Recipe: Scallops with Almonds, in a Parsley Sauce

It was the Technical Department's birthday this week, and Scallops were specifically requested as a first course for dinner. And not the same-old-same-old with leeks and Pernod please (nothing wrong with it, you understand, but......it's been done). Some research later, and the following recipe was unearthed from the pages of Michel Guérard - a name that's effectively disappeared during the past thirty years, but which is long overdue for re-discovery: his method for gratin dauphinoise, quite apart from anything else, is both unusual and terrific!

At first reading, this particular Scallop recipe sounds as though the shellfish will be swamped by the other ingredients - not so, though, and the end result is subtle, well-balanced and delicious. As with pretty much all Scallop dishes, it can be done from scratch to serving in under ten minutes!

For Two.

Ingredients: 10 large Scallops (coral removed); 3 oz Butter; 20g slivered Almonds; 1 clove of Garlic; 1 large fistful of Parsley; 2 tablespoons of Cream; 1 tablespoon of Olive Oil; Salt & Pepper.

Method:

1. Blanch the Garlic and Parsley in boiling water for two minutes. Drain, and chop finely (if doing the recipe for a larger number, and the quantity justifies it, you can do this in a processor; when just doing it for two, though, it's easier just to chop finely by hand).

2. Put the chopped mixture in a double boiler or zimmertopf, and add the Cream and Olive Oil over a low heat. Stir throughly.

3. Heat half the butter in a frying pan. When melted, add the slivered Almonds, raise the heat, and cook, stirring, until they become golden brown. Add the Scallops, and cook for 30 seconds or so on each side. Spoon the Scallops onto heated serving plates, then add the remaining Butter to the pan and stir rapidly as it melts; spoon the melted Butter and cooking residue from the pan over the Scallops.

4. Season the Parsley Sauce, stir once more, then spoon over the Scallops. (If you want to be a purist, you can sieve the sauce at this stage to get an entirely smooth consistency - it's a matter of personal preference. I don't bother)

Serve

Water, Water, Everywhere.......!

And I'm not referring to the various recent meteorological events that have left people around the globe paddling knee-deep through their homes. I'm talking about ingredients - and more specifically those things that come to us via some kind of industrialised treatment and packaging process. Almost without fail, they are all full of water....

You'd think that when a recipe calls for 4oz of raisins, nothing could be simpler.

Actually...... it isn't.

If the recipe dates from before the introduction of plastic-packed food - and many of them do, even if they have been recently churned out yet again and glossily photographed by the latest TV celebrity cook - the chances are that the original writer meant 4oz of bone dry raisins of the sort I can remember being sold from jute sacks, along with apricots, prunes, rock-hard salt cod, and salt anchovies that had been preserved so that you could stand them on end. All these things were stacked together on the floor of the Aladdin's Cave that was Zani's, the local grocer in Greece in the '70's, who sported a handlebar moustache and a grizzled expression that came straight out of Zorba. The raisins he sold were tough, leathery and definitely chewy: you couldn't have used them without a good soaking first. The pre-soaked raisins generally available today are about 25% heavier than the original .........so, you need to increase the quantity of any dry fruit by about a third if you want the result the original recipe-writer intended.

And it's the same with meat. Bacon, ham - in fact, most meat - has a much higher water content these days than used to be the case. The reason is simple: it's all sold by weight, so the heavier the better - at least, from the grocer's point of view. Most fresh meat is 'hung' sealed in a plastic bag, and modern bacon is better described as 'sodden' rather than 'leathery'. The practical - and damaging - result of this is that with any cooking treatment other than roasting, the water merely gets released in the process, and seriously dilutes the flavour of the end result.

There are ways to address the problem, however.............My rule of thumb is to increase the quantity of flavouring ingredients in most recipes such as lardon, pancetta etc. by 25% and either to go easy on the liquid in stews, or else - more often - to plan to reduce the sauce at the end of the process to the absolute minimum needed for serving, and thus remove the excess water.

Pomiane's recipe for Beef with Peppers is a good example. In the good Doctor's day, the air-aged beef would have been dry to the touch, browned easily in a little fat and have given off little to no water during cooking. The root vegetables he used would quite probably have been in storage for half a year in sand and would have been getting a bit gnarled. Added to which, his earthenware casserole, with its inevitably ill-fitting lid, would have ensured that the end result - even with the addition of wine - would be tender meat in a very little unctuous sauce.

When you read these days of having to seal the lid of the daubière with flour-and-water-paste 'to keep the precious liquid in' remember this has become completely redundant - with modern equipment and modern ingredients, you could leave most stews in the oven all day and you'd still end up with the meat and vegetables swimming around in a complete soup!. Following most recipes to the letter, particularly if you are using a spanking new Le Creuset, you'll find you end up with pints of insipid liquid which need reducing in volume by at least 3/4 in order to get some flavour back.

Here's how to do the reduction:

1. Strain all the solids from the stock while still warm. A large coarse sieve is ideal but failing that a colander will do. Wait a few minutes for all the liquid to drain through.

2. Degrease the liquid. Either by leaving it over night in the 'fridge and removing the solidified fat or, if you are in a hurry, using a fat separator or, if you have plenty of ice cubes, pouring the cold stock slowly over a colander full of ice: the fat will stick to the ice and the liquid will fall through.

3. Boil the de-greased stock in the widest pan you can lay your hands on - a sauté pan is fine - until it is literally syrupy. You almost can't go too far - well, don't go on until it burns - you can always add a bit of boiled wine if there is too little juice. Scrape down the sides of the pan which will have a film of concentrated stock and then return the stock to the solids. It won't nearly cover the solids but there only needs to be just enough juice to serve.

4. Reheat carefully when needed, check the seasoning before serving

Tonight's Dinner:

Salad of Endive, with Roquefort & Walnuts, in a Sherry Vinaigrette

Raie au Beurre Noire, with Puy Lentils.

Baked Raspberry Creams.

Recipe: Celeriac 'sformato'

I suppose the practical translation of sformato would be 'mousse' - although it strikes me that a more literal translation would be 'shape', as in the nursery name that used to be given to blancmange (a much-loathed childhood memory, although one which has been rehabilitated in my mind, with the addition of more sophisticated flavours and under the guise of bavarois). In Italy, sformato is a savoury dish, and generally represents the unhappy end of some poor vegetable, which has sacrificed its all to absolutely no good purpose. For years, sformato was a dirty word in our house, following a particularly unfortunate experience at a Christmas Eve dinner just outside Colle Val d'Elsa, where the guests were all expected to bring a dish, and one elderly signora proudly presented her famed sformato of Cardoons. It raised the concept of 'bland' to hitherto-unknown heights, and the way it slithered eggily round the teeth and down the throat was little short of unpleasant. (Mind you, our contribution was a traditional English Christmas Pudding, and the Italians round the table, having looked on warily as the thing was set alight, took mouthfuls of the gloriously rich concoction with expressions of horror etched on their faces that completely defied description. Chacun a son gout.....)

Anyway, the following dish has gone some way towards changing my thinking about sformati in general - the flavour is good and intense, and the secret is not to process the vegetable too much before baking it, so that the finished product has body and retains a nice crunch. Quantities given here are for four, and I've found that they work perfectly when adjusted pro rata for two, six, eight, etc. If adjusting volumes to an odd number, then it works best to follow the egg/cream quantities for a smaller number of portions, but to increase the quantity of Celeriac in order to bulk up the overall amount - i.e. for three sformati, reduce the egg and cream quantities as if you were making only two, but throw in an extra handful of Celeriac dice. (If you go the other route, and try and add more egg, it just becomes too much like a baked custard).

For Four:

Ingredients: 2 cups of finely diced Celeriac; 3 oz of Butter; 1 cup of Cream; 2 Eggs; Salt & Pepper.

Method:

1. Melt the Butter in a small saucepan, and sweat the diced Celeriac in it over medium heat for about fifteen minutes, until it is tender and gives off a strong aroma.

2. Add the Cream to the pan, stir, and continue cooking for another five minutes, to allow the Cream to thicken. Allow to cool slightly.

3. Process this mixture in a food processor for half a minute, along with the Eggs and seasoning. It should still have some texture after it's been processed.

4. Divide the processed mixture between four greased ramekins, and bake for 20 minutes in a bain marie in an oven pre-heated to 180 degrees C. Allow to rest for five minutes after they come out of the oven and before you turn them out to serve.

In Italy, last week, I couldn't get Celeriac, and instead used finely diced Celery. It worked well - although I had to cook the diced Celery for slightly longer in order to evaporate the water, before adding the Cream. Italian Celery has a lot more flavour than that in England, where, if I were going this route, I would definitely opt for organic Celery, which again has a lot more flavour than the non-organic variety.

When in Rome.......

........where to eat? Or that was the question posed by Eric Kirby of West Cork, in any event (impossible to say something like that, I note and not have it sound like a Radio 2 announcer, or that rather irritating man who chairs Gardeners Question Time these days....). I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask, since I don't dine out in Rome that often any more, and so my recommendations might be a little rusty. My all-time favourite, though - and one which still gets rave reviews from people to whom I've recommended it recently - is Il Chicco d'Uva in Corso Rinascimento. Spectacularly good, in my experience.....and as I write about it now, I can practically smell the aroma of White Truffle Risotto which permeates the place at the right time of year, and which you can sense coming your way as it leaves the kitchen, all of two rooms distant! I also recall with great fondness a parmesan sformato.....and a very good wine list.

Another place of particularly rich memory is Taverna Giulia, in Vicolo dell'Oro - although I'm going back quite a few years on this one, and I've definitely come across some ho-hum references to it recently. My specific memory is of dining by candlelight, and papardelle with a Walnut and Cream sauce (a ligurian speciality, as so many walnut dishes are) which was sensational. Practically as good as the papardelle con carciofi at the Tre Coronne in Verona, which has always pretty much set the standard as far as I'm concerned. Otherwise - in Rome? Sabatini, in Trastevere, was always good - although again it rather seems to have fallen off people's radar these days. Slices of melt-in-the-mouth grilled porcini are the particular memory from there - along with recollections of a Fellini-esque birthday dinner for the sister of a very old friend, who was married to a Roman Municipal Bus Driver, and where the guests included a rather tatty Contessa and one of Italy's leading architects of the day.......

But back to Mr Kirby's question - on which I haven't been a lot of use. I did recently come across the following website, where - buried in amongst much else, - I suspect there are exactly the sort of gems he's looking for: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/422347. It certainly reads well. Worth trying, I think......

We're flying back to London this afternoon, so I'm now off to enjoy a final half an hour on the terrace in the sunshine.....

Tonight's Dinner......will be capable of preparation in all of Ten Minutes, post arrival from the airport:

Casarecci (courtesy of Claudia)

Salsiccie Lunghi (from Maurizio), with Aubergine, braised with Anchovy & Garlic

Fresh Raspberries and Cream (Welcome back to London!)

Recipe: Passion Fruit Tart

Passion Fruit is a strange thing. It gives the sense of great age, with its gnarled prehistoric skin, and an interior that looks like rotten eggs. The scent has something slightly rotten about it too - a sickly sweetness that verges on something having gone off......a little like the heady quality of fragole grapes. All of which makes it all the more intriguing that the taste of Passion Fruit is absolutely intoxicating. This is one of those desserts where the first mouthful is followed by complete silence around the table, as people contemplate the flavour....

For Four.

Ingredients: 4 sheets of Phyllo Pastry, each approx. 12" x 6"; 2 oz of Butter; 12 Passion Fruit; 4 Eggs; 5 oz of Sugar; 5 tablespoons of Cream.

Method:

1. Melt the Butter, brush the Phyllo sheets with it, and use them to make four individual Pastry Shells, fully cooked. Once you've removed the shells from the oven, re-set the temperature to 180 degrees C.

2. Cut the Passion Fruit in half, and scrape the innards into the bowl of your food processor; process at high speed for thirty seconds, just to break up the membranes, then pass this mixture through a fine sieve. Discard the pips and anything else which hasn't gone through the sieve.

3. Beat the Eggs and Sugar together, then mix in the Passion Fruit juice and finally the Cream. Divide this mixture between the pre-baked tart shells, and bake for twenty five minutes at 180 degrees C - when they're done, the tops should be slightly coloured, and the Egg mixture should be just firm (it can be slightly wobbly still, as it will continue to firm up as the tarts cool).

Serve, dusted with Icing Sugar, either on their own or accompanied by Lemon & Vanilla Ice Cream.

A Thing of Beauty.....

....is the Olive Oil decanter that the Brancolis brought with them when they arrived for dinner on Saturday. I know I ought to feel embarrassed by my past vocal praise for the identical item that sits on the dresser in the kitchen up in Brancoli - but when coveting your neighbour's ass can have quite such a positive outcome, it's difficult to regret having done so. The object itself stands a foot tall, and drizzles perfectly from a stopper held in place by its ground glass edges. I know it's considered a bad idea to keep oil inside clear glass - the effect of sunlight is supposed to denature it over time, which is why good oil always comes in green bottles - but the rate at which we consume it here leaves little opportunity for any de-naturing. And anyway, the decanter has now found its place on the glass shelves at the back of the kitchen, where no direct rays of sunlight ever penetrate, and any self-respecting vampire could feel perfectly at ease....

Along with the Brancolis came an American Godmother - as charming as she was energetic - just striking out on a grand tour of Europe to visit all of Rabbit's friends and relations that she'd accumulated over the past few decades. Next stop the frozen wastes of north Sweden, and we talked of her likely future meals of rotten herring and potatoes ( always potatoes in Sweden!), as we chowed down on Squid Ink Ravioli, stuffed with Sea Bass, in an Anchovy sauce, followed by Rabbit, with Celery sformati , and finished with Passion Fruit Tarts and Lemon & Vanilla Ice Cream. Conversation drifted from Swedish food to Swedish drink, to Swedish midsummer parties - unforgettable for a whole host of reasons, not least the subsequent Swedish hangovers - to Russian parties, and Japanese parties.........and the waist-enhancing after-effects of salmonella-inducing sashimi (1984, I think that one was.....one of the Brancolis and I were fellow sufferers on that occasion). Over dessert, we were wandering great dive-sites of the World, and by the time the grappa was being poured, it was a question of the relative aesthetic merits of baby yellowfin sharks as compared with giant barracuda. By the time the candles were burning low and the heights of Brancoli beckoned (if not the drive to get there, I'm sure) it felt as though we'd managed a grand tour all of our own, in the course of the evening......

Tonight's dinner:

Salad of Yellow & Red Peppers, with Capers and Anchovies.

Pork Loin, pot-roast with Radicchio de Treviso.

Peaches, stuffed with Almond & Chocolate.

Recipe: Lemon & Vanilla Ice Cream

This one's for Bob, who would have been twelve next birthday. A Thurber dog to the end of his days. In his old age, he discovered a great fondness for home-made ice cream, and developed a remarkable facility for nonchalantly materialising when dessert was being served 'just on the off-chance'......

The vanilla in this recipe somehow neutralises the acerbic edges of the lemon, giving it a rich and soft quality; the result is lemon flavour, but without any astringency.

Makes about 700 ml.

Ingredients: 1 Vanilla Pod; Zest of 1 or 2 Lemons (depending on size); 90g Sugar; 5 Egg Yolks; 375 ml Milk; 180 ml Cream; 3 drops of Lemon Oil (if you have it)

Method:

1. Split the Vanilla Pod, and put it in a zimmertopf or double boiler along with the Milk, grated Zest, and half of the Sugar. Heat for fifteen minutes or so, until the Milk is quite hot, then turn off the heat and let sit for the Vanilla and Lemon flavours to infuse for a further fifteen minutes.

2. Beat the Egg Yolks along with the remaining Sugar until they are light in colour and have the texture of a lightly whipped cream. Mix the Milk infusion - including the Pod - into this mixture, and then return it to the zimmertopf or double boiler. Heat, stirring occasionally, until it has the consistency of a light custard. Set aside to cool, and then chill in the fridge - this might take a couple of hours.

3. Retrieve the split Pod from the mixture, and scrape the innards of the Pod into the mixture, discarding the Pod itself.

4. Churn in an Ice Cream Machine, adding the Cream and (optional) Lemon Oil as you add the mixture to the machine.

Good on its own, but goes particularly well with Passion Fruit Tart. In theory, I suppose it ought to last a couple of months, properly sealed, in a freezer - but why?