vanilla Fig jam

We had a fig tree in the backyard growing up. It sadly had to be pulled out after a few years because the septic system was being upgraded. The adults were all terribly upset about this. 12 year old me couldn't imagine why they were so upset. It seemed to be a terrible bore to have to wrap the whole top of the tree in nets when the figs were starting to ripen. And it didn’t stop the birds making a hell of a racket and some of them always seemed to find a hole in the net. Both my parents would yell through the kitchen window at meal times to try to frighten the birds away. Actually I didn’t mind if the birds ate the fruit … the truth was, I didn’t like figs. WHAAAAAT?! Yes, it is true. My love of figs started in my 40s.

And while we are on the subject of things you may not know about me… I did not drink coffee until my 30s. I can hear you mutter …”but I thought she was Italian?!” It is certainly a crazy thing but I think I am making up for it now, both with my daily obsessive consumption of percolator coffee and with my adoration of figs.

Finding good figs is mostly elusive unless you know someone with a tree in their backyard. This year I have been very lucky as my friend Elena gifted me a couple of kilos of just-picked beauties from her mother’s tree. They were green ones, the quality was like nothing I had tasted since my last trip to Italy at the end of summer 2022. We ate almost a kilo of Elena’s figs in a few days and then, as they were ripening faster than I could eat them, I made jam. This is the recipe I used. And it is crazy good poured over thick yoghurt (NB. you might like to make it a bit runnier like I do if you will mainly use it this way), in a jam crostata or simply on crusty bread.

You don’t need an excess of ripe home grown figs to make jam; less than perfect ones from the fruit shop (picked too long ago or a bit dry on the inside) also work fine.

vanilla fig jam

makes about 3 x 375 ml jars

1.1 kg fresh figs
470g sugar
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla bean paste

and a splash of grappa (optional)

Remove the stem part of the figs and chop into bite sized pieces (smaller if you do not like chunks of fruit in your jam). Place in a heavy bottomed saucepan with the sugar, juice and zest. Let them sit for an hour or so.

Turn the heat on low to dissolve the sugar, then increase slightly to medium, stirring occasionally. Let the fruit bubble away for about 40 minutes, checking every now and then to make sure the fruit is not sticking. Eventually it will start to visibly thicken.

While the jam is cooking, place clean upturned jars and lids in a 100C conventional oven for about twenty minutes. Let them sit in there with the oven off until ready to use.

Place a small plate in the freezer (this will be used to test the jam set) and have a few teaspoons ready.

To test if the jam has thickened sufficiently, carefully pop a clean teaspoon into the jam and pour it onto the plate that has been sitting in your freezer. If the jam is thick on the plate, it is ready. If it is runny, then cook a few more minutes, and test again.  Once you are satisfied with the jam set, turn off the heat, stir in the vanilla bean paste (and a splash of grappa if you dare!) and allow to sit there for 10 minutes or so.

Pour the hot jam carefully into the previously prepared clean jars (make sure they are still warm! Don't put hot jam in cool jars or they may crack) almost to the top; then seal with a lid. Repeat until you have used up all the jam. If you have one jar that is half full, this should be used first and once it cools down, store in the fridge.

CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI CAKE

If you have a glut of zucchini in the garden at the moment (or a neighbour with some!) and you are sick of making zucchini fritters and peperonata, then why not try something sweet? Zucchini are bland enough to work really well in cake batter. Together with the humble carrot, zucchini became popular as a cake ingredient in the 1980s (well that is when it first entered my sphere). I love a bit of retro baking, and if you do too, then this recipe may be right up your alley.

This recipe is based one I found online by My Darling Lemon Thyme. It is gluten free and deliciously moist. I sometime make it with a fancy icing (like in the photos), but other times just dust it with icing sugar or have it plain. It works so well either way. You can substitute the GF flours in the recipe for regular flours if you do not have a sensitivity to gluten. And if the zucchini are overly large and have seeds in the centre, scrape these out before grating them for the cake batter.

CHOCOLATE zucchini cake

125g butter, softened
200g brown sugar
3 eggs
75g almond meal
1 tsp pure vanilla essence
120g sour cream
150g gluten free plain flour
75g gluten free corn flour
40g bitter cocoa
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
375 g grated zucchini (keep skin on)
100g of 70% cocoa chocolate, chopped into small pieces

Butter cream icing (optional):
1/3 cup bitter cocoa, whisked to remove lumps
125g butter, softened
1 and 2/3 cups icing sugar, sifted
1/3 cup milk
1/2 tsp pure vanilla essence

zucchini flowers for decoration (optional)

Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease and line a springform cake tin 22cm diameter. Cream the butter and sugar until thick and creamy, then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the almond meal, vanilla and sour cream and beat well. Add the dry ingredients and fold them through, then add the zucchini. Once the mix looks homogeneous, fold in the chopped chocolate. Pour into the prepared cake tin (it will be very thick) and pat down to smooth it off. Bake for 50 – 60 mins (you may need to drop the temperature for the last 10 minutes) until the centre of the cake is dry on top and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool in the tin for at least 30 minutes.

For a very festive cake, make the butter cream icing by placing the cocoa and the chopped butter in the bowl of a mixer stand and beat until well combined. Add about 1/2 cup of icing sugar and a tablespoon of milk and beat on high speed for a minute. Repeat, beating for a minute after each addition until you have used up all the milk and icing sugar and then beat in the vanilla essence as well. If the consistency is too thick, add a splash more milk; if it is too runny, add a tablespoon of icing sugar. Beat another minute and check the consistency again. It should be easily spreadable but quite stiff. Ice the cake and decorate with zucchini flowers.

rustic fig and hazelnut cake

Figs seem terribly decadent to me. It must be all those luscious red filaments when you cut one open, eating the soft sweet inner flesh directly off the skin. Such a short season for this heady delight that nature has created with such perfection.

This cake or variations using different fruit or a different nut flour are often on my table in the warmer months (apricots, peaches, plums and almond meal/flour), but it is very special when figs are in season.

The cake does not have many steps and apart from beating the butter, sugar and eggs with an electric mixer, it is mixed by hand. So it is hard to get wrong. Fresh figs are arranged in a pattern on top of the uncooked cake making the cake look festive. By pushing the figs down a little with your finger, the cake cooks around them and they keep the cake really moist. You can splash a bit of brandy on top of the cake once it is cooked (for that real Italian flavour!).

rustic fig and hazelnut cake

140g plain flour
120g unsalted butter at room temperature
160g caster sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsps baking powder
60ml milk
125g hazelnut meal
5 or 6 fresh figs, depending on size
a splash of brandy to serve (optional)

Preheat oven to 170 degrees. Grease and line a 20cm diameter cake tin. Beat the butter and sugar in a food processor until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Place the mixture in a bowl and add half the flour, mixing well with a wooden spoon. Add the milk. Mix until incorporated, then add the rest of the flour, the baking powder and a good pinch of salt. Make sure it is all evenly mixed and finally add the hazelnuts.

Place the mixture in the prepared cake tin. Press the fig halves a few centimetres into the cake to any pattern you like, cut surface of the fig side up. As the cake rises in the oven, the figs will sink a bit into the cake, so don’t push them all the way down. Bake for around 60 minutes. The cake is ready when a skewer placed in the centre comes out clean. Rest for 15 minutes before turning put of the tin. Serve the cake with a dollop of mascarpone, whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. You can also splash some brandy on the cake if you like.

spiced orange and honey biscuits

These are rather delicious and simple biscuits/cookies that make the perfect Christmas gift. That said, it is perfectly acceptable to not give them away, you probably won’t want to! They marry some gently warming spices with orange, making the most delicious combination. Use any cookie cutter shape you have to make them - stars would be very pretty.

Bake them 12 minutes if you like a softer biscuit and 15 - 16 minutes if you would like that crunch. The recipe is based on one on the Giallo Zafferano website.

spiced honey and orange biscuits

300g plain flour
130g sugar
1 scant tsp baking powder plus a good pinch of salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp each cloves and allspice
zest of 1/2 orange
2 eggs 100g unsalted butter at room temperature
50g runny honey

For the icing:
30ml freshly squeezed orange juice
150g icing sugar approximately, sifted

Place all dry ingredients in a bowl of a stationary mixer and whisk to combine. Add one egg at a time, the butter in chunks and lastly the honey with the mixer on slow speed until well incorporated. Roll out on a well floured surface to form a large disc, about 6mm thick. Add a bit more flour if the mix is too soft to handle. Wrap and chill for about 20 minutes.

Cut the dough into Christmassy shapes using your favourite cookie cutters, re-rolling scraps. Place in a pre-heated 180C conventional oven. Bake for 12 – 16 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool.

Whisk icing sugar and juice vigorously until smooth to make the icing. Dip the top of the biscuits in the icing and place on a wire rack until the icing firms up. 

(makes 30 - 35 depending on size of shape)

lamb shanks braised in red wine

One of the most rewarding things to do in winter is to cook a hearty meal for family and friends, and then sit down and share the meal with them. I am not a big meat eater but I do love the occasional slow-cooked dish and this lamb dish is a favourite. It can be quite a show-stopper for a dinner party. If you don’t have time to finely chop the onion, carrot and celery for the soffritto, you can use a food processor, though if you do, it helps if you cut the carrot into slices first and quarter the onions. The carob gives a lovely chocolatey depth to the dish and the cardamom is spicy and so wintery. The dish is lovely served on a bed of soft polenta or potato mash (with a glass of fine cabernet if you love wine).  

lamb shanks braised in red wine

4 lamb shanks (about 500g each)
1 small onion, peeled
1 small carrot, peeled
½ half stalk celery
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
4 cardamom pods, crushed
1 stalk rosemary
2 small bay leaves
1 carob pod
2/3 cup red wine
½ cup port
3 tablespoons tomato concentrate
2 cups tinned chickpeas, drained (about 1 and a ½ tins)

Finely dice the onions, carrots and celery and place in a large heavy bottomed lidded saucepan with the extra virgin olive oil. Cook about ten minutes on low to medium heat until the onions are translucent. Add the lamb shanks and turn the heat up to medium, browning them on all sides for about 5 minutes. Add the crushed cardamom pods, carob pod (broken into several pieces), bay leaf and rosemary stalk. Stir though then add the red wine, the port and the tomato concentrate dissolved in a couple of tablespoons of boiling water. Stir and then cover the pot with a lid.

Allow the lamb shanks to simmer for about an hour on low heat, turning them over regularly. After an hour add the chick peas, stir and then cover the pan, allowing the dish to simmer for another half an hour until the lamb is cooked through, making sure you turn the shanks over every now and then. Taste and adjust for salt then serve.

ricotta gnocchi with peas, fava beans and mint

What a joy it is to find fresh peas and fava/broad beans at the market! It heralds the start of Spring when trees start to bud and the air is lighter and happier. I love podding beans. It is so relaxing. I put on jazz or a podcast and sip on herbal tea as I pod away, a few sweet green jewels finding their way into my mouth. I especially love the “pop” the peas. Fresh peas and fava beans so lovely on their own but I love to marry them with pasta or gnocchi, fresh herbs and cheese. They sing out Spring and the warmth in the air even more.

I love this combination with ricotta gnocchi. I first made them following the recipe by Fabrizia Lanza in her cookbook “Coming home to Sicily”. Fabrizia is a beautiful soul. I had the privilege of running a couple of 5-day workshops at her famed cooking school in central Sicily in 2016 and 2017. What a joyful and memorable time that was….sigh, I miss Sicily. If you have never heard of Fabrizia or been to the Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School (where everything you make and eat is grown locally and made from scratch), you can find out more here. It should seriously be on every foodie’s bucket list.

In the meantime, the recipe below is based on Fabrizia’s recipe. It serves 3-4 people and is lovely and light. And very pretty as well.

ricotta gnocchi with peas, fava beans and mint

450g ricotta, well drained
1 large egg
3 - 4 tablespoons plain flour
2 - 3 tablespoons parmesan cheese, grated (plus extra to serve)
1 egg, lightly whisked and mixed with
fine semolina, for dusting
100g butter, unsalted
a couple of handfuls each fresh podded peas & fava/broad beans handful baby mint leaves 1 small lemon, zest only (optional)

To make the gnocchi place the ricotta and egg in a bowl and mash with a fork until creamy. Add flour and parmesan and stir; the mixture will be quite soft but should stay together. Place a handful of the mixture on a working surface that has been well dusted with the semolina and roll into a long rope. Cut into pieces 2-3 cm and roll in more semolina. Repeat with remaining ricotta mix and set aside, spaced out and covered in a clean tea towel.

Double pod the older/larger fava beans by plunging individual beans in boiling salted water for a minute; then drain and remove the outer pod. Blanch the peas and smaller/younger fava beans in salted boiling water for a minute, then drain.

Place a large frying pan on the stove on low to medium heat and melt the butter.

Bring a large wide pot of salted water to the boil and cook the gnocchi in batches, draining them with a slotted spoon as the rise to the surface and placing them in the large pan with the melted butter.

Gently toss the cooked gnocchi in the butter and scatter on the peas and fava beans until warmed through. Serve topped with mint leaves, extra grated parmesan and lemon zest.

Blood orange crostata

I adore blood oranges; it feels like I always have. It started in the 1970s when I lived in Italy with my parents and sister. I couldn’t quite believe that in Italy they had red oranges (I mean, weren’t they meant to be orange hence the name?). We didn’t have any in Australia. Now we do, though it hasn’t been that many years, and in late winter, we can find blood oranges at most fruit shops. They have a lovely taste, not as sweet as Navels or Valencia, but with a slight bitterness and a rich sweetness that some say is like raspberries, and ruby red streaked flesh that stains the white pith when they are cut in half (and your marble work bench if you are not careful).

I remember sitting on my father’s knee when I was 4 or 5; he would slices oranges for me to eat while we watched TV. He would peel them, removing all the white pith and cut them into thick pinwheel-like slices ready for me to eat. When I was a bit older (and still a bit fussy), I refused to eat the orange segments that were handed out at half time during netball matches. Segments seemed so utilitarian compared to colourful pinwheels, and the texture seemed wrong as you had to bite through the membrane to get to the sweet juicy inner flesh. Even nowadays I peel then slice regular oranges into pinwheels. But my favourite oranges are the blood variety. Cut one open and you get a stunning array of colours, from orange to deep red, you never quite know how deep the red will be. You wouldn’t see this if they were in segments.

I make a crostata to highlight the beautiful colour gradient you often see in blood oranges. It is a simple slightly salty shortcrust base, layer of home made sweet orange jam (recipe in my cookbook Adriatico) or apricot jam and thin slices of jewel-like blood oranges.

Blood orange crostata

250g plain flour
60g sugar
big pinch fine sea salt (to taste)
125g unsalted butter, cut into small dice and cold from the fridge
1 egg, lightly whisked and mixed with
1/2 tsp pure vanilla essence
1/3 jar sweet orange jam (not marmalade) or apricot jam
2-3 blood oranges, peeled and cut into slices
1 – 2 teaspoons sugar extra
Extra thick Greek yoghurt or creme fraiche to serve

To make the pastry, place the flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl and give a quick whisk to combine. Alternatively you could place it in the bowl of a food processor and pulse briefly. Drop in the cold butter and rub into the dry ingredients with your fingers tips until it resembles wet sand. Add the egg and vanilla, gently bringing the pastry together into a ball. Add a teaspoon or two of cold water if the mixture does not come together easily.

You could also make the pastry in a food processor by pulsing the butter into the dry ingredients then dropping in the egg (and cold water if needed) until the dough comes together. Flatten the pastry into a thick disc with the palm of your hand and wrap in baking paper or cling film and place in the fridge for at least an hour (overnight is fine).

Turn the oven on to 180C conventional. Roll your pastry out between two sheets of baking paper (or cling film or just using a floured work surface) until it is slightly larger than the base of your tart tin. I use a 24cm diameter tin with a removable base lined with baking paper. Place the rolled out pastry on the lined tin, pressing it down and halfway up the sides of the tin. Trim the pastry sides with a sharp knife until they are even and no more than 1cm higher than the pastry base. Prick the base with the tines of a fork, cover with baking paper and place in the freezer to chill for 15 minutes.

Place the jam on the pastry base so that it is covered by a thin layer. Assemble the blood orange slices so that the edges of the slices touch, trimming them to fit if necessary. Sprinkle 1-2 teaspoons of sugar evenly over the blood orange slices.

Bake for about an hour or until the edges of the pastry are golden. Allow to cool in the tin completely before serving with thick Greek yoghurt or creme fraiche.

Tomato and parmesan tarts

I miss the tomatoes my father used to grow. Dense, sweet, red fruit hung on dozens of vines that were well over 170cm in height. He would prop them up with old wooden stakes that he would retrieve in late spring from the locked cubby hole under the back stairs where they had sat since last summer. He would hammer them in to the earth using a large mallet, tying up the growing vines with strips of old fabric, remnants of mamma’s old sheets. There they would grow, straight and tall, helped along by his expert pruning. You could smell the tomatoes growing from the back door of the house, the sweet and herbaceous scent of summer. Between the tomato stalks, papà would plant leafy basil bushes, telling me they brought out the best in each other not only on the table but in the garden. My favourite summer meal was a toss up between pasta puttanesca, made using freshly picked tomatoes and torn basil and insalata Caprese, layering fresh mozzarella with slices of tomato and basil leaves and dousing the lot with good quality olive oil.  

Papà would grow his tomatoes from seeds, planting them around October and keep them in a small hot house in the brick paved part of the garden. He would look after them carefully, watering them with a miniature watering can and make sure they were in the best position to catch the Spring sun. He would label each of the seedlings and then plant them in the garden once they were 8-10 cm tall. One year he had decided to grow cherry tomatoes, which were much easier to manage as they did not need staking. Much to his surprise one of the plants grew yellow fruit, small elongated ones. Papà treated them with some suspicion, as he was sure that the seeds were meant to produce red tomatoes. We left them on the vine, ignoring the sweet yellow fruit as a curious mutant. I too was surprised - I thought all tomatoes were red (much like all carrots are meant to be orange). Of course this was in the days before heirloom fruit and vegetables became common place.

I love that we can now so easily find a variety of tomatoes: purple black, green, yellow and striped in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They look so colourful in the fruit shop I have been known to buy a lot more than I need. And the taste is very good, though I must admit to always being slightly disappointed. They taste good, amazingly good in comparison to hot-house tomatoes you buy in winter, but not quite as good as the backyard tomatoes of my memory. Or maybe it is just the nostalgia of those plump, sweet homegrown tomatoes, eaten at our family table with my father proudly looking on.

Last week was one when I bought a box of colourful heirloom tomatoes, well in excess of what I needed. I ate them in salads, sliced on toast, with buffalo mozzarella every day. I also turned several into very rustic hand pastries (called that because you can easily hold one in your hand); I wrapped up slices of tomato with buttery short crust pastry made with spelt flour. I added some grated parmesan to the dough, that gave it a lovely saltiness that worked well with the robust spelt flour. You could easily use white flour (or wholemeal) or a combination of flours; the pastries will probably look less rustic (read: neater) than mine. But they made lovely appetisers; the naturally sweet in season tomatoes are so tasty. I could imagine taking these to a late summer picnic to share with friends; holding a tomato pastry in one hand and a glass of Prosecco in the other. I wonder what my papà would say, if confronted with a green tomato on a pastry. I am pretty sure he would have got over his suspicion of non-red tomatoes and enjoyed it very much.

Tomato and parmesan tarts

Makes 6

170g flour (I used unbleached spelt flour)
1/4 tsp salt
20g parmesan cheese, grated (I used Grana Padano)
90g unsalted butter, cold and diced
1 small egg, cold from the fridge, lightly beaten with a fork
1-2 tsps cold milk (if needed)
2 large in-season tomatoes
black pepper, freshly cracked to taste

Place the flour, parmesan cheese and salt in a large bowl and give it a quick whisk to combine. Crumble the cold butter into the flour with your fingertips, working quickly so it does not melt, until it resembles wet sand. Add the egg, and bring the dough together. Add a little bit of milk if needed for the dough to clump together into a mass. Divide into six equal pieces and flatten them into discs with the palm of your hand.

You can either put the discs, covered in cling film in the fridge, or else roll them out quickly into large circles (10cm diameter) with a rolling pin. Place a layer of cling film between each of the discs, cover and then refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking tray with baking paper. Cut your tomatoes into slices about 3-4 mm thick and set aside. Remove the pastry from the fridge, and roll them out into circles, about 10cm in diameter (if you have not done so already). Place the pastry circles on the tray, well spaces, and place a couple of slices of tomato on each circle. Carefully fold the sides of the circle inwards so that they partially cover the tomato slices.

Bake for 30 minutes or until the pastry is cooked through and the tomatoes are softened. Allow to cool to room temperature, and scatter on cracked black pepper and salt flakes to taste before serving.

Tarts will last for a few days covered in the fridge.

Polenta shortcake

I have many many cookbooks but only occasionally dig them out. And when I do, I wonder why it took me so long. The Essentials of Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan was one of the first cookbooks I owned. It was published in 1992 and has no photos, but is one of my go-to books for savoury dishes. There is only a small section on sweets and desserts.

As I was leafing through it yesterday morning, the polenta shortcake caught my eye, as its uses mainly pantry ingredients and is essentially a mix and bake cake. It is a dense, moist and rustic looking cake, with dried figs, sultanas, pine nuts and fennel seeds. Mark and I have eaten half of it since yesterday and may even finish to off today. I have made a few changes to Marcella’s recipe, and I imagine you also could use different nuts and dried fruit in it. If you do make it, please let me know what you think, here or on Instagram.

Polenta shortcake

140g yellow polenta (not the instant variety)
1 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
110g sugar
50g pine nuts
50g sultanas (soaked in grappa if you like, drained)
115g dried figs
2 tablespoons fennel seeds
1 tsp pure vanilla essence
30g butter
1 egg
120g plain flour

Preheat oven to 200C. Grease and line the base and sides of a 22cm cake tin (mine is spring-formed).

Place the sugar, pine nuts, chopped figs, sultanas and fennel seeds in a large bowl and stir briefly to combine. Place the egg and vanilla in a separate small bowl and whisk briefly to combine.

Bring 500ml of salted water to the boil. Pour in the polenta slowly, whisking the whole time. Keep whisking, add the oil and then replace the whisk for a wooden spoon. Cook for a few minutes until it thickens. Remove from the heat and scrape into the bowl with the dried fruit and stir through. Add the butter and stir until it has melted and combined, then add the egg and vanilla mixture and stir that in. Lastly add the flour and mix well so that the cake mix is homogenous. Scrape into the prepared cake tin and smooth the top as well as you can with the back of a spoon.

Bake for 45-50 minutes until golden on top. Remove from the cake tin and set on a wire rack to cool completely before serving.

Lasts 3-4 days in a lidded container placed in a cool spot.

pear and blue cheese ravioli

It felt like autumn today. It was wet, windy, people at the market were wearing their jackets again after a long hot summer and somehow it felt just the way it should. I have really been looking forward to autumn this year. It has been incredibly humid and mosquitoes have found me particularly attractive, especially at night when I hear them buzzing around me, waiting to attack.

The market today did not disappoint my wintery outlook - it was full of autumnal fruits and vegetables: parsnips, cauliflowers and pears. As much as I love summer stone fruit, beautifully ripe Williams pears called me today and I bought a big bag, thinking I might make a pear and chocolate cake. But once I had got home, the cold weather made me crave pasta. I have been so busy since the start of the year taking photos for my cookbook (which is all about street food with no pasta dish in sight), I suddenly realised that the last time I had made pasta at home was November last year.

Once I had made up my mind to make a pasta dish, the rest was easy. Pears and blue cheese are a match made in heaven and as long as you can make pasta, this dish is easier than you think. The filling is literally just blue cheese, a bit of cream and pears cooked in butter for 5 minutes. The sauce is simple - just a bit of melted butter. You could also top the whole dish with some roughly chopped toasted walnuts or drop a couple of sage leaves in the buttery sauce.

This one is a lovely warming dish for an autumn evening, with a glass of buttery Chardonnay and some bitter greens, pan fried with garlic and  drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice on the side.

PEAR AND BLUE CHEESE RAVIOLI

serves 4 as an entree (makes 18 ravioli, at 8cm diameter)

for the pasta:

200g 00 durum wheat flour
2 large eggs

for the filling:

2 ripe Williams or Packham pears (230g peeled and cored)
10g unsalted butter
125g creamy blue cheese (sweet Gorgonzola or Blue Castello)
2 tablespoons thickened cream
salt and pepper to taste

semolina flour for dusting
100g unsalted butter (for the sauce)
extra freshly ground pepper

To make the pasta, put the flour in a mound on your work surface and make a well in the centre. Break open the two eggs into it and either using your finger tips or a fork, gradually incorporate the flour until it is all mixed in to the eggs. Knead until smooth (around 5 minutes). Form a ball with the dough, wrap in cling film and allow to rest for at least 30 minutes (a couple of hours is fine).

In the meantime, make the filling. Peel and core the pears, chopping them into small dice. Place them with 10g butter in a small pan and cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes until soft. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Place the blue cheese and cream in a mini-processor and process until smooth. Place in a bowl and add the cooled pears, fold through until homogeneous and add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Divide the dough in two, keeping one piece wrapped in cling film while you work on the other one. Make the pasta by running it through your pasta machine until it is the desired thickness (I ran it through to the fourth thinnest setting “6” on an Atlas pasta machine).

I used an 8 cm diameter ravioli cutter to make my ravioli. Place heaped teaspoons of filling on your pasta sheet. Wet your finger with water and run it around the filling before folding the pasta onto itself so that the little mounds of filling are completely covered by pasta. Push down around the filling so that the pasta is well sealed, taking care not to trap air into the raviolo. Use your ravioli cutter to make circle around the filling where you have sealed the pasta. Lightly dust the ravioli  with semolina flour. Repeat, keeping the prepared ravioli covered by a clean teatowel as you make others so they do not dry out.

Place a large pot of well-salted water on the stove and bring to the boil. Drop in the ravioli when the water boils and cook until al dente (mine took 6-7 minutes).

Whilst the ravioli are cooking, put 100g of unsalted butter in the pan (I use 25g per person) and heat until melted. Drop the well drained, cooked ravioli in the melted butter and toss for a minute or two so they are well covered in melted butter. Serve immediately with a bit of freshly ground pepper on top and sea salt flakes to taste.

Radicchio tart

I adore red radicchio not only for its vibrant colour but for its bitter flavour. I qualify it with the “red” as radicchio can also be green, yellow, white or pink and is part of the chicory (cicoria) family. The “radiceto” that I grew up eating is actually called “cicoria zuccherina di Trieste” or sweet chicory from Trieste, a sweet leafy salad green that grows progressively bitter as the plant matures. There are many varieties of red radicchio: Treviso, Chioggia, Verona (all names of towns in Veneto); the leaves of the head of the radicchio of the three varieties are a different shape and they have differing degrees of bitterness.

Here in Melbourne the red radicchio I can more easily find looks like the round Chioggia variety, and it is just labelled “radicchio”. My favourite red radicchio is one I cannot find in Australia - radicchio rosso di Treviso Tardivo, with thick central white spines and distinctive curls at the tips of the leaves. It is called “tardivo” because it is found in late winter.

In winter I always have a head of radicchio in the fridge. I love eating it in a salad (with some thinly sliced ripe pear) but also making a risotto with it (and using red wine with the stock), or grilling it (and drizzling it with aged balsamic vinegar) or making it the hero of the filling in a vegetarian tart.

Using store-bought shortcrust pastry makes this tart much quicker to make, though I like making my own using half spelt flour and half plain and it gives it a slightly nutty taste. I have played around with the tart filling a bit, adding more or less balsamic vinegar and brown sugar, to balance the bitter/sweet/acid tastes. If you find radicchio too bitter, soaking it in water (for up to a couple hours) will remove the bitterness, and in this case you may like to reduce or omit the sugar (the balsamic vinegar is a bit sweet anyway). The tart has a lovely balanced taste and makes a lovely Sunday night dinner and cold leftovers are perfect the next day.

radicchio tart

FOR THE PASTRY:

150g unbleached white spelt flour
150g plain flour
125g unsalted butter, cut into small dice and cold from the fridge
1 large egg
1/4 tsp salt
3-4 tablespoons milk or water, cold from the fridge
(or you could use 450g store-bought shortcrust pastry)

FOR THE FILLING:

2 small leeks
1 head red radicchio
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
15g unsalted butter
2-3 tablespoons white wine
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/2 – 1 tsp brown sugar
100g cream or plain yoghurt
2 eggs
25g parmesan, grated
1 tsp thyme leaves (plus extra for garnish)

To make the pastry, place the flours and salt in a large bowl and whisk to remove lumps. Add the butter, working it into the flour with your finger tips until it resembles wet sand. You could also use the pulse function on your food processor to do this step. Drop in the lightly beaten egg and two tablespoons of the milk, mixing with a wooden spoon (or your processor) to bring it all together. Eventually you will need to use your hands to shape it into a ball, adding the extra milk if needed. Knead briefly to make the dough homogenous then flatten it into a thick disc with the palm of your hand. Wrap and place in the fridge to rest for one hour.

Preheat the oven to 190C. Prepare a 25cm diameter pie tin (mine had a removable base) by lining the base and rubbing butter on the sides to prevent the dough from sticking. Remove the dough from the fridge and roll out so that it is about 3mm thick, and drape it over the base and sides of the tin, trimming the excess. Prick the base all over with a fork and put in the fridge for 15 minutes to chill.

Trim the ends of the leek and slice thinly; wash and drain then set aside. Separate the leaves from the radicchio head and cut away the thick white spine at the base of the leaves. Rinse then drain and cut into thin strips. You will need about 180g radicchio. Soak the radicchio leaves in water if they are too bitter for your taste, anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour.

Remove the pie base from the fridge. Place pie weights or dried beans (I used chick peas) on baking paper on the base and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the weights and bake for a further 10 minutes.

While the base is baking, sautè the leek with the oil and butter in a large frypan until starting to soften. Increase the heat, add the wine and cook for a few minutes so that most of the wine evaporates. then add the radicchio and cook for a few more minutes until reduced in volume and softened. Add the sugar and stir though, then add the balsamic vinegar. Taste the mixture, adding more balsamic or sugar if needed; then add salt to taste. Set aside to cool.

In a bowl, whisk the eggs, cream and grated Parmesan cheese, adding salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste.

Place the cooled vegetables in the pie case, making sure it is not overfilled and then carefully pour in the egg mixture. Scatter on the thyme leaves. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the filling has set and the top of the tart is golden. Garnish with fresh thyme sprigs and serve warm or at room temperature accompanied by a green salad.

Crostata di crema – custard flan with almonds

There are several certainties when you visit the Salento: you will see fields dotted with gnarly trunked olive trees that are over a thousand years old; you will meet passionate and uncomplicated locals who will generously share their shop/home with you, should you stop and talk to them and you will taste some of the best olive oil in the world. And there is a high probability that you will eat superb food. My love for the Salento, a place that is tremendously rich in its simplicity, is strong. I met Viviana, one such generous local, at Masseria Li Veli, a winery in the province of Brindisi. We had stopped there for lunch as part of our Southern Puglia tour in April. Though the focus of our visit was on the wine (including local varieties Verdeca, Malvasia Nera and Susumaniello), the light lunch included abundant servings of seasonal antipasto (I counted six different types), eggplant pasta and a spectacular pastry cream crostata.

I love trying to replicate dishes back at home, so I asked a few questions about the cake, which we ate with a glass of bubbly Pezzo Morgana 2016 Reserve. To my surprise, the chef Viviana arrived in the dining room to have a chat with me about the cake. She smiled when we told her how much we loved her cake and wanted to make it back in Australia. She described the recipe as I took notes: a simple shortcrust pastry base; topped with a lemon scented crema pasticceria, which was cooled completely before spreading it on the base and a shortcrust pastry crumble on top. The base was also a shortcrust crumble. Then she gave me the oven temperature and cooking time. It is not often you find a person so eager to share their recipe (which often, is a closely guarded secret. I have known people to omit a key ingredient when relaying a recipe!). Grazie Viviana! I hope I have done justice to your heavenly crostata.

To make the pastry cream I tweaked that recipe in Adriatico for Torta Pasticciotta (which happens to be in the Salento chapter of the book) and used a shortcrust pastry recipes from my blog for the crumb. I have been trying to reduce sugar in most of my recipes because I am enjoying the taste of it less and less. You might think that this is heresy for someone like me who frequently has cake for breakfast; but I still love the cake, I just want it to be half as sweet as it was. So you will find this recipe is fairly low in sugar, with online recipes for the pastry cream online using 200g of sugar for the same amount of milk, whereas in this recipe I use 70g. It is honestly sweet enough. In a similar vein you will find that the pastry has less sugar than many online. If you have a sweet tooth you can increase the quantity of sugar as much as you like in the pastry cream without altering the method or the other ingredients. If you would like to increase the sugar in the pastry to 100g, follow the same method and decrease the flour to 300g. It will work just as well, but the result will be sweeter.

Crostata di crema - custard flan with almonds

TO MAKE THE PASTRY CREAM/CUSTARD:

500ml full cream milk
1 organic lemon, zest only
4 large eggs, yolks only
70g caster sugar
45g cornflour
pinch fine sea salt

TO MAKE THE PASTRY:

330g plain flour
60g raw sugar
8g baking powder
good pinch fine salt
110g unsalted butter
1 large egg
1 tsp pura vanilla essence
icing sugar for dusting, optional

Butter and line the base and sides of a 28cm cake tin (mine had a removable base) or a tart tin.

START BY MAKING THE PASTRY CREAM:
Remove the zest from the lemon in thick strips, removing as much of the bitter pith as you can. Place the strips of zest in the milk and place on the stove top on medium heat until it warms through. Take off the heat and set aside to infuse while you prepare the other ingredients. Place the eggs, sugar, salt and cornflour in a large heat-proof ceramic bowl and whisk until thick and creamy (I used an electric whisk).

Place the milk back of the stovetop on medium heat and warm until hot but not boiling. Pour the hot milk into the eggs in slow, steady stream, whisking the whole while so the eggs do not scramble. Scrape the mixture back into the saucepan and cook on low heat for at least 15 minutes (you will need that long to make sure you cannot taste the cornflour in the custard), stirring the whole time, until the mixture is thick and coats the back of a wooden spoon. Strain off the lemon zest and discard, and pour the custard into a heat-proof bowl or jug. Set aside, covered, to cool completely (or put it in the fridge if you are in a hurry).

TO MAKE THE PASTRY:
Place the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and whisk by hand briefly to combine. Chop the butter into small dice; whisk the egg with the vanilla. Add the egg and butter to the flour and working quickly with your fingertips, rubbing the wet ingredients into the dry ones until you make large crumbs. Line the base of your tin with half of them. Flatten the base with a back of the spoon and push some of the crumbs so they ride up the side of the tin slightly (making a space for the custard to be placed a bit later). Bake for about 5 minutes until pale golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

ASSEMBLE THE CROSTATA:
Spread the cooled pastry cream onto the base, leaving an edge of just under a centimetre around the edge. Arrange the rest of the pastry crumb on top and around the sides where there is no custard.

Bake for 30 -35 minutes in a static oven at 180C or until pale golden on top.

Allow to cool completely in the cake tin (so if yours has removable sides, you can remove the sides after about 15 minutes). Dust with icing sugar before serving, if you like. The crostata is also nice cold from the fridge a few days later. Make sure you store it in an airtight container.

Tiella cozze e riso – rice and mussel bake

It is already November, in full spring in Australia. I am dreaming - and eating - asparagus, the last of the artichokes and the first of the stone fruit (hooray). My weekly dinner at home planning looks something like this: home made pasta 4 times a week (usually egg free); one night of seafood, one night a fortnight of meat (usually beef and sometimes pork or lamb from  local butcher Matt), one night of eggs and one night vegan; vegetarian for the rest. We have never eaten much meat and that is the one that often gets dropped back to once every three/four weeks. The seafood component is often tinned sardines but sometimes it is fresh sardines, mussels, flathead or clams.

I recently finished reading “On eating meat - the truth about its production and the ethics of it” by Matthew Evans. I enjoyed it hugely. I have loved seeing Matthew move to Tasmania and establish Fat Pig Farm (via the TV series Gourmet Farmer, which I have watched religiously). The book does not try to turn everyone to a vegan or even vegetarian diet, but it does give compelling facts about why you should consider where your food comes from, and make fully informed choices. It is well researched, unemotional and ponders the difficult questions about farming practices and cheap meat. I am certainly better informed about the Australian context of meat production. If you have been thinking about reading it, please do; I found it immersive and difficult to put down.

So thinking about our food, and eating sustainably, the dish I wanted to share with you in this post is a Pugliese classic: tiella cozze e riso. Mussels are nearly always farmed but are very sustainable; I buy the ones that are farmed in Mount Martha, less than an hours drive from my home (so there are not many food miles either). The word “tiella” comes from the earthenware dish in which you cook this one-pot layered meal of potatoes, tomatoes, rice, mussels and pecorino cheese (yes cheese and shellfish work surprisingly well together). Water and stock (from steaming open the mussels) are added to the pot, which is then placed in the oven to steam until it is perfectly cooked.

This is a recipe from Adriatico, and one that I have eaten often on my travels through Puglia; it is hearty and delicious especially if you are a shellfish lover.

tiella cozze e riso - rice and mussel bake

300g short-grain rice
1 clove garlic, finely chopped or minced
1 small white or brown onion, thinly sliced
600g potatoes, peeled and sliced (3-4 mm thick)
500g ripe cherry tomatoes (or other small tomato), quartered,
50g grated pecorino cheese
3 tablespoons parsley leaves
700g mussels (about 300g mussel meat)
freshly ground pepper
extra virgin olive oil

De-beard and scrub the shells of the mussels clean . Place the cleaned mussels in a large lidded frypan with a quarter cup of wine and the garlic. Cover, turn up the heat and shake the pan occasionally. After a minute, check for open mussel shells and remove them one at a time with tongs. Cover and cook for another minute and check for more open shells. Repeat for up to 5 minutes. Discard any unopened shells. Strain the liquid that is leftover in the pan and reserve. Separate the mussel meat from the shells of those that have opened at the base of the stalk using a small sharp knife. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 200C. Drizzle a tablespoon of olive oil on the base of a round baking dish (ideally terracotta, mine was 24cm in diameter), and place a layer of potatoes. Next place a layer of onions, then a layer of tomatoes, 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley, a pinch of salt and some freshly ground pepper, some rice, then half the mussels, making sure the opening of the mussel flesh is facing up. Then add another layer of potatoes and repeat the layers described above. Finish the tiella with a layer of potatoes on top.

Fill the container with the strained cooking liquid of the mussels plus enough hot water so that it is just below that top layer of potatoes. Scatter on the cheese and bake covered (with a purpose made lid or foil) for 45 minutes. Test the potatoes with a skewer to see if they are cooked through. If they are still firm, bake for another 10 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for a further ten minutes so the top of the tiella can brown.

Rest at least half an hour before serving.

Mushroom and potato soup with cipolline onion focaccia

A common advertising line is that mushrooms are “meat for vegetarians”. Although I don’t think this is accurate where my palate is concerned they are a big part of my autumn/fall menu at home. My usual go-to recipe is risotto, but a pot of soup hits the spot in colder weather. I used a selection of wild mushrooms (Slippery Jack and pine mushrooms) but you could use any mushrooms you like. Adding potatoes to the soup thickens it beautifully and a dollop of crème fraiche or thick Greek yoghurt gives it a lovely richness.

And where there is soup, there must be bread - at least that is the rule in my house. The easiest bread to make at home is focaccia. The dough is mixed by hand and there is very little kneading required. You just need a warm spot and a couple of hours to allow it to rise. Following a recipe I learned when I was travelling through the town of Bari in Puglia late last year, I added a warm cooked potato to the dough. Before baking I topped the dough with the thinly sliced cipolline, a variety of tiny, slightly squashed, mild and rather sweet onions, which I had sautéed in a dash of olive oil.

Served with a glass of Sangiovese, the soup and focaccia was a clear winner as a simple winter warmer meal (and you could also cheat and buy the bread...).

Mushroom and potato soup with cipolline onion focaccia

serves 4 as an entree

275g wild mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
dash olive oil
400g potato, cooked, peeled and diced
100g cipollina onions (or baby leeks), peeled/cleaned and thinly sliced
1 litre vegetable stock
salt and pepper to taste
finely chopped parsley
creme fraiche (1 large dollop per person)

Place the potato in a small saucepan filled with cold water. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 25-30 minutes until fork tender. Peel, dice and set aside.

While the potato is cooking, sauté the cipollina onions (or baby leeks) in a dash of olive oil in a medium-sized, lidded saucepan for 10 minutes on low heat until transluscent, making sure they do not colour.

Place the sliced mushrooms in a small frypan with a dash of olive oil on medium heat and sauté for about 3 minutes. Reserve a few (for serving) and toss the rest in with the onion. Add the previously cooked diced potato and a litre of vegetable stock. Bring to the boil, cover, reduce the heat and cook for about 10 minutes. Now remove from the heat, blend using a stick blender, add salt and pepper to taste and return to the heat and keep warm until you are ready to serve.

Place the soup in warmed serving bowls, stir through a spoonful of creme fraiche (to taste), toss in a few of the reserved slices of mushroom, finely chopped parsely and serve with cipolline onion focaccia.

Mandarin, almond and chocolate cake

Winter heralds citrus fruit season. Although you can find oranges most of the year (as they store well in cold rooms) and lemons, mandarins are usually missing in action. The Imperial varieties are my favourites and it is a bonus when there are no pips. This deliciously moist cake is made with whole boiled mandarins and almonds, so happens to be gluten free. I love the combination of chocolate and orange, I add chocolate pieces to this cake – though you could easily omit these if you like.

Mandarin, almond and chocolate cake

350g mandarins (about 6 small ones)
100g almond meal*
100g hazelnut meal*
5 eggs
1 heaped tablespoon flour (GF if making gluten free)#
1 tsp baking powder (GF if making gluten free)
big pinch salt
150g sugar
70g dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces

(*NB. or you can use 200g almond meal)
(# I used Ardor Food Co gluten free flour)

Place the washed mandarins in a saucepan of cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer covered for about an hour. Drain, chop in half and allow to cool on a colander (make sure you catch the juice).

Preheat the oven to 150C fan. Line and sides and base of a 23 cm spring-form tin.

Remove all the pips from the cooled mandarins and discard. Place the remaining mandarin pieces (skin, pith, juice and all) in a food processor and blend until a smooth puree forms. Add the eggs, almond/hazelnut meal, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt and blitz until combined. Stir in the chocolate pieces.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for about an hour or until it is firm to touch, golden and a skewer inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin.

Serve on its own or with thick Greek yoghurt. You can dust with icing sugar just before serving if you like. Lasts 4 days in a lidded container placed in a cool spot. I keep it in the fridge, it is lovely to eat cold or at room temperature..

Spaghetti al limone – spaghetti with lemon

We landed back in Australia a week ago today, after three glorious months in Italy and an epic road trip along the Adriatic coast. As the trip was essentially a research trip for my next book Adriatico, days were spent talking to the locals, shopping in markets, taking photos of locations, and lots of eating and tasting the traditional local foods.

My original plan had included cooking along the way, so I could start testing recipes as we travelled. I had rented predominantly Air BnB apartments with kitchens, though their definition of a kitchen differs somewhat from mine, as some had little more than a place to heat up food in pans that were slightly suspect and blunt knives. Other kitchens, such as in the apartments I stayed in Otranto (Puglia), Trieste and Ravenna were very good, so I managed to do more cooking. And it wasn’t just cooking for the book; it was also cooking just to eat - regular food when we were tired of restaurants or when we had spent more than the budget I had put away for the trip on that day.

There was one recipe I returned to again and again during our travels - spaghetti al limone (spaghetti with lemon). And before you start thinking “oh, lemons and cream” - there is no cream in this, and it is simple enough to make in the most ill-equipped kitchen with a bare minimum of ingredients.

I have my Instagram friend Frank Prisinzano to thank for this one. He talks through recipes on Instagram and I was in Trieste in March when he posted about this dish. He is passionate about Italian food and cooking, with a focus on understanding the ingredients, thinking about what you are doing and why you are doing it. For Frank’s version (and my adopted version) of spaghetti al limone for two people, all you need is spaghetti, one lemon (preferably unsprayed), butter and finely grated parmesan cheese, and to follow a couple of rules:

- make sure the pasta cooking water is well salted

- taste it to check

- rather than adding salt later

- have all your ingredients ready before you start cooking the spaghetti; timing is key and the sauce needs to be made as soon as the spaghetti is on the harder side of “al dente”

- have a second pot on the stove warmed up for stirring the lemon and butter and the cooked pasta. If you stir it in a cold bowl/pot, the pasta will stop cooking immediately, the butter will not melt and the dish will not be as creamy

- make sure the parmesan cheese (Grana or Parmigiano Reggiano) is finely grated so that it melts completely and adds to the creaminess of the dish

So here is the recipe that got me through cooking in apartments with little equipment and even fewer ingredients sometimes in remote places all through Italy.

spaghetti al limone - lemon spaghetti

Serves 4

320-400g dried spaghetti (portions are 80-100g per person)
2 organic small/medium lemons
160g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
80g finely grated parmesan cheese
freshly cracked pepper
extra-virgin olive oil (optional)

Bring a large salted pot of water to the boil. While it is boiling prepare your other ingredients; squeeze the lemons and keep the lemon halves to one side; finely grate the cheese and set aside; chop the butter.

When the water is boiling, drop in the spaghetti, pushing it down using tongs when it starts to soften to make sure it is immersed in the water and cooks evenly. Give it a cook stir when it is all immersed to ensure it does not stick together. Taste the cooking water to make sure it is salty enough.

Place your serving plates in a low oven to keep them warm. Have a second pot ready and warm on the stove to make the sauce, turning off the heat just before you add the cooked spaghetti.

Taste the spaghetti to check that is is cooked just slightly short of the point at which is it cooked to your liking. Lift up the pasta using tongs into the second warmed pot. It is ok if some of the cooking water drops in. Now add the chopped butter and lemon juice and stir using a wooden spoon until it becomes creamy, adding more cooking water if needed. Drop in the reserved lemon halves as well. It may take a minute of stirring until it is really creamy.

Then stir in the grated cheese until it melts and pile onto warmed serving plates. Scatter on some freshly cracked pepper, drizzle a bit of extra virgin olive oil (optional) and add a bit more cheese if you like (this is my preference, I like to see the cheese on top). Garnish with a lemon half and serve immediately.

Cavatelli with sausages, peas and cinnamon

Today I will be sharing one of my favourite non-vegetarian pasta sauce dishes. I eat very little meat (and fish) for environmental and ethical reasons, usually once a week, and a bit more so in winter.

My local butcher Matt from the Butcher’s Block in Clifton Hill makes the best sausages at the back of his shop. I love the pork and fennel sausages he makes as well as the Mediterranean lamb. I love to break the sausages into chunks and turn them into a pasta sauce. Apart from the sausages, this is a pantry ingredient dish with peas and tomatoes. It is nothing fancy but thoroughly delicious, especially when you add chilli flakes and a hint of powdered cinnamon.

Frozen peas are the only frozen vegetable I use; they are so convenient and the baby ones are really very good. I always have a bag or two in the freezer. They are great with ricotta (replace the usual spinach with peas to make a filling for a savoury pie); in a braise with some ham or pancetta (this was one of my mamma’s signature dishes); cooked with garlic, olive oil and a splash of white wine until they are soft and mushy (then eaten with potato mash); and with tinned tomatoes. I mean, how good are frozen baby peas?!

I made my own cavatelli for this dish, using semolina flour and water. Cavatelli are a traditional Sicilian pasta shape and they look very even because I have a hand cranked cavatelli rolling machine (the brand is Miss Peppa, made in Italy) that spits out cavatelli quickly and evenly. They can also easily be made by hand using a gnocchi board to make the ribbed contour which catches sauce, but the machine is a bit quicker.

Cavatelli with sausages, peas and cinnamon

Serves 4

400g dried or fresh cavatelli pasta
3 pork and fennel sausages
extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup red wine
1 tin (440g) good quality peeled tomatoes (eg Mutti)
1/2 teaspoon powdered cinnamon
good pinch of dried chilli flakes
2/3 cup frozen peas
grated parmesan cheese to serve  

fresh parsley or mint leaves, chopped, to serve  

Remove the casings from the sausages and break up the meat into chunks. Add a glug of olive oil to a medium-sized frypan on medium-high and add the sausage pieces. Cook for about 8 minutes until the meat has cooked through, stirring every minute or so, then add the wine.

Let that cook off for a couple of minutes, then sprinkle on the cinnamon, the chilli flakes and the tin of tomatoes. Turn the heat down to medium low and allow to simmer before adding the peas. Stir them through then cook for another ten or so minutes. If the sauce starts to look a bit thick, dilute it with a bit of pasta cooking water (see below). 

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and cook until just before it is done to your liking. Set aside half a cup of cooking water before draining the pasta in a colander. Add the drained pasta to the frypan with the sauce, and allow it to cook on medium heat for another minute, stirring the contents of the pan so that the sauce covers the pasta, and adding a bit of the cooking water that you have set aside if needed. Taste and adjust the salt if needed.  

Serve sprinkled with grated parmesan cheese and some fresh parsley or mint leaves.