Category Archives: Food

Speedy Lunch: Gnocchetti al Basilico with Avocado and Tomatoes

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As promised, here is the post about these cute little green fellas called gnocchetti al basilico (or basil baby gnocchi). Gnocchetti are essentially gnocchi, but smaller and of a slightly more tubular, non-fork-scored (oh dear) shape. These particular ones, which I bought from a main-stream Italian supermarket, have a rather strong basil flavour that makes them extra special. Because of their strong taste (and the fact that I didn’t have much time to make anything overly elaborate) I decided to accompany these gnocchetti al basilico with simply some fresh chopped tomatoes, avocado, extra virgin olive oil, salt and freshly ground black pepper. You can’t get any easier than this when making a main, or primo piatto like we say in Italian. This recipe is for two portions.

What you’ll need:

  • 500 gr gnocchetti al basilico (if you can’t find them anywhere you can either replace them with normal gnocchi and add fresh basil leaves to the recipe or follow Silvana Franco’s recipe on the BBC Food website)
  • 1 medium ripe avocado
  • 2 medium tomatoes
  • 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
  • A good sprinkle of Maldon salt
  • A generous dusting of freshly ground black pepper
  • A dusting of dried (or fresh) coriander

 Preparation:

Chop the tomatoes and avocado into small cubes of about ½ inch. Dress with half the oil and salt. Gently cook the gnocchi in a pot of simmering salted water for a minute or two, until they rise to the surface. Once they pop up, they’re cooked! Scoop them out as they rise with a slotted spoon making sure you drain as much water as possible off the gnocchetti and mix them with the tomatoes, avocado, the rest of the oil and the salt, adding pepper and coriander on the top. Done! Buon appetito.

Mushroom Risotto with My (Not So) Secret Ingredient

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As I mentioned in my last post, I have recently got back from Genoa, my Italian hometown. I brought back over 10 kg worth of extra luggage and no, it wasn’t all clothes and shoes, thank you very much. I also took to Blighty a few kitchen utensils from my Granny’s kitchen and a whole load of food and wine: a bottle of Barolo, one of Bonarda, one of Prosecco, a huge bottle of excellent extra virgin olive oil, a big Pandoro for the joy of my colleagues, a small pandoro, a Pandolce Genovese (a typical Genoese Christmas cake), some chocolate, gnocchetti al basilico (basil baby gnocchi) and . . . my secret ingredient, STAR porcini mushroom stock cubes. As one would expect, the wine and prosecco bottles are long gone already, and so are the two pandori and the chocolate. The basil gnocchi have also been cooked and will be thoroughly featured in another post. The star of today’s post, however, is the mushroom stock:

I love the fact that this famous Italian brand hasn’t practically changed their logo and box design since pretty much the ‘50s, but most of all I love the flavour these cubes give!

I couldn’t wait, I had to pick a packet of mushrooms on my way home and cook some risotto right after my flight. Who needs unpacking when you have il dado ai funghi porcini?

Here is my very personal recipe (well, the one my mum taught me years ago with the helping of the special stock) for two portions.

The pictures were taken by me but edited by my two favourite picture experts, Rol and Sara.

What you’ll need:

  • 1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 1 small yellow onion
  • 180 gr Arborio (risotto) rice
  • A medium glass of dry white wine
  • 150 gr of fresh mixed (or, if you find them, porcini) mushrooms or 75 gr of dried ones
  • 1 and ½ porcini mushroom stock cubes to be dissolved in 750 ml of water
  • ½ tbs of butter
  • 4 tsps grated Parmigiano Reggiano

Preparation:

First of all, if you are using dried mushrooms, soak them in lukewarm water for at least half an hour, drain them and set them aside. Chop the garlic and onion finely. Heat the oil in a wide frying pan and add the chopped aromatics. Cook them until they’re soft and golden. In the meantime prepare the stock and keep it simmering very gently on one side. Add the rice into the frying pan and stir it thoroughly into the onions and garlic, letting it ‘toast’ for a minute or two in order to sear (coat) it. Turn the heat right up and pour in the wine. The heat needs to be very high at this stage because you want the alcohol to evaporate fairly quickly, as you don’t want to boil the rice into it. Once the rice starts drying off, turn the flame back down to medium heat. It’s now time to add in the mushrooms and a ladleful of stock. Keep stirring the rice; make sure you do not leave it unattended as it takes a split second for the whole content to go super dry and burn. Keep adding the stock gradually until the rice is completely cooked, which shouldn’t take any longer than 20 minutes. Now taste the risotto and see if it lacks any salt. It really shouldn’t as the stock should be sufficient for flavour – although better safe than sorry! Once ready, add the butter and a couple of teaspoons of grated cheese (remember, you are cooking Italian food so please, refrain from adding cheddar . . . you know who you are!), stir to allow all the ingredients to hobnob and the butter and cheese to melt and finally plate the dish. Sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper, some extra Parmigiano if you so wish and garnish with fresh or dried flat-leaf parsley or coriander.

You’re going to love this!

Easy-peasy Wonderful Mince Pies

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It’s Christmas! And as such it’s time for Yuletide baking. With this in mind, I decided to bake mince pies. Initially I wanted to make pastry and mince meat, but when I realised just how much of a fuss it is, and considering that I am pretty busy, I decided to buy two different mince meat fillings from Waitrose and see which one worked best. This recipe will yield I’d say about 20 to 22 mince pies but I made 18 and used what was left of the dough to make heart- and teddy-shaped soft cookies to hang onto my Christmas tree.

 

What you’ll need:

  • 225 g cold butter, diced
  • 350 g plain flour
  • 100 g caster sugar
  • A pinch of salt
  • 400 g mincemeat (you can find ready-made mincemeat in most supermarkets. I tried the Classic Waitrose Mincemeat and the Cranberry and Port Waitrose Mincemeat, which was by far the best)
  • 1 small egg, beaten
  • 2 teaspoons of cold water
  • icing sugar, to dust

Preparation:

Combine flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Mix the beaten egg and water and set aside. Add the butter to the bowl and knead well. It will look like there is way too much flour to begin with, but trust me, keep working the mixture and feel free to count this as part of your workout for the week! When the dough is almost ready add half of the egg mixture and knead a little more, until you have a smooth ball of buttery dough. Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for at least half an hour.

 

Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6/fan assisted 180°C. Butter 18 holes of muffin tins and line them by pressing big walnut-sized balls of pastry into each hole. Spoon the mincemeat into the pies. Pick slightly smaller balls of pastry from your Mother Dough Ball and pat them out between your hands to make round lids. Top the pies with their lids, pressing the edges gently together to seal the pies. Brush the tops with the rest of the egg mixture and bake for 20 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes and then sprinkle with icing sugar. I made two paper templates, a star and a holly leaf and held them over the mince pies while dusting the sugar to make them look extra cute.

My Very First Thanksgiving

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Being an Italian living in London, I never really had a chance or official reason to celebrate Thanksgiving. I never quite knew what it involved, exactly. This year, however, thanks to my change of jobs in May, I had the luck to meet a new friend, Sara, who is from Ohio and super keen on anything Thanksgiving-related. I had no more excuses! So on Saturday 26 November I went to her house in the morning and we cooked all day long to put together an American feast for six.  We scoured through the internet to find the best Thanksgiving recipes and I think we definitely found some brilliant ones. All the pictures were taken by Sara.

Here is the menu we had on the day, click on the dish name to find the recipe:

I absolutely loved Thanksgiving and really hope we will repeat it next year.

Delicious Dairy-free Chicken and Vegetable Quiche

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A couple of weekends ago, my friend Sara and I decided to make a healthy quiche which didn’t include tonnes of cheese as pies normally do. We decided to cut out the cheese completely and instead go heavy on the veggie goodness. Unfortunately by the time the quiche was cooked the sun had set and we had to take the picture of the final result with artificial light, but hopefully you should be able to get the idea of how delicious it looked (and tasted) nonetheless. By the way, all the pictures in this post were taken by Sara, the master of food photos.

This quiche is brilliantly healthy and because it has no dairy, it could easily become vegan if you decide to omit the chicken and swap the eggs with flaxseeds. 100 gr of chicken is a very little amount for a whole quiche but I decided to add it in to add some protein, as I did not include any cheese, and because I had defrosted it and wanted to use it. So feel free to add the double amount of chicken, if you like.

What you’ll need:

  • 1 tsp of extra-virgin olive oil
  • 120 gr chestnut mushrooms
  • 10 cherry tomatoes
  • 1 pepper
  • 1 small yellow onion
  • 4 balls of frozen spinach
  • 100 gr chicken
  • 1 tbsp of coarse oats
  • About a couple of tsps of mixed herbs (marjoram, thyme, oregano and dry sage are all good)
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tbsp of soya milk (optional)
  • Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
  • A dash of chili sauce or Tobasco (optional)
  • A handful of flour
  • 1 packet of Jus-Rol puff pastry (or you could make your own puff pastry)

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F/Gas 6). Pour the olive oil into a tissue and rub it thoroughly on a quiche plate, making sure to cover well the bottom and sides of it. Place the spinach in a small pot with about a tbsp of water and let thaw on medium heat. Grill the chicken in a non-stick pan. While the chicken cools chop the vegetables into about 1-inch (2.5-cm) cubes. Chop the chicken. Once the spinach is fully defrosted, spread it on a chopping board and leave it to cool, as you don’t want the egg whites to scramble when you mix them with the spinach later.

Place all the veggies and chicken in a big bowl and mix well. Add the egg whites from the two eggs (saving the yolks), oats, plenty of herbs, salt, a good dose of black pepper and a dash of Tobasco. If at this stage your mixture looks a bit too dry feel free to add the soya milk. If you are worried it might be too runny or wet add another spoonful of oats. Make sure you always stir well in order to get all the ingredients hobnobbing!

Get your puff pastry and knead it altogether. Make sure you’re working on a floured base as you don’t want your pastry to stick to your table/board. Roll it thinly, about 0.2 in (5 mm). You should have enough pastry there to place a whole layer on the quiche dish and save some on a side to cut the lattice pattern. Once you have spread the pastry at the bottom of the dish, pour all the other ingredients into it and then start cutting the pastry for the top pattern. The strips should be about ½ in (1.2 cm) wide. Try to keep them from breaking but even if they do it’s not too big a problem as you can always join to pieces of strips together.

Beat the egg yolks together and spread the liquid on the pastry with a brush. Place in the oven and leave to bake for a good 40 to 45 minutes as you want the vegetable juices to dry away and the pastry to rise beautifully.

Let it cool a little before slicing and then enjoy!

Super Special Carrot Cake

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Let me give you a bit of a background on this recipe. About three years ago I found it on the BBC Food website and made the cake for a picnic. I was very happy with the results so decided I would have made it again ‘soon’. That ‘soon’ arrived about two years later, when I looked for that same recipe high and low on the internet for hours, without ever finding it again. Bitter disappointment kicked in. Ah, if only I had made it more often, I probably would have remembered the recipe by heart! Then, about a couple of months after that sad incident, I decided to tidy up the two boxes on top of my wardrobe and there it was, a print-out of the recipe! I had completely forgotten I had printed it out. I thought I was going to faint from the excitement. Instead, I transcribed it into my recipe book to keep it safe and that’s how I can bring it to you. I recently made this cake for the office, and my colleagues wolfed it down, which I took as a good sign. So here’s what you’ll need:

For the cake

  • 250 g unsalted butter
  • 375 g caster sugar
  • Grated rind of 2 oranges
  • 4 eggs
  • 450 g carrots
  • 150 g chopped nuts (I generally use walnuts but you could try almonds or pecans)
  • 1 tbsp vanilla essence
  • Juice of 1 orange
  • 250 g plain flour
  • 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 1 tsp mixed spice
  • 1 tsp salt

For the icing

This will yield plenty of icing, a little more than you’ll need for the cake, but it’s so rich and tasty, you’ll want to use it on everything! Otherwise you could reduce all of its ingredients of 1/3.

  • 225 g mascarpone cheese
  • 65 g unsalted butter
  • 400 g icing sugar (I never said this recipe was low-calorie!)
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4 and grease a 23cm/9in tin. Grate the carrots and orange peel, then beat the softened butter, sugar and orange rind together until light and fluffy.

Gradually add the eggs to the mixture and then fold in the carrots and grated nuts. Add the vanilla essence and the orange juice. The mixture will look very liquid at this point but fear not! It’s all under control. In a different bowl, sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and mixed spices together and fold into the mixture gently. It will still look pretty runny and pale, but this is good, because it means that your cake will be soft and moist. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 50 to 70 minutes, depending on how efficient your oven is. You’ll know the cake is ready once its sides come away from the tin and a skewer comes out clean, if a little wet. Don’t worry if the final result looks much darker than the mixture you initially placed into the oven, this is completely normal. Finally, make the icing by creaming the mascarpone and softened butter together until smooth, add the icing sugar and vanilla essence and mix until it is all homogenous.

This frosting is amazing! Spread it generously onto the cake once it’s cooled down a little and enjoy.