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.

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!

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!!!!!

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)

Yallo! been a while since I wrote something here. You know, moving across continents, starting a new job and setting up a new house makes things a bit “crazy”. Anyway, we are now all nicely setup and we are starting to cook “real things” again and, after having thought about this for a long time, we finally decided to use those huge nettles we have in the garden.

I was thinking, for a long time, to make nettles risotto, but we finally decided to make ravioli instead. Itchilicious. This is how we did them:

• we “harvested” the top tender leaves from as many nettles as possible from the garden
• washed them in a lot of cold water, trying to remove as many stems as possible
• boiled them until they became just like boiled spinach (or kale)
• drain all the water and leave them to cool down

In the meantime, prepare the dough:

• using our fantastic Kitchenaid Pro600, I mixed ~ 700 grams of flour with 4 eggs and slowly add water enough for the dough to become homogeneous and not too wet
• take the dough-ball aside and cover with a dry cloth for about half an hour

Now, for the nettle stuffing:

• we mixed the boiled nettles with ~ 500 grams of ricotta, 4 cloves of garlic, one egg and enough bread crumbs (~ 250 grams) to make it compact and dryish. You can add a bit of nutmeg if you like.
• mix and mix and mix untill nice and firm

Finally, take out “the machine” and start working small pieces of dough into pasta strips of about 10/15 cm of width, not too thin or else they will break (I did use the #5 setting, ie one before “thinnest”). Place the stuffing onto the strips as little balls, not too big, not too small (you’ll find out how big you need them to be while assembling the ravioli) and fold the dough onto itself. Press the space between stuffings with your fingers and make sure that the pasta is properly sealed all along its length. Finally, cut them raviolis with your favorite cutter device (I like this guy)  and place the ravioli on a well floured tray. Once all cut, you can decide whether to cooke them all, dry them or freeze them.

We had them with a wonderful tomato and porcini sauce:

• soak the dried porcini in a mix of water and red wine for ~ 30 minutes
• in a pan, golden a chopped onion in a bit of olive oil
• add your mushrooms with some of the water/wine mix
• allow for the liquid to evaporate and throw in one/cans of tomato
• cook, at low temperature, for as much as you can before starving (or burning the sauce)
• mix with them ravioli

Well, there it is. A bit rusty in the writing part, so it wasn’t maybe the best description ever. And I lack photos. At least, I got started again. I’ll try to keep this a bit more active from now on.

Cheerius!

As I tend to write at night, I tend to stick to the simple dishes. I will soon get into more complex things. Anyway, this sauce is one of my favourites and I have to thank the “master” Alan for it. for being a Brit, his puttanesca would make any mamma proud

So here’s how I make it. Might not be exactly how he does it, but pretty close.

- I golden 2-3 garlic thingies in a spash of olive oil, add a can of Pastene anchovies and 2-3 teaspoons of capers. Can add a bit of chilly, if you like that.

- When the anchovies have melted, I add a handfull of chopped black olives and give it ~ 3-5′ to all nicely blend and cook together, constantly making sure not to burn anything ie: stirring every once in a while

- I then add a big can of tomatoes and let simmer at medium, medium low for as long as possible. I usually try to get this cooking for at least an hour. You ideally want the water in the tomatoes to go away and just keep the tasty stuff.

- When you feel ready to eat, cook your pasta, drain it one minute before perfection, toss it into the sauce and finish cooking it while stirring it at good heat.

- Pop open a bottle of the good stuff.

- Eat

Very simple, very tasty, very leker.

Ok guys, enough. just to make things clear once and for all: THERE IS NO CREAM IN CARBONARA! just eggs, pecorino, parmigiano (and not parmiGGiano, like Jamie effing oliver writes it), pepper, guanciale and, I do add it, garlic. I personally love rigatoni to go with the sauce. Others like penne or spaghetti.
Here we go:
(this is for 2-3 people)
- start put a lot of water in a big pot and start boiling it
- take some oil, fry in a thingy of garlic and, when nicely golden, add the guanciale (3-4 slices cut in small pieces or cubes) and fry it until the fat has turned transparent. If you can’t find guanciale (I miss it, god if I miss it), use the best possible bacon you can put your hands on.
- while the pig is frying, break an egg in a bowl, start beating it (poor fellah) and add the grated cheese. Enough that the whole thing becomes dense and thick, but not as much as to turn the egg into a clump (I usually add.. boh… enough). Add enough pepper to make he cream start looking darkish. If you feel daring, you can add an extra egg red, for more taste.
- I am starting to realise that I have no clue on the amounts I use.. all done by eye. Sorry about it.

Now, we have the bacon ready, the egg/cheese/pepper “sauce” ready. Water is boiling, add salt in the water and then throw the pasta (half a kilo should suffice). One minute the pasta is ready, drain it aaaaaaaaaaaaannnd, here comes the hard part (and this is why philistines use cream):

- quickly toss the pasta in the sauce bowl and mix it quite rapidly
- toss the whole thing in the frying pan where the bacon is and mix th whole thing even more rapidly. The point here is to avoid turning the egg into an omelette. Should remain creamy and gooey. You can appreciate why incompetent cooks prefer to use the damned cream. Won’t omelettise
- Once you are happy with the creamyness of the egg, serve hot, with a bottle of red

I just realise this was a lousy way of explaining the dish, but I am tired. Next time I make it, I’ll take a few pictures and measures, so that I’ll be a bit more professional.

And, BTW, this here IS NOT carbonara: