FEASTING WITH AN OLD FRIEND

My friend Carol King, who has recently returned to Sicily, and I decided to celebrate Ferragosto a day late this year, so I kind of cooked her a little meal:

The antipasti included olives, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh datterini tomatoes, mini sausages, bresaola and Parma ham topped with Grana cheese shavings, marinated mushrooms and - I must tell you about this - watermelon with salted cucumber. My original intention was to chuck the cucumber - peeled, deseeded, chopped, salted, left then rinsed, drained and chilled - into the salad but at the last minute I thought it would be a nice addition to the dish of watermelon. Turns out I was right!  The seemingly small apples around the antipasti dishes are actually azzaroli or Neapolitan medlars, which are related to hawthorn. There are mini-pears as well and they are a fine partner for the cheese.

The main course was grilled chicken salad with grilled nectarines. (Yes, I have a thing for grilled nectarines!)   I marinated the chicken in culinary rosewater before grilling and seasoned it with sumac afterwards. I used the dressing I invented for this recipe. The other ingredients were grilled peppers and rocket leaves.

For dessert, I made strawberry tiramisù and Carol brought along the delicious sweet treats on the right.

Everything on this menu can be made in advance and all you have to do is make the antipasti look pretty and assemble the salad.

CHICKEN AND CHERRY SALAD

Regular readers will know that, at this time of year, I love experimenting with salads and a few years ago I invented a tagliata and cherry version. This week, I decided I wanted something lighter still and I came up with a chicken and cherry salad.  I wanted to use my favourite spice, sumac, and took the wonderful Nadiya Hussain's advice about sprinkling it on the meat after cooking to keep the red colour. Then I added to the red by playing with pink peppercorns. It all turned out rather well but here is my usual warning to Sicilian purists: I never said it was Sicilian; it's just what I do with the ingredients and cuts of meat available to me here and I like including the Middle Eastern ingredients I learnt to use in Britain.  And yes, the dish contains meat and fruit and I'm not apologising!

Chicken and cherry salad

1 chicken breast, cut into escalopes  (That's two chicken breasts, as sold in Britain, where they are sold in halves, and one as sold in Italy. An Italian butcher will auomatically cut them very thin. In Britain you may need to pound them.)
about 30 fat, dark cherries, stoned
half a large cucumber or 1 small one
500 gr bag rocket leaves
5 tablesp culinary rosewater
olive oil
1 tablesp runny honey
Himalayan pink seasalt
1 dessertsp pink peppercorns, crushed
1 teasp ground ginger
1 teasp ground sumac
1 teasp dried herbes de Provence

First, marinate the chicken pieces for 2 hours in 3 tablesp of the rosewater (or marinate overnight).

Peel the cucumber, deseed and chop it as small as you can. Sprinkle with (ordinary] fine seasalt and leave at least 30 mins. (This is a trick I learned from an early Jennifer Paterson book and I always prepare my salad cucumbers like this.) After 30 mins, rinse, drain and let dry on kitchen paper.

Drain the chicken pieces and pat dry with kitchen paper. Cook them over low heat on a lightly oiled ridged griddle pan - about 2 mins per side. Put them on kitchen paper and let them cool.

In a small bowl, mix well with a fork 6 tablesp olive oil, 2 tablesp rosewater, the honey, ground ginger, pink salt if you have it, half the pink peppercorns and the herbes de Provence. Leave in the fridge.

When the chicken has cooled, cut it into bite-sized pieces - I do this with a kitchen scissors - and place them in a bowl.  Sprinkle the sumac over it and add the cucumber, cherries  and rocket. (At this stage you can leave the salad in the fridge till serving time.] When you are ready, add the dressing and toss well.  Finally, sprinkle the rest of the peppercorns over the salad.

Serves four.

Buon appetito

Note:  Sumac does, in theory, grow in Sicily but I have yet to meet anyone who has heard of it here!

SEPTEMBER SALAD

The end of summer means the disappearance of these

but heralds the appearance of these

and calls for a special salad, don't you think? Here's the one I came up with last week:

September salad

You need one skinless, boneless chicken breast if you are in Italy and two if you are in the UK, because here the breasts are sold as a pair and in the UK singly. Ask the butcher to cut it or them into escalopes and pound them.  Marinate the escalopes in 2 tablesp balsamic vinegar with 1 teasp sumac for at least two hours [No, I've never found sumac here - friends send it from the UK.] 

Now you need to deal with 4 prickly pears: to peel one, lay it on its side on a board, plunge a fork into it to hold it steady, then make a slit on one side and start peeling the skin off with the knife. Don't touch the skin as, even if the thorns have been removed prior to sale, you can still get some nasty scratches. Then cut the fruit crossways into slices. Grill the slices in 1 tablesp oil on a griddle pan. They won't go very brown or show griddle marks but the grilling will make the flavour quite interesting. Drain the slices on kitchen paper.

Next, cut 1 large red pepper and 1 large yellow pepper into strips, not very thinly, and grill these in the griddle pan in 2 tablesp. oil.  Drain.

Peel and deseed half a large cucumber or a whole small one and chop it. Put the pieces on a plate, sprinkle with fine seasalt and leave for half an hour or so. Then rinse and drain.

Drain the chicken escalopes and discard the marinade. Pat the escalopes as dry as you can with kitchen paper. Now grill them in 2 tablesp oil in all in a griddle pan. Drain on kitchen paper and leave to cool.

When the chicken is cool enough to handle, cut the escalopes into bite-sized pieces with a kitchen scissors. Put the pieces in a large salad bowl and leave in the fridge.

Make a dressing with 6 tablesp olive oil, 1 tablesp honey, 1 teasp sumac, fine seasalt and black pepper to taste. Mix it all well with a fork and refrigerate this, too.

When you are nearly ready to serve the salad, add  some washed salad leaves to the bowl: I used a whole small radicchio and half an iceberg lettuce, but you can use what leaves you like.  Then add the peppers, prickly pears and cucumber.  Add a few basil leaves and then toss it all in the dressing and serve. 

Serves 4.

TAGLIATA WITH CHERRIES

The cherry harvest continues and the other day, I decided I wanted to experiment by using some with a tagliata [the sirloin cut]. I know all you Italians will be horrified again at such a mixture of sweet and savoury ingredients, which you claim you never use together, so please, look away now! 

There are also days when I long for some of the Middle Eastern flavours I used in my cooking in Britain and that is why I came up with the idea of using rosewater in the dressing.

The dish turned out well so, for the brave among you. this is what I did:

Ask the butcher for a 600 gr piece of tagliata [if you are in Italy] or sirloin if you are elsewhere.  A few hours before you want to serve the salad, lightly oil the tagliata on both sides, place it on a heated, ridged griddle pan and cook it on both sides to your liking. [I like mine medium rare for a salad.]  Take it out of the pan and leave it to cool on a cutting board. When it has cooled sufficiently, slice it diagonally into fairly wide strips and put in the fridge.

Destalk 500 gr  ready-washed spinach leaves. Tear them if they are very large and put them in the fridge. 

Cook 8 slices frozen, grilled aubergine as directed on the pack and put in the fridge when cool. [You can, of course, grill your own if you have time but let them dry on kitchen paper if you do.]

Wash, stone and halve about 20 cherries and chill these, too.

Now make the dressing:  In a small bowl, mix the following ingredients well with a fork:  5 tablesp olive oil, 3 teasp culinary rosewater, seasalt and black pepper to taste and a few chilli flakes.  Leave the dressing to chill in the fridge.

When you are ready to assemble the salad, put the spinach on a large serving platter, then add the aubergine slices and, on top of these, the tagliata slices, some torn fresh basil leaves and the cherries.  Give the dressing a final, robust stir with a fork, then drizzle it over the salad and serve.

Serves 4.

BROCCOLETTI CON DATTERINI

In case you're wondering what I did with that kilo of broccoletti on Tuesday, here's the salad I invented!

Broccoletti con datterini

Trim, wash and drain 1 kg broccoletti. Bring a pasta pan of salted water to the boil and plunge the broccoletti in. Cook for about 3 mins, then drain. Heat 4 tablesp olive oil in a 2"-deep, wide pan or small wok and cook 1 crushed clove of garlic in it for 1 min. Add the broccoletti, season and stir round for about 5 mins. Add 20 or so datterini tomatoes or the smallest cherry tomatoes you can find and cook, stirring, until these just begin to soften - about 2 mins. Then add a few pinenuts, cook for a further minute and add the juice of 1 lemon. Give it all a good last stir then use a slotted spoon to transfer the mixture to a serving dish. A few shavings of Pecorino stagionato over the top and you're done. 

This is great served warm but it's also pretty good cold!  Serves 4 as a contorno.

WARM RICE SALAD

The other evening I decided I just had to have a warm rice salad to go with my butcher's excellent spiedini [kebabs]. The shops being closed, I had to use what was in the store cupboard and [newly working] freezer, so here's what I did:

Cook 500 gr long-grain rice - in Italy we can get special salad rice - in salted water for the time indicated on the pack. If this time is no longer than 10 minutes, chuck 200 gr frozen peas right in there with the rice. If the time indicated is longer - and please note it's the time from when the water comes to the boil - throw the peas in for the last ten mins.

While the rice and peas are cooking, chop a large red onion and a couple of peppers from a jar of grilled peppers in oil. Halve some datterini or cherry tomatoes and tear up a handful of basil leaves.

When the rice and peas are done, strain them and transfer to a serving dish. Mix in the other vegetables and basil and season well. Stir in 1 tablesp olive oil and serve.

Serves 4 generously. 

Buon appetito.

TAGLIATA SALAD WITH NECTARINES

Inspired by Nigella's tagliata recipe , I decided to make a salad using this kind of steak:

Tagliata salad with nectarines

500 gr sirloin [in Italy just tell your butcher you want to make tagliata]
3 nectarines [not soft ones]
20 datterini or cherry tomatoes
drained contents of a jar of grilled peppers, cut into smaller pieces if necessary
c. 500 gr rocket leaves, torn if they're large
12 mint leaves

Dressing
4 tablesp olive oil
1 tablesp red wine vinegar
1 tablesp runny honey
pinch chilli flakes
seasalt and a twist or two of black pepper

Start preparing this a few hours before you want to serve it:
First, oil the steak lightly on both sides and place on a heated, ridged griddle pan.  Cook for about 3 mins each side. Put the steak on a board and, when it has cooled a little, cut it diagonally into strips.
Let the griddle pan cool and wash it.
Next, slice the nectarines [not too thinly], drizzle the slices with olive oil [about 1 tablesp] and cook them on the griddle pan too, until stripes start to form on them. Lift the slices off the pan and leave to cool.
Halve the tomatoes.
When the steak and nectarines have cooled, put them in a large serving bowl with the tomatoes, rocket, peppers and mint leaves.  Leave it all in the fridge for at least a couple of hours.
Make the dressing by mixing all the ingredients together with a fork in a small bowl and leave that in the fridge too.
When you are ready to serve, whisk the dressing again with a fork,  pour it over the salad, toss it and there you are!

Serves four generously.

CHICKEN, ZUCCHINI AND MELON SALAD

This is an updated version of the "Sunday salad" I created last year:  This time, I used a packet of frozen, grilled courgettes [blanched for a couple of minutes in water to which I added the juice of a lemon] instead of the grilled aubergines. I left out the mint because I didn't have any and really I'd used it last year only because it is the traditional herb for aubergines here. I used cubes of pecorino and grana cheese instead of mozzarella. I also added balls of canteloupe melon. I prefer this year's version!

A PEA-SUPER SALAD!

"I eat my peas with honey,

I've done it all my life,

It makes the peas taste funny

but it keeps them on the knife!"

- Anon.

Well, I do eat my peas with honey when I put them in salads, and that's just what I did the other day when I felt like inventing a new chicken salad for the Sicilian summer:

Pea-super* salad

2 tablesp balsamic vinegar

8 chicken breast escalopes, pounded very thin by your butcher

300 gr fresh or frozen peas plus mint sprig

a goodly chunk of Sicilian peppered Pecorino, cubed

6 - 8 plums, sliced

100 gr pack rocket leaves

a handful of other salad leaves of your choice

a handful of basil leaves, torn

about 8 mint leaves, torn

2 tablesp olive oil

Dressing:

2 tablesp olive oil

1 tablesp honey

1 tablesp balsamic vinegar

seasalt and black pepper

Marinate the chicken escalopes in the balsamic vinegar for at least 2 hours, then lift the chicken pieces out and leave them on kitchen paper. 

Cook the peas in salted water with a sprig of mint until they are just tender, then rinse them in cold water.

Drain the peas and put them into a large salad bowl with the Pecorino, plums, salad  leaves and herbs. Put the bowl in the fridge.

Make the dressing by simply mixing all the ingredients together well and put this in the fridge, too.

Heat the oil on a ridged griddle pan and cook the chicken escalopes on it - about 1 minute per side. As they are cooked, lift them onto a plate and leave to cool.  When you can handle them, cut them into small pieces with a kitchen scissors and add to the salad bowl. Just before serving, give the dressing a final whisk with a fork, pour it over the salad ingredients and toss well.

Buon appetito.

*A pea-souper was a thick, London fog which was so polluted that it was said to look like yellow pea soup. I never saw one, as they were largely a product of an age of heavy industry and coal fires. However, when I was a child I heard my parents talking about them and  I thought the fog had got its name because it was so cold and miserable outside that it made you crave a warming pea soup!

WELCOMING AN OLD FRIEND

Celeriac was a good friend to me back in Wales, where I found a salad based on it an excellent standby for all sorts of entertaining and for myself!  What's even better about it is that you can make the salad, dressing and all, a day in advance.  Sadly, I rarely find this vegetable in Sicily but when I do, I make the most of it.  On Saturday I found some and below is my celeriac salad recipe. I now perk it up with some chilli pepper and add carrot as a Sicilian touch:

Celeriac salad

Slice 1 large, peeled celeriac or 2 smaller ones in a processor and tip it into a serving dish. Add some grated carrot or carrot batons and a chopped red chilli pepper.  Make up a dressing of 5 tablesp olive oil, 1 tablesp white wine vinegar, 1 tablesp Dijon mustard, some dried oregano and seasalt and black pepper to taste. Mix the dressing well with a fork and then pour over the salad, stirring.  Cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge for at least a couple of hours.

ORANGIER AND ORANGIER

Orange salad is one of my favourite Sicilian dishes and it is so simple! For those of you who have not seen my previous posts on this, all you do is segment however many [cold] oranges you wish to serve and drizzle them with olive oil. You can season it if you wish and you can add onion, too - sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.  Last night my orange salad tasted even zingier and orangier thanks to the addition of some of the orange-flavoured olive oil I'd found in the salumeria - once I'd worked out how to open the container, that is:

PALERMO RICE SALAD

I owe the inspiration for this recipe to my friend Katia Amore and you can see her Red and Black Rice Salad here.  

My version uses pineapple and grilled red peppers, so I've called it "Palermo Rice Salad" because yellow and red are associated with that city.  I couldn't find the Arlecchino rice that Katia used but I did find some red Thai rice in the supermarket - something, I would add, that I would not have found here when I arrived seven years ago.

This is what I did:

Cook 500 gr red or black rice as directed on the packet then drain it and rinse several times in cold water.  Put it into a serving dish.  Chop 2 sticks celery very finely [Sicilian celery has quite a delicate taste] and add to the rice, along with a cubed, fresh pineapple and about 2 tablesp of its juice.  Drain 2 large, grilled red peppers from a jar and chop them roughly. Add to the dish.  Now chop a handful each of fresh parsley and mint and add.  In another, smaller bowl, mix 6 tablesp olive oil, 1 tablsp white wine vinegar, 1 tablesp honey and salt and pepper to taste.  Pour the dressing over the other ingredients and mix well. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave it in the fridge for at least a couple of hours.  Add some sprigs of mint to serve.

QUICK BULGHUR SALAD

A couple of weeks ago, I made a version of Palma D'Onofrio's Chicken with Grapefruit and Ginger.  This is the salad I made to go with it - a sort of cheat's tabbouleh, really:

Quick Bulghur Wheat Salad

Cover c. 300 gr bulghur wheat with cold water and leave to absorb.  Then repeat the process. In a large bowl, add the drained contents of a jar of antipasto sott'olio [small onions, tomatoes, artichokes, peppers, olives, etc., in oil] to the bulghur wheat with the rind and juice of a lemon, 3 tablesp olive oil, seasoning, a handful of chopped, fresh mint leaves and another of chopped parsley.  Stir very well and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Note:  Bulghur wheat is not easy to find here but sometimes it appears in larger supermarkets.  Sometimes I buy it in Catania.  You could make this salad with couscous, too.

SUNDAY SALAD

The temperature in Sicily is soaring yet again, so cool food is called for.  I invented this salad thi morning:

Sunday Salad

You will need one chicken breast as they are sold in Italy or two as they are sold in the UK, cut into bocconcini or bite-sized pieces. [The butcher did this for me.]  Put the contents of a jar of red pesto - here we can get fiery red pesto containing red chilli pepper - into a bowl and about 250 gr pane grattugiato or fresh, fine breadcrumbs into another.  Dip the pieces of chicken first into the pesto, then roll them in the breadcrumbs.  Put them on a plate.  

Now put 4 tablesp olive oil in a wok or deep pan with as many of the chicken pieces as will fit comfortably in one layer. Put the pan on the hob at medium heat and cook the chicken pieces, turning occasionally, until coloured on all sides. [The object is not to deep-fry them, just to cook them nicely.] Some of the breadcrumbs will fall off but it doesn't matter.  Lift the pieces out with a slotted spoon as they are done and put them on kitchen paper on a plate.  You will probably have to add a little more oil to do the rest - I found I needed to do it in three batches, adding another 2 tablesp oil for both the second and third batches.  When they are all done, leave them to cool and refrigerate them as soon as they are cool enough.

When you are ready to assemble the salad, put the following ingredients in a large bowl:  the chicken pieces, some bocconcini of mozzarella [halved if large] several grilled aubergines  [I made life easy for myself and used frozen ones, thawed and cut in half ] 20 - 30 datterini tomatoes or the smallest cherry tomatoes you can find and some torn leaves of fresh basil and mint.  

Make a dressing by mixing 4 tablesp olive oil, 1 tablesp honey, 1 tablesp balsamic vinegar and salt & pepper to taste.

Toss the salad in the dressing and serve.

IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING

What you need at the end of a day so hot that even the Sicilians have been grumbling is a cool garden to sit in, cool food and a gathering of the coolest people you know.  All three were on offer at Linda and Gino' s on Sunday evening and what a spread Linda and Chiara had prepared!

There was Parma ham with local cheeses and bocconcini of mozzarella. There were homemade bread rolls plus Linda and Chiara's pizza and focaccia. There were grilled aubergines, little baked, stuffed onions and tomatoes, olives and tiny broad beans from Linda and Gino's garden.  There was also a wonderfully refreshing salad of homegrown lettuce, local cheese and walnuts. Forgive me if I've left anything out, Linda and Chiara!

There were figs from the garden:

In Sicily, it is the custom to take along a dessert when you are invited to lunch or supper so I made my semifreddo di frutti di bosco again:

Linda and Chiara had made peach granita:

Ragusa's best Yorkshire cook, Jean, had made a Bakewell Tart.  [Yes, I do know Bakewell is in Derbyshire!]

And, as you can never have enough ice cream in Sicily, other friends had brought these delights along:

Then there was Modican chocolate:

Grazie, Linda, Chiara e Gino e tutti gli amici!


Frank Sinatra - In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening

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:

A BIRTHDAY LUNCH IN POZZALLO

Valentine's Night is a night to stay in for many single people, as who, when they are on their own,  wants to tread a restaurant floor covered in rose petals, listen to romantic music or watch couples gazing into each other's eyes all evening? It would be like twisting a knife further into your own wound and it never ceases to amaze me that couples don't get this.

However, it's my birthday and it's been a lovely day in Sicily so I was delighted when my friend Carol invited me to lunch at a restaurant in Pozzallo, a town whose main street backs directly onto the beach.  First, here are a few photos of Pozzallo as it looked this afternoon:

XV century Cabrera Tower

Now I want to introduce you to Carol.  She writes about Sicily and other places where she has lived or which she has visited and you can find some of her articles here.

OK, let's get to the food and these are the dishes we ordered:

Cavatieddi pasta with ricotta and peas for me

and lolli pasta with fava beans for Carol:

Then I had what Italians call a "mixed roast" but is really a mixed grill 

with a mixed salad

while Carol enjoyed chicken cutlet and chips:

There was my favourite gel al limone for dessert and you could just tell that this had been made with the freshest Sicilian lemons:

Simple food, perfectly cooked - the best!

And finally, here is your birthday girl blogger:

I had a great time.  Thanks, Carol. xx

NEW YEAR'S EVE LENTIL SALAD

If you do not eat your lentils on New Year's Eve in Italy, you cannot expect good fortune in the New Year so, having partaken of a wonderful lunch at Irma's yesterday, I was wondering what light dish I could make with lentils.

Then I remembered that in Jennifer Aldridge's Archers Cookbook there is a recipe for a lentil salad which I had made many times in the UK.  Jennifer's recipe uses Puy lentils and adds cumin, cayenne pepper and coriander to the dressing but  I used basil and parsley and gave it a squirt from my chilli  seasoning spray [of which I am much enamoured].  I used cherry tomatoes instead of peeling and chopping large tomatoes.  Here, with a nod to Jennifer, is my Italianised version:

Cook 4 oz red lentils until soft [about 30 mins].  Meanwhile, cook a whole, large aubergine on a foil-lined tray at 200C until the skin is crinkly [takes around the same amount of time]. Drain the lentils and rinse with cold water, then chuck them into a salad bowl.  When the aubergine is cool enough to handle, peel it and chop the flesh.  Add to the bowl.  Now add a chopped onion, 1 or 2 chopped yellow peppers, about 12 halved, cherry tomatoes and a handful of chopped basil and parsley.  Mix everything well.  Make a dressing by mixing 6 tablesp olive oil, the juice of 1 lemon, salt and pepper to taste and a little chilli seasoning.  Chill for an hour or two before serving.

"The Archers" is a British radio soap opera and, coincidentally, celebrates its sixtieth anniversary tomorrow, when we are promised an episode that "will shock the nation".  [I listen online.]  Jennifer Aldridge is everyone's favourite smug snob, but you do have to admire a woman who has continued to put up with husband Brian's infidelities, has taken in his love child, spends most of her life pacifying her horrific daughter Kate and has now become related by marriage to inverted snob Susan Carter.  Here's to you, Jennifer!

NEW YEAR'S EVE LUNCH WITH IRMA

Irma is another friend who is a wonderful cook and this is what we ate for a long lunch today:

There were home dried tomatoes with a piquant dressing

followed by this elegant pasta dish of ham and chiodini mushrooms, invented by Irma

and served on a basil purée:

Then there was roast pork

prettily served with a fennel and orange salad and apple purée:

Now, I have to say I'm proud of this.  I had invented a semifreddo of white torrone to take along as a dessert.  I got the idea from a magazine but the recipe seemed unnecessarily complicated to me, so I adapted the semifreddo of marrons glacés recipe from Il Cucchiaio d'Argento and it worked very well.  I found the chocolate letters and numbers in the supermarket.  [They are by paneangeli, if you're in Italy.]

After that, there was Irma's cobaita [or giuggiulena in dialect]

plus mustaccioli biscuits filled with nuts and fig paste and nucatoli honey biscuits.

Now I have to find room for a dish of lentils, to bring myself good fortune in the New Year!

Happy 2011, everybody, from Simi and me! xx woof!