Pumpkin bread with walnuts and sage

This rich bread made with pumpkin and walnuts is more like a cake. It is very easy to make, ask me for the recipe, if interested.

Strada@London: new menu

 don't need really any particular luring to dine at Strada. That's where I go when I'm in the mood for consistently enjoyable no-nonsense Italian classics. So when I was offered to taste their new menu with whomever I cared to come with, I jumped at the opportunity. In return I was asked to write an honest review. So here's the breakdown:

The starter, large green Castelvetrano olives were meaty and flavourful but the portion was on the skimpy side.

Antipasti platter - Parma ham, Napoli salami, speck ham from Trentino, buffalo mozzarella from Campania, vine-ripened tomatoes, olive tapenade and bruschetta pomodoro - was nice, same as usual, not enough for three men though. We were not allowed to order more.

I never order a bruschetta for a starter, to me it's a glorified sandwich and so did it turn out: grilled bread with some chopped tomatoes on top.

Risotto is easily the most abused Italian dish. The opportunity was not missed this time either: boring and watery, risotto verdure tasted like buttery rice porridge. It reminded me of my worst vegetarian days.

Rigatoni speck with bits of ham and broccoli reminded me of the lunch fare in my short time at kindergarten. Über-meh.

Orata al forno, whole grilled sea bream though was sublime: very fresh tasting and cooked to perfection, with scrumptious crunchy skin with just a sprinkle of salt and thyme and delicate juicy flesh. A side of exquisitely steamed vegetables and boiled potatoes kept it good company.

The dolci were run-off-the-mill forgettable factory-made pistaccio ice-cream and chocolate mousse. Nothing horrible but nothing to write home about either. Just something you can buy frozen in Lidl.

Overall, I was not impressed with the new menu. As a paying customer I would only order the grilled fish. However, I will keep coming to Strada for my regular favourites. And also for cacciuco, a Sicilian fish soup that was new but not on the tasting menu.  

I thank Strada for the opportunity, however, for the next time I would advise them to put their best, not the mediocre, on their tasting menu. Perhaps, just what they serve daily anyway?

The easiest pasta recipe ever: la ricetta della pasta più facile

his recipe comes from my Milano friend Luisa. Molto grazie, la principessa mia!

1. Boil pasta to your prefered degree of doneness.
2. Toast sliced garlic in olive oil and pour over the pasta.
3. Optional: garnish with chopped parsley, grated hard cheese (parmiggiano or extra mature cheddar), freshly ground black pepper and smoked sprats.

Seafood bechamel pasta spaghetti recipe

his lovely recipe is a guilty pleasure: it involves a generous slab of butter and a whole glass of double cream. Without those, its trademark unctuously velvety texture is simply not achievable. Every time I think of cooking it, I have to remind myself of Nigella's maxim: "There's no good kitchen without butter!" Amen, sister!

1. First of all, for roux blonde, the base of the sauce: melt about 100g of butter in a moderately heated pan. Splashing a little bit of water beforehand helps keep the butter from burning. When it starts sizzling, carefully scoop out the froth and gently whisk in 2 tbsp of cassava flour and 1 tbsp of maize starch. I can hear the thuds of portly French chefs fainting on the floor, but yes, not your wheat flour, but good African cassava flour and maize starch. That's how you make bechamel light and fluffy like whipped cream. Stir the mix with a whisker until there are no lumps in sight. Keep stirring until the roux is a lovely golden colour, remove the pan from the fire and leave to cool. I immerse the pan in water for quicker results.
   


2. In the meantime, bring a large pan with a lot water to a boil. Mind and add some salt until the water is pleasantly salty: the taste of the pasta will depend on that. Cook your favourite pasta to your liking. I cook mine just one notch beyond al dente.
   


3. Bring to a boil two glasses of cream. I use double cream - "après nous, le deluge!"If you have proper seafood stock, it's your call now, make sure to use it hot! Fold the boiling cream and the stock if used into the by now cool and nice roux and bring to a simmer on a low fire while constantly stirring with a whisk, making sure there not a wee lump left. Add half a glass of dry white wine, some cloves, freshly grated nutmeg, freshly ground black pepper and some bay leaf to taste. Leave to gently bubble away for about 20 minutes. Add your choice seafood and small bits of filleted fish. Keep on fire for another few minutes. Take care not to overcook!
   

This time I served it on spinach spaghettoni (extra long spaghetti).

My vegetable romance: the best marinade for grilled vegetables (verdure alla griglia)

ack in my Bangkok days, when I was still veg(etari)an, my staple diet was naturally Asian: mostly Thai and Chinese. Once in a while, I would also take to ransacking other restaurants in search of something I could sink my herbivorous teeth in.

One sultry (there they all are!) evening, I went on a date to one of Bangkok's fanciest Italian restaurants. My date was quite perplexed as per where to take me out to, as my militant vegan stance wouldn't have allowed anything animal-derived into my digestive system. Ah, the extremes of youth!

Italian is the favourite cuisine with a lot of Western vegetarians. A lot of dishes are vegetable-based, it is tasty, colourful and offers a reasonable variety of dishes. France is vegetarians' hell, Italy is their paradise. So, this Italian place was an almost inevitable choice.

It must have been my first encounter with real Italian alta cucina. Ridiculously overpriced, cooked to perfection, immaculately presented food served in a converted city mansion, enjoyed with the capital's swishest crowd. Of all the truly exquisite dishes, I was somehow most impressed with my starter, grilled vegetables. After the intense flavours of Thai food, it was quite a revelation that something so simple and unadorned with hardly any spice or herbs - and no chilies in sight! - could be so delicious. It was such a long while ago that now I don't quite remember how I got hold of the recipe. One thing I know is that this marinade makes vegetables taste exactly like on that memorable date.

So here is the recipe:

1. A dab of sea salt, a generous dash of aceto balsamico bianco, a lot of freshly grounded black pepper, a nice pinch of powdered garlic, a liberal glug of olive oil. I also use some fish sauce and a drop of liquid smoke, but you don't need to.
   
   
2. Let it all sit in a deep bowl until it all dissolves, then whisk into a homogeneous liquid .
   
   
3. In the meantime, slice zucchini, aubergines, pumpkins, fennel, onions, tomatoes and bell peppers, evenly and equally thick. Add a few pods of haricot beans. I also use shiitake mushrooms. Portobellos come out very nice too.
   
   
4. Marinate the vegetables for 15-20 minutes, not more, otherwise they become soggy.
   
   
5. Heat a ribbed skillet on a very strong fire. A gas stove is essential here as an electric one won't give you a high enough temperature.
   
   
6. Grill the vegetables until they are nicely seared on the outside. They taste best al dente, slightly crunchy inside, so mind not to overcook.

Figs with ricotta and honey recipe (fichi con ricotta e miele)

ome like to spruce up this classic recipe with grilling, blanched almonds, crushed pistachios or vanilla essence. I steer clear of this foppish foolishness and simply enjoy the indulgent mushiness of ripe figs, the creamy crumbliness of ricotta and the rich flavours trapped in the sticky sweetness of honey.

This time I got some plump figs from my favourite Iranian grocer, some ricotta from my favourite (they all are!) Portuguese delicatessen and the honey came from my uncle's own bee farm.

1. Remove the stems and cut figs in quarters.
2. Break ricotta into smallish chunks.
3. Arrange the figs and cheese artfully on a rustic dish.
4. Douse liberally with honey.
5. Profitez bien!

Recipe: Figs with ricotta and honey - Fichi con ricotta e miele

Puttanesca africana: global fusion cuisine

uite unbeknownst to me, my cooking patterns have evolved to embrace a most spectacular variety of world cuisines - all too oft mixed in a single dish. I realised that when fixing my spaghetti lunch today. As I sautéed garlic and onions in olive oil for puttanesca, I added Thai anchovies and, in lieu of old boring salt, Vietnamese fish sauce - it gives food a more pronounced, deeper flavour. Then I mixed in a pinch of finely chopped Nigerian peppers, which made me think of an Italian puttana feeling sore after a night of heavy African sailor loving: when used in moderation, the peppers leave exactly that pleasantly burning sensation in your bodily orifices as a lot of sexual rubbing does. They also give that drool-invoking savoury flavour so prized in Africa and the Caribbean.

Freshly picked basil leaves and a few shavings of hard cheese felt just right with this intense salty-spicy sauce.

The recipe:

1. Peel and finely chop three red onions and half a head of garlic.
2. Heat a frying pan well, pour a generous glug of olive oil and grind some black pepper into it.
3. When the pepper starts giving out a flavor, add first the garlic and then 10-12 dried Thai anchovies. When both golden brown, add the onions, sauté until all golden brown, then add a pinch of finely chopped Nigerian peppers and fish sauce to taste.
4. Tip a tin of chopped tomatoes and half a cup of red wine and mix well.
5. Allow to simmer on a very low fire for 10-15 minutes.
6. Serve with fresh herbs - parsley, sage, thyme or basil - and a few shavings of mature cheese.

Finocchio alla griglia: roasted Florence fennel

lorence fennel's lovely anisey flavour goes perfect with fish but it is great in its own right just as well.


I pre-marinate it in an all-purpose mix I use for all vegetables that are going to get grilled or roasted. You will need to mix well:

• a tablespoonful of olive oil;
• a tablespoonful of aceto balsamico bianco;
  
• a pinch of unrefined sea salt;
• a pinch garlic powder;
• a pinch freshly ground black pepper.

Slice fennel, soak it in the marinade for a few minutes and roast on white-hot charcoals or griddle pan. Do not overcook, it should stay crunchy on the inside. Serve as a main or side dish or on top of mixed green salad.

Franco Manca - the minimalstic house of real pizza

izzas only make annual cameo appearances in my dietary calendar. Somehow, the idea of stodgy crust with anaemic topping smothered in gooey cheese that most pizza chains churn out does not hit my appetite button.

There are lucky exceptions, however. Brixton Market's Franco Manca is one of those precious few. I ventured there only after I had made sure that the chefs there speak very little English, which is a sign that they haven't yet succumbed to the local penchant for food boiled for six hours in industrial taste-removing solution.

The menu is limited to six pizzas and one salad but Franco Manca makes them with minimalistic panache. All ingredients are sourced from organic Italian and British producers and no pizza is topped with such atrocities as pineapples or broccoli or overcrowded with toppings. It is also the best way to maintain quality control (that is how McDonald's, for example, keeps everything tasting the same across the globe: just few items on the menu).

We had a daily special of pizza bianca with wild boar ham and ruccola (£6.50) and meat lover's pizza rossa (£6.80) with really aromatic chorizo from Brindisa and basil. The oven-baked crust made of leavened sour-dough was so good I could eat it plain. The ham was real dry cured wild boar and was superbly delightful with thin wedges of lemon and ruccola. The chorizo pizza was more mainstream but none less enjoyable.

Pro's: Pizzas baked to utter perfection. Very affordable.
Con's: Cramped seating. Only open until 5PM.
In a nutshell: The house of true pizza excellence.

Franco Manca
4 Brixton Market Row
London SW9 8LD

Spaghetti alla carbonara: it could not be easier!

n our culture of instant gratification it only seems sensible to buy ready-made food, be it soups, mains or even salad dressings. But many dishes are so easy to make and they come out so much fuller of taste and healthier, not to mention the emotional satisfaction. For example, I can't remember last time I bought mayonnaise, which all in all takes just under 5 minutes to fix.

However, this time I will introduce carbonara, which is basically bechamella based on bacon and onions. The chemical explanation of the following process is that the flour makes the roux that will give the sauce its creaminess, while the bacon, onions and pepper will give the taste.

1. Heat medium high a thick-bottomed pan. Add a nice glub of olive oil.
   
2. Fry 125 g smoked bacon (I like it more than guanciale, but feel free to use whatever cured pig meat you want) and 2 chopped onions until golden brown. I use red ones but regular ones or shallots are just as fine. Some people add button mushrooms at this stage, which is supposed to be and Italo-American invention.
3. Add 2 tablespoonfuls of wheat flour with a generous grind of black pepper and fry until it get nicely mixed with the oil. Make sure it gets fried a bit too otherwise the final product will smell doughy.
   
4. If you substitute one tablespoonful of flour with one of corn starch the sauce will come out lighter and fluffier.
5. Reduce the heat and add a glass of single cream and half a glass of white wine.
6. Allow to simmer for about 20 minutes periodically stirring.
7. At the end, the traditional recipe calls for mixing in an egg beaten with a pinch of salt and a wee dram of pecorino but I often skip it.
   

In the meantime, cook your favourite pasta al dente and - ta-da! -serve with your homemade carbonara.

The cherry blossoms on the side of the plate are real. It's spring in Brixton!

Simplest, quickest and yet great spaghetti dinner

All best things in life are free, they say. Well, some may not be free but they can still be very cheap.

Like this amazing spaghetti recipe: a family dinner for under a pound, how about that? I learnt it from my Italian friend Luisa. Once we were stuck late at night at home with a few mouths to feed and a virtually empty fridge. The kitchen cupboard was not exactly full too (see, this was not my home!) Luisa came to rescue and everyone was full and happy in just 20 minutes.

1. Boil a pack of good quality spaghetti al dente.
2. Peel and slice a head of garlic.
   
3. Toast garlic golden brown in generous amount of olive oil.
4. Mix the garlic and oil into the cooked spaghetti.
5. Serve with grated parmiggiano or cheddar.

I serve it with some chopped sun-dried tomatoes and salted anchovies if I have those, but that is optional. Here the best of Italian cooking comes forward: simplicity, healthiness, taste based on the quality of ingredients and time-proven combinations.

I am really tempted to predicts that this recipe, if ever noticed, may come in vogue in the forthcoming months.

France meets Italy: Béchamel aux fruits de mer with conchiglie pentacolore

Béchamel aux fruits de mer with conchiglie pentacolore is a happy Franco-Italian marriage. I fix this whenever I don't have much time to cook as the recipe is easy and delicious.

Conchiglie pentacolore is seashell-shaped pasta. It is coloured green (spinach), red (tomatoes), white (natural), yellow (curry) and black (squid ink). It goes without saying, it should be done al dente.

For the souped-up version of traditional béchamel I melt a nice knob of butter in a thick-bottomed pan. Then there go a dash of whole allspice berries, cloves and peppercorns, a bay leaf and a wee pinch of ground nutmeg to infuse the butter with their flavours. To make the roux I use equal parts of wheat flour and corn starch. The latter is an Asian influence, it makes the sauce light and translucent. I mix the flour mix and the butter with a whisk on low fire until it becomes golden blonde, you don't want to go any darker with béchamel.

When the roux has cooled down (very important!), it is time to whisk in equal parts of scalded double cream, white wine and home-made shrimp stock. I let it all simmer on small fire stirring periodically with a whisk. The result is a symphony of savoury flavours, laden with natural glutamates that give it that very taste that the Japanese call "koku" (full-bodied).

At the very last stage I add a handful of seafood into the still simmering sauce and turn the heat off.