So, we’re back to waiting. Waiting for the protection from
my first jab to kick in (it takes 2-3 weeks), waiting to find out if the new
Indian variant is going to delay unlocking, waiting to see if the great
unlocking will cause a huge rise in cases, waiting for my second jab… waiting
seems to have been a theme of this year, and I’m getting a bit sick of it. Perhaps
this is why, like many others I seem to have lost my cooking mojo. I have
cooked familiar things, most of which I have blogged before. I ordered a few
things from Cote at Home to see us through the post-vaccine side effects, which
turned out to be a good idea. Even the start of the asparagus season hasn’t inspired
me – I have eaten quite a bit of asparagus, but I have just eaten it (mostly
with mustard and miso mayo), rather than doing anything interesting with it.
However, this weekend, there were glimmerings of interest in
cooking again. As regular readers may have noticed, I like a theme for a meal, and
on Saturday, the theme was Venice. I am slightly cheating with the main course
on this one, as it came from Pasta Evangelists: Venetian duck ragu with pasta. But
it sparked interest in making a few things around it, and sent me back to a
recipe book I haven’t looked at for a while: Veneto by Valeria Necchio.
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| Venetian night started with a Merchant of Venice cocktail |
In this, I found a recipe for Venetian style asparagus – it’s supposed to be made with white asparagus, but the book says green is an acceptable substitute. It’s one of those very simple but absolute genius ideas that Italian food specialises in. Lightly hard boil and peel an egg. Cook your asparagus (recipe suggests steaming, I roasted as I have decided this is how I like asparagus best). Mix some olive oil and white wine vinegar (in about a four to one ratio) with salt and quite a bit of black pepper. Add your egg to this and mash it up, until you have a mushy, slightly lumpy sauce. It’s not pretty, but it is delicious, and I commend it to you for the rest of asparagus season.
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| Not pretty, but delicious |
I also made a salad from the same book: radicchio, rocket
and apple. There was also supposed to be fennel, but I didn’t have any of that.
It has a simple olive oil and white wine vinegar, plus a bit of lemon juice to
stop the apple turning brown. This worked very well with the rich ragu, the
apple balances out the bitter radicchio.
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| Salad |
(Incidentally, the same book has a recipe for duck ragu, if you have the inclination to make your own).
The only possible negative with this meal, is that it’s
reminded me how much I miss travel – which is something I’m going to have a
long wait for.
It really is the pattern of the last year-plus, this waiting lark. And of course it's not the worst thing in the world, but it is hard after so many months. Hopefully it's the short and measurable wait of vaccines rather than anything more, which I think might drive us all onto the streets screaming. (I'm v glad I got a Dishpatch order in for this weekend, else I'd probably have been down to a party pack of Doritos tbh.)
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a brilliant plan though - a few interesting nibbly things rather than big event cooking, just enough to pique the interest.