Pasta with Tuna

Tuna pasta is the typical lunch of college students, after all, what’s quicker and cheaper that that? Drain the pasta, open the can of tuna, and it’s done, no need to add extra oil either, the one in the can will do.

The only problem is, this is too simple to have any taste, but when you are a penniless student you hardly care. When you’re older though, with a job and more refined tastes (well, sort of), pasta with tuna needs to be more sophisticated, even for a lazy Saturday lunch. So here we go, just to remind us that we’re getting older and fussy about certain things.

For two people:

• 160-200g (5½ – 7 oz) short pasta (ie no spaghetti)
• a tin of  200-250g (7-9 oz) tuna in brine, drained
• ½ onion or 1 stick of leek, thinly chopped
• 3-4 tbsp olive oil
• a handful of olives
• 1 tbsp capers
• salt and pepper
• ½ tin tomato purée (passata di pomodoro) or  plum tomatoes

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, add the onion or the leek, let sauté for 10 minutes at medium heat. Add the tuna and the tomatoes and let it cook on a medium heat for 10-15 minutes.

Cook pasta according to the packet instructions (here is a little help on how to cook pasta), drain and keep some of the cooking water. Add the pasta to the frying pan, and mix it with the tuna sauce on a medium heat. Add  a tbsp or two of cooking water if it’s too dry. Finish with the olives and capers, and you’re good to go: tuna pasta recipe for adults.

Back to the library now.

Pear Risotto With Walnuts

If  you have done risotto properly a couple of times (if not, you can start from this mushroom risotto or the saffron risotto), this pear risotto with walnuts looks like an easy one, but it’s actually very easy to mess it up.

Here is what you’ll need for 2 people:

• 2 medium pears
• 150-200g (5-7oz) risotto rice
• 1 glass white wine
• a handful of walnuts, thinly chopped
• ½ liter (1 pint) vegetable stock
• 30g (1oz) butter
• grated Parmesan
• ½ onion, thinly chopped
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

About the pears: I’m not an expert and I’m also too lazy to google it, but you’ll need two different types: the soft yellowish one, and the hard green one.

Preheat the oven at 200°C (400°F).

Peel both pears, slice the soft one and thinly dice the hard one. Put the slices of the soft pear in a small pan, on low heat, pour ½ glass of white wine and enough water to cover them (probably one tablespoon or two). Cook for a few minutes until the slices are really soft and put aside.

Put the walnuts on the baking tray and toast them in the oven for 10 minutes.

Now you can start your risotto routine:

• sauté of olive oil and onion
• rice
• white wine
• one ladle of stock at the time

Add the soft pear half-way through, and the hard one almost in the end with walnuts. The point of all this is to have two different tasting pears: one soft, cooked and winy, the other one fresh and slightly sour.

When the rice is done, add butter and Parmesan, cover with a lid for 3 minutes, give a good stir and serve.

Cauliflower Pasta

This cauliflower pasta recipe is the proof that you can make pasta with pretty much anything.The cool thing about this cauliflower pasta is that you cook the cook the pasta and the cauliflower in the same water: additional taste guaranteed.

For 2 people you will need:

• 160-200g (5-7oz) short pasta (ie no spaghetti)
• a cauliflower
• olive oil, salt and pepper
• a handful of raisins
• a handful of grated Parmesan
• ½ glass whit wine
• a clove of garlic

Chop the cauliflower and cook it in boiling salted water for 10-15 minutes until tender. Turn off the heat. Take the pieces out of water using a ladle, but keep the water, as you will use the same for the pasta.

In a frying pan heat the olive oil with the garlic and gently stir-fry the cauliflower. After 2-3 minutes add the white wine. When it’s evaporated, add pepper and raisins and, and some more salt if necessary. Continue stir-frying for about 10 minutes more.

From the frying pan to the bowl

In the meantime, bring the cauliflower water back to boil and cook the pasta (follow this post on how to cook pasta if you’re not sure), without adding salt.

When you drain the pasta, make sure you keep some cooking water. Put the pasta in the frying pan with the cauliflower, on a medium heat, and mix everything together. Add a tablespoon or two of cooking water if it’s too dry.

Sprinkle with Parmesan and that’s how this cauliflower pasta is done.

Scallops recipe

This scallop recipe is probably the first seafood recipe ever of this blog, except for the shrimp risotto and the shrimp and zucchini pasta. I must admit I prefer meat rather than seafood, but these scallops almost made me change  my mind. The Italian name for Scallop is capasanta, I’m not sure where it comes from though, strangely enough there’s no explanation in Wikipedia, and the only account that I found is that the shells were used in the Middle Ages to pour holy water during baptism (”santa” means holy), but this could be the usual regurgitated info with no reference you find on the Internet.

Anyway, back to scallop recipes, this is a typical seafood starter in Italy, and a very easy one to prepare. Shells are important in this recipe, so go to a fishmonger’s first, he may keep them in the back of the store. Buy six of them, you can put them in the dishwasher and re use them as many times as you want.

Except for the scallops, I’m not able to give exact quantities, as each ingredient goes in the shell in tiny amounts. Go with your instinct. However for 4 people you will need:

• butter
• 2-3 scallops (depending on how big they are) for each shell
• a drizzle of white wine
• a pinch of parsley, freshly copped
• a pinch breadcrumbs

Preheat the oven at 180°C (256°F). Put the ingredients equal amount in each shell in the same order as above. Stick the shells in the oven for 15-20 minutes, and you got yourself a pretty amazing seafood starter.

This is a recap of my homemade pizza recipes for the past 3-4 months. Friday night is pizza night at the Cheese and Pears household. The pizza dough recipe remains the same, you can find it here with this thin crust pizza, or this thin pizza crust where, I just found out, I used to do things differently.

Or, you can read it here below. Dough for 2 people:

• 250g (½ pound + 1tbsp) strong flour
• 30g (1oz) fresh yeast
• 115g (4 fl oz) water, possibly filtered.
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil

You should be able to find find fresh yeast in a supermarket with a very good bakery sections. Once you find it, you can buy even a pound and freeze it.

Pour the water in a container with the yeast and stick it in the microwave for 40 seconds, or until it’s lukewarm. Add the oil and the sugar, stir for 2 minutes and let it rest.

In a bowl, sift the flour and salt, make a hole in the middle and pour the yest mix. With a wooden spoon or with two fingers, bring the flour in towards the center, until you have to use the whole hand to mix. When you have managed to put together the flour, transfer it to the working surface and knead it for at least 5 minutes. The water should be enough for a slightly damp dough. but not too much. It should stick to the working surface, but also come off easily.

One you are done, out it back in the bowl, dust with flour, cover with a cloth and let it raise for 2 hours or until it doubles in size. If it’s winter time, don’t be afraid to put it close to the heater, as the ideal temperature for yeast is over 20°C (68°F).

Once the dough is ready, start preheating the oven at 220°C+ (428°F+). The quantity of flower should be enough for a thin crust pizza, so start rolling with a rolling pin on a sheet of oven paper, until you have reached the rectangular shape. Now, if you want you can cut the pizza in 4 squares and roll up the edges a little bit. This is great if you’re sharing the pizza with someone with tastes different from your and you won’t have to cut it after it’s cooked.

Now, for the pizza toppings, the one thing you will always need is tomato purée (passata di pomodoro), 1 tin, plus salt, pepper and oregano. Put them in a small bowl, stir and cover the whole surface of the dough with it.

Put it in the oven for about 7-10 minutes. In the meantime, start lookinf in you fridge to see what else you could put on top. The (fabuolous) pictures in this page have the following pizza toppings we have used over the past months:

• Mozzarella cheese
• Brie
• Camembert
• Parmesan
• Feta cheese
• Sweetcorn
• Capers
• Bacon bits
• Cooked ham
• Olives
• Mushrooms
• Tuna
• Salami
• Peppers

When you have decided, take out the pizza, add the rest of the ingredients, and finish cooking until the edges are brown. Add a drizzle of olive oil if you like.

Cod and Green Bean Salad

This green bean salad with cod is a very, very easy salad recipe, made with frozen beans and cod (fresh frozen as the cook of an unfortunate restaurant said about his food in an episode of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen nightmare USA).

This salad is so simple that I wasn’t even sure if I should post it, but in the current economical climate I cannot afford to waste anything. And it’s so quick that you don’t even need to weight the ingredients, it all works with handfuls.

For two people:

• two handfuls of green beans
• two fillets of cod
• a handful of olives
• olive oil and vinegar
• salt and pepper
• ½ glass white wine
• a clove of garlic

Put the runner beans (frozen or not) in salted boiling water, and cook them for 10-until tender, drain and put aside.

In a frying pan, heat the some olive oil with the garlic, then add the cod (roughly cut in pieces) and stir fry for 2-3 minutes, pour the wine and let it evaporate and cook it in its water until tender.

In a bowl put together the green beans, olives and cod, dress with olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.

Fastest green bean salad recipe ever.

Italian Savory Pie

After surviving Christmas with the family and Year End at the Company, Cheese and Pears is back, trying to cope with a fall in the number of visits to the site, that is only second to the fall of employment rate over here in Ireland (bad joke, I know). Ice has taken possession of the Country and this afternoon it will snow again, hopefully for the last time. Luckily enough I can work from home and save myself a 7 km journey at 5 km per hour.

Let’s go back in the kitchen with this great savory pie, “torta salata” in Italian, where salata means salted (as opposed to sweet of course). Now, don’t ask me the difference between a torta salata and a quiche lorraine, maybe there is some real foodie reading this (as opposed to a fake one like me) able to explain that to me. Actually I’m not going to pass this off as authentic Italian but hey, my mom makes it, my sister makes it, and I make it, and that’s enough to make it Italian food.

The pastry for the quiche is a shortcrust pastry but without sugar. For 4 people you will need:

• 200g (7oz) plain flour
• a pinch of salt
• 100g (3½oz) chilled butter, diced
• 1 medium egg, beaten
• a pinch of salt
• a tbsp of cold milk just in case

(Confession, in case I haven’t said that before: I don’t know if someone out there enjoys making shortcrust pastry, but I don’t)

Put the flour in a bowl, add a pinch of salt, make a hole in the middle and put the butter cubes in it. Using your fingertips, rub flour and butter together until they are like breadcrumbs. Add the beaten egg and work the dough just enough to put the ingredients together. If the dough is too dry, add just ½ tbsp of cold milk at the time. As soon as you have a ball that can hold together, cover it with clingfilm and stick it in the fridge, but before doing that, flatten it with the palm of your hand, as it will be easier to roll it afterwards. Leave it in the fridge for 30 minutes or one hour until firm.

In the meantime start preparing the filling. You will need:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 broccoli, chopped in small pieces
• 3-4 medium potatoes, finely diced
• 1 zucchini, finely diced
• 1 medium egg
• 50g (1½oz) grated parmesan
• a handful of breadcrumbs
• salt and pepper

Heat the olive oil and the garlic in a frying pan, add the diced vegetables and cook them for about 15 minutes until they start to soften. Pour them in a bowl and let them cool, then add the egg, Parmesan, salt and pepper.

Preheat the oven at 180°C (356°F). Grease a 22cm (9inch) cake tin with butter and dust with flour. Take the dough out of the fridge and roll the shortcrust pastry with a rolling pin. This is the most delicate part (for me, at least), because the pastry crumbles very easily, so be gentle. I usually roll the pastry on a sheet of baking paper, keeping the shape as round as possible, until it is a little larger then the tin, then transfer it, and press it down gently with the fingertips to make it stick to the bottom and the side of the baking tin.

Add the vegetable mix, sprinkle the breadcurmbs and bake it in the oven for about 40 minutes, until the top is golden.

Cantuccini Tuscan biscuits

Cantuccini are typical of Prato, in Tuscany, but they have become very popular in all Italian cuisine. Their real name actually leaves nothing to imagination: “Biscotti di Prato” Don’t be misled though: these biscuits are not for breakfast or for snacking, they are a proper dessert, best served with a very popular sweet wine called “Vin Santo” (Holy wine).

I cooked these biscuits a while ago, the picture kind of gives it away, as the light is not the one we have in December here in Dublin. Actually, it was taken in Italy in March.

The particular thing about these biscuits is that you will have to bake them for a while, take them out of the oven and slice them, and put them back to bake. In this sense they are the real “bis-cotti”, which means “twice baked.”

Here are the ingredients for, well, a few…

• 500g (about 1 lb)  plain flour
• 5oog of sugar
• 300g (10 oz) of unpeeled almond
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• 1 pinch of salt

Preheat the oven at 180°C (356°F) and toast the almonds for 10 minutes, then chop them coarsely. Separate the egg whites and Whip them. Then beat the yolks with the sugar until they form a light and even cream. Put the two egg mixes together and mix them.

Sift the flour in a large bowl and add the baking powder and the salt and the exx mix, one tbsp at the time. When everything is well mixed, add the almonds.
Now you have to give the mix a semi-circular flat shape and lay it on a baking tray (cover it with parchment paper first) and bake them for 15 minutes.
Take them out of the oven and slice them. They should have the shape you see in the picture, about 1cm thick.
Lower the temperature to 150°C (300°F) and put them back in the oven for 25 minutes.
To give them the right texture, let them rest for 24 hours before serving.

More biscotti recipes

Shrimp Risotto Recipe

Cheeseandpears is back, with a huge recipes backlog. The reason for staying away for so long is simple: I’m currently working on my plan to become rich, and as Bill Cullen would say, it takes time and commitment.

Anyway, it’s time for risotto. Seriously, do you know how to make risotto yet? I hear sometimes people declaring their love for Italian food claiming they do an excellent risotto. Even if I don’t claim I do, I’m always more interested in the making rather than the final result, which can be good or bad regardless of how good you follow the process. So, if you’re reading and you do an “excellent risotto” how do you do it? Do you follow the steps below? Or do you do it your own way? By the way, I recently found out (with horror) that, when she makes risotto, my sister adds all the stock at once. So there you go, another blow to the myth that you have to be Italian to cook Italian…
I already explained the steps in my very first post about mushroom risotto but if you’re too lazy to click on it I’ll sum them up here (click it anyway, it’s a delicious risotto recipe). I’m not sure if I’ll repeat exactly the same steps in the same way, as I AM too lazy to click on my own recipe.

For two people:

• 160-200g (6-7oz) risotto rice (buy the good one, don’t be stingy!)
• 1 liter (2 pints) vegetable stock
• half onion
• 2 tablespoons olive oil or 25g (1oz) butter
• half a glass of white wine
• more butter and parmesan
• the food you want to flavor the risotto with

1. Put the chopped onion in a saucepan with the olive oil, let it sweat at medium -low heat for 7-10 minutes. Don’t burn it.
2. Pour the rice and turn up the heat, let it toast for 1-2 minutes, keep on stirring. Set a timer to 17 minutes from when you pour the rice
3. Pour the wine, turn down the heat to medium and let it evaporate.
4. Pour a ladle of stock, let it absorb before you add another one. Then pour another one and so on. Keep on stirring to prevent the rice from sticking
5. When the rice is cooked, you may need to let it go one or two minutes more to absorb any excess of stock. Take it off the heat add a knob of butter and Parmesan, cover with a lid and let it rest for 3-4 minutes. Give a good stir and serve

What about the flavor of the rice? Well there’s no fixed rule. Depending on the recipe, it can be added from the very start, half-way or towards the end. It can be cooked separately or added raw to the saucepan. And of course it can be all these things combined together. This is what you do in this particular risotto recipe, so follow me if you want to kick it up a notch.

Now, this shrimp risotto with peas goes like this.
You’ll need the ingredients above (parmesan is optional) plus 100-150g (3,5-5oz) of precooked shrimps and the same quantity of frozen peas. The quantity here is variable, firstly because I tend to forget to write them down when I cook, secondly because it depends on taste. My advice is: train your eye and go for balance: your risotto shouldn’t be swamped in peas and shrimps, but you shouldn’t struggle to find them either.

Shrimps: before starting the risotto, heat a tbsp of olive oil with a clove of garlic, stir-fry gently the shrimps and 2/3 of the defrosted peas for about 15 minutes, then add them to the risotto almost at the very end of cooking time.
The other 1/3 of the peas should be added at around the 8th minute of cooking.

In this way the peas will have two different textures and colors, one part more brownish and cooked, the other mire green and raw.
The picture of this shrimp risotto recipe is miraculously good enough to show that.

Potato Salad

Here we are, posting about Italian food again after quite some time, with a very easy potato salad. Summer (sic) is gone and darkness, more than rain, is upon us. This means that from now until next March, all pictures will be taken in artificial light, in other words, they will be bad.

The original potato salad recipe had mayonnaise, which I replaced with ricotta cheese. Side dish for two people:

• 300g (10oz) peeled and diced potatoes
• 1 red pepper
• 1 stick of celery
• 2 tablespoons of ricotta cheese
• 1 tablespoon of milk
• salt and pepper
• 1 teaspoon of horseradish sauce
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons of Parmesan

Place the potatoes in a saucepan and cover with salted water. Bring them to the boil for 10 minutes, then drain and let them cool.

Slice the pepper (discard the seeds) and cut the celery sticks in half-rings. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan with the garlic and stir fry the pepper and the celery at medium heat for about 10 minutes until tender. Put them aside and let them cool.

In a bowl mix the ricotta cheese, Parmesan, salt and pepper, horseradish sauce and loosen a little with milk. When the vegetables are at room temperature put them in the bowl and mix them with the ricotta dressing.

If you don’t want to break the potatoes, I would mix this potato salad using the hands. Ala Jamie Oliver.

If you liked this recipe for potato salad, try more vegetable recipes and potato recipes.

brown bread bruschetta

My huge fan base has been complaining that I haven’t been posting for a while. The truth is I haven’t been cooking a lot recently, but this is only temporary, you’ll see. In the meantime, check this super quick bruschetta recipe: brown bread bruschetta.

I’m stretching the concept of bruschetta a lot here, as I didn’t use the classic Tuscan bruschetta bread, but Irish brown soda bread. The topping is 1 ball of mozzarella cheese, and zucchini with bacon bits.

This is actually three recipes in one. But first things first. For the Irish soda bread:

• 500g (1lb) whole flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp of salt
• between 350 and 500 ml (12-17 fl oz) buttermilk

Preheat the oven at 180°C ( 350° F). Combine all the dry ingredients, then add the buttermilk. I don’t have a specific quantity, but whole flour tends to make a hard bread, so I like a very very sticky dough, I won’t say liquid, but almost.

Stir just enough to mix all together, pour the dough in a cake tin and bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes. For the best result you want to make the bread the day before, as it’s more taste after a day.

For the zucchini topping:

• 2 finely chopped zucchini
• a clove of garlic
• a tsp of olive oil
• ½ pint of stock, heated
• ½ a glass white wine
• 2 tbsp of bacon bits

Heat the olive oil in a pan and suteé with the garlic and the bacon bits. Add the zucchini and stir until they’re all coated with oil. Turn on the heat and pour the wine. When it has evaporated turn down the heat again and add the stock, a little at the time. Let it absorb before adding it again (like you would do in a risotto recipe). When the zucchini are tender set aside.

Preheat the oven at 100° C (210° F) , cut 4 slices of brown bread and leave them for 30 seconds in the toaster. Slice the ball of mozzarella cheese and cover each slice of bread, put some zucchini on top and stick the bread in the oven until the cheese is melted. The remaining zucchini will be your side dish.

As I said, this is not the real recipe for bruschetta, but if you have non-Italian guests at your table, you can show off a little bit and say that this is how they do it in that secluded Tuscan village, it’s just a pity you can’t remember its name right now…

Spaghetti recipe: spaghetti with almonds and basil

This spaghetti recipe is a sure shot, something to cook for your guests, who will be amazed by this sauce, and will ask you: “how did you do that? It’s delicious.” And you will say, in a casual I-get-that-a-lot manner “oh no, it’s really easy, it just takes ten minutes.” Except that it does.

You can say whatever you want about Jamie Oliver, but his recipes work. This one is taken from Jamie’s Italy, and it’s a Sicilian sauce. The beauty of it is that it’s not a cooked sauce, it’s all with raw ingredients, a sort of pesto.

For 6 people:

• 450g (1lb) spaghetti
• ½ clove of garlic (it’s one clove in the original recipe, but Jamie is a bit too generous with garlic for my taste)
• 4 handfuls of fresh basil
• 150 g (5½ oz ) of almonds
• 150 g (5½ oz ) of grated parmesan cheese
• extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper
• 600g (1 1/3 lb) of tomatoes

Toast the almonds in a pan (no oil), smash the garlic with a  pestle and mortar. Add the almonds, garlic and basil to a food processor and whiz them until you have a coarse powder consistency. Pour the mix in a bowl and add the tomatoes cut in half. Gently squeeze the tomatoes with your hands, mixing well. Add the Parmesan cheese and add a bit of olive oil to loosen up. Add salt and pepper if you feel like it, but it’s not always necessary.

That’s it, when the spaghetti are ready and drained, pour them in a bowl and serve. This spaghett recipe will make you popular.

This post is about food review of a Dublin restaurant I went to last weekend.

Should I quit my job at The Company and try to make it as a food critic? Someone at Ely bar wouldn’t agree…

Menupages.ie is a website where you can review restaurants, every review gives you points, that you can exchange with lunch offers. My profile is cheeseandpears.com  (they don’t let you leave a link). I had bad and good experiences. The latest one so far, at Ely wine bar in city centre hasn’t been positive at all. You can see my review here.

Now, this is the reply of an Ely employee.

Hi Cheese & Pears,

My name is and I work for ely winebar here in Dublin.

I am just following up on a comment that you left on http://www.menupages.ie in relation to your experience in ely. (apologies for contacting you through these means, but unfortunately this is my only method of communicating with you).

Firstly I would like to say that at ely our main focus is our customers and the experience they have with us – it is with regret that I read your review.

Our stew has been a signature dish on our menu for the past ten years, and is organic and from our family farm in the Burren, Co. Clare. There have been times where we have taken the stew off the menu, but we have had to promptly put it back on due to popular demand. It is unfortunate that you didn’t enjoy yours and a real pity that this was not brought to our attention on the day and we could have looked into this further and made any amendments that may have made your visit an enjoyable one.

You reference to our ice-cream offering is incorrect and mis-leading. It is an offer for sale at €5.95, not €7.00 and for that it is three large scoops of our own homemade ice-cream and our home biscuit. Having not ordered this I feel that it is a very unfair judgment on your part.

It is also worth noting that our venison dish is an offer for sale at €27.95 and not €30.00 as quoted in your review thus again incorrect and mis-leading.

Lastly I fail to understand your reference to a 10% tip. It is quite clearly printed on all of our menus (in all three ely venues) that “Service is not included except on parties of 6 or more when a 12.5% gratuity will be added to your bill”.

We have always, and will continue to welcome feedback from our customers on our offering, and have always trained every member of our floor staff to check their tables regularly (without intruding) to ensure that everything is as it should be. On the rare occasion that something is amiss, this allows us the opportunity to rectify any problems there and then and ensure that our customers leave happy.

Perhaps had we know of your disappointment with our offering during your visit it would have not only have afforded us the opportunity to clarify and correct any issues you had but also allowed us the opportunity to reassure you that we are committed to offering the best produce and best customer service possible.

The time this person took to reply to my poor review deserved a reply, so here we go.

Our stew has been a signature dish on our menu for the past ten years, and is organic and from our family farm in the Burren, Co. Clare. It is unfortunate that you didn’t enjoy yours and a real pity that this was not brought to our attention on the day and we could have looked into this further and made any amendments that may have made your visit an enjoyable one.

There was no amendment to do, I did like your stew, it’s just that it tasted like boiled meat. There’s nothing wrong with that and indeed it was really good, but I was (and still am) puzzled. I thought that the “a stew boiled is a stew spoiled” was one of those simple, unquestionable truth, but I’m having doubts.

You reference to our ice-cream offering is incorrect and mis-leading. It is an offer for sale at €5.95, not €7.00 and for that it is three large scoops of our own homemade ice-cream and our home biscuit. Having not ordered this I feel that it is a very unfair judgment on your part.

I didn’t remember the price of the ice-cream, so I looked in the Menupages menu. And yes, I admit that sarcasm about something I didn’t order is sort of a cheap shot.

It is also worth noting that our venison dish is an offer for sale at €27.95 and not €30.00 as quoted in your review thus again incorrect and mis-leading.

I trusted  my friend when he said “30 euros for a venison dish, are they crazy?” Why did he order it then? I hear you asking. That’s a mystery to me too. Anyway, he obviously rounded to 30. Accept my apologies for not doublechecking, but even with €2.05 euros less, I still think the dish was either too expensive or too small.

Lastly I fail to understand your reference to a 10% tip. It is quite clearly printed on all of our menus (in all three ely venues) that “Service is not included except on parties of 6 or more when a 12.5% gratuity will be added to your bill”.

When the waiters deserve it, and the guys that served us that night surely did, I tip 10% anyway. My reference to the tip was just an advice for those who don’t read through the menu and don’t check the receipt before leaving the restaurant.

Easy Recipe: Cantaloupe and Prosciutto

Another easy recipe: this dish is very popular as a summer appetizer, and just like with Cheese and Pears, is one of the few recipes where the name totally matches with the ingredients and the final result is as good as its ingredients. This usually works as appetizer, but it cam be a filling main course if you don’t feel particularly hungry.

The ham that you see is not Italian Prosciutto di Parma, but some excellent German smoked ham bought at Lidl. The magic here is all in the combination of the sweet and the salted, so the aim is to lay the slices of ham and cantaloupe in a way that you can cut a piece of both and bring them together to your mouth. The trick is to make sure you’ll cut the ham following the meat fibers, not perpendicularly, as it won’t cut easily.

I found this out after taking the picture.

More easy recipes

Risotto with Walnuts and Spinach

The magic of risotto recipes has happened again: taking two flavors that you know they’ll match (and walnuts, as it turns out, match with pretty much everything) and making a risotto out of them, even if you’ve never done it before.

It’s quarter end, and we’re all pretty crazy down at The Company, so this time I won’t go over the risotto routine again (sauté, toast rice, add wine etcetera), you can find it at the the post that started it all, the mushroom risotto recipe.

Risotto recipe for people:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• ½ onion, chopped
• between 250 and 320g (9-11oz) risotto rice
• ½ glass white wine
• ½ litre (1 pint )of stock
• 200g (7oz) frozen spinach
• 100g (3 ½oz) walnuts, half roughly chopped, half finely chopped
• 30g (1oz) butter
• a handful of grated Parmesan

Thaw the spinach in boiling water, drain, squeeze and set aside.

Heat the stock.

Following the routine, add the finely chopped walnuts at stage 1 with the sauté, and the spinach at stage 3½.

When you’re finished, just before serving, stir in the rest of the walnuts.

More risotto recipes