Salt cod

It’s all about preservation.

Salting has always been a way of extending the life of many food stuffs: olives, capers, ham, cheeses – in days before refrigeration, the introduction of salt allowed for the extended storage of food, particularly throughout winter.

The preservation of cod by drying is known to have occurred as early as the tenth century. This method of preservation, as practiced by the Vikings, was a combination of open air drying, where cod were hung to dry freeze in the arctic conditions, taking on salt in the atmosphere, and releasing moisture as they dried. Basques improved on the Vikings’ efforts: they introduced salting before drying, creating a product with an even longer shelf life. Records indicate that in the fourteenth significant amounts of salted cod were imported from famine struck Norway into Mediterranean countries, particularly Spain, in exchange for base commodities such as flour, salt and malt.

According to Kurlansky, Basque sailors made a fortune selling salt cod in the fifteenth century.* The edicts of the Catholic church forbade the consumption of meat on certain holy days (ironically known as ‘feast days’) – which accounted for over a third of the year. However, fish (along with frogs and snails) were not considered ‘flesh’ and therefore were able to be consumed. Basque sailors recognised their opportunity and capitalised by making increasing quantities of salt cod (bacalao in Spanish and bacallà in the Catalan language) available for sale. According to Kurlansky, some of these wily Basques travelled as far as the as yet undiscovered America to source their cod, which was ever-diminishing in the Atlantic and Mediterranean waters. In order to protect their secret supply, the Basques kept the new land a secret (only to have it discovered in 1492 by Christopher Columbus, who insisting on letting the whole world know).

In modern times, refrigeration and deep-freeze have all but eradicated the need to preserve by salting. The feast days proscribing meat have drastically shrunk: or at least, observance of the prohibition is less and less stringent. And modern production has slowly but surely embraced modern technology. Where cod was traditionally hung in open air to absorb salt and dry out, curing is now most likely to take place indoors, aided by electric heaters.

Cod, like ham and bacon, is now produced for preference rather than preservation. In the absence of traditional production methods, the consumption of salt cod is a tenuous link to the practices of the past: a truncated preservation of culture and practice. Good Friday represents perhaps the last widely observed day of salt cod, a ritual standing in for Religious observance in an increasing secularised post-industrial world.

And there is a third preservation at stake: that of the cod itself. Kurlansky quotes Alexander Dumas in 1873: "It has been calculated that if no accident prevented the hatching of the eggs and each egg reached maturity, it would take only three years to fill the sea so that you could walk across the Atlantic dryshod on the backs of cod." And yet: cod biomass is declining. This is fancy way of saying there is less and less cod.* A combination of ongoing overfishing and climate change has resulted reduced numbers. American, Canadian and British fisheries authorities have all expressed concerns regarding shrinking stocks. Various environmentalists have placed Atlantic cod on ‘best to avoid’ list.**

Which leaves me torn: preservation of the cultural tradition of salt cod may be at odds with preservation of the fish itself. There is no getting around diminishing numbers (climate change believer or sceptic, the data is as follows: the sea is warmer and the cod are fewer. Make of it what you will). The good news is: cod is indeed, as Dumas observed, prolific. Sustainable fishing practices and cod-farming are being pursued. The people of the world demand cod. We demand eternal cod, cod to last the ages. Cod for the now, and cod for the future. Cod must be preserved if we are to continue to preserve cod.



* The aptly named Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, Kurlansky, Walker and Company 1997
** Fishing, climate change and north-east Atlantic cod stock by Nova Mieszkowska, David Sims and Steve Hawkins May 2007; and Marine Biological Association of the UK, Plymouth; and US National Maritime Fisheries Service http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/fishwatch/species/atlantic_cod.htm
*** For example: http://www.eartheasy.com/eat_sustainable_seafoods.htm

Bacallà fritters

Serves six

750 gms salt cod
500 ml milk
2 red onions, finely chopped
4 cloved garlic, crushed
1 kg waxy potatoes, peeled, boiled and mashed
½ cup chopped spring onions
3 eggs, separated, whites whisked to stiff peaks
250 ml vegetable oil

Soak, soak, soak the cod. For up to 48 hours, but definitely no fewer than 24 hours. Change the water every four or five hours.

Mix the potatoes and spring onions in a large bowl.

In a medium sized saucepan sauté the onion and garlic until soft. Add to the potato mixture.

In the same saucepan, add the cod, milk and enough water to cover the water. If the cod doesn’t fit, just cut into two or three pieces. Bring to a simmer, and cook for about ½ hour or until soft.

Remove the cod and rinse. When cool enough to touch, remove the skin and bones and shred coarsely into the potato mixture. Stir through the egg yokes until combined. Gentle fold through half the whisked egg whites, and then fold through the remaining eggs whites. The cod is very salty. Do not add more salt. Seriously.

Heat vegetable oil to medium hot (it should sizzle gently when a piece of bread is added). Add heaped dessert spoons of the mixture to the oil, carefully spacing the fritters out (do not add too many to the pan at once, as the heat will reduce and they won’t cook evenly). Turn gently and cook on the other side. Remove and drain while the rest of the fritters cook. Repeat with remaining mixture.

Serve with steamed cabbage and fennel or salad, and garlic aioli or crème fraiche.

Put your muffin where your mouth is

I tend to dislike muffins. Too cakey. Too big. Too brick-like in the stomach. Stodgy. Too sweet. A generally unsatisfying snack.

I find it odd that people apparently like to eat them for breakfast.

But behind the pre-mix and bulk package monstrosities (I refer to both their hideousness and their size) hides the Platonic ideal-type muffin. This muffin has a softness and slight springy-ness about it. A crunch at the edges and a yielding denseness at the centre. It has a loose crumb, and a flavour that is more complex than simply refined sugar. It has a lightness that doesn’t taste like baking powder.

This muffin is lucky to last five minutes out of the oven.

I have discovered the secret of yoghurt.

There are lots of tricks and tips for making muffins. But addition of yoghurt (or buttermilk or sour cream) is genius. It acts as a leavening agent, particularly effective when combined with baking powder (or good, fresh self raising flour). The mixture tends to foam ever so slightly, like a yeast starter for bread, if you let it sit for twenty minutes or so before you put it in the oven. (A good thing to know, given that I forgot to preheat the oven, and had to wait anyway ...).

The result? Perfectly fluffy, slightly sticky-with-fruit, steaming soft muffins.

Impossible to resist, even for a harden muffin sceptic like me. Hot, and topped with a dollop of whipped ricotta or a generous smear of faintly sour butter.

For afternoon tea, not breakfast.

Yoghurt muffins (featuring chocolate chips and banana)

Makes 2 dozen.

4 mashed bananas (or about 3 ½ cups of chopped, mashed or grated fruit. Apple? Peaches? Plums? Mango? Berries? Probably not melon or citrus.)
2 cups natural yoghurt (no added sugar) – goat or sheep yoghurt gives a beautiful flavour (or use cows’ milk yoghurt)
1 ¼ cups oil (I use extra virgin olive oil)
2 eggs
3 ½ cups self raising flour
1 cup raw sugar
½ cup dark chocolate chips (optional)
½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional – try difference nuts with different fruits. I love almonds with peaches)
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 180ºc. Grease muffin tins (I use silicon muffin trays, which don’t need greasing).

Mash bananas with yoghurt, oil and eggs (you could even put it all in a blender).

Roughly stir in the rest of the ingredients – do not over mix or beat. Just use a folding action to make sure there are no lumps of flour.

Spoon into muffin trays – fill to just below the top of the trays. Cook for about 25 minutes or until brown on top and firm when poked. Allow to cool for about 5-10 minutes, then turn out on a cake rack.

Eat at least 1 immediately, warm with whipped ricotta, honey and nutmeg. Or butter. Or a spoonful of sweetened yoghurt.

Being humbled by pie

Pie is easy.* You can buy it frozen and pop it in the oven. That pie is humble: it doesn’t ask for much, doesn’t expect much, doesn’t particularly offer much either, just sits quietly in the freezer, then the oven, then disappears quickly without much comment.**

Eating fancy meals can be demanding: there is an extra attentiveness we tend to approach a glamorous dish with, as opposed to the unwinding we allow ourselves when we sit down for a traditional home cooked meal. Something intimidating, something attention-grabbing about a restaurant meal. It is special food for a reason. We hesitate, we pause, we pay that momentary respect, that intake of breath, that thoughtfulness.

The direction of the breath we take is pivotal, I think, in defining the difference. Restaurant food: intake. Wonder. Home cooking: exhale. Relaxation.

A few weeks ago I attempted a recipe from Thomas Keller’s cookbook The French Laundry. It was pretty complicated, involving making duck stock and then a reduced duck sauce. Creamed corn, which involved pureeing fresh corn kernels, then straining them, then cooking them, then adding whole blanched corn kernels. Oh, and blanched silverbeet wrapped skinned duck breast, cooked sous vide (ie, wrapped in plastic then poached).

The meal took a whole day, and was an exercise in peeling, precision dicing, watching, skimming, straining ... The end result was delicious, but damn, it would want to be for the effort it took to produce one dish.

Taking this recipe as a starting point, I thought about pie. What if you took the basic components - duck, mushroom, corn - and made pie? Mixed everything up together? Mushrooms fried with roughly chopped leeks and thyme. Poached the chicken (that way, if it doesn’t work, I’ve only lost my investment in chicken, and not a duck). The diced brunoise is transformed into diced vegetables. The creamed corn and reduced poaching liquid from the chicken becomes the binding gravy. From fancy restaurant food to rustic, home-style comfort food.

Easier to eat.

Not easier to make.

It took me nearly as long to make the pie as it did to make the Keller recipe. Poaching the chicken the night before. Reducing the stock. Chopping the vegetables. Cooking the sauce. Frying the mushrooms. Pulling the chicken off the carcass. Baking the pie. (Thank goodness for store-bought pastry!).

But there was a gentleness about the process – a shift in the expectation. This pie didn’t need to be perfect. It didn’t need to wow anyone. It didn’t have to look like a jewel, be perfectly sized or shaped. It didn’t really rely on split second timing. When we sat down to eat, we breathed out.

* ‘Easy as pie’ doesn’t describe the ease of creation, but rather the pleasure of eating, the idea being that good things are also easy to like – easy on the eye, for example. ‘Easy as pie’ comes to us from American English (check out Mark Twain and all the pie references).

** Humble pie is little bit older – from the old English ‘numble’ or ‘umble’ pie – pie made from deer offal. Perhaps also eaten by the lowly of station. By a phonetic slight of hand: ‘umble pie (think of Michael Cain saying it). Humble pie. Numble pie eaten by the humble.

Chicken, corn and mushroom pie, a play in four acts

Act 1: The poaching of the chicken (the day before)

2 1 kg chickens (whole or with thighs removed – depend what fits into the pot)
1 carrot, cut in half
1 brown onion, peeled and cut in half
6 sprigs of parley
10 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 bay leaves

Place all ingredients in a large saucepan. Cover with cold water. Bring to boil, simmer for about 20 minutes. Cover with a lid and turn off the heat. Allow to cool, then refrigerate overnight (I put the whole saucepan in the fridge.

The next day, scrape the fat from the top of the stock. Remove the chicken, discard the skin and pull the meat off the bones. Shred the meat and set aside.

Strain the poaching liquid and reserve.

Act 2: A kernel of corn

Poaching liquid from the chicken
Kernels from 3 cobs corn
2 carrots – cut in ½ cm dice
200 g celeriac – cut in ½ cm dice
1 leek, white part cut into 1 cm dice
¼ cup polenta

Bring the chicken poaching liquid the boil in a medium sized saucepan and reduce to about 4 cups.

Puree the 2/3 of the corn kernels with a cup of poaching liquid. Strain and discard the solids. Return the puree to the stock, add the polenta and slowly cook until it starts to foam. Add the remaining corn kernels and diced vegetables and continue to cook until the sauce thickens and the vegetables are just cooked.

Set aside.

Act 3: Mushrooms

½ kg mushrooms (I used field mushrooms, but any combination will be fine), thickly sliced
2 leeks, chopped into 1 cm dice
2 tbsp chopped thyme
1 tbsp chopped oregano
1 bay leaf
2 tbsp olive oil

Throw everything into a non stick fry pan and cook until the mushroom are soft, shaking the pan occasionally to prevent sticking. The mushrooms will release liquid, which will evaporate.

Act 4: the assembly of the pie

Shredded chicken
Thickened corn gravy with vegetables
Fried mushrooms
Pastry (enough to line and lid your pie dish)


Heat the oven to 180ºc

Mix the shredded chicken, mushrooms and corn mixture together. Taste and season (note – nothing has had any salt or pepper added yet).

Line the pie dish with pastry, fill with the pie filling, cover with a pastry lid. Brush with egg wash or milk.

Place into the oven, and cook for about half an hour (if the top starts to brown, cover with foil whilst the pastry base continues to cook).

Moules mariniere (mussels in white wine)

I speak terrible French. More accurately, je ne pas parle Francais. I cannot pronounce even the most important of the words I do know (vin).

As if a long haul flight via Singapore via Heathrow to Dublin is not punishment enough, I arrived in France after an over-night sea voyage from the south-east coast of Ireland. Travelled from Roscoff by bus as the train was not running.

Through vineyards and fields growing artichokes and cauliflowers. Past old men on bicycles, one with a loaf of bread in the basket. I suspected these were plants by the French tourism authority.

To arrive at the top of a soaring nineteenth century viaduct. Then, according to Google maps, my hotel, charming and balconied, was only a short walk away. What became apparent was that this short walk was a devious and twisty path, and mostly a direct decent down about four thousand steps. Having missed breakfast, I was ready for lunch.

My first meal in France was a baguette with a selection of charcuterie and chevre purchased from a market, and a glass of vin rouge, ravenously consumed after the epic journey to the bottom of the valley. A picnic in bed. This was the view.

I surrendered to the cliché.

I stayed four days in Morlaix, on the coast of Brittany, pretending I could in fact read the menus. Eating everything but mussels: coquilles Saint Jacques (a delicious pot of scallops in white sauce with mushrooms and cheese), saumons fumes (smoked salmon), fruits de mer (a giant plate of mixed crustaceans and fish), huître (oysters, fresh with nothing but lemon) – all divine, but the French word for mussels eluded me.

And then: moules mariniere. A deep bowl of small mussels, steamed in garlic and onion and white wine and butter, served with pomme frittes. A bottle of rose, crisp, dry.

Nearby, middle-aged Frenchmen with easels resting on cobble stones made pastel drawings of the sail boats bobbing on the river. Overhead rose the spires of the gothic Eglise Sainte-Melaine and the arches of the nineteenth century viaduct. C’est la vie.

Moules mariniere

Serves two people as a main meal, or four for a light lunch or entre

1 ½ kg mussels
75 g butter
White part of two leeks, fined diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
6-10 stalks of thyme
½ tsp cracked pepper
120 ml dry white wine
½ cup chopped parsely

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

Clean the mussels (scrub them and with a sharp knife, remove any barnacles – most fishmongers will have already done this. Pull the fibrous thread off each one. Don’t use any that are broken). Set aside.

Melt half the butter in a very large pan. Add the leeks, garlic and herbs. Cook until soft. Add the wine and bring to the boil (this will be almost instantaneous) Cook off the alcohol (about a minute).

Add the mussels and cover with a lid (if you don’t have a lid, cover with foil or grease proof paper to trap in the steam). After a minute or two, you will notice the mussels are starting to open. As each mussel opens, remove with a slotted spoon to a warm bowl until all are open. This won’t take long – maybe five minutes. Some mussels just won’t open – discard them, just in case (I like to give then a good chance to open, leaving then in the heat a bit after the majority are open).

The mussels will have release a lot of liquid. Pick out the thyme stalks and bay leaf (some recipe suggest you strain the sauce, but I like the taste and texture of the leeks). Add the rest of the wine and the vinegar and bring to the boil. Cook for about a minute, then rapidly whisk in the remaining butter. Taste, and season if necessary (I don’t add salt to mussel because they are so salty naturally). Stir in the parsley.

To serve, fill a large bowl with opened mussels. Pour over sauce. Serve with pomme frittes (French fries) or crusty sourdough bread to soak up all the sauce.

A is for Apple, B is Boring, C is for Crumble

Apples are credited with keeping doctors away, impressing educators and proving the effects of gravity. Although mythological credited with the fall of man – or more precisely, the fall of woman, nothing is more mundane than the apple.

A sensible, serious fruit.

Perhaps contributing to the boringness of apples is the fact that they almost never feature as the stars of haute cuisine. Apples-as-dessert tend to be home-cooking’s domain: apple snow, apple pie (oh, tarte tatin), apple crumble, stewed apples, apple butter, apple tea-cake. Cooked apples are for eating in the kitchen by the fire with a cup of tea.

It is difficult to imagine the apple being an object of excitement or desire – presented alongside option such as figs or mangoes or strawberries, the ever-available, the cold-storage apple is likely to be eaten without thought. So someone (we’ll call her Eve) jumping up and down, squealing “COX’S ORANGE PIPPINS” over and over again would probably be a bit weird. And embarrassing for the people around me. I mean Eve.

Despite their year-round availability, apples are seasonal. Most varieties arrive at their peak during the autumn months – and some of the rarer varietals have very short season indeed. Hence the excitement about the Cox’s Orange Pippin – the most common ‘red’ apple in the UK, it is almost impossible to find in Australia (not at all suited to our growing conditions). When fresh, it is crisp and sweet and tangy and quintessentially the perfect eating apple. It does not store well, and is therefore to be jealously and joyously consumed for the few short weeks of its season.

Of course, we live in a world where everything is available all the time, and everything is grown for green-picking, bruise-free transportation, long-storage and slow ripening. Our fruit is harder and sweeter than nature intended. Stored apples tend to lose their crispness and tart edge-of-sourness. Yawn.

‘So’, whispers the snake (in a place where the supermarket is mysteriously also the garden of Eden) – ‘the autumnal apple is the tastiest, the crispest, simultaneously the sweetest and tartest apple you will find. The fruit at the other times of the year will not satisfy the same way this new-season apple will. The supermarket tricks you with the ever-present cold-storage apple. Eat the apple as God intended’. Possibly heresy, but the apple deserves to be made sexier, more mysterious, more desirable.

There is something honest, something wholesome, about home-made apple crumble. It’s rustic. It’s old-fashioned. It’s stupidly simple to make and won’t win awards for beauty. Apple crumble is about home and homeliness.

Don’t make a small amount – there’s no point. Fill a deep, deep pie dish and top with spiced crumble. Fill the whole street with the smell of cooking apples and brown sugar. Entice your neighbours in for a cup of tea and a bite of the apple.

Apple Crumble

Home-cooking classic, with a hint of exotic spiciness. Serves 6-8.

Filling
1.5 kg apples (use a hard and very tart green skinned cooking apple)
1 lemon – juice and rind
¼ cup castor sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground cardamom
½ tsp nutmeg

Crumble
100 gm unsalted butter
¼ cup mixed peel
1 cup flour
2/3 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup chopped blanched almonds
1/3 chopped pecans
1/3 cup almond meal
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
½ tsp nutmeg

Grease a large baking dish with a little butter.

For the filling: peel and quarter the apples, then slice thinly (about ½ cm). Toss with the sugar, spices, lemon rind and juice. Tip into baking dish.

For the crumble: with a bar mix or food processor, blend the butter with the mixed peel.
In a large bowl, mix the butter mixture with the dry ingredients (I use my hands) – be careful not to over-mix, the idea is to have a very crumbly mixture – hence the name apple crumble.

Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the apple filling.

Bake in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes, until the topping is crisp and the apples cooked through (some will retain it’s shape and the outer edges will go mushy, that’s part of its charm).

Serve with a cup of tea. And custard or ice-cream.

Crumbed milk-fed pink veal, white wine sauce and the ethical debate

Let me state upfront: veal comes from baby cows.

Lamb comes from baby sheep.* Most pork comes from baby pigs. Most chicken for sale is nine weeks old.

Those of us who choose to eat meat (and those who eat it without any thought at all) clearly choose to eat it young. The taste of veal is not at all like its older incarnation of beef, but lighter and more subtle. Veal is a unique flavour, sweet and slightly sour from being milk-fed. Soft, with hardly any fat. In short: delicious, but it comes with a seriously bad public image.

Horror stories abound. Calves deprived of sunlight, denied iron in their diets, kept in fully enclosed ‘veal crates’, unable to even turn around or even stand up**. All this to render ‘beautiful’ white muscle.

If there is an ethical dilemma beyond ‘should we eat meat’, it is not in the youthfulness of the calf, but in its treatment.

I firmly believe that if we make the extraordinary decision to take life, we must not be indifferent to that decision. To take away life is one thing. To cause unnecessary suffering as we do so, a step too far. It leaves far too nasty a taste in one’s mouth.

Veal crates are now unlawful in the United Kingdom, the European Union and several States in the USA.

In Australia we do not eat veal deprived of iron and sunlight, reared in tiny unlit boxes and partially starved. White veal is not available in Australia. Veal produced in Australia is pink, reared on whole milk and a small amount of grain. Pink veal (or rosé veal, as it is known is the UK) is sweet and soft and has a delicate flavour. Cooked well, not medium (unlike the beef it will become, it tends to be a little tough if under cooked), crumbed or in sauce, to protect it from the heat, it marries beautifully with acidity – a squeeze of lemon, tarragon vinegar, white wine sauce.***

* depending on your definition, usually less than a year old.
** http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/food_matters/veal.shtml

*** Try with a sauce made of white wine and capers-in-vinegar

Crumbed veal with white wine sauce

2 veal escalopes
¼ cup milk
Plain flour
1 egg
2 cups stale breadcrumbs, seasoned with a little salt and pepper
4 tbsp butter, and 1 extra tbsp
12 sage leaves
6-12 thyme sprigs
250 mls dry white wine (I used sauvignon blanc)
1 tsp corn flour
1 heaped tsp grain or Dijon mustard

Flatten the veal with a mallet (or ask your butcher to do this). Dip into milk, then dust with flour. Whisk the egg into the remaining milk, dip the escalopes into the egg mixture and then press firmly into the breadcrumbs to coat both sides.

In a large fry pan, melt two tablespoons of butter with the herbs. When the butter starts to foam, add the escalopes. If the sage leaves start to get crispy, remove and set aside.

When the escalopes are golden on one side, add two more tablespoon of butter and turn the veal over. When the veal is crispy and golden on that side, it is cooked. Remove and set aside.

Turn the heat to high, add the wine and mustard. Mix the corn flour with a little water to form a paste, and add to the pan. Cook until the alcohol is burnt off, and the flour is cooked (one to two minutes) – the sauce should have just started to thicken. Strain (it will probably have little bread crumbs and bits of thyme stalk in it!). Wipe the pan and return strained sauce, whisk in the remaining butter, strain again.

Spoon some sauce onto a plate, and serve the veal on top of steamed vegetables. Scatter over some crispy sage leaves. Eat with a contemplative conscience.

Myths about pasta

Myth 1: Marco Polo invented pasta / bought it back from China. Not true, according to Oretta Zanini De Vita, who cites records indicating that Italian pasta was adapted from wheat and semolina dumplings introduced to Italy by the Arabs in the ninth century*. Way before Signore Polo.

Myth 2: Fresh is always better than dried pasta. It depends. I have a beautiful recipe for drunken pasta, which is dried spaghettini, cooked by reduction method in a bottle of red wine flavoured with garlic and thyme. As the dried pasta cooks, it absorbs the red wine, turning purple and acquiring a rich tannin flavour. Fresh pasta would fall apart. Dried orrechette with crumbled pork and fennel sausages and fresh peas and grated parmesan. Homemade fresh gnocchi? Brilliant. Fresh paparadelle with olive oil and goats curd? Lovely. Fresh lasagne sheets any day (although that is pure personal preference). It depends.

Myth 3: pasta makes you fat. Nonsense.*

Myths 4, 5 and 6: Carbonara sauce has cream in it, marinara sauce has seafood in it, and pasta spaghetti alla puttenesca means ‘spaghetti in the manner of whores’. False, false and ok, kind of true.

Spaghetti carbonara, as eaten in Italy, is parmesan, pepper, egg yolks and guanciale (cured pig’s cheek). Was is named for the appearance of charcoal that pepper gives? From a black colour given by squid ink or soot? Because coal miners made it? In honour of the Carbonari, a Dan Brown-esque secret society? Who can say? Cream is a delicious American-Italian addition.

Apparently, marinara is Italian for mariner – and marinara describes your basic-est of basic sugo – tomatoes, garlic, onion. Italian seafarers bought tomatoes back from the new world, and the resulting sauce is hence named ‘sailor’s sauce’. And puttenesca was probably known to a few saucy sailors - its name is indeed derived from a derogatory Italian word for sex worker, puttana, which can also be used to describe un-valued or left-over things – like the tomatoes, black olives, anchovies and capers that make up the sauce. Plus quick for a working girl to throw together. I add chilli, for a bit of extra spice. Think of it as cheap and easy.

* Encyclopedia of Pasta, 2009, University of California Press

** Eating more energy than you expend makes you “fat”. And I put this in inverted commas because I think we make too much of “does this make me fat” and not enough of “am I healthy, happy, fulfilled, loved and excited by life”. A standard serve (about 150g) of dried plain pasta has about 225 calories. Which, with vegetables and fruit and protein and conscientious home-cooking and informed choices about food and fun and walking the dog, is part of a healthy life. Pasta does not make you fat.

Spaghetti al nero de seppia del Mare

AKA spaghetti pescatore AKA squid ink pasta with seafood sauce NOT AKA spaghetti marinara

For 2

300g good quality squid ink pasta (ie, spaghetti al nero de seppia)
Basic sauce from the chilli mussels recipe (ie, onion, fennel, tomatoes, capsicum, fennel seed chillies, white wine).
500 g mussels
200 g firm fleshed white fish fillets, cut into bite sized chunks
1 calamari hood, cleaned and cut into rings
Olive oil
Sea salt

Basil

Cook the pasta sauce (onions, garlic and fennel first until soft, then tomatoes, chillies, fennel seeds until softening, then wine). Set aside until ready to eat.

In a large pot, boil lots of water (I use a 5 litre pot), add a generous about of salt (about 1 tbsp) and bring to the boil. Add the pasta, bring back to the boil, stir and cook for about 10 minutes (most pasta packages indicate cooking times – just keep an eye on it, and take out a strand to check – I check by taking a bite). When cooked, strain and return to the pot and douse with olive oil – this stops it from sticking together, and buys you time to concentrate on the seafood.

Bring the sauce to a simmer. Add the mussels and cover. As the first ones start to peek open, throw in the fish. As the fish start to turn white at the edges, thrown in the calamari rings, cover and turn off the heat. (You could add scallops, prawns, clams or any seafood you like really – just note the difference cooking times and be careful to add in relative order, so that everything is nicely cooked, but not over cooked).

Place a spiral of black pasta into a shallow bowl, and top with spoonfuls of sauce and seafood. Scatter with torn basil leaves and fresh cracked pepper.