Pappa al Pomodoro

Luckily, for the times I spend the last of my pay on Saturday night's taxi fare, there's cucina povera to head off starvation until I can afford to do a proper food shop. Mid summer, when tomatoes are sweet, ripe and cheap, you can't beat Pappa al Pomodoro - tomato and bread soup.

Good quality bread with a dense texture is best for this recipe, but any loaf will do, really. Just don't try using sliced white bread as it is too soft and has an unpleasant slimy texture when soaked.

Don't be fooled into thinking that you can't eat soup in the warmer months.  The tomatoes and basil make this one redolent of summer, and its fresh lightness makes it perfect for when you don't feel like a heavy meal.  In any case, you'll appreciate the flavours more if you let it cool to tepid before serving.

Serves 2.

Ingredients

5 large, very ripe tomatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
2-3 thick slices of stale bread, torn into chunks
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 cup vegetable stock
Scant handful of basil leaves
Olive oil
Salt

Method

Put a generous amount of olive oil in a saucepan and cook the garlic on a gentle heat until softened.

Add the tomatoes to the pan and simmer gently until collapsed.  Add the vegetable stock and a few basil leaves to the pan, and stir until all is amalgamated and bubbling.

To thicken the soup, start by adding about half the bread to the pan and let it soften and swell.  You can then evaluate how much more bread you want to use. Obviously, more bread will result in a thicker soup.  When it comes to bread, I'm a 'more is more' person, but if you do accidentally overdo it and the soup ends up looking like porridge, you can easily correct it by adding more stock.

When the bread is completely soaked and falling apart, give the soup a stir and then turn off the heat.  Test for salt and add more if necessary.  Ladle the soup into bowls and let it cool down.

To serve, top the soup with a nice swirl of olive oil and a few extra basil leaves.

Beef Carpaccio

Another favourite summer dish of mine that requires no cooking is Beef Carpaccio.  The secret to a good carpaccio is to use quality, lean steak, and slice it as thinly as possible.  A good cheat is to pound the slices with a meat mallet until they are lace-thin and tender. Foods that are sour or piquant make good accompaniments for carpaccio. In addition to the ones listed, you could also experiment with pickles, onions, mustard dressing, jalapenos, tabasco, and Worcestershire sauce.

Given that being quick and easy to make is one of carpaccio's most endearing qualities, I don't like to fuss too much with side dishes.  I usually just serve it with some crusty bread, and maybe a simple salad.  If you wanted to go to a bit more effort, I think that some new potatoes tossed in olive oil, lemon juice, spring onions and parsley would go beautifully. 

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 piece of lean fillet steak of a decent thickness
Handful of rocket
2 tsp capers
1/2 a lemon, in two pieces
1 tbsp chopped chives
1 tbsp chopped parsley
Parmesan
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
A drizzle of balsamic vinegar

Method

Trim any fat or sinew off the steak, and slice it as thinly as you can.  Place the slices, one at a time, in between two double thickness sheets of cling film and pound with a meat mallet until super thin.  Arrange the slices in a single layer on a plate or platter.

Season the meat with salt and pepper, the juice from 1/4 lemon, and grate over a generous amount of parmesan. Scatter the herbs and the capers. Top with the rocket and drizzle a little balsamic over it.

Serve the carpaccio with extra salt, pepper, lemon, vinegar and olive oil available for you to add to taste as necessary.

An alternative method of serving would be to arrange the meat on the platter and season only with the basics - salt, pepper and olive oil - and let each diner add their own accompaniments as they see fit. The benefit of this is the fun factor; diners can experiment with a variety of flavour combinations and customise their carpaccio.

Watermelon and Coconut Sherbert with Lime, Cinnamon and Mint

I found myself unable to resist buying a whole watermelon, then wondered what the hell I was going to do with it. Not only is 12 kilos a lot of fruit, it turned out to be a pretty average specimen to boot.

So I was trawling the internet for some sorbet recipes, when I came across an American recipe for sherbert, which includes cream to produce a kind of cross between sorbet and icecream.  But why settle for cream when all the hip kids are into coconuts and veganism.  The really cool thing about this recipe, however, is the inclusion of cinnamon and the marriage of the five flavours. The vodka is there purely to help stop it from freezing solid, but if you want to actually taste the alcohol, be my guest and add more. Just because this recipe is vegan, it doesn't mean we can't have a little fun.

The resulting texture of the sherbet is icy and refreshing like sorbet, but less sweet and with a little more creaminess. It fills your mouth with fresh flavours and cold softness, then seems to just disappear.  Seriously addictive and perfect for the hottest days of summer. You can fiddle with the ingredients (more syrup, coconut cream or watermelon) to adjust the texture to your personal taste.  I've also heard that people on certain food regimens like to avoid sugar, and consider honey to be a better alternative.  I'm sure you can guess my opinion of that logic, but in the interests of inclusivity, I feel compelled to mention that you could use cinnamon honey (from the Honey Lady brand's range of organic honey) in place of the sugar syrup. Of course, this would mean the sherbert is no longer vegan; life is full of tough choices.

Ingredients

500g watermelon, in chunks
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
2 cinnamon sticks, crushed into smaller shards
200 ml full fat coconut cream
3 tbsp lime juice
3 tbsp vodka
5 mint leaves, chopped finely, plus extra for garnish.
Cinnamon dusting sugar, for serving.

You will need an icecream maker for this recipe.

Method

In a small saucepan, mix together the sugar, water and cinnamon sticks.  Bring it slowly to the boil, let it bubble for a scant minute, then turn off the heat.  Leave the cinnamon sticks in the syrup and allow the flavour to infuse while it cools.  You could even do this step the day before and leave the cinnamon to steep overnight. Strain the cinnamon out of the syrup before using

Process the watermelon so that it is a puree (I used my stick blender), then pass it though a fine sieve to catch any seeds and fibrous pulp.

Combine the coconut cream, lime juice, vodka and mint with the watermelon.  Measure 1/3 cup of your cinnamon sugar syrup, then add it to the mixture as well (keep any leftover syrup for use in banana smoothies - heaven!).

At this point, taste your mixture. If it needs more zip, add lime. If it's too sweet, add coconut cream. If it's too creamy, add more watermelon. When you are satisfied with the flavour, pop the mixture in the fridge until it has chilled, then transfer it to your icecream machine.

The best time to eat this is straight out of the icecream maker while it's still soft. Serve topped with mint leaves and dusted with cinnamon sugar.

Chilled Soup

Although it is definitely too hot to cook, especially if you don't have air-conditioning, 40 plus weather does not necessarily need to see you heading for the local fish and chip shop.  Here are two little beauties that are not only delicious and refreshing, they take only minutes to make.

Avocado Soup

 

This is another gem from Nina St Tropez. Her recipe is really simple and contains only avocado, water, lemon juice, onion, garlic and seasoning, and is served topped with pistachios and olive oil. Shaun suggested it would be nice seasoned with the spice mix I use for guacamole, which seems like a great idea for next time.  There are many variations on this soup that can be found online.  I quite liked the look of the one on the Green Kitchen Stories blog. 

Although my mum would never actually eat avocado soup herself, she did comment to me that it would, if one were inclined to make it, be nice served with prawns.  This would be particularly true if you added dill to the mix.  Crab meat would work well also.

Gazpacho 

 

Obviously, this is a classic. And yet, until today I've never though to make it myself. Given that it is an absolute flavour bomb and about the easiest thing you could ever think to make, I'm now wondering why. I followed the recipe on food.com, but I didn't have any cumin, and I only used half the amount of olive oil.

Roasted pumpkin with fennel seeds and chèvre

Nina Parker's 'Roasted butternut squash with wild fennel seeds' is supposed to be served with buffalo mozzarella or burrata, which would be delicious, but as I had none, and still had some goat's cheese in the fridge from the other day, I wondered if it would be a suitable substitute.  To find out, I consulted the indispensable The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit, and found that there was in fact a three-way compatibility between butternut, anise and goat's cheese. So I proceeded.

This side dish for two is a simple matter of tossing the butternut pumpkin chunks in olive oil, salt and pepper (as you would normally do when roasting pumpkin), then sprinkling with fennel seeds.

Roast the pumpkin until tender, then allow to cool to room temperature. Serve with crumbled goat's cheese and (this was my masterstroke) drizzle liberally with some sweet caramelised balsamic.

Nina St Tropez

My new girl crush cookbook

My mother in law, June, bought us a beautiful cookbook for Christmas, Nina Parker's Nina St Tropez. Recipes from the South of France. I was sold from the minute I saw the chic white and copper colour scheme on the cover, and I have been poring over and cooking from it ever since.

Inspired by Nina's yearly family holidays to St Tropez as a child, the recipes in this book are traditional provençal fare - light, fresh, and reminiscent of sea and sun.  There are also some nice explanations about local places and people, bringing each recipe to life and adding context, with the author's love of the town evident in the warmth of her personal recollections.

I should probably be insanely jealous of this woman, not only because my own family holidays at the Barmera motel were about as far removed from swanning about the French Riviera as you can get, but Nina's lifestyle, as depicted by this book, is so glamourous and carefree I can't help but sigh longingly into the pages. Nina can generally be found:

having beach picnics with attractive suntanned friends

enjoying a guilt-free breakfast of cafe au lait and croissants

serving canapes and aperitifs on boats

eating gelati in a bikini

and carrying plates of meringues through the streets wearing nothing but an apron.

And yet, I can't be bitter when I'm so smitten, and I can't be dismissive when her recipes are so good.  My lunch today was inspired by Nina's 'Salade de Chèvre Chaud', a salad of fried goat's cheese, figs and toasted hazelnuts in a honey, lemon and thyme dressing, but being 45˚ today, my hazelnuts went untoasted and my chèvre remained froid. Delicious.