Recipe: Campari & Prosecco Sorbet

This summer's signature dessert, this recipe is simple, straightforward and superb. Nobody guesses what the flavours are (well, Paola did, after a bit of thought...but she's the only person who has), but they all hoover it up with great enthusiasm as they consider the matter. Generally, I serve it with fresh raspberries, and the combination of flavours and textures works well. It might seem a little strange to be posting a recipe like this as we head into mid-September, but summer in Tuscany is just going on and on and on - temperatures were again up in the thirties, yesterday, and the forecast is for yet more of the same stretching ahead as far as the eye can see.

For four servings.

Ingredients: 200 ml sugar syrup (made by briefly boiling a litre of water with a kilo of sugar - or pro rata'd down, if you want to make a smaller amount, but I generally make this quantity and keep it in the fridge to use over several weeks, since it doesn't go off ); 250 ml Prosecco; 4 tablespoons Campari.

Method:

There almost isn't a method, since the process is so simple. Chill the ice cream machine, then add to it all of the ingredients listed above and churn for 20-25 minutes, until the sorbet is quite firm. You might need to churn a little more than with other sorbets, as it's important that all the campari is properly incorporated into the sorbet mixture - if you stop too soon, then the campari can be still slightly liquid, and the flavour too prevalent when you serve it.

Put the sorbet into a container, and into the freezer for several hours before serving. It should be soft enough to serve straight from the freezer, without any intervening 'softening' period in the fridge. Garnish with fresh raspberries to serve.

Hollinghurst: "The Stranger's Child"

This is 'Booker Longlist' time of year, when I'm trying to second-guess the judges about what will make it onto the shortlist  (to be announced tomorrow week), and so polish off as many of the shortlist as I can before we're in endgame territory. The judges have never (since I started doing this, anyway) agreed with my choice of winner - although they've come close, on occasion. And the point of having read all of the shortlist before the announcement is in order to make an informed decision in advance of the official one - whatever it might turn out to be. I didn't mind when Hilary Mantel won, for example (although I thought 'The Glass Room' ought to have won, that year) or when Hollinghurst won in 2004 (although the book by Colm Toibin that was also shortlisted that year, 'The Master',  was by far the better piece of writing). Last year's winner (Howard Jacobson) was a poor choice - but then, the shortlist itself was a complete mess, last year - and the occasions when they chose Anne Enright and Kiran Desai were just completely barmy.

 Anyway. I've just finished Hollinghurst's 'The Stranger's Child' (originally the bookies' favourite, but apparently it's now dropped to third place) and realised that the whole thing is an enormous game on the part of the author. Each part of the book reflects the work of a notable author in the twentieth-century english canon: part one is Forster ('Room With a View' meets 'Maurice' meets 'Howard's End'); part two, inevitably, is Waugh (but rather than 'Brideshead', it seems to be an amalgamation of 'A Handful of Dust' and 'Vile Bodies'); part three is probably Iris Murdoch (but, since I've never been a fan, I couldn't pinpoint which novels precisely); part four, I would guess is Anthony Powell (later volumes of 'A Dance to the Music of Time') or possibly C.P.Snow....although the latter might not be 'important ' enough for Hollinghurst; and part five is a tongue-in-cheek (it's to be hoped, anyway) reference to Hollinghurst himself (obvious references back to 'The Swimming Pool Library'). Oh, and the bit in part four with the interview with the lecherous octagenarian is probably another reference back to Forster, as well. Even the title of the book, which is ostensibly explained as a reference from 'In Memoriam', could reflect the idea of planting chunks of new writing, cuckoo's-nest-style,  in the oeuvres of the aforementioned late, greats. All things considered, it's probably too self-consciously 'clever'  (typical of the author in person, I gather) for its own good, and the game gets in the way of the book - which isn't to say that I didn't enjoy it immensely, of course.

Onward and upward. 'Derby Day' (D.J.Taylor) is next.

Tonight's Dinner:

Prawns in Garlic and Wine.

Chicken Korma; Rice Pilaff.

White peaches with fresh Raspberry Sauce.

Recipe: Greek Yoghurt

We've been regresssing, this summer. I think it began when we 'adjusted' the access to the courtyard, in June, and suddenly found we were using it much more often than before. Bizarrely, we were both struck by how reminiscent it was of the small courtyard in the first house we lived in in Greece, in the Seventies....something to do with the shape, and the whitewashed walls, and the beautifully 'hidden' quality of the place (and although the presence of a stonking great thirteenth century church forming one wall of the courtyard ought somehow to diminish the similarity, it doesn't manage to). The fact that Esselunga were running a BOGOF promotion around that time for FAGE yoghurt was another factor in the equation, and before we knew it, a habit had developed of bowls of greek yoghurt (sprinkled with hazelnuts and raisins, and liberally drizzled with honey) to accompany coffee, taken in the courtyard each morning at around 10.00. The habit took hold, we became firm devotees...and then Esselunga finished their BOGOF. Scottish genes being what they are, I revolt at the thought of paying one euro thirty for a pot of yoghurt, and the only alternative was to see about home production. And discovered that it couldn't be easier. The fact that UHT milk can be bought, ready sterilised, in screw-top containers is an enormous help, since it means that all you need do in terms of preparation is introduce (with the aid of a scrupulously clean coffee spoon) a couple of tablespoons of yoghurt into the milk container, replace the lid, and shake.

Anyway, the actual steps are as follows:

1. Add a couple of spoons of yoghurt to a litre of UHT full milk; try and ensure that no air remains in the container before you replace the lid, as this can swell during the process, and might cause problems if it swells too much. 

2. Shake the container, to combine the yoghurt and milk, and warm for seven hours at around 43 °C. The best place to do this is in the warming drawer - if you have one - of the oven; failing that, it also works if you heat water in a deep fat fryer to the right temperature and then immerse the milk container in that.(The warming drawer is preferable, though, since it allows a number of containers to be processed at the same time). Do NOT allow the temperature to go above 55°C, as the yoghurt culture won't survive at that temperature.

3. After seven hours, place the containers in the fridge for about a day (from the afternoon of one day, they'll be ready for consumption the following morning), and then strain them through fine cloth (I use a linen napkin, placed inside a collander over a bowl) for about an hour, in order to achieve the thickness of traditional greek yoghurt. If you want a thinnner, runnier version - the sort appropriate for indian cooking - then strain for less time.

That's it. 

I believe the yoghurt will keep for up to a week, or so - but not in this house! TD calculated that the home made yoghurt came out at a fifth the cost of the commercial version (not including the cost of the electricity for the warming drawer) - but that you then have to reduce that saving by 50%, as we eat twice as much of it at each sitting!

We've taken refuge in London...

...from the current heatwave in Tuscany. The last couple of weeks have been unbelievably - and increasingly unbearably - hot! The Belforte's passed by for dinner a couple of nights ago and reported that the temperature on Monday in Colle Val d'Elsa (their local market town) had reached an unprecedented 44 degrees. 'In a hill-town in Tuscany', they said, with incredulity in their voices...and we all shook our heads in disbelief, wondering whether that might actually have been a breath of evening breeze that we'd just felt. Which of course it hadn't been...

Too hot to type; too hot to garden; too hot to cook; too hot to do anything apart from collapse into heavy sleep, for hours each afternoon, and through the night. We leave the doors and windows wide open 24/7 (burglars, take note) to try and encourage airflow, and we keep the shutters closed during the day on the sides of the house which take direct sun. And evenings - which paradoxically are already getting shorter, so it's not possible to do anything beyond 8.30 - are spent in complicated manoeuvres trying to ensure that all of the garden gets sufficient water to keep it going through until some rain arrives once more (which is variously promised for sometime around the end of next week...but will then worryingly and inexplicably vanish altogether from the forecast without warning, from time to time, just to tease). For this weekend, while we're away (back to the inferno on Monday  - although I see by then temperatures are forecast to have dropped to the upper twenties, only) we've left the place festooned with hosepipes, rigged up into a series of temporary watering systems attached to timers. Some plants might struggle...but frankly, in extreme conditions like this, it's a matter of sauve qui peut!

Tonight's dinner:

Chicken Liver Parfaits with Hollandaise

Roast Beef & Potato Gratin

Phyllo White Peach Tarts

Summer Drinks

High summer: drinking tea on the lower terrace and watching the early morning sun wash over the south lawn; long, afternoon siestas in a darkened room, as the town dozes all around (those few who haven't departed for the beaches of Calabria or Sicily, that is) ; evenings spent mowing the grass and endlessly watering the garden; dinner, late,  by candle-light in the courtyard, under the stars. We eat differently in summer - less time to cook, since the garden is so demanding, and less inclination to stand near a hot stove or oven in these sorts of temperatures. Salads and chilled soups have replaced pasta and risotto; sorbets, and ice creams, and fresh fruit in chilled prosecco (with lemon zest and crushed mint...delicious!) instead of tarts and stuffed crepes and soufflés.

And we drink differently, too.

Sometimes daiquiris - peach, or apricot by preference, although strawberries work too, and so do bananas, and raspberries:

In a blender, combine the flesh of a whole peach per person (or equivalent amount of whichever fruit you have to hand) with a handful of crushed ice, 2 fluid oz of rum, a tablespoon of lime juice and one and a half tablespoons of sugar syrup (made in advance and kept in the fridge: 2 cups of sugar boiled for three minutes with one cup of water, then cooled and chilled). Blitz the whole thing for about a minute, and serve in chilled glasses. Then get ready to make more, as one is never enough!

But recently, after Sarah introduced us to the concept, when she came to stay for a few days, we've been drinking Bitter col bianco. A slug (technical term, meaning approximately a generous tablespoon) of campari in the bottom of a champagne flute, then topped up with chilled prosecco. Beyond excellent! And none of that rather depressing process whereby the ice in the campari and soda melts into the drink and renders it progressively weaker and less enjoyable as the level in the glass descends.

Tonight's Dinner:

Poached Eggs on a bed of spinach, with Gruyère Sauce.

Fiorentina, with Rocket and Parmesan (dressed lightly with sesame oil, rather than olive oil, and lemon).

Burnt Lemon cream with Blackberries. 

To Oxford...

..to see the Macedonian treasures currently on view at the Ashmolean. Glorious, glorious things: delicate golden jewellery; beautiful (and surprisingly colourful) painted jars for scented oils; grave goods; and statues; and ornaments; and military artefacts; wall paintings; silver cups and jugs;exquisitely carved ivory...Wonderful! Pleasantly  un-crowded, and sensibly presented  - presumably since it was aimed at people who take an intelligent interest, rather than at the grockles who gawp uncomprehendingly, as their tele-guides drone away in the background, and who these days seem to gum up every exhibition of any note in Central London (British Museum and National Gallery, take note!)

It was striking, though, that  there are clear stylistic and cultural similarities between these treasures and etruscan remains from the same period - and yet, nowhere have I ever seen any reference to a connection of any kind between the two. Even stranger, given that the Macedonians  were little connected with the wider world until quite late on. Odd. I wonder what the reaction would be of an etruscan specialist to this particular collection...

And then, lunch. On the terrace on the Ashmolean's roof, with a splendid view from behind the bum-end of the rooftop statuary (which, presumably, the original architect had never intended to be on general view). Practically a Zuleika Dobson moment. The place was great; the food less so.  In homage to Alexander, they were offering a selection of greek mezze in addition to their normal fare, and we decided - almost nostagically - to try it. Not a particularly wise move, as we discovered that they weren't so much operating a kitchen as an unpacking operation, and everything that appeared at table could quite credibly have come from a box, packet or tin, probably opened ten minutes earlier and almost certainly to be found in any M&S Food Hall. Oh well. The cheese plate (English) was excellent, though, and was served with a bunch of red grapes which had been macerated (it turned out) in cold mulled wine, and which were both intriguing and delicious. (Note to self: sometimes, it does pay to sample the garnish, rather than merely to leave it sitting dispiritedly at the side of the plate).

Oxford was heaving. Horribly so. And  we took refuge for what remained of the afternoon in the Botanic Garden. Beautiful, calm, and enviably well-tended. Botanic gardens can be dangerous places, and a casual visit several months ago to the one in Amsterdam resulted in my having a couple of hundred Pachysandra Terminalis and Ajuga Reptans  to plant, right in the middle of blisteringly hot July - when in fact all any sensible gardener in Tuscany wants to do is to take refuge, and hope that things actually make it through until the weather cools down again. Oxford BG was no exception, and we came away with a cell-phone full of plant images and the names of about fifteen new 'possibles' to research -  but not before the autumn, at the earliest!

This afternoon, we're off to a screening of 'The Valley of the Bees' at The National Gallery, and then tomorrow it's back on the bus (metaphorically speaking) to Pisa - to the four-footeds and, inevitably, to the watering...

Tonight's Dinner

Scallops with Almonds and Parsley sauce.

Raie au beurre noire, with new potatoes

Raspberry Soufflés  (the link is for strawberries, but just substitute)

Recipe: Greengage & Almond Tart

 

The Plum and Greengage season is upon us, with a vengeance. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of the things, and all - helpfully - at the same time. Paola has come and picked (industrially) three times, and I've been pressing bags of fruit on anybody who stands still for long enough not to avoid it. Still, the branches are loaded, and I'm afraid I'm just going to have to leave the remainder for the birds. Part of the problem is that there isn't actually a great deal to be done with them, once picked...they've gone into ice cream, and tarts, and bavarois, and fruit salads, and even been used to make daiquiris. But unless you want to go the 'chutney' route, which I don't really (the fruit/meat combination isn't something that works for me), then the options run out fairly quickly.

One delicious way of using them - either plums, or greengages - though, is baked in a crisp tart shell, on a bakewell tart base. Good with plums, and even more delicious with greengages. The recipe comes from Jane Grigson (who seems equally stumped when it comes to breadth of uses for fresh plums) and is definitely one to be repeated as often as you can get the fruit for it.

For an 8" diameter tart.

Ingredients: shortcrust pastry made with 125g butter, 150g flour, 50 ml water and a pinch of salt; 100g ground almonds; 100g melted butter; 1 egg; 100g sugar, half tsp almond essence; sufficient greengages that halved they will properly cover the surface of the tart.

Method:

1. Roll the pastry into a greased false-bottomed 8" tart tin, and blind bake at 180 degrees C. Allow to cool slightly

2. Combine all the other ingredients apart from the greengages, and mix well with an electric beater. Pour into the blind baked shell.

3. Halve and stone the greengages. If they are still hard, then poach them briefly in a very little water and a spoonful of sugar, just until they soften. If they're properly ripe, you shouldn't need to bother with this stage. Be careful if you are poaching them not to let them go too far,  as the appearance of the tart will be compromised if the greengages are a soggy mess!

4. Place the greengage halves, skin side up, on the almond base, arrangeing them pretty much to cover the surface of the tart. Bake for about half an hour, until the almond mixture has risen and puffed around the greengages. remove the tart from the oven as soon as the almond cream begins to brown.

5. Serve either warm or cold.