Wednesday 19 December 2012

A game of squash

I don’t like to think about this much, but I have a feeling I might be a fair-weather friend. If it’s easy to see someone (i.e. I live with them or am related to them), then I make a pretty good fist of being supportive and interested. If I’m swamped at work, exhausted, you live far away or Daniel Craig gets married and I’m depressed (again), then it won’t happen. I’m quite solitary. I have a diary from a few years ago when I lived by myself in which almost every entry is ‘cold today, reading X book, so happy’. For obvious reasons I generally try to disguise this, and when I’m in a sociable mood or it’s a sociable time of year (bah humbug) then it’s all to play for.

Last Saturday, I invited two girlfriends to my flat for supper before a Christmas party. These two girls were at the forefront of a fantastic group of people who saved my 4th year at university, when I came back from my year abroad in Paris and almost all of my friends had left (on the plus side, I was vaguely chic for the first time in my life). Shamefully, I hadn’t seen them in months.

I decided to do a risotto, mainly because all I’ve been reading for the last two weeks are Italian cookbooks and news articles about when Carluccio stabbed himself.

Butternut squash seemed appropriately seasonal and I really never cook with it, so off I trotted to our local supermarket, where, as usual, they were understocked and overpriced. I won’t name names but it’s obviously not Waitrose. Having to abandon my dreams of fresh sage, I bought dried and also some pine nuts and lardons. After all, if in doubt, add bacon.

Back home, I smashed up the dried sage in oil to try to make it more interesting, added some garlic and lemon juice, sloshed it over the quartered squash and roasted it for an hour. I then scraped out the insides and pureed them because they were weirdly stringy. I’m not sure I really like squash, given the faff that is required and the fact it doesn’t taste of much.

How was I to know that one of the girls would turn up and announce that butternut squash risotto was her speciality? The pressure was on (sort of, mainly I just laughed in a nonchalant manner and surreptitiously topped up the Pinot Grigio so she wouldn’t be in a position to do an accurate taste test).

To cut a long story short, presents were exchanged, risotto was eaten and enjoyed, bonding was done, a napkin was set on fire, and we didn’t make it to the party.

Butternut squash risotto
(I think it would have tasted pretty much the same without the squash…)

Serves 4

You will need:
· 1 onion, finely chopped
· 1 butternut squash (or not, seriously, I don’t think it matters and would save you an hour)
· 200g lardons or diced pancetta
· 75g pine nuts
· 400g Arborio rice
· 2 glasses of white wine
· 1 litre of chicken stock
· Sage, oil, lemon and garlic mixture
· Lots of parmesan
· Lots of butter

Method:
· Quarter the squash and roast with the sage mixture for an hour at 200c.
· Scrape out the insides of the squash and puree. Set aside.
· Fry the onion in butter and oil, add the rice and stir, making sure each grain is glossy and coated.
· Add the wine and let it reduce.
· Start adding the hot stock in the approved risotto fashion.
· Ladle, stir, ladle stir, make scintillating small talk, ladle, stir etc. It should be all done in 15-20minutes.
· Meanwhile, you can quickly toast the pine nuts in a dry pan, and then fry the lardons in the same one.
· Add the squash puree (or not, whatever) to the risotto and stir though.
· Take off the heat, leave for a second and then whack in a lot of butter and parmesan and beat together madly. Season.
· Divide onto plates and scatter the lardons and pine nuts on top.

Serve with a watercress salad and a sharp dressing.

Tuesday 11 December 2012

La Bella Figura

Exciting times for the fans (officially 0) – this blog has been short listed for a food writing competition run by Waitrose and the Good Food Guide, in which the eventual winner gets to write for the Good Food Guide 2014! I know, we all thought this was just me writing my diary in public and occasionally going for dinner in nice places.

The final takes place in February and involves ‘food based challenges’. Assuming they mean inventive cooking and culinary knowledge rather than ‘how many mini eggs can you fit in your mouth in one go?’ (officially 29), between now and then you can expect lots of recipes as I practice the art of perfection.

Right now though, we’re on our way to Locanda Otteomezzo via a book signing. Last week, courtesy of an invitation from a Pimlico Publishing Powerhouse, we arrived at Waterstones on Kensington High Street and came face to face with Antonio Carluccio and Genaro Contaldo, aka Two Greedy Italians. This was one of my favourite cookery programmes of 2012 (yes, there’s a list and no, Rachel-Khoo-who-stole-my-life is not on it), mainly for the episode about ‘white food’, in which they sat next to an oven in a mountain village all day baking things with butter, cream and cheese.

Carluccio signed my book, which was almost too thrilling, talked about caviar and then told a joke about the mafia and baby Jesus that was so hyperbolically Italian it all became too much. It would work well at this point if I could say that we were all so enthused by the torrid Southern European amore we immediately headed straight for the nearest trattoria, but we didn’t, we went to the pub for a couple of hours and then tried to get into Côte. Sadly thwarted, we followed a memory around the corner to Locanda Otteomezzo, where they appeared to be whipping themselves into a truffle frenzy in a very nicely lit (by which I mean dark avec candles) basement.

Everything was truffled. The bread, the plates, one entire tasting menu. Truffles everywhere. Having drunk Guinness earlier (different story), I was approximately as hungry as one would be after eating a loaf of bread, so I went for the carpaccio with parmesan, rocket and truffle oil. Everyone else had the special of truffled pasta. Now, truffle pasta is one of the best and simplest things in the world (much like one of my sisters) but if you’re going to serve plain pasta with fungus and charge £25 or more for it you really do have to get it right. Everything needs to be fresh, hot and happy. This wasn’t quite there and the whole dish looked sad, tepid and brown. People left bits on their plates, which shouldn’t happen with this kind of food. On a happier note, my carpaccio was delicious and accidentally truffled parmesan is an unexpectedly good thing to eat. (I also note that the reviews online are great, so maybe we ordered the wrong thing. I’m writing this because I don’t want to be abused on Twitter by chefs).

I see from reading my SIGNED BOOK that Carluccio has a recipe for taglierini al tartufo. So next time, I’ll be inviting everyone to mine for a hopefully more satisfying experience.

Locanda Otteomezzo
2-4 Thackeray Street
W8 5ET

Shortcuts #1

If you are having more than 10 people for supper, rub salt all over one of these (approx 3kg shoulder of pork), put it in a 160c oven at 9am, and take it out at 8pm. Et voilà.