Tagliatelle with asparagus and mushrooms

Spaghetti carbonara is a classic dish, but what if you want a dish that is vegetarian and fairly healthy? Clearly the answer is not carbonara. This dish though, is maybe the next best thing. The mushrooms give it loads of flavour, then you have the luxury of the new season asparagus.

Asparagus and pea risotto

Here's the most luxurious, delicious early summer risotto you can imagine. I'm posting this now in the hope that you might still be able to find some British asparagus. If not, you could use imported, or save it till next year. Or it will still be delicious with peas and no asparagus, just not quite as luxurious.

Healthy risotto for spring

Risotto might be traditionally a buttery, cheesy dish, but it can still be delicious with a fraction of the fat. You don't have to go the whole hog and make some kind of vegan high-fibre risotto with pearl barley and no cheese. Those recipes have their place, but here I'm thinking of something more like a classic risotto, with arborio rice and still with the cheese. 

A hearty winter stew with lentils and greens

The idea for this stew started from a bag of greens and some slightly stale rolls. I thought of ribollita, that great Italian hearty soup based on cavolo nero, cannelini beans and bread. Why not do a version using spring greens, and lentils instead of beans, I wondered?

The end result is not really anything like ribollita, but it is a great, warming, substantial (and healthy) soup/stew, perfect for a cold night.

Easy pea risotto

Risotto sounds like hard work, but it doesn't have to be. You can stir all the time if you like, but this recipe works just as well with a casual stir now and then. A bag of frozen peas is your friend here, adding flavour and vivid green colour.

How to prepare fresh chestnuts, and a chestnut risotto recipe

Wild chestnuts can be one of the most frustrating wild crops to forage, yet are one of the most rewarding. The most challenging part is finding a tree with decent-sized nuts. Some years in the UK they just never seem to get big enough to be worth eating. This year I happened across lots of trees which only yielded tiny nuts, including in several Central London parks. But then a walk out in Kent, when chestnuts were the last thing on my mind, put lots of plump nuts in my path.

The challenges continue with the prickles (wear gloves, or restrict yourself to the ones that have fallen out of the spiny cases). And finally, peeling them is a rather time-consuming process which leaves me with painful bits of chestnut case under my fingernail.

Tomatoes three ways: a quick and easy pasta sauce

Those of you who don't grow tomatoes may never have had cause to consider what to do with green tomatoes. It's not something I'd ever thought much about in the past. But the tomato plants in our office balcony garden were being chopped down, and were still covered in green tomatoes that had never got the chance to ripen. It seemed a shame to let them get thrown away.

I'd heard of green tomato chutney, and of course the Southern dish of fried green tomatoes (as in the 1991 film of the same name). I'm sure they're lovely, but they're not really a meal in themselves. Often when I think of tomatoes I think of pasta, so I decided to see what a pasta sauce might be like with green tomatoes.

Amazing gluten-free pizza with a secret ingredient

No-one could have been more surprised than me that this recipe turned out so well. Gluten-free pizza? Sounds a slightly strange dish to make gluten-free. Gluten-free pizza where the base is actually made from vegetables? It sounds like some kind of crazy health freak dish. But it's actually incredibly delicious.

The vegetable in question is cauliflower. Not even one of my favourite vegetables. But I'd challenge you to realise that it's cauliflower you're eating if you didn't already know. I'm not saying you'll never spot the difference from your usual favourite pizza - the texture and flavour of the base are a bit different from normal. But still delicious.

Chunky minestrone-style stew

Here's a warming, comforting bowl of food which is fairly quick, healthy and is based mainly on store-cupboard ingredients (well, as long as you have some green veg in the freezer).

You could cook the pasta in together with the stew to save energy and washing-up, but I find that cooking it separately makes it easier to get the pasta and the stew cooked just how you want them.

Any leftovers will be just as tasty when reheated the next day, although be aware that it will probably absorb more of the liquid and become thicker.

Summer into autumn

It's September and there's a real sense of being at a turning point of the year. On Saturday we spent the afternoon in the sunshine, and cooked a courgette pasta sauce in the evening. It was one of those dishes you slightly make up as you go along. I started by sweating some diced courgettes and garlic with a touch of chilli. It didn't seem to have quite enough interest to carry the pasta. I could have added some lemon and capers, but I didn't have either. I did have some lovely ripe tomatoes, which were a wonderful deep red right the way through to the middle. Into the pan they went for a couple of minutes while I took the stones out of a couple of handfuls of black olives. Served with some basil on top, it was summer on a plate.

Pasta with courgettes, tomatoes and olives

Trattoria da Aldo, Soho

I don't know why Italian food seems to hit the spot so often. It could be the comforting carbs of pizza and pasta, the associations of sunshine and good living, or the bold punchy flavours like olives and garlic. Whatever it is, when in doubt, or when you're just not feeling adventurous enough for an Eritrean or a Vietnamese meal, an Italian restaurant often seems like a good choice.

Trattoria da Aldo was one such recent choice. It's a homely place, slightly old-fashioned and in a part of Soho heaving with tourists, a fair few of whom were coming in the door by mid-evening. Quirky decor helps to distract from the fact that some of the tables are really very close together. It's not a place to go if you're plotting something.

Nuovo, Buckhurst Hill

A slightly belated review, this, of a place I went to a few weeks ago.

I think my tardiness has something to do with the way I felt about the place: I wasn't gripped by any strong desire to praise it or damn it.

Nuovo's chef, Frederick Forster, is the proud holder of the title of National Chef of the Year. I wonder slightly about this type of competition - you have to enter  and take part in cook-offs, and presumably there are quite a few chefs who don't bother. Nonetheless you can't visit the restaurant or look at its website without becoming acquainted with this claim to fame, and I daresay you can't blame them.

In a nutshell, everything was quite well done, but very little was remarkable. "Spring asparagus" (we were assured it was English) was served with crispy chicken fritters and grated egg vinaigrette. Unless it was trying to present the famous "which came first" riddle, the chicken fritters had no obvious point - they smacked of gilding the lily. Grilled tiger prawns with black pudding (8.95) were a novel twist on surf and turf, and the jumbo-sized prawns were described as "very tasty". A twice-baked goats' cheese souffle, served with pear chutney, was good, but no better than I could have made myself, and rather small for £8.

Main courses are a bit more generous, notably the linguine alla pescatora (£13.50), which was a heaped plateful, strewn with mussels, prawns, baby octopus and clams. There are very few vegetarian main courses - almost certainly the fewest I have seen in an Italian restaurant - but you can have spinach and ricotta ravioli (decent enough, but not outstanding for £12.95) or a different pasta dish on the set lunch menu.

Desserts are a collection of old favourites - tiramisu, chocolate brownie, fruit salad and so on. I couldn't find any fault, but again I wasn't blown away either.

I thought prices were a little high, but perhaps you pay a premium for eating food cooked by the National Chef of the Year. It had been a pleasant lunch, but I only wish I could say it had been the Meal of the Year.

Nuovo
79 Queens Road
Buckhurst Hill
IG9 5BW
0208 504 2299
(Also at 88 - 90 High Road, South Woodford, E18 2NA, 0208 518 8007)

L'Infinito, Wanstead - a good lunch, but where was everyone?

I don't know whether everyone in Wanstead was busy having a Jubilee street party or something, but it was very quiet in L'Infinito. I reckon I made the better choice - I'd take decent Italian food like this over flabby quiche, coronation chicken and soggy crisps any day.

They were putting out Union Jack tablecloths on the outside tables yesterday, though there didn't seem any imminent prospect of people wanting to sit outside. Inside it's a bit more elegant, with smart red-and-white table linen and some paintings of the Cornish coast (which are for sale). For my aged grandmother, it was the first outing for a few weeks that was neither to the hospital nor the doctor's, and it seemed like a piece of heaven.

Tap water was offered freely, brought in a glass bottle and replaced without us having to ask - a nice touch, as was the bread and garlic-marinated olives, even if the bread (slightly flabby slices of French stick) was nothing special.

The menu covers most of what you would expect from an Italian restaurant - pizza, pasta, risotto, meat and fish dishes. Most of the pasta dishes are available as starters or main courses, and there are plenty of other starters, including squid served with courgette, mussels and bruschetta.

Potato and courgette soup sounded bland but was actually rather nice, served with some toasted foccacia. Of the mains, chicken served in a mushroom and cream sauce was pronounced excellent, the chicken tender and juicy. Sea bass fillets came with wedges of sauteed new potato and green beans which were either al dente or undercooked, according to your point of view. I can rarely see pizza on a menu without ordering it, I had the mixed vegetable pizza. To my mind it could have done with a little less cheese and a little more tomato sauce, but the base was good, thin in the middle with a soft, chewy crust. I'm not sure what an Italian would think of putting sweetcorn on a pizza, but to be fair it was listed on the menu. (Mind you, sweetcorn pales into insignificance compared with another Italian restaurant I can think of, which is prone to putting carrot and broccoli on its mixed vegetable pizza).

The food arrived in quite a leisurely manner, particularly given that there was hardly anyone else in there. It was no great problem for us, but I would think twice about going there if in a rush.

Things speeded up when we got to dessert - an amaretto-soaked tiramisu for me and a hearty portion of profiteroles for the aged relative. The profiteroles seemed to be covered in chocolate mousse rather than the usual chocolate sauce, but this didn't seem to be a problem and they were demolished in short order.

Prices are fairly standard - £8 to £12 for a pizza, £4.50 to £8 for starters, £13.50 to £15.50 for meat and fish dishes. They accept Tastecard too, which makes the bill very reasonable.

During the course of two hours there were only two other tables occupied for Saturday lunch. Hopefully this can be blamed on the allure of the street parties, or maybe everyone had gone for a lunch of fish and chips or steak and kidney pie on such a patriotic weekend. L'Infinito may not be outstanding, but it deserves more custom than this.

L'Infinito
27 High Street
Wanstead,
E11 2AA
0208 5305057
www.linfinito.co.uk

Italian in Belgravia

I’ve never had great success finding somewhere good quality and good value near Victoria. So I was pleasantly surprised by Da Scalzo.

It’s a bustling place just down the side of the station, towards the coach station. Inside it is bright and modern, with tables on two levels. I tried a few of the starters (not all by myself), of which the highlight was the burrata mozzarella. You don't see this cheese very often, but it’s a fresh mozzarella with an oozing inside of cream and curds of cheese. It was accompanied with some rocket leaves and some olive paste which contrasted with the mild cheese.

Vegetarian antipasto did not push any boundaries but did what we wanted – some roasted peppers, aubergine, courgette, mozzarella and an artichoke heart, plus some humous (moving slightly away from the Italian theme with this last one, I thought). I didn’t get much of the bruschetta but it seemed decent enough, if a bit too cold. Garlic pizza bread was not for the faint-hearted – packed with garlic, and nicely crispy, though I would have preferred it served whole in pizza format, rather than slices in a basket.

Pizzas are definitely a popular option. The toppings are mostly the usual suspects, though my companions enjoyed the Sicilian (tuna, olives, anchovies, artichokes and pine nuts).  My vegetarian pizza was tasty but bordering on dry. If I was nitpicking, I might suggest that fresh spinach would have been better than frozen, and I’m not sure that the raw radicchio added anything other than colour. My friend enjoyed her mushroom ravioli but complained it was a bit small (very often the case with ravioli, or indeed any filled pasta, in my experience). There are also some meat and fish main courses, of which the chicken breast was deemed excellent.

On a Thursday night it was very busy and service was a bit slow, although the staff were apologetic. Prices are not too bad for the area - £8.50 to £9.25 for pizzas and pastas, and £12 to £16 for meat and fish dishes. House red, something Sicilian, is fairly decent and comes in a choice of carafes (just under £20 for a litre carafe).

All in all I wasn’t blown away, but in a busy, touristy area you can do a lot worse.

Da Scalzo
2 Ecclestone Place
Belgravia, London
SW1W 9NE
020 7730 5498
www.dascalzo.com

The wonders of zabaglione

This is a tale of how I have become converted to zabaglione. And made the useful find of a good Italian restaurant not far from the British Museum.

We had dithered over dessert, but were assured they were all home-made. The waiter's promise that the zabaglione would be whipped up especially for me was enough to sway me. I hadn't had zabaglione for years, and in fact only once or twice at all. On the last occasion I remember being underwhelmed by what seemed like a thin custard.

Now I am full of awe at how egg yolks, sugar and Marsala can be converted into a dish worthy of the gods. It was served warm (such was my zabaglione ignorance that I wasn't expecting this), thick and frothy in a wine glass, and full of the alcoholic punch of sweet wine (lots of wine, if the flavour was anything to go by). It was a bit like having a dessert and a liqueur at once.

I may be back to Il Castelletto just for the zabaglione.

As for the rest of the meal, it was all above our expectations. Round the corner from the British Museum, we weren't sure whether it would just be a tourist trap. There were a fair few tourists, to be sure, but the food was good. Prices are reasonable for the area - £4.50 to £8 for starters, around £9 for pasta main courses, and around £13 for meat or fish mains. (They also do a 2 for 1 with Tastecard, even on Friday evenings, and I think there is a cheaper lunch menu.) There were quite a few veal dishes, though I would have preferred some information about whether this was British rose veal, which is produced without cruelty, or something imported and reared with lower standards of animal welfare.

It maybe wasn't the best time to order chicken liver pate, having watched a programme about campylobacter food poisoning the previous night. Apparently chicken liver pate, made with undercooked chicken livers, is a prime source. Luckily the pate was delicious, and insofar as you could tell from the colour, the livers seemed to have been properly cooked.

Minestrone soup had a lovely, deep flavour to the broth. I liked the little contraption they had for grating parmesan onto it - much better than that weird ready-grated parmesan you sometimes see in Italian restaurants.

Moving onto mains, I thought the spinach and ricotta cannelloni was a bit small, but then I find that nearly every time I order cannelloni in a restaurant. It had a good flavour though, was generously topped with cheese, and came bathed in plenty of tomato sauce.

The other half had spaghetti marinara. This translates as sailors' spaghetti, but is not to be confused with marinara sauce made just with tomatoes, garlic and onions (the name comes from the fact that this sauce keeps well on sea journeys). In this case, as the menu explains, it was spaghetti served with seafood. When it arrived the seafood turned out to be mussels, baby octopus, calamari, and the odd scallop, in a modest amount of tomato sauce as well. The tomato flavour didn't come through strongly, though perhaps this was just as well to allow the seafood to be the focus.

We also had a tiramisu for dessert, though next to the zabaglione it seemed oddly lacking. It was pleasant enough, but could have done with more of an espresso kick to give it that "pick me up" quality. I personally think tiramisu should have an bit of a kick from alcohol too, though others may disagree.

Il Castelletto
17 Bury Place, London
WC1A 2JB
020 7405 2232

Pizza and pepper grinders in Battersea

I'm not sure what kind of market Donna Margherita is aiming for, but they have pizzas named "Gay" and "Lesbica", as well as unnecessarily large pepper grinders.

Either way, it appears to be going down well - the place was buzzing on a Monday night, full of youngish Claphamites and energetic waiters who bounded up the stairs and half-skidded across the wooden floors like enthusiastic Dobermans.

It's attracted some rave reviews in the past for the quality of its pizzas. Now there are few foods I love more than a good pizza, so I was keen to try it out.

To cut to the chase: they were good, but I was not blown away. The bases were slightly thicker than normal, especially around the crust, which was fluffy, almost chewy, rather than thin and crisp like a wafer. The middle of the pizza was thinner, but nowhere near the so-stretched-you-can-almost-read-through-it achievements that some restaurants manage with their pizza dough. The Real Ale Drinker and I both felt they could have been cooked a little more, as there was a suspicion of doughiness.

The toppings were cracking, though: a medley of fresh seafood for him, including mussels and clams in the shell, baby octopus, and two king prawns in the centre like some kind of heraldic emblem. Mine had fried aubergine, ricotta, sweet cherry tomatoes, and Parmesan.

We had starters, too: a duo of winter warmers, one of beans and sausage and another lentils with friarelli (a slightly bitter Italian green). I thought the greens got a bit lost, but it was a great rib-sticking dish. Much the same could be said of the beans and sausage. An English person would call it breakfast, I suppose, but the Italians manage to turn it into a pretty good starter.

Despite the energetic waiters, service felt slightly erratic at times - our starters were quite slow to arrive, and the table next to us appeared to have been forgotten about. We weren't offered dessert until so much time had passed that we asked for the bill. I probably wouldn't go there when in a hurry, but it didn't detract from an enjoyable evening.

Pizzas cost from £7.50 to £11, while there are also meat and fish dishes, and the home-made pasta and gnocchi look worth a return visit. Overall verdict: not quite as good as Eco nearby in Clapham Common, but I'd still go back.

As for the Gay and Lesbica pizzas, they seem like pizzas for the indecisive. The Lesbica is half mushrooms, parmesan and basil, and half rocket, shavings of parmesan and cherry tomatoes.The Gay is half Margherita and half Parma ham with rocket, parmesan and cherry tomatoes. And I'm still none the wiser as to the point of a three-foot-high pepper grinder. As we all know, size isn't everything, in pepper grinders or in pizzas.

Donna Margherita,
183 Lavender Hill,
London SW11
020 7228 2660

Pizza perfection

I love it when you have a great meal more or less by accident.

There we were, on Clapham High Street and hungry. It was raining, too, so we didn't spend too much time researching the available options. Eco was pretty much full, which seemed like a near-miracle on the first Wednesday in January. That was the extent of our research, so after a quick drink in the deli next door while they found space for us, we tumbled in.

Eco serves sourdough pizza, which is a perfect example of food fashion. Ten years ago it barely existed in this country, and now they are everywhere, including almost opposite at Breads Etcetera, and a mile or two down the road at Franco Manca in Brixton Market.

So is sourdough pizza better? It's certainly not worse. I tend to think a well-made yeasted pizza base can be just as good, but if nothing else, the fact that a place is using sourdough at least indicates a certain level of care and attention.

Those at Eco are excellent - nice and thin, a hint of chewiness. But it was the toppings that had me more excited. I very nearly ordered the engagingly-named Amore, with roasted peppers, green beans, artichokes, red onions and aubergine. The goats' cheese and coriander pizza also sounded interesting, if a bit mad. I had the porcini and truffle oil, which also featured fontina, white wine and mozzarella. I didn't notice that much truffle oil, to be honest, but the fresh porcini packed enough of a fungal punch that I forgave them.

The other half had the marinara, with octopus, king prawns, squid, cuttlefish and mussels. There was so much going on that he thought the individual seafood flavours got a bit lost. I tend to the view that he should have thought of that before ordering it.

Those craving simpler pizzas are also kept happy with options like margherita, ham or mushroom. The ham is Gloucester Old Spot from a named farm, which is a nice touch. Prices start low, with a margherita at £6.25 or a cheese-free pizza just £4.75. We had some of the most expensive options, at £9.25 and £10.50.

We drank a reasonable bottle of Nero d'Avola, which is the entry point of the wine list at £13.25.

In my excitement to tell you about the pizzas I have skipped over the starters. They do various classic antipasti such as cured meats, tomato and mozzarella salad, and Parma ham with figs. I was drawn to their "dips and bites" which are nibbles served on a platter for sharing, in a combination of your choice. We enjoyed aubergine baked in tomato sauce with pecorino, and a tomato bruschetta on sourdough bread. The tomatoes were a bit pale and tasteless, but with the help of some garlic, olive oil, basil and decent bread, the whole thing was still highly edible.

Oh, and they do lots of pasta, too. And they take Tastecards. What more can you ask for?

Eco
162 Clapham High Street
London
SW4 7UG
020 7978 1108 
www.ecorestaurants.com

Adventures with gnocchi

New year, new challenges...The first was making gnocchi. I've often thought about this, but never done it before.

It sounds a bit fiddly, but then what are holidays for?

There are all kinds of gnocchi - semolina-based, flour-based, even spinach and ricotta, but these were made from potato, flour and egg. The accompanying sauce would be a rich tomato ragu, topped with portobello mushrooms.

I have to admit I wasn't overwhelmed with the results. The sauce was lovely - I will definitely make it again to serve with pappardelle or other pasta - but the gnocchi were well, a bit heavy. I'm not sure whether they were supposed to be like that or not. I've had lighter ones in restaurants, but they may not have been potato-based. And the long-life kind you can buy in a vacuum pack are usually pretty dense. They tasted nice enough though. I think making them smaller might have helped with the heaviness.

Serves 4-8 (depending on how greedy you are) as a main course 

Ingredients

600g floury potatoes
500g flour
1 egg

For the sauce
3 celery sticks, diced small
2 carrots, diced small
2 onions (red or white), diced small
2 tins chopped tomatoes
A couple of sprigs rosemary, finely chopped
About a third to half a bottle of red wine
6 large portobello mushrooms
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Olive oil

Method

For the sauce: Fry the celery, carrots and onion with two of the chopped garlic cloves in a little olive oil for five minutes. Add the tomatoes, rosemary and a third of a bottle of red wine. Simmer for at least 45 minutes or until the sauce is thick. If it starts to get too dry, add a little water or some more red wine if you prefer.

Cut the mushrooms into strips and fry with a little olive oil and the other clove of chopped garlic.

For the gnocchi: Wash the potatoes and boil them whole, with skins on, until tender (this will depend on the size of your spuds). Peel them as soon as they are cool enough to handle and mash or pass through a ricer. Mix in the beaten egg and then stir in the flour. Mix well and knead for a few minutes. It should be moist but not wet - add a little more flour if it seems too sticky.
Shape a manageable amount of the dough into a long sausage and cut into pieces about half an inch wide and half an inch long. You are supposed to mark it with the back of a fork to make ridges for the sauce to cling to, but to be honest I didn't find that doing this or not made much difference. Cook them in boiling water for a few minutes - they are ready when they float to the surface.

Serve with the sauce and top with the mushrooms. You can serve with some grated parmesan, if you wish.