I took a special trip to Rome last May, for a very particular purpose: I had to initiate a couple of friends, who have been living in Rome for almost 10 years, to the real, unique and exceptional rustic Roman food. Why this urge? Well, these friends are co-founders of our “gastronauts society” and are foodoholics like me. Considering that they are soon to leave Rome, I could not accept the fact that they had never tasted our fantastic delicacies.

So, what am I talking about? Simple: “pajata”, “coda alla vaccinara”, “animele”, “coratella” and similar things. These items would be described by a vast majority of the earth’s population as “offal”. Let’s take these one by one:
Pajata
What is pajata? Looking at Wikipedia’s entry can be scary
“[...] Pajata is the term for the intestines of an “un-weaned” calf, i.e., only fed on its mother’s milk. The intestines are cleaned and skinned, but the Chyme is left inside. Then the intestine is cut in pieces 20 – 25 cm long, which are bond together with white thread, forming rings. When cooked, the combination of heat and the enzyme rennet in the intestines coagulates the chyme and creates a sort of thick, creamy, cheese-like sauce [...]“. I can assure you that it is DELICIOUS!!!

Considering the whole issue with cows and veals and mad-cow disease, real “pajata” has been banned since the early 90s. Instead of calves, Romans have now switched to un-weaned lambs. Anyway, according to the timeless tradition, we had the delicacy served in a tomato sauce with pecorino and rigatoni (see photo).

Next, my guests had another CLASSIC Roman dish:
Coda alla vaccinara 
This is a more common animal part and less “yucky” for many people. It’s a stew of ox-tail, celery, tomato, ham, bacon and many herbs. The dish is cooked for hours, until all the meat is tender and falling off the tail bones. A typical menu would consist of preparing such a stew and, once ready, use part of the tomato sauce to season a “primo” of pasta and use the rest a the meat “secondo”. Sorry, I have no picture of this dish.

While my friends were inhaling their ox-tail, I was inhaling my own plate of roman “delicacies”. The restaurant had its own name for it, but I can clearly say that it was a mix of
Animelle and Coratella
What are these? Sit down, take a breath and get ready. Look at the picture. See anything familiar? Not, unless you took anatomy in college. This dish consists of grilled offal: hearts, kidneys, livers, lungs, pajata. Not for the faint hearted. Hard-core stuff, but sooooo tastylicious. As someone once said, “ya cannae not die stoopid”… got taste it all, then decide

So that was the evening. My friends were very positively impressed and gave the “foodgasm!” stamp to the dinner. And the wine: we washed the whole thing down with a couple of bottles of this guy (see photo). Very nice, very nice indeed.

[...]

Buon appetito!

I haven’t written in a while and I do feel guilty about it. That’s how it goes when the writing follows a great food experience. I wish I could do that more frequently. Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy this dish I cooked last weekend. Here’s what happened.

I went to the supermarket to do the usual weekly shopping and decided it was time I passed by the fishmonger as well. Weather is nice, full spring, for sure, some good stuff must be coming out of the sea. I get there and what do I see? Fresh squid. But not the wee ones. The real ones. 2-3 pounders. “mmmhhhh” was my first thought. My brain went immediately into “assembly” mode:

• What can I do with that?
• How should I cook it?
• What other goodies should I add to?

At first, I thought about a stew but then I saw the mussels on the side, there, just sitting quietly in their box, trying to avoid eye contact. “Too late, pals!”. There it was. Illumination. Pasta with mussels and squid. Now we were getting somewhere. Think about it: fuming spaghetti, with bits of squid and fresh tomato, all topped with splendid mussels in their shells. Still, I felt that something was missing. Think. Think. Think. Then I remembered that mussels go splendidly with strong, salty tastes, like pecorino. Have no pecorino. Have bottarga. Jackpot!

You might wonder: what is bottarga? It’s very simple, it’s roe. Caviar of the poor. There are two kinds sold in Italy: tuna and grey mullet roe. Tuna is more expensive, yet tastier and more sought for. I do have both, but my tuna one is fresh, thus I need to use it before it gets destroyed.

Anyway, we now have a dish in the planning and we can start cooking. First, we need to clean the squid and the mussels. Mussels are simple. First of all check that they are alive. To do that, see that they are closed when taking them off the bag. If they are open, “bang” them against the table and make sure that they “react” by closing the valves. If that doesn’t happen a few bangs, throw that shell away. Once they are closed, remove the “beard” by pulling it off the beast.

Squids are a bit more difficult. I asked my fishmonger to clean mine, but he didn’t a proper job and I had ink all over my kitchen. So make sure that everything is removed properly and keep the tentacles!

Start boiling the water for the pasta.

OK, now: prepare a base for the mussels. I used a big deep pot where I added some olive oil, to finely chopped sticks of celery, to chopped leeks, 2 cloves of garlic and 2 glassesand let it all blend and golden up. When that was the case (about 10 minutes), I added 2 glasses of chardonnay (or any white wine you have around) and threw in the mussles. Close the lid and cook slowly for about 15 minutes or until you think they are cooked. The lid is important, as it allows for a proper “sterilisation” of the mussel shells, by entrapping the high temperature steam in the pot.

Next, let’s prepare the squid. First of all, take the squid and chop it into small pieces (like 1×0.5 cm for example), including tentacles. Wash it all nicely under a lot of water. Now, in a wide and tallish pan, crush 2 cloves of garlic, add 2-3 tbsp of olive oil and warm it up. Cut a few thin slices of the bottarga, chop into as finely as you can and add it to the oil/garlic mix. Stir for 5 minutes and then add the squid and half a glass of white wine.

Cook at high temp for 5 minutes, turn down the heat and wait until the next step is ready. In the meantime, get some tomatoes and chop them finely.

Now, it gets “complicated” At this point, the water should be boiling, thus throw the pasta in. Take the mussels off their broth and toss them in the frying pan. Pass the broth through a sieve and put the liquid back in the pot. When the pasta is half cooked (let’s say 5 minutes) take it off that water and finish cooking it in the mussels broth. Just before it’s ready, drain it, put it back in the pan, add the fish together with the finely diced tomatoes.

Ready. Crack open another bottle of white (I love Chablis or Greco di Tufo with these dishes) and enjoy. I loved it!!! Foodgasmic!!!!

Here’s the “precise” list of ingredients:

- Olive oil

- 4 cloves of garlic

- 500 grams of spaghetti

- 1.5 kg of fresh mussels

- 1kg of fresh squid

- 5 tomatoes

- 3 slices of tuna bottarga

- 2 sticks of celery

- 2 leeks

- half a bottle of white wine

- a lot of hunger

- a love for good food

Article first published as Pasta With Squid, Mussels, Tuna Roe And Fresh Tomato on Blogcritics.

I admit it! Alan and I had a wee, mini gastronauts meeting in Rome last month. I was in town for the rugby 6Nations game between Italy and Ireland, and crashed at Alan’s flat. Since we only had a few hours to commit our gastro-crimes (I arrived latish in Rome on friday afternoon, Alan was leaving at 05:00 for teh US), we chose a very simple, yet tasty menu.

First, I got a small 30g can of “entry level” sturgeon caviar from Prunier at the airport in CPH. While on my way from Fiumicino airport, I got a bottle of Greco di Tufo at a petrol station on the raccordo, while Alan was preparing a quick puttanesca. So, as I arrived home, we immediately started with the caviar, washed down with a quite mellow chardonnay and we followed suit with the pasta, wetted by a jar of nebbiolo.

As a secondo, Alan had gotten some straccetti (litteraly translated to little rags) and some fresh rughetta (arugula, for you non romans). Straccetti are very thing and small strips of beef. It was my duty to cook them. So here’s how I made them:

In a large frying pan (or skillet), I did put quite an amount of olive oil. I’m Italian, I can’t quantify how much oil I used as if I were in the lab. I just know how much is right Anyway, I bring the oil the very high temp and throw in and 3 cloves of garlic and let tem get golden. Once that is ready, I bring down the heat and throw the meat in the pan (carful!) and quickly stir the whole thing.When the meat is almost ready, I salt it and add balsamic vinegar until the while dish is covered with a think and brownie sauce. Turn off the heat, serve the straccetti on large plates, covered with fresh rughetta and some slices of parmigiano. Enjoyed with the remaining nebbiolo and the greco di tufo.

Mmmmhhhh! Shame was that Alan’s butcher cut the meat too thick. Bollocks to him.

Had my only blog follower “begging” me to add more recipes to the site. Here’s a quick and easy one, for when you are uninspired and hungry.

You’ll need good quality spaghetti, a can of tuna in oil (not the mini ones, but the normal sized cans), olive oil, a lemon, as much garlic as you can deal with (usually 2-3 thingies) and, optional, parley, capers and black olives.

Put the water onto the fire, allow to boil and “throw” the pasta. While it’s cooking, cut your garlic extra small and put it in a bowl. Add the tuna and the juice of the lemon (you can start with half of it and adjust as you like). You can add some capers or black olives if you want. When the pasta is “al dente”, ie: one minute before the time written on the packaging, drain it and toss it into the bowl. Mix well, add olive oil ad libidum and the chopped parsley.

Serve and eat hot, warm, cold, however you like

I love this dish. Cheap and easy and very tasty. And reminds me of the good’ole times when living in Rome alone with my brother.

Enjoy!

I’m on a roll.

This is the dish that Nadia prepared. Fantastic. I am getting more and more convinced that it was my favorite of the evening. I haven’t seen her preparing it (no pictures), but here are the instructions I got from her:

Osso Buco Bianco River Café

2 inch crosscuts of veal hind shank

½c flour

seasalt and ground peper

½c butter (4 oz)

2Tb olive oil

2 small red onions, peeled and chopped

4 celery stalks, peeled and chopped

2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped

9 salted anchovies, prepared (washed and spine bones and heads removed)

½ bottle dry white wine

Gremolata

Finely grated zest of 2 lemons

1 garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped

3 heaped Tb chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

Preheat oven to 300F.

Dust osso buco with flour, salt, pepper. In large heavy-bottomed casserole just large enough to hold all the pieces in one layer, melt half butter and all the olive oil, brown and seal osso buco on each side. Remove from the pan and pour away fat. Then add remaining butter, gently sauté onions and celery until very soft but not brown. Add garlic and anchovies and mash until anchovies have melted, this will only take a second. Pour in the wine, bring to a boil and reduce.

Carefully put osso buco back into the casserole, making sure that the bones are placed so that the marrow can not fall out during the cooking. Cover with parchment paper and the lid, and cook in oven for at least 2.5 hours. Can be made ahead and reheated.

Mix together the gremolata and sprinkle over each osso buco.

This we served piping hot and enjoyed with a Springbank 12 yo, cask strength. Perfect match.

Hi again,

It’s now time to explain how we prepared our Gastronauts menu. I guess that the antipasto does not need any explanation: put a couple of mozzarelle and some parma ham in a nice serving dish, and that’s it.

So, let’s skip directly to the ‘primo’: Ravioli with truffle dough, ricotta, porcini and truffle filling, served with butter, parmigiano and truffles. I did forget to add the porcini bit on the menu, as that was a last minute improvisation.

For the dough I used (we were 7 people):

- 800 g of flour

- 4 eggs

- a drop of water

- about 30 g of finely grated black truffle

I first put the flour and the

eggs in the mixing bowl of my KitchenAid and started mixing. When all the egg was incorporated into the flour, I first added he truffle and, after that, I added very little amounts of water until the dough became nice and firm. I covered the dough and let rest for about an hour at room temperature.

For the filling:

- 300 g of fresh ricotta

- a handful of dried porcini, softened in red wine and water for 15 minutes

- ~ 50 g of finely grated black truffle

We put everything into a bowl and mixed until all ingredients became homogeneously distributed.

The sauce:

- big chunk of butter, melted in a frying pan

- grated parmigiano

- whole black truffle to be sliced on each plate (you’ll need a truffle slicer, or anything able to make very thing slices)

Now, let’s make the ravioli. I worked a bit the dough with my hands and cut it into wee balls, the size of a fist. Using my hand-driven pasta maker, I worked each ball into a thing strip of dough, going up till the second thinnest setting (don’t want it too thin, or it’ll break). I then cut each strip so that they are ~ 40 cm long, or they’ll be hard to work with. Alan was then responsible for assembling the ravioli. He started lining wee mounts of filling along the dough, then fold the dough on itself and, with his fingers, he would close each filling ball inside a tight package. The ravioli are then cut into the final shape using a dedicated ravioli cutter. We let the ravioli rest on a flour covered tray for a couple of hours, so hat the dough would not be too wet, thus disassemble while cooking.

We cooked them while we were having the antipasto. Loads of salted water to boil, threw in the ravioli and cooked them for 10 minutes. Carefully drained them avoiding complete destruction, and poured the drained ravioli onto the melted butter. Mix carefully, slowly adding the parmigiano. Once served, we covered each plate with thin slices of truffle. Eat. Wash down with some nice Amarone. Have a foodgasm.

The day after the whisky tasting, we spent a few hours recovering and putting ourselves back together. There was a dinner to prepare. Here’s the menu Alan and I had designed over the last few months:

I shall put the recipes and instructions on separate posts.

We did indeed spend the whole day shopping, cooking, shoveling the snow, and drinking coffee. Finally, at around 18:00, Angus and his wife Kiss arrived (together with the ordered kidneys and the lagerkage) and we were all ready for the feast. We sat down at ~ 18:30 and finished ~ 23:30. It was a real success. Nothing of what we cooked was left. It was a real foodgasm.

I personally loved the whole thing. Great people, relaxed atmosphere, excellent food and drinks, nice chats, no stress. Kind a of a weekend of “oblivion”. I want more and can’t wait to repeat the experience. Where and when should it be? Here again in the summer with a fish based grill session? or should it be in Campbeltown, with an associated trip to Springbank and Islay? Or something else? I’m veeery openminded

Thanks to all for the fantastic weekend!!!!!

You will need a Microplane® zester for this for grating a clove of garlic. They produce a very fine garlic puree which is far superior to a press or chopping.

Olive oil

a clove of garlic

cracked black pepper

finely ground black pepper

flour

milk

concentrated chicken stock or a chicken OXO®

Put a good glug of olive oil in a small saucepan

grate a clove of garlic and mix well into the cold oil (if the oil is hot the garlic will form a lump) and stir well

gently heat the oil until quite hot stirring constantly

add a few good twists of cracked and finely ground black pepper

add a level dessertspoon of flour and make a roux then:

EITHER

add some water until a thick paste is formed, but not reached its full thickness

crumble in a chicken OXO cube

OR

Add concentrated chicken stock (needs to be quite salty) and stir over heat until quite thick

Add milk until the required consistency is reached – do not allow to come to a complete boil

Serve over turkey steaks or steamed vegetables

I bought some fresh anchovies at the local market and was thinking of a way to prepare them and I thought “Well they’re a bit like eel so why not do them in an Unagi type sauce?”

2 volumes soy sauce

2 volumes mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine or dry sherry in a pinch)

1 volume sugar

cleaned anchovy fillets; about 10 anchovies per person

pre-heat an oven to 170ºC

Add the mirin and the soy to a small pan, add in the sugar and heat to just under boiling point, stirring until sugar is dissolved

using chopsticks or tongs dip the anchovies into the sauce and place in a baking tray

bake for 10 mins

serve with salad and rice

Hello fellow eaters,

I was getting bored at home today and after a bit of thinking, I decided to prepare some fresh pesto. You see, I have this pot of basil in the kitchen which is getting quite big. I bought it 3 months ago at the local supermarket and never thought it would last too long (these guys usually don’t last more than a couple of weeks). Anyway, since these “branches” were getting hard and old, I thought that I could take the older ones and try to make some pesto with them leaves. Better than letting them die.

So, I picked up all the leaves (about two handfulls) and washed them carefully in cold water and dried them in a clean cloth. While the leaves are getting a rest, I peeled 3 cloves of garlic and blended them together with a pinch of coarse salt. I then added the basil leaves, a bit at a time, and kept blending in short pulses (to avoid too much heating up of the mix). Continued adding a handful of walnuts (should be pine nuts,  but walnuts are accepted by the purists) and a half handful of parmigiano reggiano.

Finally, and ONLY at this stage, I added my olive oil. I kept pouring until the whole thing became nicely wet and creamy. This is really important: adding the oil while blending will modify the taste, as the heat generated by the machine will somehow “ruin” it. Trust me, I git this tip from people having lived in Genova for all their lives. And I guess that in Genova, they know their pesto

Ok, since I had the pesto, I cooked some pasta (try adding a diced potato in the water, you’ll see) and ate the whole thing. Tasty it was. Need more!!!

(grazie Giamaica)