An Italian job

The weekend began in conventional style: wakened early by a combination of my internal alarm clock, the light outside and the cats, I made coffee and hauled out various recipe books.

Elizabeth David's Italian Food had me reading of ricci (sea urchins) that taste of "the sea, iodine and salt" and should be eaten by scooping out the coral flesh with bread, but "within sight and sound of the sea, preferably after a long swim, and washed down with plenty of cold, local white wine".

You can almost smell and taste them and, if you shut your eyes, the picture that forms in your mind's eye is so tangible that it's almost possible to feel the salty air in the soft down on your flesh.

But this is Hackney; it is early March and the early morning was grey - grey with a vengeance.

At least concentrating on the matter of food helps lift the spirits.

The Other Half had defrosted the freezer, so it was clearly time to start making things to fill it up again.

Since he was off to the other side of London for a rugby league match in the early afternoon, and I needed bag carrying help, we headed up to Broadway Market together nice and early.

With Mrs D's evocative writings in mind, I was about to go all Italian.

Saturday evening was easy: roast chicken, done à la River Cafe Easy Two and which I've mentioned more than once. Three and a half hours and the best roast chicken I've ever produced – every time.

Yesterday, it was served with baby new potatoes that were boiled and then finished off in the oven, for the final half hour of cooking the bird, in olive oil and with fleur de sel and a spring of rosemary.

And then there was some cavallo nero, the Italian kale, which I'd not cooked before.

It was remarkably easy. As per the same book, you cut the cores out of each leaf, and then cook them for five minutes in boiling, salted water. Then refresh and drain. When you're nearing readiness, smash up some fennel seeds and dried chili, and slice some garlic, popping all that into a pan with olive oil and allowing it to cook before adding the leaves for a minute at the end.

Voila! Or whatever they say in Italy. The job was a good un.

In the afternoon, I'd concentrated on making nice things from a vast (and heavy) bag of lemons, plus a 300g bag of frozen, organic raspberries.

The latter went into a very easy sorbet.

The lemons - organic, unwaxed and from Sicily, which place seems to be cropping up more and more in my imagination at present - were unbelievably fragrant.

Zesting and juicing as though my life depended on it, I turned 15 into a sorbet, as per Felicity Cloake's Guardian piece here, while several others were added to a luxurious custard made with organic, unpasturised milk from a Jersey herd, plus unctuous double cream from another Jersey herd, and then popped into the freezer to form a gelato, a form of ice cream.

I haven't the space for an ice cream maker, but you really can manage without, as the four boxes now in the freezer will attest.

And the taste of the gelato in particular attests to something else - the merits of using the very best ingredients you can get your hands on.

The evening concluded with a double dose of Sicily: art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon and chef Giorgio Locatelli continuing their cultural and culinary tour of the island. And then Montalbano, another episode of the Sicilian police procedural based on Andrea Camilleri's novels.

A fitting end to a very Italian start to the weekend.

And all after our little part of Hackney even managed to throw up a crime this week that would hardly have been out of place in Montelbano's Mafia-ridden world.

Looking out of the kitchen window as I prepped those Sicilian lemons, I could see across the road, past a block of flats and then to the Regent's Canal. On the far bank crime scene tape was visible, along with police officers.

There, earlier in the week, the torso of former soap actor Gemma McCluskie had been found floating. Her brother is currently in custody.

It was a striking concatenation of events and ideas, flavours and smells, light and darkness.

Let's hear it for the lemons

Has anyone else been watching Two Greedy Italians on BBC2 over the last few weeks?

Old friends Antonio Carluccio and Gennaro Contaldo went back to Italy to visit four areas and talk about the food. Okay, they don’t just talk about it – they cook and eat it.

But the trip is not one where gastronomy is a stand-alone motivation: they meet old friends and family, they share stories of their lives before leaving for the UK.

This is not about food in isolation, but about food as a part of life, of love, of family, of friendship. And what it achieves, starting with the title itself, is a sense of vibrancy and earthiness and sensual pleasure that is an absolute joy to behold. There is poignancy in places, but ultimately, this is a celebration.

And the food is simple and gutsy and full of bold flavours.

There was a scene in the second episode when the pair sat there eating lemons they’d plucked from a tree – peel and all.

Now that could leave a northern European quite shocked.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been drifting toward buying more organic fruit and veg than previously. I noticed with organic Jersey Royals that that the flavour was better.

And then there were the lemons I bought last weekend. A softer yellow, knobblier by far than any you’d find in a supermarket and obviously unwaxed. The aroma when you cut into them absolutely sang.

During the week, we squeezed some on pan-fried tuna and some on grilled lamb chops. Lovely stuff.

And when I opened a bottle of Sicilian-style lemonade (made in France) that I’d picked up as an impulse buy, it was a million miles away from most of what I’ve ever tasted that has been called lemonade.

I have a jar of preserved lemons in to try a couple of Morrocan-style salads from Rick Stein’s Mediterranean – that’ll be different. It might not be eating peel in the same way that Carluccio and Contaldo did in the series, but since I’ve never done it before, it’ll still be a whole new culinary experience.

Natives of Asia, lemons made their European debut near southern Italy, no later than the 1st century AD, during the time of ancient Rome, before being introduced to Persia and Egypt.

The first mentions of lemons in literature are in a 10th century Arabic treatise on farming, and trees were used as an ornamental plant in early Islamic gardens.

But it wasn’t until the middle of the 15th century that the first major cultivation of lemons in Europe began in Genoa.

In recent years, lemons have become something that I always have in the house. But I'm only just discovering that not all lemons are equal.

In a fit of lemony enthusiasm yesterday, I bought a load of the organic ones mentioned above.

First, the juice and zest of three went into a first attempt at gelato, the Italian ice cream that uses an egg custard as its base. It's not perfect: letting concentration slip for mere seconds, I barely saved the custard from boiling, and I need to work on the freezing process; it's a tad too icy. But the taste ...

The other thing I did, while The Other Half was biting his nails over a last-kick Challenge Cup victory for the Castleford Tigers at Wakefield, was to have another go at pasta.

Ravioli again, but this time with proper pasta flour – it's much finer. I used 125g of flour to one egg – and a few drops of chilled water. It was much more elastic – which is how you see it on TV – and seemed a little easier to roll.

The stuffing this time was a mixture of ricotta cheese, pine nuts, Parmesan, a little crème fraïche and lemon zest.

The pasta was thinner this time and I used an off cut to check when it was cooked, throwing that in the pan of boiling water with the ravioli themselves.

The sauce was simple – just some sage leaves fried in good butter and a squeeze of lemon to finish. That was not bad at all. Practice will improve my pasta skills, but it was good to try again so soon, while I still have ideas in my mind about what I did previously.

And if lemon had become an important ingredient for me in the last few years, it might just have moved into a higher pantheon of foods with the experimentation of the last week.

Lessons from Italy

Practise makes perfect, so they say. Well even if doesn’t actually bring about perfection, it’s essential in the kitchen.

For some reason or other, I seem to have an inbuilt belief that, if I follow a recipe closely, it’ll turn out exactly right – even if it’s the first time that I’ve attempted that dish and it requires skills I’ve never learnt.

By now you’d think I’d know better. It wasn’t until I’d actually eaten risotto in a restaurant, for instance, that I could understand what al dente really meant in terms of the rice. And if you don’t understand that, then you really shouldn’t hope to know how to cook this famous dish.

Pasta is the same. I’ve tried making my own pasta in the past – once – but made it too thick. Last weekend, I decided to give it another go.

Now there’s nowt wrong with dried pasta and I’ve no great desire to make little bows: what I want to get into is the flavoured stuff – tagliatelle and pappardelle, for instance – and the filled pastas like ravioli.

Quite apart from anything else, this screams of the opportunity for masses of culinary creativity and experimentation with flavour. Even more so when you remember that The Other Half doesn’t like cheese, so such classic fillings as ricotta and spinach are off the menu.

Browsing through A Taste of Italy, a recipe for ravioli with a traditional meat filling had caught the eye.

We had ravioli at home when I was a child – the tinned stuff from Heinz, in gloopy, orangy tomato sauce.

At the weekend, I’d just minced down the remains of a leg of lamb and decided to adjust the recipe to use some of that. It takes quite some cooking – long and slow – with onion and garlic and tomato purée and stock. After simmering away under cover for nearly an hour, you take the lid off, turn up the heat and reduce the liquid until it’s really quite dry. Let it cool – and then beat an egg into it.

But let’s consider the pasta itself.

Since I now have a good mixer, I decided to use that. So, 250g decent plain flour and two eggs. Mistake number one was in assuming that, since pasta dough is – well, a dough, I’d be best advised to use the dough hook.

Wrong. All that was created was a mess that refused to come together properly (even with chilled water added) and, when I pressed it together by hand, was a grainy lump, with plenty of flour that hadn’t been blended in.

It was back to square one – and using the ordinary beater this time.

Having got that far – and then kneaded by a hand for a couple of minutes – you leave it then to rest in the bowl under a tea towel.

And then comes the rolling out.

There is a picture, in Jamie’s Italy, of Mr Oliver with a group of Italian ladies of indeterminate age, all with their rolling pins, ready for some pasta contest.

Some of the pins were huge. Their muscles must have been like Popeye’s. I’d bought a better rolling pin and this made it a easier to put some real weight behind it. But boy. It’s hard work!

Lesson one is to pay attention to the recipe and not assume that, just because I’d used half quantities, it wouldn’t benefit from being cut in half (or quarters) for rolling (you can keep the rest under a damp, clean tea towel).

I thought perhaps I’d got it thin enough – but I need more practice; and not in a year’s time when I’ve forgotten the lessons of last weekend. Not that I’m short of ideas.

Because The Other Half doesn’t eat cheese, I’ve been trying to think of classic-style ravioli fillings, other than meat ones, that don’t involve cheese. I want to try flaked crab meat, with lemon zest and paprika, bound together with a little crème fraiche, which should also provide some moisture.

But the next question is that of fitting a pasta dish like this into the structure of a meal: do you have to search for some way to add vegetables to it? Does it demand a big sauce?

What I did on Sunday was to try to take lessons from Italy. We started with asparagus, cooked in a slightly different way that I’d just read about: spears lying flat in barely enough water to cover; bring to the boil, give around four minutes (less if they’re very thin – but test).

The smaller amount of water and the lack of a ‘shock’ to the vegetable of starting it in boiling water does seem to help preserve the taste better. I’ve done it this way three times now, with asparagus from different places, and it’s worked well each time.

That was served simply with a drizzle of Balsamico and a sprinkle of course salt – which works a treat. You can add shavings of Parmesan or Pecorino if you like.

I’d made the ravioli in advance – you can leave them on a dish, dusted with cornflour and covered in a tea towel, until you’re ready to cook. Then it was a matter of just a few minutes in salted, boiling water (memo to self – use the largest pan you have next time). Test to make sure it’s cooked.

They were still too thick – but with a decent taste. The meat filling worked. It was served simply with a drizzle of my best virgin oil.

And for dessert, some strawberries, with a first taste of the strawberry ice cream I’d made that morning.

I like the simplicity of such a meal – but it relies on decent ingredients.

Next time, I may be less ambitious and simply try to make some pasta ribbons before moving to the more complex types. It’s as big a business as making puff pastry: rolling into a circle, then folding over and rolling again – a number of times. And you need to allow yourself far more time than I did on Sunday.

But like so many other things in the kitchen, it’s a rewarding feeling to find that you can make something like this on your own – even it needs practice to make it at least better next time around!

Strawberry days are booming

There can be few single things more redolent of an English summer than strawberries. And at the same time, few things are more generally disappointing these days.

Even when you play the seasonality game and wait until British fruits are in the shops, all too often, they’re a pale shadow of what your memory tells you they should be like.

I’ve had a few punnets already this year – the early warmth means a bumper crop – but none of them have beaten the ones we had yesterday. A 400g box for £1.50 from our local organic shop.

There was no label, so I don’t know what variety they are, and while some of them might have fitted the supermarket looks and shape criteria, some most certainly would not have.

But one thing was certain – taste they had by the bucketload. Lucious gems; juicy and sweet, yet with just a touch of acidity.

I went back up Broadway Market this morning and bought more. Because when you have such a chance, at that sort of price, it’s a shame to waste it.

Now I know that Waitrose is not the cheapest supermarket chain around – although these days, they boast that they can match the price of Tesco on many items – but today, its ‘essential’ (cheapest range) strawberries are £1.99 for 400g, organic strawberries are £2.99 for 250g and a 400g pack of ‘speciality’ strawberries is £3.99.

They’re ‘special’, because they’re “Driscoll® Magdalena™” (I kid you not), a new variety from California that is apparently “picked for its fine quality, intensely sweet flavour and classic shape”, according to the website of Ocado, which delivers Waitrose goods in areas that the supermarket itself does not yet cover.

As Joanna Blythman points out in Shopped: the shocking power of Britain’s supermarkets, supermarkets will charge you a premium for flavour.

And such a statement also effectively admits that the store's other strawberries are not picked for their "fine quality, intensely sweet flavour and classic shape".

But putting that aside for the moment, what was I going to do with an extra 800g of great-value fruit?

Easy. I planned to make ice cream. Well, I was actually contemplating making gelato, an Italian ice cream with a custard base. My big, basic Italian cookbook had recipes for both lemon and coffee gelato and I’d been hovering between the two when contemplating yesterday morning’s shopping expedition.

But then, what with everything else that was going on, that had been put on hold. In the evening, however, we’d had a bowl of strawberries with cream, and an idea took shape.

Now I’ve never been a fan of strawberry ice cream – mostly because it always seems to taste so artificial, so completely unlike the real deal.

Which given its popularity as an ice cream flavour, possibly says something about how denuded our tastebuds have become in general over recent decades.

Before we visited Venice last year, I read somewhere that, while Italians most certainly know how to make ice cream, even there, there is good stuff and less-than-good stuff.

The article gave a hint: if you’re visiting an ice cream parlour, look for the banana flavour. If it’s a vibrant yellow, it’s an artificial flavour.

If it’s a sort of grey-white, it’ll be a very natural flavour.

Who’d want to eat ice cream that looked a bit gray? But then again, if you think about it, what makes us think of yellow in terms of a banana is inedible.

We have developed ideas about what colours look edible – even when we’d never think twice while actually peeling and eating a real banana.

The garden strawberry was first bred in France in the 18th century – a cross between varieties from North and South America.

There are many varieties – and many of them are better than the ubiquitous Elsanta, which might keep well and look good by supermarket standards, but almost always tastes incredibly bland.

Only a few days ago, I was reading an article where the question was even asked as to whether it’s true that sugar is sometimes pumped into the fruits to make them sweeter.

Now, I don’t know whether there’s any truth in this, but the thought is a dreadful one. What a crazy world when you grow something so poorly that you then have to inject it with something else to make it taste more as it should.

But let’s get back to the ice cream.

It couldn’t be easier. After browsing the internet briefly, I opted for a James Martin recipe.

Take 600g of hulled, sliced strawberries and blitz them to a purée.

Take 600ml of double cream and mix with 280g of caster sugar.

Mix the purée into that.

Martin's recipe uses an ice cream maker, but it's perfectly easy without one. Just decant into a container (mine made over a litre) and pop in the freezer. After an hour, get it out and fork around to make sure you don’t get any ice crystals. Repeat until fully frozen.

In mine, I stirred in a few extra, diced strawberries just at the end. After all, it's difficult to have too much real strawberry goodness.

Goethe apparently said: "One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste."

But they're not a childish or frivolous food – like so many other fruits, for instance, they have vast nutritional value and are an antioxidant. And for sheer taste, the 'natural' ones are the best by far.