Linguine with Porcini Mushrooms, Marsala and Mascarpone

Linguine with Porcini Mushrooms, Marsala and Mascarpone

My Comments

I have made this twice now and it is very quick and tasty. The Marsala wine adds loads of flavour to the mushrooms and brings the pasta to life.

I found that there was quite a bit of liquid remaining which made the creamy pasta sauce very wet and I’d rather have it thicker and creamier rather than runny, but it did not distract from the flavour.

 

Serves 2

Ingredients

15g dried porcini mushrooms
60ml Marsala
60ml water
125g mascarpone
freshly grated nutmeg
ground pepper
2 tablespoons chopped parsley, plus extra to serve
250g dried Linguine
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 small garlic clove, peeled
4 tablespoons grated Parmesan

Method

1.    Put the porcini into to the smallest pan you have. Pour in the Marsala and the water, bring to boil over medium heat and then, just as it starts to boil, take it off the heat and leave for about 10 minutes. The mushrooms need to be submerged in the liquid so that they soften.

2.    Put the mascarpone into a small bowl, add a good amount of grated nutmeg and some ground pepper. Once the porcini have softened, strain them into the bowl, letting the soaking liquid mix with the mascarpone. Whisk to combine.

3.    Chop the porcini and the parsley together on a chopping board.

4.    Cook the pasta in boiling, salted water according to packet instructions.

5.    In a large pan, warm the butter and add the grated garlic. Stir it together, then mix in the mushrooms and parsley and cook for a few minutes. Pour the mascarpone into the pan and cook for another minute. Remove it from the heat.

6.    Reserve a cup of the pasta cooking water. Drain the pasta and pour it into the pan with the mascarpone and toss to coat. Add a little of the reserved pasta cooking water if it looks a little dry.

7.    Add the Parmesan, toss everything together and check the seasoning. Serve with more parsley and Parmesan.

Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake

Nigella Says

I don’t know if I should apologize for this or boast about it. Either way, I feel you will thank me for it. The thing is that it’s embarrassingly easy and, although I first started making it last Christmas – a lot – reckoning that it was just the sort of count-no calorie indulgence tbat the season demands, I have since decided that something this good, and this speedily simple to conjure into being, needs to be in our lives all year round.

Don’t be tempted to let the cheesecake come to room temperature before serving it slices and eats better with a bit of fridge chill on it.

However, you must have both Nutella and cream cheese at room temperature before making it. To simplify your life a little, you can buy the hazelnuts ready chopped and toasted.

I Say

I have made this several times for family, friends and colleagues and has always gone down well and people are always surprised at how easy it is when I share the recipe with them.

Though I would say dish works better with less hazelnuts on the top, you need some for bite and texture but coating the top with nuts can make it a little overwhelming.

Need

1 x 22 or 23 cm Springform Cake tin

Ingredients

250g Digestive Biscuits

75g Soft unsalted butter

1 x 400g Jar Nutella or equivalent chocolate hazelnut spread at room temperature

100g Chopped Toasted Hazelnuts

500g Cream Cheese at room temperature

60g Icing Sugar

Method

1.      Break  the biscuits into the bowl of a food processor, then add the butter and 1 x 15 ml tablespoon of Nutella and Blitz until the mixture starts to clump. Add 25g of the toasted hazelnuts, and continue to pulse until you have a damp, sandy mixture.

2.      Tip this into the springform tin and press it into the base, using either your hands or the back of a spoon. Place in the fridge to chill while you get o with the filling

3.      Beat together the cream cheese and icing sugar until smooth and soft, then patiently scrape the rest of the Nutella out of its jar and into the cream cheese mixture and continue beating until combined

4.      Take the springform tin out of the fridge. Carefully scrape and smooth the Nutella mixture over the biscuit base and scatter the remaining chopped hazelnuts on top to cover. Place the tin in the fridge for at least 4 hours or overnight.

5.      Serve straight from the fridge for best results, unspringing the cake from the tin, still on its base, just before you eat. To cut it, dip a sharp knife in cold water, wiping it and dipping again between each cut. And don’t worry: it may look disappointingly flat when whole, but when sliced its dark depths are revealed 

Venetian Stew

Nigella Says

There is an old Venetian Dish called, in dialect, Manai, that is the inspiration for this. And I emphasize the word “inspiration”: Manai, which broadly speaking involves polenta with beans, bacon and local raisins, is the fruitful starting point for my pink-hued stew, with its beans and bacon and radicchio (my innovation, but it does come from Venice), echoing the cinnamon-rose colours of the palazzo that line the Grand Canal.

I suspect that the original stew would have used speck (think along the lines of smoked bacon) rather than unsmoked pancetta, but either will do. If you can, though do buy a good Italian can of borlotti beans as the juice they come in us usable; the gloop in cheaper supermarket own-label brands can be disconcertingly smelly and frankly unfit for consumption. Still, if the only beans you can find need to be rinsed vigorously, you will have to add more water to make sure the beans are covered as they cook. That in turn will make for a runnier stew, so maybe mash some of the beans at the end just to help thicken it.

I adore this salty stew ladled in bowls over a mounded pile of sweet yellow polenta. Though some unsalty Italian bread with it is enough for me; either way, this is pretty well instant, soothing and substantial supper.

I Say

I made this dish without the instant polenta I used already made polenta as I couldn’t fund the instant sort in my supermarket so I just grilled some and served it alongside some vegetables and the stew and it worked well.

The dish was nice the most hearty of stews I have had and I couldn’t obtain Radicchio either so I used chicory which I felt still worked in the dish.

The cumin gave the dish the real flavour I would do it again if I wanted something quick but I wouldn’t rush to do it again.

Serves 2

Ingredients

Stew

25g Raisins

125ml Boiling Water

2 Tsp Garlic Oil

150g Pancetta cubes or diced speak or jamon Serrano

1 banana shallot, finely chopped

½ tsp ground cumin

1 x 400g can Borlotti Beans

½ heard Radicchio (approx, 125g) finely shredded

For the Polenta

675ml Water

1 tsp Sea Salt

½ tsp pouring salt or to taste

100g instant polenta

2 x 15ml tbsp grated parmesan

1 x 15ml tbsp (15g) unsalted butter

Method

1.      Put the raisins into a cup or bowl and pour the 125ml boiling water over them

2.      Put 675ml water in a pan for the polenta and set it on to boil

3.      Heat the garlic oil in a heavy pan and cook the pancetta cubes for 3-5 minutes, stirring every now and again,, then add the chopped shallot and cook for another 3-5 minutes, until the pancetta is bronzed and the shallot soft.

4.      Stir in the cumin (not Italian, but Venice was the hub of the spice trade so I allow its inauthentic addition) then add the raisins with their soaking water and let it buddle up before tipping in the borlotti beans and their liquid (but see introduction above if your bean gloop is unusable).

5.      Bring to the boil, then add the shredded radicchio and, once the stew starts bubbling again, turn off the heat, put on the lid, and get on with the polenta.

6.      Add salt (to taste) to the now bubbling polenta water, then stir in the polenta, pouring it into the pan in a steady but gentle stream, and cook till smooth and thickened, I use more than the usual ratio of water to polenta here, as I want the finished polenta creamy not set. Once it is cooked, take the pan off the heat and beat in the Parmesan and butter, seasoning to taste. Decant into a warmed serving bowl.

7.      Check the bean stew seasoning, then bring it to the table with the golden polenta.

Chocolate Olive Oil Cake

Nigella Says

Although I first came up with this recipe because I had someone coming for supper who genuinely couldn’t eat wheat or dairy, it is so meltingly good I now make it all the time for those whose life and diet are not so unfairly constrained, myself included.

It is slightly heavier with the almonds – though not in a bad way – so if you want a lighter crumb, rather than a squidgy interior, and are not making the cake for the gluten-intolerant, then replace the 150g ground almonds with 125g plain flour. This has the built in bonus of making it perhaps more suitable for an everyday cake.

Made with the almonds, it has more of a supper-party pudding feel about it and I love it still a bit warm, with some raspberries or some such on the side, as well as a dollop of mascarpone or ice cream

I Say

I have made this cake with and without flour, the without flour recipe came out dense and moist and really good, however the flour version came out light and fluffy and was lovely.

Need

22-23 cm springform cake tin

Ingredients

150ml Regular Olive Oil, plus More for greasing

50g Cocoa Powder Sifted

125ml Boiling Water

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

½ teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda

Pinch of Salt

200g Caster Sugar

3 eggs

Method

1.      Preheat your oven to gas mark 3. Grease your springform tin with a little oil and line the base with baking parchment.

2.      Measure and sift the cocoa powder into a bowl or jug and whisk in the boiling water until you have a smooth, chocolatey, still runny (but only just) paste. Whisk in the vanilla extract, then set aside to cool a little.

3.      In another smallish bowl, combine the ground almonds (or flour) with the bicarbonate of soda and pinch of salt

4.      Put the sugar, olive oil and eggs into the bowl of a freestanding mixer with the paddle attachment (or other bowl and whisk arrangement of your choice) and beat together vigorously for about 3 minutes until you have a pale-primrose, aerated and thickened cream.

5.      Turn the speed down a little and pour in the cocoa mixture, beating as you go, and when all is scraped in you can slowly tip in the ground almond (or flour) mixture.

6.      Scrape down, and stir a little with a spatula, then pour this dark, liquid batter into the prepared tin. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the sides are set and the very centre on top still looks slightly damp. A cake tester should come up mainly clean but with a few sticky chocolate crumbs clinging to it.

7.      Let it cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack, still in its tin, and then ease the sides of the cake with a small metal spatula and spring it out of the tin. Leave to cool completely or eat whilte still warm with some ice cream, as a pudding.