My unemployed days stretch ever on before me, and between scrawling through hundreds of jobs I seem either over, or under-qualified for, comfort-snacking, and trying to find a flat for £450 a month in London that isn't an anonymous prison cell or a converted toilet, I have been busy signing up for some interesting projects.
The month of May will see me:
- abseil down the side of Battersea Power Station for charity.
- Fly to Abruzzo in Italy for three days of culinary masterclasses, visiting cheesemakers and salumifici (cured meat manufacturers) and apparently bathing in donkey's milk.
- Audition for a spot on ITV's Britain's Best Dish.
In the meantime, I've got a couple of recipes brewing under my hat and need your suggestions for a few tricks to try for my audition, so thinking caps on!
Three goats eye me suspiciously as I slice a plump, sweet aubergine in two and stuff it with a thick, creamy mixture of their own soft cheese, some egg yolk and bread crumbs. Behind me, Signora Cerullo, a portly mamma in clogs and black skirts, clatters a thick iron pot over the open brazier in her backyard, stewing wild greens picked this morning behind the farmhouse. I'm sweating under a timber awning at a vast wooden table, hand crafted by Zio who sits on a stool in front of me, in complete silence, observing me pensively - the first inglese he's ever met. Mamma is teaching me to make melanzane 'mbuttanate, Cilento dialect for stuffed eggplant. For each slice I make, I am fed something impossibly delicious off the table to the sound of orgiastic groans from the small crowd of villagers who have come to ogle my rustic Italian cooking skills, or lack thereof. This makeshift outdoor kitchen, with its battered copper pots swinging from the rafters, rusty old weights and cavernous stone bread oven look like they've been here for centuries. Less than two generations ago, however, the Cerullo family lived lì sopra, or "up there" says "Zio", finally opening his toothless mouth and shrugging in the direction of the brittle grey mountain behind him. The jagged, crumbling outline of a stone and whitewash ghost town juts out from the summit at awkward angles, barely visible from down below. Row upon row of houses lie empty atop the mount, broken windows and hollow doorways gaping at the wind that howls constantly, hurtling like a banshee through the "gola del diavolo" or devil's gorge that splits the mountain down its middle. There had been a thriving merchant settlement here, uninterrupted, since the Norman era, with some evidence even of iron age burial sites.The poverty which devastated post-war southern Italy forced farmers to abandon San Severino and wind their way downhill to settle in Centola, in the shadow of their former village, where Mussolini had a train track built to carry their sons and daughters away to the economic powerhouse of the North.
The slow food trendies have begun to trickle down to these rural backwaters, although the term here is obsolete: the Cilentani know no other kind of eating. Rafaello Cerullo, who owns the farm, hopes this new income will allow the villagers to reclaim San Severino and rebuild it to its former glory. Until that happens though, I smile privately at the joy of being the first Brit to taste this unctuous, warm ricotta, drink Zio's heady, syrupy wine and be given the eye by the Godfather of all goats.
(photo courtesy of http://labellacook.blogspot.com)
Put your fresh clams in a large bowl or sinkful of cold, salted water and leave them for an hour to purge them of any sand or grit. Pull the clams out of the water, do not drain in a colander. Scrub clams free of any other dirt, barnacles etc.
Spaghetti con le vongole - in bianco
Put some salted water in a deep pan on to boil and in it cook some linguine or spaghetti until al dente.
In the meantime crush a couple of cloves of garlic with the flat blade of a knife and drop into some olive oil to fry until they turn golden brown. Remove from the oil and discard. Add the clams and cook for 2-3 minutes on a high flame until they have all opened. At this point, remove half of the clams from their shells and discard the shells. Save the rest of the clams, with their shells on, for decoration and put them aside. Put the shelled clams in the garlicky oil. Chop some fresh parsley and add it to the clams along with a pinch of salt and some crushed chilli pepper (depending on your tastes). Add your drained linguine to the pan with the clams and stir it around to coat the spaghetti in the flavoursome oil, parsley and clams. Serve on a plate and top with the clams you set aside that still have their shells on.
Eat accompanied by a crisp, chilled, white Falanghina wine.
in rosso...
A variant of this is with tomatoes. I personally like to simply chop some juicy small cherry tomatoes, pachino for example, and cook them in the olive oil before adding the clams, smashing them once soft with a spoon.
Halfway through our trip round the lower Cilento region, we were invited to lunch at the home of Rafaello, owner of a working farm guesthouse at the foot of Mount Bulgheria and over-looked by the ghostly hill village of San Severino. We pulled up in the driveway of a large farmhouse complete with vegetable patch, stables, and billy goats bleeting in a field. In the open porch under a brilliant sun, a smiling old lady in apron and slippers stood, in front of an open brasier with a cooking pot hanging over a roaring wood fire. This was Rafaello's mother, and as a means of sharing some traditional recipes of the region with us she'd lit the fire in the outdoor kitchen and laid a large oak table with traditional cooking utensils for us to play with. This is how I'd really like to cook everyday!
On a large wooden platter were heaps of sliced aubergines and a pot filled with stuffing mix. We were to make Melanzane M'buttanate, a simple peasant dish packed with the rich flavours of creamy goat's cheese and fresh parsley.
To make enough for 6 people you will need:
5 large, long, dark purple aubergines, cut in 2 cm thick slices. three large beaten eggs three heaped tablespoons of fresh goats cheese (Cilento caprino in this case) lots of fresh chopped parsley heaped tablespoon of breadcrumbs pepper
You won't need salt if you are using a salty goat's cheese...
Take each thick slice of aubergine and slice it down the middle again until about a cm before the end. You will be putting the filling between the two flaps of aubergine you've created. Put the aubergine slices to one side. Heat up about an inch of good olive oil in a frying pan until very hot.
While the oil is heating, mix all the other ingredients together to form a thick paste. Take a slice of aubergine and fill it generously with the stuffing paste, continue until all the slices have been stuffed.
You can now fry your aubergine slices in the hot oil, about three minutes on each side, or until golden brun and slightly crispy at the edges. REmove from the oil and put on kitchen towl to absorb excess oil. Serve warm as they are, or stew slowly in fresh tomato passata with some shredded basil...
A quick and easy recipe for roasted sea bream. When you go to the fishmonger, check that the fish's eyes are shiny, that's a sign of very fresh fish. Have the fishmonger clean it and gut it for you. We got a 700 gram fish and it fed three people.
Ingredients:
- a sea bream - two cloves of garlic - a few small cherry tomatoes - half a glass of white wine - large handful fresh chopped parsley -large handful fresh chopped sage
- generous sprinkle of thyme - two bay leaves - three ground cloves - sea salt and black pepper to season - olive oil
Preparation:
1. Cut three thin incisions into both sides of the fish.
2. coat the fish in a thin layer of olive oil. 3. Coat the fish with all the fresh herbs, the bay leaves and the ground cloves. Season generously.
4. Marinate in the herbs for about 2 hours, in the fridge.
5. Pre-heat your oven to 190 degrees centigrade.
6. Remove as many of the herbs as possible from the fish and keep them to one side.
7. Seal the fish in a very hot frying pan, two minutes on each side.
8. Place the fish in an oiled baking tin, adding a knob of butter if you like, but its not essential. Coat once again with the herbs, add the wine, throw in the cloves of garlic, slightly crushed and the chopped up cherry tomatoes.
9. Bake for 20/23 minutes depending on the size of the fish.
10. Remove and serve with roast potatoes, or brown rice, a good chilled white wine and garnished with fresh parsely and a wedge of lemon.
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