and tastiest is pesto, which you should always try to have on hand, as it´s a lifesaver. If you don´t, mix garlic, oil and whatever herb you have. Cooked broccoli or spinach, or jarred sun dried tomatoes, artichokes, olives...all these things would not be out of place, but be restrained. People tend to let their imaginations run away with them in pasta salads, and anyway you only have literally two minutes to do this.

Drain the pasta, toss, serve with more olive oil and a hunk of parmesan to grate at table.

I works well with beans, too, can be made ahead and doesn´t suffer much in transport, which screams "picnic".

Pasta alla bottarga

Summer. It kind of gets to you, in the end, doesn´t it? You may try to bumble along happily, pretending it´s not here, but before you know it, it will get you in the neck, nastily.
Forgive the hiatus, but really, these temperatures have made anything other than opening the fridge an utopia. Likewise, the computer keys smoke. However, since I´ll be in Estonia by Friday, I´ve taken heart.
Here´s a recipe very suited to summer. Pasta alla bottarga is one of those winners, pasta recipes that can be made while the pasta boils.
Even if it´s just pasta, it can´t fail to be impressive. Bottarga, the dried roe of red tuna, is so exotic, so thorougly mediterranean chic, and so expensive and hard to find, that you have an instant high-impact-low-effort classic on your hands.
I suggest that you attempt this only in case of having recently come into an inheritance, or if some kind friend has recently been to Cádiz and has picked up some of the stuff.
Once home, a piece no bigger than a zippo lighter is enough to feed four, so it´s not so bad.
You just need to peel and grate that piece into a bowl. Cover it with about a half cup of the best olive oil. Chop a bunch of parsely, crush a couple of dried chillies, and add them, together with some grated pepper. Salt need not apply, yet. Leave it to infuse for a little while, half an hour or so.
Then boil your pasta ( I think 500 gr. for 4, but you be the judge). Flat shapes optional, long non-negotiable, and don´t even think about parmesan. When al dente, toss into the bowl, mix well, and check for salt and oil. It may not look like much sauce, but the bottarga is so strong that the little pieces of oily roe clinging to the pasta will be more than enough. A little green salad after this goes down a treat. And if you happen to have any leftovers, it´s also great cold.

A recipe you can´t refuse

You may or may not have noticed that I´m somewhat of a movie nut. It runs in the family. People who don´t watch movies a lot find it hard to follow a conversation at our table. The references are usually to stupid films, and if you haven´t seen them, then you won´t know why we whinny every time my father says he wants to have a dog called Blücher.

I usually take it one step further, and make life altering decisions based on movies. And they´re not even good movies, half the time, which makes it something I probably shouldn´t confess in public. I cut my hair to resemble Demi Moore´s after seeing Indecent proposal. I bought a Powerbook after seeing Forces of nature. I painted my kitchen red after seeing Amelie. Embarrassing, I know, but the haircut was nice.

It makes perfect sense, then, that the first recipe I tried out for company in my spanking new red kitchen, quite a few years ago, should be what is generally referred to as  Godfather spaghetti sauce.

I´m sure you all remember the scene where Clemenza shows a nervy young Michael the ropes of cooking for a crowd. Coppola insisted on inserting it in the film. He said that if it sucked, at least people would have learnt something.The humility of true genius.

Hopefully you won´t be called upon to feed a tribe of assassins after your brother is murdered, but other than that, it´s a really useful recipe to have up your sleeve.
However, it requires time and love. When I don´t have time for that, I do a version that, while nowhere nearly as good as the original, is still pretty good.
I call it The Godfather part III sauce.

It´s very much like  this one, but mine is even simpler, and can be done while the pasta cooks. Quantities are vague. This is not about precision.

Put a pan on the hob with some water, and the rest in the kettle, to speed things up. Chop a small onion very very finely. Sautee it in olive oil over a high fire. It won´t catch if you´re stirring vigorously, so it´s maybe best if somebody else does that, while you break two or three fresh butcher´s sausages from their casings, and crumble the meat with your hands. Ask that other helpful person to put the pasta in the pan while you brown your mince well. Add a jar of tomato sauce.

Up to this point, activity is furious, but now, with the pasta safely in the pan for at least 8 minutes, and the sauce almost done, you can realx, taste, and see. It´ll probably need a bit of sugar, maybe a shake of Tabasco.

While pasta cooks and the sauce splutters, you can have a beer, lay the table, take out the parmesan, the pepper grinder and relocate the microplane. Don´t even bother with the salad.
I´ve never seen a wiseguy tucking into his greens.

Heartburn: the book, the movie, the carbonara

I don´t know if you´ve read Heartburn , but if you haven´t, do, because it´s a very funny book about a cookbook writer. The thing is chock full of food, and even has a few recipes. It was written before the Craze That Swept The World, and isn´t self-conscious in its foodiness.
Plus, it has the über foodline "pesto is the quiche of the eighties", later used in When Harry met Sally, to great effect.

I´ve had the book for ages, but it wasn´t until I came across a reference to the film in Nigella´s Feast that I even knew the film existed. A quick Imdb search, and I saw that it was made by Mike Nichols 1985 with Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, music by Carly Simon. I was intrigued. Why wasn´t it more famous? Was it one of those overlooked masterpieces, like Love in the afternoon, or Soapdish? Or one of those good-on-paper, bad-in-bed star vehicles like About a boy?

It´s neither. An ok film, but nowhere near the book. It has carbonara, though, which the book doesn´t.

The first time they sleep together, Meryl cooks spagetti carbonara and takes it, in the pan, with two forks, to Jack, who´s still in bed. He wiggles his eyebrows in that wicked way of his, and she says, very indignant, "Usually I never cook on the first date, you know"

In her recipe for carbonara, Nigella writes about this scene, and then blithely gushes about " a panful of hot pasta, to be taken back to bed and sharingly slurped". Which is all very well, but I´m too bourgeois not to worry about my nice sheets. And judging from the mess José makes eating at a normal table, I shudder to think what he might do in bed with a bowl of pasta. We wouldn´t be married now, so it´s good news that I don´t cook on a first date, either.

I´ll spare you the writing of another carbonara recipe. You probably have one you like already, right? If not, here´s one . I do it like that, minus the garlic, and adding a splash of vermouth to the bacon and then reducing it to a fatty caramelized jus.

You don´t have to eat this in bed, of course, but it does lend itself to lazy times. I suggest the sofa, deep bowls, and maybe even Heartburn, the movie, which won´t distract you from the pasta.

A really awsome fideuá

I´ve always wanted to learn how to do a proper paella. But it seems to be a pretty huge undertaking. So many factors to take into account, so much fiddling around, so many arguments as to what constitutes a "true" paella...And there´s always the tricky question of the "punto del arroz", that exact nirvana of the rice grain, achieved only with extreme precision and an almost otherwordly flair. Or so they say.

All these tiresome rice pundits do agree on one thing, though ; fideuá is a sort of paella for dummies. The preparation is similar, but there´s none of that stress about perfection. It can be dry, or soupy, and pasta is pretty foolproof to cook. It doesn´t even have to be al dente, so you have a few minutes grace.

One day I´ll try my hand at rice, but yesterday I took my first steps, and produced fideuá. And, I am happy to say, it was excellent. It was delicious. It took less than half an hour to cook, and was bursting with flavour from all the things that were inside.

I´ll give you the recipe, and hope I´m not being irritating with the imprecision, but that´s the beauty of it. You can be pretty slapdash and it will still be good. This is how it goes.

I had some good fish stock in the freezer, about 1 1/2 cups, and the especial fideuá noodles in the cupboard. They´re small, curved and hollow in the middle, but you can do it with normal thickish noodles. Onions, garlic, saffon, pimentón and tomatoes I had. I then bought a courgette, one small squid, and a handful of mussels.
It can be done with any other vegetables, shellfish, or even chicken. Your call. The quantities here are for two.

You start the sofrito with onion and garlic in a frying pan, or similar wide low pan.
While they soften, you grate the tomatoes. Dice the courgette pretty small. By this time the onions will be pretty floppy. Add a pinch of saffron strands and a third of a teaspoon of pimentón. Mix it for no more than thirty seconds, and add the tomato. It´s important that you do this, otherwise the pimentón will burn and taste really horrible.

Let that reduce. It will take around ten minutes. Cut up the squid into small chunks. Open the mussels. I do this in the microwave, but use your preferred method. Add the liquid to the fish stock, and reserve the mussels.

When the sofrito is done ,add the squid and the noodles. I used two good handfuls, about 150 gr. Move them around the pan for a minute, and then add the stock. It has to cover the noodles by about a finger.

Let it boil away for 12 minutes or so. You can spend the time doodling the bowl of mussels, or clearing up the kitchen a little, or making a salad.
Check after 10 minutes. By that time, the pasta will have absorbed most of the liquid, and the starch from the noodles will have made the stock all silky and risotto-ish. When you think the noodles are done, turn the fire off, scoop into bowls, and add the mussels.

Mine out came more soupy than not, but when we came back for seconds the pasta had soaked up everything, and it was quite dry. I think trial and error is in order if I ever want a crusty socarrat bottom, but for now, I´m very happy with this.

A quick dinner for five

It´s not only I who am stressed and at my wit´s end with the heat of summer and the pressure of all the workload that has to be handed in before August.
My friends are all like that, too, or so it seems. We exchange a lot of emails that usually end with a hopeless "we really should get together sometime".
And then yesterday, magically, we decided to finally go ahead,and have dinner at my house. The decision was taken at 8, so there was just enough time to go to the market before they closed. I rushed out to buy ice , tonic and lemons, which would be needed no matter what, and ran over menu possibilities on the way there.
I´d have loved to try something new or spectacular, but there was really no time, so I opted for trusted warhorses ; focaccia, green beans in vinaigrette, and a pasta salad.
It´s a menu that can be done a few hours in advance. This time I didn´t have hours, but I did want half an hour´s quiet before they arrived, enough for a shower at least.
The first thing was to make the focaccia dough, and leave at least half an hour´s rising time. With the Thermomix that´s just a matter of pressing a few buttons.
While it rested, I boiled the beans, mixed the vinaigrette with some bottled mayo, sliced the tomatoes, and chopped the chalottes.
As the pasta boiled, I also found time to grate cucumbers and chop mint for a raita-ish dip with a bit of cumin and sesame thrown in.
Once all this was done, I put the focaccia in the oven and went off to breathe a little.
The dough didn´t rise as it should have. Maybe I didn´t leave it long enough, or maybe it was too hot in the kitchen. Probably the yeast was a bit old, having been in my freezer four months. So it was crusty and brittle, but tasted very good.
It was good to see everyone before we all disperse for the summer.
Btw, that drawing is nothing like us , of course, but the kitchen is very vaguely inspired on mine, which has red walls too.

Pasta salad
adapted from the Ballymaloe cookery course

250 gr. pasta in a smallish shape
2 big jars of beans, preferably dark, and if possible, two different kinds, for a prettier effect
200 gr. tuna in olive oil
Chopped parsley, and some other herbs if you like (chives are good)
Vinaigrette , as much as you like

Ideally, you should mix the vinaigrette some hours before, and leave the beans soaking in it. They will drink it up, and be very flavourful and very cold. When you add the hot pasta and toss them together, they both achieve the perfect temperature. Then all you do is throw in the chopped herbs and the tuna.
This can sit around for quite a while, but be sure to check for seasoning before you serve it. It seems to soak up vast amounts.

Ten Minute Noodles

Let me just say, I´m all tired out from this neverending morning. Full blast work from 830, no coffee break, and doing 5 differnt things. That takes its toll. Plus, I´m starving, and inspired by these noodles in Chubby Hubby.

So I´m looking forward to cooking lunch. I think I quallify for one of those texts about coming home exhausted and not wanting to make a great production of dinner. True. So I have some shiitakes soaking, and I´ll boil some egg noodles, and sautee those mushrooms and a stack of thai stirfry veg, frozen and all chopped up. and then add some of the shiitake liquid, and hoisin sauce, and corn starch, and a splash of soy sauce. and add the noodles, toss them around. and that´s it. Slurp ahead.

I don´t know if those veg will be ok, but I see no reason why not. it´s the kind of convenience food I love, stuff that´s raw, and so is not potentially gross. And yet takes away the true complication of the stirfry, which is the chopping up.

No thtat chopping up is bad, per se. I can find it in me to enjoy the time spent cleaning and slicing and dicing. But not on a day like today. I want near instant gratification. in fact, I´m almost on the point of going out for lunch, but I don´t think that´s a good idea. it´s best to eat home, light and good. and then, when really you can take it no more, around 5, to go, have yourself some coffee and a treat, and then come back, rejuvenated and ready for more.