i hate recipes.
i really really do.
i admit they look nice in old battered notebooks handed down from grandmother to grandmother (not mine though, they couldn’t cook).
and they are essential to link up to some tv program or other and make a few quid on the side.
oh and to make cakes with.
but i don’t like making cakes.

so i don’t do recipes. never did.
until now.
now, you know, there is twitter. it’s been around for some time but people like me tend to take a little while to acknowledge the new.
twitter allows posts that are no more than 140 characters long. and that includes spaces.
perfect for recipes, methinks.
so I’ve given myself the challenge to post recipes that are real, good, doable and 140 characters long. including spaces.

follow the experiment at
http://twitter.com/la_cena..

Labels: recipes, twitter

lunchtime on an average march saturday.

the family is getting ready for yet another afternoon birthday party: better feed the kids but not too much or they won't be able to wreak the usual havoc.
i'll give them some capelli d'angelo - angel hair - the thinnest of all pastas, cooks in a minute, then you toss it with melted butter and parmesan .. heavenly and so child friendly it hurts..

i open the cupboard to reach for the pasta when i spot a long forgotten small tin of foie gras, a christmas present waiting for the right occasion.

thing is, we haven't had friends for dinner in literally years: too many kids to co-ordinate.. i work mostly on weekends .. etc..
it turns out that the christmas in question was 2007's and the foie gras can't wait for much longer.
oh no.

the right occasion is now.
because we are worth it.

i add some extra pasta for the grown ups. in a pan i melt a large dollop of foie gras with a large dollop of butter, i toss the angel hair in it and add handfuls of parmesan and loads of ground pepper.

the kids eat the plain version.
we eat the pimped one.

they are happy.
we are ecstatic.

This is a warning for those who might be contacted by a man pretending to be a "Rev Tegah Shenge" from "Salvation And Praise Ministries" in Uganda.

The man behind that name is very clever, and even if in the beginning I was slightly wary, I didn't want to be prejudiced either...

Here is a selection of extracts from his e-mails:

9th of February:

"Hello Carlo Albertoli

....
Actually, I and some member of our missionary team will be visiting
London UK from the 23rd to the 29th of March, 2009 for a pastoral
retreat. There will be 4 male and 3 female missionaries, making a
total of 8 people.

So we thought its necessary to make arrangement to hire some one to
take up the job of cooking for us for those periods of time.
....
I will be glad to provide you with more details about us and further
information in regards to our visit as well as any dietary
restrictions.

Very sensible and reasonable isn't it?
He even has a quaint little website: http://salvation-praise.we.bs/index.htm

12th of February: Meanwhile, I have a couple questions which are not important but just thought I asked......do you have any business insurance policy in place for your business? Are you serve safe certified? Do you have references if demanded?

We proceed to agree a fee for my services. I ask for the payment to be made by card via Google Checkout.
I get this reply:

14th of February:There has already been arrangement to have a cheque drawn from a Uk Bank sent to you. That was the notice I got from the Planning committee. The cheque will be for the total amount payable and should clear immediately. So please have the name and address to make out the cheque sent to me immediately. So you need not worry about.

Details about the location is still sketchy as of now, but you have the full details as soon as they are ready.We just dont want to get anything mixup in our plans. Dont worry I will ensure you have at least 2 days prior to our arrival to conduct any pre-inspection as you may wish.

I decide not to worry because I can think of a few legitimate reason for this to happen.. and anyway I am not going to be providing my services if the cheque doesn't clear..
Furthermore, in the current climate I WANT and I need to believe this is a legitimate request.

20th of February:HELLO CARLO,

I WILL LIKE TO INFORM YOU THAT THE PAYMENT HAS BEEN MADE OUT TO YOU THURSDAY THIS WEEK AND IT SHOULD BE DELIEVERED TO YOU BY TODAY OR FIRST THING ON SATURDAY MORNING. I WANT YOU TO KEEP AN EYE OPEN FOR THE PAYMENT AS ITS WAS SENT OUT VIA FIRST CLASS ROYAL MAIL AND IT WOULD BE DELIEVERED TO YOUR DOOR STEP.

I WANT YOU TO GET BACK TO ME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE CONFIRMING THAT YOU HAVE RECIEVED MY EMAIL AND YOU ARE TO EMAIL ME AS SOON AS YOU HAVE RECIEVED THE PAYMENT AND MAKE THE DEPOSIT IN YOUR ACCOUNT.
I AWAIT YOUR IMMEDIATE RESPONSE BACK AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

The tone is strange, the all bold urgency weird but sort of comprehensible (he "is" a few thousand miles away, he is paying in advance..) so as soon as i get the cheque I let him know.
The cheque is drawn on Coutts! The bank of the rich and wealthy: its clients are expected to have substantial income or liquid assets in excess of £500,000!!! No worries there then...
Again, slightly worryingly the name on the cheque is decidedly not ugandan but , again, there might be several legitimate reasons: a solicitor, a donor, a wealth manager ...
I cash the cheque, keep an eye on the balance and on Tuesday the money is credited!!! Success! I receive another e-mail with detailed travel time and itinerary and other extremely detailed instructions. I am already planning the fantastic menus I will cook for them when this appears in my inbox:

24th of FebruaryDear Carlo,

How are you doing? I am sorry I have a little bit of sad news. There has been a tragedy which had occurred on Monday. Three people from our missionary group were involved in a fatal motor accident while traveling back to the Village from town. Two of them died instantly, while the third person is at the hospital and in a very critical condition. Her left lungs were severely affected and have been placed on an artificial respiratory mechanism. Now the doctors says that immediate response will have to be taken to save her life and that the bills must be paid for them to operate on her immediately. There is not enough money to pay her hospital bills to get her operated on. And on the other hand we have to make necessary funeral arrangement to bury the two dead victims.

Considering this new unfortunate development, we are grieving the loss of our members and doing all we can to save the life of the one at the hospital. And since all these three people contributed financially to this trip to the United Kingdom, it has been decided that two people from the group, (that is me and one other person) will have to stay behind to plan all necessary burial arrangements and to save the life of one of us at the hospital, while the rest 3 people will continue with the plans of making the trip to the United Kingdom. However, they trip will now only last for 2 days.

In line with these new plans, we will need you to deduct charges/fees for cooking launch and dinner for only 3 people for 2 days and have the rest sent back to us. The money sent back is the share for the diseased people and we will need this money to pay for their funeral and also to pay the hospital bills.

It is very important that the money is sent immediately to pay the hospital bills so that the operation at the hospital will commence and the life of the only survival of the accident can be saved. To make it all faster for us to pay the bills, please have the money sent today via WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER to my brother in the United Kingdom using this details:

name: DAVID SHENGE

address: 14 Heddon Street
Mayfair,
London,
W1B 4DA

Please feel free to deduct the western union charges from the money and have the rest sent. Please I expect that you get this done TODAY and get back to me with the wiring information including the MTCN Numbers, Sender's names, Amount sent and Text Questions and Answer (if any).

All inconveniences caused are regretted. Right now the only thing that maters now is paying the complete hospital bills for the operation to commence on time, and to bury the remains of our diseased members. Thanks for understanding and expecting your mail soonest.

Remain Blessed

Rev Tegah Shenge

F**K YOU "Reverend"


For those who do not know:
- a bank will credit a cheque into an account BEFORE is fully cleared. So what you think is rightfully yours might be taken away if the cheque bounces.. I deposited the cheque on thursday 19th of February, the funds were credited and available Tuesday the 24th of February, but according to my bank the cheque is not going to be fully cleared until Tuesday the 3rd of March!!!
And when the cheque doesn't clear, the money is taken away, no question asked.

The scammers exploit this gap and this is why he had to come up with such a full blown dramatic excuse: there is a limited window of opportunity and I have to literally RUN to send them my cash before the cheque bounces back.

And what about the Mayfair address I hear you ask??
Google it and you'll understand..


One final note:
I am now available between the 24th and the 29th of March...

Labels: fraud, scam, tegah Shenge

.. but, at the tender age of fourty**** they can still be moved by a simple dish of agnolotti del plin in brodo.

it all started with a trip to london for a meeting with a possible client, cannily set up by yours truly in a wonderful coffee shop just by Borough Market where - incidentally - they serve a cappuccino much better than any you can have in Italy..
what i didn't plan for though was the event of my train not being late.

that left 45 minutes to spend, me and my debit cards, wandering through the sights, flavours, smells and temptations of the market.
i could already figure my bank manager with its (they are not human, are they?) hand hovering on the red button..

i emerged relatively unscathed: no way i could let hand dived scallops or rare cheeses or hand made chocolates rest in my bag for hours but then i could not resist gastronomica's shop and stand. i bought enough lardo to clog my arteries with a thick layer of joy and the fantastically rare agnolotti del plin.


these are a kind of tiny ravioli, handmade in a very limited area of Piedmont. you can find some kind of recipe in a link above but don't bother with it: there is no point in trying and replicate a flavour deeply rooted in the specific ingredients of a small area of a different country.. not to mention the skill in pinching the little bu***ers close. agnolotti del plin have a mytical status and I have had them in the past only once, at a meal organized by Slow Food's founder Carlo Petrini (agnolotti and Slow Food come from the same part of the world..not a coincidence).

once home i prepared a vegetable stock (yes with marigold) then genius struck me as it often does.. :-) : i added a few slices of preserved black truffle. they weren't enough to give a truffle-y flavour to it but yet more than enough to lift its aroma to completely different -higher- ground.
and the combination with the agnolotti was absolutely magical. big chefs don't cry but that dish really moved me deeply. i slurped it to the last drop (see above) and zoe did it too. i have the proof:

Labels: agnolotti, authentic, brodo, cena, dinner, italian, supper

i recently discovered with my great surprise a most fantastic italian food blog discussing with erudition and humour about as different subjects as molecular gastronomy and carbonara.

dario, the author, provided me with bucketloads of food for thought, inspiration and some photos that i am going to shamelessly ...erm..."borrow" for this post.


1. what are the origins of carbonara?

the quick answer is: nobody seems to know.
many think it came from loggers who went to make coal (carbone) on the mountains of central Italy bringing only a pasta, eggs, pancetta and pepper.. but there are absolutely no written traces of a dish called "carbonara" anytime before WW2. hence the theory that carbonara was invented by some starving roman citizen who got creative with bacon and powdered eggs distributed by allied troops.. (if that was true a lot of dodgy italian restaurants could rightly claim they make the original carbonara... :-( )

2.how to make a perfect carbonara

this is guanciale, or cured pork cheek, thicker and tastier than pancetta or bacon. it should be available in some authentic italian delis but if you can't find it you can always make your own. alternatively some decent pancetta or bacon will do but then you'll have to downgrade your carbonara from "ultimate" to "decent". warning! pre-sliced bacon is a big no-no. buy it in one 1cm thick piece from your butcher and make your own cubes/sticks.

gently fry the diced guanciale in a non stick pan until the fat gets translucent and the (traces of) meat brown slightly. you won't need to add anything to the pan: you don't need either more fat or more flavour so put away that garlic and - god forbid!- that onion.

by now your pan of salted water is boiling so put the spaghetti in, stir and move on to the next step.

you will need an egg yolk per person in a bowl large enough to later contain the cooked pasta. add your grated cheese - pecorino and/or parmesan- and mix the two together along with a generous amount of black pepper.

now the make-or-break stage.
it is up to the heat of the pasta to cook the egg to just the right degree of creaminess: not enough gives you a runny mess, too much a not-so-nice omelet...

the best results are obtained by incorporating some of the cooking water: I drain the pasta as usual but without the extra shaking of the colander, dario suggests to retrieve the pasta from the pan with a fork.

add the fried guanciale to the pasta and egg mixture and stir well to ensure an even distribution of the condiment and the guanciale cubes.
as if...
twenty five years of experience have taught me that whatever your efforts and your skill there will be always a considerable amount of extra guanciale at the bottom of the mixing bowl and this is the reason why you should serve yourself last...

go on.. you know you deserve it..

3. cream? what cream??
indeed..

Labels: authentic, carbonara, eggs, guanciale, italian, pasta, recipe

time to waste? enjoy

my first proper post in three years... and it's not even a proper post:

after the recent flurry of celebrity chef campaigning on all things chicken, this non-celebrity-cook is resuming three very old but still relevant posts on the subject.

enjoy

the endless chicken part 1

originally posted : 28/01/2004


lesson i learned: do not trust chicken that comes without qualifiers.

believe me, i want nothing to do with what is sold as "chicken" in this country.

the previous statement is obviously untrue: when i feel lazy i am keen to buy a dubious chicken provided that somebody spit-roasted it for me. when i feel dirty i treat myself to a kebab.

i don't let these slight incongruences distract me from the right way, so in my household chicken is a rare treat because good free-range-organic -not-necessarily-corn-fed-rare-breed chicken --(ehi! a LOT of qualifiers)-- is expensive.

let's say £6 to £8 per kilo --(imperial measures are banned in this blog)-- or £12 to £16 per bird.

money well spent: i won't fill our bodies with unwanted antibiotics and those two kilos will go a loooong way.

day one:
the oven is getting hot, the chicken is out, potatoes are cut. everything is well coated with olive oil and two halves of a nice lemon sit snugly in the birds' bum. a few garlic cloves.
in goes the roast tin and i'm off to play with isabella while zoe is having one of her long baths.

after 90 minutes isabella is sleeping in her cot --she is going to school now!!!--, zoe is almost out of the tub and the chicken is ready.

a nice green salad, a glass of wine... i am happy.

coming up: the endless chicken parts two, three and four (!!!)

the endless chicken part 1

originally posted : 29/01/2004


after the feast of the day before i'm still left with 800g of top quality free-range-organic-not-necessarily-corn-fed-rare-breed chicken meat and a nice well scraped carcass.
i eat all the brown bits from the bottom of the carcass on the spot, and a bit of skin too, sprinkled with sea salt flakes... is there anything better?? the answer is yes but not now.
so, after the feast of the day before i'm still left with 730g of... well, you know what.

half the meat goes into a salad with a grated carrot and two grated courgettes. i had bought the courgettes for isabella but even if organic, they are so out of season that i decide against feeding her those. lunch is sorted with a bit of cous cous on the side.

the carcass, with all the bones saved from the night before, goes into my beloved le creuset oval cast iron pot to which i add the following:
- a large onion, peeled and cut in half;
- a root of galangal, cut in half lenghtways;
- several bay leaves;
- a generous handful of sze-chuan peppercorns;
- three stalks of lemongrass, cut in half lenghtways;
- enough cold water to fill the pot.

i clarify the stock then use it to make a wrong zuppa pavese.
a zuppa pavese (soup from the city of Pavia) is very easy to get right, if you only break a fresh egg on top a slice of toasted bread (farmhouse, not prepackaged loaf!!) which sits at the bottom of a deep bowl, top it with grated parmesan and pour hot good stock on the lot.
i have no bread left and decide against parmesan this time so to give it some extra substance i add a bit of the chicken meat and some thinly sliced courgettes.

right or wrong, when the stock is good - and boy, this is amazing! -a zuppa pavese is at the top of the comfort food list.

there's still more than half of a brest left. i'll have it tomorrow in a sandwich (but i have to remember to go and buy some decent bread... not easy in brighton).

bottom line: four great meals from a chicken and i still have a couple of liters of stock to flavour my cooking.

endless or what?

what do we talk about when we talk about chicken..

originally posted : 12/04/2004





to know more, and eat less, go here.

___________________

links to learn more:

chicken out
fowl dinners
and since you asked:
take the red pill...

is there a "best dormient food blog" category?


i used to love blogging but i have two kids now..

oh and since this is a food blog here is a photo of 12 beautiful legs of free range East Sussex lamb happily roasting away and ready to feed 120 guests at a wedding sometimes last year..

thank you chris abraham for the nomination

you have a 120 pints pot.
you have 5kg of rice and 3kg of pecorino with truffles
you have 100 people to feed.

butter and onion as usual but this time with the addition of a certain amount of premium truffle oil.
you toast the rice then add a little bit more truffle oil, just in case.

halfway through the cooking you start adding the cheese.
that's when you realize your diners are taking it easy and are running late on schedule.
you do not panic (only a little bit) then take the radical step of turning the gas off.
you keep on adding warm stock while nervously checking the diners' progress.
you wait.
you add some more stock.
you wait.

when he time is hopefully right you turn the hob on again then add the rest of the cheese.
your risotto is creamy, wonderfully smelly and miracolously al dente.

you serve with justified pride.
you pat yourself on the back and enjoy a one minute break before getting cracking with the lamb.

but that's another story.


ps: no time to take pictures so i have posted a lovely image of a cornish beach. the tiny pink dot is my daughter in her birthday dress.

only nineteen entries to this IMBB, dealing with anything from the utterly disturbing (marmite) to the apparently innocuous (marmite).
here are excerpts from all of them. the link will take you to the relevant post.
read on.
be inspired.

"When I heard that the theme of IMBB #12 would be “Is My Blog Taboo”, I figured it might be a good time to take on some of those challenges.  ....  But the real question was this:  did I have the balls to take some risks and do something new instead?  Well, I didn't.  But I knew where to get some".

"I decided that instead of cooking something that most people don't eat, I would go for something that I don't eat....Fish. I don't like fish and I never have.  For as long as I can remember everyone has been trying to get me to eat fish".

"Finding a food taboo was a real hard task. I'm not someone who says no to new foods, and I'll try almost anything once. Bugs? Done that, they can be quite nice. Horse meat, snails, frogs... don't see what's shocking about that.."

"He greeted me with a kiss on the lips. At once his nose started twitching and he started sniffing. "Bleh", he muttered, "You've been eating that stuff again" "

"What does experimenting with IMBB 12:  Food Taboos reveal about our own "true qualities" ?  What do our taboos or dislikes have to tell us about ourselves?  In my case, I think the jury's still out."

"Madness is our taboo, not food. Food taboos are the remnants of village mentality and morality dictated by an invisible entity. We are rational people, especially cooks.

"my particular food hates, my food fascism, is at the heart of what I consider 'real food' and why I continue my love affair with cooking and eating"

"I know what she was trying to do, she wanted me to find out by myself knowing how insanely curious I am sometimes when it comes to new ingredients or new food".

"Ok. Swedes are very wary of additives in food, of anything not-completely-natural in fact. (Swedes have a very hard time at US supermarkets. It can be a scary experience."

"there isn't much that I won't eat!  (My friends, including my carbo-phobic ex are a whole different story!  But, how much fun is it to make bread or a bowl of pasta and watch everyone just sort of push their food around?)"

"I was going to be someone who’s never tasted natto if it weren’t for Carlo, host of the 12th IMBB, who extended the deadline. I took it as a sign that I should take this opportunity to overcome my aversion to natto and give it a try".

"I was beginning to despair.  And then it hit me.  Something they eat in the UK that, to my mind, would just be taboo on so many fronts.  Something that I have never eaten and would never make myself, except for the purely scientific purposes of IMBB.

"And because I work on my food entries from Pampanga, a province known for many exotic delicacies even for Philippine standards, close to nothing qualifies as taboo or forbidden".

"Her legal advise was it would be necessary to inform the diners what was being served before they ate it to risk the possibility of being sued if anyone suffered from the shock of it all".

"I have always wondered why should we go to such efforts to ruin something so good ? Do we really need to cook everything mother nature gave us?"

"... with some thought I came up with two ideas. One to use a food ingredient I HATE WITH A BURNING PASSION (sorry, got carried away by my hatred) and one for a dish that will disgust many readers out there, and may even be considered taboo by the Italian establishment!"

"Who am I to talk really? I'm the one who ate the cricket sushi at the Montreal Botanical Gardens".

"Oh dear. He's right: there is one food I hate and have resolutely refused to eat for the last thirty years ... Sigh".

"they were happy. i was happy. mission accomplished. there is hope".

thank you for your entries.
and thank you to the confabulist for having the balls and taking a picture of them.