Marion’s, for a change. Not from the book, from her food channel.

I made it this evening and divided the crowd slightly. I expected Izzie to be more enthusiastic, as she is a big citrus fan, but I got a look and a comment- “mama, lemon, yessss, but lemon with chicken??”. We both liked it, although I must say that the dish is great immediately off the pan; as it cools, the sauce gets slimy and not so great in texture.

I started with marinating my chicken breast pieces in some soy sauce, shaoxing and an egg white and left it for about 20 minutes while getting on with the rest.

The sauce- chicken stock, sugar- which I adjusted in the pan, soy sauce and lemon juice plus some zest. That juice was to be added towards the end, to keep as much of its freshness as possible.

Nice idea for pieces of crispy chicken; the meat with the marinade went onto the plate with flour, lots of it, well tossed, well coated and then deep fried and dried off on the kitchen towel.

Wok was getting nice and hot, some oil, chopped garlic and ginger, sauce goes in and cooks down for a couple of minutes. Lemon juice and zest, cornflour with water. Once happy with taste – I added more sugar- chicken goes in to be tossed in the sauce nicely. Sesame seeds, spring onions, rice on the side. I think next time less lemon juice, I’d have it a bit more subtle.

Marion’s, from the book. The recipe which she said blew up her food channel and if one is to make only one recipe from this book, let it be that. So I made it for lunch today. I can’t honestly say that it is as mind blowing as the recent discovery of crispy pancetta drizzled with honey

(oh, yes!), but Florek finished his in minutes and said he would definitely have it again. It’s a bit like olio e aglio, one always has all those ingredients in the cupboard.

First thing done were garlic chips, a delightful addition to any dish, I think! Thinly sliced garlic cloves, mine were big, so I used 2, gently cooked in olive oil until golden brown, then off the heat.

Spaghetti was cooking, while a large chunk of butter went into the pan, when melted 2 further garlic cloves, chopped, a tsp of chili flakes, then 2.1/2 tbsp of soy sauce and oyster sauce went it, nicely combined, off the heat until the pasta was al dente. Once it was, in with it, a couple of minutes until the sauce gently coated the pasta, some pasta water in and a good handful of parmesan. Spring onions on top, those lovely garlic chips and we were sticking our forks in.

I’ve been doing yoga for the last 3 weeks, to get ready for summer, to keep fairly fit and not give up on attempting to have a fairly flat stomach ( congratulations to myself on the choice of words! :-). I’ve done my daily exercise this morning, this plate was fairly calorific, but very, very satisfying. A keeper. 🙂

I wanted something different today. Something non Italian, not pasta, not rice. I’ve been binge watching Robert Maklowicz’s youtube channel for the last couple of weeks and having watched him travelling and eating his way through Croatia and Balkans I developed a taste for goulash. The recipe I went with is from kwestiasmaku.pl. I enjoyed making it, enjoyed eating it even more, as did the other two Bankses.

I started with roughly 500 g of pork shoulder, chopped in small pieces, seasoned and browned off. In another pan I had some guanciale sizzling happily ( the recipe called for bacon or pancetta), to which chopped red onion went in, carrot and a red pepper too. A few fresh tomatoes. The pork went into the veggies when browned off, to this I added a glass of red wine and left to cook for a few minutes. Then 2 tsps of sweet, red paprika and 1 tsp of hot paprika. A tbsp of soy sauce, a good squeeze of tomato puree. A bay leaf. 0,5 litre of beef stock, covered and cooked for about an hour. When the meat was beautifully tender and the flat smelled like Dinner Tiiiiimeeee, I added some fried cup mushrooms and a bit of roux to thicken things up. Very nice indeed.

Placki ziemniaczane were the next thing. I started off traditionally- intending to grate 6-7 medium potatoes on the thin grater. Half way through the first potato I decided to f**k it and deployed my mini food processor, which did the amazing job of making a lovely mash of the raw spuds and 2 shallots. In about 3 minutes. After a minute or so the spuds gave out some water, I got rid of it, added roughly 2 tbsps of plain flour, an egg, seasoned generously with salt and pepper and I could fry them.

The whole thing was very much enjoyed, now a mug of peppermint tea, as not exactly light! 🙂

After 3 months of living at Via di Poggio we decided it was time to resume our social life and get some nice people over for dinner. No one better than Laura, our Italian teacher, a fellow foodie and wine fan and her man Dennis we only met for the first time. In terms of food I decided not to cook Italian food for the Italians, I went with what I know and I can do well ( with limited ingredients, I realized I won’t do ponzu dressing for duck tataki, as I have no rice vinegar, but Chief Masaki came to the rescue again via messenger and told me to skip the vinegar altogether and use soy sauce, lemon juice and some honey, I did and it worked a treat, no surprise!).

So we started with prawn toasts, Marion’s, but simplified, again. On a thinly sliced baguette out of Conad I have thickly spread the blitzed mixture of king prawns, fresh chili, some coriander, spring onions, garlic, all well seasoned with salt and sesame oil( no fish sauce in my pantry currently). This sprinkled with black sesame seeds was then quickly deep fried, prawn side down first and then drained on kitchen towel and finished off with a drizzle of sweet chili sauce. I’m keeping this recipe, not a piece was left! Photos are by Dennis, skilled cook himself I hear.

After that the mentioned duck tataki, followed by char siu pork with basmati rice and broccoli. For dessert creme brulee, not caramelised due to no gas in the blow torch situation, but roasted plums did the job instead.

3 bottles of wine completed the picture alongside some mature cheddar Floro brought from England and a piece of comte.

Era una buona serrata! 🙂

One of the best ones I’ve ever made. Everything eaten, to the last grain of rice, all the Bankses were fed and happy.

Before Laura came over today for another productive Italian lesson, I had roasted my pumpkin with some olive oil and a some red onion for sweetness. I mentioned to her that I was looking for some Asian ingredients and condiments( that’s following a chat with Steve) and she directed me to a place in Lucca, where I could find some. So right after school we went home longer way, found a small Asian place and I bought a few things they have never heard of in my favourite Esselunga. I’m dying for some Chinese food, for some spice and some kick and tomorrow I’ll be making some char siu pork.

This evening however we had risotto. All the usual procedures while making a good risotto, good chicken stock, good Umbrian vermentino, excellent parmesan and that roasted pumpkin puree, which I kept adding every time I added more stock. I’m still in awe of guanciale ( sometimes we are low on milk, but there is always a pack of guanciale in the fridge), so I topped my risotto with some of this crispy, wonderful pork and pinoli, for texture. Very pleased with it. Also excited, as last time I made bao buns was a very long time ago. 🙂