Episode 6 Nigellissima

There are some ingredients I am so mad about,

it goes beyond mere passion.

And I've discovered something here that has set me on a mission.

I am talking culinary conversion.

You know I love all things Italian,

but I've also got a bit of an Ancient Rome obsession,

so farro gives me double joy.

It's emmer wheat in English but best described in taste terms as

kind of wholemeal barley.

You do have to go to a deli to get it,

but it's worth it and I feel it is my duty to spread the word.

I come bearing mushrooms.

Dried porcini mushrooms soaked in hot water

to make them plumptious and gorgeous

because I'm making my farro risotto with mushrooms.

Normally, risottos start with a chopped onion,

but leek is my allium of choice,

and that's partly because it's easier to chop,

but also because I love its tender jade tangle.

Now, in this bowl,

these strange creatures are in fact dried porcini mushrooms

that I've soaked in hot water, and now they're all plumped up.

I'm going to chop these

so they're dispersed throughout my farro risotto.

I will be using fresh mushrooms as well,

but an Italian friend of mine told me that it doesn't matter

if you get your fresh mushrooms from a supermarket,

as long as you start off with some dried mushrooms

because the fresh mushrooms respond to the call of the wild

and intensify their flavour.

I'd like to think it was true.

So into the pan go the mushrooms.

And now it's time for the farro.

I'm using a whole packet, 500 grams.

So beautiful.

I want to slick it in the oil.

I can see it's flecked with green and the dark brown of the mushroom.

So normally at this stage with the risotto,

I would throw in some white wine or vermouth,

but in order to echo the wonderful boskiness of the mushrooms,

I'm going for a more mellow slug of Marsala.

It seems more tonally correct at this stage, too,

as does the mushroom soaking liquid.

And to this, I'm adding some vegetable stock.

About a litre and a quarter because of the other liquids I've put in.

Now, you see, it's beginning to come to a bubble.

So I shall clamp on a lid,

turn it down to a gentle simmer

and let the farro absorb all that rich liquid.

I made mention earlier of fresh mushrooms,

and I'm using chestnut mushrooms.

When sliced across like this,

they have a very dramatic architectural beauty.

Now, I have a second pan on the hob.

I've got some olive oil in there

but I don't want it to get too hot before I mince in some garlic,

because I don't want the garlic to burn.

Thyme is one of my favourite herbs,

and again, a natural partner for mushrooms.

May as well use my farro spoon.

Now, it looks like a scant amount of oil for the mushrooms,

and I will warn you now that as you cook them,

you do start to panic, thinking that they are alarmingly dry.

But just relax because the mushrooms will start exuding

their own liquid.

To aid this, I shall sprinkle on a bit of salt...

..and some pepper.

No matter how many times I cook mushrooms,

I never fail to be amazed at how much they melt down.

I mean, my whole pan-ful is now a small amount

of gorgeously squidgy mushrooms.

Now, let's look at this one.

I'm happy.

Right, we have the coming together

of the dried mushrooms and the fresh mushrooms and the farro in between.

There is a final stage when making risotto,

when you whisk in some butter and parmesan off the heat.

I just don't feel butter's right here. Yes, I have said that!

And instead, I want the lightness of ricotta.

This will just melt in the heat of the farro -

the pan's off now - and become creamy.

But I do NOT reject the conventional choice of parmesan.

I do rather adore these sombre earth tones...

..which I feel I will highlight - or lowlight -

with some bright green parsley.

The thing is about this is that it seems like a low-key recipe,

but that's only to look at, not to taste.

Having people round my table makes me really happy.

And yes, I want the food to be gorgeous,

but I don't want the sort of cooking that could ruin the mood.

So I'm thinking lamb cutlets with mint and chilli,

crisp golden potatoes,

roast red onions, tossed with basil,

and, obviously, pudding.

Now, I've never met anyone who doesn't like crumble,

and I don't want to.

And I give you my ruby red plum and amaretti crumble.

Just a few simple steps and it's made.

To start off with,

I warm two tablespoonfuls of butter in a sturdy pan,

and when the butter's melted, I tip in a kilo of stoned

and quartered plums.

On top of these plums, I sprinkle two tablespoonfuls of sugar...

..and the zest and juice of half a lemon.

It's very important to get

a good balance between sweetness and acidity.

Obviously, the plums are going to get further cooking in the oven,

but I want to start them off so they begin softening.

So I give them a couple of minutes with the lid off,

and then a couple of minutes with the lid on,

so I preserve all of their juices.

And then I tip these gleaming, gorgeous plums into a pie dish

and let them sit there while I get on with the crumble topping.

This is something of an Anglo-Italian enterprise.

A crumble is a quintessential British pud,

but I add a bit of an Italian note by using amaretti biscuits.

So I get 100 grams of these into a freezer bag

and I bash the living daylights out of them.

I find this very, very therapeutic.

First, I just go at them with a rolling pin

and then I just roll over them until I have crunchy rubble.

I then sprinkle about a couple of spoonfuls of this mixture

onto the plums in their dish.

These crumbs help thicken the juices

and give their own bitter almond flavour.

To make the crumble topping,

I spoon 150 grams of plain flour into a bowl.

To that, I add a teaspoonful of baking powder.

I then tip in 100 grams of fridge-cold,

small, cubed butter and I work the butter into the flour

using my fingers.

Now, you can mix up the crumble topping with a processor

or in a freestanding kitchen mixer,

but I rather love the feeling of the cool butter and flour

in my fingers.

Whichever method you're using, just stop

when the mixture resembles rough oatmeal.

I then fork in three tablespoonfuls of white sugar...

..followed by all the remaining amaretti crumbs.

And what I like to do is

start using this to top the dish of fruit all around the edges

of the dish, and then I proceed to fill up in the middle.

To cook the crumble, slip it on a baking sheet in an oven

preheated to 190 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes.

Cooking a kilo of onions sounds a bit daunting,

but not the way I do it because I quarter them,

and then I just peel off the skin really simply.

So it's not like peeling masses and masses of onions,

and what's more, I actually find a bit of skin left behind

is positively a beautiful thing.

I can't claim that this recipe is exactly Italian,

but I came across red onions for the first time

when I was in Italy, so it inspired me.

Tumble them into a tin.

They are meant to be packed like this

because I'm not trying to roast them till they're crisp.

I'm trying to roast them until they're intense and sweet.

And the flavour that I add to these onions is SO Italian -

fennel seeds.

Fennel seeds being the taste of Italian sausages

in most pork sold in markets.

And then olive oil. Quite a lot.

I want to smoosh the onions about in the olive oil and fennel seeds now.

When these come out of the oven,

I shall drizzle with balsamic vinegar and salt.

And then when they're at room temperature,

toss them with a ludicrous amount of fresh basil.

I use it like a salad leaf, not as a garnish.

And you get all that brightness of flavour and colour.

But now, off to the oven.

I'm after some spices for my lamb cutlets and golden potatoes,

and my first stop is here, with the dried chillies.

I don't know why people always insist on believing that

fresh spices or herbs are much better than dried.

They're different and they're used differently.

And dried chilli flakes have an authentic role

to play in Italian cooking.

Now mint, I suppose I'm bringing an Anglo touch

to the lamb cutlets here,

but I love the way dried mint has a warmth

which partners so well with fresh mint

if sprinkled on later with its coolness.

I can make no claim whatsoever that celery salt is Italian,

but celery is an essential flavouring of Italy.

And in fact, if you're in a greengrocer,

they will let you have one stick of celery.

Here, that doesn't happen, so I'm using celery salt.

I need a medium through which the flavours will infiltrate the chops,

and my chosen medium is olive oil.

Just regular olive oil. Not too much.

And now, in reverse order, like Miss World...

celery salt...

..dried mint...

..and a blast of chilli.

This is my method of choice.

I use the first lamb cutlet a bit as if it were a wooden spoon or whisk

to stir all these ingredients together.

And I place each chop in order.

One layer.

And then turn them the other way straight away,

so they've got the oil,

the celery salt, the mint and the chilli on both sides.

So as you can see, this is very low-pressure cooking.

I'm going to leave these to steep, absorbing all the flavour,

just until I want to cook them.

And they're so quick to cook, it makes life very simple.

-I have given you your bicicletta.

-Bicicletta.

I'm going to get on mine. Rustle up some food.

-I didn't know these were called biciclettas.

-Bicicletta.

This is all very quick-fire, but in a relaxed kind of a way.

So the lamb chops are infused with flavour.

That's what I'm counting on.

Don't need to add any more oil.

They've got enough and it's beautifully spice-infused.

In they go, like luscious lamb lollipops.

Getting every last bit.

Now, it's hard really to be precise

about how long you need to cook lamb cutlets for,

because it all depends on how well you like them cooked.

For me, when they're about this small but this chunky

I tend to give them about five minutes on one side

and two to three on the other,

so they're pink inside, but crisp on the outside.

Now, that's exactly how I want them to look.

Blistered from the heat,

but I can feel, as I turn them, there's a bit of squidge inside.

My rocket ready,

and now it's time to add these beauties.

Right, this spice-infused oil is not going to waste

because I have,

hidden in plain sight,

some new potatoes, baby new potatoes that,

small though they are, I've halved.

And this is how they become golden.

I've got my onions here.

They've come out of the oven. They've come to room temperature,

which is why I am bearing them so boldly,

but, apart from that, nothing has been done to them.

So, this is how I roll.

Look how beautiful they are.

In they go.

I didn't wear this dress to match them on purpose, but...

it's a bonus.

I want some salt. Beautiful crystals of it.

Balsamic vinegar.

Sweet but also acidic,

which is exactly what I want with the very sweet red onions.

And then, suddenly,

the beauteousness of basil.

Tuck some around, some in.

I mean, I think of this as roast onions with basil,

but, actually, you could think of it as a basil salad with onions.

And now for that golden touch.

Come on, babies.

There are days when I do the lamb, the potatoes and the rocket

and nothing extra.

Not bad days at that.

Much as I like all that burnished bronze...

..my greenery comes into action.

Parsley and mint.

A real hit of it.

Now, you see, THIS is the sort of food

I'm always happy to cook people.

OK, roast onions and basil.

And lamb chops with rocket and golden new potatoes.

ALL CHAT

MAN: Mm-mm! Buonissimo!

ALL CHAT

Now...

let me dig.

-What's inside or is it a secret?

-It's not a secret at all.

Plums, beautiful red plums. And...

I bashed some amaretti biscuits.

ALL CHAT

LAUGHTER

MUSIC: "Via Con Me" by Paolo Conte

# Via, via, vieni via di qui

# Niente piu ti lega a questi luoghi

# Neanche questi fiori azzurri... #

Although I get a lot of cheer and ideas from being surrounded by food,

there is a particular warm glow that comes upon me

when I'm at my pasta parlour.

Now, Italians will tell you that, you know,

there is a particular pasta shape for a particular sauce

and, of course, they're right,

but I am something of an impulse buyer

and I do buy pasta shapes that I fear I will never cook

but I need to have them here.

To wit...

..my long candles.

Now, I feel really these should be in a cathedral in Italy

rather than in my larder but here they are,

and here I fear they'll stay.

I've got another impulse buy.

Look how beautiful these are.

They look like fairground ribbons,

but now I can't take them out of their packet

because they look so pretty here.

But I do have a few passionate purchases that I actually cook.

I've got my green spinning tops.

Fantastic with blue cheese.

And my pixie penne.

They're so cute and I normally hate cute.

I mean, you could put them in soup and I think that's what Italians do.

But I make mini macaroni cheeses in individual portions.

Yes, I am cracking up!

Now, this egg pasta that's dried

is so useful if you have fractious children to feed,

because it takes about two minutes to cook.

A bit of butter, some grated cheese - everyone's happy.

But right now I'm after these dark beauties.

I haven't got into the nether reaches of wholemeal here.

The reason these fusilli are dark is because they're made with cocoa.

You know there are days when you get back from work

and you can't make up your mind

whether you need chocolate for supper or pasta?

Why not combine the two?

In go the fusilli.

I'm going to be full and frank.

This is chocolate pasta with a dark butterscotch and pecan sauce.

I want a bit of salt for the water.

Now, actually this is a pudding pasta,

but I still want the salt

because when there's sweet I love a salty edge.

I'm toasting some pecans.

When I say "toast", I don't need them to colour.

I just want to get a bit of heat under them

until their scent wafts up to me.

And I am fully aware

that pudding pasta sounds and is inauthentically Italian,

but in my defence, m'lud,

the inspiration and indeed the recipe for this

comes from Anna Del Conte,

who is THE most distinguished Italian food writer around.

So I'm going to tip these pecans out

and carry on with the butterscotch sauce straight into this pan.

I want some butter...

..and some dark brown sugar.

This is a dark butterscotch sauce.

It's a very easy sauce to make, which is good

because the days you need to eat this

are the days you don't have the energy to do anything complicated.

This really needs just to bubble up and, as you can see now,

I have a syrupy, seething sauce.

Into that I'm going to pour some cream.

That's what turns it really, I suppose,

from toffee into butterscotch.

Back in with the pecans.

Leave a few out for now.

This can bubble up while I test the pasta.

Very good.

And here we go.

Now, the pasta goes straight into the pan of sauce.

A bit of a stir.

This is instant gratification of a very profound kind.

And now the pleasure is all mine.

There are times when you just need to dive into the dolce.

Dessert.

This does it all for me. Easy to cook...

all too easy to eat.

# Tu vuo fa l'americano!

# Mericano!

# Mericano!

# Siente a me, chi t' ho fa fa?

# Tu vuoi vivere alla moda

# Ma se bevi whisky and soda

# A po' te sente 'e disturba

# Tu abballe 'o roccorol

# Tu giochi al basebal'

# Ma 'e solde pe' Camel

# Chi te li da? La borsetta di mamma!

# Mericano! Mericano... #

Action!

Action!

For one thing...

Oh, sorry. I... I find this fridge incredibly hard to open!

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