Linguine alle vongole

I have a problem with this food blogging lark. Don't whoop with joy Toby, I'm not giving up. It's just that I start out with the very best intentions, commence cooking and then forget to take the pictures. As you may have noticed, this is not a problem Toby suffers from... I am starting to wonder if he has a photographer discreetly concealed in his kitchen.

So here are my linguine alle vongole. Heavy on the clams. Light on the pictures.

On Friday evening I had a desperate desire to be on holiday. And holiday for me means Italy, the sea, ice cold white wine or a bright orange aperol spritz, fresh anchovies, sunbathing on a rocky beach, and linguine with clams. Their glossy olive oily, winey juices are the stuff that my holiday dreams are made of.

Yes, I know it's Spanish, but it was the best I could do...

First stop, chez Guy, Paris' best fishmonger. His shop, on the rue Montorgueil in the 2nd is actually called Soguisa if you are looking for it. But he is Guy, so to me chez Guy it is. I am actually convinced that he is my best friend (sorry Tobes...).  It's a bit like Audrey Hepburn explaining that nothing bad could ever happen to you at Tiffanys. To me, nothing bad could ever happen chez Guy. Although I am starting to think his affections are wavering. Last week he gave his phone number to my mother...

Anyway, I digress. Chez Guy I buy a huge bag of clams, plucked that morning from the Normandy waters. When I ask if they were fished that morning, Guy replies "affirmative Bébé." He calls me Bébé. Don't ask.

In italian they are vongole, in French palourdes and in English, well just make sure they are the big, fat ones, not the tiny winkle variety. Other ingredients: De Cecco Linguine or Spaghetti, dried red chilli (practically the most important thing in my condiment's cupboard - sorry, I don't really have a condiment's cupboard), garlic, flat leaf parsley, white wine (or white vermouth - handy for a concurrent martini if you fancy) and olive oil.

As soon as you get home, plunge the clams into a bowl of cold water. Every five minutes or so, drain them and start again. Do this about five times to get rid of any sand.

Boil a large quantity of salted water in your biggest pan. When it is heaving like the Med on a stormy day, add the linguine. Simultaneously, fry finely sliced garlic and a pinch of dried chill in a large frying pan. When the garlic is golden, add the drained clams, sloosh a large glass if white wine over them and clamp on the lid so that the steam can't escape. Steam them open for about 5 minutes. When you lift off the lid, you will be in Positano, I promise.

By this time, your linguine should be cooked al dente. Drain, add a sloosh of olive oil, a pinch of salt, a handful of chopped parsley and the clams. Their juices should suffice to coat the pasta and provide that glossy olive oily, winey sauce that this dish is famed for.

Kate, Positano, Paris, June 2013

Dinner parties

So how best to dazzle at a dinner party? Ingredients? Place settings? Cocktails? Well actually cocktails do go down a treat, but I think the best way to show off is to make it all appear effortless, and that means little or no last minute prep.  I won’t be found making soufflés or frying individual steaks or steaming fish.  My basic, and if I may so, flawless, rule is only ever have one time critical component in a dinner.  This menu has none, so I’m not reliant on cooking devices, skills or guests for the timings all going smoothly, which means being relaxed and actually enjoying the whole process.  I fed eight here I think, with about an hour of prep and two hours of cooking before anyone else turned up.

Cured ham, honeyed figs and bits

This is a simple assembly, but a careful tease of flavours and textures. A really rich, greasy Palm style ham is needed – mine was a thick cut Serrano, but that was because I had been in Spain.  To contrast with the charcuterie, the figs get a light roasting after being brushed with reduced honey – just a hint of sweetness is required.  A soft texture and savoury note is provided by a very soft goat’s cheese and hazlenuts add crunch. The leaves get dressed with the syrup from cooking the figs cut with a little lemon juice, but I think they’re really just dressing.  As are the borage flowers – although they are surprisingly nice with the cheese.

It’s really a great starter.  These sort of things should not be fridge cold, so can be assembled well ahead of the off.  In a few mouthfuls you get a wide variety of strong and precise flavours from savoury to sweet and textures from soft to crunchy.  So that’s pretty much all of them then. I don’t doubt Kate would serve this on one of her cheerful dive-in-and-help-yourself-platters…but can guests really be relied upon to get the balances just so?

Italian Roast Lamb

So, here’s the graft part, but it’s really not that difficult and produces massive wows…

To tunnel bone the leg (not butterfly it and truss it up again like most butchers do), you work a paring knife carefully around the bone from the exposed knuckle. The meat will come away, and eventually you get to the knuckle with the shank bone, which you can then work around until you can cut it free…

I stuffed this one with some spinach, herbs, garlic, anchovies and pine nuts for a very traditional Italian feel.  It will retain its shape…

Lamb and anchovies? Yes! Just do it.  To finish, insert slivers of garlic, rosemary and more anchovies into the lamb flesh and season lots. 

It needs cooking to an Italian finish because of the stuffing, which is more well-done than usual.  I cook it slow and with half of bottle of white in there, some onions and more garlic.  Cook for about two hours in a medium oven I guess.

This can rest for ages, so I get it out before dealing with guests, maybe an hour before I want to serve.  The liquor from the pan gets reduced a bit, and then into it loads of beans, oven dried tomatoes and parsley.  That’s one instant side dish!  This time Cannellini beans, but other beans are available.

The other side dishes are equally straightforward; roast new potatoes and fennel, simply tossed in olive oil and baked… The work pays off at the table, easy, fast carving and maximum show off points!

 Tira Mi Su

Well.  It’s the signature dish, so I had to do it (and I know Kate has nothing to live with this), but on the other hand I really don’t want to give it away.  I know this going to sound pretentious, but it’s true (and maybe I am anyway – writing this stuff at all is pretty self-indulgent)…anyway, so I learned this in a basement in Florence twenty years ago…There, said it.  This is really nothing like how you get it in restaurants even in Italy - it won’t stand up and you can’t cut it with a cake slice, and there are no sponge fingers in it.

I can’t get the biscuits we had in Florence, so I’m using Langue du Chat ones here.  They taste almondy like Savoiardi sponge fingers but are hardy and much thinner.  In the end result, they will leave very little texture, but a strong taste of what they have been dipped in. 

So, the cream.  Separate five eggs.  Beat the yolks with 50g of caster sugar and then fold 500g of mascarpone into that.  Whip the 5 egg whites until stiffish and fold the two mixtures together. The result is an airy cream that is pourable.

Having got your display bowl of choice, put a glass of Marsala wine on a plate, and espresso coffee in another once cool (makes handling much easier).  In Florence, we used Vin Santo, in any event, no fruity liquers. Dip biscuits in the booze and make a layer in a bottom of the bowl.  Cover this in half the cream and then lay biscuits dipped in coffee on top, and top that layer with the rest of the cream.  Refrigerate (the longer the better). Dust with best quality coco powder and serve (by spooning generously).

I can’t believe I’ve given this away…

Toby, Hampshire, June 2013

190 miles from shore

Maybe I've had a bit too much time on my hands, and certainly haven't done a whole lot of sophisticated catering but I've been thinking about two important things about food while spending five days sailing, including crossing the Bay of Biscay.

First off, on this sort of trip one can of course try and live on ham cheese and biscuits.  It's a lot easier  than dealing with a hot pan and boiling water while being thrown around by the ocean, so why bother trying to make decent food?

Well, there's nutrition  I suppose, but we were hardly likely to get scurvy in this time away. No, it's more about community, the team. Making food for each other (in turns) is an expression of care and respect I think, and isn't that the essence of hospitality, and what we do every time we offer to feed someone. In this crew experience, where the three of us really are putting our lives in each others hands, that communion is all the more significant.

So every day one of us would wrestle with the challenges of one pot one knife cooking (should have bought a chopping board), handling boiling water while bobbing around and discovering we have no salt (my fault, but thank heaven for the seasoning qualities of chorizo).  So we would have dinner together every evening, and afternoon tea with a selection of Portugese delicacies every afternoon. And, largely because of where we were no doubt, it was all terrific.

The Italians and French might get all excited about their terroirs and DOCs, but the experience of consumption is just as important to the experience... A bitter shandy after a bike ride, a sausage on a beach (previously stated BBQ rules don't apply), a backpack sweated sandwich at the top of a just hiked hill. These are all things that I know are always intensely memorable to me, but I'm pretty confident I'm not alone in having these sensation triggers.  Holidays too of course, and hasn't everyone experienced that surprise that your favourite local wine seems to lose quite a bit in being transported home?

Eating is a sensation about more than food, it's about people and the experience. No deli can sell you the intense, uniqueness of these fleeting moments. So, a sort of recipe - baked white beans, fried  chorizo, rocket, drizzle of lemon, scattered with croutons (yes, I made croutons). Serve 190 miles from shore, winds 25mph from the South West, Sea State Moderate. Delicious.

Toby, somewhere 190 miles from shore, sometime in June

Friday night Italian

Ok, so clearly I had better up my game. Toby has moved into fully fledged food photographer mode whilst I have nothing to show for my last few week's culinary efforts.

Until now... Friday night Italian (with a little help from the French - I couldn't find an Italian to pose with the linguine but I found a handy Frenchman to fill in instead).

A little salad of nectarines, mozzarella, rocket, Parma ham and pine nuts to start.

This is construction cooking at its best. There is no real cooking to speak of at all in fact. If you really insist you can toast the pine nuts in a frying pan. Beware ! They "turn" very quickly and before you know it your teeny bag of fearfully expensive pignoli may be a lot darker than you intended. As for the rest, a small amount of slicing, a bit of scattering, some slooshing (of your best olive oil and balsamic vinegar) and you're all done and ready to move onto the next course : crab linguine.

The ingredients' list is gloriously short: linguine (De Cecco or similar), a pinch of dried chilli, one clove of garlic, a tin of crabmeat, a handful of rocket or flat leaf parsley and one lemon.

Boil masses of salted water in your biggest pan. (I lived in Italy for a while and was always amazed to see pans that I would have only used for a stew for ten being hauled out on a nightly basis for spaghetti for two.) Whilst the linguine is cooking, slice the garlic finely and add it with a pinch of dried chill to a hot frying pan with some olive oil. When it's golden, add the crabmeat, some finely chopped lemon rind, the juice of the lemon and warm gently. When the spaghetti is cooked drain it, keeping about a tea-cup full of the cooking water. In your huge pan mix together the linguine, the rocket, a good sloosh of olive oil and of the cooking water, plenty of salt and pepper and your warmed crab mixture.

Eat whilst drinking the crispest, coldest white you can find and listening to Italian pop music. Or at least that's what I do...

Kate, Paris, 14th June

Midweek BBQ

So, the sun continues to shine, friends are coming over, what can be achieved in 90 minutes after work?  Well, still not flipping burgers or sausages. So...

Half shoulder of BBQ lamb, again, cooked indirectly, with the coals on one side, and the meat on the other, with the lid on the kettle for maybe 50 minutes.  I make deep cuts in the meat to get the spice rub in and to make it easier to cut.

The rub is similar, whatever takes my fancy really, but it doesn't need the sugar that was on that delicious chicken, lamb is fatty and will caramelise anyway. Today's rub was heavy on paprika which gives a lovely colour.

Special sauce is the house favourite with this lamb, and it's so good I'm a bit loathe to give it away...lets just say that anchovies, capers, a little mustard and a little chilli really super charge a mint sauce!

As ever, I think the BBQ side dishes should be the stars really, and people are all the more impressed if you can manage more than iceberg lettuce...

Brown rice salad. Not chosen for healthiness, that's just a convenient by-product, but for the nuttiness, it's really nice cold like this. Honest. I roasted some butternut squash and cauliflower with cumin, and tossed them with the rice, pistachio nuts and lots of parsley. A fruity vinaigrette with tahini ties it all together.

Collapsed tomatoes with anchovy dressing. So, quartered tomatoes, some thyme and half an hour in a warm oven go soft and sweeter, while still holding their shape.  The dressing sounds overpowering but pound the fish with garlic then add oil and maybe a bit of lemon juice and season to taste, and you have a colourful, zingy and bold, salad dish. Loads of basil on top. Does not taste of fish!

Homemade humus. A blender, some pulsing of the ingredients and you're done. Honestly there's no excuse not to...some nice hot peppers spice this up a treat.

So, with the cooking, turning the meat, but only a couple of times, that's pretty much my ninety minutes up... No pudding then?

Frozen fruit salad

I have to thank Danny Baker's radio show for this idea. They were discussing why there isn't grape ice cream...

Freeze grapes and you get something like a sweet sorbet, in it's own convenient container.  I was blown away when I first tried it, so this time did the same with some kiwi. I guess it would work with any wet fruit.  

So frozen grapes, frozen kiwi and then dressed with fresh passion fruit (not frozen). It's fruity, and almost creamy with the contrast of the rich passion fruit...amaretti biscuits on the side.  A standout desert in less time than it would take to scoop ice cream from a tub!

Toby, Hampshire, 7th June 

On Barbeques

Hope triumphs over experience so often, and never more so than when catering moves outside and charcoal smoke billows over our gardens and terraces. A multitude of little bits of meat getting the flame grill treatment, all ready at different times, brought together by that slightly acrid taste of ash.  It’s not much more fun for the host either – stood there, flipping and flipping, wondering why some food stuffs start flaming, is that blackened sausage really cooked and why do I smell like a bonfire.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not being a grinchy stick in the mud about this, I like eating and socialising in the sun, and I’m not afraid to be out of the carefully controlled environment of my kitchen.  I just don’t like hanging around in the smoke and flipping things. I want it to be easy, and for everyone to eat together, rather than one cremated sausage at a time.  So in the interests of simplicity, hospitality and good eating, I’ll be cooking whole joints in the garden this year.

Spatchcock Chicken

Turn the bird upside down on the board, and cut out the backbone.  Scissors are the implement of choice for this, but a cleaver (Muppets style) is more fun.  With the backbone removed, squash the bird flat on the board and secure with a criss-cross of skewers through the leg and breast flesh.

The dry rub gives some heat and spice and a tasty skin.  Anything goes ingredient wise, as long as there is plenty of salt to make the marinating time work, and sugar so that it caramelizes during cooking giving the skin that authentic BBQ finish and smoky taste. You want a bit spice and a bit of heat -  I used toasted fennel seeds, smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic salt, cumin and coriander. The longer the bird sits in the rub the better the flavour will be as the salt helps the chicken absorb the spices.

For cooking, get the coals going in the kettle BBQ (other types are available, but not as good, and this technique relies on using the lid).  When they’re all white, move them to the edge of the kettle, leaving the middle clear.  The chicken goes skin side up over the empty part, so it cooks indirectly with the lid closed.  You can turn it over sometimes if you want more colour on the skin.  Me? I would rather spend the time with friends than flipping meat.

After about 45 minutes, check with a meat thermometer, let  the chicken rest for a bit (the BBQ can now be used for some little extras – asparagus perhaps).  It is then super easy to joint and carve.

I served this with a few salads – potato, pickled tomato, orange and goats cheese as well as some asparagus that were finished on the BBQ.  Marie Sharp’s Chilli Sauce (it’s from Belize, and apparently the best in the world according to people who know such things) was served on the side.  The meat is so succulent cooked like this that a BBQ sauce would be superfluous.

So there you are, feast for six, done in about an hour, and with a little prep.  All the fun of cooking and eating out side, without the hassles… Simple!

Toby, Hampshire, 1st June