BRIT-SICILIAN-INDIAN SHEPHERD'S PIE

Long ago, I used to make the great Madhur Jaffrey's "A Kind of Shepherd's Pie" from her 1994 Madhur Jaffrey's Cookbook - Food for Family and Friends. However, due to the difficulty of obtaining minced lamb here and despite having tried the recipe a couple of times with minced beef, in the end I stopped making it. 

But in colder weather comfort food calls so a few weeks ago I decided to revive the recipe using the ingredients I can easily get here, so it's become a bit British, a bit Sicilian and a bit Indian.  I've kept Madhur's idea of a grilled aubergine base and I think this makes it quite Sicilian too. You can use frozen grilled aubergines, reconstituted as directed on the pack, or just slice an aubergine lengthwise and cook the slices on a tray lined with baking parchment in the oven for 10 minutes. The latter is a tip I picked up from Antonella Clerici and I find that the cooked slices freeze well. The other Sicilian touches are the use of sweet Sicilian carrots, green [French] beans and passata. The Indian part is, of course, the use of spices, though there's another nod to Sicily with the use of cinnamon.

Here's the recipe:

Brit-Sicilian-Indian Shepherd's Pie

1 aubergine, sliced and cooked as above [or use frozen grilled aubergine slices]
100 gr green beans, cooked in boiling water until tender, then drained and cut into small pieces
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
300 gr mushrooms, sliced
1 white onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
500 gr mixed minced meat [a mixture of beef and pork if you are in Italy but you can use all beef or lamb]
2 goodly-sized knobs ginger, peeled and finely chopped
cinnamon
1 kg potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
c. 125 gr butter, softened plus a little extra
200 gr passata, made up to 300 gr with water
4 tablesp olive oil
1 tablesp flour
Handful fresh sage leaves, chopped

Arrange the aubergine slices in a large, fairly deep Pyrex or ceramic roasting dish.

Cook the onion and garlic in the oil until softened, then add the carrot slices and soften these too. Add the meat and cook, stirring, until browned.

Add the beans, mushrooms, half the ginger, a little cinnamon and most of the chopped sage and stir for a couple of minutes.

Add the passata mixture and flour, season and stir well.

Turn the heat down and let the mixture simmer for 20 mins.

Meanwhile, cook the potatoes in boiling water till soft but not disintegrating.

Mix the butter with the rest of the sage leaves, a little more cinnamon and the rest of the ginger. Use this to mash the potatoes.

Now pour the mixture in the pan on top of the aubergines and spoon the mash over. Smooth the top with a palette knife. Add a few small knobs of butter and a final sprinkling of cinnamon.

Cook in the oven at 180° C for 15 mins.

Garnish with some whole sage leaves if you wish.

Buon appetito.

PASTA AL FORNO VEGETARIANA

Let's have a recipe for a change: I love pasta al forno and it's on my list of the great comfort foods of the world.  Last weekend, I invented this vegetarian [but not vegan ] version:

Pasta al forno vegetariana

First of all, peel and cube 200 gr pumpkin.  Cook the cubes in salted water till tender. Drain and set aside.

Take 2 white and 2 green courgettes and slice 3 of them as thinly as you can [or do it in a food processor].  Grate the other courgette. Heat 4 tablesp olive oil in a wide pan and cook the courgettes, stirring, until they are tender. Now add a sliced white onion and a chopped clove of garlic and continue cooking everything until these, too, are tender. [Yes, I know this is the wrong way round for making a soffritto but it works!] When the onion and garlic have softened, add the pumpkin along with 300 gr sliced mushrooms, a little chopped parsley, seasoning and 400 gr passata.  Stir and cook on a low heat for 15 mins.

Meanwhile, heat the oven to 160 C and cook 400 gr rigatoni for the length of time indicated on the pack. Drain the pasta and oil a large, rectangular, Pyrex-style oven dish. Put a layer of pasta in the dish, followed by a layer of sauce and then a layer of thinly sliced provoleta or other pasta filata cheeese [about 10 slices]. Add another layer of pasta and finish with another layer of the sauce. Sprinkle some fresh breadcrumbs or pane grattugiato and some freshly grated Parmesan over the top.

Cook in the oven for 15 mins.

Buon appetito.

BAKED ONIONS WITH APRICOT RAGU

Baked, stuffed onions are a favourite in Sicily during the Giarratana onion season and I used the largest ones I could find for this recipe.  The ragù with dried apricots and almonds is my own invention because I wanted to do something different, so all you Sicilians who are shocked by the mix of "sweet and savoury" had better look away now!

First, clean, trim and peel 6 large, flattish onions and then put them in simmering, salted water for 20 minutes or until tender but not falling apart.  Lift them out of the pan with a slotted spoon and let them dry on kitchen paper on a plate.

Heat the oven to 170 C while you make the ragù.  These quantities are enough to fill the 6 large onions and to have some ragù left to put around them:

4 tablesp olive oil + extra for drizzling
200 gr mixed, minced meat [typically pork and beef in Sicily]
200 gr pasta di salame [sausage mince]
125 gr mushrooms, chopped
6 fresh mint leaves, chopped
125 ml white wine
100 gr chopped almonds
100 gr dried apricots, chopped
coarse seasalt and black pepper
mint leaves to garnish

Brown all the meat in the 4 tablesp olive oil and add the mushrooms. Stir well, then add the wine, chopped almonds, chopped mint and apricots. Season the mixture, then turn down the heat and simmer for about 25 mins.

Meanwhile, scoop out the centre of the onions as best you can. [I used a small knife and a teaspoon.] Oil a glass or ceramic oven dish and place the onions in it. Now fill them with the ragù and spoon the remaining ragù around them. Drizzle more olive oil over the contents of the dish and bake for about 30 mins. Garnish with more mint leaves.

Buon appetito!

CREAMY LEMON CHICKEN

I don't often get food cravings, except for ice cream, but the other day I decided I just have to have chicken with cream and lemons.  I rarely use cream in my savoury cooking as cooked cream upsets my stomach but Italian panna di cucina is lighter than British single cream and does not cause me any problems. 

Get the butcher to cut one skinned and boned chicken breast [that is, two breasts as they are sold in the UK and one as sold in Italy] crosswise into not too thin medallion shapes.  Soften a chopped, medium white onion in 4 tablesp olive oil in a wide, fairly deep pan. Don't let the onion brown. Turn the chicken pieces in about 2 tablesp flour and add them to the pan.  Seal them on both sides.  Add 300 ml white wine, the grated zest and juice of 1 Sicilian or unwaxed lemon and stir well. Add 250 gr chopped mushrooms, a little chopped fresh thyme and parsley and a little dried oregano.  Stir well and season.  Simmer for 45 mins, then add 200 ml panna di cucina or other thin cream and stir. Simmer for another 15 mins, then serve with orange salad and enjoy!

Serves 4.

INVOLTINI WITH MUSHROOMS AND POMEGRANATE SEEDS

The inspiration for this comes from the involtini con pancetta e salvia recipe in this month's Conad supermarket chain's free magazine. Their involtini are made with chicken breast escalopes and filled with chestnuts and mirtilli [whortleberries]. Well, I can't stand chestnuts and couldn't find any mirtilli, so I used a mushroom mixture and what has accidentally become my ingredient of the month - pomegranate seeds.

The Conad butcher, pleased that someone was going to cook something from the magazine - I didn't tell him of my sabotage plans - suggested I use skinless chicken thigh fillets instead of breasts and, although there were thin strips of pancetta already on display on the counter, he decided these were not thin enough and cut some more especially. This kind of service and advice always cheers me up and he hasn't been wrong yet!

Anyway, this is what I ended up doing:

First, soften about 200 gr sliced mushrooms in 125 gr butter and add a handful of pane grattugiato or fresh breadcrumbs plus some chopped fresh sage.  Stir well and take off the heat. Lay the fillets - I used 6 -  out on a chopping board and spread the mushroom mixture over them. Distribute the contents of half a pack of pancetta dolce cubes over [about 85 gr] and sprinkle over some pomegranate seeds, a little ground cinnamon and about half teasp ground cloves. Add a few twists of pepper and some seasalt, roll up the fillets in 2 slices of pancetta each and secure with cooking string. Tuck a sage leaf into the top of each involtino. Brown them on all sides in 4 tablesp olive oil in a wide pan, then add a glass of white wine.  When it evaporates, add 200 ml chicken or vegetable stock and some more pomegranate seeds. Bring to the boil, then simmer for about 40 mins, turning the involtini over after 20 mins.  Take the involtini out and place on a serving dish and snip the string off, then quickly add a roux of a dessertspoon of butter and the same quantity of flour to the sauce. Stir to dissolve and thicken the sauce, pour over the involtini and serve.  [You can slice them to serve if you like but I'm not good at slicing meat thinly and, in the absence of one of those meat-slicing contraptions that most Italian women have, would make a terrible mess.] Decorate with even more pomegranate seeds if you wish.

Buon appetito. [I think I've used up all those pomegranates now!]

LASAGNE AI FUNGHI

Oyster mushrooms are plentiful and cheap in Sicily at the moment so I decided to use some in a simple lasagne:

1 medium white onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

2 tablesp olive oil plus a little extra to oil lasagne dish

250 gr oyster mushrooms, trimmed of stalks

Handful of chopped parsley and another of chopped basil

seasalt and freshly ground black pepper

400 ml béchamel sauce [bought in cartons in Italy]

c. 250 gr oven-ready lasagne all'uova sheets

12 large, thin slices cooked ham

3 - 4 tablsp grated ragusano, grana or parmesan cheese

Unsalted butter for dotting over top of lasagne

Heat the 2 tablesp olive oil in a wide pan and soften the onion and garlic without browning.  An Italian would probably remove the garlic at this point but I like mine so it stays! Add the mushrooms [halved lengthwise if very large], herbs and seasoning to taste, stir and cook to soften the mushrooms.  Set aside.  Now heat the béchamel gently in a milk pan without letting it boil. Next, oil the bottom of your chosen lasagne dish very lightly and smear a little béchamel over it. Lay enough lasagne sheets to cover and then spread over a layer of more béchamel, a layer of mushroom mixture, a layer of ham and a layer of grated cheese.  Now repeat the process - you will probably get three layers altogether - and finish with a layer of pasta.  Spread béchamel over this and sprinkle over more grated cheese. Now place dots of butter all over the top of the dish and bake in an oven heated to 160 C for about 20 minutes.  It should be nice and crispy on the top.

I'll let you see the creamy layers:

Buon appetito!

RICE SALAD WITH GRILLED NECTARINES

Ever since I made the chicken salad with grilled peaches, I've been wanting to use their cousins, nectarines, in a salad and this is what I came up with today:

First, prepare your rice.  I've got about 500 gr salad rice in here but obviously you can adjust the quantity.  Cook the rice according to the instructions on the pack, drain it in a sieve and run cold water over it quickly.  Put it in a large serving bowl and, as soon as it is cool enough, put it in the fridge for at least a couple of hours.

Next, prepare a cucumber in the time-honoured Jennifer Paterson way:  peel and deseed it, then chop it finely and leave in a dish with a little fine seasalt sprinkled over it for about an hour, preferably in the fridge.  

Now slice 4 nectarines - no need to peel them - and grill them in a little oil on a griddle pan.  If they are very juicy, you won't get many griddle marks but you will get enough to make things look smart.  Be sure to stand well back to avoid getting splashed.  Lift the slices out with a fish slice and let them drain on kitchen paper.  Put these in the fridge when cool enough, too.

I decided I wanted to add some mushrooms and you can either toss some sliced ones in a pan with a little olive oil with oregano or use antipasto ones as I did today.  You also need to finely chop a red pepper and a celery stalk or two.  Sicilian celery has very slender stalks but you don't need much of it!

Chop 6 - 8 black olives, too.

When you are ready to assemble the salad, make a dressing from 6 tablesp olive oil, 1 tablesp balsamic vinegar, 1 tablesp your favourite honey [as a homage to the nectarines] plus seasalt and freshly ground black pepper.  Drain and rinse the cucumber, dry the pieces on kitchen paper and add them to the rice along with all the other vegetables and the nectarines.  Stir well, then pour over the dressing and mix well.  Scatter over a few basil leaves if you like.

This doesn't really need any accompaniment but, influenced by a television advert, I put some salame slices on some of those very thin slices of Galbanino cheese.  My touch was to tie the "parcels" with blanched chives.  Yes, some of the cheese cracked a little and I couldn't do perfect bows but that's life!  

THE MOST VERSATILE CHICKEN SALAD - 2011 VERSION

Tonight I bring you the 2011 version of the summer dish that started out as a chicken and artichoke salad, then became in turn a chicken and grilled courgettes salad, and a chicken with fresh and grilled vegetables salad.  

This time I've gone back to marinating the chicken escalopes in balsamic vinegar before griddling them and I have added the contents of a jar of grilled yellow peppers, a jar of artichoke hearts and a jar of chiodini mushrooms.   Oh, I almost forgot - I added some salad leaves too!  As usual, I made up a dressing from 3 - 4 tablesp olive oil, 1 tablesp balsamic vinegar, 1 tablesp Sicilian orange blossom honey, dried oregano, seasalt and black pepper: