Sicilian blood orange cheesecake

So often cheesecakes can be overly sugary, overly creamy and just a little bit much. This version might make you rethink your conception of a cheesecake. There's no biscuit base, but instead there's a beautifully light and fluffy ricotta filling, studded with all the flavours of Sicilian desserts: sherry-soaked raisins, emerald pistachios, vibrant candied peel and citrus zest. On top, a gorgeous burst of blood orange colour and a scattering of more pistachios. It's light, fresh, fluffy and really very good. For the recipe, head over to my latest post for the Appliances Online lifestyle blog, here!

Farro salad with roasted peppers, tomatoes, mozzarella and salami

I've recently discovered farro, a wonderful little ancient grain that apparently once sustained hordes of Roman legions and which is now a cause of some confusion. Believed to be Italian in origin, it's sometimes mistakenly translated or described as barley, spelt or wheat berries, when it fact it is not quite any of those. However, I don't think such definitions really matter, because what is important is the sheer deliciousness of these little nuggets of wheat, which are versatile and lend themselves to all sorts of culinary uses. They've become a new favourite in my kitchen, eclipsing hot rivals such as buckwheat, quinoa and couscous - at the moment I can't get enough of their delicious texture and subtle nutty flavour.

Unfortunately, farro is not easy to come by in this country. I've never actually seen it for sale, and I frequent all sorts of weird and wonderful little delis and health food shops. I managed to come across my stash in Italy last year, where I picked up a couple of bags in a small city supermarket for about a euro each, in the same way you might find pearl barley in most of our supermarkets. I was unfeasibly excited by the fact that I had finally found this elusive grain, a cause of some curiosity as I've read about it in a few recipe books. My boyfriend looked at the nondescript bags of brown blobs that I was brandishing feverishly, and appeared more than a little bemused.

Farro looks very similar to pearl barley, and is pretty much interchangeable in recipes. Both grains absorb large amounts of water when cooked to turn into fluffy yet nutty little pearls of chewiness, deliciously textured and the perfect plain vehicle for salad ingredients or a great bolsterer of hearty soups. You can also use them as you would risotto rice, for a less starchy and creamy but equally delicious risotto.

This, my final recipe for Thomson Al Fresco, is a suggestion for a delicious self-catering recipe based on Italian ingredients that you'd be likely to find in local markets and delis. It's quick to make, very simple, only uses one pan and is flavoursome and healthy too, plus possibly the most colourful salad you'll ever throw together. It's a blueprint for all the tasty things you may find around you, were you lucky enough to be on a camping holiday in Italy - salami, ripe tomatoes, fresh herbs, beautiful cheeses and balsamic vinegar. And, of course, that sustainer of Roman martial prowess: farro.

First, a blank canvas of chewy, nutty farro grains, simmered until just tender in stock. These are mixed with wilted spinach, roasted red peppers from a jar (so much easier than trying to do it yourself, plus they have a delicious depth of flavour you just can't get from making your own), chopped cherry tomatoes, slices of salami (take advantage of whatever delicious specialities you have in your region), torn mozzarella (again, you can adapt this to make use of whatever cheeses are good nearby) and fresh basil leaves (or you could use fresh oregano or thyme). A splash of balsamic vinegar to dress, a smidge of salt and pepper, and you have dinner or lunch right there.

I was expecting this to be tasty, but I wasn't prepared for quite how tasty. The key is the red peppers, which lend some of their delicious smoky oil to the mix and turn everything sweet, juicy and wonderful. The mozzarella adds a delicious buttery note, while the salami contributes piquancy and a rich smoky meaty flavour. There are tomatoes and basil for freshness, and that splash of balsamic to enrich the whole thing. While consigned to a supporting role, the farro definitely stands out, with its delicious firm texture and nutty flavour, contrasting very well to the other rich ingredients. Don't be put off by the sheer amount of vegetables in this - it's incredibly tasty, with nothing about it that would suggest 'health food' except the colours.

Farro salad with roasted peppers, tomatoes, mozzarella and basil:

This recipe is more of a guideline than anything else. For each person, use approximately 100g (or half a cup) farro (or pearl barley if you can't find it). Cook this in boiling water (or stock if you have some) for about 20-30 minutes, until tender but still with some bite to it. Drain and return to the pan.

To the hot farro, add some baby spinach (a large handful per person), which will wilt as you stir it around the pan. Add some roasted peppers from a jar - you can drain these on kitchen paper or take them out of the jar using a fork if you don't want too much oil in your salad - around 3 tbsp per person. Add some quartered or halved cherry tomatoes, around 7-8 per person. Add 8 or so slices of salami per person. Season well with salt and pepper, and add a splash of balsamic vinegar. Mix well, then distribute onto plates before topping with torn mozzarella (or whatever cheeses you have to hand - goat's cheese or feta would also work well) and fresh basil leaves.

Baked fig and smoked mozzarella piadina

Generally, as a culture, we're getting to grips pretty well with the idea of street food. It's been the 'next big thing' in gastronomy for a while now, with nomadic vendors of everything from ice cream to burgers, particularly those in London, drawing huge crowds mainly through that potent combination of word of mouth advertising and a half-decent product to sell. I've heard countless stories of an obscure street trader suddenly faced with queues snaking round several streets, packed with people eager to sample his wares, simply because word got out on twitter. Such places are deeply trendy, especially if they start changing location and requiring you to be 'in the know' to actually be able to locate your dinner.

We're also getting increasingly au fait with street food from other countries, which is just as well really, because I don't think the British actually have a famous street food. You can find Thai noodle stalls in most major cities; you can track down the delectably filling Vietnamese banh mi sandwich in your local branch of Eat (which many agree is a curse rather than a blessing); there are countless pseudo-Japanese places offering bowls of slurpy ramen, and burritos are nearly as common parlance as baguettes.

While this is, of course, great news for us travellers-cum-foodlovers, many would argue - correctly I think - that street food away from its street of origin is never quite the same. For starters, a lot of ingredients that are found in abundance in foreign climes just don't exist over here, and those that do are usually exported and inferior in quality and flavour. Fruit and vegetables, for example. Not only are food miles bad for the environment; they're also not great for the taste of the produce either. Fruits and vegetables are picked underripe for easier transportation, and consequently arrive on our home shores barely edible.

The next big issue is cost. Recently I came home from a month in Vietnam, having indulged in gorgeous steaming bowls of beef or chicken noodle soup on an almost daily basis for under £1 a time, to find that the same thing would cost me around £10 to order in a restaurant. And I'd have to go to London to get it, rather than simply turn out of my hotel and be guaranteed to find a pho vendor on the next corner. While I understand that our economy is very different to that of Vietnam, and everything is generally cheaper in South East Asia, it still hurts me and seems against the free, gluttonous, instant-gratification-led spirit of street food to charge prices for it that wouldn't look amiss on a restaurant menu.

Then, of course, there's the fact that it simply isn't the same. Many street food sellers in foreign countries have been making those burritos, noodles or dumplings their entire lives. Their recipes were probably passed on from generation to generation. They have their dish down to a wonderful, delicious art. In Vietnam, I watched women speedily ladling rice batter onto steamers covered with muslin, then deftly rolling the resulting banh cuon pancakes around pork and mushrooms, scattering over fresh herbs and piling them onto a plate. The process took about twenty seconds from start to finish, and was repeated over and over again. They must have made thousands of those pancakes in a single day. Try as you might, you'll never be able to replicate that skill and tradition on the other side of the world. 

Plus, while you can list the obvious ingredients for a street food recipe, down to the last pinch of salt or scattering of spices, there are those hidden ingredients to be considered. The ones that I would argue are equally important. The baking heat of the midday sun. The humidity of the rainy season clinging to the air like a wet teatowel. The dust from the daily onslaught of mopeds speeding past the stall, throwing up fragments of earth. The bustle of the nearby markets, the sheer vibrance of life as it goes on around. Culture is an ingredient one simply can't buy or export, and it changes the flavour of a dish entirely. 

I could order a bowl of pho somewhere in the UK, I'm sure. But eating it on a proper chair, on a proper table, rather than a tiny plastic stool perched in a dingy alleyway corner, without a constant cascade of sweat beading its way down my face and the back of my neck, would just be wrong. It wouldn't taste the same. The whole point of street food is its sheer evocativeness. It is inextricably linked to romanticised, nostalgic holiday memories. Translating it into the harsh, often cold, reality of England is perhaps not such a good idea after all. (That said, given our climate, perhaps a hot bowl of pho is exactly what we should be eating more of...)

However, in this current climate of street-food mania, there's nothing more depressing than spending hedonistic holiday days gorging oneself on cheap and plentiful street food, only to find that your staple of choice is completely untraceable once you get home. While you may be able to find restaurants for every cuisine imaginable in our country nowadays, certain types of street food just don't seem to be able to translate across borders. 

One of the best things I have ever eaten in Italy (and I have eaten a lot in Italy) is a piadina. I first tried this in Turin, where it was basically a tortilla wrap filled with cheese and vegetables and grilled so the cheese melted. It was nice. But then I went to Ravenna, a beautiful city in the Emilia-Romagna region and home to some incredible UNESCO-listed mosaics. Here I found the piadina to be a rather different creature: this was a big flatbread, much thicker and squidgier than a tortilla; in fact, almost like a naan bread. Its soft, supple texture and fluffy crumb is due to the inclusion of pig fat (strutto) in the dough. This is stuffed with a variety of fillings, grilled to melt the filling and toast the outside of the bread, then served in a sleeve of foil. 

This is a photo of me in Ravenna. My smile is entirely due to a diet of piadina, not the fact that I was riding the most ridiculous hire bike in the world.

Oh, if I could only go back and eat one thing from my travels to Italy, it would probably be that. The combination of toasty yet squidgy bread with its molten filling is beyond tasty. A favourite combination for the piadina is that classic Italian triumvirate of prosciutto, mozzarella and rocket, but there were other delightful fillings too, mostly based around a cheese-meat-rocket combination (gorgonzola and bresaola, for instance, which is salty salty heaven).

My favourite, and something I still dream about a little bit, was a mixture of squacquerone cheese and caramelised figs. The cheese - pronounced s-quack-er-oh-nay - is a soft, spreadable cheese with a slightly lumpy texture. It has a very mild, creamy flavour with a bit of a tang to it. The taste is actually reminiscent of Dairylea cheese, those awful processed triangles I used to love as a kid, but this is a million miles from that. The figs are a big thing in the Emilia-Romagna region. They appear in huge, dark vats in delis, flecked with their nutty seeds and all clumped and tangled together into one delicious, sugary mass. I imagine they're cooked for hours in some kind of sugar syrup, possibly with some balsamic vinegar to add that acidity. Their flavour is so strong it tastes almost alcoholic. Coupled with the mild cheese, they are gorgeous. Add some Parma ham, and you may as well never eat anything else again.

I can't understand why piadina hasn't travelled over here. It's the perfect street food - quick to make, filling, involving pig fat, and with all sorts of potential for different delicious combinations of flavours. To this day I lament the fact that I can't find it here. So when Crosta & Mollica, makers of authentic Italian breads, announced a new addition to their range -  packs of piadana breads (also known as piada) made in Emilia Romagna - memories of that cheese/fig combo flooded my mind and I just had to have a go at recreating it. 

I should point out straight away that this is definitely not the same as the piadina in Ravenna. This is much closer to the type I tried in Turin. It's thicker than a tortilla wrap, and more pliable, but definitely not the squidgy, lard-enriched beast of Ravenna. Because of this, it's ideal for warming and filling with whatever you like. I shouldn't really have teased you with that enticing description of the fluffy pork-fat bread, only to tell you that it's still a maddeningly distant prospect, but this is the next best thing.

Although I do have a jar of fichi caramellati from Emilia-Romagna, I had some baked figs left over in my fridge (as you do - recipe coming shortly). I went to the wonderful cheese shop in York on the off chance that they'd have squacquerone, but was (predictably) disappointed - I've never managed to find it in the UK; I imagine because it's soft and mild it doesn't travel well, like fresh ricotta. However, I did find some smoked mozzarella which was a bit exciting, and decided to use that. Most cheeses work well with figs, though - you could go strong, with a nice gorgonzola, cheddar, pecorino or stilton, or mild, with some ricotta, buffalo mozzarella or taleggio. I put the piada bread in a dry, hot frying pan and scattered half of it with sliced cheese, sliced figs, some pea shoots for crunch (rocket would also have worked0, and some lemon thyme (works so well with cheese and figs). 

As I'd hoped, the cheese started to melt. Once the bread had softened, I folded the unfigged half over the filling and flipped it over, to toast the other side. The result was a deeply satisfying combination of toasty, crunchy flatbread with gooey, smokey cheese and sweet crunchy figs. It was very reminiscent of a quesadilla, that Mexican toasted tortilla sandwich. 

It's been too long since I had melted cheese between pieces of bread. I feel this needs to become a regular fixture in my life.

I'm not going to give a recipe for this, because it's so straightforward. Get yourself a pack of Crosta & Mollica piada flatbreads (they stock them in Waitrose and Ocado). Put one in a hot, dry frying pan. Scatter your choice of filling over half the bread. Some suggestions for fillings:

Goat's cheese and roasted red peppers with a scattering of basil

Rare roast beef and stilton or gorgonzola

Parma ham, mozzarella and basil, with some sliced tomatoes

Smoked salmon and cream cheese

Smoked cheddar and caramelised apples

Turkey, brie and cranberry

Once the cheese starts to melt a bit, fold the bare half of bread over the filling. Flip the whole thing over and toast the other side. Remove, cut in half, and eat with your hands. Relish the contrast in textures and temperatures. 

Then start saving up for a plane ticket to Ravenna, so you can try the real thing. Because, as with all street food, it's just not the same otherwise. 

Gluten-free Challenge: Day Five

Let's talk a bit about risotto. Risotto is perhaps, I have decided, the ultimate gluten-free dish. This is because it's 100% naturally gluten-free. No need to make any changes or substitute any ingredients with inferior variations. No need to skimp on delicious creamy, starchy goodness. Take your basic mixture of olive oil, butter, risotto rice, onion and stock, and add to it whatever meat, fish, cheese or vegetables you like. The only thing you have to watch is your stock cubes, some of which may contain gluten in the form of various starches. I know that Marigold bouillon powder, though, which many chefs regard as the superior stock brand, is gluten-free.

If you know a gluten-free eater, make this for them. Don't let them suffer a diet of salads. Slap a big plate of creamy, gooey, chewy rice in front of them, grate over a mountain of cheese and a good grind of black pepper, maybe a handful of fresh herbs, and watch a glazed look of delight pass over their face. At least, that is always my response to a good risotto.

On my last day of this gluten-free challenge, I tucked into a plate of mushroom and bacon risotto, kindly made for me by my mum. I think this divine Italian combination of rice and stock has to be the ultimate comfort food. It's also incredibly easy to cook, and so versatile. I must have made at least fifty different types of risotto in my life, but these are some of my favourite combinations, and ones I would urge you to try if looking to inject some life and delight into a gluten-free diet:

Leek, blue cheese and bacon
Lemon, broad bean and ricotta or goat's cheese
Wild mushroom and truffle oil
Sausage and radicchio
Butternut squash, bacon and chestnut
Chicken, lemon and rocket

Apart from this lovely dinner, I pretty much ate the same as yesterday - porridge for breakfast; pasta salad for lunch, and an apple.

All in all, I haven't found going five days without gluten challenging at all. This may be due to the fact that I rarely eat that much of it anyway, but it was still a really interesting experiment, and has made me realise a few important things. Here is a little video to summarise my findings:

To celebrate the end of my gluten-free challenge, here's a list of some of my favourite recipe creations that are naturally gluten-free. There are even a few cakes on there!

Spiced dried fruit and blood orange compote, to be served on gluten-free porridge

Rhubarb, blueberry and almond baked oatmeal (use gluten-free oats)

Clementine and chocolate cake

Orange-flower, pistachio and almond polenta cake

Roasted loquat meringues

Vanilla and blood orange torta di riso

Smoked chicken and mango rice salad

Squid and chorizo salad

Cobnut, cherry and goat's cheese salad

Beetroot, blood orange and carrot salad with peppered mackerel

Cherry, smoked chicken and goat's cheese salad

Smoked duck, pear, goat's cheese and walnut salad

Grilled spiced sardines with fennel and grapefruit salad

Rare duck and wild rice with pecans and cranberries

Smoked duck, mozzarella and baby fig salad

Sweet and sour dhal with grilled aubergine

Mexican spiced chicken salad

Who says going gluten-free has to feel like deprivation? I'd say it should be an adventure!

Duck with chocolate and marsala

If it's possible for food to be sexy - and of course I believe it is, otherwise my life as a food blogger and aspiring food journalist would be very barren indeed - then this dish might just be the epitome of blushing, pulse-quickening, supple-fleshed sexuality. 

Think tender, succulent, meaty duck legs, smothered in a powerfully rich and complex sauce. It's glossy and dark with molten chocolate, enriched with the creamy bite of toasted pine nuts, sweet and juicy with plump raisins and laced with alcohol. It dribbles seductively off the spoon over the crispy skin of the duck, a dark and dramatic waterfall leaving sweet-savoury nuggets of powerful flavour in its wake.

This is a recipe from the Bocca cookbook by Jacob Kennedy, acclaimed head chef of Bocca di Lupo in Soho. I've been there twice and it's one of the best restaurants I've ever visited. It serves Italian food, but not as you'd know it; the dishes are often unusual, highlighting recipes, flavours and combinations from all over the diverse gastronomic melting pot that is Italy. Flavours are hearty and robust, the cooking is exquisite, and eating there is a fascinating tour de force of Italian cuisine at its lesser-known and best.

Unsurprisingly, then, the Bocca cookbook has no time for lasagne, spag bol and carbonara. Instead it treats you to underrated classics: caponata, the amazing sweet-sour aubergine stew from Sicily; guidelines for making your own Italian sausages; octopus with olive oil and peas; baked pigeon and bread 'soup'; cassata, a sublime confection of ricotta, chocolate and candied fruit from Sicily; tuna tartare, and other wonderful and exotic dishes. 

(Incidentally, I'm not being asked to write about this lovely book...I just thought I'd share my passion for it with you.)

I've started bookmarking recipes in new cookbooks as soon as I first read through them, to make it easier to find them later on. I take this a bit too seriously, having created a geeky colour scheme of page markers (blue for fish, green for vegetarian, pink for desserts, purple for meat...) to categorise the recipes. It's lucky I'm going back to university in October, really, isn't it?

This recipe was bookmarked immediately. Just the title had my mouth watering in anticipation.

Perhaps because it just rolls off the tongue in this incredibly sexy fashion. Perhaps because the word 'chocolate' is effortlessly inviting, conjuring up images of dark, sweet, melting goodness; of the voluptuous flow of a chocolate fountain or the warm, molten centre of a chocolate truffle. There's something beautiful about the word 'marsala', too, its soft sounds reminiscent of a seductive whisper, a romantic sigh, the letters curling around each other like slumbering lovers.

I've always been fascinated by cooking with chocolate. It's not a new concept; the Aztecs used it in this way before we Europeans got hold of the stuff and pumped it full of fat and sugar. You still find chocolate used as an ingredient in some savoury Mexican cooking. I've been experimenting with its deep, tannic richness recently, finding it a perfect partner for smoked duck, caramelised pears and goats cheese in this beautiful salad, though it's also commonly paired with venison. If you use good quality dark chocolate, it can add an intriguing complexity of flavour to a dish; a hint of bitterness, a touch of fragrance, a soft and melting mouthfeel.

This recipe starts by browning duck - it states to use a whole duck, jointed, but duck legs were on offer at the supermarket so I went with those. Once the duck skin is brown and crisp and has rendered down a lot of its fat, you remove it from the pan and fry chopped onion, pine nuts and raisins along with a cinnamon stick, fennel seeds and bay leaves.



The scent emanating from the pan as I stirred this heady mixture was intoxicating. The combination of spicy fennel, warm cinnamon and perfumed bay is unusual, wonderfully fragrant in a way that manages to be both sweet and savoury simultaneously. The pine nuts toast, offering up their nutty aroma, while the onions soften into translucent slivers.

To this you add a generous amount of marsala, or medium sherry (I went for the latter as marsala is pretty expensive). The duck legs sit in this sauce, covered, for around 45 minutes, braising gently away while infusing all of their meaty liquor into the sherry.

The finishing touch, once the duck is cooked, is to stir some dark chocolate into the sauce, where it melts and colours the whole thing a deep, dark brown. Being dark chocolate, it lends more of a bitterness than a sweetness to the mixture, which is already quite sweet from the alcohol, rounding off the complex mixture of spices, nuts and raisins. It also thickens the sauce, turning it glossy and unctuous. I stirred in a little parsley at the end, to lend its welcome freshness to the whole affair.



The recipe suggests no other accompaniment than plain couscous or wilted spinach, owing to the complexity of the flavours. I'd have to agree. I served my duck with bulgar wheat (slightly nuttier and chewier than couscous, so a good match for the strong sauce) and the suggested spinach, which worked perfectly.

I'm hoping I don't even need to tell you how unusual and delicious this dish is, because the title has already caught your eye, like it caught mine, and made you think "Right. I can go no longer without this in my life". It's just a fabulous combination of ingredients that work in total harmony. It's sweet yet bitter with cocoa, it bursts with juicy raisins and the crunch of toasted nuts, it melts in your mouth like chocolate. It doesn't overpower the rich flavour of the duck meat, instead complementing it perfectly and allowing its iron-rich gameyness to shine. It is incredibly rich, though, so a little sauce goes a long way. In future I might try it with pan-fried rare duck breasts, which are less intense in flavour than the legs.

I'm not going to give you a recipe, unfortunately, as I cooked the dish word-for-word from the Bocca cookbook, and I think it would probably infringe some kind of copyright to replicate it exactly on this blog. But do go out and buy Jacob Kennedy's excellent book; you'll find far more delights than just this gorgeous dish nestling in between its hallowed pages.

Five things I love this week #5

1. Tracklements Caramelised Red Onion Relish. It's National Sandwich Week this week, and so Tracklements were kind enough to send me a selection of their top sandwich-enhancing products. I tried their take on two classics: first, a jar of proper thick, tasty mayonnaise, enhanced with Dijon mustard for a bit of a kick and a delicious creamy flavour; secondly, a lovely tomato ketchup made with ripe Italian tomatoes that had a much deeper flavour than your standard Heinz. I'd much rather use this than something mass-produced on such a large scale. It would be delicious in a classic bacon or sausage sandwich. There was also a delicious country garden chutney - so-called because the first batch was made from all the vegetables Tracklements could find in their garden - with lovely tangy chunks of onion, carrot, swede, parsnip and turnip, and an interesting kick from apricots, tamarind, apple, sultanas and mustard.



My hands-down favourite, though, is this wonderful caramelised red onion relish. I love using caramelised onions as a garnish for any dish involving cheese, but cooking them down to tangles of sweet tenderness in a pan takes time. With this, all the work is done - the onions have been slowly caramelised before the addition of vinegar, muscovado sugar (which adds a lovely caramelly depth of flavour), salt and pepper. The jar suggests it would be the perfect partner for a steak sandwich, which I can't wait to try - possibly with a little blue cheese. If that doesn't make you rush out and buy a jar, I don't know what will. For now, though, I'll suggest this sandwich as a celebration of National Sandwich Week, which I made for lunch yesterday and which was amazing, really showing off the red onion relish to its best advantage:



Take some good sourdough bread (I made my own because I'm hideously enviable like that. But you could buy it). Lightly toast. Smother with crumbly, tangy goat's cheese. Dollop with Tracklements caramelised red onion relish. Top with quartered fresh figs and a few basil or mint leaves, roughly torn.

Eat. It'll be messy. Enjoy it. Relish it, if you will. Have a napkin ready.



2. Baked plums with ginger and orange. I found these gorgeous plums at the market yesterday and couldn't resist buying a few. Because raw plums are often so disappointing when flown in from halfway across the world, I like to bake them to bring out their sweet-tart flavour.

Simply halve and stone your plums, then arrange cut side up in a baking dish. Splash over a glug of orange juice (bottled is fine), scatter over some light brown sugar, and take a ball of stem ginger in syrup and cut it into little cubes. Scatter this over the plums before drizzling with a little of the ginger syrup. If you don't have ginger in syrup, use fresh grated ginger and add a bit more sugar. Bake at around 170C for 20 minutes or until soft but still keeping their shape. The ginger, sugar and orange will have formed a succulent syrup around the base of the plums. These are amazing served with vanilla ice cream, but are also good for breakfast on muesli, granola or porridge.

3. Two Greedy Italians. I know I'm a bit late with this one, as it's been on TV for a while, but I've only just got round to watching it. There couldn't be a more refreshing antidote to the swarm of waif-like, vapid, impossibly manicured female 'TV chefs' currently gracing our screens with their perfect lipstick and clearly false claims that they 'love cheese' while they strut around in their size six jeans and take small bites out of cakes they've made. Such shows irritate me beyond belief, especially as the recipes are so often unimaginative rehashes of things that have been done a million times.

You can't get more honest than two decidedly un-waif-like effusive Italian men gesticulating wildly whilst wolfing down everything in sight and playing pranks on each other in the process. Not only is it a fascinating insight into the lesser-known sides of Italian life, but the recipes are also unusual, original and intriguing. Chestnut gnocchi, orange rice cake, barley risotto with minced pork, buckwheat pasta baked with cheese and swiss chard...this is the kind of food I want to cook and eat, and in no small part because of the heartwarming and amusing way it is presented on the screen. I think I might have to buy the cookbook...and buying the cookbook to accompany a TV cookery series is something I told myself I would never do...

4. The Hole in the Wall, Cambridge. I've been meaning to go to Masterchef finalist Alex Rushmer's restaurant ever since I heard it had opened; it's not often that you get a contestant from your home town on national TV, and I was yearning for him to win and put Cambridge on the culinary map (not likely to happen anytime soon, as it apparently has the largest concentration of chain restaurants in the UK). Despite not winning, he's certainly done very well with his place out in Little Wilbraham on the outskirts of Cambridge. I finally ended up there for Sunday lunch this weekend, and was absolutely charmed by the place. It has a lovely cosy country pub feel, with rustic wooden tables and simple yet elegant tableware - there are little plants on each table and the butter is served on a wooden slate, sprinkled with sea salt. Everything was delicious, from the soda bread and sourdough we slathered in said butter, right through to the incredible dessert.



I had a perfectly-cooked fillet of wild sea bass on a bed of pecorino tortelloni with asparagus and pea puree. The tortelloni were the best I've ever had - the pasta was perfectly al dente, giving way to the rich cheese filling within. The asparagus was fresh and crunchy, and the sea bass meaty and delicious. If I were to make a very minor criticism, I'd say that I'm not entirely sure they belonged together on a plate - it felt rather like two very different dishes; the pasta didn't actually need the sea bass. But I enjoyed it immensely and could have eaten another plateful. My boyfriend had the roast sirloin of beef, which arrived so beautifully pink I could have cried with joy on his behalf. It came with two perfect Yorkshire puddings - the right balance of crispy and gooey - and the best duck fat roast potatoes I've ever eaten. They were so crispy you could hear one being cut into across the other side of the restaurant.

For dessert, I agonised over a choice between the lemon and passion fruit tart with pineapple sorbet, or the sticky toffee bread and butter pudding. Yes, that's right - not sticky toffee or bread and butter pudding, but both in one. Why have I never thought of that before? I told the waiter about my dilemma, and he actually laughed at me for being so ridiculous as to even have a dilemma. He rightly pointed out that I would hate myself if I ordered the tart. I saw why, when my pudding arrived.

It was a quivering, custardy square of gooey bread and juicy raisins. It came drenched in a molten puddle of sticky toffee sauce with more of those plump, caramelly raisins. There were blobs of passion fruit coulis. There were two little strawberries for decoration. There was a scoop of - wait for it - clotted cream ice cream, perched atop a crunchy biscuity mixture. The texture of the pudding was just sublime - you couldn't detect the individual bread layers, as it had all melded together into one tender, creamy mass, slightly gelatinous and subtly sweet. The raisins gave a perfect bite to the whole thing, and the toffee sauce was so fabulous that I nearly picked the plate up and licked it clean. The coulis gave a welcome sharpness to the whole thing, and the clotted cream ice cream helped lift the richness of the sticky sauce. It goes straight to the Elly McCausland Pudding Hall of Fame - in there with my top five restaurant puddings of all time. When the waiter came to collect my plate, he actually laughed at me and said "How insane were you, thinking about having a different pudding?"

Alex Rushmer is a bloody genius, people. Go and eat his food now, while you can get a table. Service is really friendly, the atmosphere is fantastic, and the food is beautiful. And don't even think about ordering the lemon tart over the sticky toffee bread and butter pudding.



5. Roasted cauliflower. Banish all thoughts of watery, grey, smelly, overcooked mushy cauliflower from your minds. Yes, it can be horrible. It can be anaemic-looking, flavourless, squashy and reminiscent of old socks. Here's how to change that.

Cut a cauliflower into florets. Toss with some olive oil, half a teaspoon of cumin, a sprinkling of cinnamon and a squeeze of lemon juice. Season well with salt and pepper. Bake at 180C for 10-15 minutes until parts have turned crispy and it is tender in the middle.

I promise you, this is a cauliflower revelation. You can vary the herbs and spices as you wish, but be sure to be generous with the oil and salt for a perfect experience. It goes very well with Indian dishes, but also with any roast meat or as part of a salad. Good flavour partners are tahini, lemon, lentils, couscous, pomegranate seeds, lemony roast chicken or spiced lamb.

Vanilla and blood orange torta di riso

I don't like rice pudding. Not at all. And I'm not just talking about the weird gloopy stuff you buy in cans or pots, the kind that my boyfriend loves to devour after dinner topped with some tinned pineapple from the tin that I'm eating instead of his horribly ricey concoction. Even the proper homemade stuff. I didn't actually try it until a couple of years ago, when I made a recipe that - on paper - sounded delicious, full of milk and sugar and cardamom and cloves and cinnamon, topped with gorgeous juicy roasted plums. But I totally hated it. The reason? Not, perhaps, what you'd expect. I didn't find it too stodgy. I didn't hate the formation of a slight skin of milk over the top. It wasn't too gloopy for me, or texturally unpleasant.

No. The reason I hated it was simple: it was too similar to porridge. 

Wait, wait. This doesn't mean I don't like porridge. Quite the opposite, as anyone who knows me and has watched me devour a bowl of porridge approximately the size of Asia every morning will know. The reason I hated rice pudding so much was that it looked like porridge. Sitting there in its bowl, topped with its lovely plums, it looked exactly like my breakfast. I often have porridge topped with roasted plums. But as soon as the spoon of sweet, ricey goodness was in my mouth I was disgusted.

It looked like porridge. It should have tasted like porridge. But instead it was sickeningly sweet, jarringly so, and too creamy. I couldn't eat much of it. The whole experience just seemed wrong; everything was telling me to expect a bowl full of soothing, bland, mushy oats, totally untempered by sugar of any kind and lent sweetness simply from their fruity topping. Instead it was cavity-inducing and weird.

I haven't tried it since. Maybe it sounds like I don't have much of a good reason, but to be honest I'd much rather use whatever luscious rice pudding toppings are out there (I've seen some fantastic recipes involving caramelised mango...) to decorate my bowl of porridge, and feel a lot less guilty about it seeing as there's no sugar involved. And it's not dessert. Rice for dessert is kind of odd.

Rice pudding, to me, looks far too much like either risotto or porridge, and because it is neither it delivers an unpleasantly surprising eating experience. What can I say? It just doesn't do it for me. Give me a good crumble or treacle tart any day.

However, when I came across a recipe in this month's delicious magazine for torta di riso al profumo d'arancio by Gennaro Contaldo (of 'Two Greedy Italians' fame, with Antonio Carluccio), I was intrigued. The picture looked wonderfully inviting, in a sticky, carbohydrate-dense sort of way. The English translation of its name is 'orange rice cake', which is sadly lacking in elegance compared to the Italian.

I've read about and seen similar cakes before, on both my literal and literary culinary journeys around Italy. They're typical of northern Italy, where rice is a staple crop. I had a wonderful time staying in Vercelli last April eyeing up the countless varieties of rice on offer at the local delis, and it turns out I needn't have bothered, because the hotel where I stayed gave away free bags of branded rice as a farewell gift to every guest. How amazing is that? As if you'd ever find an English hotel doing something similar. What would we give away? Branded bacon sandwiches? Takeaway tubs of shepherd's pie?

This cake uses the now ubiquitous arborio variety of rice. You essentially make a cross between a rice pudding and a risotto, simmering the risotto rice in milk that's infused with citrus zest, vanilla and sugar, before thickening it with egg yolks and lightening it with egg whites and baking it in the oven.

This cake could also be called 'Sicily meets Tuscany'.

 I have some gorgeous Sicilian blood oranges sitting in my fridge from a couple of weeks ago, and decided to use their zest and juice in this cake, even though it's of northern Italian origin. Still, my fusion of north and south worked exceptionally well, if the taste of the result is anything to go by. I simmered the rice in milk permeated with the fragrant orange zest (along with a vanilla pod), until it became plump, sweet and gorgeous. In went some raisins, which I think are essential and provide a wonderful contrast both in texture and flavour. Next time I'll use more, and probably add some candied peel as well.

Then egg yolks, whisked with blood orange juice to a light orange cream. The original recipe says Grand Marnier, but I had none and the juice worked fine - though I did add a splash of Drambuie, for good measure. This goes into the rice to bind it together. Finally, egg whites, beaten to stiff peaks. They're folded through the mixture to make it fluffy and mousse-like, and it all goes into a tin and into the oven.

I have to say, despite my hatred of rice pudding, that the cooked rice - having soaked up its milky bath of delights - looked so delicious. Perhaps I may be coming round to the idea. But I doubt it, because when you can take rice pudding to another level completely by baking it in cake form, why on earth would you want to eat it any other way?

This cake is intriguing and delicate. It's sweet and subtle. It's delicious and fragrant. It's satisfying and sticky. 

You end up with a very well-risen creation, burnished and crinkly on top where a skin has formed, and with a fluffy crust around the edges like a cheesecake. In fact, it looks very similar to a cheesecake when turned out of the tin. Cut into it, however, and you find a slightly molten centre, still partially liquid from the milky rice, while the outer parts are firm and slightly chewy. Needless to say, it's a very moist, sticky cake - there is, after all, over a litre of milk in it.

Although you can clearly see it's made of rice, this is definitely more cake than rice pudding. It has a wonderfully satisfying cakey texture, with a slight bite to it. Even better, it is decadently rich and creamy, suffused with the perfume of vanilla, orange juice and orange zest. I can't quite describe the flavour, but it reminds me a lot of eating proper French custard - that thick, gorgeous creme patisserie that you find in little pastry fruit tartlets; rich, creamy, with a delicate hint of sweet fragrant flavour. It's quite subtle and not too sweet either; too much sugar I think would just destroy its nuanced flavour. I love the juicy crunch of the raisins, which really enliven the whole creation, though I can't wait to try candied peel as well to continue the Sicilian theme.

I served this simply, dusted with a thick layer of icing sugar (essential, I think, as the cake itself isn't very sweet) and accompanied by slices of blood orange. The fruit goes really well with the cake - as it's quite creamily bland (in a good way), the zestiness of fresh orange slices really works a treat with the thick mass of baked rice.

Please don't be sceptical that I'm giving you risotto baked into a cake. This is really, really lovely. It would make a perfect mid-afternoon snack with a cup of coffee, and also makes an unusual dessert - though, being predominantly rice, it is quite filling, so plan your preceding courses carefully!

If you're a rice pudding hater, don't worry. This is not rice pudding. It is torta di riso al profumo d'arancio,  and mamma mia, is it good. It's nursery food, dressed up with Italian elegance and style, made exotic and sexy.

And if you don't think rice is sexy, try bathing it in milk fragrant with sweet vanilla and orange zest. You might just change your mind.

Vanilla and blood orange rice cake (serves 6-8):

(Recipe adapted from delicious. magazine, May 2012 issue)

• 1.1 litres milk (I used semi-skimmed)
• 1 vanilla pod, split
• Zest of 1 blood orange
• 130g caster sugar
• 200g arborio rice
• 50ml blood orange juice
• 2 tsp Drambuie or Grand Marnier (optional)
• 3 large eggs, separated
• 70g raisins
• Icing sugar, to serve
• Blood oranges, to serve

Put the milk, sugar, orange zest and vanilla pod in a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Add the rice and simmer for 25 minutes until the rice has absorbed most of the milk, and is cooked but still slightly al dente. Leave to cool - while it cools, the rice should absorb the rest of the milk, turning into a thick, creamy mass. Add the raisins.

Pre-heat the oven to 180C/160C fan oven. Grease and line a 20-23cm springform cake tin.

In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks with the orange juice and liqueur (if using) until thick and creamy. Stir into the cooled rice. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks, then fold a third of them into the rice mixture to loosen it. Once loosened, fold in the rest of the egg whites.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 60-75 minutes, until the centre is quite firm to the touch and a skewer comes out mostly clean. Halfway through the cooking time, cover the cake with foil to stop the top browning too much.

Leave to cool, then serve at room temperature dusted with icing sugar and garnished with sliced blood oranges.

Tuscan temptation and Romagnan revelry: my Italian Easter holiday

There's a famous saying about Parma.

A Parma si mangia due volte. Prima si mangia, poi si parla.

In Parma one eats twice: first you eat, then you talk. 

What is this blog, if not an opportunity to eat for the second time by reliving recipes through writing? As I sit here examining my furious scribbles in the notebook that accompanied me round Italy three weeks ago, I feel like I'm back in my favourite country, savouring all these exquisite gastronomic moments for the second time. I'm writing this out of a purely selfish desire to reminisce for a little longer, to make those memories a little more permanent, to indulge my greed and love for Italian cuisine once again. But I also hope that this provides an interesting insight into the real food of Italy; not just the ubiquitous lasagne, carbonara and Bolognese that have become student staples, but lesser known and intriguing dishes from a country with fascinating culinary diversity.

I finally found the tower. I had to take a photo to prove it.

I begin in Tuscany, where we spent four days exploring the cities of Pisa, Florence and Siena. I'd been to the latter two before, but Pisa was new to me. Which is probably why my boyfriend (thanks to him for a lot of these photos) and I spent about three hours wandering around trying to find the leaning tower. If you imagine it to be an unmissable landmark around which everything else revolves, maybe like the Eiffel Tower or Empire State Building, you'd be wrong. It's not very tall and it definitely isn't visible for miles around. We began to think the entire thing was a conspiracy, until we eventually stumbled upon it. Our reactions?

"Oh, right. So it...it really does, y'know, lean."

Culture done, we swiftly moved onto the important part of the holiday - eating.

I was lucky I'd been warned in advance about the bread of Tuscany, or I'd have got a not-entirely-pleasant surprise upon first bite. It is completely devoid of salt. That might not sound like a big deal, but believe me, once you try bread made without salt you will realise just how much that simple ingredient contributes to a humble loaf. Bread without it is odd. It's not horrible, as the texture and satisfying breadiness is still there, but instead of tasting squidgy, moreish, doughy, it tastes like a sad, bland cloud.

But, as they say, every cloud has a silver lining. The fact that I found the bread not very enjoyable to eat means that I didn't guzzle down the entire bread basket before the meal had even begun. It enabled me to have more stomach space for delicious pasta. It probably enabled me to return from Italy a couple of pounds lighter than I would have otherwise. So for that, Tuscany, I thank you.

Also, if you view bread as a vehicle for mopping up delicious sauce and remnants, the Tuscan variety is perfect. Because it's nothing spectacular on its own, it allows whatever you soak into it to really shine. This, I suppose, is why Tuscan bread is often used in staple dishes like panzanella, a salad of stale bread and tomatoes, where the bread soaks up all the delicious juices and dressing.

The first thing to pass our lips in Pisa was, as you might expect, bread. However, this was not the saltless Tuscan bread. This was actually a rustic kind of thick baguette. Not very Italian, but wait to hear about what it contained. Starving, our BA lounge breakfast a distant memory and no lunch having materialised on the plane (BA, take note - a tiny bag of salted poppadom-type crisps is really not food), we ended up wandering into Pisa at about 4pm after checking into our hotel. The first viable place we found was a little bar, that I was drawn to by its sumptuous display of cured meats, cheeses and other tasty delights. It was utterly perfect - you could choose any combination of all the proffered ingredients and have them made into a huge, fat panino. There were about twenty different types of meat (cured hams, roast turkey, roast hams, chicken, stuffed pork), trays of different cheeses, little pots of glistening, vivid sauces, and platters of slick grilled marinated vegetables. I went for a classic(ish) combination: prosciutto, mozzarella and grilled vegetables. Jon had the same, but with a pepper sauce, which I really wish I'd had too.

Pisa at dusk

We sat outside this unassuming little bar, right next to the river, and ate our sandwiches, which turned out - when produced - to be about the length of our arms. They were incredible. Mine was absolutely bursting with slices of salty, moreish prosciutto and chunks of milky, cold mozzarella, tempered by the slight crunch and earthy flavour of grilled courgettes and aubergines. Jon's was, if possible, even better with its red pepper sauce.

One thing, though. I don't know how long it is since I last ate a crisp baguette, but it must have been ages, because this one left loads of little cuts along the roof of my mouth. Clearly I need to toughen up a little bit by eating daily crusty baguettes. What a hardship.

What do you do when your mouth is sore and chafed by a crusty baguette? You go in search of ice cream, obviously.

About two minutes from the sandwich bar we found Pisa's most recommended gelateria - La Bottega del Gelato. This became a regular feature of our stay - I find it impossible to reside in Italy and not make daily gelato a key feature of my trip. All the flavours I tried were lovely, but the most notable was 'ciambella', which is Italian for doughnut. However, it's also the name assigned to a gorgeous ring-shaped cake made with eggs, butter, sugar and lemon, that I think is a speciality of the Emilia-Romagna region. This gelato tasted exactly like lemon meringue pie, or lemon drizzle cake; a kind of hybrid of the two. It was creamy and tangy, full of zesty lemon goodness. Not as purely lemony as lemon sorbet; it had a richness reminiscent of butter and eggs and other delicious things. The pistachio was also wonderful, as was the Nutella flavour, which was a plain custard base strewn with rich, grainy rivers of molten Nutella. Also fascinating was a pine nut ice cream, which I just had to try, and which was gorgeous - nutty and rich and buttery, with that prominent and distinctive pine nut flavour.

Perusing potential restaurants in Pisa

We ate dinner that night at Trattoria Il Campano, and though our food was wonderful, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were missing a trick somehow. We sat there eating our pasta while the matronly waitress brought out steak after steak from the kitchen. This wasn't any steak, though. This was bistecca Fiorentina, the Tuscan carnivore's paradise. It's an enormous T-bone steak, usually from the Chianina breed of cattle, very thickly cut - one will serve two or more people. It's served very rare, simply grilled and then rested on the bone for five minutes to allow the blood to flow out. The waitress brought them out on platters and carved them at the table of the eagerly awaiting diners. I watched her slice that perfectly cooked, utterly gorgeous steak into strips, marvelling at its perfectly crimson interior, and I suddenly felt a deep pang of longing. Jon simply remarked that it was "too rare" for him, and carried on with his dinner. I get the feeling it's what all the locals eat on a Saturday night to treat themselves (it's not cheap, priced at about €4.50 per 100g, with an average steak weighing around 1.2kg), and I was so jealous. Maybe next time. When I have a boyfriend with more bloodlust.

Anyway, our food was excellent. Being near the sea, the seafood in Pisa is wonderful. An interesting quirk of many restaurants there is to offer two different menus - terra (land), and mare (sea), which similar courses across each. Pici pasta, a thick, doughy spaghetti that is a Tuscan speciality, may be served with a cinghiale (wild boar) sauce on one menu, and a baccalà (salt cod) sauce on the other. Jon tried the former at Il Campano, and it was gorgeous - really rich and earthy, like pork but more gamey and intense. I went for a starter of seppie, cuttlefish, which I'd never had before. I could smell it before it reached my table; cooked in a light tomato sauce with Swiss chard, it came piled up on a piece of bread, which absorbed all that gorgeous cooking liquor. It was rather like squid, but much more tender and yielding, and had a really rich, salty, seafood flavour. In this case, the Tuscan bread was perfect to mop up the sauce, which was pretty salty.

I followed this with ravioli filled with potato cream, served in a sea bream sauce. I'm not convinced by the idea of filling ravioli with mashed potato, I have to say - too much carbohydrate even for my flour-loving stomach. It was a bit odd in terms of texture. But the sauce, made of flakes of sea bream in its cooking liquid, was lovely. I'd never have thought of putting the seafood outside the ravioli before; it's definitely something I'd experiment with.

Probably my favourite dinner of the whole trip was at Osteria del Porton Rosso (see above), one of those charming little trattorie tucked away down a side street that you read about in travel guides and wistful novels but assume doesn't actually exist in real life. This one did. Unfortunately, the side street on which it was located appeared to be the unofficial urinal of Pisa. There are several streets vying for this nickname. Perhaps it's because public toilets in Pisa, like in most of Europe, are basically non-existent. Perhaps it's because the youth of Pisa are just lazy. But there's nothing like walking down a street fragrant with urine, dodging the tell-tale trickles of liquid on the otherwise dry pavement, to whet your appetite.

Fortunately, the food more than made up for this experience, as did the charming waiter. It helped that we were the only customers apart from a little old lady sitting in a corner. Perhaps I should explain why. For some reason that I still don't entirely understand, Pisa celebrates the New Year on March 25, and has done since the 12th century because it had a different calendar from then until 1749. Obviously. Because of this, there is a big celebration every year on March 25 called the 'Capodanno Pisano' - you can find out more about this odd custom here, but essentially it involves a parade of people in medieval garb carrying banners with crests on, all ending up in the cathedral for a service. We somehow got swept along in this wave of marching and instrument-playing, and ended up squashed near the front of the church having to endure a lengthy service entirely in Italian. Apparently it involves a sunbeam from one of the church windows landing on a marble egg, which marks the official New Year, but unfortunately we couldn't see said egg. I translated bits to Jon at first, but eventually we both kind of gave up and passively absorbed the priest's wisdom, while our legs and lower backs grew uncomfortably stiff. Still, it was very interesting. It also meant that the streets were totally deserted that night, and hardly anything was open, which is why we had the restaurant to ourselves.

Jon ordered a steak. How very male of him. I ordered fish. How very female of me. This was a place featuring the terra and mare menu concept. It wasn't just fish I ended up with, though.

I do speak Italian fairly well, but if there is one phrase I'd advise you to learn before visiting the country, it is this:

Cosa mi consiglia?

It means 'what do you recommend?', and is the key weapon in my culinary tourist arsenal. I always, always ask waiters this question, even when I've mostly decided what I want to eat, though it's even more useful when I'm being my usual pathetic ambivalent self. In this case, the waiter recommended the 'Degustazione del Mare', which he explained was a starter comprising five or six small tastes of various typical seafood dishes. I immediately got excited and ordered it, followed by ravioli with sea bream and artichokes (similar to the potato ravioli, but with sea bream inside the ravioli along with the potato, and topped with gorgeous fruity olive oil, more bream, and marinated artichokes - it was wonderful). Let's talk about the starter, though.

He asked Jon if he'd be sharing, and I said he might try a little bit. The waiter obviously took this as a cue to prepare this starter for two people. I was definitely not prepared for the amount of food that followed. He brought two tapas-size portions, which I began to eat. Then another two. Then another two. Then another one. At one point I was worried this gastronomic onslaught would never end, but masochistically I couldn't wait for it to continue. There was a little plate of glistening, salty marinated anchovies. Four neat little tuna meatballs, crispy on the outside and yielding within, with a slight hint of fish. An unusual fried fishcake of chickpeas, vegetables and mussels. Set grilled polenta with prawns and lardo (cured pig fat), draped in elegant, meltingly delicious ribbons over the top. A pureé of salt cod and chickpeas, which was like a mellow, fish-flavoured hummous (though that sounds vile - rest assured it was delicious), and finally my two favourite dishes: ribollita with prawns and vegetables, and farro with octopus. Ribollita literally means 'reboiled' - it's a Tuscan soup originating from minestrone leftovers which were then reheated and various odds and ends added, including bread and vegetables. The result is a thick, starchy broth. This one was resplendent with prawns, salty, rich and delicious. The farro with octopus was definitely a highlight. Farro is a nutty grain similar to pearl barley. It was served with exquisitely tender cooked octopus, and the combination was just wonderful; like a hearty, flavoursome seafood salad.

Needless to say, I didn't have much room for my ravioli (though I ate it all, obviously), because I'd eaten enough starter for two people (Jon isn't a fish fan, so picked at a couple of things and then sat awaiting his steak). I did, however, have enough room to try his steak, which was the best steak I've ever had. This might be because it was drowning in a totally decadent creamy peppercorn sauce, but it also might be because I could probably have brought it back to life with CPR. It oozed sumptuous rivulents of pink blood into the sauce as he cut it, its flesh scarlet and bursting with juice. It was too rare for him. I wish I'd ordered it. To this day I dream of it.

That degustazione del mare is up there with one of the best things I have ever eaten. I love trying lots of little things, and every plate was so carefully cooked and presented, and so beautiful, that the memory of it fills me with joy. You know what else fills me with joy? The fact that it cost €14. For enough tapas-style seafood dishes to share (though I didn't). I think the waiter, realising that there'd be no other customers that night, was feeling generous, as that can't have been a normal portion size for one person. Every dish was so unusual, too - chickpea and mussel cakes, fish hummous, prawns and pig fat; a glorious mixture of surf and turf, served in rustic Italian style.

I'd had in my head romantic visions of dining al fresco in the shadow of the tower of Pisa (which, as established previously, is a pretty small shadow), but being a realist accepted that this probably was not likely. Generally, good restaurants are not to be found within a 500-yard radius of major tourist attractions. We were proved wrong, however, by Trattoria La Buca (see above), a lovely pizzeria/restaurant if not in the shadow of the tower then definitely close to it. I had fabulous fresh tagliatelle with an anchovy sauce, which was salty and slick with olive oil and delicious. I had been torn between that and the cacciucco, a Tuscan fish stew which supposedly should contain five different types of fish to be authentic - one for each of the C's in its name. I never did get to try it, sadly, but my seafood experience at Porton Rosso more than made up for this deficit.

We also dined at La Sosta Dei Cavalieri, the sister restaurant of Osteria Dei Cavalieri, which is where we really wanted to go but unfortunately they were full. La Sosta served Italian food on the more expensive, less rustic scale. My sformata of pumpkin served with cheese fondue was beautifully presented, but wasn't a particularly well thought-out dish - there was only one texture, which was creamy, and nothing to balance it. It probably wasn't worth twelve euros. However, my fresh pasta with 'barnyard ragu' (rabbit, guinea fowl, duck) was fabulous, really rich and yet delicate. For dessert we tried chocolate torte and apple cake - again, lovely, but nothing particularly ground-breaking.

Siena, languishing under the moodiest of Italian skies

There was something rather nice about returning to Siena, a city I found beautiful and intriguing when I visited four years ago, and which has lost none of its charm since. It has an appeal like no other, with its labyrinthine streets and terracotta brickwork, all winding lazily outwards from the central square, a giant sink-shaped basin where tourists and locals alike bask in the sun and the shadow of the Torre del Mangia. I don't normally go in for Italian churches - I travelled round Italy with a Catholic three years ago, therefore have seen enough to last me well into my grave - but Siena's cathedral is something else. It's utterly stunning, with its white and coral exterior and its highly ornate interior, dominated by its starry ceiling, floor mosaics and monochrome striped pillars. I've never seen anything like it; it'll certainly make you re-evaluate your ideas of Italian churches. There was an exhibition of 15th century music manuscripts which my inner medieval geek slash magpie found pretty exciting. They were all shiny and old and stuff.

But woah, enough culture there. This is a food blog. For lunch I had gnocchi.

Delicate, pillowy gnocchi with a gorgeous pine nut cream sauce, shredded radicchio, and chunks of apple. An unusual combination, which is why I ordered it. It was divine - almost as divine as the cathedral. The sauce was so rich and moreish, I was using the last piece of gnocchi as a sort of scoop to make sure it all ended up in my mouth. The apple, soft and buttery and juicy, worked perfectly with the rich cream and the crunch of the radicchio. Jon had a sort of carbonara made with pork cheek and artichokes, which was rich and delicious, if a little on the eggy end of the carbonara spectrum. They had a chilli, chocolate and pear cake on the dessert menu which we sadly didn't end up trying, but I wish I had. Should you wish to enjoy these delights, you can find them at Hosteria Il Carroccio.

I consoled myself with panforte. Panforte is a Siena speciality: it's a kind of dense sweet made with lots of sugar, nuts and candied fruits. It's made in huge wheels and sold in wedges, rather like cheese. You see it everywhere, wandering around Siena - there are little baby ones on sale in gift shops, or huge wheels of the stuff in the windows of bakeries, glistening invitingly and begging you to ask for a sliver. It's a very attractive confection, with its jewel-like chunks of candied fruits (not just citrus - they use watermelon and pumpkin too), sprinkling of sugar on top and chunky nut pieces. I bought two slivers from Nannini, a famous cafe/bakery. They were extortionate, but worth every euro.

I tried the panforte margherita, which features hazelnuts, almonds, pine nuts and candied citrus fruit, and is spiced with cloves, coriander, honey and cinnamon. It had an amazing crunchy almond topping reminiscent of marzipan, and a lovely fudgy texture. Panforte is very sweet, but its gooeyness somehow makes up for that. The other version was fichi e noci - figs and walnuts. This was a much darker, denser concoction, gritty with fig seeds and sticky with the dried fruit. It was probably my favourite, less sickly and cloying than the margherita version, rather like a much stickier, thicker English tea loaf or Christmas pudding. I'm gutted I only bought two tiny slivers of each, but that was all I could afford. The wheels are priced at about €27 a kilo, and the tiniest possible slice weighs 150g.

Fig and walnut panforte; a dense, sticky concoction of candied fruit and sugar

I also bought some ricciarelli biscuits, another Siena speciality - rather like macaroons, these are made with sugar, ground almonds, honey and egg whites. They taste a bit like crunchy marzipan.

Now I think about it, it's a miracle the Sienese have any teeth left.

Also, can I just share with you my utter joy at the contrast between this visit to Siena and my last. During the latter, I sat down on the floor of the square and for lunch ate a bread roll and a pot of cottage cheese that I'd bought from a supermarket. That was four years ago, when I was an impoverished student halfway through a trip to Italy that was costing far more than she had anticipated. This time, I could go to a restaurant. I could order three courses if I wanted. There was no cottage cheese involved. The joys of having a job.

Siena also provided a trip to Grom. Grom is a bit of an Italian institution. It's a chain of gelaterie, but one that prides itself on making the best possible ice cream out of the finest quality ingredients, using natural processes and no rubbishy chemicals. Its ice cream cups and spoons are all recyclable. Grom is endorsed by the Slow Food movement, which is a pretty prestigious accolade in Italy. Its slogan is 'Gelato Come Una Volta', which loosely translates as 'Ice cream as it once was'.

I've been to a few Groms in my time, not just because I love the word 'Grom'. I heard that it's called that because the original branch was in Rome, and Grom is an amalgamation of 'Gelato Roma', but I'm not sure if that's true. I've visited Groms in Rome, Padova, Vercelli, Turin, Perugia, Bergamo and possibly a few other cities that I've now forgotten. Siena was the latest visit in a long line.

Although some people have argued that Grom has now become a soulless chain, I do rather like their branches. The walls bear a vague resemblance to Pret a Manger over here, in that they bear colourful placards of inviting ingredients with a little description. We get told that they only use the best pink Himalayan salt for their salted caramel flavour, that they use Sicilian Bronte pistachios - the best in the world - when in season, but when not they go to Syria for the emerald nuts, that they use 'distinctly aromatic' Guatemalan coffee to flavour their coffee ice cream.

The ice cream is housed in gleaming metal vats with shiny lids, a far cry from those touristy gelaterie you get in major cities where all the ice cream is artfully piled up about two feet high and adorned with garish chunks of fruit or chocolate. Generally speaking, in Italy if you can't see your ice cream before you order it, it's going to be better. At least this is how I've always found it.

Grom doesn't change its menu very much, instead offering year-round stalwarts interspersed with a few seasonal specialities. I've tried many of them, and can heartily recommend the pear sorbet, the salted caramel, the Torroncino (hazelnut nougat) and the Sicilian cassata (ricotta cheese with chunks of chocolate and candied fruit). Yes, there might be better independent gelaterie in Italy, but if you need somewhere you can rely on, Grom is a surefire winner.

Florence at its loveliest - not a tourist in sight

We visited Florence the next day (where the 'I love gelato' title photo of this post was taken); I won't attempt to say something new and original about this most touristy of cities. Although I could tell you that the Duomo is a massive disappointment on the inside. I'd never been in, despite visiting Florence twice previously, and we somehow managed to just walk in, despite a few hours earlier having observed queues approximately the size of the Nile snaking noisily around the curves of the building. They were about to close, which is probably why, so we managed to dart in (me wearing a rather un-churchly dress that revealed a decent amount of leg), conclude that it was really better observed from the outside, and then leave. How uncouth.

More memorable were these crazy lemons that I spotted outside a little greengrocer down a side street. They reminded me a bit of that horrible Orc from one of the Lord of the Rings films that has this bizarre fleshy growth on the side of its head. This was the first and only food stall I saw in Florence; it seems that tourists are more likely to buy boxer shorts featuring an image of David's resplendent marble penis than anything that might sustain them nutritionally. Such is life.

Back to Pisa for dinner. If my degustazione del mare was the best meal of the trip, dining at Ristoro Al Vecchio Teatro was certainly the most memorable, if perhaps not for all the right reasons. I'd been attracted by its seafood tasting menu (because, you know, I hadn't had enough of that already...), and by the effervescent enthusiasm of the owner when I'd gone to ask about the menu before booking a table. There were some meaty options on the menu too, and Jon was placated by the presence of spaghetti with ragu, so we sat down ready to order. We were ready to order from this moment until we left the restaurant, and the opportunity never arose. The menus sat untouched on the side of the table, while the owner enthusiastically presented us with dish after unexpected dish.

There was a plate of sliced meats for Jon. Bruschetta with anchovies and olives for both of us. Polenta with lardo. Octopus and chickpea salad. Stuffed mussels. Seafood omelette. Except we hadn't ordered any of it. When the bruschetta came out, we thought it might have just been a complimentary appetiser - a restaurant in Rome once served me bruschetta for no reason, and it was lovely - and free. But once plate after plate continued to grace our table uninvited, we became rather confused. Add to this the fact that the waiter kept conversing wildly in Italian with the table next to us while showing them his Facebook photo albums on the computer in the dining room, and it was all rather bizarre. I eventually had to tell him that while I did, in fact, want this huge seafood tasting feast, Jon really only wanted spaghetti with ragu. No, we were told, the kitchen was preparing a whole host of meaty dishes for Jon so he didn't feel left out. While I was tucking into an unusual risotto of prawns and orange, Jon was given one with vegetables and cheese. When my fish spaghetti (delicious) arrived, Jon finally got his ragu. While I proceeded to eat 'prawns in shirts' (prawns wrapped in lardo and then a thin crust of pasta) and stuffed mussels, he had to decline the waiter's offer of osso buco, which I think offended him because he didn't seem as friendly after that.

I was a bit worried we were getting this odd treatment because we were obviously tourists, so I was immensely reassured when two more tables came in and sat down, and proceeded to suffer the same fate. We sat there and laughed at those unsuspecting victims as they happily perused the menu, no doubt carefully planning their choices, salivating over certain options, getting their appetites whetted for the hand-picked delights to come. If only they'd known that the chance was to be so cruelly snatched away. I admit I did slightly relish their confused expressions as the bruschetta was steadily followed by everything else, according to the waiter's whim, and the menus lay sadly unnoticed on the tabletop.

We shared a trio of desserts: castagnaccio, a chestnut cake typical of the region; a pine nut cream cake, which was lovely; and a sort of sweet focaccia type thing. I have to say I was a bit disappointed by the castagnaccio - Lonely Planet sold it as the main reason to go to this restaurant, but maybe the cook was having an off day, because it wasn't particularly special. In fact I think it may have been a bit burnt. Incidentally, there was no great army of chefs preparing this gastronomic onslaught that night - Jon and I were both astounded to discover that the chef was a single woman, presumably the waiter's wife, working in a kitchen about the size of a large wardrobe. Credit to her for turning out so much food in such a tiny space.

Ponte Vecchio, Florence

Anyway, I really loathe people referring to adverse occasions as 'experiences', but this certainly was an experience. Some of the food was fairly average (I wouldn't say the tasting menu was worth the €35 it cost), some of it was really lovely, but I'll certainly remember the restaurant more for this totally bizarre dining experience. Having had a quick look at reviews on TripAdvisor, it seems we weren't the only victims of the waiter's immense enthusiasm for his restaurant's cuisine. He explained to me that he just wanted us to try everything, that this was the Italian way. While I think that's rather sweet, it was a bit alarming and confusing, and I'm not sure I'd go back. It was a joy the next day to go to a restaurant and just pick from the menu, and receive exactly what we ordered. It felt like a bit of a luxury. Also, it was pizza. Can't get more simple yet delicious than that.

The standard sight in most Bolognese shop windows

Onwards, to Bologna. Known both as 'La Rossa' (the red one) and 'La Grassa' (the fat one), Bologna is probably where we get most of our ideas about Italian food from. It's in the Emilia-Romagna region, widely regarded as the best region for food in all of Italy, apparently because of its rich, fertile soil. This is where you get Parma ham, as well as Parmesan cheese, lasagne, Bolognese sauce, mortadella, numerous salamis, tortellini, aubergine parmigiana, and more varieties of stuffed pasta than you could eat in weeks. The region is also one of the wealthiest in Italy, in monetary as well as gastronomic terms.

It's in my top five Italian cities (the others being Naples, Perugia, Turin, Bergamo. Though this list changes according to my caprices, and sometimes will include Padova, Parma and Catania. Maybe Ferrara too. In fact, there's nowhere in Italy I don't like, though Venica makes me feel a bit sick because you constantly feel like you've been mugged; whether you're buying a meal, using a public toilet or entering a museum, you can practically hear the steady flow of your hard-earned cash seeping out of your wallet).

Just strolling around the city of Bologna is joyous and fascinating. It's architecturally interesting, with its  38 kilometres of arched red porticoes keeping you in the shade as you sample its vibrant culture. It's renowned as a university town, famous for its music, scientific history, artistic history...essentially, you feel cultured just by virtue of being there. Its main square is a hub of activity, but more interesting are the little streets that branch off it, especially Via Vecchie Pescherie, which literally translates as 'the street of the old fishmongers'. There are indeed fishmongers here to this day, along with numerous grocers, cheese shops, ham shops, butchers, bakeries, pasta shops, kitchenware shops...essentially, it is where I would spend my last day on earth. Provided I had a fair few euros in my pocket and an empty stomach.

It's all about ham and cheese here. Ham, cheese and beef. Every menu will feature 'ragu', which is what the Bolognese call our 'spag bol'. Except, as you may know, Bolognese sauce is never served with spaghetti in Italy. Such a robust, thick, chunky sauce demands a chunkier pasta than tender, slippery strands of spaghetti: tagliatelle is a favourite, though it can also be served with penne, rigatoni and sometimes gnocchi. What I also found interesting when I sampled ragu is that the pasta and the sauce are given equal roles to play. The pasta is lightly coated in the ragu, which authentically is quite a dry sauce, as it is cooked until all the water evaporates and the tomatoes cling to the meat. There's no unceremonious dollop of red gloop on top of a bowl of pasta, as you so often find in England. In Italy, the pasta does not play merely a supporting role.

Spag bol, except it's 'tag bol', Italian style

The same applies to Bolognese lasagne, which is much firmer and drier than its English cousin. Instead of glooping everywhere when you try and slice it into portions, it can be cut easily without everything leeching out everywhere. It's also a lot more cheesy, with thick chunks of milky mozzarella more noticeable than any gooey white bechamel, and the pasta is a star player rather than a supporting role. There is meat sauce, yes, but it's not the whole point of the dish. Obviously I'm basing this on the lasagne I tried, but I suspect it might be a general rule.

I enjoyed comparing the melanzane parmigiana (aubergines baked with parmesan - see below) with my Mum's, which is the only other version I've ever tasted. It was very different, in that the aubergines in this version were clearly cooked into oblivion in huge amounts of oil, giving them a rich, silky, unctuous mouthfeel (both my Mum and I like to fry them in considerably less fat, as we don't want to turn into balls of lard). There was far more mozzarella than in my Mum's version and less tomato sauce, so the whole thing was like a gorgeous slippery pile of oil, cheese and aubergine. Having already devoured tagliatelle with ragu, I couldn't finish all of it, but it was lovely. Especially the burnt cheesy bits on top.

Our first experience of food in Bologna (well, not my first, as I've been before, but my first of the trip) set the tone for the rest. Hungry, having spent the morning and early afternoon on the train, we ambled towards the city centre when I spied what I would call a 'deli' in England but seems to just be the general type of food shop you get in Bologna. Huge legs of Parma ham hung from the ceiling; in the window was a vast array of cheeses, cooked meats, marinated vegetables and antipasti, loaves of bread, and jars of truffle paste and other enticing sauces. In Italy you can usually go into one of these places, somewhere that sells cheese and various meats, and they will have bread behind the counter with which they can make you a sandwich.

Incidentally, a sandwich is a panino. The plural of panino is panini. Which is why every time I hear cafes, bars or people in England refer to 'paninis', I want to die.

If I spy a sign reading 'panini's', not only do I want to die, but I want to bring whoever wrote it with me.

Anyway. I discovered this little-known fact when in Naples several years ago, and it's got me out of many a hungry spot where there seems to be nothing around. You don't really get 'sandwich bars' in Italy as you do here; better to wander into a shop with nice fresh produce and ask them to put it between two slices of bread.

This shop makes the best sandwich in Bologna

So we ended up eyeing the incredible array of charcuterie and cheese, totally bewildered as to what would go with what - I was mentally savouring some large, rotund balls of smoked mozzarella, thick and plump with a mottled brown crust - when the man behind the counter obviously sensed that I am the least decisive person in the entire history of the universe, and told us to have the squacquerone cheese.

Is there a better name for a cheese? Really? Squacquerone. Pronounced 'squack-er-oh-nee'. Amazing.

It's a cheese typical of the Emilia-Romagna region, soft, thick and creamy, runny in places and thicker like cream cheese in others. It actually has a taste reminiscent of those hideous Dairylea triangles: cloying on the palate, but in a pleasant way, with a lovely creamy tang to it. I first had it in a piadina - a thick flatbread traditionally made with pork lard - in Ravenna, where it was coupled with caramelised figs.

Let's talk about caramelised figs, fichi caramellati. You see them everywhere in this region. They're sold in big trays where you buy them by weight, but you can also get them in jars (I bought some to take home). It's always the same product - a big, shining mass of treacle-black pulp, glistening with crunchy seeds and the glossy curve of the collapsed figs it contains. How they get them like that I don't know - they're obviously caramelised into sheer, joyous oblivion, dark as coal and sweet as honey. They sell them in delis, and they also fold them into ricotta gelato where they provide a beautiful contrast in both colour and texture, their rich sweetness offset by the milky ricotta cream. Being a fiend for figs, I try and eat them everywhere I go.

Anyway, once the man had put the squacquerone in our sandwiches, I remembered that piadina in Ravenna (hands down one of the best things I've ever eaten), and asked for some caramelised figs in there too. Then some prosciutto, to balance the sweet figs with a salty tang. I watched him scoop out the glistening figs and smother them over the cheese, then elegantly drape wafer-thin slices of pink prosciutto over the top. I wonder if I actually salivated onto the floor; I can't remember. I do remember he said 'Wonderful!' with genuine delight as he handed us our panini.

There was a bit of a worry when he announced that these two little sandwiches would cost seventeen euros. The problem with having a sandwich made up in this way is you pay for everything in it by weight, which can be expensive if you ask for certain things. I was suddenly horrified that I'd accidentally ordered the most expensive sandwich in history and felt terrible for telling Jon what a great idea it would be to go into this shop...until it turned out the man at the till had accidentally added something costing ten euros onto the bill. Panic over.

You'd be smiling too after a week-long diet of meat, cheese, bread and ice cream.

Needless to say, these little panini were indeed wonderful. He'd used that infamous saltless Tuscan bread, which was great as the fillings were so flavoursome they needed a bland casing. We sat on a monument by the bustling main road and tucked in, getting ourselves totally covered in cheese and sticky figs in the process.

But Bologna isn't just about the savoury stuff. The bakeries also proffer all sorts of wonderful delights, generally quite heavy on the butter, flour and sugar; rustic concoctions based on simple flavour combinations, without any of the faff and whipped cream nonsense of French patisserie. My particular favourite Italian pastry - not typically Bolognese, mind - is crostata. This is essentially a jam tart, but - yet again - the Italians make it so much sexier. An Italian crostata features a very rich, yellow, crumbly pastry encasing or topped with a thick layer of jam. Sometimes the pastry is arranged in a lattice pattern over the jam. The fruit varies - I've had several varieties, but blueberry was a highlight - but in all cases you end up with a crunchy contrast between the very short, buttery pastry and the gooey jam filling, which is sugary and delightful. I bought a huge wedge to eat for breakfast - the only time in my life you'll probably ever find me eating a jam tart for breakfast - filled with sweet, orange apricot jam and sporting a layer of pastry so thick it was basically a biscuit topped with jam. So sugary, but so good with a bitter cappuccino to take the edge off.

Incidentally, I marvel at how much better Italian coffee is than English. I suppose it's to be expected. But I can't quite put my finger on what makes it so much better. I think it's the fact that an Italian cappuccino is half the size of an English one, therefore much more coffee-flavoured and not just like a huge vat of warm milk with a bit of chocolate on top. I quite like its bitterness; it leaves you wanting more, rather than leaving you feeling like you've got a small ocean of lactose swishing around in your intestines. It has the perfect balance of foam/milk/coffee. It's served in a small and dainty cup. Oh, and it's usually about half the price of the English version. I suppose those are all the reasons it's better.

The gelato in Bologna is some of the best I've ever eaten. I'd highly recommend two places: Gelatauro, which is recommended in the Bocca di Lupo cookbook; and Sorbetteria Castiglione. At the former, we devoured unusual flavours like pumpkin and cinnamon; Sicilian sponge cake with almond and pistachio; coffee, chocolate and whipped cream (see below for our spoils). The pumpkin and cinnamon was really wonderful, as was the ginger gelato. Sorbetteria Castiglione (which, incidentally, doesn't just do sorbet) is somewhere I've been before; it offers unusual and inventive combinations under the names of people - I had the 'Dolce Emma', which comprised ricotta, lemon and caramelised figs, but there's also the Michelangelo, Karin and Edoardo  - as well as two sublime sorbets: pear and cinnamon, and papaya.

The colourful fascia of a Parma street

While in Bologna we went on a day trip to Parma. I have fond memories of Parma, having stayed there on a school exchange during sixth form. I chiefly remember the lovely family I stayed with feeding me cake every day for breakfast. I was in heaven. I mentioned to them casually that I liked salmon, and the next day was treated to two courses of salmon in various forms at dinner. So I was rather surprised when I recognised precisely none of Parma. I thought at least the main street would ring a bell, but I may as well have never been there before. Perhaps my 17 year old self was too busy worrying about important teenage things like the fit of her jeans or a spot on her chin to notice her elegant surroundings; Parma is a beautiful city. It's also ranked one of the wealthiest in Italy, and you can tell. 'Well-heeled' is perhaps the term I'd use to describe its denizens.

I thought Parma was the city of the pig. Home of the eponymous ham, they absolutely love the stuff there. Every meal seems to start with a platter of cured pig in various forms. They even love their pig so much that restaurants use special pig-shaped boards to write their daily specials on ('oggi' means 'today'):

I didn't realise that it may also be the city of the horse. We stumbled upon the above restaurant while looking for another recommended restaurant which turned out to be closed. Hungry and tired, we figured we could do worse, and the menu featured 'ravioli della zucca' (pumpkin ravioli), which meant I had to go in. I was astonished by the sheer amount of horse on offer. Horse steak, roast horse, horse salad, horse tartare. There was a 'trio of horsemeat' main course available. I watched an Italian tucking into a huge bloody steak that, judging by its dark purplish colour, could only be horse meat. I got to try some of the horse tartare as part of our shared starter, and I was pleasantly surprised. I've never tried beef tartare, but I imagine horse tartare is very similar - it has a clean, mild flavour with only a hint of ferrous meatiness, and a lovely melt-in-the-mouth texture. Jon hardly touched it, perhaps put off by the idea of eating something equine.

At this restaurant - Osteria dello Zingaro (which means 'The Inn of the Gypsy') - we had one of the best meals of the trip. Having watched enviously as a group of very stylish Italian ladies at the adjacent table tucked into enormous, fresh, vibrant salads, I found myself suddenly conscious of a craving for vegetables, having eaten little else but cheese, meat and bread over the past few days. One of the salads looked particularly wonderful - a huge platter of cured meats, cheeses, marinated vegetables, fresh vegetables, olive oil and eggs. It was just the nutritional boost I needed, and absolutely delicious. We shared it, piling its contents onto bread rolls and devouring the lot, horse tartare included. Looking over at that other table, I couldn't help but think of the 'Mediterranean diet' concept that is so bandied around these days. Those salads were huge and satisfying, but undoubtedly healthy too. If only you could get something that simple yet that nutritious and delicious over here.

For our main course, we abandoned the healthy idea and had pumpkin ravioli. This has to be one of my favourite ever Italian dishes; I seek it out wherever I go, though you're only really likely to find it in the Emilia-Romagna region. I first tried it on another school exchange in Mantova, where I remember being horrified and disgusted at the notion of eating something that, hitherto, I'd only thought fit for a Halloween decoration. This was at the age of 14 when I refused to eat anything that wasn't fish fingers or cheese sandwiches, so it's unsurprising. Now I'm kicking myself for not appreciating it properly when I was lucky enough to eat it in an Italian home.

Anyway, pumpkin ravioli is one of the best things man has ever invented. Soft pillows encasing a sweet, fluffy, rich filling, that are then drenched in melted butter (sometimes with a little sage added) and smothered in parmesan cheese. The salty butter and cheese counteract the sweet pumpkin, and the overall effect is just culinary magic. I'm looking at that picture now and I can practically taste it. I used my bread to wipe every last buttery, cheesy morsel from the plate. It was perfect.

Our last supper in Italy consisted of pizza. It kind of had to, really. We went twice to the lovely La Scalinatella in Bologna, where the pizzas are enormous and have that perfect balance of crisp and dough to their bases. We drank cheap fizzy wine and devoured every morsel of cheesy, meaty, tomatoey goodness. Their pizza menu is surprisingly short, which I always think is a good sign - it was just full of simple, classic Italian combinations; not a ham and pineapple or a Cajun chicken in sight, thank God.

What really sticks in my mind, though, is a dessert I had there and had to have again the next night because it was so good. It was a chunky slice of pastiera Napoletana, a traditional Easter cake from Naples that features a pastry crust encasing an unusual mixture of sweetened ricotta, wheat, eggs and candied fruit. Sometimes they add orange blossom to the ricotta, sometimes they use pastry cream. The result is like a cheesecake pie, a fabulous contrast between the crisp pastry and the smooth, sweet, creamy filling with a hint of vanilla and the bite of candied citrus peel. It was just gorgeous; rich, light, sweet and buttery. It's on my list to recreate at home; as a lover of cheesecake and tarts in equal measure, this beautiful combination of the two can't go untasted until my next trip to Italy. It just can't.

I think the people of Parma are right. After writing all this, I do feel like I am eating every one of these dishes again. Yet without the waistline expansion or severe sensation of having eaten a lead balloon. It's simultaneously wonderful and depressing, reminding me of what I'm missing while at the same time making me feel grateful that I will not pass my life without knowing the succulent bite of an octopus and farro salad, the joyous sticky crunch of a seeded fig and walnut panforte, or the astringent sweetness of a lemon cake flavoured ice cream. Without staring in awestruck anticipation at a deli counter brimming with glistening fresh cheese and marbled, candy-coloured slabs of cured meats. Without strolling sunlit porticoes taking delicate mouthfuls of creamy, buttery pumpkin-flavoured ice cream and looking forward to a strong cappuccino to wash it all down. Without experiencing the satisfaction of biting into a square of ravioli brimming with fresh fish and toothy artichokes.

Permit me my bout of self-indulgence as I return in my mind to these happy pasta-slurping memories. I just hope this post goes to show that there is so much more to Italian cuisine than you'll ever find on a Zizzi or Pizza Express menu.

(Incidentally, thank you to Jon for allowing me to use some of his photos)

Five things I love this week #3

There's a definite autumnal feel to my 'five things' this week; that much is evident from the muted beige tones of these photos. After a wonderfully warm October, I think I'm finally ready to embrace the onset of autumn, and all the delicious produce it brings with it. 

1. Wild mushroom and truffle risotto. I've been craving risotto ever since I had a beautiful starter at the Yorke Arms last week: truffled partridge boudin with ceps and carnaroli rice. The rice was a gorgeous risotto-like concoction, heady with the musky fragrance of truffle, the rice still with a little bite to it, creamy and savoury and incredibly delicious. I couldn't ignore my truffle/risotto cravings any longer, and succumbed with this lovely recipe. 

It's a standard risotto to which I added chopped chestnut mushrooms when frying the onion and garlic; I also used soaked porcini mushrooms and added their soaking water to the chicken stock used to plump up the rice. The risotto is finished off with some pan-fried girolle and shiitake mushrooms (shockingly expensive, but a nice little luxury, and so much more interesting to eat and look at than standard mushrooms), a drizzle of truffle oil, lots of lemon thyme leaves and a hefty grating of parmesan. Savoury, umami-rich wonderfulness. 

2. Pumpkins and winter squash. It's easy to just pick up the knee-jerk butternut when planning winter squash recipes, but the other day I discovered these beauties at the farmers market. I think the pale blue one is a Crown Prince squash; the others I'm not too sure about. 

I cut them all into chunks (risking life and limb and a hernia in the process; who needs a gym when you can spend an evening hacking your way through an unyielding orb of orange?) and roasted them with olive oil, salt, pepper and lots of chopped fresh rosemary. They softened into intensely flavoursome, sweet, fudgy deliciousness. Their flesh was much more dense and full-flavoured than your standard butternut squash, while the skin went beautifully dark and caramelly. 

I served them alongside roast partridge (recipe to come) and also mixed them with some couscous, feta and cherry tomatoes for a salad. Winter squash are great with anything salty, like bacon, feta or goats cheese. The possibilities are pretty much endless. I'm definitely going to seek out different kinds of squash in future (and perhaps an axe to chop them with). 

3. Fig and orange cobbler. Figs and oranges are a surprisingly successful combination (my aim this autumn is to discover all possible partners for the wonderful fig - raspberries and oranges are two of my new finds). Mix sliced figs and segmented oranges (about eight figs and two oranges) with a little dark sugar and a splash of rum, orange juice or grand marnier in a pie dish. Dollop on this cobbler topping, then bake for half an hour or so until the fruit releases its beautiful garnet juices and the topping is crisp and crunchy. This also works wonderfully as a crumble, especially if you mix some oats and almonds or hazelnuts into the crumble mixture. The figs soften and the oranges become really sweet and flavoursome, and the combination together is juicy, fragrant and delicious. Add some good vanilla ice cream and devour: autumn in a bowl.

4. Porridge with apple and quince compote. A delicious, unusual and thoroughly seasonal way to start an autumn day. Simply simmer peeled, chopped quince in a little water and lemon juice until almost tender. Don't throw away the cores and peel - simmer those covered in water in a separate pan while you cook the quince. Add a few sliced cooking/Cox apples to the chopped quince (peel if you like - I only bother if they're quite big, otherwise it's too fiddly) and the water from the quince cores and peel, and cook until the apples start to disintegrate. You should have a lovely, pale gold bowl of fragrant goodness. You can add sugar, but I don't think it needs it - quince is sweet enough on its own. This is lovely on hot porridge scattered with a few blackberries.

5. The Great British Food Revival. A brilliant programme all about championing British produce that is in danger of being sidelined by foreign imports, putting us back in touch with our food heritage and urging us to save those traditional ingredients from extinction (think peas, pears, crab, pork, potatoes...). I loved the first series, and the second is just as good, judging from what I've seen so far: Gregg Wallace extolling the virtues of Yorkshire rhubarb, an ingredient very close to my heart and one that I hoard like a mad person during its short season. There's still some in my freezer. He comes up with some unusual and delicious recipes that I can't wait to try.

While on the subject, I love Gregg Wallace. I think he has an honest and immensely refreshing attitude to food. None of this poncing around with silly descriptions about umami, mouthfeel and acidity. He simply says "it's like a hug from the pudding angel". If that isn't a concise and accurate description of a dessert, I don't know what is. He is entirely unpretentious and seems like a genuinely nice, fun person. And I'm not just saying this because he likes rhubarb, though that does win anyone brownie points in my eyes.

I'm also looking forward to seeing Valentine Warner's contribution to the show, mainly because I had lunch with him a couple of months ago and am childish enough to get excited about having met people who appear on TV.

Chicken stuffed with 'nduja and ricotta

Spare a thought for the humble chicken breast. Often sliced from the frail bone of that saddest of spectacles, the battery chicken, this piece of meat is so often maligned. It's hacked up and tossed into curries and stews where its fibres are abandoned to toughness and aridity. It's baked in the oven, the noble cook erring so much on the side of caution, so much against the notion of juices running anything but crystal clear, that it ends up possessing the texture of leather. There it sits on the plate, a sad, withered relic of that former chicken, perhaps oozing an unpleasant looking substance as evidence that it has been injected with water during packaging and processing. No amount of flavoursome sauce is going to disguise the mouth-puckering dryness of this overcooked piece of meat; no amount of chewing is going to render it anything more than simply satisfactory.

I hardly ever buy chicken breast any more. The main reason for this is rather mundane: it's too damn expensive. Since I am unable to buy anything other than free range (my conscience won't let me, especially after my post on battery chickens), I just can't afford to buy it more than a couple of times a month. Two free range chicken breasts notched up an impressive seven pounds in Tesco the other day; I could get a whole chicken for not much more than that from a decent butcher.

I've also discovered thighs.

Oh yes, people. Sweet, succulent, rich, meaty thighs. (We're still talking about chicken here). Chicken thighs are my cut of choice for most dishes now. This is nothing new in the world of cookery, as writers like Nigella have been saying this for years, but I never really paid attention until recently. I'm a complete thigh convert: the meat is cheaper, much more flavoursome, less likely to dry out, and stands up more readily to spices and other strong flavourings. If you take the skin off, it doesn't have much more fat than chicken breast, which often seems the cut of choice for a lot of people because of its leanness. Thighs, skinless or otherwise, retain their moisture better than breast, making them much more suited to long cooking in a stew or curry.

However, there is still a place for the chicken breast in my kitchen. Because of its high price tag, I've decided it's almost sacrilegious to hack up the poor thing for use in stews and the like. Instead, I feel a good, free-range chicken breast should be cooked whole, as you would a steak.

Yet there is a problem with this idea. As discussed above, a whole chicken breast dries out very readily in a pan or oven. Poaching it in stock can help, and then you can thinly slice it and add it to dishes such as risotto or Asian recipes, but another way around this is to stuff the meat with something to keep it moist. Not that this always works, mind - I remember a dinner event a few months ago at which we were served chicken breast stuffed with (I think) ricotta and basil. Nice idea, but the execution failed. The meat was incredibly dry, no doubt because the caterers had cooked it to death to avoid any salmonella scares. The stuffing had also become rather arid, and most of it had leaked out of the meat thereby making its purpose redundant. I rarely leave food on my plate unless I don't like it, but I recall leaving half of mine simply because I couldn't be bothered to chew my way through the thing. I may as well have taken off my shoes and tried to eat them.

However, careful cooking and a good choice of stuffing can turn the chicken breast into a thing of joy to eat. I think I've happened, here, on the best possible choice of stuffing: 'nduja, the super-trendy spreadable Calabrian salami that I blogged about recently. I've been thinking of recipes to use up the large quantity in my fridge courtesy of Unearthed, and this came to me out of the blue.

Combined with creamy ricotta, the 'nduja makes an incredible stuffing. Its piquant chilli heat is tempered by the cheese, meaning you don't burn your tonsils off, and it melts in the heat of the oven, flavouring the chicken meat around it while keeping it lovely and moist. I decided to wrap the chicken in parma ham, which helps to conserve even more moisture. At first I was worried that it might be pork overload, but actually 'nduja and parma ham have such different flavours that they complement each other - you get the spicy, rich mouthfeel from the 'nduja and then the crisp saltiness of the parma ham, which is a lovely contrast in texture with the chicken. It just works. The meaty texture of the chicken breast against the crumbly ricotta, fragrant with chilli and pork, is a thing of joy to eat.

I also added lots of fresh oregano to the stuffing, which worked really well. I don't think I've ever seen fresh oregano on sale over here, but it's a world away from the dried stuff that is synonymous with pizza topping. It's hard to describe its flavour; quite zesty and lemony, and very strong. We have loads growing in our garden (it grows like a weed), but you could substitute basil or lemon thyme very effectively - you want something quite citrussy and strong to cut through the richness of the 'nduja and parma ham. Even parsley would do.

I served this magnificent chicken on a bed of cannellini beans, roasted cherry tomatoes and spinach, again flavoured with lots of fresh oregano, as well as garlic-infused olive oil, salt and pepper. This recipe is incredibly simple, as it all goes in one dish in the oven. It takes 10 minutes to prepare, around 40 to cook, and you can do other things (like salivate in anticipation, or ceremoniously don a bib in preparation) while you wait. The spinach, with its iron tang, is the perfect match for the rich chicken, and the tomatoes go very well with the herbs, ricotta and pork. You don't need a sauce or anything, because the tomatoes, 'nduja and spinach release a lot of flavoursome liquid into the beans.

I should warn you  - when you get a sharp knife and pierce the chicken breast at the thickest part to check it is ready, remember that you've stuffed it with a load of bright red salami. I was horrified when I did this to discover scarlet liquid pouring out of the chicken after 30 minutes in the oven. How on earth could it be so bloody after all that time? It took me a good few seconds to realise that this was not, in fact, the precious lifeblood of that noble bird, but in fact the chilli-infused oils from the 'nduja. Panic over.

Chicken stuffed with 'nduja and wrapped in parma ham (serves 4):

[If you like this recipe, have a look at my other recipe featuring 'nduja: octopus, fennel and 'nduja risotto]

• 2 x 400g cans cannellini beans
• A large handful cherry tomatoes, halved
• 2 tbsp garlic-infused olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
• 4 tbsp fresh oregano leaves (or another herb of your choice)
• Half a bag of baby spinach (around 150g)
• 4 free-range chicken breasts
• 30g 'nduja
• 100g ricotta
• Salt and pepper
• 8 slices of parma ham

Pre-heat the oven to 180C/fan 170C. In a large baking dish, toss the cannellini beans with the garlic oil, cherry tomatoes, spinach, salt and pepper, and half the oregano.

Mix the rest of the oregano into the ricotta, along with salt and pepper. Slice each chicken breast lengthways, almost in half but not quite, to create a pocket for stuffing. Spread a quarter of the 'nduja into the gap, then a quarter of the ricotta. Place two slices of parma ham next to each other on a chopping board, slightly overlapping, then wrap the chicken in them. Place on top of the cannellini beans and spinach mixture.

Repeat with the remaining chicken, ricotta, ham and 'nduja. Season the wrapped chicken breasts, drizzle with a little more garlic oil, then place in the oven for 40 minutes or until the chicken is cooked and opaque at its thickest part, and its juices run clear (it's quite hard to tell because of the red 'nduja stuffing, so err on the side of caution). Serve immediately on a bed of more baby spinach.

'Nduja, octopus and fennel risotto

'Spreadable' is not a good look for a foodstuff. 

'Spreadable' generally indicates a deterioration in quality, some sort of tampering that has gone on with a once proud ingredient to reduce it to a sad, pliable fraction of its former self. Spreadable butter? Well, it's not really butter, is it? It's a weird butter/oil hybrid that comes in a tub. Spreadable cheese? Not to be confused with cream cheese, which at least has natural origins, spreadable cheese often comes in a squeezy tube like toothpaste and looks like the sort of thing you might seal bathroom tiles with.

One of the most disgusting things I have ever let grace my field of vision was a tub of 'spreadable bacon'. I found it, of all places, in the Home section of TK Maxx. Needless to say, it was in the Clearance aisle. I had a quick look at the ingredients before I rushed off to be sick in one of their designer handbags, and managed to infer that this hideous concoction was a sort of bacon-mayonnaise love child, the kind of thing Dante meant to put in his fifth circle of hell but forgot because one of his minions popped over with an espresso and wanted to have a chat about the Papacy.

I don't feel I should post this link, lest I be seen to endorse 'baconnaise', but it's so horrible that it almost defies belief, so I feel the need to provide incontrovertible evidence as to the existence of this travesty.

With all these things in mind, the notion of 'spreadable salami' is not enormously enticing. When I mention it to people, they have a tendency to look a bit confused and slightly disgusted.

However, this is not the result of some preservative-wielding, meat- and mayonnaise-loving Americans. This spreadable salami is called 'nduja, and is in fact a long-established speciality of Calabria in southern Italy (the 'toe' of the boot), a comparatively poor region of Italy but one that is fast becoming famous for its DOP (protected origin) cured meats.

'Nduja is made by kneading ground pork together with seasoning and Calabrian chilli peppers. This is then encased in the pig's intestinal lining (don't get all squeamish...it's no different to your sausages) before it is smoked and allowed to rest for several months. The result is similar to chorizo in its vibrant red-orange colouring and smoky, spicy flavour, but the difference is that this variety is soft and spreadable. It's also intensely spicy, due to the liberal amounts of high quality Calabrian pepper. The pigs for the 'nduja roam freely on small-scale farms, feeding on chestnuts and foraging in woods for food, which contributes to the rich flavour of the meat; the welfare standards for 'nduja pigs are impressive, most of them living well for at least two years before being slaughtered. 'Nduja is made from the throat meat and fat, though the pork is also used to make pancetta and various other pig products.

For more information about the origins of 'nduja, you can read Rose Prince's excellent article, published in the Telegraph a little while ago. One thing she failed to include, however, and which all articles on 'nduja seem to omit, is how to pronounce the thing. This, to me, seems rather a large oversight, as I imagine your average consumer would look at the word and be more than a little flummoxed. With good reason, too - even the Italian lodger staying at our house a couple of weeks ago had never heard of 'nduja and had to guess at how to pronounce it. He declared that it was some sort of southern dialect word, hence the odd initial apostrophe and use of 'j', a letter usually absent from the Italian alphabet.

In case you were wondering, you pronounce it "un-DOO-ya". Anyway, I was lucky enough to receive a sample of Calabrian 'nduja from the kind people at Unearthed, purveyors of authentic meat, cheese and deli products from around the globe (I previously wrote about their olives and chorizo). I was seriously excited about this. 'Nduja is one of the trendiest ingredients around at the moment; it's cropping up everywhere on blogs, twitter and the national papers, so I was glad to be able to jump on the bandwagon. I was beginning to feel a little bit like the kid standing lonely in the corner of the playground because all the other kids have this season's must-have new toy and he/she doesn't.

I just couldn't, for the life of me, imagine what 'spreadable salami' would taste like. I managed to glean from seasoned foodie James Ramsden that it is "pretty punchy", but other than that, I was in the dark. I suppose it was rather brave of me, then, to come up with an entire recipe based on what I imagined 'nduja would taste like. Fortunately, it worked extremely well.

How best to describe the elusive 'nduja? It is very reminiscent of chorizo, with its smoky flavours and the gorgeous scarlet oils it exudes. However, it is substantially spicier than most chorizo and, of course, is soft. Not quite as soft and spreadable as pâté; it doesn't quite have that smooth, mousse-like texture, but is a little more fibrous. I love its beautiful brick-red colouring, so vibrant and full of life and flavour. It has a buttery, rich mouthfeel that contributes an intensely savoury flavour to whatever you use it with. It's also easier to cook with than chorizo; you can just stir it into cooked pasta or risotto, or spread it on pizza - no need to bother with pre-cooking.

Unearthed suggest coupling their 'nduja with pasta and fresh ricotta. I think this would be a delightful combination; the spicy, rich 'nduja clinging to the slippery strands of pasta, mellowed out by clouds of sweet, crumbly ricotta. This combination would also work well as bruschetta, I think. Seeing as this is a relatively new ingredient to our shores, there are few existing recipes out there, which I find immensely inspiring. I loved the sound of Rose Prince's 'nduja batch buns, though, and she had some great recipe suggestions here. I have a few more ideas up my sleeve, but for now I'll share my 'nduja debut with you.

This involved cooking a whole octopus. One of the more adventurous things I've done in the kitchen of late, this was a challenge I just couldn't refuse after I found a small octopus from the fish counter in the reduced section of Tesco for under £3. It's always a gamble buying wrapped stuff from the fish or meat counters, because you can't see it and have no idea what you're getting - it'll just say "sea bass", or "salmon", and you have no idea if there's one fillet in there or four. To get an idea of what I was letting myself in for, I went over to the counter and had a quick look at the whole octopi splayed there on the ice. They were, as I had suspected, completely intact.

I had absolutely no idea how one cooks whole octopus, having only prepared squid before, but I remembered a recipe for it in Jamie Oliver's Italian cookbook. Essentially, you just steam it, as you would mussels or clams, but for longer, until it is soft and - also like mussels and clams - has released loads of delicious broth. It goes beautifully tender - still a little bit chewy, but that's just the natural texture of cephalopods - with a lovely rich, gelatinous skin and dense, sweet flesh. You can then slice it up and add it to whatever dish you fancy. The smell as it cooks, along with a little parsley, garlic, lemon and olive oil, is truly sumptuous.

I settled on octopus because I initially wanted to pair the 'nduja with crab or squid. Squid works so well with chorizo, its sweet mildness mellowing out the rich spice of the meat. It's one of those surf and turf combinations that is immensely successful. I figured octopus would work just as well, and for £3 I couldn't really say no. Originally I was going to cook pasta, stirring the 'nduja in at the end and tossing it with rings of squid, but I had a real craving for risotto, so just adapted the recipe in my head to suit rice instead. I still want to try out a 'nduja spaghetti with crab, though. Risotto works better with octopus, I think, as the pieces of flesh are quite chunky and not really suited to tossing with pasta.

This is a basic risotto recipe, using fish stock as well as the delicious cooking liquor exuded by the octopus. There's some fennel in there, because it goes really well with both pork and seafood. There's parsley and lemon juice, to cut through the richness of the 'nduja. Other than that, it's just octopus, 'nduja, and rice: I stirred the 'nduja in right at the end, tasting along the way as my risotto was transformed from mild and comforting to meaty, moreish and fiery.

The creamy risotto base is the perfect vehicle for the heat of the salami, tempering it so that it just contributes a lovely savoury mouthfeel with a whisper of spice, rather than something that immolates your tonsils. The pieces of sweet, meaty octopus provide a lovely contrast in texture to the creamy rice and crunchy pieces of fennel. For something so low in fat and good for you, octopus is surprisingly rich and filling.

I really liked this risotto. It was the first time I'd cooked octopus, and I'm now a convert to its unusual flavour and texture. It was the first time I'd tried 'nduja, and I'm definitely now a convert to its versatility, beautiful colours and moreish flavour; an addictive combination of fat, smoke and spice.

If you're not already racing along on it, I'd suggest you jump on that 'nduja bandwagon now, before it gets too crowded.

'Nduja and octopus risotto (serves 4):

• One octopus, around 1kg, rinsed
• A large bunch of parsley
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• Olive oil
• 1 lemon
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• Half a bulb of fennel, finely chopped
• A small glass of white wine
• 300g risotto rice
• 1 litre fish stock (keep warm in a pan on the hob)
• Salt and pepper
• 1-2 tbsp 'nduja (or more if you like it really spicy)

First, cook the octopus. Heat 2-3 tbsp olive oil in a large pan with a lid, and fry two of the garlic  cloves until softening. Add the stalks of the parsley and the zest of the lemon and fry for another minute until fragrant, then add the octopus. Put the lid on the pan and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the octopus is tender to the point of a knife. It should release lots of delicious cooking liquor in this time - save this. Give the pan a shake every now and again while it's cooking.

Meanwhile, prepare the risotto. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large non-stick frying pan and sauté the onion and fennel over a medium heat until softening. Add the rest of the garlic, and continue to cook until golden and soft. Add the risotto rice and another tbsp olive oil, and stir for a minute or so to coat the rice in the oil - it will start to turn translucent around the edges.

Pour in the wine and wait until it has bubbled away. Then add a couple of ladlefuls of fish stock, and stir the rice until the stock has been completely absorbed. Add another ladleful, and continue to add bit by bit, waiting until all the liquid has been absorbed before adding the next lot.

After a few ladlefuls of stock have been absorbed, use the cooking liquid from the octopus instead of the stock (it'll have turned a weird pinkish-brown colour). When you've used it all up, carry on using stock to finish the risotto.

After about 25 minutes, the rice should be nearly ready. Taste to check - it should have a little bite but not be chalky. Stir in the juice of half a lemon and some finely chopped parsley, and season to taste. Finely slice the rest of the fennel bulb using a mandolin or sharp knife, and stir this into the risotto.

Remove the cooked octopus from the pan and slice into small pieces, discarding the white frothy stuff from the centre of its head. Stir these into the risotto (I saved the tentacles for a garnish) along with the 'nduja - taste as you go to check how much 'nduja you want to put in there, as it's quite spicy. You may also want to add the rest of the lemon juice.

Finish by sprinkling with a little more parsley, the octopus tentacles, and a good grinding of black pepper.

Sage-crusted veal with summer vegetables

Sage is a herb I rarely use. I think, like most English people, I associate it simply with the stuffing for the Christmas turkey, or other heavy, pork-laden winter fare. When I think of cooking with herbs, I think of gorgeous, vibrant bunches of coriander, with their bright, yellow-green leaves the exact colour of ripe limes. I think of feathery dill, in large quivering bunches, with its slender leaves like little jade needles. I think of fresh mint, possibly my favourite aroma in the world, reminiscent of lemons in its freshness. I once stalked a small boy halfway across the suburbs of Marrakech because he was carrying the biggest bunch of mint I've ever seen in my life, and it was perfuming the surrounding air with its zesty scent. I think of the sharp, astringent, aniseedy snap of fresh basil or the beautiful delicacy of a sprig of thyme, barely wider than one of my own hairs, with its tiny pointed leaves, those ready for picking sporting a delightful purple blush where they meet the stem. I had never noticed this until a chef I once worked for pointed it out to me, instructing me to harvest only the leaves with a deep, flushed underside for whatever dish he was cooking at the time. But rarely do I think of the braille-like pebbly texture of sage leaves, the muted jade green of a Regency drawing room, with their deeply aromatic and somehow comforting scent; designed, it seems, to be paired with other comfort foods to bring cheer in the darkest winter.

Perhaps this is unfair, though, and a gross underestimation of the potential of poor old overlooked sage (or even downright maligned - Elizabeth David dismissed it as having a "musty, dried blood scent" that "deadens" food). I was going to say there must be a reason why supermarkets sell this herb all year round, not just at Christmas, but then I realised that supermarkets sell most things all year round, and that is no indication of their quality - just think of hideous, crunchy, sour strawberries in November, or bitter Peruvian asparagus even when the tender English crop is in full swing. However, there is definitely a case to be made for bringing sage out of the winter period it is often consigned to. Sadly, it seems that Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall got there first in the fight to rehabilitate this lovely herb with his article in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago, but hopefully this is another recipe that will help to support his case.

There has been a gorgeous piece of veal sitting in my freezer for a couple of months now, from the Real Food Festival. While the burgers and sausages have been barbecued, and the rump steak served as veal saltimbocca, the little silverside roasting joint has languished, saved for a special occasion that kept failing to arise. Finally, the stars aligned to produce the perfect opportunity for this diminutive joint: it was a Sunday, the weather was beautiful but not too hot, my boyfriend and I had nowhere important to be, and we both wanted a good roast dinner. Despite the bizarre weather of late, it is still July, and therefore a full roast with all the heavy trimmings (Yorkshire puddings, thick dark gravy, the spiky caramelised edges of golden root vegetables) doesn't seem appropriate. Instead, I came up with this much lighter variation on a roast dinner; satisfying, flavoursome, but still full of summer.

I wanted to serve the meat fairly plain, because it seemed too lovely to mess around with. One of my favourite ways to serve simple, fast-cooking joints of meat like fillet or rack of lamb is to roll them in a crust of herbs, nuts or spices (or all three). That way the beautiful interior of the meat still captures attention, but it both looks nicer and has a bit of textural contrast to accentuate it. I decided to use sage for the veal crust, because it pairs so well with veal (as in the classic veal saltimbocca, where veal steaks are wrapped in Parma ham and sage leaves). The crust is a variation on Italian gremolata, a mixture of very finely chopped parsley, lemon zest and garlic. It's best known for being sprinkled over osso bucco, a dish of braised veal shin on the bone usually served with saffron risotto. The mixture of these zesty, tangy ingredients perfectly balances the unctuous richness of braised meat and marrow. I used sage instead of parsley, and added a few breadcrumbs to the mixture as well to help it crisp up in the oven.

After searing the veal in a very hot pan (I relish that sizzling noise), I brushed it with a little mustard and rolled it in the sage, lemon and garlic mix. It then went in the oven on top of a bed of mushrooms and sliced leeks. I completely guessed the timing for the meat, as I couldn't find any reliable guidelines as to roasting times for a joint this small, but it worked perfectly (to my immense delight, especially after the tragedy that was my recent beef topside, planned to be oozing blood and instead dry and mealy throughout, probably due to my overactive oven). I kept the accompaniments as simple as possible: boiled and steamed summer vegetables (carrots, broccoli, peas and broad beans), and tiny baby new potatoes roasted in their skins until crackly and burnished gold. Instead of gravy, I poured a glass of rosé into the hot roasting tin with the mushrooms and leeks; it formed a dark, flavoursome jus with the earthiness of mushrooms and a slight sweetness from the wine (which, incidentally, was horrible wine to drink, more akin to an energy drink than anything vinified, but lovely for cooking with).

The colours of this dish are perfect for summer: the vegetables are wonderfully vibrant against the muted pastel pink and green of the crusted veal. It is beautifully tender (and apparently even better the next day, thinly sliced in a bagel with mustard and rocket, as my boyfriend informs me), the fat rendered into crispness and the sage, lemon and garlic accentuating the rich, slightly bloody meat. Add to that a crunchy canvas of summer vegetables and a trickle of light gravy, and you have the perfect meal for a warm summer evening with a glass of chilled white wine. Possibly the best part is the mushroom and leek mixture I roasted the veal on; the mushrooms absorb all the meat juices as well as the wine from the gravy, meaning they are beautifully caramelised but also saturated with flavoursome juice. The sage really brings the dish together, infusing its subtle perfume throughout the meat and vegetables. 

It really does deserve its year-round place on the supermarket shelf after all.

Sage-crusted veal with summer vegetables (serves 2, with leftovers):

• 10 baby new potatoes
• Salt and pepper
• Dried herbs, for the potatoes
• 500g silverside joint of veal
• 10g sage leaves
• 3 cloves garlic
• Zest of a lemon
• A slice of bread
• Olive oil
• 2 tsp mustard
• A punnet of mushrooms
• 2 leeks, sliced
• Half a head of broccoli, cut into florets
• 1 carrot, finely diced
• 500g broad beans, podded
• A couple of handfuls frozen peas
• A knob of butter
• A glass of rosé wine

Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Toss the potatoes in a little olive oil, salt and pepper and your choice of dried herbs. Place in a small roasting tray and place in the oven. They will take about 30-40 minutes to cook, but it does no harm to leave them in for longer while the veal roasts.

Place the sage, garlic, lemon and bread in a blender and pulse until finely chopped. Spread out on a plate.

Heat a little olive oil in a heavy-based ovenproof pan until almost smoking, then place the veal in the pan. Sear on all sides until golden brown, then brush with mustard and roll in the sage mixture to coat thoroughly.

Place the mushrooms and leeks in the pan then place the veal on top. Put in the oven and roast for about 25 minutes, for medium-rare meat. Remove the meat from the oven, place on a carving board and cover with foil. Rest for 10-15 minutes. Keep the mushrooms and leeks in the oven.

While the meat is resting, boil the peas and broad beans, and if you have a steamer, steam the broccoli and carrots over the top. If not, just boil everything together (do the carrots and broccoli first, as they take longer). Toss the cooked vegetables with the butter and some salt and pepper.

When ready to serve, place the vegetables and cooked potatoes on a plate, slice the veal thinly and arrange over the top. Pour the wine into the mushroom and leek pan; it should hiss and bubble. Stir the pan to deglaze, and serve this over the top of the meat and vegetables.

Veal saltimbocca

I was forced into making this meal by my absolute cretin of a housemate who left the freezer door open all night, resulting in a lot of my prized, hoarded and expensive ingredients turning into a pile of bacteria-riddled mush. If you can sense a deep underlying streak of sheer rage in the previous sentence, you would be correct. I won't, however, bore you with an account of how I'd like to inflict upon him a slow and agonising death involving frostbite and salmonella. Instead, I will look on the bright side: I had to find a quick use for a packet of veal rump steak that had completely thawed into supple, cookable goodness.

I bought this veal from Bocaddon Farm at the Real Food Festival. I've had their veal before and it's always delicious; it's a treat I rarely allow myself, as it's pretty expensive at the butchers lately, but Bocaddon had a lot of offers on at the festival, so I traipsed home laden with sausages, burgers, a roasting joint and this steak. It's ethical veal, not the hideous anaemic stuff you get in Europe, so it's both delicious and welfare-friendly. The steak tastes quite like beef, but much milder, and its colour is closer to pork.

Initially I was going to sear the steaks and serve them with a creamy mushroom sauce, but then I remembered the Italian classic dish, saltimbocca. I love the name of this dish: it literally means 'jumps in the mouth'. And it really does: the combination of parma ham, veal and fried sage, cooked in marsala, is a salty, meaty, slightly sweet marriage made in heaven. The Italians do wonderful things with sage, far more interesting than the Christmas pork stuffing which is about as far as we Brits go. One of the best things I've ever eaten was a plate of meat-filled casoncelli pasta in a trattoria in Bergamo, served with a simple sage butter sauce. In Ferrara I had the same sauce over a plate of pumpkin-stuffed ravioli. The combination of sage and butter over meaty or sweet pumpkin pasta is utterly divine.

This dish is one of the easiest I've ever made. I also love how it has such Italian colours: the white and red of the parma ham with the green of the sage leaves is like a little Italian flag on your plate. I wrapped the veal steaks in parma ham, enclosing a few sage leaves, seasoned them, and pan-fried them to rare. I kept them warm while I deglazed the pan with sherry (marsala is way too expensive for my student budget), added a little arrowroot to thicken the sauce, and then served them on a pile of polenta, with sautéed mushrooms and green beans. The parma ham makes the steaks quite salty, but it's balanced out by the perfume of the sage leaves and then the very sweet sherry sauce. Satisfying and delicious. Not bad for something that arose from an act of selfish appliance-related ineptitude. Apparently writing this blog post did not prove cathartic enough - the anger is still there.

Veal saltimbocca (serves 2):

• 2 veal steaks
• 2-4 slices parma ham
• Sage leaves
• Salt and pepper
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 200ml sherry or marsala
• 1 tsp arrowroot or cornflour mixed with 1 tsp cold water
• Polenta and vegetables, to serve

Lay a few sage leaves over the veal steaks. Season. Wrap one or two slices of parma ham around each steak to enclose the leaves.

Heat the oil in a frying pan until smoking. Add the steaks; cook for a couple of minutes on each side (or longer, depending on how cooked you like your meat and how thick your steaks are). Remove to a plate and cover with foil to rest while you make the sauce.

Throw a sprig of sage into the pan. Pour the sherry into the hot pan and stir to deglaze. Let it bubble for a minute or so, then stir in the arrowroot mixture to thicken the sauce. Taste and check the seasoning; it should be quite sweet. Pour over the veal steaks, and serve with polenta or mash, and your choice of vegetables.

Roast beef, truffled polenta and summer vegetables

I don't exaggerate when I say that I can count on one hand the number of times I have cooked beef. I've made a couple of beef stews; a gorgeous warming one with ale, carrots and onions on bonfire night a few years ago, which was the perfect antidote to standing around in the freezing cold to watch the pretty lights in the sky; this rather delicious tomato and pepper stew enriched with cinnamon and stirred into pasta ribbons; and a couple of weeks ago I made an improvised beef goulash for eighteen hungry Navy people. Tender cubes of lean stewing beef, in a rich tomato sauce with strips of red and green peppers, lashings of paprika and cayenne pepper, and dumplings. It was unexpectedly delicious, and inspired me to experiment a bit more with the humble cow. I don't know why I hardly ever cook beef; I think it's because it's a meat that you can't really experiment with, and by that I mean pair it with fruit. Anyone who's ever been cooked for by me will know that I adore the combination of fruit and meat, which is why I usually cook with lamb or pork. Beef doesn't really lend itself to such weird and wonderful combinations, so I usually assume it's 'boring' and steer clear.

However, having caught the beef 'bug' from the delicious goulash and a little bit of my boyfriend's roast at the pub the other day, I decided to give beef another go. Luckily, fate seemed to be on my side, as the butcher had an enormous piece of topside on offer. It was gigantic, over two feet long, weighing over three kilos, and a bit of a bargain. I struggled home with it and then had a think about recipes. Initially I had the idea of serving it very rare, thinly sliced, with truffle oil, parmesan and rocket, rather like the classic Italian beef tagliata. I was going to bake bread to accompany it, but eventually I couldn't be bothered and therefore the need arose for more carbohydrate. I was intent on using truffle oil somewhere in the dish, ever since I had an incredible starter of wild boar ham drizzled with the stuff in Italy in April. It goes very well with beef, I think - beef and mushrooms are a great combination, and truffle oil is just taking it one step (well, several steps) closer to gastronomic luxury; the earthiness of the truffles have a great affinity with the earthy, iron-rich flavour of good beef. Firmly set on an Italian interpretation, I decided to make some wet polenta infused with truffle oil, imagining that its richness and slightly grainy texture would match the tender meat perfectly.

I suppose the obvious thing to do with the topside would have been roast beef with all the usual trimmings, but we're nearing June now and the weather is (or was, at least) just too summery to start whipping up Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes and thick, dark gravy. For that reason, I decided that some simple summer vegetables would be the perfect accompaniment; their flavour would bring freshness to the dish and their flavour wouldn't overpower the truffley aromas emanating from the polenta, or the richness of the beef. Tagliata and carpaccio usually pair very rare or even raw slices of beef (usually fillet) with a rocket salad; I decided to serve the meat with a peppery combination of rocket, watercress and spinach, to complement its deep flavours.

I roasted the topside on a bed of onions, sprinkled with a few thyme sprigs and some seasoning. It barely fit in my oven dish due to its enormous size, and there was something immensely satisfying about just sticking a huge piece of meat in the oven and forgetting about it, without having to slave over the hob for hours. The beef I just seasoned with coarse sea salt, black pepper and olive oil, rubbed into the skin. I read somewhere that patting the skin with flour helps it crisp up during cooking; it worked like a charm, resulting in the most incredibly delicious crunchy texture around the outside of the meat, with delicious little nuggets of sea salt. The best bit of all, though, was the 'gravy'. I didn't actually make gravy, just serving the beef with the roasting juices. All the fat rendered down from the meat into the onions in the roasting tin, turning them caramelised, sweet and tender. Spooned over the sliced beef they were absolutely incredible. 

The only slight issue I had was with the cooking of the meat. I don't know what happened - I timed it perfectly to result in rare meat, and it came out closer to medium. I guess my oven just runs hotter than it should, because I left the beef in for really the shortest time possible. I love rare meat and wanted it still bloody in the middle, but instead it was just pink. I was assured it was delicious, but to this day I am still very grumpy about this mishap and intend to order a meat thermometer as soon as possible to avoid future incidents. I suppose generally people don't share my love of meat that is practically still breathing, so cooking it to this stage is probably more socially acceptable.

This is a fairly simple roast dinner, and a perfect way of bringing traditional roast beef into summer. If you're not taking on the mad task of making a roast for nine people, you could use a smaller piece of topside or another roasting joint - fillet would work well too, if you can afford it. Thin slices of pink beef topside, summer vegetables (carrots, asparagus, peas and green beans) dressed with a little garlic oil, a creamy mound of rich polenta drizzled with truffle oil, and a watercress and rocket salad. The finishing touch - a spoonful of meltingly sweet onions and roasting juices. It has all the satisfaction of a Sunday lunch, but feels slightly healthier and much more appropriate for summer weather. The earthy truffle polenta works perfectly with the meat and onions, and the sweet, crunchy vegetables and salad provide a nice freshness. Delicious.

Roast beef, truffled polenta and summer vegetables (serves 10):

3 kg beef topside joint, ready for roasting
5 onions, peeled and sliced
4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed with a knife blade
A few sprigs of thyme
Olive oil
Coarse sea salt and black pepper
3 tbsp flour

500g quick-cook polenta
Water
Salt and black pepper
Truffle oil
50g grated parmesan
Vegetables, to serve (I used asparagus, green beans, peas and carrots)
Rocket and watercress, to serve

Pre-heat the oven as hot as it will go.

First, prepare the beef. Sprinkle the onions into a large roasting tin, add the garlic and thyme, and season. Rub the olive oil, sea salt and pepper into the beef and place it on top of the onions. Pat the skin with the flour. Put the beef in the oven and roast for 15 minutes. Then turn the oven down to 170C and roast for half an hour per kilo - this should give you rare/medium-rare meat, but if you like it very rare try 20 minutes per kilo - you can always put it back in, and remember it continues to cook while resting.

When the time is up, remove the beef to a board and cover with foil and a tea towel. Leave to rest for 20-30 minutes before carving.

To make the polenta (do this just before serving), bring 2 litres of water to the boil. Add a little chicken stock cube for extra flavour, if you like. Gradually pour in the polenta, whisking constantly, until it thickens. Stir in a generous amount of seasoning, and the parmesan. Spoon big mounds of it onto the plates and drizzle generously with truffle oil. Top with several slices of beef, drizzle with more truffle oil, and spoon over some roasting juices and caramelised onions.

Serve with your choice of vegetables, dressed with a little garlic-infused olive oil, or butter and salt, and a pile of rocket and watercress salad.

Baked mushrooms stuffed with triple-garlic risotto

This week Graziana from Erbe in Cucina is hosting Weekend Herb Blogging, and I have been cooking with not one, not two, but three new and exciting types of garlic. It started with the Real Food Festival, where I picked up a beautiful bronze bulb of smoked garlic. The intense aroma of this is just incredible; it has an immensely appetising quality to it. You wouldn't pick up a bulb of normal garlic and consider eating it there and then, yet the smoked variety has a sort of sweetness and mellowness to it that invites immediate eating (I wouldn't recommend it though). I was trying to think of the perfect recipe to showcase its wonderful qualities, when two more exciting ingredients appeared on my radar.

The second and third varieties are both products of a weekend trip to Borough Market in London. I always think Oxford's market is pretty cosmopolitan; you can find most weird and wonderful ingredients there (kumquats, salsify, loquats, granadillas, Jerusalem artichokes...). Yet the fruit and veg section of Borough Market never fails to delight me with some unexpected surprise. Back in February it was the sight of gorgeous yellow quinces, months after they'd disappeared from the market in Oxford; then it was the two fat teal I found at a butchers' stall there, having never managed to track down the elusive bird elsewhere. Last weekend it was the sight of huge bunches of wild garlic leaves and flowers.

I've heard a lot about the wonders of foraging and the merits of wild garlic (primarily through Masterchef winner Mat Follas, whose restaurant is actually named 'The Wild Garlic', possibly after a dish that helped to win him Masterchef and also because he's a keen forager), but have never got round to attempting to find some for myself, and I have certainly never seen it for sale anywhere. Yet it was there: delicate bunches of the leaves and flowers, that I would have mistaken for some kind of house plant had I not seen the sign. They looked like the leaves I would normally peel off my bunches of lilies before putting them in water. Intrigued and delighted by a new ingredient, I bought a bunch immediately. It went in my fridge for a few days, and I now understand why they say it's easy to forage for wild garlic: you just follow your nose. I think my fridge will retain the pungent smell of these leaves for weeks to come.

I thought my garlic-related surprises were over for the day, until I stumbled across a bunch of 'elephant garlic'. The first thing that struck me was its gorgeous purple and white colouring; the second its enormity. It looked almost like a comically exaggerated bulb of garlic. Equally intrigued by this curious product, I bought some. A little research informed me that it is milder than normal garlic, and can be eaten raw in salads. I just love the sturdiness of it, with its fat stalk and huge purple-skinned cloves.

There's probably nothing I enjoy cooking more than a good risotto, and it felt like time for one. It also seemed the obvious solution to an abundance of garlic; I figured the rich, creamy rice would make a perfect base for such diversity of flavour. I also had a bag of carnaroli risotto rice that I brought back from Vercelli in April, and which was recommended to me by the man in the shop as the best rice for risotto, so naturally I was eager to put it to the test (ultimately, I can conclude that risotto rice is risotto rice, and I think maybe I'm not quite Italian enough to appreciate the nuanced difference between arborio and carnaroli - apart from that Tesco charges twice the price of the former for the latter - but it was very tasty).

As luscious as I envisaged my garlic risotto would be, I figured it needed another dimension. Normally when I cook risotto I add something for texture, like bacon, mushrooms, leeks, or peas. However, I didn't want to distract from the diverse garlicky flavours. The answer came miraculously to me in the form of mushrooms. Initially I considered just frying some in butter and spooning them on top of the risotto, but then I thought that stuffed mushrooms would look much prettier. It would also enable me to take advantage of the beautiful flat cup mushrooms that I've often spied in the market here; they are so clearly meant to be the vehicle for some kind of gorgeous stuffing, and it would be rude not to oblige.

I roasted the mushrooms in the oven for about 45 minutes, drizzled with a little olive oil, seasoning, and some sprigs of thyme. The key to roasting mushrooms is to cook far more than you think you'll need; they shrink a surprising amount in the heat. They also turn golden and wrinkled at the sides and beautifully dark and juicy in the middle, and exude lots of delicious mushroom liquor. I added this to my risotto as well as the stock.

For the risotto, I used my normal recipe, but added smoked garlic instead of normal garlic. The stock was, in an impressively home-economic fashion, homemade chicken stock from the last roast I had. One thing that surprised me about this was how much salt I needed to add to the risotto to achieve the taste I'd consider normal. It makes you realise just how much salt is added to commercial stock cubes - slightly terrifying. Anyway, I finished off the basic risotto recipe with sprigs of thyme, lots of seasoning, grated parmesan, and my two other types of garlic. The leaves I finely shredded and stirred in, and the elephant garlic I finely chopped and sprinkled over towards the end of the cooking. Elephant garlic is apparently milder than normal garlic, though I nibbled a bit and it was still quite strong, so I let it cook in the rice and stock for a few minutes to take the edge off.

I spooned the garlicky risotto onto the juicy mushrooms, grated over a little more parmesan, and finished with a drizzle of truffle oil to really bring out both the mushroom and the garlic flavour. There's something about truffles that is reminiscent of garlic - and it's not just me that thinks this: my Flavour Thesaurus (a great book for any keen cook, by the way) agrees. The two work perfectly together, as garlic and mushrooms do. Even better when the garlic is incorporated within mounds of soft, starchy rice. I was worried the effect would be overpowering, but I think it was just right. If anything, in future I'd add a bit more of both the elephant variety and the garlic leaves.

I'm now hooked on the idea of wild garlic, and hope I find it again sometime soon. I'd love to try it in a pesto, simply tossed through hot strands of tagliatelle, and I have a few leaves left which I'm thinking of using to stuff or wrap around whole fish for baking. The rest of the elephant garlic I'm going to roast so its flavour mellows and I can spread it on bread to eat with some cheese. I like the simplicity of this risotto, though: a good way to showcase three exciting new twists on the humble garlic bulb.

Oh, and needless to say - this is not something to eat if you've any sort of romantic encounter planned for afterwards.

Baked mushrooms stuffed with triple-garlic risotto (serves 4):

12 large flat mushrooms
Thyme
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 onion, finely chopped
1 stick celery, very finely chopped
2 cloves smoked garlic, finely chopped
1 small glass white wine
A knob of butter
300g risotto rice
1 litre hot chicken or vegetable stock - keep it warm in a pan
About 10 leaves wild garlic, finely shredded
1 clove elephant garlic, very finely chopped (or use garlic-infused olive oil)
Parmesan for grating
Truffle oil for drizzling (optional)

First, bake the mushrooms. Spread on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, season, throw over some thyme sprigs and bake at 180C for about 45 minutes until very soft and juicy. Add any juices to the stock as you make the risotto.

For the risotto, saute the onion and celery until softened, then add the smoked garlic. Cook for a couple of minutes, then add the butter and let it melt before adding the rice. Stir to coat in the butter and cook for a minute or so before pouring in the wine. Wait until it is completely absorbed, then add a couple of ladlefuls of hot stock. Stir the rice until all the stock is absorbed, then add another ladleful. Keep doing this until the rice is almost tender - keep tasting it. If you run out of stock, supplement with boiling water.

When nearly done, stir in the garlic leaves and elephant garlic (or drizzle in the garlic oil). Grate in some parmesan, and season to taste.

Remove the mushrooms from the oven, arrange on four plates, then spoon over the risotto. Drizzle with truffle oil - or more garlic oil - and grate over some more parmesan.

Duck sausage, red wine and radicchio risotto

I've been meaning to try a risotto with red wine for ages. Sometimes I find the pure white creaminess of a standard risotto a bit boring and monotonous, and was intrigued by the notion of bringing more flavour to it using red wine, as well as creating something dark and delicious. A white risotto goes well with delicate ingredients like seafood or chicken; for a red risotto, I wanted something more meaty. The butcher I normally visit had all sorts of sausages on display, which caught my eye because of their unusual ingredient combinations: pigeon and peach, pheasant and pear, guinea fowl and apricot, duck and mandarin. The pheasant and pear I've tried before, and they were delicious, so this time I went for the duck. I figured the gameyness of duck would go quite well in a sausage. I could have cooked them as they were, with mash, but the red wine risotto occurred to me and I decided to try them together.

I do enjoy experimenting with risotto: it's one of those basic recipes where very little can go wrong. The basic components of a risotto - creamy rice, flavoursome stock, herbs, melting onion and garlic - are so good together that even if you put something completely weird in with them, it's bound to taste halfway decent. Another ingredient I've wanted to try for ages is red radicchio; it's a bitter leaf, a bit like chicory, and I thought it would work very well stirred into my risotto at the end: its sharpness is great at counteracting rich meats like pork or duck.

I cooked the sliced sausages in a pan first before adding the onions, coating them in the sausage fat, and proceeding as I normally would for a risotto, except instead of adding a glass of white wine, I used a glass of red. It turned the rice a lovely russet colour, which I contrasted with some beautiful leaves of my favourite herb, lemon thyme. The lemon note lifts what is otherwise quite a strongly-flavoured, rich dish.

Finally, I shredded the radicchio and stirred it into the almost-cooked risotto, allowing it to wilt in the heat and become slippery. It keeps a slight crunch, rather like the texture of steamed greens, which is a good addition to the soft uniformity of the risotto and the sausages. Sausage risotto works very well, whatever sausages you use: these weren't overly redolent of duck, but they had an interesting flavour and made for a lovely and rather unusual Italian dinner. I reckon venison sausages would work well too, or just your average pork variety. A spicy Italian type like luganega would also be good.

Sausage risotto with red wine and radicchio (serves 4):

• 6 good-quality sausages, of whatever variety you like
• Olive oil and butter
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 300g risotto rice
• One large glass red wine
• 1 litre chicken stock
• A few sprigs lemon thyme (or normal thyme)
• 1 head of radicchio, shredded
• Parmesan, to serve

Slice the sausages and roll the meat into little balls. Heat some oil in a large pan and fry the sausages until golden. Add the onions and garlic, and cook until softened. Add a knob of butter and melt.

Stir in the risotto rice, coating in the fat. Cook for a minute or so, then pour in the wine. Leave to bubble and reduce, then add a ladleful of hot stock. Wait until all the liquid has been absorbed, then add another ladleful, proceeding until the rice is soft with a little bite to it.

Check the seasoning, and stir in as much lemon thyme as you fancy (I like a lot of it, but I have a penchant for the stuff). Stir in the radicchio and leave to wilt. Add grated parmesan to taste, and serve.