Staples in Store...

Anthony Worrall Thompson was banging-on on the radio yesterday about the sorts of things every half-decent cook should have in their store-cupboard (I wasn't entirely concentrating, but I think it was in response to a shock-horror attention-grabbing declaration by Marco Pierre that stock cubes are in fact the greatest thing since.....um.....sliced bread....) It caused me to ponder, and consider what things in practice I do consider essential, and would always have to hand. As follows:

- Stock, for sure; there are always several litres of the chicken variety in the freezer at any given moment in time, but for beef I rely on a concentrate, and I always have tubs in the fridge of reconstitutable fish stock powder (for some reason, no chicken carcase can leave the kitchen without having been turned into stock, but I clearly have no such strong feeling about fish skeletons......I have no idea why)

- Anchovies. For adding to stews, for the tops or bases of savoury tarts, to be melted in butter for simple fish sauces, for Tuna Tartare.......for a million things!

- Boyajian Citrus Oils. Already blogged elsewhere. Wonderful and supremely versatile stuff.

- Dried Porcini. For risotto, for pasta sauces, to be added to practically any meat dish, or to add (reconstituted) to any fresh mushroom dish, to give it an appropriate kick.

- Lardon Sauce (see the recipe section). Gives a kick to any grilled or seared fish; I always have a pot of this in the fridge, and one batch keeps happily for several months at a time.

- Prunes poached in Cinammon and Red Wine. Again, there's always a pot of this is the fridge, for serving with almost any kind of Ice Cream, or as the base for a Cream Posset, or to go with Chocolate Tart..........it takes no more time to make a large quantity than a small quantity, so it makes sense to store a decent sized batch for use over time.

- Egg white. Ok, I don't choose to have this, it just happens as collateral damage after making yolk-heavy sauces and custards. The fact remains, there's always a pot of egg white sitting in the fridge, which means I'm never without the wherewithal to make egg-white-only cheese or chocolate souffles.

- And- of course - Chocolate. In industrial quantities. And always Felchlin. I've bored for England on this subject elsewhere, so ......enough said.

Tonight's Dinner:

Beef and Porcini Strudel.

Cod Fillets with Mushrooms, served with Broccoli.

Lemon & Cinammon Rice Pudding (with thanks to Jane Grigson)

Recipe: Cherry Tart

For Two.

Ingredients: 2 sheets Phyllo Pastry, each 12" x 6"; approximately 30 fresh Cherries (the darker the better!); 30g Butter; 2 tablespoons Plain Flour; 2 tablespoons Sugar (or Sweetener); 1 tablespoon Cherry Liqueur of some description (I use Vedrenne Creme de Griotte, but in practice any strongly flavoured spirit will suffice).

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees C.

2. Prepare two individual tart shells, using the Phyllo and Butter (melt the Butter and brush the Phyllo sheets with it; cut each sheet into two squares, and use each pair of squares to form a double-layer tart shell, tucking the edges and corners in as you go, to create a neatly round shell). Blind-bake 5 minutes in the pre-heated oven; then remove the baking weights and bake a further two minutes or so, thoroughly to brown and crisp the base of the shell.

3. While the shells are baking, stone the Cherries into a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together the Flour and half of the Sugar.

4. Divide the Flour/Sugar mixture between the two shells, spreading it evenly. Pack the stoned Cherries on top, forcing as many into each shell as you can manage in one tight layer. Sprinkle the remaining Sugar over the Cherries, and sprinkle the liqueur over the top.

5. Return the tarts to the oven and bake for 25 - 30 minutes, until the Cherries have visibly collapsed and are oozing with juice and the pastry is a rich dark brown. Remove from the oven and leave to cool somewhat before serving.

Best served warm.

Kitchen Pedantry.....

The Technical Department produced for me the other day a copy of Julian Barnes' 'Pedant in the Kitchen', which I polished off practically in one sitting, and heartily recommend to anybody kitchen-focused in any way. He lauds the greats: Jane Grigson, Elizabeth David; Pomiane (of course) along with a few that I would have distinct reservations about (Nigel Slater, for instance, and Simon Hopkinson) and even shamelessly admits to an ongoing relationship with Delia! Stories of recipes that don't work (and never could have, on examination) ring all too true, along with titivated photography and incompetent editing. On average, I found myself guffawing aloud approximately every ten pages, which I think is pretty good going.....

With apologies to Mr Barnes, he doesn't come across as a very confident cook, and what he describes as 'pedantry' seems to me to be nervous over-reliance on direction from others and a lack of confidence in his own judgment. Which is what you can only get from lots of experience, Mr B. In reading the 'Pedant' I was repeatedly reminded of James Hamilton-Patterson's 'Cooking with Fernet Branca', which again I would highly recommend - even despite the uncomfortable awareness that creeps up in the course of reading that in fact the person he's making fun of is anybody in danger of taking cooking too seriously ......i.e You, Dear Reader! From the outset, reference to bizarre ingredients (Otter in Lobster Sauce, for instance) causes the raising of a quizzical eyebrow, but it is only as we proceed through 'My own recipe for fishcake - a bit tricky to ice properly' and 'Terrine of Jack Russell - hellish beasts to bone' that the penny conclusively drops. And for the true pedant, the fact that by the end of the book, measurements are given in precise fractions of grammes, of degrees and of minutes, should provide a welcome basis for confidence!

Back into the Kitchen, Mr Barnes - get practising!

Tonight's Dinner:

Beef Salad, with Mache and Rocket leaves, in an agrodolce dressing

Seared Salmon Fillet, with Lardon Sauce, served with Endive and Leek sweated together in Butter.

Cherry Tarts.

Recipe: Celery Braised with Cheese & Pancetta

For Four.

Ingredients: 1 head of Celery (if in the UK, use organic Celery, it has vastly more flavour; in Italy, standard Celery will be fine); 30g Butter; 1 tablespoon Olive Oil; 1 small Onion; 100g diced Pancetta; 2 cups of Chicken Stock; seasoning; half a cup of freshly-grated Parmesan.

Method:

1. Cut the Celery stalks away from the base, and remove any leaves (reserve for use in a salad or a vegetable stock); using a swivel-head peeler, remove the stringy outer surface of the Celery stalks, and cut them into 3" lengths.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C.

3. Finely dice the Onion. Heat the Butter and Oil together in a saute pan (something broad and shallow with a lid), and gently saute the diced Onion and the Pancetta for several minutes. As soon as you can smell the aroma of the Pancetta cooking, add the pieces of Celery, and stir around in the pan to mix with the Onion and Pancetta. Leave to cook gently for about five minutes.

4. Add the Stock to the pan. Raise the heat until the stock just starts to bubble, then reduce to a simmer. Cook, covered, until the Celery is tender - it should take about 25 minutes or so.

5. Once the Celery is tender, remove it to a buttered oven dish. If any Stock remains, boil to reduce it to nothing, stirring constantly, then spoon the Onion and Pancetta mixture over the pieces of Celery. Season to taste.

6. Sprinkle with Parmesan, and place in the pre-heated oven for fifteen minutes.

Excellent with any roast meat, but particularly good with Veal or Chicken.

The arrival of Summer....

...is announced by the appearance in the market of Melons and Wild Strawberries. No peaches yet that are sufficiently tender to be baked, stuffed with amaretti and chocolate, but it should only be a matter of weeks before we get there....

Buying Casarecci in Vettovaglie the other day (wonderful pasta crescents, stuffed with a mixture of ground pork and veal, along with parmesan and an unindentifiable spice that somehow gives the whole thing an age-old quality), I was persuaded by Claudia to sample her homemade Torta Pasqualina. Albeit a week late - but who's counting? Filled with Spinach and Ricotta, it reminded me of nothing so much as good old spanakopita, which has been hearty peasant fare in Greece since time immemorial, and a recognisable version of it can even be found in the pages of Apicius. On checking, it appears that Torta Pasqualina - of this kind, anyway - comes from Liguria, and is supposed to contain whole eggs cooked within the filling, and to be made with exactly 33 sheets of pastry (representing JC's age at Easter first time around). Lose points, Claudia! Although, in fairness, her version wasn't bad......

The other culinary highlight of the week was the first course at dinner in the Osteria dei Cavalieri, the night before last. Tagliolini with a sauce of rabbit and asparagus that was completely sensational! In combination with a bottle of Veneroso 2001, and preceding a wonderfully tender Ossobucco, and melt-in-the-mouth cannellini, what more could a person want?

And the other benefit of the arrival of summer? The Brazilians fly south....or north....or somewhere.......but the main thing is....they LEAVE! On the basis that noise and dust and builder-chaos - which is bad news at the best of times - becomes entirely intolerable during the summer months. So, they pack up, and leave us in peace at the end of the week. Work unfinished, of course, but the building site tidily mothballed until we decide we can bear to hear the sound of hammer blows once more......much, much later in the year.

Tonight's dinner:

Asparagus Ravioli.

Bistecchie of Cinta Senese, with a gratin of Celery and Parmesan.

Hazelnut Gelato, with Wild Strawberries.

Recipe: Veal Burgers with Wine & Tomato Sauce

For Two

Ingredients: 450g minced Veal; 2 Salad Onions; 1 small Red Pepper; 60g Butter; 2 tablespoons Olive Oil; 1 Egg; Salt & Pepper; half a cup of freshly grated Parmesan; 3 tablespoons of Plain Flour; half a glass of White Wine or Vermouth; 300g chopped Tomato (tinned).

Method:

1. Finely dice the Onion and Pepper. Melt half the Butter in a frying pan and gently saute the Pepper and Onion for ten minutes or so until soft.

2. Combine Veal, Egg, Parmesan and seasoning, add the sauteed Onion and Pepper and mix all together thoroughly. Divide the mixture into four, then make each piece firstly into a ball, then flatten to make a patty shape. Flour each patty on both sides.

3. Heat the Oil in a large frying pan along with the remaining Butter. Over high heat, brown each patty on both sides to caramelise the surface thoroughly, then reduce the heat to medium and cook for approximately ten minutes until cooked through. Turn the burgers frequently in the course of cooking - inevitably, pieces will fall off the burgers as you turn them; this is fine, as the pieces will subsequently be incorporated into the sauce.

4. When you judge the burgers are almost done, pour into the pan the wine/vermouth and tomatoes. Turn the burgers in this mixture a couple of times, than remove them to serving plates, while you turn the heat under the pan to high and cook the sauce for a couple of minutes further to reduce and thicken it. As it cooks, stir well, scraping into the sauce the cooking juices from the burgers which have stuck to the pan. Spoon over and around the burgers and serve.

These are equally good served cold with a salad for lunch on the following day. Additionally, if you want to omit the tomatoes (as happens in this household, where the Technical Department has recently developed a prejudice against cooked tomato) it works just as well to make the sauce with only the wine and the pan juices.

Ageing gracefully

The cheap-and-nasty yoghurt trick appears to have worked - only two weeks after application, the pots already seem several decades older, and this is even before we enter the lichen-growing period of the year......all looks promising!

The Brancolis - originators of the yoghurt advice - came for dinner the other evening, laden with gifts. Bottles of both this year's and last year's oil harvest (the former exquisitely 'grassy', and to be used sparingly on salads, the latter now consigned to cooking purposes), plus armfuls of fresh lemons (since the Brazilians appear to be nicking all of ours!), and a hygrometer, in order to measure the strength of our grappa distillation from Christmas. Gratifyingly, it came out bang on 45% proof, which is exactly what it should be (and not a 'grado troppo forte' as Umberto had opined knowingly when he tried it). Since we've now consumed almost all of the Christmas production of five litres, it's time to get on with the next distillation batch, this week, or we risk running dry.

Building work proceeds apace....which suggests that the project might just about be completed this side of terminal loss of patience! The newly-created loggia will be blissful in the summer - actually, it will probably be blissful as soon as it's free of builders. Destruction elsewhere is practically over, and the start of the long, slow climb to a world free of brick dust and the smell of damp plaster is significantly underway.

One for the annals: with the Brancolis, we broached the bottle of Recioto di Soave that Laura and Giovanni had brought when they came to dinner the other week. Sublime. Another version of bottled sunshine. And it went splendidly with Chocolate and Apricot Tart......

Tonight's Dinner:

Aubergine and Parmesan Tarts

Fegato alla Veneziana

Lemon Souffle Glace (lemons thanks to Brancoli. )