Recipe: Aubergine & Parmesan Tart

For Four.
Ingredients: 4 sheets Phyllo Pastry 12"x6" each; 2 oz melted Butter; 1 large Aubergine; 2 tablespoons Olive Oil; 4 large Anchovy Fillets; 2 medium Garlic Cloves; 2 tablespoons chopped fresh Parsley; 2 Eggs; Seasoning; a quarter of a cup of freshly grated Parmesan; 1 Duck Liver (optional).

Method:

1. Cut the Aubergine into 1 cm cubes, place in a colander and dredge with salt. Leave to sweat out their juice for about half an hour.

2. Brush the Phyllo sheets with melted Butter, and use to make individual pastry shells in four 3" false-bottomed tart tins.

3. Saute the chopped Anchovies and chopped Garlic gently in the heated oil for a couple of minutes. Add the Aubergine cubes and continue to saute for ten minutes or so, until the Aubergine flesh is quite tender. Add the chopped Parsley and stir to incorporate. Cook for one minute more, then transfer to a bowl to cool.

4. Beat Eggs in a separate bowl, and stir in the Parmesan. Fold the cooled Aubergine mixture into this, and check seasoning (add salt and pepper if necessary)

5. Fill the pastry shells with the Aubergine mixture, and bake approximately ten minutes in a pre-heated 180 degree C oven. The tarts will be done when the pastry is quite dark, and the top of the filling is starting to brown.

6. If you wish to use the Duck Liver, slice it finely and distribute the slices on top of the tarts, before grilling them briefly either using a hand blow-torch or else by standing them for a minute under a pre-heated hot grill (be careful they don't burn if you use the latter method).

Serve.

A Day of Theatrics....

Act One: Lucca. A beautiful winter's day - piercingly clear blue sky, brilliant sunshine, and a touch of frost on the statues in Piazza Napoleone. The scene: a neo-classical courtroom, populated chaotically with a portly judge with a taste in colourful neckties, a pregnant lady-lawyer, three protagonists, two assistant lawyers - one serious and skeletal, the other bleached blonde and doubtful - a translator, a second lawyer, and not enough chairs to go round.....The noise level got louder and more frenzied, as the overall impression increasingly resembled one of the more disorganised scenes from Cosi fan Tutti ! End result? Not one millimetre further on in the process at the end of the morning than at the beginning.......and a date set for the next scene in this particular Opera Buffa at the end of the month.....Da Capo...........


Act Two: End of the afternoon. A starkly modern Notary's office, stainless steel and glass furniture and unremittingly modern 'Art' on the walls. The notary's costume seems derived from The Man from Uncle - black turtleneck, and serious thick-rimmed spectacles - although the overall dramatic reference is probably more likely Pirandello. Through the elegantly thin slats of the venetian blinds, night draws in, as the notary's voice drones on in a river of impenetrable italian legalese.......

Fortunately, for the intermission, we repaired to the Ristorante Lo Schiaccianoci, last redecorated in the late seventies with a cheerful mural of the Vondel Park in Amsterdam, which sits awkwardly amidst massed framed copies of nineteenth century engravings of Tuscany, and the occasional mistaken semi nude from the sixties in lurid pink. The food was excellent - a mouth watering dish of squid and black olives, as a salade tiede, and some sausages accompanied by perfectly grilled courgette, aubergine and red pepper. The half litre of nameless wine was slightly frizzante, light and interesting in flavour, and precisely what was needed.


Tonight's Dinner - reflects the sort of day, in being distinctly labour light!

Endive braised in Prosciutto Cotto, with a creamy Emmental sauce.

Scaloppine alla Milanese.

Ricotta Rum Cream. See below for the recipe.

Recipe: Ricotta Rum Cream

For Four-Five.
Ingredients: 2 generous teaspoons Pistachio Paste; one and a half pounds of Ricotta (the best quality you can find - it makes a difference!); 5 oz Sugar; 5 tablespoons Dark Rum; Soft Fruit or Nuts, to garnish, as you prefer (Strawberries, Raspberries, Blackberries, Hazelnuts, or Walnuts....).

Method:

1. Let the Paste soften in the Rum for five minutes or so.

2. Combine all ingredients apart from the fruit/nuts in a food processor, and process for approximately 20 seconds - don't overdo it, or it will collapse into a sort of slurry!

3. Divide between bowls and refrigerate for at least two hours. Garnish with berries or chopped nuts before serving, according to preference. (If using soft fruit, I generally macerate it for half an hour or so beforehand in something like either Cointreau or Maraschino.)

Pomiane's Philosophy & Kitchen Practice...

Pomiane's philosophy was very straightforward: a quality of life, significantly enhanced by the relaxed enjoyment of good food and drink, preferably consumed in the company of good friends. He disliked formality, pomposity or pretension. Pleasure should be simple - and the route to finding it should be equally uncomplicated.

This philosophy can be distilled into a number of distinct rules for the Cook. As follows:

• Plan ahead. Plan your menus so that you aren't trying to do too many complicated dishes within one meal.

• Programme your meal plans to achieve economies of scale: - if a dish will freeze readily, then make twice as much first time round, and have a second portion ready to go for several weeks later; - when I'm making crepes for one day, I generally make enough to use the following day in a completely different recipe (e.g. savoury stuffed one day, and suzettes the next); - when I make Moules Marinieres, I always make enough that I also have cooked mussels to make a Tarte aux Moules a couple of days later, and so on....

• Organise yourself, so that you can multi-task the various steps involved in producing three courses in parallel with each other, rather than one after the other.

• Don't spend too much time in the kitchen - I produce a three course dinner every evening, and - unless there's a dish I particularly want to spend time over - I rarely spend more than an hour a day cooking.

• Clear up as you go along! How can you possibly relax into the enjoyment of food and company, when you know the Kitchen is piled with dirty pans awaiting your attention as soon as dinner is finished? By the time the first course is served, your kitchen should already look practically pristine....

• If you're starting to get stressed, then you aren't planning sensibly in relation to your capabilities. Stress is not enjoyable. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Your abilities will inevitably expand with practice.
  

And lastly, bear in mind that food doesn't have to be complicated in order to be good. For that reason, I've given one of my favourite Pomiane recipes below: Scrambled Eggs with Smoked Salmon. Simple and delicious, it encapsulates everything Pomiane stood for, and works equally as well as the first course for a grand lunch on Christmas Day as it does as comfort food beside the fire on a dreary day in February. Enjoy!

Tonight's Menu is..........the responsibility of the Bandierine restaurant. I'm having an evening off!

Recipe: Scrambled Egs with Smoked Salmon

For Four.
Ingredients: 8 large Eggs; 4 tablespoons Cream; 1 oz Butter; Salt & Pepper; 6 oz Smoked Salmon; Dill (optional)

Method:

1. Melt butter in a heavy frying pan.

2. Beat Eggs with cream and seasoning - be careful with the quantity of salt, as the Smoked Salmon will also be quite salty; better to under-season at this stage and adjust later if necessary. Mix well, to break down the egg white thoroughly.

3. Cook eggs over a medium heat, stirring to break up the 'membrane' as it cooks - but not so much that the texture resembles a kind of porridge. The cooked eggs should look rich and fluffy.

4. Cut the Smoked Salmon into small strips and mix into the cooked Eggs just before serving.

5. Serve, garnished lightly with (optional) Dill.

The Best Mozzarella in the World......

..........comes from a 'biological' (whatever that may be) dairy called Vannulo, just outside the gates to Paestum. Both the Mozzarella and the Ricotta produced by Vannulo are quite exceptional - and once you've tasted either cheese, your benchmarks for 'good' as regards either product will have been radically altered. Permanently. The taste and creaminess is so remarkable that even hardened afficianados of italian cheese have been reduced to awed silence at their first taste - I know; I've witnessed it....

I have no idea whether it is the quality of the Buffalo milk which is responsible - presumably having been reared by 'biological' methods makes some difference to the quality of their output - or some wrinkle in the way that the cheeses are made. I suspect herds of Buffalo in Italy are few and far between these days, so I wonder if in fact what Vannulo produces is what Mozzarella and Ricotta used to taste like (I know....that old line again.....see earlier references to Felchlin chocolate...possibly I'm getting old) and our palates have merely become accustomed to what passes for 'good' these days, instead of what it used to be? Certainly, I can remember - when I first visited Paestum in the sixties, before it became such an item on the tourist landscape - there were rather grubby looking herds of Buffalo wallowing aimlessly pretty much everywhere you looked in that part of the World. Last time I was there, about five years ago, I don't recall seeing any at all.....

Anyway, I'm afraid this post is by way of being a 'so near, and yet so far', since I can tell you about Vannulo, but there's no way short of going there that you can lay your hands on any of their cheese. They don't distribute it, they won't send it, they have no outlets.......apart from on their own premises. I've tried all methods I can think of to get hold of it in Tuscany, all to no avail. The only possibility appears to be to queue up at their gates, and to buy it directly from the dairy, in person. Which is no awful hardship, but not entirely practical.... We've only enjoyed it hitherto by dint of some friends from Milan who have a house near Paestum, and who generously drop off a care package when they pass back through on their journey north (the cheese comes packed in a polystyrene box, accompanied by hushed instructions to 'eat it today - it won't keep'.......which isn't entirely true, but there's never any left after a couple of days anyway.) I'll put a link to Vannulo's website in the side bar. Good luck.....!

Tonight's Dinner:

Palline di Melanzane e Mozzarella (Aubergine fritters stuffed with Mozzarella - di Bufala, but not di Vannulo, sadly.....)

Swordfish Steaks with Salmoriglio Sauce.

Lemon and Almond Tart - see below for the recipe.

Recipe: Lemon & Almond Tart

For Two Individual Tarts.
Ingredients: 2 sheets Phyllo pastry, approx 12"x6" each; melted Butter, approx half an ounce; 1 Egg; 1.5 oz Sugar; grated rind and juice of 1 Lemon; 2 oz ground Almonds; a drop of Almond Essence.

Method:

1. Grease two individual false-bottomed tart tins. Brush the Phyllo sheets with the melted butter, cut each sheet in two, and use each pair of pieces to make a double thickness pastry shell in each tin.

2. Whisk the Egg and Sugar together for several minutes until pale yellow in colour and it falls away from the whisk in a ribbon; beat into this mixture the ground Almonds and Almond essence, and fold in the juice and rind of the Lemon.

3. Bake the shells for about 5 minutes in an oven pre-heated to 200 degrees C. Remove them when they are look crisp and quite brown. Reduce the oven temperature to 180 degrees C. Fill the pastry shells with the almond-lemon mixture, and bake in the oven for about 10 minutes - take them out when they have puffed generously and start to colour on the surface.

Dust with icing sugar once they have cooled, and serve.

Depending on the size of the tart tins you use, you may find you have some mixture left over after you've filled the pastry shells. Put any left-over mixture into a greased ramekin and bake it alongside the tarts - useful to put in the fridge for one of those odd moments when it's time for a little something!