A thing of beauty...

Well, in my eyes, at any rate. The hamper arrived, this week, along with many boxes and oddly-wrapped pieces of furniture, and chests, and diverse bits of garden kit and other assorted goods and chattels. The family home in Kent is being dismantled - a thought-provoking process, and one where all sorts of long-forgotten treasures have emerged from cupboards and attics and other dusty resting places. My father's army trunks, for example, which were last used in anger when they were shipped back from Egypt, some years before the Suez Crisis (the uniforms inside were donated to the local charity shop, last month, and the trunks are now doing service as containers for the TD's not insignificant collection of shoes and boots...while my father's swagger sticks - one formal, the other less so - are still trying to 'find their place' somewhere around the house), and about a dozen (at last count) crates of books, and some pictures, and various bits of silver...

The hamper came out of the big house at Mount Clare - my mother seems to think it was passed over to my grandfather, probably by Leggett, the Butler, after LHS died rather unexpectedly in 1941. And it was passed on to my parents at some time early in the 1970's; certainly, I can remember it being in active use for a picnic in the grounds of Fishbourne Palace at around that time (an occasion memorable both for my (paternal) grandmother finding it incomprehensible that the word 'pickaninnies' should no longer be acceptable in common parlance, and for the unrelated blazing row later on the same day between my mother and her mother-in-law, as the result of which relations were frigidly distant for several years afterwards, and we had to make an unplanned stop at the gardens at Wakehurst Place on the way home, in order to allow overheated tempers to simmer down somewhat. Wakehurst Place was rather splendid, I recall.)

It's tantalising to think that perhaps the hamper played a supporting role in romantic interludes between Jean Rhys and LHS, whose mistress she was for some time, I think in the mid-thirties. The hamper probably dates from the end of the twenties. Strawberries and champagne and intimate dalliances on the Sussex Downs, perhaps, or at Goodwood, or muffled up to watch a point-to-point in some muddy field somewhere.  TD tends to think otherwise, though, and that their 'interludes' together were likely to have been a lot less public, and more likely ot have been conducted in the privacy of the rented accommodation in which LHS had set her up, in Kilburn or Kensal Rise, I think it was - in which case, little need for a packed lunch at the same time.

It is indeed a lovely thing. Missing only one of the three wicker-covered bottles from the original set, it is otherwise complete and exactly as it was when it left the shop, around ninety years ago. Thoughts gather of a summer picnic somewhere up in the Garfagnana, or on the shaded slopes of Monte Amiata, or on one of the unspoilt beaches down towards Piombino. TD thinks that the well-house at the end of the garden is a more practical proposition...and he may be right.

Tonight's Dinner:

Ravioli, with grana & beef stuffing, in asparagus sauce.

Vallespluga chicken, boned and roast, with garlic & parsley butter under the skin; roast salsify.

Tarts of fresh raspberries, on Marsala creme patissiere.

 

Excellent new kit...

Pictured like this, it looks as though it belongs in a hairdressing salon rather than in a kitchen...but appearances can be deceptive. This is the piece of kit par excellence for tenderizing steak, and I can tell you that it works wonderfully. Technical Dept first came across reference to something like this some years ago, when he was chatting with a rather garrulous australian assistant in Jack O'Shea's (the butcher, all-too-briefly based in Montpelier Street), who blithely passed on the information that they had a commercial-sized one of these down in the basement, and all of their meat, pretty much, was subjected to it before being sold. It works a little like those pin-things that were so popular about thirty years ago, where you could leave an impression of your hand, or face (or whichever parts of your anatomy you felt like representing) by pushing against the pins, and leaving a 3-D reverse image of yourself in the bed of pins. In this instance, however, you push the pins down, and use them very efficiently to puncture the fibres inside the meat you are tenderising - it takes three or four pushes to tenderise one steak (and I tend then to turn it over and do it again from the other side, just to be sure)...and, that's it. Thereafter, a half-inch thick steak takes a minute on each side on a hot grill, and will be tender and succulent, and mouth wateringly good.

I don't know for how long domestic versions of this have been available, but TD was on the case, and I found one of them for me under the tree, last Christmas. It has the clear advantage of my being able to buy sirloin steaks of less than optimal quality, and by tenderising them with this thing, as a result of which they're pretty much as good as the best. These days, I tend to buy a complete entrecote at Metro - generally South American in origin - and then cut it into steaks for freezing...which means that a tenderised-to-be-perfect sirloin steak comes out at around one euro twenty a head. Which has much to be said for it.

Tonight's dinner:

Fettucine with lemon sauce

Rabbit, boned & rolled, stuffed with prosciutto and celery; mirepoix of vegetables.

Vanilla ice cream, 'rippled' with griottes.

Asparagus Sauce for Papardelle

This recipe - which is extremely delicious - in fact comes from a Michel Roux dish of poached salmon garnished with asparagus tips. The salmon dish was pretty good (especially with the addition of a bed of  mash!), but the leftover sauce, of which there was plenty, when served with fato a mano papardelle was stellar!

The sauce requires only the stalks of the asparagus, and so if you aren't using the tips (cooked) as a garnish for your papardelle , I would advise reserving them to use on another day either in risotto, or else as a stuffing for ravioli.

The following quantity is appropriate for four servings of pasta.

Ingredients: 8 asparagus stalks (tips cut about two inches down from the end); 50g butter; 2 shallots, sliced finely; 2 small mushrooms, finely sliced; 1 bouquet garni; 250 ml good quality stock (either fish or vegetable, depending on which you have available); 100 ml cream.

Method:

1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, and sweat for about three minutes the mushrooms and shallots, along with the chopped-up asparagus stalks. Do not allow the contents of the pan to colour.

2. Add the bouquet garni and the stock, and simmer for three minutes, then add the cream and simmer for a further two minutes. Check seasoning and adjust as necessary.

3. Allow the sauce to cool slightly, and then blend it in a liquidizer for a minute or so.  You can then sieve it, for a really velvety texture, or else leave it slightly 'chunky' - I'm not sure that the difference is discernible once it has been used to coat the lengths of papardelle.

4. If it needs it, reheat briefly in the microwave before tossing with the cooked pasta.

Glorious February Sunshine

The last of the sweet oranges, waiting to be squeezed for the morning dose of vitamin C

The agrumi lawn, morning sunshine, and a four-footed

The northern pergola, looking toward the church

Waiting for warmer months

The satisfying sight of a recently-pruned orchard

And the mountain of pruned shoots, waiting to go through the chipper once they're dry enough

A four-footed, contemplating his options

Recipe: Chestnuts and Celery

Originally discovered as part of a recipe of Jill Norman's for a pot-roast guinea fowl, this is an excellent accompaniment to any kind of game - the chestnut imparts a sweetness which works well with the flavour of game, but the presence of the other ingredients cuts across the sweetness very well, and so avoids any tendency for it to become cloying (which is my gripe with most fruit-meat combinations). This was served both for Christmas dinner, to go with pheasant (boned, and roast with a stuffing of juniper and orange), and again for New Year's Eve, when we had spit-roast venison, along with a rather complicated sauce which included a zibibio syrup and crushed coffee beans. It worked wonderfully!
The quantity indicated here is fine for three servings; when we were eight, for New Year, I tripled the quantities, and had sufficient left over to use subsequently as stuffing for ravioli for six generous servings - which was also delicious, served just with melted butter.

Ingredients: 40g Butter; 50g Pancetta, diced finely; 1 large or 2 medium sticks of celery, diced; 250g peeled Chestnuts; 60 ml Marsala; 60 ml water; salt and pepper.

Method:

1. Melt the butter over low heat, add to it the diced pancetta, raise the heat and cook for a few minutes until the pancetta starts to give off fat. Add to the pan the diced celery and cook, stirring, to soften it, for another three or four minutes.

2. Pulse the chestnuts in the food processor - only briefly.....they want to be broken up but not reduced to a mush - and add them to the pan with the celery and pancetta. Stir to amalgamate, and then add to the pan both the marsala and the water.

3. Cook over low heat (I use a heat diffuser for this stage) for about half an hour, stirring frequently, until the individual ingredients have all collapsed. Add seasoning to taste.

This dish can be cooked in its entirety several hours in advance, and reheated over a low flame once final preparations for dinner are underway; be careful, though - if the heat is too high, the mixture has a tendency to catch and for the bottom of the pan to become a claggy mess!

Christmas Pudding Recipe

That time of year, again. The tree is in its place in the barn (but won't be decorated until Christmas week...we stick firmly to the Anglo-Saxon tradition of having the thing fully functioning not long before the 25th, but if we don't buy it and install it at the start of the month, we risk getting only the ratty remnants left unbought by the Italians, all of whom have to have their Christmas decorations up by December 8th, in time for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Which is today.)
The puddings are steaming away on the stove - one for us, and a larger one for the Paoli, who always have a rabbit's-friends-and-relations gathering for Christmas day.  As I've done for the past few years, the pudding more or less follows a very reliable recipe from Marguerite Patten, which includes not only apple and carrot, but also prunes and apricots...as well as all of the usual more run-of-the-mill dried fruit, and a healthy dollop of black treacle.
The recipe couldn't be simpler. So far, the puddings have had five and a half hours....so, they'll be about ready by the time I've finished writing this.

For two medium-sized, or one very large pudding:

Ingredients: 4 oz Suet; 1 lb 12 oz mixed dried fruit and peel; 4 oz dried apricots, chopped; 4 oz prunes, chopped; 4 oz slivered almonds; 4 oz muscovado sugar; 1 medium carrot, peeled and finely diced; 1 medium apple, peeled, cored and finely diced; 3 oz plain flour; 6 oz fresh breadcrumbs; 1/2 tsp each of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice; 1 tsp each of grated lemon and orange zest; 1 tbs each of lemon and orange juice; 1 generous tbs black treacle; 8 fl oz milk; 2 large or 3 medium eggs, lightly beaten.

Method:

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl, and stir carefully to mix together very thoroughly. Leave, covered, overnight.

2. Grease two pudding bowls (or one large one, as you wish), and fill them with the mixture, levelling the top once done. Cover each bowl with a circle of greaseproof paper, with one pleat in, to allow it to expand as necessary, then cover the greaseproof paper in turn with aluminium foil. Tie round the neck of the pudding bowl with string.

3. Steam over a low heat for 5-6 hours; if the lid of the pan is not tight fitting, you might need to replenish the water as you go; always best to check, just in case.

4. Once steamed, remove from heat, and once they have sufficiently cooled,  replace the greaseproof and foil cover with fresh versions of the same. Store in a cool place, until Christmas Day.

5. To re-heat, steam again for 2 hours.

Always served in this house with brandy butter.

Belforte for the weekend...

Looking over the rooftops, and out over the Etruscan landscape

Winter sunshine - deceptively warm, for the first few minutes!

A Siamese on a mission

Vines, tidied away for the winter

The view across the terrace of the Doctor's house

Kitchen 'the morning after', looking surprisingly organised

Tonight's Dinner:

Fettucine Alfredo

Boned Pheasant, roast with orange and juniper, served on a bed of green lentils

Vanilla Apple Tarts