Venetian food sets the senses alight

Fegato – liver and onions, Venetian style

Were you to ask most people in the UK to name an Italian food, it’s a fairly safe bet that spaghetti bolognese might be mentioned, along with pizza, pasta in general, panettone and ice cream.

Setting aside the point that the Bolognese would eat their classic ragu with tagliatelle and not spaghetti, some might be able to get a little regional, knowing that, for instance, it was Napoli that gave birth to the pizza.

But what of Venice and the Veneto? Many would be stumped, although it’s most famous dish outside Italy is almost certainly tiramisu – and when made properly, it comes without any alcohol.

On this matter, The Other Half approves, even though the presence of mascarpone in the ingredient list means he hasn’t ever tried it. Then again, while I don’t mind a dash of sweet sherry in a trifle, he disapproves of that too. I wonder if this is a sign of a Yorkshireman considering booze in a pudding as an unnecessarily spendthrift act?

But let’s set that aside for the present – although Yorkshire will make an appearance later.

When we first visited La Serenissima seven years ago, brief homework beforehand had meant that we knew about tiramisu, together with a few other local delicacies. Early spring is wonderful for many reasons, but it is not the time to expect rise e bisi – the iconic Venetian pea risotto.

It is, however, just in time for the very end of the radicchio season. Grown on the mainland around Treviso, this bitter, red and white leaf, is a regional speciality.

Tiramisu at the Peggy Guggenheim

As with most anywhere else, the key to finding the best food is finding where local people eat. By and large, that means avoiding anywhere declaring itself a ‘restaurant’. As an acquaintance insisted before the trip: look for trattorias.

On our first night, this led us to Ai Cugnai, around the corner from where we were staying on Dorsoduro. There, surrounded by locals – at least some of whom we suspected worked at the nearby university – we began our culinary trip in an old establishment that has clearly been in one family for many years, and is currently headed by the son, with the father now taking it easier by helping wait on tables.

In a friendly and relaxed atmosphere, we both began with a vegetable soup. Nothing complex, but perfectly cooked vegetables in a tasty broth.

Next up for me, an absolute classic of local cuisine: fegato – liver and onions, with polenta on the side. Again, this was not complex food, but good ingredients cooked well.

The following day, as the sun blazed down on us, we lunched al fresco at the cafe inside the Peggy Guggenheim museum – delightful confit salmon for me, with seasonal veg and a cream that had been ‘soured’ with lemon (as opposed to being yer actual bought ‘sour cream’), plus an excellent tiramisu. With no alcohol.

All the culture vulturey can be quite tiring. That evening, we crossed the Ponte dell’Accademia and, thanks to the excellent memory of The Other Half, found once more a place that we had enjoyed back on the first visit in 2010 and where I’d first experienced fegato.

Lunchtime calamari

Trattoria da Fiore was busy, but the staff managed to find us a table – next to a couple from Harrogate. In late middle age, they were quiet, but we were so close it was impossible not to hear to comments about how wonderful are the gardens at Prince Charles’s Highgrove home.

When the wife – who was only inches away from me – ordered fritti misti (fried fish and sea food) she appeared confident of what she was getting.

Except for one small detail: she clearly believed it was a version of goujons, complete with dipping sauce. The absence of any such sauce left her, after a short while, close to despair.

“It’s very dry,” she murmured in a drawl that was atremble with innate sadness.

They called the waiter.

“Do you not have any tartare sauce or may-o-nnaise?” she asked, her mournful voice bursting with the suggestion that there was not a culinary establishment on Earth worthy of the name that would not, at the very least, have these in tear-open sachets.

The young man explained, in excellent English and entirely patiently, that this was the way the dish was an no, they didn’t have such condiments in the building. He left.

A moment or so later: “I’m sure he could have found something,” she intoned wearily.

I was biting my tongue, trying desperately not to burst out into hysterical laughter, and with a memory unfolding in my head of Catherine Tate’s ‘disgusted couple’ sketches.

Later, albeit without this as my intent, I restored some dignity to us Brits in a conversation with the maître d’. He had come to check whether our meal was fine. I responded with asking whether the radicchio in my pasta dish was from Treviso and wasn’t the season over yet? All this enthusiastically, I should add.

The Other Half says that his expression suggested that he was genuinely impressed.

Rather earlier, our young waiter had come around carrying a platter of the fresh fish and seafood the place had that night. There was no smell – in other words, this was as fresh as you can get. I picked two shellless crabs for my starter.

Superb guinea fowl at La Bitte

I’d never had them before – genuinely doubted whether they were really shell less (and then how do you eat them etc). But oh my, they were lovely. Sweet – but not the overpowering sweetness of much British crab meat. They came with a little polenta, some of that Treviso radicchio – a perfect counterbalance to the sweetness – and some lettuce.

And I enjoyed – very much so – a big, bold pasta dish of mushrooms, gorgonzola, walnuts and radicchio for my main.

The following day, after long wandering, we had a basic lunch. But though we expected little, it was perfectly decent. I enjoyed a large plate of calamari, with lemon. Done right, what else do you need?

That evening, we pulled big time in culinary terms.

Thanks to top food journalist Joanna Blythman, we knew to try to get into La Bitte, which was only about a 10-minute walk away from the hotel where we were staying.

It has no website booking facility, but our hotel rang up for us and did the business. We were in.

La Bitte is small and rustic and intimate. It is dedicated to the meaty food of the mainland Veneto rather than the fish of the lagoons.

And oh my god – it is a joy.

We both started with a smoked carpaccio of beef: plenty of it; delicate beyond belief and sitting atop a pillow of fresh, tasty salad leaves – all dressed in Balsamico. If it sounds simple, well then yes – it was. But how many places get such apparent ‘simplicity’ so right?

For me, I followed that with guinea fowl.

Good grief – half a bird, tender as anything yet falling off the bone, served with a velvet-smooth cream sauce. How the hell can that be done? It’s a culinary contradiction! For the meat to flake, it needs long-slow cooking, yet doing that will render it tough and dry.

I asked.

Apparently, the game is cooked long and slow. In cream, together with pancetta and sage.

So when the meat is lifted out and some of the cream sauce strained, it’s flaking and yet moist.

Served with quenelles of Jerusalem artichoke, this was utterly stunning. I’ve been to posh places in London that cannot come close to this. It was simply glorious.

Ravioli at  Taverna La Fenice

Maintaining an almost dangerously rich note, I ended with a vanilla panna cotta – impossibly light yet rich, and with a caramel sauce that had the authenticity of length, with just the suggestion of burnt toast at the end.

Stunning – simply stunning.

Over the rest of the visit, we returned to Ai Cugnai (where I sampled sarde soar – in effect, sardines done in a way similar to rollmops) and enjoyed a really fine pre-opera lunch at Taverna la Fenice, which managed to combine posh with local, seasonal quality.

There, we enjoyed there first asparagus of the year in simple crudités, with virgin oil and mustard – and I had an excellent dish of white meat ravioli with a gusty gravy (you can’t call it a ‘sauce’) and slivers of truffle.

One of our other discoveries this trip was the wine: forget the piss poor excuse for a pinot grigio or soave that you are likely to be served in UK hotels, the real deal is excellent.

Venice is a joy for many reasons. But this was the visit that helped us really appreciate just a few of the ways in which it can tantalise the tastebuds.

Just promise me that you won’t ask for any tartare sauce.

The best food advice is simple – make it yourself

Authentic carbonara. Honest

In a surprise move today, Mars Food announced that it was going to add new labels to its foods to indicate what should only be eaten once a week and what could be eaten on a daily basis.

This is largely a response to the government’s recently-unveiled sugar tax, and products would be in the once-a-week category because they contained high levels of sugar salt or fat.

So it’s probably fairly safe to assume that “a Mars a day” will no longer be recommended as the ideal way to “help you work, rest and play”.

Setting aside for the sake of this post the fact that increasing evidence is helping to topple the myth that fat, per se, is bad for you, one is left wondering just how much sugar and salt is in some of the Mars products.

The two brands mentioned are Uncle Ben’s and Dolmio, and Mars Foods claims that “some foods were higher in salt, sugar or fat to maintain the “authentic” taste of products”. So let’s take a little look.

A 500g jar of Dolmio bolognese original pasta sauce apparently serves four people and provides one portion of your fruit and veg for the day. The usual price at Ocado is £1.79.

It contains: “Tomatoes (76%), Tomato Paste (11%), Onions, Sugar, Cornflour, Lemon Juice, Salt, Sunflower Oil, Basil (0.3%), Garlic, Parsley, Herbs, Spices”.

A jar of Dolmio’s bolognese low fat sauce (same weight and price) contains exactly the same ingredients. Presumably, since no percentages are given below 11%, the percentages on oil and sugar change a little as it claims to be a low fat version.

The same company’s lasagna “creamy pasta sauce” (470g jar for £1.80) has a rather more complex ingredient list: “Water, Sunflower Oil, Modified Maize Starch, Butter Fat (from Milk), Sugar, Fat Powder (Palm Fat, Lactose, Milk Protein), Natural Flavouring (contains Celery), Lactose, Broth Powder (Sugar, Flavourings, Yeast Extract, Dried Glucose Syrup, Salt, Coconut Fat, Sunflower Oil, Smoke Flavouring, Milk Protein), Salt, Acid (Lactic Acid), Stabiliser (Xanthan Gum), Milk Proteins, Antioxidant (Rosemary Extract)”.

Dolmio’s “lasagne meal kit original” (807g for £3.99) contains: “Tomato Sauce for Lasagne: Tomatoes (67%), Tomato Paste (19%), Lemon Juice, Onions, Cornflour, Sugar, Salt, Basil, Garlic, Herbs, Spices, Creamy Sauce for Lasagne: Water, Cream (20%) (from Milk), Modified Maize Starch, Fat Powder (Palm Fat, Lactose, Milk Protein), Salt, Garlic, Milk Proteins, Sugar, Onion Powder, Spices, 9 Lasagne Sheets: Durum Wheat Semolina”.

The company’s carbonara microwave sauce (150g for £1.40) “serves one”) contains: “Water, Cream (from Milk) (14%), Ham (5.9%) (Pork, Water, Brine Mix (Dextrose, Stabiliser: Triphosphate, Flavouring, Antioxidant: Sodium Ascorbate), Salt, Preservative: Sodium Nitrite), Modified Maize Starch, Cheddar Cheese (from Milk) (2.0%), Broth Powder (Sugar, Flavourings, Yeast Extract, Dried Glucose Syrup, Salt, Coconut Fat, Sunflower Oil, Smoke Flavouring, Milk Protein), Milk Proteins, Salt, Garlic (0.2%), Yeast Extract (contains Barley), Spices, Sugar”.

Uncle Ben’s chilli con carne medium sauce (450g for £1.79) contains: “Tomatoes (51%), Lemon Juice, Red Peppers (7%), Red Kidney Beans (7%), Onions, Tomato Paste (6%), Pinto Beans (5%), Sugar, Cornflour, Spices (of which Cumin, Jalapeño Powder), Salt, Parsley, Coriander, Onion Powder, Cocoa Powder, Herbs, Colour (Paprika Extract)”.

Uncle Ben’s sweet and sour original sauce (450g for £1.79) contains: “Water, Tomatoes (17%), Sugar, Onions, Pineapple (6%), Vinegar, Carrots (5%), Cornflour, Red Peppers (3%), Celery, Green Peppers (3%), Bamboo Shoots (2%), Tamarind Juice, Salt, Colour (Paprika Extract), Spices”.

In some cases there’s no much obviously wrong with the ingredient lists. Although who puts cornflower in a basic tomato sauce?

A basic tomato sauce requires finely-chopped onion, softened in some olive oil, with either skinned, fresh tomatoes or a tin of good-quality ones added, a squeeze of purée, then a pinch of salt and maybe a tablespoon of milk to cut the acidity, a little time and a few gentle stirs. Rocket science is is not.

Cornflower doesn’t come into it. Nor does sugar. And it’s a fair bet “sunflower oil” isn’t an “authentic” ingredient in Italy.

And once you get to the lasagna or carbonara – go on: hands up who looks at those ingredient lists and actually wants to eat that?

There’s one very simple way to avoid the crap and the inauthentic ingredients in these products – eat fresh food rather than processed.

The prices can make it appear that this is the affordable way to eat: that £1.79 for a jar of sauce might look very cheap, but as illustrated above, you don’t need much to make a decent tomato sauce. Oil, purée, seasoning and milk are store cupboard ingredients. Tomatoes and onions – well, you’ll be able to make more than £250g per person for your money and, by doing it that way, you’ll get two portions of veg.

To clarify further: you can get a 400g tin of high-quality, organic tomatoes from Ocado for 89p. A portion of veg is classed as 80g (or a handful), so that’s a portion per person for four. A couple of onions gives you a second portion – large brown onions at Ocado are 24p each. So that’s £1.37 for tomatoes and two onions. The other 42p will probably cover your store cupboard ingredients. And, as with the jar of sauce, you still need to add meat and pasta to make your Bolognese.

Of course, if you were really trying to be “authentic”, you’d need some celery and carrot too, plus red wine, garlic and bay leaves – and that’s before you get to the meats (pancetta and minced beef), the pasta – tagliatelle, NOT spaghetti – and Parmesan cheese to serve.

I shiver at the thought of that carbonara being “authentic”. But then again, part of the trick of Big Food is to work on the basis that most people won’t know that’s it’s wrong and won’t question such a statement, so they’ll get away with it.

By the way, carbonara is simple.

Dice some good pancetta (or top-quality, unsmoked streaky bacon) and cook gently in a little olive oil.

Cook your spaghetti. When it’s done, drain and mix in the bacon.

Stir grated Parmesan into a bowl with a beaten egg or two and then, with the pasta off the heat, gently fold the eggy mix over to coat the pasta – and serve.

Or if you want to be a little different, try the Perpignan way – the best I’ve ever had and which I replicated here.

Whatever you do, you do not want it scrambled – just a silky egg coating on the pasta.

So … no water, no cream, no modified maize starch, no cheddar cheese (what planet are these people on?), no “broth powder”, no sugar, no yeast extract, no glucose syrup, no coconut fat (WTF?), no sunflower oil, no smoke flavouring, no garlic …

And I would confidently assert that my version is a damned sight more “authentic” than anything that has a Dolmio label on it.

* All ingredients lists reproduced as they appear online.

Lighter food for lighter, brighter days

Fresh and light and satisfying

With the improving weather – thank goodness we’re actually having a spring this year! – comes the desire to eat differently; lighter.

And it’s also the perfect time to try a few new things.

There have even been days, with real sun streaming down, when it was the perfect opportunity to pull out the salad spinner and rinse off some organic lettuce and winter purslane, and serve a huge plate of both, drizzled with virgin oil and a thinner balsamico, and topped with cheese.

Blue cheese suits such a dish perfectly, but in La Bouche earlier recently, I’d tried one that was new to me.

Beenliegh is an unpressed, soft blue from Devon, made from organic, unpasturised ewe’s milk. It’s creamy and moist, and beautifully fresh and subtle.

Get the right ingredients sourced and food doesn’t have to be complex to be very good.

A number of evenings recently have seen a dinner that was, if not a direct recreation, then was certainly inspired by a Jamie Oliver salmon dish that I’ve recently discovered.

He takes halved waxy potatoes and quartered fennel bulbs and boils them for six minutes, before draining and drying over the steam.

Salmon with fennel, sweet potato and herbs

Then they go in an oven-proof dish with olive oil, parsley, mint and garlic for something like half an hour, before the salmon – with more of the herby-garlicky mix on it – is placed on top and it goes back in the oven for a further 15 minutes.

It’s a lovely, easy dish, but I think a couple of tweaks help.

Set your oven to 180˚C (fan) and prep the fennel as above, not cutting off the base so that the pieces hold together. Retain the fronds.

Finely chop your mint, flat leaf parsley and garlic, and mix with plenty of olive oil.

Jamie’s version sprinkles the herbs and garlic over everything and then tops with oil, but I think that my way does two things: allows you to coat the ingredients more thoroughly and also reduces the chances of the garlic getting a tad burned.

So, pop in your fennel pieces and mix, and then add some sweet potato that has been peeled and cut into large chunks, instead of potato.

Gently stir around to coat everything. Season with good quality celery salt (my addition) and pop in the oven.

Lovely wild garlic

After 30 minutes, place your salmon fillets on top of the vegetables, scooping some of the oily, herby, garlicky mix on to the top.

And back it all goes for another 15-20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish.

Serve with a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice and some black pepper, and topped with the chopped fennel fronds.

The advantage of swapping the potato for sweet potato is that the latter is a vegetable rather than a starchy carb, so it makes the dish a two-portion one rather than having just a single portion.

Mind, if you use lashing of garlic and herbs, those add up too.

Anyway, it’s easy. And tasty – and healthy.

A couple of stalls on Broadway Market also had wild garlic last week, so I grabbed a good handful of that while the opportunity was there.

The English asparagus is here

Later, the leaves were shredded and blitzed together with some spring onions, chives, garlic, pine nuts, a little salt and a teaspoon of sugar, with enough olive oil to give you a good pesto consistency.

You could add parmesan, but I don’t, since The Other Half doesn’t like cheese.

And an ideal way to use some of this lovely stuff – which keeps well in the fridge in a jar – is to cook some pasta, drain and return to the pan, adding some of the pesto with a little double cream and re-warming gently.

You won’t need to use a lot of the pesto – it packs a serious punch.

Serve with fresh asparagus and peas and plenty of freshly-ground black pepper, and if you want, more parmesan.

A perfect, fresh and seasonal dish for a midweek supper.

And on a final note – and a slightly different one: this is worth reading about the cost of asparagus from Peru.

Ignore the slightly puritanical tone of  “lust for this luxury vegetable” etc, but the point remains that there are severe environmental issues created by a global market for a cheap, seasonal vegetable, sent half way around the world to fill – or create – consumer demand outside our own season.

Mushroom heaven – and some cracking pork

If the miserable weather has made gardening difficult, it has made food no easier. The body wants a change – lighter foods, different tastes. But the continuing cold has had a different impact.

Over Easter, I experimented with an Italian approach: a first course of cauliflower, served with a drizzle of my very best virgin oil and some of last year's nasturtium ‘capers’, both of which added a lovely burst of pepperyness.

It worked really well and was followed with grilled lamb chops with lemon.

That’s a great way to enjoy vegetables – although, even more than with the traditional British way of serving your greens, it depends on quality. The ‘caper-style’ nasturtiums are really pleasing.

One of the advantages is that it’s so much easier to ensure that the vegetables are cooked precisely as you want them.

There was also a roasted chicken: done River Café style, cooked for three and a half hours: it was as enjoyable as ever, succulent and flavoursome.

For those who haven’t tried it before, the method is simple.

Heat your oven to 80˚C (fan). Place your bird the usual way up in as tight-fitting a dish as possible, stuffed with … well, whatever you fancy, really.

The recipe in River Café Two Easy suggests rosemary, sage and garlic. In this case, it was garlic, some thyme from the garden and a couple of getting-past-their-best lemons, quartered – simply because that was what was in the house.

You then add approximately 200ml of water to the dish and pop it in the oven for an hour.

After that, turn the bird over and cook for a further hour. Then give it a third hour back in its original position.

Take it out, massage butter into the flesh, season, add 100ml of white wine or vermouth – again, it can depend on what you have in or taste; and frankly, a little more water will ensure it’s cooked fine. And then place back into the oven, with the temperature now turned up to 170˚C, for half an hour.

Ridiculously easy – and wonderfully effective.

In what was rather an Italian weekend, a big pan of homemade minestrone proved once again how this classic, done properly, is comforting and tasty and hearty, yet it has a freshness about it too, that makes it perfect for such times.

If all the ingredients are fresh, it’s really an early summer soup, but frozen peas will do (blanched rather than adding straight to the pan and bringing down the temperature) and tinned tomatoes and borlotti beans also help.

The pancetta was British, incidentally, from Downland Pork. And very nice it was too, as are all their products.

And so this last weekend, the Italian theme continued.

On Saturday, it was time for mushroom heaven.

Perhaps few things are worse than mushrooms cooked so that they become rubbery. But mushrooms treated well are a thing of wonderful flavour.

So here’s an idea, adjusted and adapted from a Gordon Ramsey recipe to make it simpler.

Take a shallot or two, a stick of celery, a couple of cloves of garlic and a little red chili. Chop finely and cook gently in olive oil until softened.

Add either white wine or vermouth – or just stock.

If using booze, you need about a glassful, and then reduce by half and then add about another generous glassful of vegetable or chicken stock and reduce again by half.

If using just stock, use two large glasses full to start with.

In the meantime, take some dried mushrooms and rehydrate them in a mug of boiling water. Strain the mushrooms and add the liquid to the pan with the alcohol and stock.

Chop these mushrooms finely, together with approximately 400g (for two) chestnut mushrooms.

Strain the booze/stock mixture and return the liquid to a clean pan, discarding the flavourings.

Add the chopped mushrooms and simmer gently until cooked. To this, add a good tablespoon of double cream and heat gently.

Serve over tagliatelle, with plenty of chopped flat leaf parsley to garnish.

That is a heavenly dish of mushroomy pleasure.

And a simple a salad of endive leaves and segmented blood orange, with a straightforward vinaigrette, makes a perfect starter.

Not that that was the only Italian-influenced dish of the weekend.

For Sunday dinner, a piece of belly pork had been purchased from Downland.

In the morning, I pounded fennel seeds in a mortar, together with a couple of cloves of garlic, the zest of a lemon, and some dried thyme and oregano, before rubbing it into the scored skin of the pork.

Covered, that went back into the fridge to marinade.

Later, the oven was heated to 180˚C (fan).

The meat had coarse salt rubbed into the scores and was then laid in a dish with a large glass of white wine. Again, vermouth or plain water would work absolutely fine. Or, for that matter, dry cider.

It was cooked for half an hour before the temperature was reduced to 150˚C.

You do need to watch the liquid and add a little more if it dries out.

It was roasted for a further two hours before being rested in a warm place for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, scrape all the meaty fragments from your oven dish and either pop it on the hob or decant everything into a pan to do that.

If there’s a lot of fat, you can get rid of some of that, before adding a teaspoon of plain flour and whisking in.

Cook gently and add liquid as needed – either boiling water or vegetable water from anything you’re cooking as an accompaniment.

So Italian in one sense, but with a gravy that was 100% British – and utterly gorgeous.

The crackling wasn't quite crackling – you could pour boiling water over it before cooking (or adding the rub) but I decided against that. On the other hand, the meat was glorious: sweet and tender and wonderfully satisfying.

And to accompany, garlicky, crushed, roasted spuds, with sliced leeks on the side.

Easy food, but wonderfully tasty and just hitting the right notes for the weather.