An Italian feast – the carb light version

On Wednesday it was Halloween. Last year on Halloween, I got some sweets in and waited for the kids to come trick-or-treating.

They didn’t come.

I ate the sweets.

Apparently the thing you’re supposed to do is put something Halloweeny in the window or somewhere visible, to show you’re in on the fun. So this year, I got a few little pumpkins, put them in the window and planned to bake some goodies, flapjacks or something.

Well, then I got cooking for dinner as I had a friend coming over and didn’t get time to bake goodies for the kids, so good job no-one knocked! (I think I might be feeling a bit offended though. Why didn’t they want my sweeties?)

So I was back in the kitchen with my favourite cookbook, Polpo, by Russell Norman. My friend and I are both ex-Dukaners so try to not to go too mad on carbs. I definitely don’t avoid them, you can’t really, when eating like an Italian, but I just try not to have loads of them.

The antipasti was the carb-heavy part but I kept it out of the mains. Here’s the antipasti plate.

Top centre are my signature grissini sticks, wrapped in prosciutto and pickled chicory. To the left are music paper crackers. To the right is one of my favourite things in life ever, truffle butter, and just behind that, black truffle oil. In the white dish to the left is homemade basil pesto, in which I used pecorino and black truffle oil. Right at the front, the little pink squares are ham hock terrine and to the left are cherry tomatoes with a little shred of mozzarella and some torn basil on the top, then sprinkled with truffle salt. In the middle are little crostinis with ricotta, mint and broad bean on half of them and goat’s cheese, roasted walnut and grape drizzled with white truffle oil and thyme on the other.

For the mains, they unfortunately don’t photograph well so I will just have to tell you about them. I made a parmigiana with aubergines and courgettes, in which I used fresh basil and oregano where I usually use dried as the flavour is more concentrated. After having used just fresh this time, I think I will go back to using dried as the lovely oregano smells you usually get with a parmigiana definitely weren’t as strong. I also made a duck, black olive and tomato ragu which was far tastier than I expected. You spend about two and a half hours just slowly cooking the tomato sauce so the flavours are really strong and lovely. I also steamed some kale, spinach and fresh basil together as a side dish.

The dessert was vanilla panna cotta with blackberry coulis on top.

I also made something called a chocolate salami for having with the espressos I decided were a good idea at 9.30pm.

It is chocolate with egg yolks whipped into it, with crushed up sponge fingers, chopped dried fruit and loads of nuts. You just fridge set it until it is hard enough to cut in slices and have as little biscuits.

We then proceeded to have a super long chat about my visit to Mr Red Wine’s house. I must just add that I washed quite thoroughly, thirteen times, in between visiting Mr Red Wine and preparing this food!

Eating artwork for lunch

Yesterday, for Danda’s birthday, we had fancy lunch next to the Thames river, in a place called The Bingham. I was quite excited when I booked it as it’s one of those super swanky places that you never think you’ll eat in. I had done a bit of research though and found out that their lunch menu was very reasonably priced. So we had a lunchtime booking and I was very much looking forward to it.

They have a Michelin star, by the way, did I mention that. O yes, they have a Michelin star.

I started the whole thing off in a rush because I decided to bake thank you gifts for my neighbours who helped me break in the other day when I locked myself out, remember? There I was, baking away, then suddenly it was half eleven and the booking was at twelve and I was still in my jarmies!

I practically threw the baked goodies at my neighbours as I hurtled by, yelling “Can’t stop! Sorry!” Then we ran for our lives and arrived, red faced and sweaty, a few minutes late. Not the grand entrance I was hoping for!

This place is lovely. It’s quite grand and, to start with, there were no other diners.

About four or five waiters and hosts and what have you, hovered about, checking if we were fine and if we needed anything.

We were given some lovely fresh-from-the-oven bread to start…

…and then an amousse bouche. No, erm, amooze boosh… No… Amuse bushe…. Ok! I’ll admit. My non-fanciness was giving me away! I had heard of this but I’ve never known what it was. I’ll never become the Masterchef Champion of the World at this rate. I did some research. It’s a goat’s cheese mousse, with tomato mousse and cheese and onion sprinkles on top.

I know what you’re thinking. And I was thinking it too. Cheese and onion sprinkles! What on earth!? But it’s ok. Just roll with it. They have a Michelin star.

Next were the starters.

Chicken soup with Jerusalem artichokes (and other stuff which I don’t remember) and a small beautiful ham and cheese toastie. If I were ill or just miserable and grumpy, I can’t imagine anything better than this beautiful beautiful little soup dish.

The other starter was a pig’s head and rabbit terrine with a pear and chicory salad. I was initially a bit scared of the “pig’s head” part but decided to face the fear and do it anyway. There was some kind of mustardy dressing thing on this which was gorgeous. And the terrine was really meaty, no snouts or eyes as I feared.

The mains were great, just the right amount for lunch and unbelievably tasty. They were a partridge dish with blackened figs and a crostini with game pate on it. And some greens, I forget which. I was too busy eating the amazing figs and trying to contain my excitement.

The other main was a butternut squash risotto. That sounds quite ordinary, doesn’t it? This was NOT ordinary. It had a parmesan mousse and some teeny baby shitake mushrooms and some clear squares of jelly which were beautifully sweet but I couldn’t remember what they were! Anyway, the whole thing was amazing.

Lastly, we had dessert and it was no less fabulous. Danda loves cherry and chocolate together so he got a chocolate ganache thing with cherries and a sweet lemon sorbet.

I had a giant marshmallow thing with strawberry sorbet hidden in the middle. It sat in a bed of summer berries and raspberry juice. It was phenomenal.

Lastly, just when we’d ordered espressos and thought we were done, they brought this beautiful board of sweeties.

What you can see is a vanilla macaroon, an orange and ginger jelly, a passionfruit marshmallow and a Baileys chocolate truffle. I scoffed most of it without an inch of decorum and I don’t care who knows it.

Overall, this might be one of the tastiest and most beautiful lunches I’ve ever had! Really great service, amazing food and a beautiful view of the river. What more could one expect from lunch?