” I was just looking at the next door garden when he spotted me. You should have heard the language! I heard the expletive ‘chicken pie’ twice! ”
The Curse of the Cookbooks
I had to photograph the result of a cooking discussion or, cooking bickering, if you must.
The great thing about being self sufficient and eating from the vegetable patch is the joy of harvesting something one grew oneself. It is organic and fresh even if, at time whatever is harvested is gnarled and puny it still tastes wonderful. The bad thing is that one is held hostage by the blackbird that eats all the seedlings the chickens overlooked when they were free ranging last time. The seasons and climate, especially here in Dunedin , dictate whether things grow or not and the person in control of the garden constantly suffers arched inquiries as to why in the world so much (or so little) of something was planted
Sometimes there is a glut of something and then the search for a great recipe, or, often many great recipes of one particular vegetable or fruit depending on the amount harvested. The frantic paging through the cookbooks begin, and since my 200 plus books are all about regional Italian cooking the search can not be narrowed down to, say, Indian or Chinese, and mutterings of ‘ it was always in this book, where has it gone’ are commonplace. A lot of time is spent getting side tracked when I see something fondly remembered or something I always wanted to try. Once the recipe is selected sudden resistance from the household to the ingredients could flare up, prompting the beginning of a new search and the hauling out of more books!
Pappardelle Verde al ragu d’Anatra – Green hand made pasta with Duck sauce
We had a couple of friends over for dinner and decided to make Green Pappardelle wit Duck Ragu.
Pappardelle
Pasta is one of those wonderful products where with just two or three ingredients many different products can be created, and it should always be the pasta that is the prominent component of the dish and not so much the sauce. The sauce and the type of paste needs to match in such a way that they both compliment each other. In this case Pappardelle and Duck Ragu is the ideal match
When making fresh pasta you need about 100 g of flour per serving, if you are not having a dish to follow after the pasta as many people do. We however always have the pasta as a first coarse (Primi Piatti) after the Antipasto and before the second coarse (Secondi Piatti), finishing off with a salad, and in this case 60 g flour per serving should suffice.
500 G Plain Flour
5 Eggs lightly beaten
15 – 20 Fresh Spinach leaves
Mix the flour and eggs and knead until smooth. This should be a hard dough, but should it be too difficult to work, add a small bit of water. Leave it covered to rest in the fridge for one hour. Take small quantities (about 50 g) at a time, flatten it out by hand and then roll it out with a pasta machine on the thickest setting. Fold it over, turn it 90 degrees and put through the machine again. Do this a couple of times until the pasta is smooth and homogeneous. Use enough dry flour during this process to avoid stickiness. Lay the pasta sheets out on a floured surface and repeat with the rest until all the dough has been used. On half of each sheet of pasta, lay out the fresh spinach leaves and fold the sheet over to make a sandwich. Now repeat the process of putting it through the pasta machine, folding over, turning 90 degrees and putting it through again, until the pasta and spinach are well mixed and smooth. Once all his is done, put every sheet gradually through a thinner setting of the pasta machine, until the finest setting ( 7 ?) is achieved for each sheet. Remember to use flour to make it all run smoothly. Cut the pasta sheets with a knife or pizza cutter in about 20 mm strips. The pasta is now ready to cook or dry, for later use. I normally make this in the morning , or day before, and let it dry for use when required. Fresh pasta cooks very quickly (about 5 minutes) and it is very important not to over cook it (Pasta al dente) otherwise it will be soggy.
Make the sauce of choice to suite Pappardelle and once cooked, drain and mix with the sauce in the sauce pan, heat through while mixing gently and serve immediately.
CIAO!!
Nashi Pear and Celery Salad
My generous neighbor has a large established garden with some prolific fruit trees. I got some of his nashi pears as a gift. I love eating them like one would eat an apple, but for the rest of the family I had to combine the pears with some freshly harvested celery to make a crunchy salad. I had to make it again the next day, always a sign that the recipe was a good one!
1 large nashi pear
1/4 head of celery
5 cm of leek
1 1/2 table spoon fruit scrap vinegar
4 table spoons olive oil
salt and pepper
You can add chopped nuts and a bit of strong cheese if you have any on hand
Chop everything up and mix with a dressing made of the vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Serve with fresh bread, and on a hot day, a glass of chilled Prosecco.
Smoked Eggs for Brekky = Kruger National Park
I bought some Manuka Smoked Eggs (scroll down in the link for contact details ) at the Stadium Market on Sunday. I was very eager to taste them but managed to save them for breakfast this morning. The eggs look stunning, one side is dark chocolate and the other almost caramel, much too lovely to break! The vendor, Rachel told me that the best way to eat them was scrambled.
The taste was lovely and smoky and lingered long after the last bite, a taste that took me back 45 years to the Kruger National Park in South Africa. Now breakfast is cooked on gas there but in those days big communal fires were made and my father would happily trot off with his blackened pan and eggs, and bring back delicious scrambled eggs from the cooking kitchens. Every one would fetch a few burning logs from the big fire to put in the fire place in front of their hut at night and after barbecuing the family dinner we settled down to listen to the night noises of the animals! You have to admit that that is quite a remote flashback – in time and distance – just because of a bit of scramble egg eaten on a very chilly. wet, Dunedin morning.
Back Yard Farmer 