Friday Night Emergency - Lemon Sauce (Al Limone)

The Event - Friday 22 February 2013

We have friends in need.  A family in crisis is a family that needs casseroles.

Or baked pasta.  Lasagne?

I feel slightly disloyal, but I always have Donati's veal mince in the freezer, so I use Allegro al Dente's Bolognese recipe (a.k.a Casareccia al ragu or, translated, 'Casareccia with meat sauce'), which asks for veal and is thus my regular bolognese recipe.

In the wake of us cooking for love, the kitchen is a mess

And I use Stephanie's Lasagne assembly and béchamel sauce instructions.  Because I always do.

There's nothing quite like cooking for love.  But cooking without Susan has taken me offline this week.

And it's been a busy week on the home front: 

• We made the Bolognese sauce on Tuesday night.  I thawed a kilo of mince so nearly tripled the recipe.
• We saw the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain on Wednesday.
• We had work functions last night.  Thursday.

So finally tonight, Friday, we boiled lasagne sheets, made béchamel and assembled two trays of lasagne for loved ones into whose life a little rain is falling.

With the lasagne safely in the oven, we realise there's none for us.  What's for dinner!?

It's late.  We're hungry.  We're tired.  In the wake of us cooking for love, the kitchen is a mess.

The Foraging

Stephanie, Rinaldo, Jill and Terry are all well and good, but I reach for Susan in an emergency.

And I find another classic, almost ingredientless recipe on page 81:

Lemon Sauce

Al Limone

We have lemons from My Architect's parent's tree, left over cream from Al Salmone (11 February 2013).  Butter?  It all went into the béchamel.  We have margarine?  It will have to do.  And parsley grows in on the terrace.

I tell My Architect to fetch one of Susan's pasta choices from the pantry: tagliatelle or linguine.  

Lasagne sheets one minute ...

'Tagliatelle' he states authoritatively.  And he sets about slicing up the left over lasagne sheets accordingly.

Waste not, want not.

... tagliatelle the next!

The Cooking

In true Susan-style, this is rapid.  

Ingredients assembled

First, I assemble the ingredients among the lasagne debris.  In other words, I take the margarine and cream from the fridge, pluck lemons from the fruit bowl and postpone fetching parsley for now ...

I grate the lemon peel.

Susan says to do this finely, but I can't stand using those bubble shaped graters where everything sticks to the inside of the grater.  So I use my parmesan cheese grater, which is not particularly fine.

Grating the lemon peel is the only technical part of the recipe so listen up:

Be VERY careful to grate only the yellow peel

Be VERY careful not to cut into the pith of the lemon as the sauce will be very bitter.  Only grate the yellow peel.

I'll let lemons in my photo tell the story of how careful I was.

Melt the butter (sigh, margarine) in a small saucepan.  Add the lemon peel.   Cook it for two minutes but don't let the peel fry or the butter turn brown.  

Add the cream and heat it, but don't let it boil.

Susan says to add some pasta water.  She always says that.  But the sauce looks thin enough to me and I don't have any pasta water, soooo ...

... we're done!

Quick!  Fetch some pars--leeey!!!

Back to Susan's instructions, I throw the pasta in a serving bowl and pour the sauce over it.  

Argh!  Of course the pasta's cold ...

So into another saucepan it goes.  Heated and served in a jiffy, topped with chopped parsley.

Voila!

The Verdict

We've had better.

The sliced lasagne sheets were a bit doughy.  I lost some sauce in the unplanned pasta reheat - could've done with some pasta water after all.

And did substituting margarine detract?  I'll have to cook this one again some time, faithfully, to find out.  Do it all properly next time.

Still, I like to think that Susan, with her evident love of using leftovers, would be pleased.

It was improved by Parmesan (goes without saying) and drizzling olive oil and lemon juice over it.

In our spartan student days, lemon pasta was often on the menu.  But, again, I used Allegro al Dente's recipe, Taglionlini al limone e panna,  which has a few more ingredients.  

In a nutshell, Rinaldo, Jill and Terry add white wine, cayenne pepper, lemon juice and black pepper to Susan's recipe.

I can vouch for the cayenne pepper.  It makes the dish!

And they suggest serving it with a shot glass of frozen vodka.

Perfect in an emergency.

Want to try this at home?

Al Limone

1 large lemon

25g butter

200ml single cream

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1. Finely grate the yellow bit of the lemon peel, but not the white bit or the sauce will be too bitter
2. Melt the butter
3. Add the peel and cook for 2 minutes but don't let the peel fry or the butter turn brown
4. Add the cream and heat it but don't let it boil
5. Add a ladle of pasta water to thin the sauce
6. Put cooked pasta (tagliatelle or linguine) in a serving bowl, pour the sauce over, mix well and serve topped with pasta

A Summer Sauce - Raw Tomato and Fresh Basil Sauce (Pomodoro e Basilico-crudo)

The Event - 12 February 2013

Another stunning summer evening.

The Research

I was perusing Susan over breakfast this morning and thinking to myself that I really must soon do the Raw Tomato and Fresh Basil Sauce on page 37.

Raw Tomato and Fresh Basil Sauce

Pomodoro e Basilico-crudo

As Susan herself notes, 'This is a summer sauce'.  And it's already mid-February.

Carpe diem!

Pomodoro e Basilico-crudo is not to be confused with the other recipe on page 37, in which the tomato is not raw.  The pomodoro not crudo.

The Foraging

This all happened at home.  

Over breakfast, not only was I perusing Susan, I was also eyeing off the big tomato that The Entrepreneur left behind when she headed back inland last week.  A big tomato grown with love by Our Dear Friend in Ballarat.  I understand that she couldn't carry it back through South Australia.  But I cannot believe she didn't find a use for it before she left!

It's so ripe!  I cannot let it go bad.  Does it weigh enough become the Raw Tomato component of Susan's Pomodoro e Basilico-crudo?  

Peeling tomatoes the Susan Conte way

With its little friend, the baby Roma (who knows where that came from), my tomatoes weighed in at just over 300 gram.  Two-thirds of Susan's specifications, which serve four. It's just me and My Architect, so two-thirds the quantity will do nicely.

As for the other ingredients?  Olive oil, garlic and salt are always in stock and fresh basil grows on my terrace.

Susan suggests tubetti, penne, conchiglie or farfalle.

After pledging that I would always use one of Susan's pasta choices,  I didn't have any of those. So tonight I used rigatoni.  Small rigatonis though.  Very like penne.  

Tell me.  Is 'conchiglione' the same as 'conchiglie'?  Because I did have 'conchiglione' in the pantry in anticipation of making the walnut sauce (which I now notice asks for 'conchiglie' after all, not 'conchiglione' ...)

So I rephrase:  all my pasta choices will be as suggested by Susan, or substantively similar.

The Cooking

This time, in deference to My Architect, I am using Susan's Cook's Tip method to peel the tomatoes. Our Dear Friend from Ballarat's tomato is satisfyingly huge.

Peeling tomatoes
the Susan Conte way (cont)

Tomatoes peeled
the Susan Conte way

Bloody hell this is easy.

Blend the tomatoes.  Briefly.  I did this for about 20 seconds on 'pulse', which may have been overdoing it.

Add some olive oil, a crushed clove of garlic and the fresh basil.  This time I sit down at the table with a beer (I am now officially a FebFast DNF) and take my time tearing the basil and tossing the torn fragments into the sauce.

The Sauce, standing
(with FebFast becoming FebFarce in the background)

The sauce has to stand for half an hour - just the right amount of time to grate some Parmesan (it goes without saying you'd top it with Parmesan, right) and cook the pasta.

Once cooked, I drain the pasta and put it in a nice bowl.  I add some salt to the sauce, stir it well and pour the sauce it over the pasta.  That's it.  Done.

Susan gives a word of warning on adding the salt.  She says that the salt must be added at the last minute or else the tomatoes will become soft and watery.

Soft? Maybe I did blend the tomatoes for too long...

The Verdict

Tomatoes over-blended or not, the verdict was 'Pomegranates'.   Amazing how much tomato and basil can taste like pomegranates.

This would be delicious to serve as a lunch dish.  So simple but so good.  Just as Susan says: 'the raw tomatoes served with hot pasta make a pleasant combination'.

And My Architect didn't even notice that he was eating a vegetarian dish.  Now that's a first.

Completed dish (minus our first helpings)

Want to try this at home?

Pomodoro e Basilico-crudo

450g ripe tomatoes

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 clove garlic, crushed

bunch of fresh basil

salt

1. Peel the tomatoes and blend them briefly
2. Add the oil and crushed garlic
3. Discard the basil stalks
4. Tear the basil leaves and add them to the sauce
5. leave the sauce to stand for about half an hour
6. At the very last minute, add salt to taste (too early and the sauce will go watery!)
7. Pour the sauce over cooked pasta (tubetti, penne, conchiglie, farfalle) and serve

The Swiftest Sauce? Smoked Salmon Sauce (Al Salmone)

The Event - Monday, 11 February 2013

Weeknight.  My Architect is back from NZ.  It's a balmy evening.  Isn't Melbourne just turning on the best summer this year!  We both feel a bit lazy.   It's perfect night for Susan.

The Research

Well,  smoked salmon was on sale last time I shopped ... index ... 'Smoked salmon sauce', page 89.

Smoked Salmon Sauce

Al Salmone

Bingo!

The Foraging

The beauty of Susan.  There's nothing else to forage for.  Seriously, these are all the ingredients for this recipe:

Salmon.  Butter.  Cream.  Salt.  Parmesan.

It's really just salmon, isn't it.  Maybe I'll add capers.  And some lemon.  I love citrus.

No, says my Architect.  Be faithful.  He's surprised I didn't follow Susan's Cook's Tip to peel my tomatoes last week.  Purist!

The Cooking

This recipe only uses 50 grams of salmon, which doesn't sound like enough to me, so I use 72 grams.  Which is 2 slices.  I know it's 72 grams because I have electronic scales.  But that was before My Architect and I nibbled a few bits ...

Susan's pasta choices for this recipe are linguine or tagliolini.  Susan always suggests which pasta to use and for the Suzanne/Susan Project, I will always use one of her suggestions.

Tonight it's linguine.  Barilla call it 'Spaghettini n.3', but really, it's linguine.  The delicate, fish sauces always use linguine.   Or angel hair.

Assembling the ingredients doesn't take long

Spaghettini n.3 has a 5 minuti cooking time.  The sauce takes even less time to prepare than this so I boil the water for the pasta while I assemble the ingredients.

Assembling the ingredients doesn't take long.

I slice the salmon into short thin strips and grate a tablespoon of Parmesan.

The water has boiled so in goes the pasta.  I like to use lots of water, lid off, and a bit of salt in the pot so it boils vigorously.  The pasta, it likes to swim.  Vigorously.

Now I move quickly. Melt 25 g of butter in a saucepan. Add 200 ml cream and warm it through. Add the salmon.  I actually remove the cream from the heat before adding the salmon because I don't want it to cook completely and go that dried out looking light pink colour.

Melting the butter.  Then no time for photos!

Everything is happening so fast.

Ok.  The salmon's in the cream.  I leave out the salt.  It doesn't need it.  Is the pasta cooked?  Almost.

Generally, when pasta is almost cooked, and if you need more time with your sauce, you can just turn off the heat, put the lid on and let the pasta sit until it becomes al dente, which in my experience has never taken longer than a few minutes.  But don't forget about it!  Leave it like this for too long and it will go too soft and soggy.

Susan says to add a ladle of boiling pasta water.  What kind of measure is that?  A ladle.  I'm a bit sus' about diluting sauces with pasta water so I add 3 or 4 soup spoons of the stuff.  To be loyal to Susan.

Pasta drained and in a bowl I pour the sauce over (yes, the sauce really was that simple) and stir it in with some Parmesan.

Buon appetito!

The Verdict

I am glad I exercised restraint in leaving out the lemon and capers.  And I'm glad I was loyal with the pasta water.  After all, it's Susan's recipe, not mine.  

All I add to my dish is a little cracked pepper and more Parmesan, which I pretty much do with all pasta dishes.

Susan notes that cheese is not usually used in fish sauces, but al salmone is one of the exceptions.

The sauce is wonderfully delicate and simple.  So simple.  Susan's all about keeping it simple.  Minimal ingredients.  No fuss.

My Architect comments that it's very 'dairy'.  Like being at a dairy.  You really taste the cream.  So uncomplicated.   

And best of all, dinner is over within half an hour of the commencement of cooking leaving a free evening ahead of us.

Want to try this at home?

Al Salmone

50g smoked salmon

25g butter

200ml single cream

salt

1 tablespoon grated Parmesan

1. Cut the salmon into short thin strips
2. Melt the butter in a saucepan
3. Add the cream and heat through
4. Add the salmon and salt to taste
5. Stir in a ladle of pasta water
6. Put the cooked pasta (tagliolini or linguine) into a serving dish, pour over the sauce and top with Parmesan

Dinner for The Architect & The Entrepreneur - Con Ricotta e Spinaci

Let the cooking begin!


The Event - 3 February 2013
My Entrepreneur Friend, who has been in Melbourne for most of the summer, heads back to the Red Centre this week and My Architect's work takes him to Auckland on Monday.  So tonight is the last meal the three of us will share this season.

What better event to kick off the first dish of the Suzanne/Susan Project!

My mind has been roused from the annual food vacation it takes when the Entrepreneur comes to stay.  She thinks ahead and shops and, fetching in her Jessie Steele apron, cooks and puts meals on the table!  My Architect and I are spoilt with great food and great company.

Why does food cooked by another nearly always taste so much better than food cooked by oneself?  Never mind.  Tonight, I am stepping up to the plate, taking on my first Susan Conte challenge.

The Research

I have scoured Pizza and Pasta and come up with a dish so perfect, it incorporates two recipes and a cook's tip.  An excellent start!

Page 101:

Cannelloni with Ricotta and Spinach

Con Ricotta e Spinaci

incorporating from page 37:

Tomato and Fresh Basil Sauce

Pomodoro e Basilico

and the Cook's Tip for Ricotta Cheese - on page 73, Susan assures her Anglophone followers that  ricotta cheese can be easily made at home with just a litre of milk, lemon juice, a muslin bag and a colander.  

I have been wanting to give ricotta or yoghurt cheese making a go for decades, ever since My Architect's then sister-in-law explained how her Maltese family make yoghurt cheese by simply draining yoghurt in muslin overnight.  Somehow, I have just never done it.   

The Foraging

My shopping list written, I head down to Lygon Street for canelloni pasta and spinach and tomatoes and milk (and, oh what the hell, ricotta, just in case) and nutmeg.  We are so lucky in Carlton.  There's Donnini's Pasta for, and Gewurzhaus for whole nutmeg, King & Godfree or DOC for ricotta.  (Yes, already I'm too short time for the Cook's Tip.  Next time.)  If only Helen was open on a Sunday.   I have to go to Brunswick for fresh tomatoes, but use the opportunity to give Our Geriatric Whippets a run in Princes Park en route.  More about Our Geriatric Whippets later no doubt.

It makes so much sense to do the recipes involving fresh basil and tomato during the summer while they're in season.

It's harvest time for the basil plants growing on my terrace.  And the Entrepreneur has eggs from Our Dear Friend in Ballarat, who she visited last week.  They are have chook poo and bum fluff feathers adhered to the shells.  Clearly very very fresh.

Cook the sauce
for 10 minutes

The Cooking

First, the sauce.  Susan gives a Cook's Tip to peel the tomatoes by making a small cut in the skin, covering them with boiling water for a few minutes to make the skins easy to remove.  I turn to the known and trusted Stephanie for alternatives who has 3 methods, one of which is to use a vegetable peeler, which I do.

The tomatoes then go into a blender to be liquidised.

I tear the basil.  I don't cut it, I tear it.  Because Susan and every other cook book author says to.  Why? Has anyone done empirical tests to check that it really makes a difference?  Because tearing is a lot harder than chopping and I keep on dropping whole leaves into the bowl.

The sauce 10 minutes later

The Entrepreneur and the Architect separately comment on how good it smells.  To get a good cooking smell going on, all you need to do is tear up some basil.  I could stop now.

A clove of garlic fried in olive oil until golden, then half the basil and all the tomato in with a bit of salt.

Susan says cook the sauce for 10 minutes.  She's less clear on how hard to cook it.  I go for a big simmer.

I use the time while the sauce is cooking to turn to page 101 and start on the cannelloni.  

Nutmeg

Deja vu!

Ricotta post-sieving

I immediately recall that I used to make this recipe all the time as a student.  But with bought sauce, of course, not my own creation.  When my Architect comes through the kitchen again, he too says 'Oh it's that recipe'.   

It was one of our favourites.

And of course, very easy.

Take some frozen spinach and cook it.  Squeeze out the water.  Finely chop it.  Pass the ricotta through a sieve.

Ricotta mix completo!

I always think this will be hard and time-consuming but it's not.  Just force it through with a wooden spoon and it emerges out the other side all fluffy and fine.  Mix in some parmesan, an egg, an extra yolk and some grated nutmeg.

The trickiest part is getting the mixture into the cannelloni tubes, and really it's not that tricky.  

In the old days, we used to cook lasagne sheets.  Not instant lasagne, the other sort that you boil.  Just like all the other pastas.  Then we'd lay all the cooked lasagne sheets out on clean tea towels, put some mixture in each one, roll them up and place them in the oven-proof dish to be baked.  From distant foggy memory I recall that using that method, you don't have to be too fussy about covering the pasta completely with the sauce because the pasta is already cooked.

Average approximately 1
  minute per tube

Not today though.  I have instant cannelloni of course.  As far as I know, there is only instant cannelloni. 

I use a pate-type knife to fill the tubes.  It holds as much ricotta mixture as a teaspoon and is pleasingly manoeuvrable and easy to poke the ricotta mixture into the tubes etc etc.

I took some footage of my methodology, and timed myself filling each tube.  They take about a minute each, so I was interrupted but the timer for the sauce going off.

After 10 minutes, the sauce is denser and darker and there is much less of it.  Will it cover my cannelloni?  I turn it off and add the rest of the basil.

Tubes filled

Tomato and Fresh Basil Sauce completo!

I fill the tubes until all the ricotta mix was used up.  What else could I do with it.  Now I have more tubes than Susan says I will, and insufficient sauce to cover them.  

It's important that the cannelloni tubes are completely submerged under the sauce.  Any exposed bits won't cook, but will remain hard and chewy and the Entrepreneur and the Architect won't be happy.  As I have too many tubes, I put the extra ones into a separate little baking dish, open a jar of pre-made tomato pasta sauce and pour it over the top.

Sprinkle parmesan cheese over both.  Into the oven for 20 minutes at 200 C and voila!

Ready to go in the oven...

... and left overs before it's even cooked!

The Verdict

'Delicious Sue!'  They both say that because it is.  The nutmeg really makes it.

And a couple of nights later when I'm too lazy to cook I eat the pre-made sauce-topped serve. 

Baked

... and devoured

Want to try this at home?

Pomodoro e Basilico

675g ripe tomatoes

1 clove garlic

bunch fresh basil

olive oil

salt

50g grated Parmesan

1. Peel and crush the tomatoes or blend them briefly
2. Peel the garlic and cut it into a few pieces
3. Pick the basil leaves off the stalks and tear them up
4. Coat the base of a large fry pan with olive oil
5. When the oil's hot, add garlic and fry till golden
6. Add half the basil and salt to taste
7. Cook for about 10 minutes until the sauce becomes denser and darker
8. Turn off the heat and add the rest of the basil
9. Serve on pasta (spag, penne or rigatoni) topped with pasta

Cannelloni con Ricotta e Spinaci

300g frozen whole leaf spinach

400g ricotta

50g grated Parmesan

1 egg

1 egg yolk

grated nutmeg

cannelloni tubes

1. Cook the spinach, squeeze out the water then chop or blend it
2. Force the ricotta through a sieve and add the egg, egg yolk, spinach, Parmesan and nutmeg, mixing it thoroughly
3. Fill the tubes with the ricotta mix and arrange them in an ovenproof dish
4. Pour the Pomodoro e Basilico sauce over the top and sprinkle with more Parmesan
5. Bake at 200C for about 20 minutes