I ordered a bottle of yuzu juice from Amazon. Eyewatering 30 euro for a 200ml bottle, but it brought so many great memories. And when I looked up the recipe here and found we were making it in Dinings 15 (!!!!!) years ago, I was aghast. This evening we had some Asian food, the side of broccoli dressed with yuzu ponzu ( soooo good), but then I had to make the pannacotta. With an Italian cream. There doesn’t seem to be much choice in Italian shops in terms of cream, there is panna, no double or single one like in the UK, so I hope the recipe works, I skipped the milk altogether. Slightly reduced the sugar too, I can quite believe that 15 years ago 120g of sugar didn’t even make me wink, now it does, so with 350 ml of cream, about 90g of sugar, some of it vanilla sugar, about 60ml of yuzu juice, 2,5 gelatine leaves. I should maybe wait for tomorrow to see how they turned out, before I blog them, but hey, they only just went to the fridge.

So, to be continued.

…And on Friday evening; tastes excellent, not sickly sweet, but a bit too set, I guess the addition of citrus juice messes up the gelatine a bit.

We went to Siena last weekend with the Swedes. On Saturday evening we dined in Taverna di San Giuseppe, a place with great reviews, a queue outside of the door and a sign saying- we are full, piss off, don’t bother. Expectations were very high, but we were not blown away. Daniel and I went for ossobuco, which left us both quite disappointed. I never cooked it before, but when eating it I thought- I can do it better. For sure. And yesterday in Esselunga I came across some veal ossobuco, grabbed them off the shelf immediately and cooked them today, having first consulted Luca Pappagallo and Max Mariola.

I seasoned them first with salt and pepper, then dusted them in flour, before browning them off on olive oil and butter. Some soffritto was ready and chopped, added to the meat, then a glass of white wine, after a few minutes some beef stock, lid on and it cooked on medium heat for nearly 2 hours, much longer than both chefs suggested. I wanted mine falling off that bone, in the Taverna I had wanted my veal softer.

When I was happy with the cooking, the potato puree was ready, I made a little finishing touch, as suggested on youtube, finely chopped rosemary, parsley and lemon rind, all sprinkled on the meat before serving.

Served with mash, broccoli and some decent red, the family said they liked it, I rather did too, but I’m thinking I’d give it a sauce, a ballsy, big sauce, maybe roasted tomato/pepper thing, maybe even some olives, not sure how authentic it would have become…

Not said the last word on ossobuco yet.

It tasted and looked much better than on the photo. :-/

Inspired by Stanley Tucci’s delightful book “Taste” that I have finished reading last night. Swifly moved on to his “What I ate in one year”, which so far doesn’t contain any recipes, but is still a great read.

I’ve made the spaghetti for lunch today. Never had it before, so can’t compare it to anything, but I love the idea of its simplicity and I love courgettes, so I had a go. Without provolone, which I had none of, but will get a piece when I come across it next time, for science and research, of course.

I started by thinly slicing 4 small courgettes, Stanley reckons the smaller the better, on a mandoline, deep fried them in olive oil in batches, while the spaghetti was cooking for about half of the recommended time on the packet. One of the chefs on youtube suggested that if one had no provolone, one could just chuck a knob of butter onto the olive oil and don’t be shy on the parmiggiano, I did both. A chopped clove of garlic, a few chopped basil leaves onto the butter/olive oil mixture, then most of the deep fried courgettes, before the pasta goes in, straight from the water. I kept adding more and more of the pasta water to finish cooking the spaghetti, then a bit of salt, but not too much, as I salted the courgettes once I fried them. Parmiggiano in, quite a lot, black pepper. When on the plate, I added the remaining fried courgettes.

From what I understand the sauce could have been more creamy, if one had the provolone, but I was very tempted to add a sprinkling of chili flakes in there, I still might next time.

It was a nice plate of pasta, not a spectacular one, but will be made again.