Pasta with Fresh Broadbeans and Ricotta

Sorry. Sometimes the effort of dreaming up 'witty' titles just gets too much and I'm forced back into being descriptive.

I haven't actually made this yet. I bought all the ingredients and even podded the beans, but then a minor domestic emergency happened. But I'm looking forward to it tonight. It was one of those 'What if I...' ideas I have while waiting at traffic lights.

Signore Inginere Anton Gelli is one of The Pie's longest standing members. In time, that is. In stature he's a bit of a shortarse. He's been with us before we were even a website, let alone a blog. As he will attest, different forms of pasta have entirely different functions, and it's important to use a sympathetic noodle. I think this one would work with linguine, but as it was I settled on trofie. The site I stole this picture from tells me that they're Seattle's current 'it' pasta, but don't let that put you off. I nearly got orrichiete. That would have been quite wrong. For starters, they are too similar in shape and size to broad beans. I can't explain why that's important. It just is. Like...if you make a sauce with whole cherry tomatoes and basil, you have to serve it with buccatini. Serving it with spaghetti would be as wrong as serving garlic and chilli with buccatini.

But I digress...

Take your fresh broad beans and pod them. Some would also advocate peeling them, but life's to short. Just buy fresh, young beans.

Braise them very briefly in some olive oil, a little stock, some fresh thyme and garlic. I suggest leaving the garlic whole to keep it nice and sweet.
Cook your trofie.
Add the drained trofie to the broad bean pan.
Toss together with some crumbled ricotta, chopped flat-leaf parsley, a little fresh mint and snipped chives.
Serve topped with coarsely grated pecorino.

Sgr Gelli and I have also been discussing biscuits. Alexei Sayle once pointed out that a lot of biscuits seem to be named after Italian leaders:

"You've got your Bourbon biscuits, your Garibaldi biscuits and your Peak Frean's Mussolini Assortment."

(Links provided for the assistance of USAnian readers who may be unfamilar with UKanian crunchy comestibles. Oh...and we mean 'cookies', not scones with gravy.)

Following further research, Sgr Gelli has discovered Jacobs Jacobites. Leading Jacobite insurgent Bonnie Prince Charlie was, of course, Italian. Don't believe all those pictures on the shortbread tins! They're papist propaganda.

Eggy Bamyasi

A thoroughly misleading title, that. Not only does this ingredient contain no okra, but none of it's ingredients are canned (prizes for spotting the reference).

While I'm talking about okra...why do some cookbooks insist on translating them as 'ladyfingers'? I maintain that the only time one comes across okra is in relation to a cuisine that actually uses it. So why have an English translation. Mind you - I suppose it stops any quarrels about whether to call them 'okra' or 'bhindi'. Or 'bamya', even.

But this isn't about okra. No. It's about...

Cauliflower Kookoo

A kookoo is an Iranian omlette-y thing, similar to an Arabic eggah, an Italian frittata or a Spanish tortilla. Here it's the addition of herbs that gives it its particular Iranian character.

Take some cauliflower. Floretify it. Steam until it's a little soft, but not squishy.
Shred an oinion. Sauté it in olive oil in an omelette-sized non-stick pan until it just begins to brown.
Add in the cauliflower and a goodly amount of sliced garlic.
Once it's all nicely amalgamated, put in lots of finely chopped fresh dill, finely-chopped flat leaf parsley and a little fresh mint. Salt and pepper. Mix it all up.
Beat up some eggs. Four or so. Add to the pan and blend it all about, lifting up the cauli mix a few times with a spatula so that the whole pan is thouroughly eggy. Then start using the spatula to pat the top flat and start prising the edges away from the edge of the pan.
Continue cooking a while until it seems reasonably set. Then brown the top under a grill.
Ease onto a plate and leave to cool. (Putting a plate on top of the pan and inverting sometimes works).
Serve at room temperature with some nice bread, a crisp salad and Suitably middle Eastern pickles.

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Dick Cheney says that the suicides in Guantanamo were 'an act of war'. The Pie urges him and his fellow government members to retaliate in kind immediately.

Happy biiirthday to Pooo-ooop...

It was Poop's birthday party at the weekend. He had sweeties, jammie dodgers, jellies and a Fifi Flowertot birthday cake. He's a most enormous fan of Fifi.

The grown-ups had more sophisticated fare. Today's Big Bumper Edition of Flaming Pie lists all the recipes you need for a simple summer party.


Chilled Pea Soup.

Boil up some vegetable stock with some onions. Throw in some frozen peas and a couple of mint leaves. Allow to cool. Liquidise thoroughly. Adjust the seasoning. Just before serving, throw in lots of ice cubes. Serve with a spoon of sour cream and a sprinking of chives.

I love the German word for chives: der Schnittlauch. Literally, 'snipping leeks'.

Tomato, Olive and Basil Tart.

Preferably, make your own shortcut pastry:
Half the weight of fat/butter to plain flour. Rub together (or food-process). Add just enough water to bind. Wrap in clingfilm and chill thoroughly.

Take a flan dish. Grease and flour. Tip: Shortcust pastry is very hard to deal with. One way is to roll it between two sheets of clingfilm. Another is to grate it into the dish and just squash it over the bottom and sides. However this doesn't work so well with store-bought pastry, which tends to be more elastic.

Bake the pastry case blind. Either cover it in rice/ dried beans/ pebbles and bake, or cover with kitchen foil, pressed to conform to the shape, bake a little, then remove and bake some more until it dries out a bit. Either way - you don't want to cook it thoroughly yet.

Now take the best, vine-grown, small tomatoes you can find. Cut into quarters and scatter, skin side down, in the pastry case. Chop up a few black olives and instersperse amongst the tomatoes. Tear up a good handful of basil leaves and do the same. Drizzle with a tiny amount of olive oil (don't overdo it). Sprinkle with a little sea salt. Bake in a low-ish oven.

Curried Rice Salad

This was the surprise hit.

Cook some boiled rice. Mix up with mayonnaise, mild curry powder (one containing fennel/anise for preference), finely chopped red pepper, chopped spring onions/ scallions/ syboes, some almonds, some raisins, some chopped banana, salt to taste.

Cucumber Sandwiches

Peel a cucumber or two and slice as thin as you can. I used a mandolin (but I'm sure a banjo would do just as well). Put the slices in a colander, sprinkle with salt, add a little vinegar and leave for about an our. Pat them dry on a clean teatowel. Add a few twists of black pepper.

Butter some sliced bread (ideally Hovis, failing that wholemeal) with unsalted butter. Spread with a thin layer of cucumber and make a butty. Press firmly together. Slice off the crusts and cut either into triangular quarters or fingers. Chill before serving.

Lettuce

My Stalinist approach to salad.

Take a nice lettuce or two (Cos, Romaine, never Iceberg!). Tear it up (It's a French thing. Apparently the French never cut lettuce). Simply dress with olive oil, a little vinegar (I used the kind that Delia Smith pronounces 'Boar's Mick'), a little sea salt, a little freshly ground black pepper.

Fruit Salad

For the first time in ages, I managed to score some decent nectarines...in Asda, of all places. For starters, thety were actually ripe. They had deep red skins and white flesh and a wonderful, perfumed taste. They made a great fruit salad, along with watermelon, honeydew melon and Packham pears.

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The Italic Bits

According to the US State Department, suicide can be regarded as 'a publicity stunt'. Do you reckon that Max Clifford might pick up on this for his celeb clients? Here's hoping!


Open Source is a great idea. You can get Open Source Software...which means that you'll never again be stuck for something to do with your spare time...even Open Source Beer and (provided you can read Japanese) OpenCola. And coming soon...Open Source God. It seems that a bunch of geeks are getting together to make instructions on how to make a God Helmet publically available: a clever arrangement of magnets that allows people to...er...see god.


Radio 4's 'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue' continues to deliver outrageous lines into our homes in the early evening. Two recent examples from Humphrey Littleton concerning the scorer, the ever-delectable Samantha:

"Samantha has to shoot off to meet her new gentleman friend. She says he's going into business growing scrumpy apples. If his predictions are correct, he's going to be very big in cider."

and

"Samantha has to go and by a birthday gift for her gentleman friend. He likes to play with model boats in his bathtub. She's thought about him long and hard and wants to give him a little tug."

Ahfangew!

More Samantha smut here.

Wavy Gravy.

Risotto – not, contrary to popular belief some boiled rice with a few vegetables chucked in it. It’s best regarded as a sort of semi-solid cereal-based soup. The Italian word is ondine– wave-like. When you shuggle the plate, it should ripple.

But I’m not here to talk about risotto. When you make it with barley it’s called orzalano. And it takes a lot less stirring and watching over to get right. Lovely stuff, barley. It has a great flavour and texture. It’s far too nice to restrict it to Scotch Broth.

Anyway…Barley. It’s dirt cheap. Apparently ‘pot barley’ is meant to be the whole grain and ‘pearl barley’ the polished, but I’ve never noticed a difference. It can be a bit starch and gloopy. I recommend pre-soaking it and rinsing it thoroughly in one of those watchamacallits with the holes, and/or bringing it to the boil in lots of water, then changing the water and boiling again. Then simmer on a low heat until tender but al dente. (40 minutes to an hour – depending on pre-soaking etc. etc.). That’s another advantage over risotto, where you have to add the water to the rice gradually. You can just cook the barley in advance in plenty of water and then drain it.

So – you’ve got yer barley. Now get a big frying pan sort of thing. Sauté some shredded leaks and a couple of cloves of garlic in a little olive oil. Then add plenty of sliced/ chopped mushrooms. Make sure you use the big, flat ones. (Sensible languages use a separate word to distinguish these from button mushrooms). Porcini/ Ceps, dried or fresh, would be even better – only somehow last autumn I never got around to foraging. Then add your barley (you want to keep a decent veg-barley ratio), stir it all up and moisten with sufficient stock (including the porcini-reconstituting water, if applicable.). When it looks suitably ondine, slip in a big knob. Of butter. And a handful or two of grated parmesan. Stir a couple of times.

Serve topped with chopped parsley, a little black pepper and more parmesan.

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There are two more holes in Blackburn, Lancashire today as Jack Straw patronises both his constituents and Condaleeza Rice by showing her the delights of ‘modern, multi-cultural Britain.’ I don’t know whether to admire Straw’s chutzpah or to puzzle over his lack of social skills in inviting a guest to go places where she’s going to get shouted at all the time. I’d hope.

‘Hey, Hey, Condi Rice! Is murdering Iraqis nice?’

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Lynne Truss has made a fortune by pointing out that the meaning of some sentences is dependent on the correct placement of a comma:

'Eats, shoots and leaves.'

Then there's Kingsley Amis' (Amis's? I'm never sure) example of a sentence whose meaning depends on the placement of an apostrophe:

'Those things over there are my husbands'.

Now, for the first time in public, a sentence whose meaning is dependent on capitalisation:

'I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse.'

It's pronounced "Keen-wa", apparently

Well...it's been a while.

To make up for it, despite my disparging remarks in the past, here's a recipe involving Quinoa, the high-protein grainy stuff, known to the Incas as "The Food of Hippies"

Superfood Salad

First catch your Quinoa. It can come covered in saponic acid, so first rinse it well in one of those...damn!...things made from metal or plastic mesh...you know the ones...those things that I've got a memory like. (Don't try rinsing in a pan like with rice. Quinoa floats.) Then -

1. spread on a tray in a low oven until dry
2. toast in a saucepan with a little olive oil
3. add double the amount of boiling water to quinoa
4. cover and simmer gently for about 15 minutes, until the shells of the individual grains (the dermis) have burst open
5. agitate with a fork, turn the heat off and leave covered for a little while.
6. uncover and leave to cool.

If pressed for time, omit stages 1 and 2.

Next take either some fresh, podded peas or some sugarsnaps or mangetouts (mangestous?) cut up into small-ish pieces. Slice some radishes. Peel, de-stone and dice an avocado. Combine the lot with enough cooked quinoa to add texture without dominating - you're looking for an effect like Tabbouleh (proper tabbouleh, that is), plus a good quantity fof chopped, fresh mint and (optional) flat-leaf parsley and coriander. Dress with either a little lime juice or a proprietary Caesar's dressing of your choice. Serve in a pile on top of a bed of cos/ romaine type lettuce.

According to the French, lettuce must never be cut with a knife, apparently, only torn.

The italics at the end.

I'm grateful to Psychocandy for informing me of the best chemistry-related pun I've heard in many a year. It's guacamole...geddit?

From the dearly departed Ivor Cutler (15/1/1923 - 3/3/2006)

Thatcher is an eight-letter word.

And finally...

A diversion. If George get's stuck, you can slide him around with the mouse.

Mair just as soon as.

More Pumpin' Pumpkin

Another pumpkin recipe, today being All Hallows' Eve. First the usual warning: don't go using a cattle-fodder Jack O'Lantern pumpkin - they're not tasty. I used a butternut squash myself.

Dead easy, this one. A soup.

First off, chop an onion and sweat it in butter in a big pan. Add a carrot and a few potatoes, diced small. After it's suitably sweaty, toss in a can of chopped tomatoes. Stir a bit, then add boiling water and salt to taste. Continue simmering.

Meanwhile, take your pumpkin/squash. Cut it into chunks and peel. Put most of the chunks in a separate pan, cover with water and boil covered until soft. With a few of the chunks - dice them (Keep the dice reasonably chunky) and add to the other veg.

When the main lot of pumpkin, once soft, liquidise it with a hand blender or implement of your choice. Add the pulpy pumpkin to the main soup. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Stir in some single cream and serve. I reckon a topping of grated Swiss or Cheddar cheese might add to it.

(I get all my cheese from a delightful Palestinian fromagerie that's opened in my neighbourhood. It's an offshoot of the well-known Occupied West Bank company, Cheeses of Nazareth).


I've been carving pumpkins in exchange for donations to the Kashmir Earthquake Appeal. Here are some of the results:








Felllow Pastafarians will recognise the Flying Spaghetti Monster (all hail, me hearties). According to this guy, the theory that the world was created by His Noodly Appendage is a valid , scientific one ...get this...'...because it has been used to describe biological phenomena.' Sure, he was actually talking about Intelligent Design, but the same applies. Ramen!

By the way...did you hear about the guy who forgot to take his homeopathic medicine? He died of an overdose. (Bi-dum Tish!)

Hippy Food

Quinoa was a grain, much prized by the Incas. The conquistadors suppressed its farming, making the natives economically dependent upon them. I've never seen the point of it myself. So it's full of protein...yadda yadda yadda...but just because something's good for you, that's no good reason to eat it. I can certainly think of more appealing things to put in my mouth.

However, Space Girl has asked me what to do with it. Resisting the obvious answer, I've come up with this:

First, cook your quinoa. Space Girl has particularly asked for guidance here, following her notorious cous-cous incident, when she boiled it instead of steaming and ended up with 'cous'. First of all, the grains are coated with a saponin, as soapy substance, so rinse them thoroughly first. The consensus out there seems to be one cup of quinoa to two of water. Simmer gently as with rice until the water is absorbed, then fluff with a fork.

Since it's irredeemably hippy alreadey, I see no reason not to stuff it into peppers. Mix it up with some toasted, flaked almonds and some coarsely-chopped orange, apricot (fresh, not dried) or - my top tip - peach. Add a little salt.

Cut your peppers in half. Stuff 'em with the mix. Bake until soft.

Eat while wearing a caftan and listening to the Incredible String Band.


I have a theory. There's been a lot of too-ing and fro-ing about the Labour Party leadership. First Blair was going soon, now he's not. Here's what I reckon: The deal with Brown was that he was meant to serve two terms max after which, having taken Britain into the Euro, he'd go on to acclaim as EU president. Obviously that's not going to happen. But he's nive and cosy with his pray-pal Dubya, he's rumoured to be about to reverse his position on Kyoto, he's paying lip-service to 3rd world issues and he's banging on about terrorism as a global issue. Kofi Annan retires in a year. Clinton wanted the job, but that wouldn't sit well wit Hilary '08. Step forward Secretary General Blair. Remember, folks...you heard it here first.


Having watched the mighty Dylan documentary, I'm reminded of the time he was playing in Paris one cold November. As he came out of his hotel, a journalist asked hin 'Have you got a good quote, Bob?' To which he replied 'Man, if I had a good quote I'd be wearing it!'

Pumpkin, Honeybunnies.

We’ve done the last recipe of summer (although me runner beans are still running). Now’s the time for the first offering from my autumn almanac.

Roast Pumpkin with Pappardrelle

First catch your pumpkin. Most of the ‘carving pumpkins’ sold in these parts are from Hungary, where they are grown as cattle fodder. Insincere pumpkins. Edible at a pinch – although you may prefer to substitute some kind of more flavoursome, orange-fleshed squash such as butternut or kabocha. Whatever, your first task is to cut it into reasonably sized slices and remove the skin…somehow. I’ve no advice to offer on how best to do this. It’s fucking difficult.

Next, stash your peeled pumpkin bits in a roasting tin and add a handful of cherry tomatoes and a few peeled shallots. Add a little olive oil, salt and pepper and muddle it all around a bit.

Now, the usual wisdom with roast pumpkin involves blasting it at a high temperature. I reckon with this it’s better to cook it longer and slower, possibly sealing the tray with foil, so that everything gets all soft and mingles nicely. Then blast it a bit at the end, so you get scorchy bits.

Once the vegetables are cooked, lightly mash a couple of the tomatoes and pumpkin slices (but leave most whole). Then stir a pot of crème fraîche into the tin. Add a sprig of rosemary. Stick it back into the oven until the crème fraîche bubbles – but don’t overcook so that it goes cheesy.

Remove the rosemary. Serve over cooked pappardrelle – or tagliatelle at a pinch – with the usual scattering of freshly grated parmesan.



There’s a lot of controversy concerning the effects of violence on TV. Now…I was brought up on a constant diet of extremely violent cartoons, yet I didn’t grow up to be a mass murderer. Although I do enjoy dropping anvils on cats.

Tellytubbie Halwa

They were making this in Tinky-Winky’s stomach the over day. It’s desparately easy – think of it as the Asian equivalent of Rice Crispie cakes. Extensive googling suggests it’s known as suji halwa.

First take a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Melt some butter or ghee in it. How much? Depends on how much semolina. I’d say about half the amount by volume of fat to semolina – possibly less. Some recipes suggest an equal amount, but that’s excessive.

Whatever – into your melted butter/ ghee, add the semolina and stir around. Fry up until it goes all tasty and smells of…er…semolina. The oil should separate out a bit.

Meanwhile in advance (?), make some sugar syrup. i.e. bung a bunch of sugar in a separate pan and add just enough water to get it to dissolve. Heat up a little.

Next, pour the syrup into the semolina. You’ll need to get a grown-up to help you with this part because the hot syrup may bubble violently. Actually – it’s probably a good idea to let both the syrup and the semolina cool a little. Add enough syrup to make the semolina hold together as a dough.

Let the mixture cool until you’re able to handle it. Then roll lumps of it into testicle-sized nuggets. ‘Laa-Laa’s balls, Laa-Laa’s balls, Dipsy’s favourite things of all!’ Why testicle-sized, rather than the more conventional walnut sized? Well…how many young children know what a walnut looks like?

Place each ball in one of those paper cases you use for making Rice Crispie cakes. You can decorate them by pressing almonds, cherries, walnuts, dates, etc. into the top. Allow to cool fully and eat.

Options: You can flavour them in various ways by adding:
Ground almonds; chopped pistachios; toasted and processed sesame seeds; raisins; dates. To the syrup, you can add saffron, cardamom, rose or orange flower water.

Further recipes for halwa and many other excellent Indian foods may be found on the wonderful Mamta’s Kitchen site.


Cats have nine lives...which makes them particularly useful for animal experimentation.

Classy broads

The summer is trying to linger on in Pieland. All the same, realistically this is probably the last summer-ish recipe for the season. I cobbled it together to make use of the bounty of my vegetable microplot.

Broad Bean and Leek Quiche

First bake a pastry case blind. Now, I know that some of you out there are culinarily challenged (Shout out to a female fox in NY state. She knows who she is.) so I'll explain a bit. You don't have to poke your eyes out first.

First take a quiche dish (wou know...one of those fluted ceramic ones) or pie tin. Butter and flour it. Then take some shortcut pastry and line it. Ready-made pastry is fine. Another idea, if making your own - and I'm sure you'll find recipes on the web - is not to role it. Shortcut pastry is hard to handle. Instead, stick it in the fridge until nice and cold. Then grate it into the dish and kinda squidge it down so that the bottom and sides are covered. Then stick the dish back into the fridge for a while. Chese pasty could be a good idea here. To bake blind - line the pastry with foil. Put into a medium oven for about 20 mins, remove the foil and give it a few more minutes to dry out.

Now for the filling. In a saucepan, soften some leeks (sliced into 0.5 cm roundels) in a little butter. Remove the leeks but retain the butter. Add a little flour to the butter and cook to a roux. Add some milk and turn it into a white sauce. Don't make too much! You're only after about half a cup. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Put the leeks back in the sauce and continue heating. Throw in a handful of freshly podded broadbeans. In my case, the beans were still growing five minutes before I started - but I'm just showing off. Them's the fellas over yonder.

Next, remove from the heat and stir in sone eggs. How many eggs? Jaysus, I don't know. How big's your quiche dish? I think I used about four for a medium-sized quche. And add a wee tub of Crème fraîche. Pour the filling into the pastry case. Bake in a medium oven for about 45 minutes until it is set and the top lightly browned.

Leave to cool before serving with new potatoes and a salad.


The other day, I was sitting on a park bench doing the newspaper crossword, and who should come and sit next to me but a well-known white rap star. I was stuck on one of the clues, so I asked him, 'Can you think of a synonym for anenome, Eminem?'

Ahfangew.