Nife is Life got in touch with me recently and asked if they could send me some produce from their online Italian deli. After a quick peruse of their site I was keen to try out some of their goodies so when a big box of meats, cheeses, fresh Italian tomatoes and other delicacies arrived the next day I got stuck straight in.
Having raided my mum's veg patch that weekend, the first thing I made was a huge bag of spinach, walnut and pecorino "pesto". Using this as my base I did a "pesto" pasta topped with a huge creamy burrata on night one, then a spelt base pizza with "pesto", fresh mozzarella and Italian tomatoes on night two. Recipes below....
SPINACH PESTO
Large bag of spinach leaves - I used the long leaf spinach from mum's garden but any spinach will do!
Small handful of walnuts
Small handful of grated pecorino
Big glug of really good olive oil
Pepper
Put all the ingredients in a blender and whizz together. Taste and add more pecorino and pepper as needed, and add enough oil so that you get a good pesto like consistency. When it's to your liking pop into a jar, add a layer of oil and it will keep for a week or so in the fridge.
For the pasta, I cooked up some penne, stirred it in with the pesto and a bit of the cooking water, then topped it with torn up, creamy as you get burrata.
Parmigiano Reggiano is one of the world's oldest cheeses and has been produced in the same way for over nine centuries. To celebrate this delicious product I was invited to Adam Handling's restaurant The Frog, near Brick Lane, for a three course meal created using Parmesan. Both the starter and main course we had are from The Frog's regular menu, so luckily you can try these yourselves.
Our starter was cheese and truffle doughnuts, which you can barely see in the picture as they're hidden under a small fluffy mountain of grated 24 month aged Parmigiano Reggiano and black truffle. The doughnuts were sweet and light, and well complimented by the salty, rich cheese and earthy truffle.
When I think of Tuscany the first thing I think of is food. Rich meat dishes, coarse liver pate smothered on toast, unctuous bowls full of pasta, delicious olives and artichokes, glasses full of deep red wine and everything with a good dose of the best olive oil you can get - it's like the Autumn of Italy if that makes sense?! So when I was asked to come up with a recipe that was inspired by Tuscany I knew exactly what I wanted to make - a rich wild boar ragu made with liver for added flavour and served on homemade pasta with deep fried artichoke leaves to give texture, combining all my favourite Tuscan foods.
London has such a plethora of options for every cuisine you could imagine, that sometimes it's nice to be able to rely on an old school classic. Take Italian food.... in the last few weeks I've written about three or four brand new Italian joints in London. And yes, they were all good, but do you know which was the most authentic and despite being the most expensive, actually the best value for money.... the most classic of them all - Franco's in Mayfair. A place I went with my Dad when he worked in the area and it seemed the most obvious place to meet. Franco's is 70 years old and oozes the classicness of somewhere with that heritage, which in the London restaurant scene is few and far between. But that's also what makes it fun. And reliable. You know what you're getting. Good, classic, Italian food made with the finest, freshest produce available. Which is exactly what we had. Due to its location it is more of a weekday destination than a weekend one, but we went on Friday night and it was still buzzing.
We cozied down in our table for two, facing the rest of the diners for added interest. We went for the traditional four courses - starter, pasta, fish and mains. And maybe snuck a pudding in there too cos when in Rome.....
The whole menu is based around what is flown in from Italy that day so regularly changes, but keeps the favourites for those who love them. We started with the special of the day - poached lobster claw, and one of the classics, beetroot puree with steak tartare and quail's egg yolk. Both were absolutely perfect and a very good sign of things to come....
Restaurant reviews are like buses for me (kind of, bear with me....!) They all seem to come at once. Autumn last year through to late winter seemed to be an influx of invites to review Japanese, or Japanese inspired restaurants, culminating in a food and sake trip to Japan in January. In November last year I went to Tuscany for all things olive oil, and the last couple of months have been filled with invites to Italian restaurants in London. It just so happens that I love both Japanese and Italian food (in fact, I love pretty much all food) so I'm certainly not complaining, I just think it's odd that they all come at once!
So a couple of Sundays ago I took Polly with me to bask in Spring sunshine at Made of Dough in Goldhawk Road, the pizza pop up that's happening on the We Feast site, next to the railway line. As 2015 London Pizza Festival champions I had high hopes for Made of Dough, who'll be moving a permanent site in south London once their residency at Market Yard is up on 15th May.
I love it when a good new restaurant opens in West London. Although there are some great places already, we're not as saturated with good eateries as Soho, or further East. And when that new restaurant (though it's not that new anymore as I'm a bit slow with my write up) is from one of my favourite chefs, then it's even better. Theo Randall's newest venture is Theo's Simple Italian, a casual dining restaurant at boutique hotel, Hotel Indigo, which is a couple of minutes walk from Earl's Court tube station. The restaurant is relaxed, yet chic, and has a deli that sells all of the produce used in their kitchens, plus homemade pastries in the morning and cakes, charcuterie and cheeses in the afternoon, so you can go home and (try to) recreate the delicious dinner you've had there. Theo's new book 'My Simple Italian' might help too!
The food at Theo's Simple Italian focuses on using seasonal ingredients to create dishes that are vibrant and full of flavour. Everything is cooked "simply" - there are no twiddly bits or buffons of foam - just good, tasty plates of food that you'll want to go back for time and again. There's a lovely choice of Italian wines and lots of different craft beers to enjoy with as much or as little food as you fancy. The menu is divided up in to sections of plate size so you can pop in for a quick snack, or go all out and try a bit of everything, like we did! We started small (cicchetti) then worked our way through most of the rest of the menu. Cicchetti plates we tried included the totally addictive polenta chips with anchovy dressing; veal, beef and pork meatballs; calamari fritti; and the olive oil focaccia that's ridiculously good, and of course made on site.
A couple of weekends ago I had the most lovely Sunday. I'd spent Friday night and Saturday cooking for a pop up for 36 people on the Saturday night, so despite being knackered, I really wanted to get out of the flat, stretch my legs and eat some good food (that I hadn't cooked!) Bron came to mine in South West London and we then walked the four miles from there to Gastrovino, where I'd been invited to review, stopping a few times on the way for coffee, juice and to pet a donkey we passed(?!)
Gastrovino is a new Italian bar and restaurant located on the Kings Road, which is somewhere I so rarely go. We took our seats at the bench bar in the window where we people watched, chatted and ate an absolute feast of incredibly good Italian food. Gastrovino's marketing is being done by the lady who introduced me to VII Hills gin last year, so I started with a VII Hills gin and tonic, whilst Bron went for the Aper8 - aperol, St Germain, rhubarb bitters and prosecco. Both were perfectly refreshing aperitifs that kept us occupied til the food started to come out. If you go to Gastrovino and you're not fussy about what you can/can't eat then I really recommend letting the chef choose for you - he'll send out his best dishes of the day, made with the freshest seasonal produce he's had flown in from Italy and you'll be in for a treat. And as all the dishes range from £5-8 you're safe in the knowledge that you're not going to be stung price wise.
I've been very lucky recently and have spent two evenings eating very delicious food cooked by one of the loveliest chefs I've met. A couple of Tuesdays ago was my Theo Randall experience part 1 at The Intercontinental in Mayfair where I was invited for drinks, a cooking demo by Theo and a sit down four course dinner. This was followed by a very different evening the next Tuesday at his new restaurant, Theo's Simple Italian in Earl's Court, which I'll write about in a separate post.
So back to Theo part 1. A group of lots of lovely bloggers and I were invited to the newly refurbished Theo Randall at the Intercontinental. We started with drinks in the stunning bar area which has undergone a significant redesign to incorporate a sommelier’s table, where all the garnishes, bitters and mixers for the cocktails are kept. There's a revised bar menu which offers authentic and innovative Italian cocktails, including my absolute favourite, the Negroni. And the InterContinental's Negroni is one of the best I've tried. The perfect balance of bitter, citrus and punchy, I could drink far too many of these! If you want to go for drinks at the bar there's also a few small dishes and antipasti so you can go just for drinks and nibbles. But that would be silly with all the delicious main food on offer!
We headed through to the smaller of two private rooms where Theo demonstrated how to cook the perfect risotto - don't use butter to start with (it'll burn), you don't need wine if you have good stock, be generous with the stock and use the freshest of vegetables that have been pre cooked so they don't bring the cooking temperature down in the pan. Whilst he was showing us this we nibbled on deep fried polenta with chilli and anchovy, which may well be my new favourite snack, and battered courgette slices.
A few weeks ago I headed to Wandsworth with Julie for a Friday night of feasting on delicious Italian food cooked by Masterchef The Professionals finalist, Danilo Cortellini, using quality Italian produce supplied by Riso Gallo (who are one of the oldest rice growing companies in Italy). The event was held at Venturi's Table, a cookery school by day and the perfect spot for an intimate pop up dinner, as we all sat around the large table where the food was being prepped. We were welcomed with a glass of prosecco and a delicious, truffly arancini before taking our seats.
Danilo had prepared a veritable feast for us, starting with a colourful burrata filled tortellini served with raw, sweet and juicy Sicilian red prawns which cooked slightly in the smoked artichoke broth that was poured over them, all of which was washed down with a glass of Albizzia Chardonnay.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I was lucky enough to spend a couple of days in Tuscany in November with Filippo Berio, to learn more about their brand and the wonderful olive oil they produce. It was absolutely fascinating to hear about where the olives come from to make their oil (for their regular oil it's a mixture of mainly Spain, Italy and Greece) and see the production process, as well as sampling the new olive oil from November's harvest. I'm very excited that I'm going to be using the Filippo Berio Gran Cru olive oils, which are a range of three extra virgin olive oils each made with olives from just one Italian region (Puglia, Sicily or Tuscany), at my pop ups next year. The difference between the classic extra virgin and virgin olive oils and the Gran Cru range is that the Gran Cru oils have a stronger flavour, with a more peppery, grassy taste, which I'll pair with specific dishes for some of my events.
To celebrate the new olive harvest and the 'Olio Novello', which is the first Extra Virgin Olive Oil from the November 2015 harvest, Filippo Berio hosted an intimate dinner at La Cucina Caldesi, which was a four course feast cooked by Valentine Warner. The oil had been flown in especially for the event from Lucca, where Filippo Berio are based in Italy, and Val had prepared all the dishes to complement the oil.
We started with heavenly bits of bread, topped with goat's curd and a salsa verde made from the Olio Novello, capers, shallots, parsley and garlic. I had to really restrain myself around these as they were so good - salty from the capers with the peppery oil, I ate way more than I should've before the meal even started!
In between the many, many restaurant visits, writing recipes for various brands and for my own cookbook, the cooking for pop ups and catering gigs, I've had a few more random adventures recently.
