Italian

Pizzeria Dar Poeta, Rome

June 14, 2012
Pizzeria Dar Poeta Rome

We’d travelled a long way, and when we arrived in Rome, it was late, right in the middle of that strange hinterland where the kids flick from being wide awake and excited to worn-out zombies within a couple of seconds. Not feeding them properly helps to hasten the transformation, so we strode out into Trastevere [...]

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Messada di bue – Italian-style cured beef

May 10, 2011
Messada di bue - Italian beef cured with herbs and garlic

I’ve said this before, many times, but it bears repeating – the best thing about cooking is the transformation of unpromising ingredients into something better. Take this dish… normally, I’d never dream of eating a piece of brisket without at least a couple of hours on a low heat, let alone raw, but here it [...]

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Should you eat rabbit?

December 1, 2010
Rabbit meat and why we should eat it

Douglas Coupland’s Generation A is a story about a time when all the world’s bees have died and everybody is hooked on a drug that makes them want to be alone. It’s full of Coupland’s characteristic little asides and stories, including one where the highly-politicised, overwrought and transitory girlfriend of one of the characters freaks [...]

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Crostata di more, or Italian blackberry tart

September 4, 2010
Thumbnail image for Crostata di more, or Italian blackberry tart

Every year, I make the mistake of going blackberry picking in shorts. The thorns on the blackberry canes are fine – I can avoid those – it’s the nettles that always seem to grow around them that get me every time, but foraging food isn’t meant to be easy. You should put a bit of [...]

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Duck prosciutto – the simple art of making your own ham

February 20, 2010
How to make duck ham

Salt gets a bad press. I know it’s responsible for the untold misery of heart disease, high blood pressure and a thousand other fairly major medical complaints, but it also has a near mythical ability to preserve food and concentrate flavour, the closest thing to culinary alchemy there is. This duck prosciutto, a ham born [...]

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Carpaccio of beef with rosemary

December 30, 2009
A carpaccio of raw fillet steak with tomato and rosemary

There isn’t much cooking involved here, just a little frantic scorching and some very thin slicing. The seared crust of the beef is given a gutsy punch from an excess of rosemary and a good seasoning of salt and pepper.  The brief cooking time leaves the centre of the meat entirely raw. It almost goes [...]

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Amaretto and chocolate torte

December 23, 2009
Amaretto and chocolate torte Gordon Ramsay

At this time of year, I tend to over indulge a little, not too much, but enough to make me think that, yes, I really do need to go to the gym or grind out some miles along the canal bank. This recipe was the start of the Christmas downfall for this year. It’s rich, [...]

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Jamie’s Italian, Brighton

September 12, 2009
Jamie's Italian, Brighton

I love Brighton. It’s vibrant and exciting, but still has some of that shabby seaside charm and a little of the old menace chronicled so expertly by Graham Greene in the brilliant Brighton Rock.  As a seaside town, it’s hard to beat, and as a place to eat out, even harder. As an end-of-holiday meal [...]

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