My splendid daughter, Lea, and my wonderful son-in-law, Aldo, often come to dinner or lunch at our place (they live literally around the corner). In January, however, we had an arrangement that went beyond the family roast Sunday dinner. Because of some contingent work commitments, Lea and Aldo needed me to prepare their meals for four days in a row. They would both come home too late and too tired to even cook. And fast food DOES NOT taste like dad’s food! So I wrote a menu for those four days and every evening I would cook for them. Aldo would then pop in at about 8 – 8.30 pm and pick up their dinner.
Here is Aldo’s and Lea’s special menu.
M O N D A Y | Pollo alla Diavola French beans “Contadina” Melanzane garlic and basil Mixed salad |
T U E S D A Y | Polpettone casalingo Gnocchi butter and sage Zucchini marinated Green salad |
W E D N E S D A Y | Maialino al latte Tagliatelle al filetto di pomodoro Broccolini Celery, cucumbers and avocado salad |
T H U R | Baby snapper with spinach Tomato stuffed with tuna Trenette al pesto Greek salad |
So for the next four blogs I will guide you through some simple, yet delicious recipes. Every blog will have the menu for one of those four days.
“Bando alle ciance!” as we say in Italian (Bann the small talk/ bulldust). Let’s get cooking!
Pollo alla Diavola
A great way of doing your chicken! Like most of the past and future recipes, this is an original one adapted and (hopefully) enhanced by Yours Truly!
Phase one - Get a nice chicken from your chicken shop or your butcher. Try to get a “ruspante” bird that is, a free range, corn or grain fed one. You can easily tell the difference between a ruspante and a battery chicken. The meat is not flaccid (like Berlusconi’s buttocks) and it does not come off the bone so easily. In fact you need to apply a considerable dental force to detach the flesh from the bone. That does not mean the meat is hard, only “al dente” to use a pasta analogy.
The bird should be kept as a whole however ask your butcher to butterfly it for you. (You can perform this operation yourself by incising longitudinally the middle of the chicken’s breast and open it up like a book)
Phase two – Marinade the bird with extra virgin oil, garlic (lots of it), red hot chilli pepper (yeah, just like the band!) and fresh rosemary – see my spiel on fresh herbs on the blog So Easy, So Tasty.
Marinade several hours ahead, tossing the chicken from time to time in its juices.
Phase three – Cook on charcoal. The grill should be 4 to 5 centimetres above the coals. Start with the skin side down and wait until it gets really brownish-blackish. Watch for the dripping fats: they tend to set the coals aflame. You want the bird roasted not burnt to cinders!
Phase four - Quarter the chicken, place it on a warm plate and serve with side vegetables as follows.
(Aldo's and Lea's Pollo alla Diavola ready to go)
(Aldo's and Lea's Pollo alla Diavola ready to go)
French beans “Contadina”
400 g French flat beans
1 red pepper
1 onion (medium)
½ tin Italian tomatoes, chopped
Salt, pepper, olive oil.
Wash the vegetables in cold water. String the beans and cut their ends off.
Core and seed the pepper. Slice thinly.
Thinly slice the onion as well, sweat it in a casserole with some oil.
Add the pepper and the tomatoes. Cook until the oil separates from the vegetables, and then add the beans.
Stir to coat the beans; add some water; cover and simmer until beans are cooked but still crunchy. Add water again, if necessary.
Season to taste.
Look at the colours! They make you feel hungry, don't they? French beans "Contadina"
Melanzane garlic and basil
Well, a part from the usual olive oil and some seasoning, the ingredients are already spelled out in the name of the recipe.(For the neophytes, Melanzane means eggplants or aubergines)
Cube the eggplants. Put them in a colander with some rock salt and let them “sweat” for about an hour (the eggplants will release some liquid). Rinse them to wash out the salt. This process will take some of the bitter taste out of the vegetables.
Put the oil in a pan and bring to hot. Put a whole clove of garlic and let it brown, but not burn.
Toss the eggplants in the pan, stir and let them stew. Add some liquid if the pan is getting dry (water or vegetables stock)
Chop two tablespoons of parsley. Throw half in the pan and save the other half for garnishing.
Season to taste and pull the eggplants out when they are cooked but still firm. Garnish and serve.
Beautiful, tasty, summery eggplants with basil and garlic!
Mixed salad
This is going to be the MOST CHALLENGING dish to date!
Get some mix lettuce from your green grocer and dress it!
Remember the Italian rule-of-the-thumb for dressing green or mixed salads:
Ben oliata, ben salata e poco acetata – Well oiled, well salted and not so well vinegared.
Vinegared?
Wow, I have just come up with a neologism!
Wait a minute! WHAT’S HAPPENING?
The Grammar and Spelling function is going berserk!!
Red lines everywhere!
A siren is howling out of the PC!
It’s about to explode!
Better turn everything off!
See you guys! See you next time! (I hope)
The green salad and other vegetables.
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