Pasta puttanesca

pasta puttanesca

After a weekend of stuffing our faces courtesy of the generous hospitality of our friends we felt Monday should be a ‘rehab’ day and we ate fairly lightly. A simple green salad with a little chopped cheese and ham  for lunch and pasta for dinner. Nothing creamy or heavy, just a light, but tasty, tomato based pasta. We decided on puttanesca – that never fail to please, simple, but oh so complex, classic example of cucina povera. Easily put together from store cupboard basics so that we didn’t even need to venture out to the shops in the wet and wild day that raged outside. The classic pasta to use is probably spaghetti but we decided on farfalle – really you can use whatever you fancy or happen to have to hand.

serves 2 – easily doubled

• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 400g tomatoes from a good quality tin, chopped
• 2 tbsp capers, chopped
• 2 anchovies, drained and chopped
• handful black olives, pitted and sliced
• large pinch dried chilli flakes
• 175g spaghetti or other pasta
• small bunch flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

Heat a little oil in a wide frying pan and cook the shallot until soft but not browned. Add the garlic, capers, anchovies, olives and chilli flakes and cook gently for a few minutes until the anchovies have dissolved. Add the tomatoes and continue to cook until slightly reduced, about 10 minutes. Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper if needed – you may not need either with the anchovies, olives and chilli flakes. It may need a pinch of sugar if the tomatoes are on the acid side.

Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions. Drain, add to the sauce with the parsley, toss to combine and serve.

TIP:-

It is often useful to add a little of the pasta cooking water to thin the sauce if it is too thick or to stop the pasta being too ‘gooey’ if it is very absorbent and a recipe will tell you to “retain some of the cooking water”. Instead of trying to catch some of it when you drain the pasta simply take a teacup and fish out a cupful just before you drain the pasta. You can then thin the sauce/ pasta with this water which is much easier.

Eating up and eating out

That just about sums up our week as far as food goes – well, almost …

Monday we were shopping with friends in Biarritz and had lunch out. We find if we eat a main meal at lunchtime then we only need a light snack in the evening and usually cheese is the default option. Though maybe a slice of lemon polenta cake and ricotta cream might have crept in too!

We had some chicken leftover from the coq au vin and John had the great idea to take the meat from the bones and chop it with a sharp knife into fine dice and then mix it with some of the leftover sauce of the coq au vin to give a kind of ‘chicken bolognese’ which we ate with some wide pasta. It sounds rather bizarre but it worked and tasted fabulous.

salmon Wellington

Wednesday we were doing a bit of testing for a St Valentines pot-luck dinner we are hosting this coming Thursday. We are cooking the main course and as we have a non-meat eater we decided on salmon en croute but to make it a bit special we are going to try to create individual salmon Wellingtons and we were experimenting with different fillings to go with the salmon. The result will be revealed after the 14th!

We met friends for an aperatif Thursday evening and needed a quickly prepared meal when we got in. A stir fry of a piece of pork and various vegetables we needed to use flavoured with ginger, garlic and sweet chilli sauce made an easy supper.

The venue for the drink is an interesting window on french life. We refer to it as ‘the garage’ – it is in fact a petrol filling station on the edge of town and the office where you pay for your petrol has a bar. It’s been owned and run by the same family for at least two generations which probably explains this throwback to a different time. And of course since smoking is not allowed by law in bars any longer if you are a smoker then you must step outside and smoke – on the petrol forecourt! You think we are joking? No we are not. Only in France and it’s one of the many reasons we love you. Please don’t ever change.

Friday evening we were invited to a french friend’s home for an aperitif but it was postponed as workmen had turned up at the beginning of the week to replace all of her windows and heating system and neither she nor her home were in a state to entertain, so we joined friends at a local bar that serves English fish and chips on a Friday evening. For lunch a frittata used up more vegetables and eggs that had sat in the fridge longer than we liked and we livened it up with some spicy chorizo we had bought on our recent trip to Spain. A salad garnish cleared out the remnants of salad too.

baked potato beans and cheese – yum!

Strange how your mood is affected by the weather? Last week continued pretty wet which has mostly been the story this year. But it is very mild too so the garden is already rushing into new growth and we haven’t been able to get out to start the Spring tidy-up which is quite frustrating. We are hoping we don’t get a sudden hard frost to kill it all off as we did February last year.  The veg patch needs turning over and fertilizing but it is just too wet – the whole garden is like a giant sponge oozing water. So we potter around indoors and seek comfort food which yesterday included this baked potato with beans and cheese – not classy or haute cuisine we know and definitely not on our low GI diet plan but sometimes it’s just what you need and you can’t resist can you?

We were at friends for dinner last night and are again tonight to celebrate Chinese New Year. In one week we’ve managed to completely blow the New Year’s resolution out of the water!

Pasta with Chick Peas and Onion

Tuesday we made a run for the Spanish border.  The supermarkets down there offer us a few particular goodies that we cannot now live without, most notably their black pudding.  It is one of the best we’ve ever tasted.  While there (with our friends) we tend to stop for lunch so dinner at home later ends up a light affair and this pasta dish is both fast and light without sacrificing flavour.   John’s mother takes credit for this recipe.

Thinly slice a large onion and fry gently in a generous amount of olive oil with salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar for about 10 min.  We start it off covered and let it sweat for the first five minutes.  This process softens and flavours the onion to new heights.  It should start catching a little and go brown.  That’s ok.  In fact, it’s a virtue.  Just stir it regularly.  Put your pasta on to boil.   Tip a tin of drained chick peas into the frying onions as well as a few tbsp of the boiling pasta water.  Once the sauce hits the simmer again it should be ready.  Toss the cooked pasta with the sauce.  Simplicity at it’s best.

Cheat’s ricotta gnocchi with sage butter

This recipe is from Donna Hay and we guess that she calls it ‘cheats’ because normally gnocchi are made from semolina or potatoes and take a reasonable amount of time and effort to make whereas these are very quick and easy. Is that cheating just because you cut out the hard work? They turn out to be light and delicious so where’s the problem with ‘cheating’?

She suggests using a crumbly pressed ricotta but we can only buy the normal ricotta so that is what we used. We found the mixture too soft and sticky to roll so started making quenelles with two spoons but they were really too soft to handle. Our friend Bob, who was visiting, decided to just work in a little more flour and this made it possible to make the rolls and cut them into pieces. They are still very soft and delicate but once into the boiling water they cook to perfection and are very light and delicious. We ate them with sage butter as suggested in the recipe but John thinks a nice tomato sauce and some parmesan would be good too.

serves 4

• 500g ricotta
• 40g parmesan, finely grated plus extra to serve
• 2 medium free-range eggs, beaten
• 150g plain flour, sifted
• semolina or flour for dusting
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 40g butter
• 32 sage leaves

Melt the 40g of butter in a saucepan, add the sage leaves and then cook for about 1 minute until the leaves are crispy (take care not to burn the butter). Set aside.

Put the ricotta, parmesan, eggs, flour and salt in a bowl and mix well (you may need to add more flour to achieve a soft dough). Divide the dough into 4 pieces and roll each one on a lightly floured surface into 30cm x 2cm lengths. Cut into 3 cm pieces and set aside. Bring a large pan of water to the boil and cook the gnocchi in small batches until they float to the surface and then cook for another 20 seconds before removing with a slotted draining spoon. Keep warm while you cook the remainder. Divide between serving plates, top with the sage leaves and butter. Give each one a dusting of grated parmesan and freshly ground black pepper.

Catching up – again!

We suppose that settling back into your routine after having been away takes a bit of time so that is our excuse for not being too active in our blogging last week. Not that there was much originality on the kitchen front so this is just a note to bring us up-to-date with seperate posts where there is something worth writing about.

Friday night supper was pasta with sausages and peppers which we have posted before, Saturday lunch was a sandwich of goats cheese and oven-roasted tomatoes, in the evening we went into town and weren’t in the mood for cooking when we got back so snacked on cheese and biscuits.

Sunday we went with friends to Biarritz for the day. The town centre streets were closed to traffic for a Braderie – which translates as car-boot or garage sale for an individual but for a commercial organisation it means clearance or end of season sale – so all the shops put tables and stalls out on the pavements and sell off their old/ surplus/ end of season stock. It was very pleasant to walk around the town without traffic and now that the holiday season is just about over the town returns to normal without the flocks of tourists – the population of Biarritz doubles during the peak summer months. The nice thing about Biarritz is that it functions as a town where people live all year and not just as a holiday resort. We had a pleasant lunch in a popular restaurant near Les Halles and pasta again for supper but a vegetarian version of Friday’s pasta using up some more courgette from the garden and some lovely just picked beans from our friends’ garden.

Monday lunch was a quiche made with Swiss chard from the garden and we were invited to friends for dinner.

Tuesday we spent shopping stocking up on things we were low on and we found some fresh buffalo mozzarella on the cheese counter which made a salad for lunch with proscuitto and the last of our fresh tomatoes and some of the over-roasted. We bought fish for dinner and ate it with a cauliflower mash.

Sunday lunch for nine

Entertaining friends is always fun and it forms a large part of our social life. We are fortunate to have a wonderful group of friends to share our life here with. Yesterday we were nine for lunch (a loose term since we didn’t start until 2pm and ended around 7pm) and it is a great way to spend a Sunday particularly at this time of the year with the good weather.

John had the urge to do an Italian theme (no surprise) and one of our guests is vegetarian so the two fitted well since there is a lot of good vegetarian food which is Italian. Derek also has a ‘thing’ about not having different food for vegetarian guests – almost like singling them out as ‘different’. No, everyone eats the same chez nous.

There are quite a few recipes to post so this is an introduction and then we will post the recipes separately.

With the warm weather and our tomato plants in full swing we started with tomato and mozzarella salad but had a little amuse-bouche first of the chilled melon soup we made recently, served in verrines (these are small glasses very popular in France for serving tasters or small courses).

The main course was John’s melanzane alla parmigiana which he has perfected from his mother’s recipe. It is a very rich dish and more substantial than it looks so we served it with a simple green salad with a shallot and wine vinegar dressing.

Cheese followed, of course, (this is France for goodness sake!) and then dessert of Tarta de Santiago, poached peaches and crème fraîche ice-cream.

Tomato and mozzarella salad

We treated ourselves to a cooked breakfast this morning so had a light salad lunch. As our tomato plants are now in full swing delivering delicious sweet fruit we decided to make the most of them and what better way than with this classic. Dishes like this are popular for a reason – they are a perfect combination of ingredients. But you really do need sweet, ripe tomatoes bursting with flavour – tasteless, underripe apologies from the supermarket just won’t do. And you also need top quality, soft, creamy buffalo mozzarella – cheap (and not so cheap) mass produced might be fine for cooking but it isn’t good enough for this. Add a drizzle of your finest olive oil, best balsamic vinegar and lightly season and scatter with fresh torn basil leaves. Perfection.

Spaghetti with green beans

This is another favourite pasta dish of ours and now that we are harvesting fresh green beans from the garden it seemed a good time to revisit it. Another example of cucina povera that we love – who would think that you could put together pasta and green beans and create a tasty nutritious meal? Only the Italians!

Our beans are a climbing variety called Cobra which are really superb – they yield abundantly, never go stringy no matter how huge they get and take up no space in our vegetable boxes. The downside, for this dish, is that they are a bit too large compared to normal french green beans so we sliced them up like a runner bean.

for 2

• 125g fine green beans, topped and tailed
• tin of chopped tomatoes
• small onion, finely chopped
• garlic clove, finely chopped
• olive oil
• flat leaf parsley, chopped
• basil, chopped
• pinch of chilli flakes
• salt and pepper
• 170g spaghetti

Take a large frying pan with a lid and heat 1 tbsp olive oil. Saute the onion gently until softened then add the garlic and chilli flake and cook for a minute or two. Add the green beans, tomatoes, parsley, seasoning and a splash of water. Give it all a good stir to combine, put on the lid and simmer gently for 10 – 12 minutes or until the beans are really tender – you want them stewed not al dente but not to the point of collapse.

Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti according to the instructions on the packet so that it is ready about the same time as the beans. Drain, keeping a little of the water and add the spaghetti to the beans. Mix to combine adding some of the cooking water if it looks too dry – you want a nice coating sauce. Taste and adjust the seasoning and add the basil. Serve into bowls and dust with grated parmesan.

Cucina Povera

Sunday, a friend of ours arrived late in the evening from London so we spent the day cleaning and getting ready and have been spending our time with her since she arrived so our posting here is getting a bit behind. Not a lot to report on the food front for Sunday; a quick lunch of stuffed pitta bread and supper was a simple pork chop with some vinegar peppers and beans.

Yesterday for lunch John made his mothers pasta dish of Pasta e Patate – another delicious example of cucina povera.  Peel and dice a medium potato as well as a tender heart of celery (including inner, pale green leaves) and a small onion.  Gently sauté the onion and celery, covering to sweat for a couple of minutes with a pinch of salt.  Add the potato, a slivered clove of garlic and some roughly chopped parsley with  enough vegetable stock to just cover the contents of the pan and a tin of chopped tomatoes.  Half cover and simmer on a lively heat for about 7-8 min until the potato is just cooked.  Give it a good grind of pepper and a small pile of chopped basil and parsley mixed together.  It should still be a bit wet and this is a virtue.  We added some cut green beans with the potato and a handful of peas 2 minutes from finish as a variation and a bit of colour.  Finally toss with some cooked macaroni or soup pasta and don’t spare the parmesan.  Don’t let anyone ever tell you that potato and pasta shouldn’t be together. Makes 2 generous helpings.

As our friend is vegetarian we made vegetarian chilli for dinner which we have posted before here;

Pasta with sausages and peppers

For dinner we intended to use some of the Swiss chard from the garden to make a dish of Swiss chard with lentils and herbs which we thought would go rather well with some nice grilled sausages. But in the event some friends rang and invited us to meet for an apero and by the time we got back home we weren’t in the mood to start cooking that and resorted to an old favourite of pasta with sausages and peppers which we have posted before here