Daring Cooks July Challenge

This month's Daring Cook's challenge was to make a pasta or noodle without the aid of a motorized machine. We were however allowed to use a hand-crank pasta roller.

The challenge presented me with a conundrum - I got a pasta rolling machine at Christmas and have made my own pasta a few times since then, so I could take the easy route of making a recipe I know, or I could investigate a different kind of pasta. It seemed more in the spirit of the Daring Cooks to attempt something new, so I started to look around for ideas.

I've been reading a memoir by Josceline Dimbleby recently. Its a meander through her life and travels, interspersed with lovely recipes and photographs. Towards the end of the book there's a chapter on a visit to the Gujarati district of India, and a recipe for Khvandi, which she describes as a kind of Indian pasta. It sounded intriguing, and we were planning a curry night, so I decided to give the recipe a try and serve it as a starter.

It is an unusual method for a pasta - you boil the ingredients (gram flour, tumeric, chilli powder, yoghurt and water) down to a thick paste;



then spread it into a greased tray and leave it to set;



The idea is to then cut it into strips and serve it garnished with herbs, seeds and some dessicated coconut.

Mine didn't set though! I imagine I needed to simmer the mixture for longer before spreading it out to set. I will give this another try at some point because the flavours were good - a little bit spicy and sour. Definitely interesing.

This non-setting disaster left me with very little time to acheive a Daring Cooks dish for this month - or at least one that was edible. I got in there with only hours to spare, making Jamie Oliver's Pici with tomato sauce (from the Jamie's Italy cook book) for dinner on the day this was all due to be posted! Pici is an eggless pasta made from semolina flour and formed into tubes. Previously I have always made egg pasta in sheets or strips, so this was still something new for me even if it is a little unadventurous!

Here's what I did - mix the semolina flour to a dough using a little water. Kneed it until silky and smooth:



Wrap in clingfilm and leave it in the fridge until needed.

Divide it into small pieces, place a skewer in the middle and roll the dough around it to form a tube of pasta:



Mine were a little thicker than intended because my skewer was a bit of a thick one for this task - the thinner the better.



Served with very tasty cauliflower from the farm shop, tomato sauce and prawns, this made a good dinner. It was fairly straight-forward to make really.



Steph from Stephfood was our Daring Cooks' July hostess. Steph challenged us to make homemade noodles without the help of a motorized pasta machine. She provided us with recipes for Spätzle and Fresh Egg Pasta as well as a few delicious sauces to pair our noodles with!

Buffalo Ricotta

I think I've documented reasonably often on these pages my prolems with dairy products. I can't seem to get along with cow cheese and other milk products at all. I have however been gradually exploring the non-cow options out there. In the last year or so I have discovered a number of soft cheeses which I like and don't make my tummy hurt - buffalo mozzarella, halloumi, feta. I can cope with one or two hard cheeses (manchego mostly), although I still wouldn't eat them in chunks - just grated into other food. And, surprisingly, I have overcome my childhood hatred of yoghurt. I'm sure my bones and joints are grateful for the extra calcium!

Last week I was in London so I paid a visit to the Whole Foods Supermarket on Kensington High Street (they do the best olives of anywhere I've found in the UK). I was interested to spot Buffalo Ricotta in their fridge, and I couldn't resist buying some to try.



I didn't have a plan for it, but when I got home I flicked through my books and decided on Fennel and Ricotta Risotto from the Jamie's Italy cookbook.

The recipe can be found here.

I was a little worried that the fennel flavour would be overwhelming, but the risotto turned out really well - creamy with nicely balanced flavours. It was pretty simple and quick to make, so I would definitely recommend it for an easy week night dinner.

PS I also discovered that you can mix ricotta with a little honey, berries, lemon juice and zest for a creamy but surprisingly low calorie dessert.

Italleeee

I have just realised that 2010, sadly, was a year in which I did not visit Italy. Being a spoilt brat, in 2008 I went to Venice and Lake Como, in 2009 I went to Matera in the spring and Lake Como and Garda in the autumn. But this year...nada. In fact, since we have scrimping and saving our pennies foreign travel has been neglected in 2010. Again, I am aware how spoilt that makes me sound, but with relatively few other extravagances, travel is something I do like to spend my pennies on.
I feel a New Year's resolution coming on...I want to finally make that trip to Cuba this year. The autumn or winter seems achievable. Lets hope!

Anyway, back to Italy. Perhaps my withdrawal symptoms was what made me finally purchase this little beauty over the Christmas period:



Yes, a pasta roller/cutter.

I am aware that this is a gadget along the lines of 'definitely not strictly necessary' for a kitchen. Which is probably why it had sat on my Amazon wish list for about 18 months as I procrastinated about whether it was worth spending money on a nonessential item.
And then over Christmas I threw caution to the wind and bought it.

So on Monday, to celebrate the bank holiday, we had homemade pasta for dinner. I can honestly say that the machine made all the difference. I've never been able to roll pasta out thin enough by hand, but this machine worked like a dream, producing a beautiful silky textured pasta that made gorgeous cannelloni. Yum yum.

I then followed this up on thursday with Tuna 'meat'balls from the Jamie Oliver Jamie's Italy cook book.



Whilst they are intended to be served with pasta we currently have a potato glut so I served them on mash instead.


(sorry for the bad photo!)

Find the recipe on Jamie Oliver's website here.
The cinnamon, herbs, and lemon in the meatballs were great, and it worked very well with potatoes. I amended the quantities very slightly as I didn't have much bread or parmesan, so I reduced these (about 1/2 the quantity of bread, about 1/4 the quantity of parmesan). I think it does need the extra bread as our meatballs did have a tendency to fall apart a bit. If you are like me, and not mad keen on cheese, then I suggest you also reduce the cheese. I also reduced the pinenuts to about 1/4 of the quantity as we were nearly out of pinenuts too. I think that was fine, but more wouldn't hurt.
I'm not as keen on frying stuff as Jamie is, so I lightly braised my tuna and baked my meatballs instead of frying it all.



This worked fine, and at this post-Christmas time of year, it seemed kinder on my waist-line!

Fruity Salads

Hot weather seems to call for citrus flavours and salad dinners, so I have mostly been eating fish and salad of late. I love the fruity-nutty flavours of thai salads, but decided to experiment with flavour combinations from Europe and the Caribbean this week.

Figs and Parma ham and mint

Trout with tomato and cucumber salsa

Grilled tuna with fennel, grapefruit and red onion salad



I know its a classic Italian dish, but I'd never tried the combination of figs and parma ham before, but I spotted some very ripe loooking figs in the shop and thought they'd make a nice lunch. And indeed they did. Jamie O's Italian recipe book suggested mint, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar as accompaniments, and it made a tasty meal. The mint was a nice touch - I would have expected basil to be best but preferred the mint.

Nothing fancy about the trout and salsa really, just a chopped tomato and cucumber salad in lemon juice, and mint again. Lots of mint you notice - its my new favourite herb because I actually managed to keep some alive in the garden!

The tuna salad was the most interesting. The idea came from my Cuban recipe book. I chopped 1/2 red onion finely and divided 1/2 ruby grapefruit into segments. These were mixed with the juice of a lime, salt and pepper, and a good handful of coriander. Then I shaved some fennel finely and mixed that in along with a drizzle of olive oil. I just grilled the tuna. Easy. The recipe called for swordfish but I couldn't get any, I would recommend you at least look for some if you want to recreate this as I think it might be a better combo than the tuna.

Torta di Spinachi

This was my second Angela Hartnett recipe, and it turned out just as tasty as the first ( Aubergine Parmigiana).



As always, I adapted it slightly to suit the ingredients in the shops and in my fridge - I used half spinach, half asparagus, and changed the parmesan to a creamy goats cheese I bought from Crudge's Cheese at the weekend farmer's market.

The recipe directs you to make the pastry using olive oil instead of butter. I've tried this a couple of times before; once was a disater and once was passable. This version was actually good! The difference was the flour I think - Angela Hartnett's recipe suggests using '0' type flour, which is the same kind you would use for pasta. Its a much finer flour and worked well for the pastry with olive oil.

The torta was easy to make on a busy day - I made the pastry and mixed the filling together in the morning then they just sat in the fridge all day until I was ready to roll out the pastry and put the dish together in the eveing. We had it warm with salad and new potatoes one day, but it was equally lovely cold for lunch the next day.

Here's the recipe I ended up with after my amendments:

Pastry:
200g pasta-type flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
Pinch of salt
Ice cold water as required

Mix the flour and salt together. Add the olive oil, then gradually add cold water, mixing well between additions until the pastry comes together into a dough. Wrap in cling film and allow to rest in the fridge for at least an hour.

Filling:
250g Spinach (stalks removed & roughly chopped)
200g cooked asparagus, chopped into 1-2cm lengths
60g hard cheese eg parmesan, manchego, or goats cheese - grated or finely chopped
1 egg - beaten
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Salt & pepper

When you are ready to assemble your torta grease a pie tin with a thin coating of olive oil. Roll out the pastry until its larger than the pie dish and lay it in the dish, allowing it to hang over the edges.
Mix together all the filling ingredients, place them on top of the pastry in the pie dish and spread into an even layer.
Fold the excess pastry over the top of the filling to cover it.
Bake in the oven at 200C for about 25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Serve hot or cold. Its a great picnic dish.

Aubergine Parmigiana

I have noticed that recently this blog has been rather sparse on pictures. I'll be attempting to put that right next week, as this weekend we're heading to Bergen (Norway) for the weekend. I'm planning to gorge myself on fish and seafood and take lots of pictures at the fish market on the harbour.

I'm really looking forward to introducing Dan to the best fish and chips in the world, courtesy of the Bergen fish market, as well as the beautiful Norwegian scenery. I'm really excited to be staying more than a day, which gives us the opportunity to take a bit more time over walks, wanders, lunches, day trips. Always before I've had to hotfoot it back to the cruise ship at the end of the day which curtails how much you can explore.

So, hurrah for mini breaks!

In the mean time, this week's recipe was Aubergine Parmigiana, from Angela Hartnett's recipe book which I borrowed from the library last week. Its quite time consuming to put together, just as any layered dish is, but you can prepare it all a day or so ahead and it can happily sit in the fridge overnight - then all that needs doing in the evening after work is to just bung it in the oven.

We had it with spicey baked pork meatballs and a green salad. It was delicious - A really good balance of tomato, basil, mozzarella, parmesan and aubergine. Not as heart-attack inducing as you might expect either as I cut down the oil and cheese quantities a bit. There was still enough of both to make it a good flavour but not so much that the cheese overwhelmed it or the oil made it horribly greasy.



It can be found in Angela Harnett's Cucina, but I suspect there will be versions in a million-and-one other Italian recipe books too.

The delights of the library

woohoo!

I temporarily forgot that I could borrow recipe books from the library. I'm like a kid in a sweet shop....what to try first?!

I have gone with one by Angela Hartnett and one by Rick Stein.

Both look like they have some reasonably challenging recipes in them, and I'm definitely up for trying making some more complicated dinners - something to make me feel like I've made an effort!

Also, both have lots of fish ideas. Why do so few recipe books have a decent fish section? It makes me sad. I love fish and seafood.

Couscous Jamie O style

I feel a bit guilty about the lack of use of my Jamie Oliver Italy recipe book. I keep taking it off the shelf and looking at the recipes and the beautiful photography, but then rarely get round to cooking from it. The recipes on the whole look like they would take more time to make than I generally have on a weekday evening. Although they also sound like they'd be worth the effort.

Nonna Giusy's Fish with Couscous was on the menu for us on bank holiday monday. I felt that with a little more time available it was the ideal time to delve into the book.

The method was an interesting one - you mix the couscous with finely chopped onion, garlic and parsley and then steam it for half an hour before mixing in some tomato sauce (made while the couscous steams) and putting it in the oven on a very low heat (80C max) to keep the couscous warm while it absorbs the tomato sauce. It was delicious cooked that way.
We used gilt-head bream as our fish (I had to gut it! Don't think I've ever had to gut my fish before. Chop the heads off, yes, but not scoop out its insides. Fortunately I'm not overly squeemish). This was poached in the tomato sauce, then I skinned and de-boned it, flaked the flesh into big chunks and mixed it back into the remaining tomato sauce.

Dan and I thought that a handful of raisins would go well in this recipe. Also, we thought chorizo and prawns could be substituted for the fish to good effect. The dish does take over an hour to prepare, but it is simple to do and, as always with tomato based recipes, the long slow cooking makes it rich and adds a wonderful depth to the flavour.

Sicilian pasta

No great excitments on these week's recipe of the week. It was a quick and easy recipe from my Quick and Easy recipe book. It did exactly what it said on the tin and provided a speedy and tasty dinner.

I noticed a very similar recipe in the Jamie Oliver Jamie's Italy book, Pasta con acciughe e pomodoro (anchovies in tomato sauce with pasta).
Its a poor man's pasta sauce recipe with very minimal ingredients. Basically just a handful of toasted pinenuts, and handful of sultanas (soaked in warm water for a few minutes to soften them), 2 or 3 skinned chopped tomatoes, a couple of cloves of garlic, 4 anchovy fillets and a tablespoon of tomato puree.

Put your pasta on to cook.
Fry the garlic in olive oil to soften it. Add the anchovies and stir until 'melted', then add all the other ingredients and heat through. Season.
Drain thge pasta, toss the sauce and pasta together.
Serve.

Can't be exciting every week!

I love.....Risotto

A few weeks ago I made Jamie O's cauliflower risotto (twice in a week).
This week I made Silvana Franco's red onion and cannellini bean risotto. Find the recipe here.

Both were very satisfying dinners.
Creamy, vegetarian (I like to eat vegetarian once a week if I can), flavoursome, filling, and non-fattening. Also, they were both recipes that I didn't have particularly high expectations of but which turned out to be surprisingly lovely.

So now I'm having a love affair with risotto and am on the hunt for more flavour combinations to try.

I know its basically just a vehicle for using up odds and sods in the vegetable drawer and the fridge. But its a wonderful one!

Recreating that holiday feeling...

When we were in Italy last autumnn Dan and I treated ourselves to a wonderful meal on the last night of our holiday.



The restaurant was down on the shores of Lake Garda, tucked away under Malcesine Castle. It was still just warm enough to sit outside in the evening, but no longer high season, so it wasn't crowded.



We gorged ourselves on lovely wine and several beautiful courses of Italian food. The courgette-stuffed tortelloni with ham and pinenut sauce sticks in the memory, as does Dan's dessert of semifreddo with peach compote.



This week I decided to take the flavours of the pasta dish and make something a little bit similar (although not as delicate, silky or delicious!). My version was a much more rustic and hearty. A quick and easy pasta bake, though not a refined culinary masterpiece!

Here's the method.

Courgette and Goats Chees pasta bake with bacon and pinenuts

Enough pasta for 2 people
2 small courgettes
1 or 2 garlic cloves
A handful basil leaves
50g goats cheese
salt and pepper
4 rashers smoked bacon
15-20g pinenuts

Put the oven on to heat up to 180C
Put the pasta on to cook in salted water.
Meanwhile whizz up the courgettes with the basil leaves, garlic and soft goats cheese. Season it.
Check if the pasta is cooked, drain in if it is and rinse in cold water.
Mix with the courgette mix. Turn into an oven proof dish and place in oven to bake for 20 minutes. Check regularly so that it doesn't scorch. Cover it if its browning at at the edges.
After about 10 minutes dry fry the pinenuts in a hot pan.
Then fry or grill the bacon. Cut the rind off and chop it into bite-size pieces.
Take the pasta out of the oven. Scoop it onto plates or into bowls.
Scatter bacon and pinenuts over the top.
Serve.

Snow snow go away

When its cold outside and I'm housebound because of the state of the roads I always feel like baking.
When I was snowed in last year I made shortbread, and last week when I was snowed in I got some yeast out of the freezer and turned to my trusty old Carluccio recipe book for foccacia. It turned up trumps with instructions for a rosemary and salt topped version - Handy as I had some rosemary sitting in the fridge which was getting rather ancient and needed using up.

So, I got the woodburner going so that at least one room in the house was warm enough for bread to rise, and set about bread-making. Just the smell of baking bread and the waft of rosemary was enough to make the house feel more inviting. The bread was fragrant from rosemary with a lovely salty top.



This is a bread to be eaten super fresh. It was wonderful warm from the oven, but not so good the next day, although it might reheat or toast well.

Also this week, a curry bonanza! Prawn boohna (just what I needed after a long run), spicy rainbow trout (lovely flavours, but I overcooked the fish a bit so it was slightly on the dry side), pakoras (I hate deep frying things but I don't suppose there's any other way of doing these, and they are a great addition to a curry dinner).

A good food week!

At the weekend I went to see the film of Julie and Julia . Since the book inspired me to cook in a more varied way I thought I should definitely see the film. It was amusing and engaging, and made me realise that I still haven't attempted lobster thermidor. That was the first thing onto my recipe list, and I haven't yet steeled myself to dispatch a lobster in boiling water.

I feel I need to face up to it fairly soon.

Although, my 6 month marker is in sight so maybe I can put it off until then.

Julia Child must have been America's answer to Elizabeth David, although I'm not sure who came first. My mum tells me she has 2 copies of Elizabeth David's French Cookery book and has offered to donate one to me. Until now I haven't taken up the offer, as whenever I browse through it it has VERY bossy instructions, and VERY daunting looking recipes. However, I think the time has come to stop being a scaredy cat.

UPDATE:
Ooooh...Meryl Streep just won Best Actress at the Golden Globes for her portrayal of Julia Child.

...and so to Italy

A late september trip to Italy meant that the recipe challenge was put on hold for a week, but I resolved to keep the spirit of the project alive by making an effort to try foods I had never had before...and what a place to do it! Italy in the early autumn sunshine - surely one of the loveliest places to be.



Some memorable meals included a smoked swordfish pizza with fresh buffalo mozzeralla and rocket, pear-filled pasta with a walnut sauce (delicious, although due to its slight sweetness you definitely wouldn't want more than a handful), black pasta stuffed with courgette and basil with squid and smoked bacon, hazlenut torta, and Dan's new favourite; vanilla semifreddo with peach compote. Gorgeous!



Less fancy favourites -
Paprika crisps! Why can't we get these over here? They're amazing!
Goats' cheese, ham and fresh crusty bread sitting on the top of a mountain pass in Switzerland.
Fresh apples from Merano. I have never seen so many orchards in one area.

Just a little postscript - we saw these quite a few times around Italy. I definitely want one! How cool?!