Nigella's first book was on pasta

     The first time I heard about Nigella Lawson was when I watched her program Nigella Bites on the Style Network.  Instantly, I took a liking to her.  She was witty, polished, modern and oh so British.  Her posh accent and vocabulary were enriching in itself, and the way she presented her cooking, quite unique.  She reminded me a bit of Doña Petrona, the great Argentine cook that was just as witty and wrote THE elementary  cookbook for the Argentine housewife.

     I remembered how her production team admired her after becoming a widow relatively early in life, and succeeded making it on her own whilst pulling her strings with two very young children in tow.  The idea conveyed was of a struggling, lonely housewife with almost no recourse other than her wit.  Although I’ve no doubt that the woman went through a difficult time (she admits to have suffered from depression at the time), she was hardly ever in a financially desperate situation.

     Lawson is the daughter of ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer during the Thatcher government Nigel Lawson, and Vanessa Salmon, a socialite and heiress to the magnanimous J.Lyons & Co. catering empire. Although her childhood was a bit difficult due to her parents’ disagreements and subsequent divorce in 1980, she shone academically and graduated from Oxford University.

A composite photo from 1965, showing a glummy Nigella to the left, with father Nigel,
deceased sister Thomasina and mum Vanessa, ever the great organized hostess.

      She became a journalist and wrote for prestigious publications, such as The Observer, The Telegraph, The Times in the United Kingdom  and Gourmet and Bon Appétit in the United States.  It was during this time that she met her first husband, also journalist John Diamond, and the father of her two children Cosima and Bruno.  They married in Venice in 1992, and Diamond died of throat cancer in 2001.  I still have recordings of Nigella Bites with him on it, sitting at the table with guests during a meal and unable to eat anything because of his terrible disease.  I thought at the time how cruelly ironic life can be, having a wife who is a famous cook, along with a disease that’s killing you, but also in the meantime, precludes you from tasting anything she makes.  Shortly after Diamond’s death she started dating art collector Charles Saatchi.  They married in 2003 and have been together ever since. 

     Lawson’s enjoyment for cooking came about from her mother, who loved to entertain and cook, being who she was, the heiress of such a large food-related organization.  Unlike Nigella though, her mother suffered from eating disorders.  This may have been the cause of her rather early demise at the age of 48 due to liver cancer.  In a recent interview with the Daily Mail, she declared her relationship with her mother was less than ideal: “I never thought I could please her,' she said.  'She was funny, but depressed and so sensitive to noise.” 

     Still, being the daughter of such entertaining-loving mother obviously influenced her life.  Her first book, How to eat, was published in 1998 and sold 300,000 copies.  But contrary to what most everyone believes, this was not her first written contribution.  I consider her very first work one called Il museo immaginario della pasta, which she co-wrote with Pier Luigi Bassignana, a curator and contributor to various technical Italian publications.  The collectors’ tome was written to commemorate the First World Congress on Pasta, which took place in Rome, between the 25^th and 28^th October, 1995.

    Lawson wrote for the book an essay entitled “A food with divine origins”, in which she traces the origins of pasta offering surprising revelations.  For instance, who would have thought the Arabs played a prominent role in the development of pasta?  Lawson reveals how the food was eaten in ancient Persia and appeared in the cookery books of medieval Islam.  She also delves into the history of badly cooked pasta, emphasizing the fact that this food should never be overcooked but always “al dente” and with a small amount of sauce, as opposed to drowning in it. 

     The amount of pasta shapes and sizes shown in the book is amazing, and has appealed to an esoteric taste like mine.  Recently I found some colourful pasta at my local Homegoods called “monumenti”.  They are just that – monuments and buildings of Italy in your plate.  It was very important, like Lawson suggests in her essay, not to overcook these shapes, as they would otherwise disintegrate very easily.  I found 4 minutes were more than enough, and I served them with an excellent Ligurian pesto topped with freshly grated Parmesan, and piece of cheese bread.  Simple, yet elegant comfort food to have while sitting cozily in front of the T.V.

     But who can claim they do not love pasta?  As far as Nigella’s first true written contribution to the world of cookery books, the English used to associate the word “pasta” with macaroni.  Here in America, macaroni and cheese is a classic, but for me, the best recipe for this dish does not come from Nigella, or from any American cook, but from a compatriot of hers, model turned celebrity chef Lorraine Pascale.  She makes a heavenly Glam Mac & Cheese, which elevates comfort food to a new ideal, that of the gourmet one.  This dish has it all – the meatiness of the pancetta and the aromas of the fresh herbs combined with the yummy cheeses, whilst offering the comfort of pasta.  I encourage you to try this tasty recipe, which will have you licking your fingers to no end.  The amount makes four generous servings.

Glam Mac & Cheese

Ingredients:

• 340g macaroni
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 80g pancetta, diced
• 1 small handful of fresh thyme leaves
• 3 scallions, trimmed and finely sliced
• 100g breadcrumbs
• 1 handful of chopped parsley

For the cheese sauce:

·         3 Tbsp butter

·         5 Tbsp all-purpose flour

·         Pinch of ground nutmeg

·         1 tsp mustard powder

·         Generous ¾ cup milk

·         Scant 1 ¼ cup of heavy cream

·         200g dolce latte or Gorgonzola cheese

·         115g Parmesan cheese, grated

Preparation:

     Cook the macaroni in a large pot of boiling salted water.  They need to be cooked to just under what you would normally do, as the pasta will be cooked again in the oven.  Drain, then return to the pan and set aside.  Preheat the oven to 400 F. 

     Fry the pancetta in a medium skillet over gentle heat until it starts to brown and crisp up, then add the scallions and cook for an additional 3 minutes.  Remove the skillet from the heat and add its contents to the pasta.

     For the sauce, put the butter, flour, nutmeg and mustard in a small pan set over medium heat and cook until the butter has melted.  Mix the milk and cream together in a pitcher and add a little to the flour and butter in the pan, stirring well.  Keep adding the milk mixture, bit by bit, stirring well each time.  This will prevent the sauce from going lumpy.  Resist the temptation of putting all the milk in at once, since you will be left with clumps of flour floating on the surface.  Should this happen, take the pan off the heat and whisk it like crazy – it should make all the lumps disappear.  Make sure you get the spoon into the corners of the pan, as stray mounds of flour often lurk there.  Once the sauce has fully come together, turn up the heat and boil for a minute or two.  The sauce will thicken considerably.  Once this happens remove it from the heat and add two thirds of both the cheeses to it while it’s still hot and combine well.  It may be a bit lumpy, but that is fine.  Season to taste with salt and pepper and add to the pasta mix.  Stir everything together and spoon into a shallow casserole dish or 4 individual ramekins.  This latter option is my favourite, as I then have the freedom to freeze part of the preparation at this point in the recipe.   

    

     Once ready to eat, sprinkle the top with the thyme leaves, the rest of the cheeses and the breadcrumbs, and bake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until the cheese starts to bubble and the topping goes crumbly and brown.  Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve hot.

The Allure of Salted Caramel

     It was not too long ago that salted caramel became the “in” flavor of our age.  According to food writer and eater extraordinaire Nigella Lawson (see my post on her here), salted caramel is the “class A drug of the confectionary world”.  And she has the photo to prove it.

     Perhaps it was the ongoing fascination of sweet and sour that Americans had acquired, mostly through ill-prepared Chinese food, that made it stick.  I still remember when four years ago I made a stop at my local Starbucks drive-in on very chilly night and saw they were offering a salted caramel hot chocolate.  Keen on the combination, I ordered it at once and was not disappointed.  The slight hint of saltiness added that extra kick that made the already rich hot chocolate a multi-dimensional treat.  Earlier on during that same dreadful year of the global financial crisis, Häagen-Dazs had introduced their version of salted caramel ice-cream.  And the craze in America had begun.

     Since then, the flavor has appeared in everything sweet and savoury – cocktails, main courses, appetizers, sauces, you name it.  The trend started in France’s Brittany region, where famous pattisier Pierre Hermé initially invented a salted caramel macaroon, while also spreading a few grains of fleur de sel on top of exquisitely dark, almost glinting chocolates.  Going back to Nigella, she claims salted caramel is one perfect combination because it brings together effectively opposing flavours, which cause a highly positive physiological reaction in the brain.

     For me, the allure of this flavor became compellingly attractive in a recipe I found through Pinterest for a vanilla cheesecake with a salted caramel sauce.  The original was in a Polish website called Art Kulinaria.  And no, before you ask, I don’t speak polish.  But here is where Google’s translator feature becomes highly useful; so much so, that it allowed me to actually bake the recipe to perfection.  What also attracted me to this recipe was the fact that it contained topfen, a curd-type cheese from the Alps within its ingredients, along with the ubiquitous ricotta.  This is, in fact, what a true cheesecake should be like, its deliciousness extending even to the crust, which incorporates ground almonds to give it that extra touch of luxury throughout. No brick-like firm texture here, as is the one obtained when using American cream cheese, but the light, airy smoothness of fresh, almost always unpasteurized curd cheeses like the Italian ricotta and the Eastern-European topfen.  It is indeed a delicate cake.

     This is a luscious recipe and it proves an elegant dessert for tea-time or the end of a light dinner.  It fits into a 22mm diameter mold – roughly 8.5 inches.

Ingredients for the base:

• 270gr. Graham crackers crumbs
• 30gr. Ground almonds
• 85gr. melted butter

Ingredients for the curd:

• 450gr. Topfen
• 400gr. Ricotta
• 175gr. sugar
• 4 eggs
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 vanilla pod
• 500ml very cold cream, 36% milkfat or higher
• 1 level Tbsp. of sifted icing sugar

Ingredients for the caramel sauce:

• 250ml. cream
• 1 cup sugar
• 60gr. butter
• Fleur de sel for sprinkling

Preparation:

     Line the bottom of a circular mold with parchment paper and lightly grease the sides with butter.  From the outside, wrap it tightly with plastic wrap so that when inserted into the bain Marie water will not leak into it.

     Combine the Graham cracker crumbs, ground almonds and melted butter and mix thoroughly to the consistency of wet sand.  Cover bottom and sides of mold with the crust and refrigerate for 1 hour.

     Preheat the oven to 300F degrees.  Prepare a vessel larger than the mold of the cake and a kettle of boiling water for the bain Marie.  In a separate bowl, mix the topfen and ricotta cheeses.  Add the sugar and one egg at a time, combining thoroughly in between each egg.  Add the salt, scrape the seeds of the vanilla pod and mix.  Pour this mixture into the mold with the refrigerated base, then place it into the larger vessel and fill half way up with boiling water.  Insert into the preheated oven and bake for about an hour to an hour and a half (depending on the oven).  Remove from the oven when a knife inserted in the center comes out almost clean, but watch that the cheesecake does not become extremely firm (you do not want an overcooked cheesecake, trust me on this one).  So watch your oven like a hawk.  After baking, remove from the oven and leave to cool.  Once at room temperature, place in the refrigerator at least 3 hours or – better – overnight.

     Once the cake has cooled, whip the very cold cream with the sugar to stiff, in a bowl that has been previously placed in the freezer for a few minutes, along with the beaters.  Top the cheesecake mold with the cream and place back into the refrigerator to stiffen.

     In the meantime, make the caramel sauce by placing the cream, butter and sugar in a saucepan, stirring under low heat, until the sugar dissolves.  Increase the heat, bring to a boil and cook on low for 5 to 7 minutes, until the sauce thickens.  Stir several times during cooking and watch that it does not burn.  Put aside to cool.  This will also help the sauce thicken.

     Bring the cheesecake out of the refrigerator, carefully remove it from the mold and place it on a cake pedestal.  Pour the caramel sauce in a thin abstract pattern on top of the cake and sprinkle with fleur de sel crystals. This cake can be served with a nice coffee flavored with – why not? – salted caramel creamer.  International Delight has a very good one, the Salted Caramel Mocha, which is a seasonal product, mostly available during the holidays.  My advice is to rush over to your neighborhood supermarket and grab two or three (they last about 5 months in the refrigerator).  It is a rich coffee creamer that adds just the right amount of saltiness to the already rich mocha flavor.  I like it better with a medium roast blend, like a Viennese (I use Helmut Sachers’).  You should grind the beans just before brewing them.

Best latte ever

     The holidays are definitely a time to indulge. So when gobbling all that fruitcake and panetonne, I suggest a salted caramel macchiato martini. Just mix in a cocktail shaker with ice:

• 2 parts of Stoli Salted Caramel vodka
• 1 part Kahlúa 
• a splash of milk 

A nice salted caramel chocolate tartlette from The Fresh Market 

Strain into a martini glass. It tastes very much like a white Russian. I chose to coat the rim with salted caramel sugar from the The Spice & Tea Exchange.

     The holidays are THE time of the year to indulge. I have found salted caramel, as a flavour, encompasses it all. There is no better way to celebrate than by going from one side of the tasting spectrum to the other. Regardless of what your beliefs are, my wish is for you and your family that of truly Happy Holidays, full of warmth, cheer good food and, above all, good company.

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References:

- Lawson, Nigella, My love affair with salted caramel, Stylist.co.uk

- Severson, Kim, How caramel developed a taste for chocolate, New York Times, December 30, 2008