How to please an Italian

Have you ever lived with an Italian and cooked pasta for him or her? Believe me, it’s intimidating. It's at least as intimidating as a job interview or a first kiss. You are terribly worried you will fail and that it will all become very embarrassing. Before I met my (Italian) boyfriend I was cooking and eating pasta on a regular basis and thought that both, the cooking and the eating part were quite straight forward. Little did I know!!! When I met Mike, he introduced me to a whole new world. A world of complicated rules, of do's and dont's. Lot's of dont's I tell you. Don't eat pasta with a spoon! Don't put parmesan cheese on pasta with sea food! Don't use any pasta with any sauce (there's a whole philosophy behind which shape and size of the pasta goes with which type of sauce). Now, you could say: who cares. But that's certainly not how Italians feel about it. And neither does my boyfriend. Alas, the more I learned about how to correctly consume pasta, the more intimidated I got about doing it the wrong way. I'm that type of girl. I really like to do things the way they are supposed to be (at least most of the time...).

Therefore in the early days of our relationship, Mike was doing all the pasta cooking and I did all other cooking. Since Mike is a good cook it was a good deal and for quite some time we kept it at that. I was watching and eating and learning all these strange rules. And then it started to itch me. I realized that I could not and would not give up making pasta and so I began to slowly but surely reconquer the territory. At first, I would simply put the water to boil. You think that's fool proof? It's not, believe me. Over- or (even worse) undersalting the water are big, enormous DONT'S! Once I mastered that trick I would test whether the pasta was al dente. Or (I agree, a rather pathetic step) heat a ready-made Barilla pasta sauce on a busy week night when we would come home from work starving. And one brave night, three or so years into our relationship, I did the whole thing for the first time again: I made a full-fledged pasta dinner and served it. Mike had a fork full, another one and while I gazed at him anxiously he said: "Not bad. Not bad at all." I sighed in relief.

It is still Mike who is cooking most of the pasta in this household. But every now and then I jump in with a new sauce or an idea. Sometimes we are even making our own pasta together (more about this another time). The recipe I want to share with you today is one of those that I feel comfortable with making for Italians. The basis is a richly-flavored walnut pesto. The beauty of it is that you can make it well in advance and store it in the fridge. In a jar with a little bit of oil on the top it keeps in the fridge for up to three weeks. It is therefore the perfect weeknight dinner staple since all you have to do is adding it to hot pasta just as such or mix it with whatever you feel like. Heidi and I used it as the basis for a courgettes-walnut lasagna one night and it was delicious. But usually when I make it for us for dinner, I mix the pesto with a bit of ricotta and fresh parsley and basil. With a generous amount of parmigiano reggiano on top of it even the most picky Italian should be pleased.

Tip: To sterilize your jars, wash them in hot soapy water or in a dishwasher, and rinse them well. Place the jars and the lids on a baking tray and dry in a warm oven for at least 20 minutes. Don't use a tea towel. Leave to cool before filling in the pesto.

Walnut Pesto with Ricotta
Adapted from Bill Granger

Serves 4-6

For the Walnut Pesto
125g/1 cup walnuts
2 garlic cloves, chopped
50g/1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
1 handful of flat parsley leaves, chopped
Olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

To Serve
500g of long pasta, such as tripoline (my favorite), pappardelle, or fettucine or (we use De Cecco pasta)
100 g Ricotta
1 teaspoon fresh basil, finely chopped
1 teaspoon fresh, flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
Parmesan, grated
Olive Oil


Preheat oven to 150°C. Spread the walnuts on a lined baking sheet and toast in the oven until fragrant, for about 10-15 minutes. Take out, let cool a little and chop them, Place walnuts, parmesan, parsley in a food processor and mix until well blended. With the mixer running, add olive oil a little at a time until pesto has a smooth consistency. Season generously with salt and pepper. Store in sterilized jar (see above).

To serve, cook pasta al dente in salted water. In the meantime, mix the pesto with the ricotta in a big bow. Add 1 or 2 tablespoons of the hot pasta water to get a smooth consistency (you might need more or less, depending on how thick your pesto is, so you might want to reserve some of the pasta water). Drain the pasta, don't shake off all the excess water and immediately transfer to the bowl with the pesto-ricotta mixture. Mix well and add the reserved pasta water if the mixture is to dry. Add the parsley and basil, mix one more time and serve immediately with parmesan and freshly ground black pepper.

Sharing a little chocolate happiness

It seems a timely occasion to launch our blog on Valentine’s Day as I get to write about one of my favourite things: chocolate. Of course Valentine’s Day is more than just the chance to indulge in a delectable chocolate treat. For the single, 30-something living in Sydney like me, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to wanting a slice of Valentine’s Day romance or a box of my favourite Lindt chocolates to come my way this Valentine’s day. Loving food the way I do, I like the idea of being wined and dined on Valentine’s Day but I expect some originality when it comes to choosing the restaurant of choice. I’ve been told I’m far too choosy in the men department but really when it comes to food there is no point in compromising and I guess the same can be said about men too.

I read an interesting article this week about Sydney’s three-chef-hat restaurant, Tetsuya’s where on Valentine’s day the mantra is ''Share the happiness - share the table''. I liked the sound of this idea as there’s nothing worse as a single person to be stuck in a restaurant surrounded by couples. Tetsuya’s have come up with a unique way to fine-dine only allowing bookings for four or more on Valentine’s Day forcing couples to share tables with strangers. Those couples that wish to dine alone, need to cough up $350/head to do so.

So in the spirit of Tetsuya’s, this Valentine’s Day I’ve decided that I will share some happiness and love of my own, by giving my friends their very own Valentine’s Day Cupcake. Based on a Nigella Lawson recipe they are extremely decadent and just too cute to refuse. For an extra special oozing chocolate centre, add a small piece of chocolate into each cupcake paper after you fill them.

Here’s the recipe if you too want to share some happiness this Valentine’s Day!


Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes
Recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes from ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess’
Makes 12.
Ingredients

125g soft unsalted butter
100g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
300g raspberry jam or as in original morello cherry jam
150g caster sugar – use less sugar if jam is very sweet.
pinch of salt
2 large eggs, beaten
150g self-raising flour
12-bun muffin tin and papers

For the icing

100g dark chocolate
100ml double cream
2-3 tablespoons icing sugar
12 small red sugar hearts (I bought mine at The Essential Ingredient but you could easily make them if you have a few extra hours each day)

How to make

Preheat the oven to 180?C/gas mark 4


Put the butter in a heavy-bottomed pan on the heat to melt. When nearly completely melted, stir in the chocolate. Leave for a moment to begin softening, then take the pan off the heat and stir with a wooden spoon until the butter and chocolate are smooth and melted. Now add the raspberry / cherry jam, sugar, salt and eggs. Stir with a wooden spoon and when all is pretty well amalgamated stir in the flour.

Scrape and pour into the muffin papers in their tin and bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes before turning out.
When the cupcakes are cool, break the chocolate for the icing into little pieces and add them to the cream in a saucepan along with a small amount of icing sugar to add a bit of sweetness to the dark chocolate mix. Bring to the boil, remove from the heat and then whisk – by hand or electrically – till thick and smooth. Ice the cupcakes, smoothing the tops with the back of a spoon, and decorate with small sugar red hearts.

PS: If you can’t get enough chocolate just like me, then check out all the rave at Oriol Balaguer which in Sydney can be sourced from the The Spanish Pantry. If you want some more traditional Belgian chocolate, Jeff de Bruges, Sydney has lovely little boxes. Happy Valentines Day everyone!

PPS: Photos courtesy and copyright ThomasBlochPhotography

Chocolate Traditions

So, it’s Valentine’s Day again. Now, the 14th of February used to be a pretty normal day for me in the past. The only remarkable thing about it was that it is my friend Mathias’ birthday. During my childhood in Germany, Valentine’s Day was something entirely foreign. Something that only flower shops advertised. Something, that the Germans shrugged off and ignored.

Those days are gone. Long gone. At least for me and that’s due to two factors which are entirely unrelated.
One is that globalization seems to have caused the whole of Europe to celebrate holidays they had never heard off before (has anybody born before 1980 ever celebrated Halloween as a child in Europe??). Two: I have a boyfriend who was brought up in Singapore and England and who takes Valentine’s Day very seriously. So over the past four years, I got treated to the full Valentine’s Day extravaganza. I must say, I like that. I like being pampered, I like receiving flowers and being taken to great nights out at fancy restaurants. Call it Valentine’s Day or whatever you like, I simply enjoy it. But then: relationships are not just a one way street, are they? So, while I tremendously enjoyed the “getting pampered” side of it, I felt a bit at a loss as to how to pamper my boyfriend in return – the Valentine’s Day way. I had to come up with my own Valentine’s Day tradition.

Since Valentine’s Day and chocolates go together like Carrie Bradshaw and Manolo Blahnik, and we happen to live in Brussels, the official capital of chocolate heaven, the solution seemed to be very easy.
Brussels is full of chocolate shops, they are distributed all over the city, from your tiny little local praline shop in the neighborhood to the big palaces of chocolate by Leonidas, Neuhaus and Godiva. But the uncontested king of chocolates in Brussels (well, at least according to me) is Pierre Marcolini. If chocolate is a religion, this shop is the temple to worship it. According to my friend Paul it is “pure sex”. It is stylish, minimalist, highly polished and does not leave room for any distractions from it’s one and only Raison d’Être: to make the most incredible chocolate and pralines you’ll ever have tasted. The pralines are dark and rich and come in the most delicate flavors. A personal favorite of mine are the Earl Grey or thyme pralines. Marcolini’s are definitely not chocolates for chocolate beginners. They look and feel very mature and grown up, and I admit it, the shop has even something intimidating to it (like haute-couture, Gucci and Dior shop-intimidating). It’s definitely not every day chocolates, but chocolates for special occasions. Like Valentine’s Day.

But then: buying chocolates is a bit boring, isn’t it? Even if they are as good as Pierre Marcolini’s, it is not really personal and it looks like a last-minute solution. So not really romantic, since romance thrives on time and devotion. Therefore I do not leave it at buying chocolate. I rather use it as a starting point to make my wonderful, rich, decadent, Valentine’s-Day-worthy Gâteau au Chocolat. I first made this gâteau for my boyfriend three years ago, and by now it is a Valentine’s Day chocolate tradition for us (well and on many other days of the year we eat it too…)

The recipe comes from Paris. I lived in Paris for a year after high school and a friend of mine introduced me to this wonderful way of eating chocolate. The recipe has stayed with me ever since and many of my friends have included it in their repertoire as well. It is that good. The gâteau is incredibly easy to make and uses good things – like high quality chocolate and butter – in large quantities. I was a bit shocked when I first saw that almost no flour goes into the batter. But once you have tasted it, you will not miss anything. You will be just asking for more. This cake makes you feel happy, loved, comforted, special. Short: it makes you feel like Valentine’s Day should. Have a happy and chocolate-dripping Valentine’s Day!



Gâteau au Chocolat
This recipe is for a small (10-inch)round baking form. You can also pour the batter in small ramekins and bake them individually for dessert and serve them hot with Vanilla ice cream or fresh raspberries or a berry coulis. If you make several small cakes remember that they bake faster and reduce the baking time, since the gateau au chocolat tastes best when it is still a bit soft and liquid in the middle.

150 g butter
120 g caster sugar
150 g dark good quality chocolate (at least 60% cocoa, but of course, you can even use highre percentages if you like), broken into small pieces
3 medium eggs
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 200°C. Butter the baking form.
Melt the chocolate and butter in a bain marie (a bowl or smaller saucepan placed over a saucepan with simmering (not boiling!)water. Stir regularly until chocolate and butter have melted completely and are shiny. Careful: you don't want to overheat your chocolate-butter mixture. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar in/with a mixer until pale yellow, light and fluffy. Gently fold in the melted chocolate.
Mix flour, salt and baking powder and sift over chocolate mixture. Fold in. Pour the batter in the prepared baking form and tap on the counter to remove any air bubbles. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, according to your taste. Let cool in form for at least 10 minutes before serving it. Enjoy!

Pierre Marcolini

Rue des Minimes, 1
Place du grand sablon
1000 Bruxelles