Kitchen Design...

It's almost time to move into the new kitchen, up at Santa Caterina - a process I'm slightly dreading, but the result of which should be well worth the pain. A slight delay in the past few days, as we discovered that the new fridge which had bounced all the way across Europe in the company of the welsh slate was in fact five millimetres wider than advertised, which has meant demolishing and rebuilding one of the support walls for the counter tops, in order to fit everything in. Things could have been worse, I suppose; last time we did this, with the current kitchen, the stonemason blithely sliced ten centimetres off one of the slabs for the work surface, and we had to order a whole new piece all the way from Wales...
This is the fourth kitchen we've designed over the years, and from each one lessons have been learned and incorporated into the next version. Some very straightforward things, for example:

• the advantages of having a deeper work surface than normal - generally, kitchens are designed with counters 60 cm deep, to match the depth of most under-counter appliances; in fact, if you have counters at 80 cm (or more) depth, it gives an enormous amount more space both to work on and to push things to one side which aren't immediately needed;
  
• Make sure the work surface is at exactly the right height for your physique - for me, this is a couple of centimentres higher than in most kitchens; in my catering kitchen I had standard height work surfaces, and occasionally suffered from the most appalling back ache as a result
  
• Don't put sinks in the corner of the room, as this makes them physically quite difficult to use;
  
• Analyse exactly how you cook, so that the various storage units are in the optimal place for you, and you don't spend your life traipsing around the kitchen needlessly going backwards and forwards to get things - for me this means having a drawer under the hob with wooden spoons and spatulas, a chopping board on the work surface to the right, and immediately below that a drawer with knives, above a small fridge with things like milk and butter that I'm most likely to want to put straight into pans on the hob, and to the right again are stored all of the spices and seasonings I regularly use;
• Again, think through how you work in practice, so that there are spaces available for putting hot cooking vessels when removed from either oven or hob; ditto spaces for plates, when serving;
  
• Don't store pans in cupboards, where they're impossible to get at, but store them instead either suspended from hooks on the wall, or else on open shelves;
• Incorporate appropriate storage space for all of things that generally, and needlessly, clutter work surfaces and get in the way - for instance, in the Italian kitchen, the food processor (along with all of the other electrical appliances) lives in a pull-out cupboard which has a socket within it, and so can be effectively used in situ; in the London kitchen, which is very small, the food processor is housed in a cantilevered cupboard and can be pulled down when needed, and then pushed up again out of the way afterwards (but this involves a system of counter-balance weights and wires which was one of the Technical Department's most successful brainwaves, and which I wouldn't advise you to do at home unless you have a degree in mechanical engineering!)
  
• If you have the space, have a second dishwasher - if you only have one, sod's law says that it will always be full of unwashed things at just the wrong time!

Tonight's Dinner:

Papardelle with a sauce of Ragu and Rabbit Livers.

Bream, with braised Celery.

Apple Soufflé.

One to read...

I thought this article was splendid - much to agree with.



Tonight's dinner:

Snails, dripping with garlic butter; freshly-baked bread rolls

Grilled Duck Breast, with Bay and Thyme; Lentils cooked with aromatici and tomatoes, in Duck Stock

Lemon Soufflé Glacé

Making Pasta - a revolutionary tip...

I've discovered a new trick in making pasta (instructions for which can be found here) which infinitely improves the quality of the finished product. The result of a malfunctioning food-processor, when making pasta dough several weeks ago, I had to remove the mixture from the bowl of the machine before the process was finished and then knead it by hand for several minutes until it appeared to have achieved the desired texture. I was slightly nervous when it subsequently came to rolling it out, half expecting it to be full of holes and next to useless. Far from it. The process of rolling was problem-free, and the texture of the cooked pasta afterwards was positively silky. Not just slightly better, but a whole step-function upwards in improvement...as pointed out by enthusiastic consumers.
I tried it again on subsequent occasions, to see if it had been a fluke. And, it isn't. After the dough has done its thing in the food processor, the trick is then to knead it for perhaps 20 - 30 seconds on the work surface, before storing and subsequently rolling out as normal. Such a small addition to the process, but the result in the quality of the pasta is phenomenal. (One note of caution, though - this works when using flour made from durum wheat, as is the case with italian flour in general; flour from the US, though, is different and might not react in the same way - it may even be that the process of kneading the dough with american flour actually makes the finished product tougher than otherwise)

Try it...

Tonight's dinner:

Taglioline with veal & lemon sauce

Pork chops braised with sage & white wine; Fennel gratin

Andalusian Tarts

Spring Flowers..

The almond blossom is well-advanced, with the plum, apricot and cherry trees following close behind. A week of blue skies and shirtsleeve gardening weather...even spending time weeding, which isn't normally a task I face with any enthusiasm. Several hundred lampicione bulbs have been planted in the wooded area behind the church, and although our sortie in search of escallonia plants yesterday was unsuccessful, we returned from it (inevitably, I suppose) with a car filled with a couple of rather fine Lonicera shrubs, and a Chaenomeles...I didn't know they came in white, and this one is perfect for the bed beside the workshop, which it now shares with a couple of white (gumbo) azaleas, a white wisteria and a prostrate cypress bush. Otherwise, the warm weather has produced carpets of flowers throughout the garden - gentians in the open areas, and masses of deep-coloured violets under the pine trees.

To Lucca at the weekend, for dinner with the Brancolis. They have a constrained timetable at the moment, as their house-cat was shot in the face recently (the joys of country living), and they're currently on a rather complicated timetable, providing multiple daily medications while keeping fingers crossed that the feline four-footed recovers as much as possible. We ate at Da Leo, a regular haunt from years ago, but which has rather fallen off the radar more recently; sadly, Gigi, the wonderful trattoria near the vegetable market has been ruined by a rave review in the New York Times (!) and these days the market workers have been elbowed aside by throngs of american tourists. Sic gloria transit.
Still, restaurant news isn't all bad, as I see that Bruno Loubet has returned from down under, and is now to be found at a new bistrot in Clerkenwell. I'm not sure when next we're due to be in London, but it's one for the diary as soon as we are.

The famous welsh slate for the kitchen work surfaces in the new house is due to arrive either today or tomorrow - certainly, it is already in Florence, and just needs to travel the length of the Fi-Pi-Li to get here - and after that, I suppose we can start the process of moving in. Fortunately, we don't have to rush, and can take several weeks doing so; small things first, and working our way up in size until we concede defeat and call in some proper removers for things like beds and wardrobes. Stress-free it won't be, is something one can say with absolute confidence...

Tonight's dinner (almost a picnic, as we're going into the new house to seal terracotta floors after the brazilians have finished for the day, and will trail back for dinner only late in the evening):

Caprese Salad

Fiorentina, with Rocket & Parmesan

Apple Soufflés

Recipe: Pan di Spagna (Genoise)

Doubtless I'll get shot down by the purists who differentiate between Pan di Spagna and Genoise, on the basis that the former incorporates the yolks and the whites of the eggs separately, whilst the latter incorporates them in one go. There are some other differences in method also - but, since the end result is effectively identical, whether you're following a recipe for Pan di Spagna or one for Genoise, then I have no qualms about listing this recipe equally under the latter heading. I've followed various different Genoise recipes, over the years - generally either Le Notre's version, or that from Alain DuCaisse - but this recipe for Pan di Spagna , which comes from Harry's Bar in Venice is by far the best: straightforward, quick and entirely reliable.

The history of the cake seems a little confused. Apparently the brainchild of an Italian cook called Cabona in the mid 1700s, the italian name refers to the fact that he was in Spain when he first came up with the idea - but his provenance from Genoa suggests that the same cake might also have been called Genoise by the rest of Europe for much the same reason.

The Harry's Bar version is used to great effect between layers of Creme Patissière in soft- fruit tarts, as a double layer enveloping a purée of either apple (or pear) in the Harry's Bar version of apple pie, and as the central element for both their meringue and chocolate cakes. It is also excellent as the base layer, soaked in appropriate alcohol, for any sweet soufflé. In almost all its uses, the cake needs to be sliced into thin layers before use - for which you need either a steady hand and a sharp knife, or else a wire cake slicer (Westmark sells one; I've always understood these things to be called a 'harp', but the Westmark one which I have goes under the name of 'lyre').

For 1 x 23 cm diameter cake.

Ingredients: 4 Eggs, separated; 150g Sugar (or Splenda); 140g Flour, sifted; 1 tsp Vanilla essence.

Method.

1. Heat the oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Beat the yolks with the Sugar until the mixture is pale yellow; add the Vanilla essence, and mix in.

3. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then stir a third of this into the yolk/sugar mixture, and fold in the remaning two-thirds of the beaten whites.

4. In three lots, gently fold the sifted Flour into the egg mixture, then pour the mixture into a greased spring-form pan.

5. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 25 minutes; allow to rest for a minute or two still in its tin, then remove from the tin and allow it to cool completely.

Spring...

...is doing its best. The crocuses arrived en masse several days ago, and all over the garden narcissus are raising their heads - often in rather unexpected places, as I only hazily recall where I planted all the bulbs in the autumn; I kept having to make abrupt halts when cutting the grass the other day and repeatedly realised I was about to massacre yet another clump of flowerheads.

The mass planting is done - all except for three more large rhododendrons, needed to hide from view the deeply unbeautiful corrugated-iron sides of the compost heap. All fruit and nut trees in their serried ranks (and the new almond trees already dutifully in blossom); the soft fruit, bedded down (all I have to do now is cordon off that area of the garden, as the four-footeds seem drawn to it like a magnet, and tender strawberry plants fare badly under canine attention); and even the raised asparagus beds have been finally sorted out, and now nestle at the side of the old orchard like a couple of hastily assembled coffins. On closer inspection, I discovered I had twice as many asparagus crowns as I'd expected, which ought to increase the chances of a decent crop...

Signor Tempestini, with Omar, his moroccan sidekick, came and pruned all of the old fruit trees last week, since when I've been dealing with the mountains of debris they left in their wake - apples, apricots, plums, pear and peach trees, all of which had been neglected for the past four or five years, and were in a rather bad way as a result. The plum trees were on the verge of bursting into blossom, and dotted around the house now are vases stuffed with the things, like ikebane on speed, as the Technical Department describes it. Most of the branches have been destined for the garden shredder, though, as there's just too much of the stuff to deal with to be concerned with the aesthetic aspect of it all.

Onward and upward!

Tonight's dinner:

Squid, stewed with Peas and Tomatoes.

Fiorentina, with Rocket and Parmesan.

Chocolate Tarts.

Recipe: Ricotta Pudding

I'm going through an Elizabeth David phase. Such a pleasure - the writing, so authoritative and splendidly pithy, and the images she evokes are of a world within memory, but which in reality has now pretty much gone. Sometimes, the passage of time means one has to 'translate' certain parts of her recipes to fit today's reality - last week, for instance, I made her excellent Duck Terrine, but had to substitute for pig's-foot-aspic a combination of gelatine and duck broth (I can't remember the last time I even saw pig's trotters for sale - in the past, I used to get them at the little butchers at the southern end of Berwick Street, but that went the way of all flesh - literally - decades ago and was replaced by an Ann Summers, I think). Equally, I suspect ED's ducks were of a more mature variety than those we get today (which, in fact, are generally really 'duckling' rather than 'duck'), and so her terrine would have had a significantly gamier flavour than the same recipe produces now.

Anyway...Ricotta Pudding, or as ED calls it 'Budino Toscano'. I first came across a version of it in a recipe by Anne Willan for a ricotta cheesecake, where the mixture given here was baked inside a deep pastry shell, with a crisp and delicious lattice top - I can recall turning out dozens of the things for buffets when I was cooking for my living. With or without pastry is equally delicious - the pastry version is a more elegant presentation, I suppose, but the pastry-less one is lighter, and even simpler to produce. All-told, about five minutes to make the mixture, and then a further thirty minutes in the oven. Simplicity itself.

Ingredients: 12 oz ricotta; 4 egg yolks; 2 oz ground almonds; 4 oz sugar (or equivalent volume Splenda); a handful of mixed dried fruit; 2 oz finely-diced candied orange peel; 1 tsp vanilla essence (or, if you can get it, 'Fiori di Sicilia', which immediately lifts the flavours to a whole different level); finely-grated zest of a lemon.

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 180 degrees C.

2. In a bowl, beat together the ricotta, yolks, ground almonds, vanilla, and sugar. Fold into this mixture the dried fruit, peel, and zest.

3. Turn into a greased 8" baking tin. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 30 minutes, until the top has started to colour and the inside shows done when a knife tip is inserted.

4. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for ten minutes or so before inverting onto a plate. Cut into slices to serve.