Cooking The Books

Pizzette Fritte Ripiene

I lay in bed recently, having woken up about 6am due to the sunlight, thinking about the fact I'd not deep-fried anything for a while - as you do.  Straight away my thoughts went to buffalo wings, the planned next installment of my fried chicken series that was long overdue.  This thought stayed with me through the first couple of hours of the morning.  I'd got so far as planning a quick 5.30pm supermarket trip for the wings, squeezing it in after work and before I hopped in the car and went to meet the missus for a climbing session, ready for some late night frying.  I was pondering how to treat the wings, did I go with nothing but salt or would a light dusting of flour give the perfect texture, when a random tweet about pizzette fritte ripiene knocked any thoughts of buffalo wings for 6.

If you've not heard of them, and I hadn't, pizzette fritte ripiene are like little mini calzone, tiny folded parcels of pizza dough, sealed to hold their filling but then, and this is the fritte part, dumped in 190C oil until golden.  Pizza already holds a very high place in my food-rankings and I've always said that deep frying improves everything so here was a chance to put it to the test.

Whilst these appear to be the exception that proves the rule (they equal pizza, but could you really improve it?) they are ridiculously tasty.  I'd never fried a bread dough before (and the coating here is just plain white bread) and it takes on the most fantastic texture, a light crunch giving way to dense chew. It seems to soak up very little oil either, remaining remarkably grease-free once drained on kitchen roll.  On the inside the mozzarealla melted as only mozzaralla does, the billowing folds striped with spicy oil rendered from the salami, the edge taken off the richness by the piquant artichokes.  Add the sweet sauce and some salty parmesan and - and I know I'm repeating myself, but - ridiculously tasty.

Pizzette Fritte Ripiene

Makes 10, a snack for 2-3.

Dough

120gr strong flour

70gr water

Big pinch salt

1/2 ts dried yeast

Filling (but you can use what you want)

125gr mozzarella

50gr fiery salami

3 bits of marinated artichoke (this was basically a quarter)

Sauce

The tomatoes from a tin

2 cloves of garlic

Pinch of fennel seeds

Salt

Parmesan to serve

Method

Make the dough, knead till smooth. Leave in a bowl under clingfilm for an hour or two.

For the sauce soften the chopped garlic in a little oil, along with the fennel seeds. Add the tomatoes then simmer for about 30 mins, mashing them up as you go.

Roll the dough out to about 5mm thick and cut into ten pieces, you can go rough and ready but I used a chef's ring.  You could cut into less and make bigger pizzettes too, obviously.

Place a tenth of each of the fillings in the middle of a piece and fold over, sealing well.

Deep fry at 190C till golden, drain well then place a teaspoon of sauce and a sprinkle of parmesan on each before eating.

Italian Sausage, Savoy Cabbage and Gorgonzola Lasagna

As a child I was fed pretty well.  I got to eat quite a few of the treats I wanted and we had frequent Chinese and Indian takeaways (which I'm sure had a huge effect on my tastes now) but of a normal every day meal everything was cooked from scratch and there was always plenty of vegetables to be eaten.  My mum did have a bit of a mince obsession though and so whilst I had plenty of home cooked food, the leaning towards - and by leaning I mean weekly occurrence of - chili, spag bol and lasagna has left me with a bit of dislike of the three of them.  Whilst chili con carne and spag bol are never craved I do have the occasional desire for a lasagna still, although it is never the usual bolognaise and bechamel version, and one such occasion was last week. 

The Italian sausage (or what Americans call Italian sausage anyway) is a wonderful thing, loaded with fennel seed and garlic, sweet with sugar and hot from chili, it transforms tomatoes into an instant meat-filled sauce, or crumbles into a near-perfect pizza topping, where I like to pair the sausages' fennel seeds with thin slices of the bulb, briefly sauteed in butter and garlic.  Whilst you can buy them from Italian delis not everyone has them nearby but luckily the sausage's lack of filler, and propensity to be used removed of their skins, lend themselves to making at home.  If you're using them for pasta sauces and pizza too a little goes a long way, so I like to make a batch and freeze in small portions, wrapped in clingfilm and bagged together. 

Whilst I didn't have any of the sausage made I did have pork mince and the required herbs and spices, savoy cabbage and some gorgonzola and the idea for this sprang to mind.  I'm glad it did as it was gorgeous.  The meat sauce was sweet and heavily seasoned - the pork loving the savoury balance of its green bedfellow -and the gorgonzola added richness in spades.

Italian Sausage

Simply mix it all together

500gr minced pork

1 ts fennel seeds

1/3 ts black peppercorns

1/2 ts chili flakes

1 - 2 cloves garlic

1 ts salt

1 ts sugar

Italian Sausage, Savoy Cabbage and Gorgonzola Lasagna

500 gr of Italian sausage

1 tin tomatoes, liquidised

1/2 a savoy cabbage

1 small onion

125ml red wine

12 sheets of lasagna

500 ml of milk

25 gr butter

25 gr flour

100gr gorgonzola

Nutmeg

2 bay leaves

Handful or two of pecorino or parmesan

Method

Finely chop the onion then fry in a little oil till soft.  Add the sausage meat and brown, breaking up with a spoon as you go.

Add the wine, the tomatoes and half a tin of water, bring to the boil then turn down the heat and simmer for 40 minutes. topping up with water if it dries out.

Add the savoy cabbage and cook for a few more minutes until wilted.  You may want to add some water here too, remember the pasta will soak up quite a bit when baking.

For the white sauce melt the butter, add the flour then cook for a couple of minutes to get rid of the raw flour taste.  Add the milk, whisking constantly to get rid of lumps.  Chuck in the bay leaves and give it a good grating of nutmeg then simmer for a few minutes till thick.  Add the gorgonzola and whisk till smooth.

Now to construct.  You're going to do three layers of each so make sure you split accordingly.  First off layer one third of the meat mixture then top with four sheets of lasagna then a third of the white sauce.  Repeat another two times.

Finish with a handful or two of whatever cheese you chose then bake at 180 for 35 minutes.

Remove and allow to rest for ten minutes before serving.  I like to serve with a salad, which is good for cleansing the palate afterwards.

Potato, Gorgonzola and Thyme Pizza

Through the centuries Gorgonzola was known as 'green stracchino' but on 30 October 1955 the name Gorgonzola was given.  I am not going anywhere with this but I read it last week and found it interesting so thought as like minded fellows you may too.

Getting back on track it's been a while since I put a pizza recipe up.  This one is a little different too as it's lacking in tomato, has no stringy mozzarella and is a carb fest, including potato along with the bread.  Potato pizzas aren't anything new, being traditional in parts of Italy and they also appeared in a Nigel Slater book many moons ago, which is where I heard about them. I'm never one to rush though and it has taken me those many moons to get around to making it.

The result is truly delicious.  The potatoes just make it past the underdone stage so keep a little bite and the full whack oven provides some browning on the edges.  The gorgonzola works perfectly too, the strong salty flavour lifting the bland bread and spud to new levels.  I didn't know what to expect from this but it's a definite keeper.

Potato, Gorgonzola and Thyme Pizza

1 quantity of pizza dough (see below)

6-8 small new potatoes, I used anya

75gr-100gr of gorgozola

A few sprigs of fresh thyme

Method

Slice the spuds really finely, somewhere between 1mm-2mm. 

Stretch out your dough then cover with the potato, looking to have it all covered with some overlapping.

Dice the gorgonzola into 1cm cubes and scatter evenly across the potato.

Strip the thyme leaves from the stalks and scatter these too.  Give the pizza a good grinding of black pepper.

Cook on a preheated pizza stone in an oven as hot as you can get it for 5-7 minutes.

Pizza Dough, 1 pizza about 12"

150gr strong white flour

100gr water

1/2ts dried yeast

1/2ts salt

Glug of olive oil

Method

Mix the dry ingredients together then pour in the liquids and combine into a dough.

Knead for as long as you can be bothered, or until smooth.  Cover and rest for as long as you can, a couple of hours is ideal for texture and flavour.

Salt Cod Croquettes (Bunyols de Baccalla)

I used to buy the tastiest little baccala croquettes from a deli in Angel.  They were always sat piled on the counter and no matter what I'd popped in for a couple had to be bought and they rarely made it through the couple of hundred metres I had to walk back to my flat.  I could never quite work out what was in them though to recreate at home.  They weren't coated in breadcrumbs (like the bechamel based croquettes in Spain), having a more batter like outside and whilst there seemed to be some potato inside they weren't as dense as your average spud based fish cake.  I'd given up on making them when a spot of some lovely baccala on Ridley Road market reminded me of them and I set about finding a recipe.  I initially assumed they were Italian due to the owner of the deli but couldn't find anything similar on Google.  Knowing those from the Iberian peninsula are partial to a bit of salt cold I turned to my lone Catalan cookbook (Catalan Cuisine by Colman Andrews - a great book) and found something that I thought might hit the spot - bunyols de baccalla.

The recipe was a first for me as it whisked plain flour into boiling water and olive oil and cooked this into a batter, almost like a water based bechamel, finally adding some potato and the salt cod.  The proportions of fish to potato looked like it could yield the texture I was after and the batter element looked promising for the outside.  I wanted some chili in mine and altered the quantities to match what I had available and ended up with the recipe below.  In the book it says to eat them piping hot but I preferred them cool, probably due to memories from the deli's offering.  The outside is slightly crisp, with a certain leathery quality that gives way to the soft middle and the delicate threads of the salt cod, they're very tasty and pretty damn garlicky so if you're not a fan of the flavour of near raw garlic then you might want to omit it.

Salami, Artichoke and Gorgonzola Pizza

I tend to eat pizza quite frequently.  Maybe once every two weeks I get the pizza stone in the oven, have a little knead and get topping and tonight was that night.  I've put base recipes on the blog twice (here and here ) so this one is just a topping.  I find fennel has an affinity with tomatoes, putting the seeds frequently into tomato sauces, so a fennel flavoured salami works well.  The artichokes and olives provide a sharpness that cuts through the richness of the cheese and sausage.  It's not a combination I've tried before, just an idea I had on the way home from the office, but it worked really well and I'll be eating it again.