PORK CHOPS WITH ZUCCHINI

Last weekend, I hit upon the idea of combining good tomato sauce and Dijon-style mustard to cook with pork and this dish worked so well I'll be making it again tomorrow!

Thinly slice 6 courgettes and arrange them in a lightly oiled ceramic or Pyrex roasting dish. Finely chop two red onions and spread them over the courgettes. Season. 

Now brown 8 boneless pork chops - thin ones, like escalopes - in 3 tablesp olive oil. Drain them on kitchen paper, then arrange on top of the courgettes and onions. Add a handful of rinsed and drained salted capers.

Mix 330 g homemade tomato sauce or bought passata with a dessertspoon of Dijon-style mustard, some seasoning, a little paprika and a little dried oregano.. Mix well and pour over the chops.

Cover with foil and cook at 180 C for one hour.

Serves 4.

LA PIZZA DI MERCOLEDI

Here's a delicious pizza topping which requires no pre-cooking and, as I invented it on a Wednesday, I might as well name it for that day!

As I've mentioned before, I use the pizza base recipe in Claudia Roden's original Mediterranean Cookery book, but only half the quantity.

When your pizza dough has risen - after about 1 hour - roll it out into a rectangular shape on a floured board. Pull it a bit with your hands to get it the right shape for a baking tray. Put it on a lightly oiled baking tray and spread the contents of a 400 gr tin tomato pulp on it. [You could use a thick passata if you cannot get this.]  Sprinkle over some seasoning and arrange 6 slices of Speck on top. Then add 100 gr chopped mozzarella [we can buy it ready-chopped for pizza here] and arrange 12 halved datterini tomatoes [or the smallest cherry tomatoes you can find] on top of that. Sprinkle over some more seasoning. Next, add a few slices of grilled red and yellow peppers [drained] from a jar of grilled peppers in oil and some drained and rinsed salted capers. Add another 100 gr chopped mozzarella and scatter over some torn basil leaves.

Cook the pizza at 180 - 200 C for 25 mins.  Decorate with more fresh basil leaves to serve.

Serves four very generously and probably six!

DINNER WITH "LIFE IN SICILY"

Yesterday evening I was delighted to be able to cook for my friend and fellow-Modican-by-adoption Carol King, who is @LifeinSicily on twitter.

With the exception of the dessert, all the recipes for the dishes on the menu are my own and have been posted on this blog, so you will see links to them as you read the post:

To start with I made caponata, which you can serve at room temperature or cold.  This time I served it cold.  [Note:  I don't bother salting the aubergine prior to cooking any more.  I have finally come out on the "Don't" side of that culinary debate, having decided it's a waste of time.]

Caponata needs bread or something crunchy to go with it, so I made my Italianised Quesadillas:

Any Italian banquet requires pasta or rice, too, and, for a summer evening, I think this Herbed Risotto Cake is a good solution because it can be prepared in advance:

You slice it, just like a cake!

For the main course I prepared the Tamarind Chicken dish I invented a couple of weeks ago, served on dressed courgettes with datterini tomatoes which had been marinated in oil and lemon juice:

Raspberries are a rarity here, but eagle-eyed Carol had spotted a bar where the owners had just made a batch of raspberry ice cream, so she brought some along with lemon gelato too.  Delicious!

Then I brought out that old standby of mine which I call a lemon semifreddo but is really the much missed Jennifer Paterson's Suffolk Lemon Pudding from her book Seasonal Receipts.

It was good to see you, Carol.  Thanks for the company, the gelato and the laughs!

TREAT OF THE WEEK - 14

What with all the Ferragosto inconveniences last week, I found myself much in need of comfort food and what could be more comforting than mashed potato?  In this heat, I also wanted something cold so I was pleased to find a recipe for a cold, mashed potato zuccotto in this month's La Cucina Italiana. The potatoes are mashed with olive oil, seasoning, grated lemon zest, basil and parsley and the filling contains chopped, roasted tomatoes, chopped rocket, chopped green and black olives and, in my version, capers - these last for no better reason than that I like them. [I substituted them for the onion in the recipe.]  The sauce around the zuccotto is the sieved juice saved from the tomatoes as they were deseeded prior to roasting.  A good old British pudding basin was called up for zuccotto mould duty.

PECORICCO

Pecoricco is a flavoured sheep or goat's cheese from the Nebrodi.  I've seen it flavoured with pepper and rocket before but I'd never seen this version before this week:  it is flavoured with red chilli pepper, rocket, capers and stuffed olives and I like it!

ANTIPASTI OF POTATOES AND PEPPERS

I love antipasti and was pleased with the result when I tried this recipe from the August edition of La Cucina Italiana. These contain some of my favourite ingredients - potatoes, peppers, capers and grated grana cheese:

MANZO DI MARZO

March beef with capers

I have to give you this recipe while it is still March! It is inspired by a recipe in this month's La Cucina Italiana and for those of you who are in Italy and have the magazine it's the one for brioni di manzo brasati.  First of all, what's a briono of beef?  My butcher didn't know [again] but I showed him the recipe and, after consulting the internet - he is getting quite geeky! - he decided it must be what is known down here as the ala di tenero or cappello del prete ["priest's hat", because of its shape] cut.  He suggested I let him slice the beef as then I could cook it for less time and that was fine with me as carving is not my forte.  [Many Italian women have one of those slicing machines that cuts the meat extra thinly.]   Another change to the recipe that I decided upon as soon as I saw it was that there would be no anchovy fillets in my version, as I am allergic to any kind of fish.  I also used red wine instead of white as that is what I had and the zucchini are my addition, as I had some to use up.   I added the herbs for the hell of it.  OK, here we go:

4 tablesp olive oil

1 kg ala di tenero of beef, sliced fairly thickly across

3 stalks celery, sliced [if you can get the small, Sicilian kind, all the better.]

1 medium white onion, sliced into rings

2 zucchini, sliced

handful capers preserved in salt, rinsed  

500 gr passata  [the smooth kind]

c. 300 ml  red wine

1 vegetable stock cube

sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme

seasalt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a fairly deep, wide pan and brown the beef on all sides.  Chuck in the vegetables and continue to cook for about 10 mins.  Add the capers, stock cube and wine.  Cook for a few minutes, stirring, then add the passata and the rosemary and thyme.  Season to taste, put the lid on and simmer for about 1.5 hours, turning the meat once.

I don't think this dish needs any accompaniment other than a salad of tender spring leaves.

PASTA WITH LEMON AND CAPERS

I found this recipe in a magazine at the hairdresser's.  Unfortunately I can remember neither the name of the magazine nor the chef but, as I've adapted it slightly, I will give the recipe here:

Cut 2 salad tomatoes into strips and marinate in a small bowl with the juice of 1 lemon [reserve the lemon halves] 6 basil leaves, 1 tablesp capers and 1 tablesp olive oil.  Roast a red pepper and peel it [or cheat and use one from a jar of grilled and skinned peppers].  Cut the pepper into strips, too. Cook 250 gr egg tagliatelle according to the instructions on the pack.  Meanwhile, use a teaspoon to get as much of the pulp out of the lemon halves as you can. Beat this well with a handful of chopped parsley and 2 tablesp olive oil. Now add this mixture and the pepper strips to the bowl of marinating ingredients and season with salt. When the pasta is ready drain it, reserving 1 tablesp of the water, put the pasta back in the pan and add all the other ingredients plus 2 tablesp oil. Stir over a low heat, then serve.  You can add some more basil leaves to decorate and either add some grated parmesan or caciocavallo cheese and some toasted breadcrumbs or let guests help themselves to these.

The chef wrote that the recipe is good cold, too and it is.  It's a fallacy that Italians don't eat pasta salad - they do.

POLLO AI CAPPERI

I'm very pleased with the way this dish, another one from the Cucina del Sole book, turned out: simply chicken braised with onion, wine vinegar and capers, it is very easy to prepare. I added some just browned zucchini for the last 20 minutes but you could add other vegetables suggested in the book or none at all. If you like the aroma of capers, as I do, then you will conclude that your kitchen smells lovely whilst this dish is cooking!

POLPETTINE

There are some Italian dishes that are such a joy to prepare, the process requiring so much care, pazienza and love, that I forget about everything else and am completely happy when engaged in the task.

Thus it was yesterday when I made these polpettine - another recipe from the Cucina del Sole book, which I love because it has instructions like, "Add an egg or 2", "Roll the mixture into balls and then, when they feel right, add seasoning " and , most importantly, "Use your hands" [something which my mother always told me a good cook does]. In other words, the book allows the cook her instinct.

I am the first to admit that my food pictures aren't perfect and, just like my meatballs, they are not of uniform shape and size: I do crop out some of the kitchen paraphernalia and sometimes use the "auto enhance" but I don't otherwise "doctor" them - I wouldn't know how! - and I don't steal them from recipe books, either. I tell it like it is in my kitchen!


The meatballs contain: lean minced beef, chopped capers, basil, garlic, pane grattuggiato [very fine breadcrumbs] plus olive oil and egg to bind . After being browned, they are cooked in a home-made tomato sauce [here my summer's labour is rewarded as I always have some in the freezer] to which red wine and sugar is added, along with a little chilli [I used my chilli spray, which I find excellent]. Chopped almonds form the garnish.

CAPERS WITH EVERYTHING

This chicken dish may look rather rustic, but believe me, it is delicious. It is another one from the Cucina del Sole and all you do is cook chicken joints in a little oil with cut-up lemons [including the skin], garlic, rosemary sprigs, bay leaves and seasoning. Half-way through roasting, you add some new potatoes which have been boiled until just tender. [These are hard to obtain here so I just cut up some larger potatoes.] No marinating, no pre-cooking of the chicken - what could be simpler? I've used drumsticks here but you could use a jointed chicken. It's the freshness of the lemons, in my opinion, which makes the dish smell and taste so good. At the end I decided it needed some capers sprinkled over for colour - but I like capers so much that I put them on nearly everything!

TOMATO AND CAPER BITES

I am always on the lookout for new antipasto ideas: if you are entertaining on your own and are therefore cook, hostess and bartender, your guests will forgive you your many dashes into the kitchen if they have a variety of dishes to nibble at, I find.

This morning I found a caper pâté and thought it looked interesting, but couldn't quite work out how to use it. However, with my lunchtime g & t came inspiration, as always, and I decided to use it to fill cherry tomatoes: to do this you need cherry tomatoes which are not too small and some pazienza. Put on a nice CD, sit down, then halve the tomatoes and scoop out the seeds and pulp from the centres. [You can use a teaspoon but I find it easier to use a very small knife.] Salt the cavities then put the tomatoes upside-down on kitchen paper to drain for about an hour. After that, rinse them well and put on fresh kitchen paper to dry - again, leave them about an hour. Now you can fill them with the pâté and garnish as you wish. [I just put pinenuts on the top, as you see.] Refrigerate till needed.

I have also filled cherry tomatoes prepared in this way with guacamole and with cream cheese which I have flavoured with chopped basil and lemon juice.

POLLO ALLA IRMA

I stole this recipe from my Sicilian friend Irma many years ago. It is one of the simplest recipes I know of to prepare on a hot day. It looks elegant, too.

Poach some boneless, skinless chicken breasts until tender and no pink juices emit when they are pierced with a fork. Drain them and let them cool. Slice them, then dress with a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice and Dijon-style mustard. [You can use a flavoured or honey mustard if you wish.] How much of everything? I don't know as it depends how many chicken breasts you are using and upon their size. But supposing you have two largeish ones, then I would say the juice of 1 very large lemon, a tablespoon or so of oil and about a teaspoon of mustard. Then decorate with capers and sultanas. This is a dish which looks pretty served upon what Elizabeth David called the "eternal lettuce leaves"* so I make no apologies for using them here. The dish may be served chilled or at room temperature and you can, of course, arrange the cooked chicken slices on a platter well in advance, then dress and decorate them at the last minute. Even if you dress and decorate them a couple of hours in advance, everything will still be all right.

I like to serve this with pesto potatoes: Roast some new potatoes [I never bother to peel them] in olive oil, then drain them and toss with freshly made pesto. You can use red pesto if you want a contrast of colour. I always make green pesto but do buy the red.

* In French Provincial Cooking [1960]

CAPONATA

A friend gave me these home-grown and salted capers, so I just had to make caponata! Besides, a commenter has asked for the recipe. And a third reason for making it is that there is something unmistakeably Mediterranean about the perfume that results from having a dish made with aubergines and peppers bubbling away on the hob.

In Sicilian Food, Mary Taylor Simeti tells us that the dish was probably seagoing food because the vinegar in it means that it keeps well. In the recipe she gives, she includes some chopped, toasted almonds and the optional addition of some cocoa powder. I add neither of these, but almonds do marry well with peppers, so you may like to try it. Some recipes say use tomato sauce [which is what I do - I make my own using Keith Floyd's recipe in Floyd on Italy] whilst others tell you to sieve a can of tomatoes. I should think you could get away with using passata, but I would then thicken it with some tomato paste and maybe use the almonds. [I add a bit of 'strattu anyway, though it's not an authentic ingredient for this dish.] I do stone the olives [and you can use green ones instead of black or a mixture if you prefer] but as the elongated peppers available here don't have much membrane, I don't bother cutting it out. Here is the recipe:,

1 aubergine

c. 5 fl. oz olive oil

1 onion, sliced

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 stick celery, sliced

2 red peppers, sliced [or 1 red and 1 orange pepper]

c. 1 pint good tomato sauce

goodly dollop of tomato paste

2 tblsp red wine vinegar

1 tblsp brown sugar

handful stoned black olives

c. 1 tblsp salted capers, rinsed and drained

Halve the aubergine, score the flesh and sprinkle with coarse seasalt. Put in a colander, jam a plate on top and leave for c. 30 mins. Rinse well and dry with kitchen paper. Cube the aubergine.

Heat the oil in a deep pan and add the onion, garlic, peppers and celery. Cook, stirring, for c. 5 minutes, then add the aubergine cubes.

Add the tomato sauce and paste, vinegar and sugar and cook for a few more minutes.

Add the capers and olives. Season.

Cover and simmer for about 25 minutes or until it is all squashy and looks and smells Mediterranean!

This dish is most often served here as an antipasto and in summer it is served chilled. You can serve it hot if you want to, but I prefer to serve it at room temperature. The dish freezes well and will serve 4 generously. In my opinion it needs no acompaniment other than some good, Sicilian pane arabo.

I had read about but never seen the rounder, paler type of aubergine in the last picture until I came to Sicily. Simeti tells us that this is the "Tunisian" variety but they are charmingly sold as violette here.

Still on a vegetable theme, today I found celeriac on sale for the first time since I've been in Sicily. I have missed céleri rémoulade and shall now be making up for it!