Seasoning for Just About Anything
When I was working in Bergamo, my
half Italian half German host mother who grew up in Brazil (she spoke three
languages, not one of them English, and I didn’t speak any of hers) made me the
most mouth-watering roasted vegetables I’ve ever eaten, and it was all down to
the seasoning.
Place rosemary, sage (dried or
fresh), garlic and salt (heavy on the salt light on the garlic) into a pestle and
mortar and crush into a paste with olive oil. Add to meat, fish or vegetables
and roast/fry/grill/barbecue. Quantities depend on the amount of food you wish
to season, so it’s largely guesswork I’m afraid. Happy concocting!
Spaghetti agli Olio ‘a la Barbara’.
This is a meal that was cooked
for me by my lovely Sicilian host mother, Barbara. It is yet another
celebration of the simplicity of Italian cooking and is well worth a try at
home.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
150g spaghetti
Olive oil
1 fat clove of garlic
½ red chilli, finely chopped (it depends how much tingle you
like, add more if you want more kick)
Handful of fresh parsley, coarsely chopped.
Parmesan to serve
- .Place a saucepan of cold water on to boil and add salt.
- Cover the bottom of a frying pan with a generous amount of olive oil. Finely chop the garlic and add to the oil to heat gently. Don’t let it burn!
- When the water has reached a rolling boil, add the spaghetti. Don’t snap it in order to get it in, that’s really not the point of spaghetti! Use a bigger pan, or push it gently. The packet will usually give you an indication of how long to cook it for in order for it to be properly al dente.
- .As the pasta cooks, add the chopped chilli to the oil and garlic.
- Once the spaghetti is cooked, drain and add it to the oil, garlic and chilli, along with the parsley. Toss to combine.
- Serve with grated parmesan.
Salmarillio ‘a la Barbara’
Another recipe given to me by the
lovely Barbara, this dressing for fish followed the spaghetti agli olio. We had
it on swordfish, but it would work very well with any sea food.
Tip: prepare this before you
start cooking the rest of the meal, as it will give the flavours the maximum
amount of time to infuse.
Again quantities depend on how
many you’re cooking for, but allow for a good generous ‘slosh’ per person, plus
a bit extra in case anyone goes for seconds. The amount we made served four.
In a small bowl, combine a
generous amount of good olive oil (not quite enough to make the garlic float)
with chunky chopped garlic (about two or three cloves), a small handful of
parsley and the juice of half a Sicilian lemon. Leave to infuse and spoon over
fish when eating.
Pasta a la Pomodoro
I know I know, everyone knows how
to cook pasta a la pomodoro. But this recipe is, for me, as much a recipe for a
good meal as it is an exercise in nostalgia. I was keen to learn more about
Italian cooking and my lovely host father Stefano couldn’t be more willing to
oblige. Immensely proud of his country’s food heritage, Stefano first pointed
out to me that the key to brilliant cooking is simplicity. Pull together three
or four perfectly matched ingredients and you’re away, and this is the baseline
of all Italian food. He then ploughed through this recipe with me late one
evening after work while I struggled to simultaneously follow his instructions
and write them down, which resulted in a messy kitchen, a messy Charlie, a
messy notebook and a truly gorgeous dinner. Writer’s paradise.
Serves Three.
Ingredients:
200g pasta (any will do, although penne, fusilli or
spaghetti are usually used)
Olive Oil
3 cloves of garlic (1 per person)
Fresh tomatoes. Typically they use the ‘dotterino’ variety,
but we used three large beef tomatoes. One per person if you’re using large
ones. If you’re using Dotterino you’ll have to use a bit of guesswork, but any
leftover sauce can always go in the fridge for later!
Chunk of pecorino cheese OR parmigiano reggiano/grana
(parmesan)
Note about the cheese: ‘Grana’ is
what we know as Parmesan. Stefano was very particular about highlighting the
difference between grana and parmigiano reggiano. I understood that they were
two names for the same thing – parmesan - but apparently they’re not. I think
what he was trying to tell me was that parmigiano reggiano is produced in the
area between Modena and Reggio Emilia, and that grana is produced around
Bologna, Farrara, Mantova and Rovigo, and that therefore they are different
cheeses and must not be confused. He also implied that grana is a lower class
of cheese than parmigiano. So for the rest of the trip I had no idea if I was
eating grana or parmigiano but surprise surprise, they tasted pretty darn
similar to my foreign, amateur tastebuds!
Finally a handful of fresh basil
- Add enough oil to cover the bottom of a medium sized pan. Add the garlic cloves whole and unpeeled. Cook over a low heat until they start to go brown.
- Meanwhile, boil water in a separate pan for the pasta. (See steps 1 and 3 of the Spaghetti agli olio recipe for the proper Italian way to cook pasta.)
- Chop the tomatoes and place in a colander over the sink, to drain the juice. Add the tomatoes to the garlic and oil and add a little salt.
- While everything is cooking away nicely, grate your cheese.
- When the pasta is cooked, remove the garlic from the tomato sauce, drain the pasta and add it to your sauce, mixing thoroughly.
- Roughly chop the basil and scatter it on top of the pasta.
- Serve with a generous handful of cheese!
Of course I gorged myself on loads of different meals over the course of the four months I was in Italy, but these are four of my top dishes from the summer. They all have different flavours and elements, but there are two things they all share in common, and those are: simplicity and joy. Each recipe is so straightforward but so lovely, and each one is made with the same aim in mind – to provide sustenance and pleasure to loved ones and friends. Watching Stefano explain how to make the perfect tomato sauce, Barbara lovingly prepare her family’s favourite meal and Susie glow with pleasure as I exclaimed over her roasted vegetables, the knowledge that – for Italians – food is about so much more than just eating was reinforced for me again and again, and is something that I have carried into my own cooking since returning home.
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