Europe Archives - Page 4 of 10 - Retro Food For Modern Times

28
Jul
2020

Name Plates: Pizza a la Garibaldi

categories: 1970's recipes, Italy, Name Plates, Pizza

What do an Italian revolutionary, a biscuit, a beard and this post have in common? They are all named Garibaldi! This Pizza a la Garibaldi comes from The Italian Cuisine I Love (1977) by Jules J Bond. I have a particular fondess for Jules J so I was eager to pick this book back up again. And who doesn’t love pizza?

What is Pizza a la Garibaldi?

Ok. So, I’m not going to explain pizza. Because it’s pizza!

Pizza a La Garibaldi though? Has cheese, green and black olives, oregano / marjoram, and anchovies. I also added some strips of roasted red pepper for reasons which will become clear right about now! This is the picture of the Pizza a la Garibaldi from The Italian Cusine I Love.

And this is me trying to recreate it. I think Jules J piped lines of tomato sauce on his pizza. There was no way in hell I was going to do that so strips of piquillo pepper it was! I wish I’d had some of those cute rolled anchovies with capers to get the same look as Jules. Mine looked like blobs.

The Recipe And Variations

I was interested to see that Jules uses bread dough as a base for his pizza. I have not been able to find yeast for love or money since the start of the first lockdown when everyone went sourdough mad so I was unable to test that part of the recipe out. Also, my preference is for a thin and crispy base rather than a thicker base so I used one of those souvlaki pitas for my pizza.

The Pizza a la Garibaldi was very tasty but for me the big disappointment was the cheese. Part of the joy of pizza, for me anyway is that beautiful streeeetch of the mozzarella.

Parmesan may be tastier but does not give the same joy! I will definitely use mozzarella next time I make this.

Who Was Garibaldi?

Well, we don’t have all day so here are a collection of fun facts about Giussepe Garibaldi

Unifier of Italy

Garibaldi was almost single-handedly responsible for helping Italy move from a collection of city-states to the country we know today. He and his volunteer army of guerilla fighters, the Redshirts, conquered Lombardy and later Sicily and Naples.

Anti Slavery Advocate

Abraham Lincoln offered Garibaldi a job as a Commander in the American Civil War. Garibaldi refused the post partly because Lincoln did not condemn slavery strongly enough for his liking.

Pacifist

Even though he was a soldier for most of his life, in his later years Garibaldi became something of a pacifist beliving that war was generally neither righteous or an effective means of getting what one wants.

Champion of the Underdog

Garibaldi believed in worker’s rights, women’s emancipation, racial equality, and the abolition of capital punishment.

Style Icon

Garibaldi spent some time in South American and for the rest of his life work the clothing of the gauchos. He is also the originator of the Garibaldi beard.

Keen Entolmologist*

A little known fact about Garibaldi is that he was an avid collector of flying insects, a love he developed in South America. In order to keep his collection with him on his travels, he had specimens of his collection baked into little clay tablets. He could then pop these into his pocket to look at between skirmishes.

These small clay tablets are believed to be the origin of the Garibaldi biscuit.

(Photo via Delicious Magazine UK)

Modern Day Garibladi

I wasn’t sure if I would be able to find one of these but come on down Navarone Garibaldi. In case you haven’t heard of him, he is the son of Priscilla Presley and Marco Garibaldi, stepbrother to Lisa-Marie Presley and a member of the band Them Guns. Hmmm…maybe he could have gone with The Guns of Navarone…or would that be too obvs? Anyway, here he is!

Have a great week. And eat some pizza! It’s scientifically proven to make you happy!

*This “fact” is little known because I wanted to have an interesting story for the origin of the Garibaldi biscuit. The actual truth is that the reason why they are named after Garibaldi is totally unknown.

14
Jul
2020

Frizzled Artichokes with Gribiche Sauce

categories: Eggs, France, Vegetables

I have been wanting to make a Gribiche Sauce ever since I first read about it in an old edition of Gourmet Traveller which teamed it with some deep-fried Artichokes. The other day in the greengrocer I saw some gorgeous artichokes that prompted my memory of this dish.

These looked so beautiful…but first, let’s talk Gribiche. Gribiche is a French sauce…kind of like a tartare sauce with hard-boiled eggs. It is really tasty. I love the way the creaminess of the eggs offset against the sharpness of the vinegar, cornichons and capers. These are my flavours!!!

And I also adore artichokes, but hardly ever cook them because let’s face it, they are not the most user friendly of veg are they? Even if they are one of the prettiest!

Via Olivers Market

These were so fun to eat. I can just imagine, after the ‘rona, when we can entertain again, having a row of these down the table with little dishes of gribiche for people to dip into! But wait!!! The fun doesn’t stop there. These are also incredibly fun to make. Watch the leaves as they fry…

They move!!!!

How cool is that! Have you ever seen anything like it? Also apologies for the sound of my podcast coming through – I was so excited and wanted to capture these moving leaves that I didn’t have time to turn it off! And if anyone else out there listens to Kim and Ket Stay Alive – Maybe, Hey! How are you! I am a fellow fan!

The recipe for the Gribiche Sauce in Gourmet Traveller is pretty fancy in that it contains both chervil and tarragon, neither of which are currently available, it being the dead of winter here! Also, I’m not sure if chervil has ever been available in the shops. I feel it is something you need to grow. And I used the last of my homegrown tarragon for Meredith Baxter Birney’s Tarragon Chicken. So, I fried the artichokes according to the Gournet Traveller recipe but I made the Gribiche Sauce using this recipe from the New York Times. I did have a little dill in the fridge which I added because I thought it might help to give a slightly aniseedy flavour which would have been present with the chervil and tarragon.

The Recipe

Other Ways To Use Gribiche

If you happen to have some Gribiche sauce left over after making this, you can use it up in the following ways:

With Asparagus – this seems to be a very popular combination. I love toast so this recipe caught my eye!
And speaking of toast, Australian Gourmet Traveller has a recipe for grilled cheese with speck and gribiche. It looks spec(k)tacular!
Heston likes it in a salad
It goes well with chicken
And fish
Even beef can take a bit of Gribiche sauce!

So no shortage of options for any leftovers!

That’s me done! Have a wonderful week everyone!

03
Jul
2020

John Hillerman’s Paella

categories: Celebrity Recipes, Rice, Spain

Does anyone know / remember The Libertines song “Music When The Lights Go Out”? The hook line in this piece of indie-pop boy love runs “All the highs and the lows and the to’s and fro’s, they left me dizzy”. That is exactly how I felt when making John Hillerman’s Paella. No doubt about it, this was a tough cook. But oh boy did it pay off!

The Lows

Converted rice? Not available for love or money.
Clams in clam juice ? Nada.
Bottled clam juice? No, nay, never.
Polish Sausage…probably could have bought some but I had chorizo in the freezer which seemed more paella-ish anyway

I made this during the height of the ‘rona lockdown. But I honestly feel that my inability to get hold of these ingredients were not limited to that insane time of food shortages.

So, had this been one of my recipes? I would have ripped it up and we would have never more heard of it. But this was was not my recipe, this was John Hillerman’s Paella recipe that I was testing for Jenny for her Murder She Wrote Cookbook so onward and upward it was.

The To’s and And The Fro’s

I didn’t have converted rice. I didn’t have clam juice. Which meant I could not follow the first step of the recipe.

I had:

Bomba paella rice.
Fresh clams.
Frozen fish stock.

This meant that if I found another recipe that got me through that first step of cooking the rice, then the rest should fall into place like one of those Rube Goldberg machines I have become obsessed with during lockdown.

The recipe I used was this one. I followed all the directions for cooking the rice per that recipe. But then switched back to John Hillerman’s Paella recipe from the step where he says to “saute the chicken in olive oil”.

Here is John’s recipe:

I was literally toing and froing between the two recipes and the pan and the ingredients, making sure everything cooked properly!

The Highs

Have you seen the photos? This dish was lush!!! It was so pretty, so colourful, so full of joy!

It looked gorgeous, smelled like heaven and tasted even better.

John Hillerman’s Paella brought the smell and taste of Spain into a very grey wintery Melbourne day. It was seriously like a ray of sunshine!

I LOVED this!!!! So, so, so good!!!!! The end result made it all worthwhile!!!

Thank you Jenny for the recipe! This is the best paella I have ever made and I will be sure to make it again! When travel opens up and we can spend time together again, this definitely needs to be on our menu! In my imagination, we are sitting in your garden with Mr R and Battenberg Belle and having a lovely long lunch of paella, great conversation, lots of vino, and some great tunes courtesy of Mr Rathbone. Some ’60’s bossa nova maybe?

Oh, also for those of you like me who do not know who John Hillerman was? His best-known role was as the incredibly suave Higgins In Magnum PI but he also appeared in Blazing Saddles, Chinatown (high on my must-see list), Murder She Wrote (obvs), and A Very Brady Sequal among many, many other films and tv shows!

Have a fabulous week friends!

Stay safe, eat paella, watch John Hillerman on the tv and listen to The Libertines!

Sounds like a pretty good way to spend the weekend to me!

11
Apr
2020

Sighs of a Nun

categories: Desserts, Pastry Desserts, Spain

Hello, people of the internet! I hope you are all keeping safe and staying indoors! And whilst you’re indoors, why not make these little Spanish treats called Suspiros de Monja aka Sighs of a Nun.

I love food with kooky names so as soon as I saw these I knew they would someday make their way to here. I know they are not chocolate but consider them my Easter treat to you!

When I heard the name, Sighs of a Nun, I assumed it would refer to sighs of ecstasy over how delicious these are. Not so. They are delicious but the sighs are definitely not what I thought they would be!

The literal translation is Nun’s Farts as the sound of a dollop of uncooked pastry hitting the hot oil makes a sound identical to a nun letting off!!!!

I have noticed that my Sighs of a Nun are flatter than the ones I can see on the internet. I think that is because I pan-fried mine instead of deep-frying them. Either way, they were delicious! I was dubious about how much use the lemon would be in this but there was a distinct lemon flavour which I liked against the creamy interior and the crispy outside.

One of the best things about them, in these COVID times, is that you only pantry staples to make them. And, eaten while still warm? They are comfort food on crack!!! Like warm, creamy, lemony doughnuts! Albeit slightly flattened doughnuts in my case!

There is a recipe for Sighs of a Nun in the Goodhousekeeping World Cookery book which is where I first found out about them. They say Sighs of a Nun originate in Portugal and I have also seen recipes that say they came from France. I ended up using this recipe from The Spruce Eats so we are going with Spain!

Sighs of a Nun are fairly rich so just one or two will be enough…okay maybe three. Four will be fine. Hey, we’re at home. Who cares how many you eat?

Signs Of a Nun?

BTW, if you ever try to Google this recipe, Google has a bad habit (😃) of thinking you want to know about the signs of a nun…

If you were inadvertently directed here because you are trying to decide if you want to be a Bride of Christ…I’m sorry. I’ll try to keep the blasphemy and general debauchery down to a minimum. Sorry about the fart talk above. Given we are living in plague times, now more than ever I do not need the wrath of anyone’s God smiting me down.

Having said that, potential novitiates block your ears.

I can’t remember if I told this story at the time (it seems so long ago, for being less than a month!!!!), But when we were in the Uber on the way home from seeing New Order my friend Claire and I got an absolute earful from the driver who was a total God botherer. He kept saying to us “You people put your faith in science. What is science doing to stop this disease?”

Ummm….well…I don’t know EXACTLY. But I’ll put my money on science coming through with a cure before any type of divine intervention! And whilst we’re on that subject? When that cure comes, I certainly hope all those anti-vaxxers are going to politely wait at the back of a social isolation distance correct line while the rest of us get the jab and can give each other a big old hug!!!!

Happy Easter everyone!!!

15
Mar
2019

Use By: Apricot, Lemon and Basil Sorbet

categories: Apricots, France, Fruit, Sorbet

There were so many things I could have named this post. But hey, I made an Apricot, Lemon and Basil Sorbet. So when I couldn’t decide between witty or explanatory I decided to go with plain old pragmatism. Who knew ice cream was so complicated?

BEING MORE FRENCH

Towards the end of last year, one of my work buddies and I were talking about New Year’s Resolutions. He said he never made the traditional resos of saving money, losing weight or getting fit. Instead, he chooses something that explores a different way of being / thinking / creating. So, it could be a year of reading the financial papers or a year of being vegetarian or a year of being celibate or totally slutty or otherwise exploring a part of your personality that you feel needs expressing or you just want to have fun with.

“You know, like a year of being more French”

My reaction?

BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

This is the beauty of something like this – it can mean whatever you want it to be. For me…in no particular order:

Dress More French

Such as totally indulging my love of a striped t shirt.

Eat / Drink more French food (and wine)

Fromage anyone?

Watch More French movies / French tv shows

Including one of my favourite films ever The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

And just to balance out all that sweeetness, some gritty French police drama.

Be more Cultured

Last week I saw The Clock by Christian Marclay and loved every minute of it.
This weekend I’m planning on attending a local art show.

Self Care

French women take fabulous care of their skin and have amazing beauty regimes.

I plan on getting me a piece of that. My first foray into this realm was to buy some French eye drops that were RAVED about in a beauty blog. They have made absolutely no discernible difference so that was money down le toilet but I will try a new product each month.

Other ideas not fully thought out yet

Have an attitude
Start a revolution
Sexy Frugality

Mais, bien sûr

Cook More French

Which brings us back to doh oh oh oh.

The topic for our latest Tasty Reads Book Club was a “non book” book. So you could cook recipes off the interwebs or the tv or, in my case a food magazine. I bought this mag when I was on holiday last year and had not cooked anything from it.

So, when some friends gave me a big bag of apricots of varying degrees of ripeness, I decided to

Be more French, and
To use this produce before it went bad (Year of Less Waste)

By cooking the Apricot, Lemon and Basil Sorbet from the mag.

Here’s the recipe.

In English.

Print

Apricot, Lemon and Basil Sorbet

Print Recipe

A delightfully refreshing fruity sorbet

Ingredients

Scale

500g apricots
12 basil leaves
juice of 1 lemon
3 eggs
200ml of cream
150g sugar
1 tbsp honey

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Infuse 6 basil leaves in cream for at least 2 hours.
Then put the apricots, the rest of the basil, lemon juice and a little water into a pot and cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes.
Taste and add the honey (a little more or less may be required depending on the sweetness of the apricots.
Cook for another five minutes.
Let cool.
Separate the eggs.
In a large bowl, beat the yolks and the sugar until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture turns pale. Then stir in the apricot mixture.
In a separate bowl, beat the whites to soft peaks.
In a third bowl, beat the cream to soft peaks.
Add the cream to the apricot mix and blend through.
Gently fold in the egg whites.
Pour into a container. Freeze for 24 hours

Au revoir mes amis and have a lovely weekend!

Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Europe