ITALIAN FOODIES

I think I’m going to complain about the weather more often as every time I do the next day ends up being really hot. So all together “THANK YOU LORRAINE”! I accept all gifts, I’m not that fussy - Gucci, Armani, D&G - I’ll leave it up to you:)

I was delighted to see an ad on TV the other night about Jamie Oliver’s new programme starting Aug 7 called “Jamie at Home” which seems to be all about simple cooking that we all can do. I think there seems to be a big shift in eating habits especially here in Ireland to more casual dining using simple ingredients. It’s taking it’s time getting to Limerick mind you but there seems to be a big craze in Dublin judging by all the reviews I’ve been reading lately. Fine dining is great for a special occasion but there is a huge gap between this and the fish and chip shop. I think the Gastro-Pub seems to fill this gap in the UK but this concept is a bit slow to take off here unfortunately, I don’t know why?? There has been a lot of complaining regarding a drop in business in the pub trade since the smoking ban so serving good, home-made food would probably be a step in the right direction - a few good cocktails wouldn’t go astray either. How hard is it to find a good Mojito in Ireland??

I know I go on about how wonderful everything is in Italy but when it comes to food and drink there is nowhere better than it, they do have their negatives too especially with the economy, politics and bureaucracy etc but to me food is more important so I always look at it with my rose tinted glasses plus I don’t live there! Take the local bar in Atina, it’s a tiny place serving the locals and you’ll get a better cappuccino or alcoholic beverage than in a lot of expensive restaurants in Ireland. When they serve their gin and tonic there are no measurements and they squeeze some fresh limes in front of you and the fresh lime juice adds a great twist. I don’t know how many times in various pubs I’ve had to ask for a slice of lemon and after the look and reaction I get I wonder was my little slice of happiness worth asking for?? In Italy just take such pride in all aspects of food and drink as they are just so passionate about it!!

So on the subject of passion here is a really easy and tasty vegetable dish to go with anything, we had it with some aged fillet from Superquinn! 

WHAT YOU NEED:

• 1 aubergine -  chopped in big chunks
• 1 courgette -  chopped in big chunks
• 1 red onion - chopped in big chunks
• 1 sweet red pepper - optional
• 5 cloves garlic- leave skin on
• 1 tin Italian cherry tomatoes or good quality fresh cherry tomatoes
• olive oil
• basil- 10 leaves, you can add some thyme or rosemary if you like.
• sea salt and black pepper.

WHAT TO DO:

 - It’s so simple, just put everything into an oven dish, season with salt and pepper and pour over some olive oil!!

 - cook for 30 - 40 mins in the oven at 200 degrees and serve.

BUON APPETITO!!!

p.s. I found a new blog through Deborah’s site recently and have been meaning to add it to my blog list for ever but of course I haven’t until now. I wouldn’t mind but Rob always leaves really nice comments and you know how much us self absorbed bloggers love comments so forgive me Rob;) Check out Rob’s blog one voice in cyberspace!

Italy are having one of their best summers ever, it’s over 30 degrees everyday, low humidity, little rain, they’re all having a smashing time - doesn’t that just brighten your day! To add to our misery we watch the Italian news and weather every evening, they seem to know we are watching because they seem to be doing a bloody feature every evening from some beach, yesterday they were at some huge pool with about a hundred bronzed Italians of all ages dancing in the pool, they’re mad into this in Italy, they always have summer songs and everybody dances in the swimming pools following a group of people on a stage. We’ve never joined in I’m afraid, a bit too cheesy for us cool, white people with a little extra grip on the hips from Irlanda.

Bruno’s sister went for 3 weeks and has decided because the weather is so nice there and so bad here she might as well stay another week, Bruno’s nephews are having a ball, they are going to a summer school where they take them on excursions in the local area and feed them good home-made Italian food and they learn some Italian too. Bruno used to go to Italy every summer from June until September,  he went every year until he was 18 - lucky thing. The furthest we got was a mobile home in Tramore or Salthill and a ride in the Twister Cups at the carnival, the future is bright for the princess.

The only thing that’s keeping us going in this weather is “HOPE”, the hope that because the weather has been so bad, it has to get better and we’re going to have a scorching August and September. I have never watched the Irish weather forecast so much in my life, I tune in every night praying for some good news. Has anyone else noticed how much smilier the weather forecasters have become, maybe they think if they have a cheesier grin it might make the blows to come easier on us - IT DOESN’T!!!

SO, in this weather all that’s left to do is eat and drink to console ourselves. We haven’t had risotto since my last post on risotto with asparagus. I’m going to repeat myself and say once again how easy it is to make. It is perceived as being really difficult and time consuming but it really isn’t. It takes about 20-25 minutes and involves a bit of stirring but the end result is so good it’s worth it. I will have both Carnoroli and Arborio rice in stock in La Cucina next week. I have a lot of new products coming including Polenta so I will do a post on them when they are in.

WHAT YOU NEED:

• 300g risotto rice - we used Arborio.
• 1 small onion
• 30g cold butter
• 1lt vegetable stock - we used fresh stock from La Cucina but you can use a stock cube if you don’t have fresh!
• sea salt and black pepper
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• freshly grated parmesan cheese
• 200ml white wine
• 50g dried porcini
• 5 mushrooms chopped

WHAT TO DO:

 - soak your porcini in boiling water for about 15 mins.

 - bring the stock to the boil and switch off.

 - heat the oil and half the butter in a pan, add the onion and cook over a low heat for about 5 mins.

 - add the rice and cook until the grains are covered in fat.

 - turn up the heat, add the wine and cook for a couple of mins until it has evaporated.

 - add a ladle of stock and cook, stirring until it has been absorbed. Keep repeating this until you have used all the stock and it has been absorbed. This will take 18-20 mins. The rice shoukd always be moist but not swimming in liquid.

 - halfway through add the porcini and the liquid.

 - in another pan heat up a little olive oil and cook your sliced mushrooms for a few minutes and add to risotto when ready. Season with salt and pepper.

 - remove from the heat and add your cold butter and parmesan.

We went all out and had a Bruschetta Al Pomodoro to start!

BUON APPETITO!!

At long last I have returned, my wireless still isn’t working so I’m sitting on the stairs in the hall connected with my life saving yellow cable! We (me and my buddies at BT) still don’t know what happened as it transpired that there was no cable fault after all that so now we are going to try a new modem at a cost to myself of course and see what happens!!! Anyway at least I have access, I wish I had better news on the dishwasher situation , I’m sure you’re all mad interested to know, it’s still not working, you wouldn’t believe how much  I miss it, two words people  - BABIES BOTTLES !!! I’m literally chained to the sink, a sight Bruno loves to see for a change:)

It was a sad week in the Italian Foodie household as the best programme ever to grace our screens came to an end. We have been big ” Soprano” addicts from the first episode and rarely missed one. Ivonne spoke about the final episode on her blog which finished a while back in Canada and I was terrified reading it that someone might give away the ending but they didn’t. Like everyone else the ending took us by surprise, the build up was great I had butterflies in my stomach (ADDICT), myself and Bru were getting all excited - will Tony die?, O my god what’s going to happen to Meadow? and then NOTHING???? We must have sat there for at least 2 minutes in silence with our mouths open and then we both went “WHAT THE FXXX?????? All that we could do was crack open a couple more bottles of Peroni and sit there and try and figure out “DID TONY GET SHOT OR WHAT????  Nothing left but “Lost” now which drives me crazy every time I watch it but I still never miss an episode!!

I was a bit lazy on the cooking front last week without my blog, my menu planning went out the window but don’t panic I’m back on the straight and narrow or else Bru will just move back in with his mother:). She’s actually off to Italy today for 5 weeks so no big Sunday lunch or dinner Wednesday and sometimes even Friday. I know, I know but she’s just the best cook and you would take advantage too if you had a personal chef who loves nothing more than cooking for the family. Since I started the blog she’s pulling out all the stops as I’m always asking her questions and have started to take more of an interest in everything she makes. It was pasta with lobster last Wednesday with lobster salad and an antipasto of parmesan and sliced mushrooms with a lemon and oil dressing, on Sunday it was home-made pasta with tomato sauce followed by roast rack of lamb with roast potatoes - DELICIOUS!!! Now you see why I will miss her!!

This rustic recipe is from last month’s Taste Italia and is very easy to prepare with simple and clean flavours.

WHAT YOU NEED:

• chicken pieces - I used organic drumsticks and thighs -4 of each
• 1 lemon sliced
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 1 sprig thyme
• 1 whole garlic - skin left on, press down on cloves with a knife to release the flavour.
• olive oil
• dry white wine
• plain flour
• sea salt and black pepper

WHAT TO DO:

 - season your chicken pieces and dip into some flour and shake off the excess.

 - heat some olive oil in a pan and cook your chicken pieces until golden brown.

 - add your herbs, lemon slices and garlic, cook for a couple of mins on a high heat and then turn down, cover and leave to cook for 20-30 mins until chicken is cooked.

 - remove your chicken and add a good splash of white wine and let the alcohol burn off and simmer for a couple of mins until liquid becomes a sauce consistency.

- serve with some patate arrosto and asparagus with parmesan(next post) on the side.

BUON APPETITO!!

My Internet connection is still down and the most frustrating part of the whole thing is that nobody knows what is wrong with it. I wouldn’t mind if there was light at the end of the tunnel but I have to wait 5 days for BT who in turn have to wait for Eircom to check the line and if that’s not the problem I then have to wait another 7 days for a new modem and if that’s not the problem then there is a chance of someone coming to the house to check it out – AGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I have to say the people at the other end of the phone a.k.a Customer Care Representatives don’t really care, it’s all lies! I’ve probably been on to them twice a day and if you ever want to feel stupid and in my case very blond ring BT for help. After the interrogation about lengths of wires, modems, routers, DSL lines etc and not knowing the answers and trying to laugh it off to a stony silence on the other end I felt like saying to one particular Customer Care Rep - let me ask you a question buddy “DO YOU KNOW HOW TO MAKE PESTO FROM SCRATCH?????I didn’t think so:)

You don’t realise how much the Internet has become a part of your daily life until you are without it and especially when you are at home with an 8 month old in this weather,  it is your only contact with the outside world -  OK a little exaggeration but I do miss it. I have abandoned her for the moment and left her with her grandmother for half an hour just so I could get my fix, I haven’t even been able to check my emails - O MY GOD!!. I’m doing this post in Bruno’s mother’s house sitting on the floor with my big yellow DSL line( I know all the lingo now) attached to their computer which is a mile away from a chair or a bed - feel sorry for me people because I’m feeling sorry for myself!!

Just a quick recipe today, god knows when I’ll be back again, after my veal post I decided I better offer a peace offering in the form of a vegetarian pasta recipe. I wasn’t going to post this as my photographs turned out really bad as you can see below and I think the photo is definitely the most important part of the post especially if I’m trying to entice people to cook the recipes. I need to invest in a good camera I think, mmmm my birthday is coming up soon  - BRUNO??? I use a basic Sony digital camera at the moment and if I take the pictures during the day when there is lots of natural light it is fine but I took the picture below at night and that was the result – BAD!

I ended up having to take a picture the next day of the ingredients above just so I wouldn’t embarrass myself too much with my bad photography. This pasta dish was really tasty and is a nice variation of the regular tomato sauce.

WHAT YOU NEED FOR 2:

• 1 tin of Italian tomatoes
• 2 tbsp ricotta cheese
• olive oil
• 6-10 fresh basil leaves
• orecchiette
• salt
• sugar
• pecorino cheese - I used this instead of parmesan as it has a much stronger flavour and complimented the dish really well but you can still use parmesan if you prefer!!

 WHAT TO DO:

 - heat some olive oil in a deep pan and add your tomatoes and salt and simmer for 20 mins.

 - bring a pot of water to the boil, add salt and your pasta and cook until al dente.

 - mash up your tomatoes with a fork and add a little sugar if the sauce is a little bitter. We used about a teaspoon.

 - add your ricotta and basil and a little more salt and let simmer for about 5 mins.

 - drain your pasta and mix altogether and grate some fresh pecorino cheese on top!

BUON APPETITO!

 - Until the next rendezvous whenever and where ever it shall be!!!

CIAO TUTTI!!

This dish is a very traditional Italian recipe which means “jump in the mouth” and is the only main course in Italian cuisine whose recipe has been officially approved and laid down in Venice by a panel of cooks in 1962! I have heard of this recipe loads of times but have never eaten it, so while reading Paul Tullio’s review last Saturday I decided this was on the menu plan for the week as he had this for his main course and loved it!!

We love veal, our favourite ways to eat it is just simply dipped in flour, eggs and breadcrumbs, fried and served with a squeeze of lemon juice -”Cotoletta alla Milanese” or Bruno’s mom’s speciality “Vitello Tonnato”, this is probably up in the top 5 of our favourite Italian dishes! It is so delicious, it’s basically veal covered in a sauce made from tuna, anchovies, capers, cream and lemon and is eaten cold. I know it sounds like a strange combination but the flavours work so well together. If you ever see it on a menu - ORDER IT!!!

Veal isn’t very popular in Ireland for a lot of reasons, even my local Superquinn have stopped stocking it as it wasn’t selling which is a shame as I had to get it delivered from the Piccola with the princess’s consignment of veal and sole. Yes, you heard me right, her Nonna(grandmother) drops out her fresh sole and veal every week. She then has veal with courgette, carrot, potato all mashed up or sole with potato, onion and peas and both with a little parmesan and olive oil added! Nothing but the best for the princess:)! 

Now for the science bit- veal or “Vitello” is meat which comes from animals that are butchered when they are very young and this is why it is so tender, they are usually butchered around 5-7 months or younger and are not very heavy. They are fed exclusively on a milk formula which explains the delicate pale pink colour of the meat. The main benefits of veal is that it cooks quickly and is easy to digest. After pork veal is the most important meat in Italian cooking.

This recipe is really simple and great for a dinner party as it looks quite impressive, I served it with a couple of baked potatoes and Ilva’s delicious VERY HERBY AUBERGINES , without the mint - I just don’t like it in cooking, now Mojitos are a different story:))

WHAT YOU NEED FOR 2:

• 4 - 5 veal escalopes
• 1 slice of proscuitto per escalope
• fresh sage leaves -  1-2 per escalope
• unsalted butter or margarine
• plain flour
• 100 ml dry white wine
• salt and pepper
• olive oil 

WHAT TO DO:

 - lay out your escalopes and beat with a meat pounder until they are quite thin - mine were a little too thick and the veal is supposed to cook quickly.

 - season with salt and pepper and lay a slice of proscuitto and 1-2 sage leaves on each escalope.

 - roll up and fasten with a cocktail stick.

 - dip in your flour and shake off excess or just sprinkle some flour on top.

 - heat a glug of olive oil and your butter in a frying pan and cook the veal over a high heat on both sides until golden brown.

 - season with a little salt, add your wine and cook until it has evaporated.

 - Remove the cocktail sticks and serve!!

BUON APPETITO!!

p.s. the sticky out sage leaves are just for effect - I needn’t have bothered:)

I read with interest Paulo Tullio’s review of an Italian restaurant in Wexford in Saturday’s Independent, he basically talked about finding authentic Italian restaurants and how difficult it is to eat a meal in Ireland like you would in Italy. I completely agree with him on this point and we actually never eat in Italian restaurants in Ireland, he says that recipes have been bastardised - cream in carbonara, pine-apple on pizza, pesto on caprese etc. Now, in defense of restaurants or take-aways like ourselves, we have to give people what they want. He said that if restaurants offered authentic Italian food that people would eat it as most Irish people who have been to Italy loved the food.

There is some truth to this but the problem is there are only so many people who have been to Italy and who would appreciate “authentic” Italian food. Unfortunately the Irish palate is centred around rich creamy sauces and as many toppings as you can get on a pizza. I’ve mentioned before when we opened La Cucina first we focused on authentic Italian food and if we had kept doing this we would have went out of business. The most important thing in food business today is volume and turnover, the facts are overheads are just so high you have to get as many people through the door as possible, this is especially true for new businesses where rents are high and you don’t own the premises. In our case this meant altering the menu to suit everybody, our customer base is so mixed ranging from students - we’re beside UL and I don’t think they are looking for authentic Italian food, workers from the local Industrial Estate, local residents, passing traffic, old, young - you name it we get it!

We would love nothing more than to go into La Cucina everyday and make food that we eat ourselves at home, this is why we started the blog really because we often feel guilty that La Cucina is not 100% authentic Italian but realistically that is not possible. I was on pasta duty last week because one of the staff was on holidays - apologies to everyone who might have had to wait a little longer than normal, I was a little out of practice and although I’m a good cook I would never make a professional chef. Bruno can cook about 10 pastas at once, I’m lucky to have 3 going at once but it’s worth the wait:). That’s why I’m left on the counter to charm the public!!

Anyway our most popular pasta is “pasta pollo” - fettucine with cream sauce and chicken. Not Italian what so ever, it is still very tasty as we make each one fresh on the pan to order - fresh chicken breast pieces, white wine, cream, parmesan, seasoning and a little besciamella. Pasta Pomodoro (pasta with home-made tomato sauce - Mary T’s favourite) doesn’t even feature, maybe 1 or 2 a night if we are lucky and this would be the preferred pasta of choice by all Italians. Actually a certain memeber of the Munster Team, I’m mentioning no names told me one time when I made his Boscaiola without cream as a healthy option that it tasted like pasta with tomato ketchup!! I know in the Piccola they used to serve their carbonara without cream but customers kept requesting it so they now add a little cream and even then a lot of customers order it with extra cream because it is too dry.

My own father is guilty of this, he eats his carbonara with extra extra cream and prefers his garlic bread as a baguette with garlic butter when we make our own Italian bread and serve it the traditional way of just rubbing some garlic on it with a drizzle of olive oil - I ask you, if I can’t change my own father what hope do I have??? Believe me he is never left to eat in peace because I’m in his ear moaning about proper carbonara, he normally tells me where to go in not so polite terms. The poor man, he has a tough life with me, he says he’s whisking the princess off to the Gaeltacht as soon as she can talk just so she doesn’t turn into a complete Italian, I even have Italian baby cd’s!

I know in the UK they have just set up some organisation, I can’t remember the name in order to protect authentic Italian cooking whereby restaurants adhering to “authenticity” are listed - Giorgio Locatelli’s restaurant is listed of course, he’s a fabulous Italian chef and he’s in the centre of London with a huge population and probably an all Italian staff, I can’t see that happening in Ireland too soon but then it took a long time for Italian food to get where it is in the UK too and they still have a lot of bad Italian franchises and Italian restaurants.

Sometimes it drives Bru mad and I don’t help either, a couple of weeks ago a company I used to work for called in with samples of frozen cakes and I ordered a couple just to try them out. One of these was an Oreo Cookie Cake, as you can imagine it was the most heavy, decadent, calorie laden cake you have ever seen, Bruno was disgusted when he saw it and didn’t want to sell it as it was as far removed from Italian cakes that you can get but we put it out anyway. We put it in the counter at 3pm and by 8pm there was 2 slices left out of 16. We have never sold a cake that fast and customers came back to buy it again so what does one do I ask????

On that note here is an Italian pasta recipe from the Silver Spoon that does use cream but as you can see the sauce should just coat the pasta and not resemble a bowl of creamy soup with a bit of pasta thrown in as a second thought!!

WHAT YOU NEED:

• 50g margarine or unsalted butter
• 100g smoked salmon chopped
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 100ml double cream
• 3 tbsp whiskey
• tagliatelle - we used De Cecco(available in La Cucina)
• salt and pepper

WHAT TO DO:

 - bring a pot of water to the boil, add salt and your pasta and cook till al dente.

 - melt the butter in a pan, add the salmon, stir and sprinkle with the lemon juice.

 - cook for a few minutes, add the cream and the whiskey and season with salt and pepper.

 - cook over a low heat for 5 mins, if it dries out or gets too thick  just add a little more cream, we did! 

 - drain your pasta, put back in the pot, add 3/4 of your sauce and toss together.

 - serve and spoon the remaining sauce on top. I added the parsley for effect:)

 - remember no parmesan with fish pasta!!!!

BUON APPETITO!!!

p.s. my posts are turning into novels these days, you’ll have to start calling me Ms Keyes!!:)

This is this week’s submission for Ruth’s Presto Pasta Night!

OK people, if I can just say 2 words - MENU PLANNING. As and from this week forward I am going to menu plan for the week ahead. I know I sound like a right little housewife and maybe I am but trying to decide everyday what to eat is just driving me and Bru crazy. Everyday it’s the same thing trying to decide at the last minute what to have for dinner and driving each other mad trying to make the other one decide - we take our food very seriously and both of us are so indecisive it’s not funny!

So, in order to save our relationship and our sanity I have decided to sit down for 10 mins every Sat and get out the cookbooks or magazines and compile my list for the week. I did it last week and believe me it made such a difference, I went shopping last Saturday armed with my list and we ate well everyday and lived in “happy couple bliss”:). I think if a lot more people did this they mightn’t eat so much convenience food and you can vary your week by having a bit of everything - pasta, soup, fish, meat, salad etc. The marriage counsellors will go out of business:0!!

So Wednesday was soup day, to be honest I had earmarked this soup from Giorgio Locatelli’s book for the winter after making his delicious broccoli soup but with the weather we had all week there was no choice but to have a big hearty warm soup to heat up the bones! To make matters worse my parents are in the south of Italy in 30 degrees of sunshine, and text me every now and again to remind me just in case I might have forgotten - as if!!

Once again it was very simple and just a little bit of prep and chopping involved, there really is no excuse for using convenience soups as home-made soups are so fast and easy to make once you plan it and get organised!

WHAT YOU NEED:

• 1 white onion - finely chopped
• 1 carrot - finely chopped
• 1 celery stalk - finely chopped
• 1 small leek - finely chopped
• 2 cans of cannellini beans - drained and rinsed. If you can get your hands on fresh great, or dried leave to soak overnight.
• 1 sprig of rosemary
• small bunch of sage
• 2 bay leaves
• 1.5 litres vegetable or chicken stock - I used stock cubes
• salt and pepper.
• 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

WHAT TO DO:

 - heat half the oil in a pot and add the vegetables. Cook for 5-10 mins until they are soft but not coloured.

 - add the beans and the herbs and cook for 2-3 mins.

 - add 1 litre of hot stock and bring to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer for about 30 mins until everything is soft. I removed the bay leaves and the sprig from the rosemary.

 - take off the heat and liquidize, if it is too thick just add more stock. Mine was fine with just the 1 litre! 

 - taste and season, serve in bowls, drizzling over the rest of the olive oil , sprinkle with some chopped rosemary and some grinded black pepper.

BUON APPETITO!!

 - It’s beans and soups all round this week in the blogsphere, check out Laura’s delicious “Fagioli Alla Pizzaiolla” made with fresh barlotti beans no less - she got them in Lidl of all places and Abulfia’s Chickpea & Pancetta soup which was next on my agenda but she beat me to it(damn)! Liking the new look Abulfia - tried to leave a comment but couldn’t:( and Ilva’s barlotti beans with shrimps and onions! Tasty recipes all round!!

It’s HEART OF THE MATTER time again and this month’s theme is fish, for anyone who doesn’t know what it’s about, it’s a blogging event held by the lovely Ilva and Joanna who are trying to compile a database of healthy recipes that people can access at anytime, basically any blogger can submit whatever recipe they like as long as it is healthy and good for the heart. I have already done a cod recipe which I’m going to submit with this one, both done in a bag! I really like this month’s theme as we don’t eat enough fish in Ireland, I know we don’t, we always have great intentions to eat it at least once a week but it’s more like once every 2 weeks. I know a lot of people never eat fish and gag at the thought of it and other’s only eat it once in a blue moon.

It’s amazing really as we live on an island but fish just wasn’t popular in Ireland until recently,  I know in our house the closest we got to fish was fish fingers. I wasn’t born a foodie you know!! When myself and Bruno first got together all those years ago (15 to be exact) I was every Italian mother’s nightmare. A heineken guzzling, kebab eating student who knew absolutely nothing about food, the first time she gave me pesto I hated it, I used to call gnocchi “YUCKY” and thought it was hilarious(cringe) and the first time she brought out a big platter of fresh prawns I nearly died. They had heads on, I only knew prawns as frozen little shrimp that you eat in prawn cocktail. In my defense these were the days of ordering chicken Kiev or Cordon Bleu in a restaurant and washing it down with a bottle of Blue Nun or going Italian with a bottle of Lambrusco!! So when they proceeded to snap the heads off the prawns, eat them with their hands and suck the juices and meat out of the claws and talk at the same time I was gobsmacked - where were their table manners???  It was a whole new world to me and one I eventually became part of. It took a while mind you - Italian mammas and their sons, another day’s post!!! I’m now a vino guzzling wannabe Italian cook who loves nothing more than a bowl of home-made “yucky” with fresh pesto topped with freshly grated parmigiano reggiano on top and an espresso after to digest!! - how things change:)!!

We’re lucky as Superquinn always have a great selection of fish so we try to vary and try new fish all the time, salmon is probably the most popular fish in Ireland. This is evident in Superquin as they have a whole stand dedicated to it, all the ladies seem to love it - my mother and sister included. They always order salmon when we are out to eat, I try to convince them to try something else, my mother did once and ordered the sea bass and nearly lost her life when it arrived head and eyes intact(the best way of course) - she couldn’t eat something that was looking at her!! We have become so far removed from food in it’s natural form in Ireland, I’ll be the first to admit I have never gutted or filleted a fish I always get them to do it in Superquinn for me, I’m really a fake foodie!!

Sea bass is one of the most popular fish in Italy because of it’s versatility and delicate but firm flesh. It’s great cooked anyway - boiled, baked, grilled or in a bag like this recipe. It is widely available in Italy as it can be caught off any coast where the sea is fairly rough. It can reach up to 1 metre in length and 10kg in weight. Because of it’s high demand sea bass has to be farmed and so the weight and size of the fish can be controlled for culinary use! - taken from Carluccio’s “Complete Italian Food”.

I served the sea bass with roast potatoes done with the duck fat left over from the dreaded duck recipe!!

WHAT YOU NEED FOR 2:

• 3 sea bass - either use whole or get your fishmonger to gut and fillet them for you. They are tastier if you cook them whole.
• 2 fennel bulbs - sliced thinly
• fennel seeds(optional) -fennel loses a lot of it’s flavour when cooked so you can add some seeds if you like for extra flavour.
• 1 white onion - sliced thinly
• 2 spring onion - chopped
• 1 sprig flat parsley-  finely chopped
• 2 lemons - 1 sliced and juice of another
• 2 cloves garlic sliced
• white wine
• olive oil
• sea salt and black pepper.
• parchment paper or tin foil.

WHAT TO DO:

 - line the base of your oven tray with parchment and have the same amount to cover over, heat your oven to 200 degrees.

 - pour some olive on the base of the parchment and place your fennel and onion on top, season with salt and pepper.

 - lay your sea bass on top of your fennel and scatter your garlic, spring onion, parsley and lemon slices over your fish.

 - season with salt and pepper, pour a splash of wine, your lemon juice and olive oil over everything.

 - close up your bag and cook for 20-30 mins.

BUON APPETITO!!

p.s. if you really don’t like fennel (shame on you), just leave it out and throw in a sprig of rosemary for extra flavour!!

I’ve mentioned before that we really like Gordon Ramsay and his programme The F Word, I really like his style of cooking especially his fast food segment. We really liked the look of his duck recipe he did on last week’s episode and we decided to go mad and cook something non-Italian for a change - crazy kids!!

There were a few ingredients that we didn’t have in our cupboard so I took myself and the princess off to Superquinn for these FOREIGN ingredients and spent an hour trying to find them:

• sherry vinegar - negative
• Chinese 5 spice - negative
• roasted hazelnuts - negative
• hazelnut oil - check.

I think the staff in Superquinn thought I was some crazed loony as I was over and back, over and back and to add more to my confusion they went and changed all the sections around. Supermarkets use this ploy for people like me who go to Superquinn everyday because at this stage I know where everything is so I don’t impulse buy because I just go straight to what I need. They think if they shake things up a bit and you go to the olive oil section and there is soup there instead you might impulsively buy it! Sneaky!

Just to distract me and delay me some more, the free sausage stand was in operation, I have another confession to make “I LOVE FREE SAUSAGES IN SUPERMARKETS”! I don’t know what it is but you can smell them a mile away and for some reason I’m always hungry when I’m shopping, and the worst part is they always give you those fun-size pieces and you’re always too embarrassed to take 2 because you will look like a savage. For some reason freebies make  you act like a fool and get all girly and smiley “ooooh are these to sample” when you know full well they are! Bruno has no interest in Supermarket samples and always looks at me in disgust when I’m sampling at each stand acting like I’ve never had YOP before or a sausage, maybe it’s an Irish thing!

I must have walked past that sausage stand about 5 times looking for my ingredients and I think the Sausage Lady thought I wanted more sausages but was too shy to ask because she kept smiling everytime I passed. The spice section then finished me off altogether, we never use spices or dried herbs so I never have any need to be in this section. THERE ARE SO MANY! I was going gaa gaa trying to find this Chinese 5 spice, all I could see was a Thai 7 spice. Being completely ignorant of other cuisines - 5 spice, 7 spice, All spice, posh spice, what’s the difference? So I went with the 7 spice and hoped for the best. The princess had gotten so bored at this stage she had fallen asleep!I eventually got everything and headed home in the rain:(.

There is actually a video of this recipe on Gordon’s website but there is a little bit more work than he let’s on so be warned!!

WHAT YOU NEED FOR 2:

• 2 duck breasts
• sea salt and black pepper
• Chinese 5 spice or Thai 7 spice
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp soy sauce - after all that I forgot this and had to go back again and no I didn’t have another sausage:)!
• 200g green beans
• 40g hazelnuts
• 50ml hazelnut oil
• 100ml olive oil
• 50ml sherry vinegar - we used red wine vinegar instead.

WHAT TO DO:

 -  we had to roast our own hazelnuts, we just heated up a dry pan and cooked them for a few minutes, we let them cool down and peeled the skins off. Gordon had a jar of skinless hazelnuts already roasted - of course!

 - we then had to tear the bits off the top of the green beans (excellent culinary speak but I don’t know the technical term) and Bruno complained the whole time. We were laughing because  it’s quite traditional in Italy when beans are in season for the women of the house to sit down at the table for a couple of hours with hundreds of beans and here we were moaning about 100g??? Our fast food recipe was fast becoming a very slow food one!!

 - score the duck breasts and season with salt and pepper and your 5/7 spice.

 - place your duck breast skin side down on a dry pan and cook over a low heat for about 8-10 mins until all the fat melts. Pour the fat into a bowl and keep in the fridge for roast potatoes at a later date.

 - turn up the heat and cook until the skin is crisp, turn the duck onto the other side and cook for 3-4 mins. The most important thing with duck is that it is served pink. Just before the duck is ready pour over the honey and soy sauce and cook until the sauce had turned into a syrupy glaze. He recommends to transfer the duck to a warm plate and let it rest for 5-10 mins, we were too bloody hungry to do this and we still had to take photos! You’re supposed to always let meat rest for a few minutes before serving as it enhances the flavour.

  - while all this is happening bring a pot of water to the boil, add salt and your beans and cook for a few mins, the recipe states 1 minute but a certain Italian doesn’t like his vegetables too crunchy so we left them on a little longer but they were still crunchy enough.

 - crush your hazelnuts with a pestle and mortar, drain your beans and pat dry with kitchen paper and mix together. We never premake our salad dressing, we just add each ingredient to the salad to taste - salt, vinegar, olive oil and hazelnut oil.

 - place your beans on the plate and serve your duck on top and drizzle whatever sauce is left in the pan over the top. The recipe also includes a side of potatoes but we didn’t make them as there was enough in just the duck and the beans and some crunchy bread on the side.

VERDICT - absolutely delicious and worth all the effort but we’ll be sticking with what we know for a while and cooking Italian!!! The 7 spice worked perfect, Gordon mightn’t agree but he’s never going to know is he???

Buon Appetito!!!

p.s. sorry for the long post but I had to take you on my journey into the unknown!!