Soft Noodles

Good food is usually the cheapest of foods. The problem is that these items have, over the years, been renamed and repackaged by clever chefs and then sold to an unsuspecting public at inflated prices.

This blog is about cheap food, and food from China doesn't come much cheaper. I have always liked noodle dishes, probably because I was brought up eating spaghetti. We all know the myth that Marco Polo (whose name always reminds me of a hairdressers for some reason) brought pasta to the Italians from China. Well, it may have arrived in Italy from the east but it had nothing to do with old Marco.

One of my granddaughter's favourite dishes is 'Soft Noodles'. If let to her own devices, she would happily live off this dish. This recepe was given to me by an old Chinese lady back in the 'seventies who was a friend of a family that I was staying with at the time.

A single portion of fine egg noodles

1 teaspoon of dark soy sauce

3 teaspoons of light soy sauce

Half a small onion, finely sliced

1 clove of crushed garlic.

Teaspoon of ground nut oil

Fill a small pan with hot water, bring to the boil, and put in the dried egg noodles. Boil for 2- 3 minutes, then take them out and drain.

Heat a wok and put in the oil; when the oil starts to smoke, add onions and garlic. Cook for a minute or so, taking care not to burn the onion, then add the noodles.

Put in both the dark and light soy sauces and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring all the time.

That's it! So simple, but so tasty and cheap. You can add veg or meat if you wish to make a more substantial meal. Use any cooked left overs you have to add to the dish - anything works well with these noodles.

Buon Appito!

Finnan Haddie!

The above title is a new one for me. This smoked haddock from Scotland had always been known as "Finney Haddock" to me. This was no doubt down to Nonna and her interpretation of English words. There are lots of dishes that Nonna gave us the English words for which turned out to be incorrect. But there could, I suppose, always be a chance that it is known as Finney Haddock here in Yorkshire.

She called sweets "spice", tarts were "torte" and tomatoes were either the Italian "Pomodoro" or "Tomat", "Tomatie" - anything but the correct word.

This dish, to Nonna, was always called "Pesce con Pomodoro" - Then she called it "Finney Haddock" to English people.

I love fish when they are swimming in the sea or in a river. I love their diversity and how graceful they are. I'm not keen on them when they are on a dinner plate, though! So I very rarely eat this meal, but my wife loves it!

1 piece of smoked haddock (not the sort with the horrible food colouring on)

Half a green pepper (Pimento) seeded and thinly sliced.

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

Juice of half a lemon.

Two teaspoons of sugar.

Half a clove of garlic, crushed.

Two fresh Basil leaves.

Put a splash of virgin olive oil into a heavy-based frying pan.

Add garlic and pepper, and sauté  them for two or three minutes.

Add tin of tomatoes juice of half a lemon and sugar, then stir.

Cook on low heat for two more minutes, then add the haddock.

Coat the haddock in the sauce then add a few drops of water to thin the sauce out a little. Cover with a plate or lid and cook on a low heat for 15 to 20 minutes.

Rip the basil into pieces and put it in the pan.

When the fish is falling apart, turn out on to a plate and serve. This can be eaten with polenta or new potatoes and green beans. But, as with most of our meals when I was young, we just ate it with our hands and warm bread. 

Buon Appetito! 

Gnocchi

This week I visited a grammar school in Halifax West Yorkshire. There I met a lovely teacher who was so warm and welcoming, and really connected with her students.

Later, while talking to her in the staff room, I discovered that she was not only Italian, but came from a village not far from where Nonna was born.

This lady, unlike Nonna, had lost her accent but not her identity of where she came from. The reason she came to Britain was the reason lots of people migrate, poverty.

We both spoke about how simple real Italian food is, and how it's the love and the people who make it special.

To prove this, try the recipe below for gnocchi: you can't get anything more simple, and tasty.

Make mash from boiled potatoes that are soft but firm.

Take about 250g of mashed potato and add 9oz of plain flour and one egg and mix together.

Knead the mixture and then roll into a ball.

Cut the the ball into four and roll out each portion into long thin sausages. Then cut into small cubes.

Drop the gnocchi into a pan of boiling water and cook until the gnocchi rises to the top (about 3mins).

Sauce.

Gently heat two oz of butter in a pan and add chopped fresh sage to your taste. Let it cook on a low heat for about five minutes then pour over the gnocchi.

Buon Appetito!

Calzone

When I was a child, living in a small textile town in northern England, most people didn't go away for their holidays. The mills closed for two weeks and the local council put on events labelled, 'Holidays at Home'. Which was, in effect, just going to the local park.

Some people, such as my wife and her family, would hire a caravan on the east coast but most people had, at best, a day trip to the seaside. This was usually in the form of the 'Club Trip'.

The 'Club Trip' was organised by the committee at the local working men's clubs. The men would pay a fee over a period of time and then, when there was enough money in the pot, coaches were hired and the neighbourhood went to the seaside. I was more fortunate than most kids, as I had family in other countries that we would go and visit, but as a child I saw this as a chore. The club trip was a thing of dreams for me. You even received a small envelope with five shillings (25p) in it. That was big money to me, back then.

The strange thing was that, when we got to the seaside, the parents all departed to the nearest club and let the kids run free in a strange town, somewhere they had never been before, which had the added bonus of having an ocean next to it.

The sea is a strange thing; it is beautiful and serene, but to a small child it could be as dangerous as Jimmy Savile with a bag of sweets and a box of puppies! But everyone seemed to get home safely, maybe we are just over-cautious now with our children, by comparison.

The only other way a child could break free of the shackles of their environment when I was a child was the 'School Trip'. I only ever went on two, one when I was ten and another when I was fifteen. It's the first one which this blog is about.

We all set off to Fountains Abbey. I don't know why - it wasn't a field trip, and we were left to roam about at our own free will (it seems to be a theme throughout my childhood). We had all been informed to bring a packed lunch, and we were more excited about this than the actual trip. I had asked Nonna to make me a ham sandwich. I suppose in my heart I knew this wasn't going to happen, but I lived in hope. The next morning, armed with a small metal tin that Nonna had given me strict instructions to bring back home with me, I set off on the trip. My friend had asked his mother to make him a beef sandwich, which he, too, was excited about. Back then crisps were a luxury, as were chocolate bars: no one had them.

All our packed lunches had been taken from us to prevent us eating them on the way there, so when we finally received them at lunch time, there was high anticipation which soon turned to despair, as each child opened their bags to see what their parents had prepared for them. I opened my tin, hoping to feast on a succulent ham sandwich but I was confronted with a large calzone. Nonna had struck again.

My friend walked over to me with a look of disappointment on his face and enquired what I had for lunch, I showed him the contents of the tin and his eyes lit up. “Do you want to swap?” he asked eagerly. “Yes,” I said, hoping to eat his no doubt delicious beef sandwich. We swapped, and he ran away with my calzone and Nonna's tin to eat my dinner, I couldn't understand why he didn't sit with me to eat. I opened up his food bag to find not beef, but jam sandwiches! What sort of parent gives their kids JAM sandwiches? Surely that's a reason to phone social services? I went looking for him but I had no need to bother, as he came walking back to me, giving me back the tin saying, “Swap back! That's the worst Cornish pasty I have ever eaten!”

It's hard to believe now, but most children back then had never encountered a pizza, never mind a calzone, But I, for one, was glad that I had a Nonna who wouldn't dream of feeding me jam sandwiches.

Calzone

You can fill a calzone with whatever you wish. I tend to fill them with peppers and pepperoni but this is the sort of calzone Nonna used to make.

Make pizza bread dough as in my previous blog.

1 tomato, peeled and seeded, and chopped into chunks

Ricotta cheese

Tomato purée

Fresh oregano

1 beaten egg.

Roll the dough into a circle of about 8 or 9 inches.

Wet the edges with the beaten egg.

Smear half the circle with tomato purée.

Add the chopped tomato.

Dot with ricotta.

Sprinkle lightly with a pinch of oregano.

Fold it over and pinch the side like a Cornish pasty.

Make a hole in the top to let out steam and put on a piece of baking paper on a baking tray.

Brush with the rest of the egg and put it in hot oven, gas mark 6, for twenty minutes.

Buon Appetito!

Simply Magic!

My grandfather was a stone mason/bricklayer. One of the problems people with these jobs develop is arthritis in the wrists and fingers. This is due to picking up heavy wet stones/bricks in all weathers.

To counteract this, my grandfather had learned from a man, who had been out in Singapore during the war, how to palm coins. This man had learned how to manipulate objects so they could seemingly disappear before your eyes. This also kept his fingers and wrists supple.

Granddad would sit on an evening with an old penny, moving it between his fingers. It would often disappear, and reappear in his other hand. As small children, my brother John and I would watch him in fascination. He would hold a coin between two fingers and seemingly throw it at you, which made you wince in fear, only for nothing to happen. He would then ask one of us to pass his coin back. We would stare at him in confusion as there was no coin in sight, only for him to remove it from our ears, nose, mouth etc.

We all know this as simple palming, simple magic. He once asked if we were hungry, and we said yes. He then asked John to pass him Nonna's headscarf which he laid over his hand, then lifted the scarf to reveal a punnet of strawberries. Both John and I have talked about this many times and still cannot work out how he did it.

But the real magician of the family was Nonna. She was from a family that knew what it was like to be poor, and I'm talking real poverty. People think of Italian food as being fancy cream or pasta dishes, but it's not true. Where her family came from, the staple diet was beans of all varieties and I don't mean the Heinz type either. Just like the working class women of Britain of her generation, she had learned to feed a family for next to nothing, but when you tasted her food it was as if she had magicked up a banquet from a single tomato.

Lots of my friends had egg and chips as their Wednesday night meal. Younger people don't realise that not that long ago people got paid in cash, usually on a Thursday, as this was so people could get the shopping in for the weekend. By Wednesday nights, most families were out of money so the evening meal usually reflected this, hence the egg and chips. Many years ago, when my son was quite young, we went to Turkey for a holiday: we were off the beaten track, but there were quite a few Brits where we were staying. After a week of kebabs, one of the Brits asked the chef if he knew how to cook egg and chips. The chef then received a lesson from the customer on how to cook this British gastronomic delicacy. When the rest of the Brits saw this man eating his meal, they all ordered it, and the next day it was on the menu. I have had egg and chips once in my life and I have to say it doesn't work! Sorry, but it just doesn't go together.

I know I'm leaving myself open to criticism here, but our Wednesday night meal was the same as egg and chips, only cooked differently. And it is a meal I still eat on a regular basis.

This is a meal for one: just up the portions if you have more mouths to feed

Take one medium sized potato, wash and peel and slice it width ways into scallops about two or three millimetres thick.

Take a small onion, cut it in half, and slice one half into fine strips. Save the other half in the fridge.

Put a couple of tbsps of olive oil in a large, heavy-based frying pan on a low heat.

Then place the potatoes in the pan and coat them with the oil, place the onions on top of the potatoes and cover with a lid or, as Nonna did, a plate. Then let it cook on a low heat for about twenty minutes, just turning the potatoes after about fifteen minutes.

When cooked, take off the lid/plate and prod the potatoes with a fork to make sure they are cooked.

If they are soft, take one egg and beat it in a dish, adding salt and pepper, then turn up the heat under the pan and pour the egg over the scallops, letting it coat each slice. Don't let it over cook.

You can empty the contents onto a warm plate and eat it at this stage, which is what my brother does, and, trust me, its lovely. But because I'm a Parmesan cheese freak, I lightly grate Parmesan over the potatoes after pouring the egg in. I then Then I put it under a very hot grill, until it turns light brown.

Serve it with lots of bread and butter and a large mug of hot tea. This is not family sharing food, this is on-your-lap-in-front-of-the-TV food, and for me it beats egg and chips any day,

Buon Appetito!

A Walk In The Woods!

Memories are strange things. Your mind has a habit of stripping them down, cleaning out the boring or nasty bits, then re-packaging them, wrapped in rose-tinted cellophane.

But, for me, there are sounds and smells that take me back to times gone by. If I encounter a frosty morning, where the grass under my feet crunches like frosted cornflakes, I'm transported back to my childhood Sunday mornings. This is not to say that every Sunday was frosty when I was a child, although I did have to endure cold Catholicism every Sunday.

On Sunday mornings, my brother John, my grandfather and I would walk down the hill from the small cottage we lived in, to a large field which was encircled by thick woodland. Because it was always very early in the morning, there was either dew on the grass or frost. The reason for our walk was to gather woodland mushrooms for our breakfast. One of my deepest regrets is that I paid no attention to my Grandfather, who desperately tried to show both my brother and myself where to find mushrooms, and what mushrooms you could eat. We would spend our time tormenting a poor unfortunate goat that was tethered in the field. We had worked out the length of the tether and would torment it long enough for it to charge us, only to half strangle itself when the tether ran out. The rest of the time, we spent sword fighting with any sticks we could find.

But on our return home, with a basket of gnarled discoloured fungi, my Nonna would set about turning our free food into a simple culinary masterpiece.

Put a knob of butter in a frying pan on a low heat.

Add a crushed clove of garlic (More if you really love garlic)

When the butter has turned a nutty brown, add the mushrooms but don't stir them, as you will release all the moisture from them and boil them.

When the moisture has escaped stir them all - this only takes a few minutes.

At the end, before you serve them, add your preferred seasoning, Half a teaspoon of smoky paprika. Or half a teaspoon of chilli. I prefer to finely grate a small amount of Parmesan cheese in, then add a handful of finely-chopped flat leafed parsley, stir.

Serve it on a piece of thick cut warm bread or crostini.

Another smell that, for me, is what I call a memory duvet, is freshly baked bread. Memory duvets wrap you up and snuggle you in a warm glow of nostalgia.

Nonna would always rise at stupid o'clock each morning. For her, getting up at 7am on a Sunday morning was a decadent lie-in. Most days she would be up for 5am and have fires lit, Pasht on the stove, and bread in the oven. I cannot begin to describe the joy of awaking to the smell of bread baking in the oven. With the dough she had left over she would often make pizza. In my previous blog I explained that pizza is something I can take or leave, it's just cheese on toast. But if you would like to make your own pizza use this recipe. I call it my pretend veggie pizza.

For the dough:-

1 and a half cups of plain white four.

8 tbsp tepid water.

1 teaspoon of easy blend yeast.

1 tbsp olive oil

Sift the flour and yeast into a large bowl, make a well in the centre and add the water and oil.

Stir with a wooden spoon. Then turn it out onto a floured surface and knead it for about five or six minutes.

I then put it back in the bowl and cover it with a tea towel or cling film and put it in a warm place for and hour or so.

When it has risen, empty it back out onto a floured surface and just knock the air out of it, then roll it out to your desired thickness, I think real pizzas should have a very thin crust.

Then spread your tomato sauce all over the top (See previous blog. Only use this sauce). Then finely slice a mixture of red, yellow and green peppers until you have about a hand full in total, (I have very big hands). Then spread them out over the pizza. Rip pieces of buffalo Mozzarella: only use this cheese - it is now available everywhere and is quite inexpensive, and put the pieces all over the peppers. Then bake in a pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes at gas mark 6. Keep an eye on it as modern ovens tend to cook them quicker.

When you remove your pizza from the oven, if you are vegetarian, just cut it and eat it. If you want a pretend veggie pizza, just before it is ready put a couple of slices of thin pancetta in a dry hot frying pan and quickly cook them on both sides - it doesn't take long - then take them from the pan and put them on some kitchen paper. They will go crispy this way. When your pizza is ready crush the pancetta and sprinkle over the pizza. This gives it a crunchy, salty, smoky texture, and is just obscenely gorgeous!

Buon Appetitio!

Cooking With Babbo And Nonna.

They say that cooking is the new rock 'n' roll, making household names of the TV chefs, while also making them richer than they ever thought possible! I say it's just knocking up a bit of dinner.

But having said this, you should never under estimate the power of a good meal, cooked with time and love. I learned from an early age how to cook. I spent time with my Nonna, cooking in her tiny little kitchen. Even though the kitchen was small, it had Tardis-like qualities and concealed a myriad of cooking utensils and food ingredients.

Nonna was a tiny little Italian lady who was quiet, patient, and loving, but could erupt like the roaring fires of Vesuvius if you messed with her family. Her food was that of all the Italian peasants of Caserta and the surrounding region. But she could make a humble tomato and a few herbs taste like ambrosia itself.

She was born in 1899 to a mother who was very scary. My great-grandmother's temper was legendary, as anyone who was unfortunate enough to cross her soon found out. But, like my Nonna, she was a pussycat around the family (unless and until they stepped out of line). She herself had an Italian father and a French mother, so she introduced an element of French cuisine to our food.

What these remarkable ladies did was to show the family just how important it is to eat together. Their food was basic, but very nutritious and very tasty. It wasn't rock n roll, it was about the three 'Fs'  - Family, Friends and Food. It was about being able to sit and chat, to eat and laugh, all in the knowledge that everyone sitting around the table cared about all the other diners.

Now that my own hair has turned the colour of the winter snow, I am now a Babbo to my beautiful little granddaughter, Harleigh, and my wife is now a Nonna in her own right. I have carried on the family tradition of cooking for my loved ones and sitting and taking time to talk. Little Harleigh, just like her Papa before her, loves to stand in the kitchen with me and cook and chat.

So that is what this blog is about. It's about love and food and the love of good food. Lots of the recipes are basic Italian fare with lots of my own recipes thrown in. It's about anecdotes of my life and my Nonna's life. Don't expect exact measures, as we believe that it's important to cook the food the way you like it. I will tell you how I cook it, then it's up to you to change it to your taste.

So to start things off I thought that I would tell you how to cook a basic Italian sauce. This sauce is what you are supposed to put on pizzas. And what the so-called "Italian chicken" should have poured over it. We make it in large quantities and keep it in jars, to spoon out as we cook, but I will tell you how to make a small batch to try first and then alter to your taste. It is easy-peasy!

You need:

1 Red onion, finely diced.

1 Tin of chopped tomatoes.

The juice of half a lemon. 

1 teaspoon of sugar.

1 clove of garlic, crushed.

3 or 4 leaves of fresh Basil, ripped into small pieces.

Cook the diced onion and garlic in olive oil in a pan on a low heat until they go translucent. Then just add the rest of the ingredients except for the Basil. Stir, then cover the pan and cook on a low heat for about 15/20 minutes. Then add the Basil and cook for another few more minutes. That's it! Told you, easy peasy. You can use this sauce for all sorts of different dishes, you can even add white wine to it if you wish.

Next time, I will tell you a few dishes to cook with this sauce: until then, buon appetito!