About a month ago, Dave came home with a new cookbook for me – as much as I love a bunch of flowers, I love a new cook book more!
This one is a cracker, Two Greedy Italians is basically a follow up to the TV series of the same name which followed Antonio Carluccio and Genaro Contaldo around Italy whilst they made lots of oooh and ahhh sounds as they ate and drank pretty much everything in sight! A thoroughly entertaining duo, you can’t help but love them!
I went for two dishes – Salsicce fatte a mano con salsa pepolata (Hand-made Skinless Sausages with Pepper Sauce) & Patate Arraganate (Sliced Roasted Potatoes with Tomato, Oregano & Basil).
Starting with the easier of the two, the Patate Arragante – unfortunately, I over salted mine and the potatoes took longer to cook than the book said but the finished result was quite tasty and would make a nice change to standard potato accompaniments to meat.
Ingredients, serves 2 (halved from recipe which is for 4)
- 3.5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 250g potatoes, thinly sliced
- 0.5 tbsp dried oregano
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Handful of torn basil leaves
- 150g sliced red onion
- 200g cherry tomatoes, halved & deseeded (or I used a beef tomato sliced)
- 0.5 tbsp white wine
Method:
- Pre-heat oven to 180degrees/ gas mark 4
- Pour 2 tbsp olive oil into an ovenproof dish or roasting tin
- Arrange a layer of potatoes and season with a little oregano, salt & pepper and some basil leaves.
- Follow with a layer of onions and tomatoes and a drizzle of the remaining olive oil.
- Continue layering until the potatoes, onions and tomatoes are all added to the dish
- Pour over any remaining olive oil and the white wine.
- Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes.
- Remove foil & loosen potatoes with a fork from bottom of the dish, be careful not to break them!
- Continue cooking for another 20-25 mins until potatoes are cooked through (Greedy Italians say 15-20 mins but I found the potatoes needed a bit longer)
Salsicce fatte a mano con salsa pepolata
This is quite fiddly and difficult but the flavours are worth it. The sausages aren’t the most appetising things to look at (see from my pictures!!) but with the sauce poured over, they taste lovely…and don’t look quite as ugly. Worth the effort overall!
Ingredients, serves 2 (again, I’ve roughly chopped down from recipe which is for 6)
Sausages:
- 350g minced pork
- 0.5 tsp chopped red chilli
- 1 garlic clove, finely crushed
- 0.5 tsp fennel seeds
- 25ml red wine
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- Salt & pepper to season
Sauce:
- 1 red pepper
- 1 yellow pepper
- 0.5 tbsp salted capers (soaked for 30 mins and drained)
- 1/2 garlic clove, sliced
- 1/4 red chilli, finely chopped
- 3 anchovy fillets
- Olive oil
Method:
- Mix the pork, chilli, garlic, fennel seeds & red wine together in a bowl and season with salt & pepper.
- Using your hands (don’t forget to take your rings off!) divide the mixture into sausages roughly 8cm long, 3 cm in diameter.
- To prepare the sauce – heat a cast iron griddle pan (or use the gas hob, or a mixture of both) and blacken the peppers all over.
- Leave to cool, peel off the skin and cut open and remove the seeds and stalks.
- Put the pepper flesh in a blender with the other sauce ingredients except the oil and blend to a puree.
- Pour in the oil, stirring all the while until the puree has a sauce like consistency.
- Heat olive oil in a frying pan and gently place the sausages down. Pan fry over a medium heat until golden brown on all sides.
- Serve with the sauce.
I served with the patate Arraganate and some steamed broccoli alongside the Salsicce fatte a mano con salsa pepolata. It didn’t look like an overly attractive plate of food but tastes delicious.. explains why this is one of the recipes without a picture in the book!
That’s it for now, over and out! We’re out for curry in Loughborough at Salims on Friday night, for my Nanna’s 80th birthday – that’s right, her choice was curry, what a legend! Our preferred curry house is the Spice Cube in Mountsorrel but we went to Salim’s last November and I remember being impressed so lets see! Can they steal the Spicy’s place in my heart? Review to follow.. of course!