Dinner is served

The godfather of all New Year's Days

There are some things that are only acceptable on New Year's Day. Having the worst hangover of the whole year just gone. Having absolutely no guilt about not getting dressed. Telling yourself seriously that by this time next year you'll be two stone lighter/ tee-total/ in the perfect relationship/ have quit your job. Oh or watch almost nine hours straight of mafia-classic-epic The Godfather trilogy.

Yes, I'd never seen it, and, well, you could say watching it was one new year's resolutions that it was pretty easy to tick off the list. But if we were going to do it, we were going to do it in style. Italian style. Proper Bolognese, bottle of Chianti (hair of the dog, the only way through) and a huge portion of tiramisu. It was an offer I couldn't refuse.

Authentic Ragù Bolognese
This Delia recipe is almost as epic as The Godfather so best make ahead and make lots, you can freeze the extra (makes about 8 portions)

450g lean minced beef
450g minced pork
around 225g chopped chicken livers
140g chopped pancetta or streaky bacon
6 tbsp olive oil
2 medium onions, finely chopped
4 fat garlic cloves, chopped or crushed
2x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
2x 200g tubes of tomato puree
half a bottle of red or white wine (Delia suggests red but traditionalists would go white...)
15g packet of basil
1/2 whole nutmeg, grated
And two off-Delia additions:
2 medium carrots, grated
250g packet of mushrooms, grated

First up brown off your minces seperately and add them to your biggest casserole dish (which is not on the heat). Then fry up the garlic and onions, add the pancetta or streaky bacon and cook until the onions soften and the bacon browns and cooks, lastly add the grated carrot and mushroom and continue stirring until cooked (left). Then add this to your casserole dish.

Finally add more oil to the frying pan and fry off the chopped chicken livers (add these even if you think you don't like liver, you can't taste them individually and it adds a secret richness to your bol sauce). Finally add these to your meat medley in the casserole dish (right). Add in your chopped tomatoes and tomato puree, wine and a very healthy seasoning of salt, pepper and grated nutmeg.

Pop this over the heat and bring to a simmer. Now this is where I've got to argue ol' Dels has got it wrong. She suggests putting the mix in the oven uncovered for 4 hours. We've tried this. It dries out. So you could put it in the oven partially covered to reduce. Or you could do it our way and cook it over a low heat on the hob for 4 hours. Yes and you have to keep stirring so it doesn't stick. It is painstaking method but boy is it worth it.




Spaghetti may be the pasta known for bolognese but fatter tagliatelle is far better (and what the Bolognese have with their ragu sauce) as it ropes in the sauce and gives it something to get hooked up on. Fresh egg pasta is best, so flash it in boiling water for a couple of minutes, drain, top with the ragu and a healthy shaving of parmasean, unplug the phone, pour a glass of Chianti, draw the curtains and settle down to a mafia marathon...

The three acts to The Godfather triology are perfectly timed to make the tiramisu between part one and two and for it to be set and ready to sweeten Sofia Coppola's wooden acting in part three.

Jamie does... Best Tiramisu
serves 12
(the Italians might kill him for messing with the classic recipe but this version has a kick of orange zest, richness for chocolate and an added lightness of egg whites through the mascapone)

200g good dark chocolate
50g diced butter
175g sponge fingers
400ml good hot sweetened coffee
Sweet dessert wine (Jamie suggests Vin Santo - however we went for Tia Maria...)
4 large eggs
100g caster sugar
750g mascapone
2 oranges
to garnish some crushed coffee beans, chocolate shavings or cocoa, orange zest

Melt your chocolate in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water, although make sure it isn't touching the water. Add the diced butter and a pinch of salt and melt and stir to combine.

Line a large deep dish with sponge fingers, then carefully pour over the hot coffee. Add some booze to your melted coffee, stir through and then drizzle over the fingers and spread evenly (in a bit messy style... left).

Seperate the eggs with whites in one bowl and yolks in another. Add sugar to the yolks and if you fancy another swig of booze an whisk with an electric whisk for 5 minutes until everything is mixed and pale and fluffy. Mix in the mascapone and the zest of an orange.

Clean the whisk and whip the whites with a pinch of salt to stiff peaks - using the old turning the bowl upside down trick again. Using a large spoon, add spoonfuls of the white mix to the yolk bowl (right) and fold each through.

Spoon the mix over the chocolate layer and smooth. Garnish with a dusting of coffee and/or cocoa powder (or grated chocolate). Then pop in the fridge to set for two hours and sit down to part two...

Twas the night before Chirstmas...

... when all through the house.
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
So to the kitchen I went, wooden spoon in hand.
To cook up a frenzy as a one-woman baking band!

Chirstmas! Food! Stuff yourself stupid until you can't move and pass out!

I always love coming home for Christmas - the fridge is full to breaking point with half the contents on Marks & Spencer and there are so many exciting cheeses, chocolates, wines and more that I could easily eat myself silly for a good month without leaving the house to refuel. So, as if there wasn't enough to consume already I decided yesterday that how better to get in the festive spirit than to bake cinnamon stars and mincemeat cheecake and then slump in front of the TV to watch Love Actually (again). So that's exactly what I did...

Now I'm not a fair-weather cinnamon-junkie, oh no for me it's a year-round obsession that can fortunately be flaunted publicly as the official 'essence of Christmas' as soon as the Starbucks red cups come out. It might have been gold, frankincense and myrrh that the three wise men brought to baby Jesus that night but really who knows what frankincense and myrrh smell like (gold is gold who cares what it smells like when it looks so pretty), I think we should update the tale and bring on cinnamon, cloves and, oh go on then, gold. Anyway before I re-write the entire story of Christmas, thankfully it's not just me that's obsessed with cinnamon: the Americans LOVE the stuff and the Germans are pretty fond of it too, bringing us our first creation:

Cinnamon Star Biscuits

(makes about 40 depending ohn the size of your stars)

300g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
1/2 to 1 tsp cinnamon (depending on the level of obsession...)
100g softened unsalted butter
200g golden caster sugar
1 large egg, beaten

Sift the flour, baking powder, spices and a pinch of salt together. Cream together the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy, then gradually beat in the egg (left).


Add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly, add drops of cold water as needed to bind the dough.

Press the dough into a disc and wrap (in clingfilm or a plastic bag) and pop in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 180 (160 if it's fan). Well flour your surface (don't want your stars to get stuck and deformed now do you? I totally didn't do that the first time, uhum...) and your rolling pin and roll the dough out to about the thickness of a pound coin. Stamp out your shapes (stars are the classic but go rogue and go for Christmas trees if you fancy a bigger biscuit) and keep re-balling and re-rolling and stamping until you've rinsed out your dough for all it's worth.

Lay on parchment-lined baking trays and pop in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until they are gorgeously lightly golden. Let cool (and do a taste test, of course). You could ice them to be trad but I didn't bother because that'd only dilute the cinnamon...







But my festive baking frenzy didn't stop there. I'm not a huge fan of Christmas pudding. To be honest, I think I may have never had it on Christmas Day (I may, shh, never have had it at all...). My grandmother alway used to bake the most gloriously fluffy, goo-ily meringue-y pavlova for Christmas dinner. I know, higly unconventional but how could you opt for a solid fruitcake over that glory? Everytime. Anyway my grandmother has now stopped baking so I thought it was high time I took up the alternative Day dessert mantle. I saw Nigel Slater's Mincemeat Cheesecake recipe in the OFM a few weeks back and that was it. Suitably festive and suitably tempting, he'd done it. And a new era of family Christmas dessert is born (hopefully).

Christmas Cheesecake
serves 8-10

As Nige says, you might find that your cheesecake cracks across the top as it cools (mine did - I maintain it adds to the 'homemade' look - and you can hide it with a bit of festive holly...). But if you are anti-cracks, Nige suggests you bake it in a water bath. so insted of placing on a baking tray, half-fill a roasting tin with water and lower the uncooked cheesecake into it and bake as suggested.

For the base:
65g butter
300g digestive biscuits or shortbread (it's Scottish innit so obviously went for shortbread)

For the filling:
600g full fat cream cheese
200g  golden caster sugar
4 eggs plus one extra yolk
zest of one small orange (plus some extra to garnish)
few drops vanilla extract
300g sour cream
250g mincemeat

You want a round cake tin with a removable base about 22cm in diameter and 7.5cm deep. Line it with baking parchment. To make the base first smash up your shortbread (or biscuits). Food processor would be best, but in its absence I improvised with a mashing mallet and angry thoughts.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan and mix in the shortbread crumbs. Tip the glistening crumb mix into the tin and smooth out (don't mash it down). Put in the firdge for half an hour to set.

While it's in there, set the oven to 140 and make the filling. Put the cream cheese and sugar in a bowl (or food processor) and blend for a couple of minutes until smooth. Add the eggs then the extra yolk one by one, beating thoroughly and scrapping the sides inward if needed. Add the zest and the vanilla extract and blend with the food processor or hand blender. With just a spoon or spatula, mix in the soured cream. Then fold in the mincemeat gently.

 

Take the base out the fridge and place it on a piece of baking parchment on a baking tray. Pour in the filling mixture. Bake in the oven for an hour. The middle will still seem uncooked and wobbly but do not fear. After the hour, turn the oven off but leave the cheesecake in the hour for another hour with the door shut. After, remove from the oven, allow to cool then set in the fridge overnight (do this, you don't want a wobbly cheesecake). In the morning (Christmas morning!), remove from the fridge and garnish with orange zest, and if you fancy, holly. Merry Christmas!

Roon-ing around (and no nothing to do with Wayne)

It's hard not to love macaroons (macarons en Francais). Small, perfectly formed, melt in the mouth. But being an impoverish journo the one thing I don't love it the price (£1 a macaroon!! But they're tiny!!!) and they've stopped sending me free ones... So... I thought... how hard can they be to make? Uhum...

So make your own macaroons. There are plenty of recipes out there so Saturday morning and I set to work. I had two recipes: Ottolenghi and Delicious Magazine. So of course, erring on the side of caution why not combine them?! But what flavour, what flavour... the trusted Ottolenghi offered up salt peanut and caramel, lime and basil and chocolate, while Delicious opts for a myriad of flavour extracts or chocolate.... mmmm. But it had to be raspberry.

The first stumbling block came when 'the big Tescos' didn't have raspberry flavour extract. Ok, I thought, I'll get really raspberries, we'll work this.

Macaroons are essentially almondy meringue sandwiches, so the basis to the recipe is sugar, egg whites and ground almonds. Easy! Laduree, watch out.

I kicked off on the Delicious recipe (sorry, Otto, I love you really and this may have been my first mistake) but mostly because it called for bigger qualities (175g icing sugar, 125g ground almonds, 3 large egg whites, 75g caster sugar) compared to Otto's (110g icing sugar, 60g ground almonds, 2 large egg whites, 40g caster sugar) and I was greedy.

The method though is pretty much standard:

Pre-heat the over to 160 (less if you're is fan, not accounted for in the Otto recipe, error two). Sieve the icing sugar and ground almonds into a bowl.

Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk until thick and glossy, adding the caster sugar as the peaks form.

Of course, I couldn't resist the classic test: tipping the bowl upside down. Gingerly, very gingerly...

Phew. Fold bit by bit, either the meringue into the almond/icing sugar or the almond/icing sugar into the meringue (recipe dependant). Now add your flavouring. Working with my fresh raspberries, I decided the best option would be to blitz them in the food processor and then sieve them to take out the pips. So I added the juice which gave a satisfying pinky colour to the mixture. Now comes the fun/messy bit: piping! So armed with a icing piping bag (John Lewis or a specialist cooking shop will help you out), fill the bag halfway and then pipe only a baking paper lined tray. You're aiming for blobs about 3cm wide, about the size of a two pound coin. They don't swell like cookies when you bake them so space them but you don't need loads of room.

Bang them on the kitchen surface so they form a good 'foot' (you know that distinctive puffy, rough base). Leave for 15 minutes uncovered before you pop them in the oven for about 12-15 minutes.

While the 'bread' of the sandwich as cooking, it's time to make the buttercream filling. Having had far too much meringue mix for my trays last time, I decided to switch back to my beloved Otto (sorry I deserted you!). So 100g unsalted soft butter and 45g icing sugar mixed together until pale coloured and smooth. Then add your flavouring (more pulverised raspberries).

Check the 'breads' regularly though (third mistake), you want them raised and hard but leave them too long and they'll go golden and overcooked. They should also be cooked enough that they come easily off the baking sheet and there's no meringue goo still holding them on. Mine were almost there but somehow both slighty over-and under-cooked.

Leave the meringues to cool before assembling the macaroons with a small spoonful of buttercream holding the sandwiches together, then leave somewhere cool to set.

So the verdict? Ok, so they're no Laduree, more homely than haute-caketure but they still disappeared between me and the Boy in ooh two days. Twenty of them. But for next time? Work on the meringue mixture (I think I might need a more precise scale). The flavouring needed to be a bit more intense... it was kind of like roses to rose water in terms of the raspberry flavour. And I need to play with the oven temperature and time (a constant battle with my oven). And oh, one last thing, I think they would've been better with a jam-y filling rather than buttercream. But apart from that they were deeeeeeeeelicious. And very much less than £1 each.

Pick your own, make your own

There are certain childhood memories that are hold a mythical status in your mind - for me going to pick your own fruit is right up there. Rows upon rows of raspberries glistening in the sun, as much as you can eat straight from the branch... well that might not technically be the point of pick your own, but it was for me. It was like the Willy Wonka Factory but instead of chocolate there were raspberries, everywhere. Until I was quite possibly sick.

So sunny bank holiday weekend and I did my best child like pleading. 'Peeeeeeeeeete, please can we go pick your own pleeeeeeeeeeease. You prooooooomiiiiiiiised.' It worked. And off we piled in the car to Garsons in Esher - the very same pick your own farm as I went to as a kid. Oh it was too good to be true.

Now, many things that were immense as a child shrink under adult eyes. Cinema pick'n'mix tastes a little less sweet. Slides are so much shorter and lower. Swimming pool wave machines no longer house sharks, but are just bars at the end of the pool (is that just me?). But the pick your own farm was still as huge as I remembered.

'We need to get some punnets.' I informed the Boy as we drove past field upon field.

'I think we need to find something to pick first.' Good point, it turns our August isn't prime picking period, oops.

We stop at the corn fields first. I hate to admit but I'd never really knew that corn grew out the bottom of the erm, corn on the cob plants... but we selected two plump looking corns 'for starters'. But I was really here for the fruit. Some sad looking blackberry plants were either overpicked or under-ripe and a good 20 minutes of picking only yielded a handful of berries and some scratched wrists. Onward. Carrots, onions and marrows didn't really have the immediate hit (uhum, eat) appeal...

'Maybe if we got some apples we could make a crumble,' said the Boy. Good plan.

Apples were much more fun to pick, giving a satisfyingly weighty plop into your palm when you twisted them off the tree.

But apple picking wasn't what I was here for really. Back in the car in search of the sweet fruit. And just before we got to the exit: berry nirvana! Raspberries, strawberries, ripe and ready to go. I hadn't imagined how fun this was after all. Pick one, eat one, pick one...

Back home it was crumble time. One of my favourite quick-fire recipes is peach, raspberry and ginger crumble from Gordon Ramsay's Cooking for Friends. It's dead simple and won over the Boy's grandmother so it's a keeper. I'll give it to you whole before today's adaptation, becasue it is yum and the stem ginger is an amazing addition.

Peach, raspberry and ginger crumble

For the filling:
8 fimr but ripe peaches
250g raspberries
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp icing sugar
2 stem ginger in syrup, finely chopped

For the crumble:
50g plain flour
pinch of salt
40g diced butter
35g rolled oats
50g demerara sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
30g slivered almonds or crushed hazelnuts (or both!)

Heat the oven to 190. To make the filling: Cut the peaches into wedges and toss in a large bowl with the raspberries, lemon juice, icing sugar and stem ginger. Spread them evenly in a large butter baking dish.

To make the crumble: put the flour and salt in a bowl and add the diced butter. Rub the butter into the floru with your fingers until it looks like coarse breadcrumbs. Stir in the oats, sugar, cinnamon and nuts and sprinkle over the filling. Bake for about 25-30 minutes until crumble is golden brown and then stand for 10 before serving with ice cream (of course!)

To turn this beauty into late summer fruits crumble: make the filling with one large sliced cooking apple, a handful of blackberries and a handful and a half of raspberries. Toss with the lemon juice, icing sugar but replace the ginger with a covering of ground cinnamon. Crumble and bake the same and voila, from field to bowl in one day.

Beanz Meanz Heinz

‘You work too hard, you are very tense’

Somehow I don’t think my spa therapist is right right now. I’m lying being scrubbed by sand flown in from St Barts in a treatment room that looks like the VIP room in a flashy nightclub: all low lighting, fibre-optic trim and mirrors, everywhere. Every time I open my eyes I catch sight of my semi-naked sandy flesh. I close my eyes, tight, well I supposed I did get up at 3.15am to meet four journalists I’d never met before and board an ash-free BA flight to Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport. Yes, I was back to Italy. And it was the lure of three Michelin-star dining that got me here.

The Rome Cavalieri is much like the rest of the inhabitants of the city of seven hills: good looking, a bit flash and swaggering with confidence. Oh and like the city itself there are artefacts everywhere. Perched on one of the hills overlooking the Vatican City, it is a church for the worships of beautiful things. Warhol’s, works of Italian masters and Louis XV furniture are crammed in every square inch of lobby, suites and corridors. Everything is superlative: the most expensive spa treatment (it involves a 600 euro pot of platinum), the most impressive views (well it does have one of the seven hills spots) and the best restaurant in Rome. Five week waiting lists (a year for the terrace in summer), a water menu longer than some wine lists and three Michelin stars. It’s the only three Michelin star restaurant in Italy, let alone Rome. According to the guide that means it is ‘worth a special journey’. We’ve made a special journey.

I have to pinch myself. For the second time in as many weeks I’m at the hungry end of a gourmet tasting menu. The previous twenty four hours have been equally surreal: sat on Karl Lagerfeld’s sofa (ok, so he sold it but it’s still his, his bottom has been there), coffee in the palatial apartment of an Italian princess, met a man who makes leather jackets for President Mugabe (in exchange for snakeskins it appears) and took a cracking swing at a polo lesson. I’m living someone else’s life. A very rich Roman’s life.

The restaurant in question, La Pergola, sits in all its opulent glory on the top of the Cavalieri presided over by German Heinz Beck. The neighbouring Penthouse suite, a favourite of George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Julia Roberts et al (she recently stayed for weeks while filming Eat Pray Love) has a secret back entrance and a pre-reserved private table (for 8,000 euros a night there isn’t a waiting list).

Very serious looking young men scurry about doing a dodging dance as they fluff napkins, swap cutlery and offer me a table for my bag the second it touches the ground. There’s a six course menu, bread appears, butter under a glass dome, the famous water menu (including a Swarovski incrusted number for a whopping 200 euros). One of the young scurriers appears with a trolley dedicated to salt – I opt for the black volcanic one from Hawaii.

Ding ding. Round one – a clam and celery amuse bouche with carrot foam. The carrot foam dissolves the second it touches my lips, it tastes like a carrot breathing into my mouth after a day on the beach. But it works. You knew it was going to work, don’t doubt a master.

Bouche amused, now it was time to really get going: a starter of duck liver terrine with smoked apples almonds and ameretti. Soft, smooth, rich with the kick of smoked apple puree and dusted crust of almonds and ameretti - it ticked every box.

A fresh kick came with the infusion of veal, herbs and Tonka beans with tuna tartare and green tea sorbet. I didn't know it at the time but this was possibly my favourite course, I am a sucker for perfect raw fish, but if the raw fish wasn't enough the little golden nugget of a veal dumpling that was nestling next to it sealed the deal. Plus the cold raw fish/ sorbet v.s hot broth and veal dumpling combo was enough to make my mouth want burst into song.

'Don't stop me now, I'm having such a good time, I'm having a ball...' In comes the pasta course, it's Italy it would be criminal to miss it: ricotta tortellini with pecorino and broad beans.

In at four was Cannolo of scampi and vegetables, olive sauce and tapioca with Campari. I know it is three Michelin star but is it wrong to compare them to the best spring rolls you could ever eat? Italian spring rolls if you will...

Into what could now be described as the 'main course' portion of the meal. It was a game of two parts: opening with black cod with marinated anchovy's vinaigrette and sweet chilli pepper. There was a lot of debate as to what our black shard consisted of - it was fine pastry no doubt but charcoal? Was that a hint of liquorice, a nod to things to come?

And after a short interval: liquorice flavoured shoulder of Iberian suckling pig with herbed potatoes. It tasted like it had been griddled on a pan made of liquorice - the lightest hint of flavour was all it took.

After that all the menu said was 'Grand Dessert'. Grand, n. 1. impressive in size, appearance or general effect 2. stately, majestic or dignified 3. highly ambitious or idealistic 4. magnificent or splendid 5. noble or reverved 6. highest, or very high, in rank 7. main or principal 8. of great importance, distinction or pretension 9. complete or comprehensive 10. pretending to grandeur 11. first rate, very good, splendid. It turns out it was pretty much all of them and it was only just beginning...

First out to set the scene: an amuse of coconut ice cream and mango with a shard of burnt sugar. We were into sweet gear. Then came the tower...

Filled with drawer upon drawer on all sides with petit fours. One between two, 12 drawers, three morsels a drawer - 18 petit fours each. Needless to say I didn't manage it (I could barely manage to pick it up), and especially when I was told the Grand Dessert hadn't even begun...

A flurry of tiny plates - they keep coming down in front of me.

Chocolate and coconut soup, liquorice souffle, baked raspberry almost brulee..

And more come flying over my shoulder.

Champagne jelly with strawberries, frozen coffee with coffee cream, whisky ice cream with crushed biscuits and a dark chocolate finger filled with mousse... I could barely think straight as my spoon dipped from each onto the next (or could that be from the dessert wine that was now flowing). It hit the spot - light and rich, warm and cold... every sensation, every texture, it was very very grand. And we were there... the end of the meal. What a meal. And, for a tasting menu, it was refreshingly light. The man himself came round from table to table as we drank our freshly snipped herbal tea.

                              

The secret? 'Chefs who have secrets don't have creativity'. He revealed that he'd studied insulin oscillation, his was 'a light kitchen of Mediterranean flavours' - there was no reason that gourmet food couldn't be good for you. I'll eat to that Heinz.