the Art of Cooking

Had nihilists been as common in the kitchen as they are in artistic circles, then no one would have dared deny cooking its rightful place among the Arts. What would I care? I'm not worried about the (lack of) dignity of my trade. And as a matter of fact – as I hope to make apparent in the following – I am probably able to enjoy both cooking and eating more under the present circumstances. So it is for the sake of the art, rather than for the sake of food that I will argue here that it does deserve that exalted place.

I´ll have to start with a definition of art: a representation of elements from reality that evoke meaningful feelings or emotions in the context of the observer's life. A movie depicting a heroic adventure would qualify. As would a painting about a child's wondering. Or a statue that visualizes life's burden. A song or symphony that captures the joy of summer. Music, like food, doesn´t use concepts to suscitate emotions. And I am not referring to ´conceptual art´, the bric-a-brac'ed mini essays that flood the modern art world. Conceptual art is boring – and it misses the very point in art's function in life – because it is an intellectual exercise and instead of provoking feelings of any kind, they make a, usually political, statement. Even literature, that in its matter consists purely of concepts, a series of words, aims to transmit emotions.

Now for all the difficulty in understanding what sensory and cerebral mechanisms allow 'sounds' to have such an effect on people, nobody would challenge music as a form of art. Probably it is the force of the emotions that we all know music can cause that works as a first and final argument. All through - auditive – tension and release. Food, on the other hand, does not seem to have the same emotional impact – less even does it provoke a comparable affectional variety. Ironically one could consider music the most frivolous of the arts, in the sense that it is hard to connect its principles with our inherited mechanisms of survival, with the modalities of human life. Our relationship with food, on the other hand, is as relevant, as urgent as it was when we still swung from tree to tree.

Indeed, if cooking is an art at all, it most certainly is 'applied'. Architecture is an applied art, in the sense that it translates furless man's need for shelter. Eating, of course, is not unique to humans, but cooking is. Our taste, and smell, our tactile sense, and our sight originally were instruments with which we were able to estimate nutritional value, toxicity, digestibility, etc. While these functions have been taken over by intellectual means, our senses are still there to be stimulated. And we do. Cooks and other mortals have developed innumerable ways to create sensuous pleasures by preparing our food in specific ways. The final purpose remains feeding, and the overriding feeling created will be fysical satisfaction. There are many ways towards this gastro-intestinal sensation, I'd even say this feeling itself has variations – from the porridge's solid inertia to the light'hearted' contentment of sushi – but one could say this final purpose is the great limiting factor for cooking as an art.

To return to the comparison with architecture: imagine a building that does not provide shelter. It might be pretty as hell, but it would miss its purpose completely. Now with the incredibly raised level in welfare that a lot of us can celebrate daily, a number of foods and drinks are consumed that are not intended to feed, but rather to entertain. This development does enlarge the scope of food, but limitedly so. After all, it will have to taste good, right? And if it doesn´t exactly feed you, it shouldn't poison you either. Now, think of Rietveld's chair – a chair that is actually so horrible to sit on, that it only supports its claim to being art. Similar phenomena in the world of food are few. I can only think of Japanese dishes with blowfish. As much as food, these are a flirt with danger and death. And they are a culinary example of a certain value in Japanese culture. Pushing our powers of imagination a bit further, we could extend the comparison to the use of bitter in cooking. Bitter is the most ´acquired´ of tastes. Our bitter taste receptors originally are an alarm-system for poisonous substances. Compare the 'medicinal' effects of bitter substances on our stomach. But bitters can also be used to create tension in a dish, admittedly not such a strong emotion as the stylized fear of death provoked by blowfish sashimi; and if it cannot be properly termed an emotion, still an affective appraisal of the eater's perception. And if not an emotion, it most decidedly is human, inasmuch as it cannot be equated with an animal or ´digital´type of appreciation like/not like. As part of a composition, an ingredient that may be repellent by itself, can add to or improve something in an ingredient that is good by itself. This is an aspect of tasting as an active process, of consciously 'digesting' the olfactory data.

Now if I were to cook the inedible, I might risk my position in the kitchen, but at the same time I could hope to be taken seriously in 'artistic circles'. I'd serve the soon-to-become infamous tart-tartes, chew-long beef, in: the nutshell, low-heat fritters, grilled cucumber, and of course a char-manger. I'd leave my guests - or my comience, if I am permitted a neologism – furious, frustrated, appalled. Some of them would be utterly confused; especially those sensitive to other people's opinion. At some point during this whole sequence – all arts depend on some build-up of tension, after all – I might suscitate a feeling of relief, of homecoming, of triumph even. By serving anything good. I could have considered 'cooking' for the event by randomly throwing ingredients in the pot – rather like I did as a four-year-old. But surely that would have been too 'naturalist' a meal, to inspire people with any strong emotions.

One could argue that the emotions I'm speculating on here are not the same kind as we hope to experience through the other arts; that these are meta-sensual, the result of a reflection on perception(s), and not immediate emotional reactions to tastings. If the comience hadn't suspected that I knew better, or, really, if they hadn't known any better, they wouldn't have experienced anything beyond mild disgust. But then, isn´t knowing better the basis, the proper context for all (emotional) appraisal of art? As it is for creations of taste, our most primitive sense. We might share taste, chemical detection, with bacteria, but as human beings we are capable of comparing new data with an enormous archive of previous perceptions. Whether we analyze and compare fully consciously or not, isn't really relevant, inasmuch as we must distinguish an infinity of tastes with a rather finite number of olfactory receptors. Is this why complexity of taste is one of the greatest compliments made of food and wine? Because to deserve this title means stimulating our senses intensely, to cause a treasury of perceptions the size and shape of a Southern villa, and to permit our mind to roam through it. And our body to digest. The villa changes each time, but it always harbors well-being, since it is pleasurable to feed ourselves. It is our roaming through the house of perceptions that constitutes our enjoyment as human beings. You could compare this type of enjoyment to the one we experience by listening to music; in our head we are able to compare sounds to spatial, geometrical relations that – besides provoking emotions – confirm our functioning as human beings. Then, of course, we can experience 'meaningful' emotions upon listening to music, whereas food grants us a series of sensual stimuli and a degree of physical satisafaction. Until you run into a cook as perverse as I described above.

Comments and ideas are most welcome.  

Twisted Shrimp Pasta

Ingredients:

for two portions

extra virgin olive oil

½ an orange

1 bay leaf

salt

3 ounces of spaghetti p.p.

½ cup of cream (stabilized)

1 spring onion

a couple of prawns, a handful of shrimp, some scampi, or your own alternative

a few spoons of dry white wine

Procedure:

Bring a large pan of water to the boil and salt it to taste when boiling. Throw in the pasta and stir once or twice to avoid sticking.

Chop the onion and glaze it in the olive oil over low heat.

Add the shrimp. (A lot, if not most of the flavor resides in the skin and heads. If you really cannot stand the hassle of peeling them on your plate, use peeled shrimp.)

As soon as they lose their transparency, deglaze with the wine and add some zest and the juice from the orange, the bay leaf. After a minute add the cream and reduce slightly.

Strain the pasta about a minut before they are al dente ( which allows it to absorb some of you sauce still ), and add it to your sauce. Heat all together for another minute while mixing well.

Serve if you wish for some contrast (in color as well as flavor) with a bit of chopped parsley, or with some red peppercorns.

Benjamin´s Unmarred Meat Marinades

Chicken; I'll start here with a classic. Yakitori! The recipe obviously is not mine, but having wrestled it at great personal cost from a creepy employer, I do feel it deserves this place of honor.

Reduce on low heat: 1 part soy sauce, 1 part meirin, 1 part castor sugar. Don't reduce too much, because, when cool, it will be too dense and sticky to use. Always use the fattier parts of chicken, or you'll get a dry and tedious result.

Beef; This marinade emphasizes the full, reddish sweetness of beef. It's wonderfull for a sunny, mediterranean barbecue.

Mix olive oil, salt, black pepper, bay leaf, oregano and tomato-paste (as thick as you can get), a couple of crushed garlic cloves, red wine.

Crocodile; This is amazing meat; delicate and pinkish white, lean, with amazing long fiber. Your marinade should also tenderize it, by adding enough acid. You´ll see that I tried to stay close to the animal´s habitat in its garnishing. I suspect that gator meat is similar at the outset, though I would fear that swampy nutrition would give it a muddy taste. Don´t let my musings keep you from trying.

Mix rice-bran oil, a spoon of sesame oil, some crushed ginger, garlic, lemon grass, and red pepper, a few limes cut to pieces, salt.

Lamb; I've organized this one around a North-African taste-theme. It's nice, not as explosive as these times might suggest, and well suited to temper the fatty and sometimes dominant scents of this meat. If you generally find lamb too ancid, it helps to rinse it in cold running water.

Mix olive oil, salt, some dried or fresh red pepper, lemon juice, orange peel, a pinch of cumin and cloves, honey. If you want some chopped parsley or cilantro.

Porc; Porc can be quite delicate and I wanted to bring out that aspect with this marinade.

Mix white wine, a spoon of almond oil, salt, green pepper, tarragon (not too much!).

Wild Boar; Wild boar, as all game, is powerfull in taste so you need to garnish it with power in order to reach some sort of balance. The gamey notes harmonize well with spices, so I followed a rather classic style.

Mix olive oil, red wine, salt, black pepper, bay leaf, thyme, rosemary, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, crushed garlic, chopped onion. Choose your cuts well, since not all of the boar will be fatty and tender enough for your bbq.

Horse; For fear of all sorts web-attacks and legal trouble, I'll only let the thought sink in for now. If you want it, I'll definitely post a marinade for horse meat.

Grilling Vegetables

Even if the first and last think you would think of, when mentioning a barbecue, is wonderful cuts of meat (with the possible exception of marshmellows), I donnot think any open fire excess is complete without some vegetables. And don't worry: I am not going to discuss your health, though I personally do enjoy the alleviation from vegetables when my stomach is churning on the exigent animal proteins and fat. It is the lightness and variation, the endless palate of subtle sweets, sours and little bitters that complete for me a nice and sunny, out-door meal. The beauty is that you can cook it all on the very same fire, or even on the cooler edges of your grill that are useless for cooking any T-bone of importance.

What I'm proposing below is worthwhile, though far from spectacular. It is also Mediterranean, not only in the use of ingredients and flavors, but also in its culinary approach, I believe. That is, the various dishes are all directed, not to the creation of 'something new', but towards the discovery of the flavour that was always there. Call it sublimination, if you like, or aha-erlebnis, your grill is the most fabulous tool for pure tastes immaginable.

A good sprinkling of salt will help your vegetables to cook better on the irons, as will a drop of (olive-)oil.

Prepare the following garnishings for the specified vegetables:

Zucchini: Extravirgin olive oil, lemon juice, chopped (flat) parseley, a crushed clove of garlic, ground black pepper.

Eggplant: Extravirgin olive oil, a drop of balsamic vinegar, coarseley chopped mint leaves, a crushed clove of garlic, ground black pepper.

Bell pepper: For the red type use extravirgin olive oil, a drop of red wine vinegar, a crushed habanero or other pepper, crushed basil leaves, and a crushed clove of garlic.

Pumpkin: Extravirgin olive oil, lime juice, ground green peppercorns, a bit of chopped tarragon.

Chicory: For these bitter beauties I'd use nothing but olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and black

Radicchio: pepper.

A grilled tomato attains perfection for me with just a bit of olive oil and salt. Just make sure to puncture them once or twice before laying them on the grill, or they might explode.   

Sunset Scallops

Ingredients:

Scallops (to your heart's desire)

the peel of half an orange

a pinch of saffron

a dessertspoon of pink peppercorns

extravirgin olive oil

a lemon, if you like

Procedure:

Take the zest in strips from the orange and lay them to dry on the (less hot) side of your grill.

Remove the beard (and the eggs if still attached) from the scallops and wet (that is not soak) them with the oil.

Take a mortar and pestle and work the dried (but not parched) zest, the saffron, and the pink peppercorns to a powder.

Sprinkle the scallops with the powder and grill. Do not cook them through, or they will be dry and stringy. Serve immediately, if you like with a piece of lemon on the side.

Minestra ai Carciofi - Artichoke Stew

Ingredients: (for about 4 good servings)

½ cup pearl barley

2 large potatos

2 Italian artichokes

2 cloves of garlic

1 medium-sized onion

1 cup chickpeas

bay leaf

thyme

salt

black pepper

olive oil

Procedure:

Leave the dried chickpeas to soak in water overnight.

Put a large pot on medium heat, pour in olive oil, add a spoon of butter, and glaze the chopped onion and garlic. Add the potato (in ½ inch cubes). Stir, and after a few minutes add the cleaned artichoke in slices (for cleaning check out the picture below). A few minutes later still discard the soaking water and add the chickpeas. After another minute of stirring pour in cold water up to about an inch above the vegetables. Rinse and add the barley, bay leaf and thyme. Bring to the boil and leave to simmer for about and hour, or until done. Remove the scum from the surface regularly. Salt (and pepper) to taste - but only when barley and chickpeas are done. Serve hot.

Coconana Cake

 For a quick and heartening treat try this cake.

ingredients:

½ cup of butter

a pinch of salt

a dessertspoon of baking powder

½ cup of sugar

2 bananas

1 cup of shredded coconut

1 ½ cup of flower

procedure:

Melt the butter in a pot on very low heat. Take it off the stove and mix in salt, sugar and baking powder. Mash and mix in the bananas. Add and mix well consecutively the coconut and the flower, until you have a smooth and thick batter.

Spoon into a greased mould and bake – not too dry – in approximately 30 minutes in a preheated oven at 325°F/160°C.

Cappuccino Upturn - video available

Ingredients (they are listed per portion; in the video preparations are done for two):

1 egg

1 tablespoon sugar

1 cup milk

2 cardamon buds

fresh ginger, garlic-clove-size piece

1 tablespoon honey

1 dessertspoon agar agar

1 espresso

Procedure:

Macerate the cardamon in the milk on very low heat.

Separate the egg(s) and add the honey to the yolk. Squeeze the ginger (with a garlic-press) above the egg-white and add the sugar. Beat the white till stiff and arrange fake foam tops on baking-paper. Bake them in the oven at appr.110° C or 225° F; keep the door slightly open. They should be done in about an hour.

Dissolve the agar agar in the warm milk. Stir well and bring to the boil. As soon as the first bubbles appear, take off the heat. Keep stirring and add the espresso. Mix the yolk with the honey and integrate it with the coffee-mixture. The best way to do this is to start combining a couple of spoons of the cappuccino in the yolk, and then to mix this concoction through the mocca. Pour the mixture in the moulds or coffee-cups of your choice and chill.

When your coffee-puddings are set, remove them from the cups by separating them from the edge with a knife first, and easing them out after. Ease the meringues off the baking-paper carefully.

Finish your cappuccino upturn with the fake foam only right efore serving, or the moisture of the pudding will ruin your crispy meringue.

Comments:

I like to play with the (un)expected in my cooking. That's why I chose to find a presentation of cappuccino with a different texture and temperature. I suggested little honey to sweeten the pudding, but if that 'bitter cold' is too much for you, you can add a double or triple amount of it. The topping of ginger meringue is not only a visual joke, but it's also intended as an added excitement in textures. I tried to tie the two parts of the dessert together by combining two fragrances that we are used to taste together, but in another culinary context. I hope it works for you too, but a number of different combinations comes to my mind that might make you happier. You could add a spoon of cocoa to the coffee and juxtapose it with some pinenuts or chopped almonds in the meringue. Or you could add a spoon of brandy to the pudding and balance it with a whiff of nutmeg in the topping.

The single eggwhite will make more than a portion of meringue, so feel free to experiment, but I wouldn't squeeze too many flavors in a single dish. 

Sweet Linguine - video available

with fresh tomato and leek

This is a simple dish, and for me it is comfort food, which might be saying the same thing twice. Sweet, smooth, delicate, and calming. I suggest to serve it with liguine (appropriate Italian for 'little tongues'), because of their wonderful mouth-feel and because they have a lot of surface that can absorb this type of liquid semi-bound sauce.

ingredients p.p.:

3 ounces of linguine

3 medium-sized tomatos, chopped in 1/2 inch/ 1 cm pieces

2 inches of leek, sliced

1 clove of garlic, peeled

salt

extra virgin olive oil

a few leaves of either fresh basil or parsley, chopped

for contrast:

black pepper

or

parmigiano or mature pecorino cheese

or

bottarga di muggine

procedure:

Bring a pan of cold water to the boil – at least 1 quart/1 liter p.p.

( For the smoothest result: Skin the tomatos by dunking them in boiling water for 30 seconds. After that you're on your own.)

Heat a pan with enough olive oil to cover the bottom. ( If your tomatos contain a lot of water, use a frying pan for the larger surface that gives you evaporating power. If your tomatos are rather dry, better use a pan with vertical capacity, to avoid this.)

Squash your garlic and throw it in with the leek. Move it around until glazy and throw in the tomato. Mix and move around for a minute or two and reduce the heat (not too low). Stir once in a while to avoid sticking. When the liquid from the tomato starts to bind, turn off the heat.

Salt the boiling water to your taste ( → the pasta will adopt the salt-level of the water). Throw in the linguine, stirring a couple of times to avoid sticking, and cook them till they retain some bite, and strain. Return your sauce to the heat, add your fresh herb and the pasta. Add a nice dash of olive oil and mix while heating.

Serve.

In enjoy this as it is, but if it's too delicate for you, if you prefer more contrast - more excitement – you can finish it with a grating of old cheese, with some freshly ground black pepper, or with a bit of grated bottarga (salted roe). But please: don't throw in all together!

Mediterranean Kitchen for Mothers

Introduction

I'm a cook and I have two beautiful daughters. So it doesn't take an enormous leap of the imagination to understand how this cookbook came about. Still I would like to share some thoughts on being a young parent and on the type of 'help' that is offered to us.

Sometimes I feel that the biggest industry in modern society is the production of fear. Parents are bombarded with messages that leverage on our anxiety of being lacking, insufficient. Of course there are products and services being sold this way, not only by news-organizations and security-businesses, but also by counsellors, pedagogues, and by the food-industry. Now I'm not trying to disqualify entire categories gratuitously and generally. What I object to is people's apparent willingness to relegate their judgment to 'experts'. A picture comes to my mind – and no, I didn't make this up – of a one-time client that finished a glass of milk that was clearly off, because the expiry date told him that it still was good. I told him that he could trust his sense of smell, but I guess that he felt safer without the responsibility of his own judgment.

Warning: I am not a dietician, nor a pediatrician.

I'm just a cook and a father who considers it a great waste that many parents grab the jars of instant food automatically. I couldn't get myself to feed my daughters the type of indeterminate drab pastes that I wouldn't eat myself. So with the help of the (Italian) mother and grandmother of my children, I started on a road of discovery – not by myself, but together with my children. And this is the beauty and essence of it. Children are self-willed – thank goodness! - and the 'dialogue' of food is prior to many others, so we have to proceed empirically. As parents we continuously introduce new things to our children, and some of them might not be appreciated (immediately). But if there's one thing I want to show to my offspring, it would be the beauty of travelling beyond what you already know.

The purpose of this book is to show that good, healthy, wholesome food is easy to prepare, for all ages, and regardless of the horrible lack of time that comes with parenthood.

Often, recipes are the result of elimination, of omitting ingredients that are too spicy, or an alternative is presented to a cooking procedure (the so-called soffritto) that is rather heavy on a tender digestive system. This is not a rule-book, but it might help you on your family's travels through the world of food. And don't be discouraged. I remember how my eldest daughter could throw her portion on the floor, looking at me with disdain. But I could always try again, as long as I took her comments seriously.

Lists of ingredients were kept rather loose, so as not to suggest the false security of offering no-fail-food-kits. No two carrots in the world are exactly the same. The important thing is to start tasting, to keep tasting, and to finish tasting some more. As to quantities your personal experience at home is definitely more valid that what I could estimate, but considering the common scarcity of time I would suggest to prepare more than you need, so you can freeze something nice for a busy day.

Ingredients:

2 cups of water

one tomato

a carrot

5 to 10 green beans

1 potato

Brodo vegetale - Baby-bouillon

This baby-broth is the basis for many of the dishes you can start to give to your child.

Start simple, lean, and light and embellish on it gradually, by adding more challenging ingredients.

• Bring the water to the boil.

• Add:

• a tomato in pieces
• a skinned potato, in pieces
• a handfull of green beans
• a carrot, in pieces

• When the vegetables are done, your broth is ready.

• Step by step you can make your broth more exciting by including:

an onion or shallot, a piece of pumpkin, a clove of garlic, sweet peas, a leaf of lettuce, a sprig of parsley, a basil leaf, etc.etc.

Tip: A devious parental trick is the addition of a piece of apple or pear that (like pumpkin and carrot) renders your bouillon – and subsequently your porridge – a little sweeter and therefore more palatable to some children.

If this can get your child across a threshold, I wouldn't hesitate a second. After all, it's mother's milk that's sweet, and though forever after we will probably not enjoy a meal so completely satisfying, this doesn't mean that we all are destined to become sugar-junkies. If a little apple allows you to introduce a number of new tastes, and more easily, please don't worry. Discovery is a practice, not a moral.

subsequently...

This broth is a great starting-point for many nice little dishes. It is a vessel of taste and an instrument of efficiency. Remember that in the old days – oh yes, the old days! - bouillon would be made in between the fancier stuff, with ingredients that otherwise (and nowadays) would've been thrown out and/or fed to the pigs; a bone here, a fish-head there, those vegetables that can't be left around any longer – they might not be acceptable to our digestive system, but they are to our palate.

The crucial difference with the old days surely is our level of affluence – we can simply afford to throw away not only leftovers, but also perfectly fine food. The bottleneck in modern life – which convenience food speculates upon – often is our lack of time. And in the case of child-rearing and the kitchen I surmise a lack of confidence as well.

I'm telling you right now, and I'll repeat that if you wish, that it is not difficult to cook something good and healthy for your children, and that you don't need to spend too much time on it either. It mostly comes down to organizing your time well, and to picking the right moment. You'll always find 5 to 10 minutes to put your pot on the stove. Then it can simmer sweetly all by itself. And your efficiency will be rewarded. No convenience food can compete with the fruit of your attention. And you can get your child started on a life-long adventure in a wonderful world of food and taste.

And there's a last aspect that I find worth noting. If we relegate our meals to the sorry corner of bare feeding, we lose track of the social importance of sitting down together and enjoy. We forget to dedicate attention to what we eat, and to whom we eat it with. I'll give tips on how to turn your baby-food into something worthwhile for your adult tastes as well. This way you'll cook just once, not twice, and eat together after.

Turn it into a complete meal!

While the unsalted bouillon can be transformed in a savoury little porridge, by stirring in some durum wheat semolina during a couple of minutes, salting the rest would be a good first step in making it attractive to you own taste. And add some black pepper, if you like.

This salted broth can be used to poach some fish, for example. Just be careful not to leave it in too long; when it's lost its shiny transparency (all through) you'll have to fish it out. Leaving it longer will make it stringy and dry.

On the side you could enjoy some rice or pasta that you can cook in the same broth. Or if you're smart, you threw in some extra potatos for yourselves to start with.

Ingredients:

½ lb. of ricotta

½ lb. of pumpkin or spinach

1 egg

flower

salt, pepper

extra vergin olive oil

a whiff of grated nutmeg

grated old pecorino

butter, sage

Malfatti: spinaci o zucca – little Mishaps: spinach or pumpkin

This dish is a bit more elaborate, but it is worthwhile for the whole family, when you have the time. It has a delicate taste, a soft texture, and is easily digestible. And they are playful and tractable for the youngest too, which makes a meal easier to manage. Dit gerecht is iets bewerkelijker, maar het is zeker de moeite waard wanneer u iets meer tijd heeft.

You can make your mishaps with pumpkin or with spinach.

• Start by cooking your vegetable of choice.

You can poach, steam, or microwave it. The last method is easiest, particularly because it's fast and because you need to reduce the water-level in your vegetable to avoid that your mishaps fall apart. To cook them in your microwave you either wash and dry the spinach / skin and cut the pumpkin in ½ inch pieces, and place them in your microwave in a closed container. It should be done in a couple of minutes, depending on quantity and power of your microwave.

• Bring a large pan of water to the boil.
• Strain the excess juice from the vegetables (squeeze!) and chop, mash or blend it.
• Mix it with an equal amount of ricotta, the grated pecorino, salt, a spoon of olive oil, nutmeg and pepper. Incorporate 1 to 2 eggs with a fork or whisk.
• Incorporate flower, bit by bit through a sieve, mixing well, just until it binds (too much flower makes your mishaps sticky). Check when the water boils by easing in a lump with two dessert spoons. If it sticks together you can go ahead with the rest, otherwise add some more flower to your mix.
• When your malfatti float to the surface, they'll be ready in another half minute. Take them out with a skimmer and ease them in a wide dish.

This would be the easiest way to serve your malfatti:

• Melt some butter on low heat and add a few sage leaves (don't chop or it'll become bitter). Leave to macerate a minute or two and pour it over your malfatti.

They splendid as well when served with a not too heavy tomato-sauce, but maybe you'll burn all your energy on your little mishaps.

Besides, they say that sage blesses your children with tranquil sleep.

Ingredients:

a dogfish or another small shark

a few tomatoes

extra vergin olive oil

a lemon

a handful of parsley

a couple of basil leaves

salt

if you like:

a clove of garlic

Gattuccio di mare - Dogfish

Gattuccio di mare means sea-cat literally, but for some reason the British have perceived more similarity with another animal. In any case, it is ideal for small children.

It doesn't have fishbones, but cartilage that is easy to separate from the meat. So ironically I suggest this shark for your children for safety. And if you don't overcook it, it holds up pretty well after poaching, which is another advantage, since other preparations can turn out rather heavy on the stomach.

• Cut the tomatoes in ¼ inch pieces en mix in a bowl with: some chopped parsley and basil, a tiny pinch of salt, a nice dash of extra virgin olive oil, a tablespoon of lemon juice, and if you like a clove of garlic, skinned but whole. Stir once in a while so the flavors can mingle.

• Bring a pan of water to the boil.
• Cut your shark in steaks, width of a little under an inch. Take care to slice them in approximately the same size, so cooking-time won't vary too much.
• When the water boils, drop your shark-steaks in the water.
• Poach, but not too long. When the meat has lost its shine, and you can ease it off the bone, it's done. Don't overcook, or it will be dry and tedious to eat.
• Arrange the steaks on a dish and garnish immediately with the tomato-mixture (do discard the garlic, if you decided to use it).
• Leave to cool and serve. Separate the meat from the bone for your child, and for yourself of course.

Tip: don't throw away the broth; check out the recipe for couscous.

Ingredients:

4 eggs

1 cup / 2 sticks of butter

2 cups of flower

1 cup of sugar

½ cup of grated coconut

4 tablespoons cocoa

a pinch of salt

Torta ciòcocòco - Chococococake

• Mollify the butter in a bowl with a wooden spoon or mixer (you can soften it in the microwave for a few seconds, but don't exaggerate. It shouldn't melt). Stir in half of the sugar. Mix well and add two eggs. Repeat this procedure, add the salt and stir to a creamy, homogeneous batter.
• Divide the batter over two bowls and finish one of the mixtures with ¾ of a cup of flower and the coconut, and the other one with the rest of the flower and the cocoa.
• Grease a cake-tin or muffin-mould and sprinkle with flower. (Or use those wonderful silicone moulds.) Preheat the oven to about 325º F / 150º C.
• Tilt your mould – by leaning it against your cutting board for example – and ladle in one of the mixtures. Rearrange the mould and pour in the other mixture quickly on the empty side. Twirl with a spoon for a marbled effect.
• Bake the cake(s) for 45 minutes to 1 hour. When a toothpick comes out clean it's done.

Tip: For extra rising-power you can add a teaspoon of bakingsoda when incorporating the salt, but it's not necessary. 

pasta with green asparagus, bottarga - video

sweet liguine - video

visualizing food

cappuccino upturn - video

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Learn to cook in 4 lessons

coming soon to this blog:

learn to cook to your heart's content in four little lessons.

It is not difficult to cook.

You start by using your senses. The beauty of cooking is that you need all of them.

Your imagination allows you to blend all those splendid perceptions in one perfect pot.

To bring it about you need no more than a common or garden understanding of physics and chemistry,

and a managing hand for your cupboard, fridge, and shopping.

 

UMAMI (or cooking like a slut)

I am wrestling with umami, the so called 5th taste. And I think I have her where I want.

It does exist. The University of Miami proved that our tongue has detectors for a substance that was found and identified a century ago in Japan. It has been isolated, termed MSG (monosodium glutamate) and added profusely in several Oriental cuisines. Now I am way to proud to solve any problem with a sprinkler, nor do I believe that it is necessary.

What do mushrooms, tuna, aged cheese, cured pork, sesame, soy-sauce, yesterday's tomato-sauce, and artichoke have in common?

Do you want to learn to please? To send out satisfaction from your kitchen as a private - but still pimpy - puppetmaster? Let me know. I will prepare some short essays on how to serve shameless pleasure on your plates. Of course it would be better to send for me - and any slut would say as much. All I'll do is help you open up another door, one that leads to a more conscious fulfilment of the senses that you always had.