A very long lunch...

I was up very early a few weeks ago, looking for the best from the farmers market. Back home, after a three hours chopping, poaching and frying, I had ten minutes to spare for a gin and tonic before Carol and Michael came for lunch. Or so I thought.

After about an hour, doubt began to set in, so we re-read their email.... "Sounds great, look forward to seeing you... next Saturday"...

Thank god I hadn't phoned them, I nearly did, imagine... "How far away are you?"... "Oh, about a week".

Carol, Michael and baby Isla turned up exactly when they were supposed to. At least the rehearsal meant lunch was a finely honed performance.

First up, squat lobster salad with homemade 'marie rose' sauce. Based on an old Keith Floyd recipe taught to him many years ago by the owner of a hotel in the French Alpes. It's great and I'll pop the simple recipe at the end of this post. The squat lobster tails were cooked in sea strength salted boiling water for about 3 minutes. Drained, left to cool then peeled.

Carol and Michael brought along a couple of cracking wines from an Edinburgh merchant called Peter Green. The Macon was textbook stuff. All buttery chardonnay without any oak. Perfect with the squatties.

Next up, a Catalan fish stew. From the first Moro cookbook and, despite having eaten it twice in a week, I could go it again right now.

The base is long sautéed onion, pepper, bay leaf, rosemary, tomato and lots of saffron. Thickened with blanched almonds that are lightly toasted then roughly ground. When ready to eat, pop in mussels and monkfish- or any other fishy combination- cover with foil and cook for 5 minutes. Bingo. It's seriously, lusciously good.

The other wine from Peter Green was a Tasmanian Pinot Noir. This was a gorgeous drink that smelt of Turkish delight and tasted of cherries.

We finished off with some fascinating chocolates. Carol said they'd picked them up in Heart Buchanan on Byres Road. Flavours included Molasses & Hemp Seed, Strawberry & Black Pepper, and the sit up and pay attention... Smoked Chilli & Mezcal.

Recipe for Floyd inspired Pink Sauce for Prawns:

Ingredients:

1 egg yolk

2 tablespoons of fromage frais

2 tablespoons of creme fraiche

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 tablespoon of bland oil (sunflower, groundnut)

2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard

1 - 2 tablespoons of tomato ketchup

splash of Worcester Sauce

salt and pepper

Method:

Put the lot in a blender and whizz. I use a hand blender. You could use a whisk instead.

I ain't yellow, I ain't mellow

I've always hated mellow. Even the sound of the word. It's so wet, stoned, passionless. What use is mellow? "This is your Captain speaking, if there are any mellow passengers on board could they please make themselves known to the cabin crew immediately". I don't think so.

But age distorts so many things and the black dog currently nibbling at my shoulder is the terrifying realisation that I'm mellowing. Take this one time Christmas stocking filler.

Written as a series of letters to a daughter just off to university. Snippets of a family's history intertwined with recipes and signed off 'Mummy'. Excruciating. Everything about this book got me ranting and raging. It seemed the embodiment of conceited middle class smugness writ large. Even the title was embarrassing. So it sat in a darkened cupboard for years, in case anyone thought I'd bought it.

I can't remember when exactly, but gradually, bit by bit, I started dipping in. A pasta recipe here, a risotto recipe there. I still couldn't go the 'letters' but it quickly dawned on me that the food was good. Many books claim to reveal family recipes handed down through generations, most are either lying or their family's food must have been a bit shit. This book was the real deal.

It's the subtlety of the tastes that really impresses. Little techniques that impart so much flavour. Combinations that compliment and never overwhelm. Do not be fooled by the apparent simplicity. One of my favourites is 'Poussin with an Orvieto style stuffing'. I eat it once a week. This is all you need. Plus some rosemary.

First bash two unpeeled garlic cloves with a heavy knife. Let them gently fry while chopping the roasting potatoes and fennel bulb.

Pop them into the pan once the garlic is golden. Fry for 10/15 minutes till they colour a bit. I always find they stick, so just before finishing add a little water and scrape up the tasty brown stuff.

Fish out the garlic and add a tablespoon of chopped olives, the dry 'stone in' ones are best, salt and pepper. Stuff the birds, pop in a sprig of rosemary season and rub with a little olive oil.

Into the preheated oven, 220c for 25 minutes. Remove, baste, pour in a glass of white wine and add any left over stuffing to the roasting pan too. Then put everything back in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes. It's divine.

White wine probably suits this dish best, I guess something from Orvieto would make sense. But I fancied red wine.

£7.99 from Sainsbury's. Made utilising a technique developed in Beaujolais to extract all the nice things from the grape and less of the difficult stuff.

It's now used to great effect in the Languedoc when some of the rougher grapes need, err, mellowing. Oh hell, why fight it? I may even try reading those letters.

'Dear Francesca' by Mary Contini

Ebury Press. First published 2002.

If you see it, buy it.

Or just visit her family's original 'Valvona & Crolla', 19 Elm Row, Edinburgh EH7 4AA

Pricey, but by some way the best Italian deli in Scotland.

The poussins came from Sainsbury's: £4.50 for 2.

Run rabbit, run rabbit, quick, quick..... oops too late.

Picked up a wild rabbit for £5 in Alan Beveridge, the fishmonger on Byres Road. Jointed then soaked in water with a drop of vinegar for a few hours. This blanches the meat and gets rid of the 'rodenty' flavour.

Used the trimmings to make a stock which cooked while I fannied around making the rest of the dish.

It came with the liver and kidneys intact. Rabbit liver is one of the best and the kidneys, well, if another animal produces a tastier one I'm yet to eat it.

This is what I did:
Cut a piece of pancetta into cubes and fried it gently for 5 mins. Added two cloves of garlic and continued frying until the garlic turned golden. Strained it reserving the pancetta and garlic and keeping the fat.
Put a tablespoon of the fat back in the pan and browned the rabbit. Put the pancetta and garlic back in the pan, poured in a glass of white wine and reduced it to almost nothing. Strained the trimmings stock into the pan to just cover the rabbit. Brought everything to the boil, then simmered very gently with a lid on for about an hour. The simmering could have taken longer if the rabbit was older.
Once the rabbit was tender I poured the juices into another pan and boiled to reduce by a half. Then I added a a few tablespoons of cream and boiled for a few more minutes. Finally I added about a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, some fresh chopped parsley, a minced clove of garlic, salt and pepper. Popped it all to one side while I quickly fried the liver and kidneys in some of the reserved fat. About 2 minutes on each side, no more. Served with potatoes, cut into slices, parboiled, rubbed with olive oil then roasted in an oven @ 200 c for approx. 40 mins.

In my time I've done some serious poncing around with rabbit... marinades, stuffings, waterbaths, boning and wrapping... but I reckon this was the tastiest rabbit dish I've eaten. Next time, if I'm flush, I reckon a few morel mushrooms would really make it.

Drank this with it. The name was so nearly so right...

It came from Sainsbury's and at £5.49 it's a good price for white burgundy. It tastes pretty typical too. But it does have a rustic edge, a touch of rough, a hint of rodent perhaps? Archie the fox terrier was uncontrollably excited after his first bite of rabbit, so I took him out to calm down. Spotted this on the walk and thought it looked a bit like a fossilised dinosaur rodent.

Funky Porcini

Some mornings are just right. It's hard to explain, almost mumbo jumbo, a feeling of warmth, sensing the unattainable will soon be attained.

'How come I was walking that way? Why did I stop when I did? What made me go in?'.

I envy people who know exactly what they want, I rarely do. A vague notion, perhaps, an idea of something, maybe, even my cravings are often unfocused. Often that is, but not always...

The early bird catches the worm, and if so inclined, the unblemished porcini too. Good job, saved me getting up.

Sauted the Italian way. Garlic and a handful of chopped parsley fried in oil first, porcini in next, more parsley at the end. Salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon. Served on toast. My hearts desire... for this morning at least.

MacCallums

71 Holdsworth Street,

Glasgow

G3 8ED

0141 204 4456

[Mainly fish but sometimes they do mushrooms too]

On the Trail of the Smokey Grail

This is one of the best pizzas I've ever eaten. In a restaurant in a small town in Italy called Isolabona, that only opened at night to produce a seemingly endless stream of pizzas from it's huge wood fired oven.

Places selling pizza near me are legion, but none are very good. So occasionally, at a loose end, I'll join the throng on the growing, quasi religious quest to reproduce that wood fired lushness at home. Last weeks effort wasn't at all bad, so I had another go tonight...

This is what I did:

Combined 75g of spelt flour with 175g of strong plain flour. All plain's fine. Dried yeast, about a third of the pack. A teaspoon of salt. Stirred it all together then added A LOT OF LUKEWARM WATER, over 300 ml, so that it was pretty liquid, and stirred for a minute. This technique seems to make the dough more liable to bubble and blister in a wood fired oven sort of way. No idea why.

Then gradually added more plain flour and kept stirring. Eventually using my hand to push down.

Once the dough was nice and firm, popped it onto a floured surface and kneaded until it was elastic. I find the Doves organic flour is much less kneady than others... about 5 minutes does.

Back in a bowl, covered with cling film and left for 2 hours.

You can stick whatever you like on a pizza, experimenting is surely part of the fun? This is what I used.... mainly because it was in the fridge, cupboard or garden.

The Spanish smoked paprika went in my tomato sauce- to impersonate the wood smoke aromas! The oven went on it's highest setting with a baking tray inside getting hot too.

This stage in the process is an excellent time to pop out for wine. Might I suggest....

This is not a sophisticated wine. It's rustic but tasty, of elderberries I'd say, and even nicer if you have a glass and leave the rest in the bottle for a day. Most important of all, it's £3.99 at M&S. Perfect for things like pizza which murder good wine.

After two hours rising, the dough was knocked back to a ball shape, divided into 4 and rolled out. They need to be very thin, so should fit onto something you can use to 'flick' them onto the very hot baking tray. Like the paddles in proper pizza places. I use Ikea chopping boards. Odd shape but it works.

Provided they're thin enough these pizzas take about 5 minutes to cook... and they came out, well, not bad at all... but don't take my word for it, join the quest!

Pizzeria Del Vecchio Forno
Via Roma, 53

18035 Isolabona

0184 208187

And if you're heading to New York, here's Frank Bruni's audio/visual guide to 8 of the best new 'artisanal' pizza joints.

Bread Alert !

Ok, it's not wine. But it goes brilliantly. Especially with a nice hard cheese.

It looks like an artisanal bread from a farmer's market. One of those loaves claiming lineage... baked from an ancient Etruscan grain, in a Moroccan mud oven, probably organic and costing £5! The stalls are always surrounded by lifestyle couples with more money than sense and more children than an old lady living in a shoe.

Well, it's not. I made it. What's more it's dead easy, tastes delicious and requires NO kneading!! Hate to sound evangelical but everyone should try this. It uses about 20 pence worth of flour. Credit Crunch Tastic!

The recipe comes from the New York Times, click on those words for a link to the article. There's a link to the recipe half way down the page. The genius who invented this method uses a lidded pot, like a Le Creuset, to recreate the fierce heat associated with wood fired and industrial ovens. I used a cast iron pot and it worked a treat. One word of advice, don't be tempted to oil it first, my kitchen still whiffs. There are probably endless things you could add to it, I tried a few black cumin seeds and some olive oil yesterday, mmm.