Braised celery with tomato and pancetta

This is a remarkably simple recipe but the results were really pretty outstanding. Also a good opportunity to use celery as a very healthy and slightly unusual main vegetable.

The key secret was to shave off the stringy part of the celery using a potato peeler, leaving on the tender part behind.

Ingredients

• 2 large bunches crisp, fresh celery
• 3 tablespoons onion chopped fine
• 2 tablespoons butter
• ¼ cup chopped pancetta OR prosciutto
• Salt
• Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
• 2 cups Basic Homemade Meat Broth OR ½ cup canned beef broth diluted with 1½ cups water
• An oven-to-table baking dish
• 1 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese

Method

1. 1. Cut off the celery’s leafy tops, and detach all the stalks from their base. Save the hearts for a salad or for dipping in Pinzimonio. Use a swiveling-blade peeler to pare away most of the strings, and cut the stalks into pieces about 3 inches long.
2. 2. Bring 2 or 3 quarts of water to a rapid boil, drop in the celery, and 1 minute after the water has returned to a boil, drain them and set them aside.
3. 3. Preheat oven to 400°
.
4. 4. Put the onion and butter in a saucepan, and turn the heat on to medium. Cook and stir the onion until it becomes translucent, then add the chopped pancetta or prosciutto. Stir to coat well, cook for 1 minute, then put in the celery, salt, and pepper, toss the celery to coat it well, and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. 5. Add the broth, adjust heat to cook at a very gentle simmer, and cover the pan. Cook until the celery feels tender when prodded. Test the celery from time to time with a fork and when you find that it is nearly done—almost tender, but slightly firm—uncover the pan, raise the heat to high, and boil away all the liquid.
6. 6. Remove only the celery to the baking dish and arrange it with the inner, concave side of the stalks facing up. Over the celery, spoon the onion and pancetta or prosciutto mixture still in the pan, then top with grated Parmesan. Place on the uppermost rack of the preheated oven for a few minutes until the cheese melts and forms a light crust. After taking the dish out of the oven, allow it to settle for several minutes before bringing it to the table.

Ahead-of-time note The celery can be prepared up to this point several hours in advance on the same day that you will finish cooking it.

Mushrooms with garlic and parsley

Very simple and guaranteed to be a quick and easy winner. This recipe is from The Essentials of Italian Cooking.

Method

Cut off the end of the mushrooms but not the whole stalk; slice in fairly thick slices; cut some garlic up quite finely and then add to a frying pan with the olive oil; add the mushrooms and heat until the olive oil is soaked up stirring to prevent burning; add salt and turn the heat down to cook further while the water comes out; increase the heat to boil off the water and cook for a couple of minutes; finally add a good quantity of chopped up parsley.

This can also be used as a cold dish.

Ingredients

• olive oil
• garlic
• mushrooms
• salt and pepper
• parsley

Chickpeas with orange and honey

An exotic, very healthy and all round excellent recipe from this youtube video on greek cooking.

The cooking process is very simple - just put all the ingredients into the pot and then heat at 120 centigrade for most of the day. Remember to soak dry chickpeas overnight. If still liquid the ingredients can then be reduced on top of the stove.

Ingredients

• ½ pound/250 g. chick peas
• 1 large red onion, coarsely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced into thin slivers
• 1 cup chopped tomatoes (canned are fine)
• 1-2 large strips orange zest
• 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 4 bay leaves
• Fresh strained juice of 2 bitter Seville oranges
• 2 Tbsp./30 ml oxymelo vinegar or balsamic vinegar
• ½ cup/120 ml DOP extra-virgin Cretan olive oil
• ¼ cup/60 ml Greek thyme or pine honey
• Water
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. 1. Soak the chick peas for 8 hours in a bowl of cold water mixed with 1 scant tablespoon baking soda. Drain and rinse well the next day. (If they are not sold shelled, place in batches in between two clean kitchen towels and rub back and forth to remove the skins.)
2. 2. Place the chick peas in a large clay casserole dish with a lid. Mix in the onion, garlic, tomatoes, bitter orange zest and juice, bay leaves, rosemary, oxymelo, olive oil, and honey. Add enough water to come up about 2,5 inches/6 cm above the chickpeas. Season with salt and pepper. Cover with the casserole's lid. If desired, make a quick dough of flour and water and seal the casserole hermetically.
3. 3. Place the clay casserole in a cold oven. Heat the oven to 140˚F/60˚C and bake for 8 hours. (You can do this overnight.)

Rakuten and other shops

Here is a list of some of the food shops that are worth checking out selling on the internet in Japan.

Wine

• Toscana - good looking with excellent map of Italian wine regions.
• Kyobashi wine. Looks big and came up early including olive oil etc.
• Veritas. Looks big as well.

Basic ingredients

• Shodoshima specialist olive oil shop. Looks like too much focus on derivative products though.
• A specialist spice shop from Ame Yokodo. Looks excellent - absolutely the place for lentils and spices. Also has rosewater.
• Honey shop - specialist for Japanese honey with quite a few TV appearences.
• Amelia - world wide honey.
• Hai foods Slow food specialist with very interesting looking selection - shop of the year as well.
• Chef Kuwabara - duck and foie gras specialist shop.
• Reciple - nice looking shop with many foreign ingredients.

Seafood

• Marutaka. Hokkaido based with quite a bit of history.

Italian speciality shops

• Toscana Italian speciality shop - professional looking but also not particularly cheap by any means. Look out for capers in salt
• Tanicha - seems to be associated with Azabu restaurant.

Spanish speciality shops

• Casa Spain.

French speciality shops

• It rains on the Seine - shop also in Daikanyama.

Boiled zucchini salad with lemon

Another wonderfully simple Italian vegetable recipe. Seemed to be some risk of it being somewhat crap with little flavour but worked out well and also great to use up the parsley.

Method

Soak and clean zucchini, ideally while young firm and glossy, bring water to boil and then start cooking until tender but slightly resistant - about fifteen minutes; drain as soon as not too hot to handle and cut off both ends then slice into thin rounds then toss with lemon juice, salt, ground black pepper and decent amount of fresh chopped parsley.

Alternative method has you slicing the zucchini longways, rubbing with crushed garlic, letting sit at an angle to drain off some of the liquid for 15 to 20 minutes and then seasoning with some red wine vinegar, parsley pepper and salt just before serving (to prevent them again shedding liquid).

See here for the original recipe. As also observed in this blog the taste is actually much better than the name implies - well worth another try.

Egyptian lentil salad

Pretty straightforward and also apparently a classic Egyptian dish. Basic idea is to get some olive oil together, flavour by slightly frying some minced garlic in it and then adding some spices and giving them thirty seconds to heat up and then pouring the lot over the recently cooked lentils and adding some chopped coriander and salt etc

Comes from Mediterranean Harvest location 3294. Recipe seems to be pretty much reproduced here as well almost word for word.

Method

Combine garlic and olive oil in frying pan, heat until garlic begins to sizzle and then add ground spice for thirty seconds or so and remove from heat.

Cook lentils, covering with 1 inch or so of water excess; toss with the garlic; add cilantro and lemon juice if needed; adjust amount of salt and then drizzle with the remaining olive oil.

Ingredients

• 5 tablespoons of olive oil, three for sauce and two to drizzle
• 2-3 large garlic cloves
• 3/4 teaspoon of ground cumin
• 3/4 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoon ground fenugreek seeds
• 1 1/2 cups of brown or green lentils
• salt and pepper
• 2 tablespoons fresh coriander
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Points

In practice more difficult to do than first seems, although flavour was pretty good.

Used 1 pack 250g? of brown lentils - was fine amount for four and but probably could have increased the spices quite a bit; also be careful when adding the lemon to not have lemon dominate; taste improved after letting rest; mistake was not to immediately put on the olive oil after cooking the lentils; could also have done with more fresh coriander.