Les Perez touchdown in London

Some dear friends of ours are visiting from Australia and last night I cooked dinner for about eight of us. Congregating around a big table with old friends with plenty of food and booze is most definitely one of the nicer things in life - my kitchen is too small for me to go all Babette's Feast, so dinner had to be a very simple affair.

With my ice cream maker in storage somewhere in Cricklewood, this summer I've been getting into cheats homemade ice cream. My mum used to make this in the late 80s by mixing some cointreau and a smashed up Flake with shop bought vanilla ice cream.

I made two types using some of the alcohol collecting dust at the back of our liquor shelf - the more we drink now, the less Jasmine T will have to hand when she starts mixing up her own cocktails. I have some Frangelico which I'm going to mix with chopped hazelnuts and Drambuie which I'm going to soak some raisins in before adding to the ice cream.

Cheats ice cream

What you need

2 large flat plastic containers

2L shop vanilla ice-cream (best you can afford)

couple handfuls chopped roasted hazelnuts

couple handfuls of raisins

3 tablespoons Drambuie

3 tablespoons Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur)

ice cream cones (less washing up)

The do

Place raisins in a bowl and add the Drambuie, leave to soak for a couple of hours.

Take the ice cream out of the freezer and leave out for around 10 minutes. Transfer the ice cream into the plastic containers add the ingredients and mix in with a rubber spatula. Put the lids on and return to the freezer.

You can do this with anything - fruit, chocolate, nuts. Just bear in mind that adding too much alcohol will prevent your ice cream from freezing.

For dinner (serves 8): boil up two packs of angel hair pasta, then 3 minutes before the pasta is ready, throw in a bag of frozen peas and half a bag of broad beans. In a separate small pan, gently heat a big glug of olive oil with some thinly sliced garlic for a minute or so. When the pasta is done, drain it, add the garlic oil, then toss the whole lot with the juice of a lemon, a handful of chopped mint, a handful of torn basil, two handfuls of parmesan and two packs of crumbled feta cheese. Season with olive oil, salt and pepper and marvel at the quivering mountain of steaming pasta before you.

Tunes
Alas I cannot swim Laura Marling

Gratin tombé

Today I decided to make a sweet root vegetable gratin of potato, pumpkin and sweet potato. Seemed like a simple enough idea...until I discovered that my sweet potato was one of those white yammy ones (SO inferior to the orange ones). Grrr!
Nevertheless, I soldiered on, lovingly applying thin slices of a third of a pumpkin, 1 red onion, 6 small potatoes, 1 sweet potato (imposter) and thyme to a baking dish. Then in a measuring jug I whisked up with a fork 200ml of milk and 200ml cream, 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard, 1 crushed garlic clove and a big handful of grated Parmesan, poured this over the top and sprinkled a layer of breadcrumbs over the top and a bit more Parmesan for good measure. Then I baked this at 180 for about 1-1 1/2 hours.

The thing about my personality sometimes is that while I can be quite meticulous in constructing a dish I can be equally careless when it comes to oven handling. I pull things out of our oven one-handed in the most precarious and dangerous fashion. Usually when I pick it up I know it's going to be fine, but sometimes I know I'm in trouble and I still don't stop...



Voila!

The 5-second rule prevails, plus it didn't even touch the floor anyway, so I scraped it up and re-baked it with a new breadcrumb layer. And it was delicious - creamy, earthy vegetables with hints of thyme and Mr Muscle.

tasty little italian gnudies

Gnudi. Not only exciting to chow down on but also such a lovely word. Where gnocchi sounds a little crusty, gnudi is cute, happy and lyrical. Say gnudi repeatedly and you sound like a slightly constipated teletubby (which is probably how I looked after eating my way through Italy for ten days in February).



The best thing in Rome was not the food but the Forum - like walking through a crumbling world of giants. But Tuscany - ah, sweet Tuscany - proved the hands down shizzle for veggie hearts: postcard pretty and filled with dee-li-shus dishes every town, every truck stop. Two standout meals were ricotta and spinach gnudi with sage and butter in Florence and a pureed radicchio ravioli with leek in a village in Chianti. Tonight I'm flying with the gnudi and am well into peas at the moment so throwing them into the mix too.

What you need for 2-3
250g ricotta
250g small spinach leaves
100g finely grated parmesan
grated nutmeg (roughly a teaspoon)
3 eggs (2 whole, 1 yolk only)
Around 250g semolina flour
A bunch of sage leaves
100g butter
a couple of handfuls of fresh peas


Making it
Cook, drain and chop the spinach (you'll get most of the water out using Chew's sushi mat technique). Dump the ricotta into a bowl, break it up a little then mix in two whole eggs, followed by the third yolk (discard the white). Add the spinach, nutmeg and parmesan, season the lot and combine well.


Shake semolina flour into a tray, shape your gnudi mix into balls (mine were a generous teaspoon each) and roll them in the flour. You can cook the gnudi immediately or make them ahead of time and leave them covered in the fridge. They'll firm up and absorb the semolina to form a nice little jacket.

When you are ready to rumble, drop the dumplings into boiling water for a few minutes (until they rise to the surface). Meanwhile, boil your peas for a minute. Melt the butter in a pan and add the sage to crisp, careful not to let the butter burn, then add the peas. When the gnudi is done, use a slotted spoon to get them onto the plate then pour the butter, peas and sage over the top. Dig in with a nice big glass of Italian red.

holidays at home

Aside from being bombarded with every single minute detail of the American presidential election until November, 2008 already looks to be throwing some fine shapes: next month alone I'll be eating my way through Fes and Italy. I happily saw out 07 in London (the capital is quite endearing when there's no one in it) and, unlike Chew, with no Christmas dinner duties I had time to venture to markets out of my hood and indulge in some lingering home cooking.



The Slow Food Market on the South Bank on December 23rd was light on for action (perhaps unsurprisingly). But the mushroom man from Stoke Newington's Farmers' Market was there and I picked up a huge bag of mixed wild mushies to accompany a gnocchi recipe from Chew's fab birthday pressie last year, Antonio Carluccio's Complete Mushroom Book.

Gnocchi with Horn



I'm not kidding, that's what Carluccio calls this recipe. He is referring to the type of mushroom - Horn of Plenty - but any wild ones will taste so delicious that eating it may very well give you the horn.

For the gnocchi
800g floury potatoes, peeled and chopped for boiling
200g plain flour
1 beaten egg
Salt'n'peppa

For the sauce
Loads of fresh, clean wild mushies (he says 500g mix of Horn of Plenty and Chicken of the Woods, I chucked in a big mixed bag)
20g dried ceps or other dried wild mushrooms
Olive Oil
30g butter (the recipe says 55g but I thought it was a little rich)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
150ml dry white wine
A handful of chopped fresh parsley
Freshly grated parmesan


Making it

Boil and drain the potatoes, making sure all water is steamed off (let them dry out a bit over the heat if you want). Mash them finely - roughly by hand and then in a food processor if necessary. Mix with the flour and beaten egg on your bench and roll into a dough. Keep loads of flour on hand because the dough is quite sticky. Roll out into sausages and cut into desired chunks (about 2 x 2.5 cm). Leave to rest on a clean, floured cloth.



For the sauce, chop all the mushrooms into strips. Soak the dried ones for 20 minutes then chop them finely, reserving the water. Melt the butter in olive oil then fry the chopped onion on a low heat to soften. Add the mushrooms and cook slowly for about 15 minutes. Add some of the dried mushroom water and the wine and reduce for another ten minutes. Just before serving, mix in the parsley, some salt and lots of cracked pepper.

Cook the gnocchi dumplings in salted boiling water until they float to the surface then chuck them in the sauce.

Shake it all about, add some parmesan and dig in.

Lily Vs Chew Iron Chef

CHEW: A while back Lily and I did our weekly food shop together at Borough market. Lily came up with the bonza idea of Iron Chef-ing each other - buying each other an ingredient we'd never really cooked with before.

LILY: I went for the lazy approach, picking something for Chew that I'd often bought with good intentions just to watch shrivel into a moulding heap on my kitchen windowsill because I didn't know what to do with it: Jerusalem Artichoke.

CHEW: I'd always meant to give Jerusalem artichokes a go, but for some reason I never got around to it. So when Lily, with an evil glint in her eye, handed me a brown paper bag containing this knobbly root vegetable I was secretly pleased. Never one to step down from a challenge, I then made a beeline for the weird mushroom shop, where I knew I would find something that would really freak Lily out.

LILY: Chew managed to dig out something so impossible to get to know it didn't even have a wikipedia entry. The sign said Baba de Fratta, an exotic name for a limp bunch of tentacles, like the flailing arms of green sea anemone. The first bite was weird: crunchy, salty, grassy and juicy all at once. 'Good boiled in salads,' was all I could get out of the greengrocer.



CHEW: After a little Google action, I learnt a few things about this knobbly little root vegetable.
1. It has no link to the globe artichoke
2. It is also known as a sunchoke
3. Jerusalem artichokes cause huge amounts of gas (!)

My search results yielded some salads and soups but they all lacked wow-factor. I couldn't enter a cook-off with Lily and make plain old soup. Finally a recipe for Jerusalem artichoke souffle from the Riverford website caught my eye, mainly because I've never attempted a souffle before and it sounded fancy.

LILY:On d-day I was drooling all over Carluccio's (with my seaweed in my handbag) and I thought, hell's bells, I'll kick this thing with a fancy pizza. Thin crust with baba, gorgonzola, procini mushrooms and some truffle-infused dried berries (an idea I stole from my sister in law, Mish). Surprisingly, it worked, with the saltiness of the green matching the earthier porcini and truffle (although I am sure there are far less heavy handed ways of using this green to lend an interesting flavour).



CHEW: The big day. Lily and Adam are due to arrive in an hour's time. I get all my ingredients together and turn on the scales.
Nothing happens.
Flashing battery icon.
ARRRGHHH! Battery-operated scales seemed such a good idea. I should have known they would have a drawback.

Usually I would push on despite the setback but my limited knowledge of souffle making has taught me that precision is the key. All of a sudden it was meet-the-neighbours time. Maybe we should have done this years ago, but this being London we were afraid they'd answer the door naked with a machete. Five minutes later we knew one thing about all our neighbours - they don't own kitchen scales.

Time for Plan B. I sent my faithful apprentice to the local shop for some new provisions.

LILY:If I hadn't bumped into Mr Chew running around Sainsbury's Express like a headless chook (while I too scrabbled for forgotten ingredients), I would have been none the wiser to Chew's last minute kitchen dramas. Her Jerusalem Artichoke Dauphinoise was the ants pants, with the lemony artichokes offsetting the richness of the cream a treat. Better than its potato brethren I reckon.

CHEW: Lily really pulled out the big guns with her gourmet pizza. The crunchy/saltiness of the Barba worked in perfect harmony with the creamy robustness of the gorgonzola, and the truffle/berry combo was like a party in my mouth.

LILY:Chew's bloke -- vastly more patient and linguistically advanced than I -- did a more thorough google search at the dinner table and so we realised the actual spelling of my Mediterranean vegetable is Barba di Frate (friar's beard). And, yes, it does rate a mention on wikipedia after all.

IRON CHEF RECIPE 1: Jerusalem Artichoke Bake

What you need
3 big potatoes thinly sliced
a handful of Jerusalem artichokes thinly sliced
1 cup of cream
parmesan, grated
rosemary and thyme, chopped

The do
Preheat oven to 180
If you're short on time like I was, parboil the potatoes and jerusalem artichoke until semi cooked. Drain. Butter up an A4-sized oven tray and spread a thin layer of potato and artichoke on it. Splash on some cream, cheese, pepper a tiny bit of salt, then some of the chopped herbs. repeat twice. Finish off the top layer with a good layer of cheese and place in oven. It is ready when a fork goes right in and the cheese goes crunchy. Serve it like you never even heard of souffle - surround it with good green leaves and crusty bread.


IRON CHEF RECIPE 2: Barba di Frate Pizza

What you need

A pizza base (however you like it) and enough of the following to load it with:
Olive oil
Raisins or dried berries
Porcini mushrooms (wash and soak them as directed)
Fresh mushrooms – regular or you could go oyster or shiitake
A sloppy chunk of gorgonzola (be sure to lick the plastic wrap clean – it’s all about keeping your rubbish green)
Truffle oil
That crazy baba shit

Doing It

Turn your oven on to 210C. Brush your base with olive oil. Be sure to wash your porcinis good before you soak them cos grit is shit. Place the berries in a bowl then douse them in truffle oil and mix them all about. Clean your baba, chop off its roots, dunk it in salted boiling water for a couple of minutes then rinse it with cold. Slice the fresh mush thin and put it on your base, followed by baba (probably best chopped but I went big and flamboyant). Toss your berries and porcini on top with lots of fresh, grated pepper. Slop on some big wads of gorgonzola then zap it all in the oven for… ahem, this all happened so long ago I honestly can’t remember. But, you know, cook it till it’s pizzarific. And try to keep your mouth closed while munching.

ravishing Ravioli and comely cupcakes

Guy dropped into our new flat on Saturday evening then we strolled to his for dinner. I say this because it's amazing to be able to walk between houses in London at all, it's so huge, rather than it being some sort of progressive dinner party (especially given all I offered by way of nibbles was a bag of twiglets).

When we arrived at Guy's he pulled out the kitchen stadium big guns; scrumptious potato, rosemary and parmesan ravioli with wild mushrooms followed by his signature dessert: cup cakes (this time, Lemon Four Ways). Adam and I waddled home trashed and very, very full.



Here are Guy's recipes, straight from the horse's mouth (with a few editorial changes so they make sense). It looks stupidly long but, remember, we are making pasta, sauce and dessert from scratch, people!! So deep breaths and leave your ADHD at the door...

Both the pasta recipe and filling were adapted from Giorgio Locatelli’s Made in Italy: Food and Stories. You will get four decent serves.

For the pasta:

500gm strong flour
3 eggs
2 extra egg yolks
salt
Olive oil

Making it:

Make a well in the flour and mix in the eggs, first with spoon then your hands. I also then push a small hole into the dough and fill it with olive oil and knead for about 10 minutes until well combined. Cover in a damp cloth and sit for 30 minutes.

Roll out with a pasta maker (or rolling pin). Cut into circles to make ravioli pockets.

For the filling:

200gm potatoes
100gm paremesan cheese (grated)
100gm butter
Sprig rosemary
Salt and pepper to season

Making and cooking the ravioli:

Chop, boil, drain and mash the potatoes. Melt the butter with the rosemary sprig in it then remove the rosemary. Add the melted butter and grated cheese to the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper and combine. Fill the ravioli circles using either a mould or buy placing a blob of filling onto the centre of one side of your circle, then folding it over and pressing the edges together. Locatelli added a mint leaf to each ravioli which I did not.

You can make the ravioli ahead of time. Just cover them and put them in the fridge until you need them.

When the sauce is five to ten minutes away, drop the ravioli into boiling, salted water (a few at a time.) Let them rise to the surface then carefully ladel them out with a slotted spoon and place them in dishes.



For the sauce:

Olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
A few sprigs of fresh thyme
1 cup red wine
1/2 cup of veggie or mushroom stock
Salt and pepper to season
3 lots of fancy mushrooms. I chose enoki, oyster and some orangey ones (girolle). Choose them for looks. I like enoki as they taste great and have an interesting texture.
Grated parmesan to serve



Heat some oil, add crushed garlic, then the mushrooms and thyme. Add the more robust mushrooms first (enoki only go in for a few minutes at the end). Once the first mushrooms are starting to soften, add 1 cup of red wine, follwed by some stock and salt and pepper. Cook for no longer than 10 minutes so they don't shrivel too much, but enough to reduce and thicken the sauce.



CUPCAKES: LEMON FOUR WAYS



For the cupcakes:

125gm butter
125gm flour
125gm caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
3 teaspoons vanilla
3 eggs
Zest of two lemons

Making them:

Beat the eggs, sugar, lemon zest and vanilla together. Mix in the sifted flour and baking powder. Melt the butter and stir it into the mix. Divide the mixture between 12 cupcake moulds. Bake for 8 mins at 180C. (For a base cupcake recipe, omit the lemon zest.)

Once baked, I drizzled the cupcakes with lemon syrup (heat the juice of 2 lemons with 150g of sugar until the sugar dissolves) and then made a cut in the cupcakes and filled them with lemon curd.



For the frosting:

125 gm butter
small box of icing sugar (500 gm)
vanilla
Juice and zest of 1 lemon

Whisk all the ingredients together until fluffy. You can cut down on butter and add milk or water if it is too buttery.