Everything but Beetroot

A few words on the topic of the brands of spaghetti, a completely overlooked but important consideration that is never done but should be as an excellent pasta pushes up a dish towards excellence whilst a mediocre pasta will make a mediocre dish even served with a wonderful sauce.

I’m quite sure that it’s not me but that most brands, including many leading Italian brands, changed the variety of the flour they use to make spaghetti that are almost impossible to overcook.

My advice is: use a brand that can overcook if you forget them on the fire and pay attention to the clock when you cook them. That’s what divides the boys from the men. Spaghetti that can’t overcook just don’t taste right, they’re not lame, they’re incomplete.

Proper spaghetti should cook in 8 minutes, take them off at 7:30 or even 7, they’re “al dente”, that’s how they’re supposed to be. They will keep on cooking even in the plate. The only way to stop them cooking is to pour cold water over them, but you don’t want to do that. My favourite brand is Pezzullo, it’s very popular in the south of Italy and completely unknown in the north, where I come from. I discovered it just 10 years ago, a tip from a friend of mine from Naples. Here in Lewisham I buy it from Gennaro Delicatessen. I hope this last bit doesn’t look like a shameless plug, it’s not, that’s the best pasta I know and if you live round here that’s the only place you can get it from.

This is a very quick and simple seafood dish of divine sweetness.

The first thing to do is to put the clams in cold water and sea salt and leave them peacefully in the fridge for a few hours, the longer the better, this allows them get rid of the inevitable sand that they contain. Wash them thoroughly under running water before cooking.

Finely chop abundant garlic and stir fry it together with some chili in extra virgin olive oil at very low fire. Just before the garlic starts changing its white colour to golden pour a glass of dry white wine (I use Chardonnay) and a couple of spoonfuls of grated bread.

Raise the fire to the maximum and let the alcohol evaporate for a minute, add the clams, put the lead over the pot and reduce the fire to medium. It takes about three to four minutes for the clams to cook completely. Once they’re cooked they open up. If you open the lead and see that they haven’t opened… put it right back and wait another minute!

As they open up they release their juices and at the end of the process they will be swimming in a sublime sauce, ready to be added to the pasta.

It may be that a couple of them don’t open at all, don’t force their shells to eat them, it means that they were already dead when they went into the pot and they’re better left alone.

Anyway, that’s the whole recipe, easy isn’t it? Just drain the spaghetti, add the sauce and sprinkle with chopped flat parsley.

To have the pasta and the sauce ready at the same time I switch the fire under the garlic as I pour the pasta into the water.

I’ve invited Max to join me in writing this blog and he’s accepted:

When I was a child I became fascinated with the intro chapters of a series of cookery books of my mother. Every book was on a different kind of food: meats, fish, soups… I wan’t interested in the individual recipes, I liked the descriptions of the methods, how to seal the meat or marinade the fish, the general principles of cooking, that was what interested me, now I’m very good at improvising, an empty fridge can always give me something to cook a meal with. Not all of them are worth writing about but some will make it onto that blog.

Hopefully this will make for a good contrast, as I struggle to master the basics and Max takes us through the art of improvising with what’s available.

He’s been off to Billingsgate this morning so look forward to something from that.