Hello all, how’s
things? Hope you enjoyed the last of the summer sun!
So August has
been dedicated to the delights of Italian cooking and this time I thought I
would try something different, a series of taste tests. Italian food is such a
normal part of our diet, we probably have pasta or pizza at least twice a week
so I thought it might be fun to see how our versions of Italian food stack up
against the real thing! I didn’t manage to cook many different things but it
was a very informative fact finding mission!
Pesto pasta
We make pasta
with pesto, chicken pieces, some crème fraiche and toasted pine nuts all the
time, it is so easy and quick. I thought it was about time I tried to make my
own pesto, which turned out to be delicious!
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| Cheesy, Basil goodness x |
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| Real pesto pasta |
I don’t think
I put in quite enough basil (it wasn't very green) but it still tasted great, and so much better than
pesto from a jar. The only thing I have a serious problem with is the price of pine nuts...what’s the
deal guys?! I paid £4.25 for a 200g bag, it is ridiculous! Are pine nuts really
rare and endangered?? I just can’t understand why they could possibly cost so
much. By the time I put them in the pesto itself and added some more toasted
ones to our pasta I used up half the bag. Given that you can buy a whole jar of
pesto for £1 this means that making your own is not particularly cost effective.
Anyway, now that I have finished my middle aged sounding rant I can tell you I
will definitely make it again, but not every week.
Carbonara
This is
another fave in our house and we use a very reliable recipe which I’m sure
would horrify Italians!! It’s from the lovely makers of Philadelphia cheese....
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| Philadelphia carbonara |
So, time to
try a traditional recipe - with homemade pasta no less! I followed the very
simple instructions from legendary Italian Chef Antonio Carluccio. He like so
many other people say you must NOT add cream, or onions, or peas or anything
else silly like that. Carbonara should just be eggs, cheese and Guanciale (the
cheek of the pork) or pancetta (Italian bacon).
You can watch
the man himself cooking up a storm here :-
I opted for
this Channel 4 recipe to make my own pasta, I reduced the recipe down to 100g of flour and 1 egg which was just about enough for two of us. I mixed it up in the food processor and then it only took about 3 minutes to kneed which was amazingly fast. Our good friends Neil and Karlie lent me their pasta machine which made rolling it out super easy (although the machine is slightly annoying to clean) and I was so glad I had it because it would have taken some serious elbow grease to roll it by hand.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/simply-italian/articles/all/basic-egg-pasta-dough-recipe
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/simply-italian/articles/all/basic-egg-pasta-dough-recipe
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| Working the pasta machine! |
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| Home made pasta and traditional carbonara sauce |
Scores are
in from Dave... it's an 8 out of 10 for the home made pasta/traditional carbonara and a 6 out of 10 for the Philadelphia.
Pizza
Who doesn’t love
pizza!! This is our laziest mid-week meal, take the wrapper off and pop the
chilled or frozen pizza in the oven = zero effort! Surprise surprise the
homemade one was sooooo much better!
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/sep/08/how-to-cook-perfect-pizza
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| I used some strong bread flour mixed with 00 grade flour |
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| Sainburys vs Haines Pizzas |
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| Yummmmmmy |
The first
time I rolled the dough out I left it a bit thick so it took a while to cook and
it was a bit chewier than I would like. My second batch was much better, thinner
and crispier, probably because I made a couple of small Pizzas instead of
trying to roll out one big one. I think it is probably worth investing in a pizza
stone if you are going to make pizzas regularly. You heat it up in the
oven before using it so that the pizza is cooked by direct heat from the stone
as well as the all round heat in the oven. I think having a pizza stone can
really help to absorb the moisture and crisp up the base so I think pop it on
my Christmas list and see if Santa thinks my pizzas are worth it!!
Mozzarella and tomato salad
Now this is
something I don’t usually make but it is one of my fave things to have in an
Italian restaurant so thought I would give it a try. I used Nigella’s recipe
which involves baking the tomatoes but most recipes just use raw and I don’t think
it actually makes much difference. This salad was great with the pizza’s and
would be a super easy thing to whip up for a dinner party.
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| The same but REALLY different. |
In the spirit
of taste testing though I did try out two kinds of mozzarella, Tesco Everyday
Mozzarella (44p) versus Tesco Finest Buffalo Mozzarella (£2.00). Strictly
speaking mozzarella should be made with buffalo milk but most of what you get
in the supermarket is made with cows milk. I asked Dave to guess which was more
expensive and which he preferred. He voted the Everyday as his fave and said it
was more expensive so 50% right! The two cheeses were so different in taste and
texture they really couldn’t be compared. The buffalo one was much more like
goats cheese and the Everyday one was a little bit rubbery but much more what I
thought mozzarella was like. I would be happy with either in my salad but I
will probably be sticking with the cheaper one most of the time.
So drum roll please... will we be going with
supermarket or home made Italian foods from now on... a bit of both I think. I would definitely make pasta again, it was so fast whereas the pizza did take a while to rest/prove. In the end everything was tasty so they are on the try again list.
There are so
many other delicious Italian goodies to make but the months really aren’t long
enough to squeeze them in!! Maybe next year my challenge can be to get round to
making all the things I missed out on this year!
Happy eating
lovely blog friends! Arrivederci xx Linds xx
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