Bottle of cold water to last all day

UK residents: given that the segue from summer to winter took about 5 minutes on Friday afternoon to pass through autumn, this might not appeal. However it came in useful in Italy in 40 degree heat this summer.  

Here's a tip I picked up in Sri Lanka. If you want to keep a bottle of water cold all day, stick it in the freezer overnight to produce a giant ice cube.  It will melt gradually giving you icy water to hand. 

Italy: tomatoes good, coronation chicken bad.

As I start to write this post and recall my strong feelings towards the Italian tomato, I am wondering whether anyone has written a really good poem about a tomato.  There turn out to be a number.  In "I bought a pet tomato" Devang Gandhi wonders why his new pet can't catch a frisbee (derived from the banana version?).  The Washington Post posted a whole feature inviting tomato based poetry from its readers.  And over at the Poetry Showcase, Betty O'Neil notes that "Corporations can make their "ugly" tomato but when I bake I'll go farm to table."

After a week of Food Zombie behaviour in Italy (concentrated loafing alternated with preparing or eating meals), I firmly believe that an ugly tomato is a tasty tomato.  We spent 18 Euros on a weeks worth of amazing fresh fruit and veg from this grocer in Lucca, including a bagful of fresh porcini.

It was slightly miserable to return to the UK, where unless you have the luxury of an accessible farmers market, supermarket vegetables MUST LOOK IDENTICAL, come with 5 layers of packaging and little taste.  In contrast, the quality of the always-seasonal produce  in Italy is so high that you just need to throw things together to create an amazing meal.  In fact you could have zero technical cooking skills and provide gorgeous grub.  This weekend I heard a story about a friend of a friend this weekend who moved to Italy, spoke great Italian, was beautiful and lovely and was adored by all her neighbours. She invited them over for a party and served a range of traditional Italian dishes and salads. She also thought it would be fun to introduce them to Coronation Chicken, as you know a sweet curried chicken dish featuring almonds and raisins.  The HORROR! The Italians were aghast at such a strange dish, rejecting the combination of sweet, spicy and poultry as alien, outside their range and not to be touched.  Perhaps the UK's less strong food culture has allowed us to absorb the flavours and techniques of other cultures more easily.

So here are a few ideas for easily assembled dishes from an Italian repertoire:

The Ultimate breakfast

Jigsaw Caprese

Salad salad

Pasta pasta
Stuffed courgette flowers

Italy: Stuffed courgette/zucchini flowers

These beautiful courgette flowers can be converted into little parcels of joy by stuffing with really whatever you want.  Try:


- mix cream cheese/ricotta with a raw egg, toasted pine nuts, breadcrumbs, herbs, seasoning and maybe some other veg like roasted red peppers or aubergine.  
- Stuff a courgette flower with the mix and roast with a bit of olive oil lining the pan.  The egg will set the mixture on cooking.
-nb check inside the flower for critters! An extra unintended dose of protein?

Italy: pasta pasta

The tuscans sell a range of eensy weensy pastas for use in soups, pastine (see diagram below).  


Here, we were slightly using up ingredients and combined spinach and ricotta ravioli with some farfalline, grated and sliced courgette, ricotta mixed with lemon zest, garlic and pine nuts, green beans and thyme. It was reallllllly nice.

Italy: salad salad

To make: add lots of vegetables to a big bowl, mix, dress and eat.  Featuring in this salad:


-chicory. Lovely bitter leaf, traditionally served cooked in white sauce and ham by Belgians, here shown raw.


-radicchio. red sturdy leaf, again bitter and does well from cooking.  We found it served cooked with some parmesan as an accompaniment to local grilled beef.


- Red onion, raw, thinly sliced


- Courgettes finely sliced


- chunks of Pecorino (sheeps cheese, can be mild or aged)


- Borlotti beans, so very pretty and not out of a can. Sadly they turn from marbled white and pink to sludgy brown when cooked.

Italy: jigsaw caprese

I have no idea what these tomatoes are called, so I shall call them Jigsaw tomatoes.  They are the prettiest things since David Beckham aged 31.  Made up to the classic Caprese salad in the colours of the Italian flag: 

• Mozzarella (ideally from buffalo milk, mozzarella travels very badly so if you are being perfectionist you could get it from the UK eg Laverstoke)
• Tomatoes (ideally ones that taste of tomato, not polystyrene, so basically eat in August)
• Basil (what intelligent thing can I write here about Basil? um, how about this)

Italy: the ultimate breakfast

I failed to take a photo of the version of this breakfast that combined the peaches and figs with blobs of ricotta and honey. That, combined with the local bakery's tomato/courgette flatbreads was the ultimate 10am breakfast to last until the 4pm gelato. mmm.

 

Quick spicy chips

Very naughty, spicy crunchy chips are easy to do without having to resort to Nando's.  Firstly cut some potatoes into the right sort of size and cook them in gently boiling water for a few minutes. Then drain, leave the water to evaporate so that they are completely dry.

Separately mix a few teaspoons of cornflour with some salt, chilli pepper, thyme, and anything else you want (you could try cumin seeds, turmeric for colour, ground coriander).  Sprinkle the cornflour mix over the potatoes in a large metal bowl and shake to mix.

Then heat a few tablespoons of olive oil (no need to use the good stuff as the flavour will be lost here) in a saucepan until a crumb sizzles when thrown in the pan.  Throw over the chips, shake to mix.  Spread in a baking tray and cook until crispy, say 180 degrees for 20 mins.  A highly technical demo of this oil-on-potato action is shown below.