Food swap - pasta with salmon and capers paste from Pantelleria

Manu from the beautiful Cooking Manu blog had the great idea of hosting a food swap for bloggers and non-bloggers alike.

I was partnered with Silvia (co-incidentally Manu's sister in law) who is based in Milan, Italy.  I sent her some local Devon wholegrain honey mustard.  I'm intrigued to see what she comes up with for that!
She sent me something new to me - capers paste.  It's from Pantelleria which she explained is an island in Sicily.  (There's a very interesting post about why capers from that region are so special here.)
Now, I was supposed to have posted a recipe using her ingredient by the 31st March but with typical 'Ruth-time' I'm just a little bit late - oops!
I played with various ideas in my head before deciding to use it in a fairly simple pasta dish.  As I'd never used it before I wanted to get a feel for the strength and depth of flavour first time round.

This made a large meal (with leftovers) for 2.

1 bag fresh pasta
2 salmon fillets (mine happened to be hot smoked ones with peppercorns)
1 onion
2 cloves garlic*
1 tsp+ dried basil
1tsp+ dried oregano
1tbsp+ capers paste (pasta di capperi)
Handful calabrese florets
Handful wild garlic (ramsons) leaves*
Little grated strong cheese, if liked
EVOO
Black pepper
Salt
*Use less garlic if you're not a fan.  I am so it tends to go in everything!

Heat a splosh of EVOO over a low heat in a decent size frying pan.
Finely mince the garlic and add to the pan once the oil is warming up.
Finely chop the onion and add it to the pan.  Sweat down for several minutes.
Get a large pan of water boiling for the pasta.  Once it comes to the boil add a generous pinch of salt and the pasta.  Fresh pasta generally only takes 3-4 minutes so keep an eye on the time.
Add the herbs to the onion pan and stir well.  If you feel the mix is drying out now or at any point you may want to add a little water - nab some from the pasta pan if so.
Add the capers paste a little at a time, stirring in well each time and giving it a minute to cook in then tasting.  Bear in mind that the plain pasta will soak up a lot of flavour.
Drain off the pasta once it's done, reserving a little of the cooking water.
Cook the salmon fillets in the pan with the onions and garlic, flake them up as they cook through.
Throw in a handful of calabrese cut into small florets and 4 or 5 minced ramson leaves.  Add a little of the pasta water now to steam the veg.
Grind in black pepper to taste and stir into the pasta.  Add a little grated cheese if liked, I felt the dish needed that extra flavour to balance the salty umami notes from the capers and the strength of the garlic.
Serve and enjoy.

 This was delish and gave me a good idea of how the capers paste works in a dish.  It certainly has a big flavour but also seems invaluable for the umami notes.  I can see this having an incredible affinity with good tomatoes and black olive tapenade on some fantastic bread...Mmmmm...

Someone else's kitchen Random Recipe - Sicilian Style Tuna with Salsa Verde plus a giveaway!

This month's Random Recipe theme from Dom over at Belleau Kitchen was to use a book picked from another's collection.  I asked my Ma and she dutifully counted all the books and booklets in the house and gave me a total of 37.  I used an on-line random number generator and we came up with 25 which was 'Fillipo Berio Winter Recipes' which flipped open to Sicilian Style Tuna with Salsa Verde.  *I've got a couple of the Fillipo Berio booklets myself but not the winter recipes one.  The recipe sounded packed full of flavour and fairly simple to do.  You can see it online here though they seem to have left out the instruction as to what to do with the second half of the lemon juice - I made the fairly safe assumption that it went into the salsa.
So - here we go - for precise measures see their recipe.  I'm sure it's copyright so I'm not giving them here. :-)  (I will say though that 1 lemon and 1 growing plant of parsley cover the requirements.)
Mix EVOO, half the lemon juice and chopped fresh parsley, season and marinate the tuna in it for an hour, turning periodically and stashing in the fridge in the intervening periods.

Meanwhile into a small blender (I'm soooo chuffed we got a little 'mill' blender attachment with the new blender the Chap's bro got us for chrimble - this was it's inaugural outing) put the rinsed capers, the rest of the EVOO, lemon zest (and remaining juice), garlic, parsley and anchovies and whiz it up.

Once the tuna has had it's allotted hour marinating cook it under the grill or in a cast-iron-ridged pan for 3-4 mins per side and serve with the salsa perched atop.  I sort of scooped up the marinade with the tuna and cooked it all in the pan together.
That's it - easy eh?
We made a meal of it by serving on spaghetti with some wilted spinach and the juices from the tuna pan stirred through, and plenty of black pepper.

This was lovely - really zingy and fresh and lemony.  We'd been slightly concerned it could turn out too salty with both capers and anchovies in but not at all.  We liked the salsa so much that I'd easily knock this up to stir through pasta for a quick and easy supper and if you buy your fresh parsley plant, lemon and tin of anchovies from Aldi it works out pretty cheap.  I also had the idea that this would work with the addition of a good handful of wild garlic which is even cheaper at nuppence!  Win win as the yanks might say.  :-)
I've decided to also enter this recipe to the Herbs on a Saturday blog challenge by Karen of Lavender and Lovage which is being hosted this month over at Bangers & Mash.  It seems appropriate with the use of a whole plant of fresh parsley.  This is my first ever submission to them so I hope they're as nice to me as the Random Recipe tribe were on my first time!

*I in fact have 3 of their booklets, 2 of which are the same one, so with such abundance on hand I will give one of them away.  :-)  Just leave a comment mentioning you'd like it and I'll pull a winner out on Sunday.  I'm not going to specify that you have to follow me as I want my followers to be because they find my witterings vaguely interesting and perhaps even informative.  Having originally started this blog kind of by accident to record stuff for myself it's somewhat odd / gratifying / worrying that there's folks out there reading this drivel!!  Thank you, even if you do it only through sympathy.  :-)

Random Recipe - Store Cupboard Stuffing Bake

With all this time on my hands recently I've been blog surfing a lot more than I normally do and have stumbled across many new to me fab blogs.  Several of which have been inspiring me in different ways and one of those is the lovely Belleau Kitchen blog and the monthly challenge 'Random Recipes'.  
Now normally this involves picking a recipe at random from a cookbook; similarly picked at random, and having to make it. (Assuming I've understood that correctly, I have a feeling that there may be themes involved sometimes too.)  This month however is slightly different in that it's a store cupboard ingredient that must be picked, then you make something with that.  Now although I had more random items available than the stuffing mix I used, everything else needed me to visit the shops for additional ingredients which as I'm off my feet as much as poss at the mo didn't seem like the best of ideas ever.  It's not quite an 'essential' trip like the doctors is you know?
So - I decided to use up a couple of the 5 packs of stuffing mix I had in the upstairs store cupboard from a past Approved Foods order.
Right - next step - find a recipe - from your cookbooks. Hmmm - now surprisingly enough none of my cookbooks have any recipes listing 'packet mix stuffing' in the ingredients list, not even quasi healthy 'mixed seed wholemeal' stuffing.  I know - I'm as shocked as you right?

So I thought (in an admittedly slightly tortuous justification after the fact sort of way) that I could treat my blog as a recipe book too - as a load of the stuff on here I scribble down very roughly as I make it then transcribe to here which is then it's lasting format.  And enough people seem to search my slow cooker carrot and coriander soup for me to feel the reference aspect could at least be argued for, if not fully justified.  So - I'll go ahead and we'll see if I'm allowed in the challenge.  This is all quite apart from the fact that today is the deadline.  By which I'm not sure if it means submissions should be in by today or up to and including today.  Yes - I'm a pedant when it comes to language and that's just waaaay too open to interpretation for this virgo!  :-D
So - witteringly long intro / justification / obfuscation in the hope the host will give up and just allow my submission through out of pure boredom aside - here's my frugal, quick and simple 'store cupboard stuffing mix bake'.  As 'inspired' (ahem) by this one I previously made, with the added advantage of also using up some of my stocks of cheese, or 'dairy crack' as we now prefer to call it in our household, the need for which was highlighted in my last post.

Vaguely Italian themed Stuffing Mix Bake:
2 packets stuffing mix - or you can make this with one if you don't have a massive overstock of stuffing in your cupboard like me
0.5 tbsp dried basil
0.5 tbsp dried oregano
Boiling water - amount as per packet instructions
2 tbsp tomato puree
Black pepper
Cheese - I used about half to 2/3 of a 300g tub of soft cheese.  You could totally use a harder cheese grated here, whatever you need to use up really.  Some parmesan over the top would work too.
Little butter for greasing dish

 Put oven on to heat as per instructions on the pack of stuffing.  Put kettle on to boil.
Put stuffing, herbs and a few grinds of black pepper (to taste) in a large bowl and give them a quick mix.
Add water as per the stuffing packet instructions.
Add the tomato puree and stir really well.

Grease your ovenproof dish; I use a ceramic one, and spread half the mixture evenly over the base of the dish.

Evenly spread your cheese over - a little easier said than done using this soft cheese as it wanted to move the existing layer of stuffing about.  I found leaving it resting on top of the hot stuffing for a few seconds softened it a little and made it easier to spread out; as did placing it on in smaller amounts than the big dolloping spoonfuls I started out with!

Spread the second half of the stuffing over and place in the oven for the time specified on the stuffing packet.

Ta daa!!  Bit messy to serve and please bear in mind I'm not a professional food photographer but served with a little refreshing salad this was a nice wee snack.
Very cheap to make with items you're likely to have in the house already and taking little time this ticks both the £'s and time frugality boxes.  You can jazz it up as pleased - I'd perhaps add more tom puree next time.  Oh - and if you want to photograph it letting it cool and firm up for a few minutes would be a good idea.  Not one I had until after my messy photo efforts mind you...

Overdue....much!!

I'm afraid this summer has been a bit frantic at work and has led to some serious slackness on my part in the realm of blog posts.  I'm painfully aware that I have yet to write about our jaunt to the Scilly Isles and that was back at the end of May / start of June!!!  Eek!!!  Being a Virgo and thus a little bit OCD in certain respects I also have an irrational dislike of the very idea of posting stuff out of sync which means when I get behind with my posts everything gets backlogged - stuck behind some as yet unwritten so therefore only existing entirely 'in potentia' post.  I am trying to hoof pick (like shoe horn but fittingly it sounds more painful as is this process) myself out of this habit so as to allow some of my sputterings and scribblings out onto the world.  An uncaring world most probably but hey - I just write the stuff (occasionally) - once it's out there it's really not my problem any more.  ;-D
So - a short post this will be but it's purpose is to break the long gap and give you a little smile (hopefully) at the following spotted on the menu of an Italian restaurant in Teignmouth; on the coast about 15 miles down the road from us and one of my favourites of the little coastal towns in this neck of the woods.  I like the 'to the point'edness of the Pizza Mafia.  :-)

 The restaurant itself is The Colosseum and is now firmly on our 'to visit' list as they looked very nice with a good sounding menu.  There were several seafood pasta dishes on the menu including a 'lasagne di mare' I'd like to try so I'll let you know how it is if we go there.

Arrabiata prawn pasta - speedy supper

Speedy supper for when  it's late, you're tired and hungry and no - you really can't be bothered being virtuous and make a sauce from scratch.  Nowt wrong with that in my opinion.  'Arrabiata' means Angry - which is a reference to the chilli kick this sauce has.  You could use whatever sauce you have in the cupboard though and add your own chilli - or leave it out as you like.  It's quick and simple but still tasty - ideal.

Speedy prawn pasta
Stock cube - veg
EVOO
Pasta
1 onion
2-3 cloves garlic
Butter
Mushrooms
Salt
Jar arrabiata pasta sauce - ours was Aldi for about 75-80p-ish but not bad
2-3 tbsp tomato puree
Mushroom ketchup
Dried basil
Handful prawns
Handful spinach
Grated cheese - parmesan if you have it in, cheddar if you don't [or are forgetful of your recent parmesan purchasing activities like I was - dur!!]
Black Pepper

Cook the pasta in plenty of water seasoned with the stock cube and a splosh of oil to prevent sticking.  (I always put the kettle on for the water for things like pasta as it takes a lot less time than boiling the water on the hob from cold - especially if you have an electronic hob - I'm soooo glad I have gas!!)  Ensure to cook al dente as it'll be added to the sauce and heated again later.
Meanwhile heat a little butter and oil in a large wide saucepan.
Chop the onion and garlic and add to pan.  Cook gently to soften.
Chop the mushrooms - use however many you like / have in stock.  I used 5/6 I think.
Add to the pan with the onion and garlic, sprinkle a little salt and cook covered to keep the juices in, stirring occasionally until the mushrooms have sweated right down.
Add the pasta sauce.  As I mentioned ours was an Aldi effort - not bad but it did taste a little sweet to me so I added a good squirt of tomato puree - probably 2-3 tbsp and a splash of mushroom ketchup to counteract this and give the sauce some depth.
Add a decent pinch of basil - I was out of oregano otherwise I'd have added this too.  Any Italian herbs you have will do.
Stir thoroughly then add the pasta and stir well again to get it all covered in sauce.  We had S'bury's basics penne - the grooves hold the sauce nicely and it's v. frugal at a mere 17p for 500g dried product - that's even better than Aldi or Lidl can manage!
Ensure it's heated through thoroughly then add your prawns.  I buy the S'bury's basics frozen 300g bags at £2 a go.  As long as you don't overcook them they're fine, just smaller.  (Hence if overcooked they'll a) vanish and b) turn hard - yeurgh!)  It means that for that price I don't mind adding a large handful - I love prawns!!  [I also know myself and after defrosting while they're sat on the side waiting to go into the pan we seem to magically lose half of them - very odd it is...]
Cook only enough to just heat them *through then add the spinach and turn it into the pasta and sauce, cover the pan and remove from the heat.  Let stand for a bare minute to wilt the spinach.
Serve and sprinkle with grated cheese and a good few twists of black pepper on top.  Voilà!!  Shouldn't have taken too long so now feel free to go collapse and chillax.
*Obviously using your common sense where seafood and the heating / cooking thereof is concerned.  I accept nowt &c &c...
If you don't have spinach use whatever you have; adding at the right point so it gets cooked.  EG - if it's calabrese I'd add for the last 2 mins of the pasta cooking time and thereafter drain it etc all together.  Treat this as a vague guideline suggestion type iof thing and ensure you have value pasta and a jar of sauce in the cupboard for those times and you're away.

So many potential posts, so little time...

Where to start? Hmm - chronological order always has a certain something about it don't you think? Lol.

This then was an adapted risotto dish I made on the Saturday prior to Chap's son arriving on the Monday. I'd fancied trying Risotto Milanese for a while - I love risotto and the Milanese variant was the first dish I had at the Chap's peres - me being a pescatarian really threw them so his dad looked this up especially and it was gorgeous. It's a fairly basic risotto flavoured with saffron and parmesan. We however were quite hungry on Saturday so I adapted the recipe I had from the BBC Good Food website and bulked it out with some additional veg to end up with the dish below.

Risotto Milanese-ish

2 small onions finely chopped

50g butter
8ish mushrooms finely sliced
250g / 8ozish risotto rice [sort-grained; pudding stuff also works]
0.25 pint white wine

2 good pinches saffron strands

1 pint veg stock

Cupped handful broccoli florets

75g / 2-3ozish parmesan + few shavings to top

S+P as needed

Gently melt half the butter in a wide based deepish frying pan.

Add the onions and stir then cover whilst you slice the mushrooms.

Add the mushrooms to the pan and cook gently for few minutes to soften. Keep the lid on to keep in all the nice mushroomy juices.
Once the onion and shrooms are lightly cooked add the rice and stir it all around to coat in the butter and juices.

Add the wine and turn the heat up. Simmer to evaporate off the alcohol, just leaving the wine taste behind.

Add the saffron and a splosh [1/4 pint ish] of stock. Stir until the stock has been absorbed - the heat should be enough to keep a gentle simmer going.

Add another splosh of stock and stir until absorbed.

Repeat until almost all stock used - should be 15-20 mins for all of it. [Risotto rice (arborio) should end up creamy with a hint of bite left to it.]

With the last splosh or 2 of stock add the broccoli florets so they get 3ish mins cooking.

Beat in the remaining butter and the parmesan. Taste and season if necessary.

Serve with a few shavings of parmesan sprinkled over the top.

This was tasty and more than enough for the 2 of us, even ravenous as we were. I think the saffron was lost a bit under the mushroom taste but it was nice to give it a try.

Risotto is one of those p*ss easy dishes that actually don't take that long if you don't subscribe to the 'one ladleful at a time' school of stock-addition; which I don't. Just don't walk away from it - it must have constant stirring or you'll end up with a sticky mass burnt onto the bottom of the pan!

Woop - finally got this to post, albeit minus the pic. That's up there ^ see? Blogger does like to test me sometimes...

Celeb chef Italian

So on Thursday we chose Italian for dinner at Jamie's Italian on Black Lion Street in Brighton. This is a Jamie Oliver place but contrary to my expectations it wasn't too exorbitantly priced (for the area) and was in fact very good food. Service was good apart for a long wait to start with before our drinks order was taken.
Being completely incapable of choosing [I can be very indecisive when it comes to picking off menus if there's a modicum of things I can actually go for. And I mean very indecisive!] I actually went for 2 starter portions of different pasta dishes. I was very happy to see squid ink pasta on the menu; squid ink is one of those things I've been keeping an eye out for, in order to try it. This was Scallop with Squid Ink Angel Hair and the pasta was divine. Somehow I expected the squid ink to have a fairly intense flavour - down to the strong colour I suppose. It was in fact far more subtle than I expected and really rather good. Eating with 5 others; all meat eaters [variously tucking into pheasant, pork belly and lamb] it was pronounced the best dish at the table. Angel hair is like an even thinner spaghetti so when it's coloured black as this one was it can look quite odd but trust me - this is well worth going for if you should stumble across it on a menu. The scallops were gorgeous as scallops always are; they were sliced and scattered over the top so you didn't get masses of them but this was the starter portion.
I should mention that we were all trying each other's dishes - although not the meat for me. The Braised Fennel side was also very good but the chips; I have to say, weren't a patch on HFW's on my recent visit to the River Cottage Refectory.
The second pasta dish was the Mushroom Panzerotti. A lovely dish in it's own right although it couldn't compete with the squid number. This panzerotti was basically a large crescent shaped ravioli thing - think pasta parcel. It was served with gremolata which I have to admit to not knowing what it was but our resident Italian speaker at the table cleared that up for me. This version had tomato notes as well as being topped with fried sage - deffo a chef-y touch that IMO did nothing for the actual dish.
All in all if you like Italian I don't think you'd be disappointed there but that comes with the caveat that I have never actually been to Italy to sample the cuisine in it's home environs, as it were. I had a lovely and filling meal although you may have noticed there are no photos of it.
That however will have to be a story for tomorrow...