Food & Drink
Life is just too challenging to fret about diets just now, so enjoy a little of what you fancy
Make yourself a treat, recommends Carina Contini, plus Rose Murray Brown on the women transforming Bulgaria’s wine industry
Cooking is keeping me sane. Number one daughter threw a curve ball and said mummy you’re looking chubby! My nickname at uni was Chubby Ciacca and it still haunts me. But how could I not cook, that’s the Covid dilemma in the Contini kitchen at home. Cooking, it has to be.
I could bake less and drink less. Yes, my alcohol intake has gone up to a glass of wine or so every evening, far more than ever before for me. I could use less butter and lovely things like cream and cheese; do more exercise or just simply eat less chocolate, but all that all seems like too much to even start thinking about so for the time being I’m cooking, baking and de-stressing in the kitchen and it’s keeping me calm in a very strange world.
I’m trying to eat slightly smaller portions, but when things taste good (that’s a big problem), it’s just too hard to resist. There will come a point when I need to dress properly for work, when the restaurants are open again, and I’ll be forced to face my wardrobe other than a few pairs of formerly loose trousers and my adjustable aprons. I’m happy to wait for this, although the sooner for my waist, our team, our business and our health and wellbeing to get all our hospitality businesses back up and running, the better.
At home everyone has their own timetable. School, college, university, Nonna’s church and Zoom calendar and us working for Contini at Home. We all do our own thing until 7-7:30pm when we get home after the deliveries. My fast food pasta sauces can be whipped up in minutes. As much as I love pasta, I do crave protein. Fried haddock on a Friday with mashed potatoes and peas has become a Covid ritual. But I’ve usually cooked at the beginning of the week when we’re closed, so all I have to do is reheat. It makes it all easier and keeps the hangry under control.
Never has our dining table been so important. Who would have thought there was a fashion for a time not to have a kitchen table for eating? I know that with so many working from home this precious piece of furniture has become the work office, classroom and play table. Space is a challenge when so many are working in this new Covid safe way and the dinner tray on the sofa for many will be the best solution. We’re fortunate that we have a big table for the six of us. We can spend up to two hours each day eating and chatting. We need this amount of time to let everyone have their part of the conversation. With so many at home it feels more like a hotel than a house. No wonder I like cooking to get away from the noise sometimes. Three teenage children have their own ideas of how to spend their time, so fixing them to the table with food and great chat is one Covid success story.
Lamb pot
I love preparing meals in advance that are all in one pot. No dishes the next day which is always excellent. I do a fennel variation of this which is delicious but this packs a slightly bigger punch.
Serves four
1kg shoulder of lamb cut into chunks 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 large onion, cleaned and chopped 1 leek, cleaned and chopped 4 preserved lemons, cut in half 12 olives like kalamata, without stones
8 sundried tomatoes
8 large whole dried chillies (please don’t crush these)
150ml white wine
8 small waxy potatoes, peeled and halved some vegetables to bulk out the dish; 2 carrots, 1 large pepper, fennel or Jerusalem artichokes would work too, cleaned and chunked
1 Fry the onion and the leek in the oil, remove once soft.
2 Fry the lamb until brown and season well.
3 Add the wine and cook until the alcohol has evaporated.
4 Add all the remaining ingredients including the cooked onions and leek and any chopped vegetables.
5 Barely cover with boiling water and then simmer for 1 ½ hours until tender. I bake in the oven at 200C for 1-1½ hours.
Cannellini to the rescue
I’m not really a baked beans girl, although my girls love them. But a tin of cannellini, I love. It’s my go to larder emergency that has so many variations and often saves my life. This is the easiest variation and goes so well with the lamb.
Serves two to four
1 x tin cannellini beans, rinsed 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 2 dried chillies
1 small onion or 1 spring onion, sliced
1 Gently fry the onion in the oil until soft add the chilli.
2 Next add the beans and heat through. Add a splash of boiling water to help emulsify the beans and season well.
Pancakes
Pancakes are too lovely to limit to Shrove Tuesday. Here's the perfect recipe that can be used for savoury or sweet crêpes.
Makes about eight pancakes
120g plain flour pinch of salt
2 free range eggs 200ml milk 75ml water 50g melted butter
1 Sieve the flour and add the remaining ingredients. Mix well with a balloon whisk.
2 Choose a good non-stick pan and heat. I cook over the hottest heat and start with brushing the pan with a little butter. Add a ladle of the batter to the pan and move the pan to ensure the mixture covers the whole surface. 3 Cook until the edges start to curl, and you’ll see tiny bubbles on the surface. Flip the pancake over and cook for a minute.
4 Continue until all the batter has been used. Dress as you wish, lemon and sugar, jam, golden syrup, chocolate spread and bananas and cream. It’s Covid and who cares about diets!