Odd Uses for Yoghurt.......

Apparently, a liberal application of yoghurt is a sure-fire way of ageing terracotta pots. We have three gleamingly new ones in the garden, nestling amongst the undergrowth, and planted with incipient Coombland White trailing geraniums, which should look splendid later in the year. The pots are about to receive a facepack of frutta di bosco yoghurt, mixed generously with a little potting compost and some crumbled moss - and I am reliably informed that a carpet of lichen will follow, sure as eggs is eggs. Since we are departing for London this afternoon, and leaving the Brazilian builders in possession of the premises for the next two weeks, I shall put off the paint job until just before heading for the airport. The Brazilians can have the pleasure of looking upon purple-smeared pots in those rare moments when they down tools and take a breather.....

A discovery in the Pasta Shop this morning - ravioli of Mucco Pisano. It's a particular breed of beef, raised according to exacting standards and only available round here. Supposedly con piu di sapore than normal beef - comparable to the difference between cinta senese and normal pork, I was assured by Claudia. She then suggested some crema tartufato to go with it - which I can readily believe, as I can't think of anything that crema tartufato would not go with - but I had to decline on the grounds of the cretinous no-liquid in hand baggage rules, and I'm not about to deal with Gatwick baggage handling even for the sake of crema tartufato. I - along with many others - dream of the day when these idiotic rules are relaxed; I heard recently of somebody who was even prevented from carrying on board a slice of vacherin, on the grounds that it was so runny that it could be considered liquid! Words fail me.....

Tonight's picnic:

Ravioli of Mucco Pisano

Salsiccie Lunghe (from Maurizio), accompanied by Fennel cooked in butter with Raddichio di Treviso.

Fresh Raspberries and Double Cream.

Recipe: Lamb Cutlets in Parmesan Batter

For three.

Ingredients: 6 Lamb Cutlets *; 2 Eggs; 1 cup freshly-grated Parmesan; 1 cup dry Breadcrumbs; Salt & Pepper; Oil (for frying).

* These should be thin to start with, and beaten even thinner. In Italy, Maurizio does it with a practiced hand - one blow with the carne-battuto and the cutlet is spread evenly; it is then folded in two, and a second blow, perfectly placed, melds the whole into one evenly tenderised
piece. In London I have to do it myself - and I have a lot less practice at it then Maurizio does! The pay-off is, I suppose, that British Lamb has much more flavour than Italian Lamb - no two ways about it.....

Method:

1. Beat the Eggs, and pour into a shallow dish. Place the grated cheese in a second dish, and the Breadcrumbs in a third.

2. Put the oil to heat in a frying pan which will be large enough to hold all of the cutlets at once.

3. Dip each cutlet first into the cheese, turning it to coat both sides, then into the beaten Egg, and finally into the Breadcrumbs, always turning to coat the cutlet thoroughly.

4. Fry the coated cutlets in the heated oil, until crisp and golden brown. It should take about three minutes on each side. Add seasoning to taste before serving - although the saltiness of the cheese should make anything other than a grinding of black pepper probably unnecessary.

Serve.

Bucking the Trend.....

As the rest of the World focuses ever more anxiously on possible remedies for Global Warming, what does the Commune di Pisa do, but cancel the eco-friendly garbage recycling system that it expensively introduced five years ago! Admittedly, they made it as complicated an arrangement as you could possibly imagine: 'Organico' goes out on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, and has to be in a brown plastic bag (giving off a slightly unpleasant, chemical odour); glass and plastic (blue bag) goes out on a Tuesday - the only-once-weekly collection of bottles causing a major problem in this household; Paper (in a paper sack - great if it's raining!) is on Thursday; 'indifferenziata' - i.e. everything else - goes out on Thursdays and Saturdays, in a grey bag. And if you can't be bothered to recycle, then just leave your rubbish in any old bag on the street, and it will be collected anyway! Bags are distributed in great quantities every six months, and if you need more, then you have to order them in person from the Geofor Office before the Wednesday of the week before the Wednesday of the week when you can go along and collect them. I hope everybody was concentrating on all of that - there will be a test at the end!
Two years after the scheme was introduced, RAI 5 ran an expose programme that secretly filmed the garbage collectors merely dumping all of the carefully sorted rubbish in the same dump, anyway, which caused much amusement at the time.........and suggests that maybe Pisa has been bucking the trend all along on the quiet.

Surprisingly, most people knuckled under and seemed to follow these complicated rules. Tullio - owner of Cagliostro Restaurant, renowned for the best food and the slowest service in town - was of the opinion that Italians are either wedded to chaos, or else demonstrate a surprising fondness for rigid regulation. Hence the support for the regime in power in the thirties, I suppose. Anyway, it is to be assumed that the recycling figures just don't add up, financially speaking, and so we're about to return to lugging rubbish to centrally located dumpsters.....

Maybe somebody should tell Al Gore.......?

Tonight's Menu:

Polpettone of Spinach and Tuna. (See below for the recipe)

Lamb Cutlets in a Parmesan Batter.

Crepes Suzettes

Recipe: Polpettone with Tuna and Spinach

For Six.

Ingredients: 675g Fresh Spinach, cooked and squeezed dry; 150g canned Tuna; 4 Anchovy Fillets; 2 eggs; one medium sized white bread roll; 12 fl oz Milk; 170g fresh Parmesan, grated; 25g fresh Breadcrumbs; Salt & Pepper; Olive Oil; Lemon Juice.

Method:

1. Chop Spinach briefly in a food processor, and turn into a large mixing bowl. Add grated Parmesan and mix thoroughly.

2. Chop Tuna and Anchovies together briefly in the food processor, and add these to the spinach/cheese mixture.

3. Dice the Bread Roll and leave to soak in the Milk in a shallow bowl.

4. Beat the Eggs and add to the Spinach mixture, along with the fresh Breadcrumbs. Incorporate thoroughly.

5. Squeeze the soaking liquid (to be discarded or used otherwise) from the diced Bread, and mix this into the Spinach mixture. Season generously with Salt & Pepper.

6. Soak a piece of cheesecloth or a dishcloth thoroughly and then wring out thoroughly. Lay the cloth on the work surface. Turn the Spinach mixture onto it, and form a large 'sausage' shape, 12 to 15 inches in length. Roll the 'sausage' tightly in the cloth, and secure well at each end with string.

7. Place the tied bundle in a fish kettle. Cover with water. Put the lid on, and place on the burner(s) of your hob. Heat until the water begins to boil, then reduce temperature and simmer for 35 minutes. Remove the bundle from the water, and let it rest for several minutes before you unwrap it, and leave it to cool completely to room temperature.

To serve, cut into slices approximately 1 cm thick, and drizzle with a little Olive Oil and Lemon juice.

Radio Silence.....

A week in Moscow on business - and the combination of lack of time plus the exorbitant charge of 320 roubles an hour for internet access has led to many days of blog silence. Normal service has now been resumed......

Did I like Moscow? Not much.....It's a mixture of the worst bits of Athens combined with the worst bits of Berlin, and the aggregate traffic problems of both: monolithic concrete urban sprawl, interspersed occasionally with the soaring majesty of a Stalinist palace, or some neoclassical remnant from before the revolution. I'll admit, though, it wasn't all bad. Red Square in the brilliant evening sunshine was quite glorious - entering through the Resurrection Gate was splendidly theatrical, with the breadth of the sky beyond giving way, as you climb the cobbled incline, to the expanse of the square and the domes of St Basil's at the far end. It was most definitely the high point of the visit.

Not much to report on the food and drink front. In part because of the 'corporate' nature of the visit, which necessarily involved consumption of rather characterless international dishes, and a lot of canapes which appeared all to be variations on the same theme, i.e. differently-coloured bland-flavoured creams piped into pastry shells or onto pieces of bread. Food for the eye, possibly, but not for the palate. The champagne was from the Crimea, and was full bodied and quite fruity - so much so that I found myself homesick for the clean freshness of a decent prosecco!. In style, the emphasis in the cuisine is definitely 'food to keep out the cold' - lots of stodgy carbohydrates, and large quantities of things which have been grilled and roasted, and were generally presented in mountainous piles, or else on long metal skewers, by unsmiling staff. The asian influence is clear, and when I bought some meat-filled dumplings from a street-side stall one morning, they reminded me of nothing so much as the wonderful steamed dumplings that used to be served with a vinegar dressing at "I Ching" in the Earls Court Road, twenty years ago.....

Overall, the atmosphere of the place is hard to pin down, but somehow people don't give the impression of being very happy. Although they generally seem well-dressed, and the overall tenor suggests a reasonable living standard, there was something about their demeanour that suggested either incipient depression, or else rabid opportunism - but certainly not a sense of relaxed confidence or contentment. Perhaps the defining image that will remain in my mind is that of the copses of dead pine trees beside the road on the way out of central Moscow, presumably finished off by the deadly pollution that hangs in the atmosphere there. I could feel my spirits lift even as I entered the Alitalia cabin at Sheremtyevo airport, yesterday evening..........

Tonight's Dinner (an easy one......)

Papardelle from the Vettovaglie Pasta Man, with their Crema di Noci.

Branzino, baked in foil for half an hour, then served with an anchovy butter sauce, and braised fennel.

Ricotta Rum Mousse, with the first wild strawberries of the year - sublime!

London Update......

Great News! Jack O'Shea has been asked to be regular supplier of meat to The Fat Duck - which is good news for his other customers, as it means that the business is stable. I suppose it might also mean more regular deliveries, and so less of the unevenness in supply that I've griped about in the past. I think he must be telepathic, as it was just as I was asking him for a piece of pork belly that he imparted the news - the coincidence being that the recipe for the pork belly is actually a loose adaptation of a Heston Blumenthal method........cook at a moderate temperature for many hours in a tightly covered pot, with generous quantities of garlic and star anise, and savour the aroma as you do so. Indescribable!

It seems O'Shea got his break on the back of an enthusiastic article about him by Rose Prince in The Telegraph Magazine, and - presumably feeling that one good turn deserves another - he was extolling to me the virtues of her new book all about how to shop sensibly. Something to do with how you read marks on packets in supermarkets, to get the best from the experience. I wasn't convinced, I'm afraid.

Much post-fire discussion since we returned, with all sorts of unexpected conversations with practical strangers about whether they'd suffered much damage, and what they'd done on the day itself. It turns out that half of the building was surreptitiously occupied during the night that we stayed in and kept schtum........all the people who didn't feel like leaving seem to have been moving around as quietly as they could, with the lights out! The smell of smoke is still intense, until you get close to the damaged area, where the smell of damp pretty much overwhelms it; apparently the firemen were pouring water into the building at the rate of a thousand gallons a minute for more than ten hours!

Tonight's Menu:

Hot Parfait of Chicken Livers, with Hollandaise Sauce

Flash Fried Beef, marinated in Soy Sauce and Honey, with Broccoli Puree

Cherry Tarts

Recipe: Tartare of Fresh Tuna....

For Two.
Ingredients: 350g Fresh Yellowfin Tuna; rind of 1 Lime; juice of half a Lime (1 tablespoon); 1 tablespoon chopped Dill; 1 Egg Yolk; 1 tablespoon Olive Oil; 1 tablespoon finely chopped onion; 2 Anchovy fillets, chopped; 1 teaspoon Dijon Mustard; 1 tablespoon Capers, chopped. To serve: Soured Cream and Black Fish Eggs.

Method:

1. Whisk the Egg Yolk with the Oil to create an emulsion. Stir in the Mustard, then add Dill, Onion, Anchovies, Lime rind and juice, and Capers. Mix all together very well.

2. Cut the Tuna into dice of approximately 1 cm each, and carefully mix in with all the other ingredients to ensure the Tuna is well coated. Cover with cling film and leave in the fridge for at least half an hour for the flavours to mingle and penetrate.

3. Divide between serving plates - the mixture should be solid enough that you can use a ring to shape each serving and it will retain its shape when the ring is removed. Put on top of each serving a spoonful of Soured Cream and a teaspoon of Back Fish Eggs.