When I learned that Antonio Carluccio had died I was really sad, I didn't know hime well, but I did meet him twice, and wrote to him once (and got a reply!), he was an inspiration. When I was young and poor and constantly hungry and cold in London I used watch his programmes, and dream of Italy, sun and endless food. I met him in the street there but I was so shy that the only thing I could say was Buongiorno and run away! After writing my first book I emailed him (his publisher) to send him a copy, and got an email reply (signed by him, but I will never know if he wrote it) and a thank you and well done!. Then I met him two years ago at Gusto at the Grand in Auckland, and that was fantastic, I was sitting at his table so I managed to chat a bit with him. What a great memory!
So to honour his legacy I took out my pasta board and went out in the garden, (it was a lovely day), and made some tagliatelle. I even added some flowers to some, just for fun. To make pasta I just use an egg for every 100g of flour, this is good for two people, so double for 4 and so on. Since I have two teenagers I used 300g of flour and 3 eggs :-).
Then I made a sauce, I had a big pack of dried porcini mushrooms which a soaked, and some other mushrooms, which I cut, and since I didn't have many I added some eggplant, cut and salted (to sweat). If you add eggplant to mushrooms it will absorb the flavour and the texture is a little similar so you can dream that you have lots of mushrooms. I sautéed the fresh mushrooms and eggplant with a little olive oil, chopped parsley and garlic cloves and then added the dried mushrooms and their water, a big bottle of tomato passata, extra tomato puree and salt to taste. At the end I had a huge pot of sauce, even after I cooked the lot for one hour (to thickens the sauce), I used some for pasta the first day and for a pie the day after.
We had the tagliatelle and mushrooms with Parmigiano, and a glass of red whine, and toasted to Antonio. Goodbye Carluccio, sit tibi terra levis.
Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©
non sapevo fosse morto, ho alcuni suoi libri e li consulto spesso !
ReplyDeleteQUE RICO!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteEL VERANO PASADO FUIMOS A ITALIA...Y REGRESE ENAMORADA DE TODOOOOOOO.
CHAUCITO
Dear Friend,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Nerissa and I am Filipino and Italian. I am an expat, a traveler, and a mother. I have just created a website called www.peopleabroad.org to talk about the stories of people that for different reasons live or travel around the world.
I hope you could contribute with your personal story to this website. I would also appreciate if you can also publish summaries of some of your best articles that are currently on your blog/website also on PeopleAbroad.org (obviously, I will give you credits for your posts). An interview will also be appreciated.
I thank you for your precious time and, whatever your belief is, I wish you a peaceful time for Christmas.
All the best,
Nerissa