Old english sausages ragu'

It’s again the time of the year when it’s tradition to cook and eat sausages all around UK: from the 31^st of October to the 6^th of November it was “the sausage week”. If you have been out on the 5^th of November for the bonfire night, you probably know that the traditional dish of the day is bangers and mash, but lots are the recipe you can find with sausages… even in the italian cuisine.

So for my weekend I decide to treat me with a new pasta recipe: Penne a candela with sausages ragu’.

For the occasion I went in a specialized butcher near Marylebone: The Ginger Pig… no other name could be more right for the product I was looking top buy. The shop was full of costumers and the smell of the sausages I bought it was irresistible. I choose the Old English Sausage, just made with english pork and herbs.

Here is the recipe for 3-4 people:

- 350/400 gr of  pasta: we hardly recommend Penne a Candela Pastificio dei Campi

- 3 sausages

- A jar of peeled tomatoes

- Half onion

- olive oil

- A glass of red wine

- Salt and pepper

- Fresh rosemary

Place some oil on the bottom of a pot, and soon after the finely chopped onion. Let it cook a bit and then add the sausage. Take off the skin and mince it in the pot. Let it get brown and then add the wine slowly. Then add the tomatoes, salt and pepper. Let simmer, stirring occasionally for about half an hour.

Prepare the pasta al dente then drain it and toss it in the sauce for a few minutes before serving. Add some Parmesan if you like but I can tell you that without is divine anyway!

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An amazing mix of flavors to enjoy this funny night

Do you fancy a nice cozy dish for Halloween? If you are going to give a party at home, or going out fancy dressed and full of make up or if you are just ready to wait the children at home for they sweets or tricks, why don't treat yourself with a nice Halloween pasta soup?
 
And if you are carving a pumpkin for your Halloween this is the perfect recipe for you!

For 3 people you will need few simple ingredients:

• 200gr lentils
• 150 gr of pumpking (I prefer butternut squash)
• 200 gr pasta Mista Corta Pastificio Dei Campi
• 1/2 carrot
• 1 celery
• 1/2 onion
• Oil, salt and rosemary

Start preparing a “soffritto” cutting finely the onion, the carot and the celery and fry them in a sauce pan with some olive oil. Then add the lentils (already soaked) and around a litre of water.  Here I added some fresh rosemary  and salt.

Let the lentils cook for some minutes and in the meantime peal the pumpking and cut it in little cubes. Add the pumpking to the rest and let everything cook other 10-20 minutes at least.

When you think it’s everything almost ready, add some more hot water and the pasta. Let it cook with the lentils and the pumpkin but check always the time.

If you didn’t add to much water, this will be evaporated leaving a dense soup after around 10 minutes, time for the pasta to be cooked too. If you want the soup less dense just add more water.

Now the pasta soup is  ready and you can serve it with some fresh rosemary and olive oil.

Enjoy your Halloween night!

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The recipe chosen after the british cheese week

 
It's definitely autumn and almost Halloween and so have to be the season also for... pumpkins! I love them but I admit I cook them really rarely. Pumpkins are so sweet and tasty and they go so well with certain herbs that every recipe is a new discovery.
This time I decided to use the butternut squash and a special cheese I bought from the british cheese week!

I went in fact to Neal's Yard Dairy last week, the amazing cheese shop that you can see in these pictures. I was looking for the Kilree Goat's Cheese that won lots of prices this year, but I couldn’t find it so they gave me a  very interesting cheese to cook with: Berkeswell an unpasteurized sheep's milk cheese , creamy, with nutty flavor and a bit different from the average english cheeses as also Chrispople says on his blog.

  I then thought about pumpkins and  I found an interesting recipe with cream of pumpkins and salted pumpkins, rosemary, pumpkins seeds and pancetta... but then I also saw some streaky bacon and it was a deal.
 
This is the recipe for 3 people:
 
- 300 gr Pennoni Pastificio dei Campi

- a little butternut squash,

- 150gr of Berkswell cheese,

- onion

- rosemary

- some pumpkins seeds,

- olive oil,

- butter salt

- and streaky bacon .

Let’s start by the cream: in a sauce pan put some finely chopped onions and olive oil. Let the onions get goldish and then add the pumpkin pealed and cut in little cubes. Add some white wine and when evaporated, some salt and just water. At this point I also added some rosemary.
When the pumpkin was almost melted I added the cheese in little cubes too (leaving some of it a part) and I stirred until all became a cream. You can use even the blender if you want.

While the water for the pasta was boiling, in another pan I put the rest (1/3) of the pumpkin cut in julienne (little sticks) with a bit of butter, rosemary and pumpkin seeds.
I added some salt to the pumpkin and the streaky bacon… just amazing colors all together and the smell was great.
When the pasta was al dente I added the pasta to the pan with the cream of pumpkin and the rest. I toss it all on a low fire and then I served it with some more grated cheese on top, fresh rosemary and pumpkin seeds.
A nice way to welcome the autumn! I hope you will enjoy like we did!

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Another classic hot dish for another cold day

 
It's February and it's still very cold out there... Maybe even less than other years, but for me always too cold. So this seemed to be the perfect weekend to prepare some traditional “pasta e lenticchie” or lentils pasta soup.
As you probably already know, the process it's quite similar to the previous ones I posted, but here is again the recipe step by step.

In Italy we use to buy lentils from Castelluccio, a quality that is very tasty, little and with a soft skin. Unfortunately I couldn't find them here and I went for the lentils verdes, but also Puy, the French ones, have to be very good.

These are so little that you don't need to sock them the night before, so you can directly wash and put them in the pan with the rest. So this recipe it's a bit shorter and easier than the others.

The ingredients for 3 people are:

- 200-250gr spaghetti or spaghettini (less thick) from Pastificio dei Campi;

- 150gr lentils;

- 1 carrot,

- 1 onion,

- 1 celery stick,

- some rosemary, salt, pepper

- and a bit of passata
 

Cut finely the onion, celery and carrot, put them in a sauce pan with some olive oil and let them cook.
Wash the lentils and add them to the mix with enough boiling water to cover them up. Keep them boiling for 10 minutes at high temperatures.
 
Then put the fire down and mix every now and then, add rosemary and pepper. Leave it to cook for around 45 minute and add the salt and the passata almost at the end.
 
Then pour some more water to cook the pasta, cut in little pieces and place everything in. Wait for the spaghettini to cook: they will releasing the starch, that will make your soup dense and tasty. However you can decide the density just adding other water.
 
When the pasta is cooked, serve it but I wouldn’t put any parmesan; I prefer just some good extra virgin olive oil.
Enjoy the different textures, the simple flavor of the lentils and rosemary and relax with this hot sunday dish.

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All the best flavors from the autumn for a vegetarian pasta 

- 600gr pumpkin already clean (it's better the taste of the bigger pumpkin respect to the little ones)

Put the dried mushroom in a container and cover them with warm water. Wait around 20 minutes and drain them, being careful to keep the water from the mushroom. 

Put some Olive oil in a pan with the chopped onion. Cook it until goldish and then add the pumpkin cut in little pieces. Let it cook a bit in the oil and then add the sage, the rosemary, some salt, pepper and the white wine. The pumpkin will take a bit to cook and get soft (at least 20 minutes) and you will need to add the water from the mushroom every now and then to let it cook.

In another pan you will prepare the mushrooms: put some olive oil with the garlic cloves and let it cook until goldish. Then take the garlic off and add the fresh mushrooms in slices with some chopped parsley. Let it cook in the garlic oil until ready.

Prepare the saucepan for the pasta with some a good quantity of water and salt and add the pasta when boiling.

At this point add the Porcini and the fresh mushrooms to the pan with the pumpkin and finish to add the mushroom water or some stock water if this is already finished. Let it cook until is all mixed and the pumpkin is soft and then taste it, to see if you need some more salt, pepper or chili. You can even add some Parmesan now, if you like it.

Drain the Pennoni and toss them with the sauce. Let them absorb the flavors and serve it with a last touch of parmesan on the top. 

What do you think? was it enough of a treat to avoid the Halloween tricks?

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From the harvest to the table and in your pasta

The plan for this weekend was to go to the Food Harvest Festival organized in the Southbank center over the weekend. That's was a nice occasion to know what are the most common seasonal products in England or if there were some totally new and interesting to try... Maybe with some pasta! Unfortunately, cause the weather the market has been cancelled, at least on Sunday so I couldn't buy anything for my dinner.

I decided instead going to the market near my house and to look for products from the English farmers. I saw some beautiful broccoli sprouts that I thought could have been great with some nice strong ingredients like anchovies and garlic... and I thought about one old recipe from the south of Italy. With some short pasta like the Pennoni, it could have been perfect.

 

Ingredients:  

- 150gr broccoli sprouts
 
- 200gr Pennoni Pastificio dei Campi
 
- 4 anchovies in olive oil
 
- one spoon extra virgin olive oil
 
- some rosemary
 
- 2 garlic cloves
 
- a big chili
 
- a spoon of fresh bread crumbs

- shaved Parmesan cheese or Pecorino Romano
 
Boil the sprouts until almost ready but still a bit hard. Put the garlic in a pan with the olive oil, then add the anchovies, the rosemary and chili all cut in little pieces. Let everything cook and at the end add the points of the broccoli sprouts drained form the water.

Use the water of the broccoli to cook the pasta and when ready, just  place it in the pan to make it absorb the sauce and get mix with the rest of the ingredients. Then add the spoon of bread crumbs (better if before you can toast it a bit in a clean pan) and mix again. Serve with some Parmesan or Pecorino romano cheese and the dish is ready.
 
The next market will take place in mid October and will be all about cheese and wine! Let's hope the weather will help us this time, but in the meantime let me know what do you think of this recipe!

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And after the summer there is September with its fruits!

It's still hard to say goodbye to the summer, but what about all the new fresh ingredients September is bringing to us ?

The most characteristic for me has always been the fig, so little, so weird in it's aspect, so smooth and simple outside but so surprisingly reach and sweet inside! In italy we have a long tradition of products made with it, especially sweets, from cakes to biscuits to simple dry figs in the winter.

Then there is also this very famous combination of figs and ham, that for how much can appear simple and almost poor in it's origin, it's give you always an amazing tasting experience. And if the pizza with ham and fig is already a must and a great discovery, why don't try the pasta?

I looked in internet on italian and english blogs and i found similar recipes with figs and ham on the first ones, while in England you seems to enjoy more the combination of the figs with rosemary, so i decided to come up with a third idea: let's try the three ingredients together. 

I loved it, but you need to be very careful to put the right quantity of each ingredient, to maintain a balance between tastes. Not too sweet, not too salty, not to much of just one ingredients: they need to combine in a new flavor without delating the others.

I choose the spaghetti because i thought the creamy sauce was going to be well absorbed and well accompanied by them... and in fact i think it was the right choice. What do you think?

 Here is the recipe for 5 people:

- 500gr Spaghetti Pastificio dei Campi

- 6 fresh little figs

- 10 thin slices of Parma ham or even Serrano if you find it.

- a bit of fresh Rosemary... to still remember the summer 

- salt, pepper, olive oil and Parmesan or Pecorino cheese if you like the taste.

Put some oil in a pan and then directly the rosemary leaves and the ham cut in little stripes. Add some salt,  pepper and wait for the pasta to cook. When this is almost ready add the figs without the skin and in slices and let them cook for some minutes. Add some water if needed or a bit of cream if you prefer (i normally try to avoid it, but with strong tastes like these, sometimes can be the perfect missing link).

When the pasta will be "al dente" (around 7 minutes), drain it and pass it in the pan with the rest. Serve it with the grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese and say welcome to September!

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