Calzone al Dolcelatte

September 26, 2008 By Leave a Comment

In this first video Gino shows you how to cook ‘Calzone al Dolcelatte’ a fresh Italian summer dish.

Calzone al Dolcelatte®
Makes 6 Calzone

Ingredients

For the Dough
2 pinches of salt
2 teaspoons dried yeast
Approx 280ml warm water
360g strong plain flour, plus extra for dusting
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for greasing

Dolcelatte Filling
450g Galbani Dolcelatte®, cold and cut into cubes
75g freshly grated Pecorino cheese
80g rocket leaves (chopped)
75g crushed pistachio nuts
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

To prepare the dough, mix the salt and yeast together in a jug with the water. Place the flour into a large bowl, make a well in the centre and add the water mixture along with the olive oil. Use a wooden spoon to mix everything together to create a wet dough.

Turn out the dough onto a clean, well-floured surface and work it with your hands for about 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic.  Shape into 6 balls, place on a tray and cover with a tea-towel. Leave in a warm place to rise for at least 30 minutes until the dough has nearly doubled in size.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 200ºC/400°F/gas mark 6.

Calzone Once rested turn the balls out onto a floured surface.  Use your hands (or a rolling pin) to push out from the centre, creating six round discs, about 18cm in diameter.  Place the pizza bases on two oiled baking trays.

To prepare the Dolcelatte® filling, mix all the ingredients in a large bowl and divide equally between the six pizza bases.  (Make sure that you place the filling on only one half of the disc).

Gently fold one side of the pizza disc on top of the other creating a half moon shape. Brush the edges with cold water and pinch the damp edges together ensuring you seal the half moon shaped Calzone properly.

Cook in the middle of the oven for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Once ready rest them on a rack for approximately 1 minute and enjoy with a cold beer.

For a quicker option, you can use a packet of pizza base mix to make the dough.

Filed Under: Recipes

Harry Hill reveals his nuts to Greenbang

September 26, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Our sister site – Greenbang went down to Harry town to find out what he’s really up to.

Harry – how farmer-friendly are your nuts?

Well they are 100 per cent Fairtrade and not everyone knows this but Fairtrade standards encompass environmental standards as well as paying a fair price to farmers.

My nuts come from farming groups which are joint owners of the Fairtrade nut company Liberation. Some of Liberation’s farming organisations are working towards organic certification or are already selling organic produce as a secondary crop.  However the nature of smallholder systems is that minimal inputs are used. Most of Liberation’s smallholders grow tree nuts which soak up carbon.

The peanuts in Harry’s Nuts come from a plant that is a legume which fixes nitrogen. By including peanuts in their crop rotations the farmers are reducing their dependency on nitrogen fertilisers which are petroleum based. In addition the peanuts for Harry’s Nuts! are all transported by ship.

The Liberation farmers are supported by Comic Relief which has paid for peanut shellers in Malawi and Mozambique. These are of huge value to the farmers because they mean the nuts don’t have to be shelled by hand which is timeconsuming and often painful. The farmers have more time to work their fields.

Why did you want to sell nuts? Aren’t you rich enough?

I  wanted to sell these nuts as I thought they might stand a better chance with the added value of my name attatched. I’d been involved loosely with Fairtrade since 2002 and thought it was time to get more involved.
I’m not making any money out of the venture, and no I’m not rich enough either.

Reveal your nuts to Greenbang – give us the pitch…

Dark roasted for extra flavour, tasty salted nuts in a handy 50g bag for almost every occasion, and helping farmers in developing countries get a fair price for their work.

(No more nuts now) What got you involved with this?

I’d visited Ghana for Fairtrade in 2002 and seen Banana and Cocoa farms and as I was especially keen on nuts I wondered wether Fairtrade had any nut plans. They’d just started up Liberation, the UK’s first Fairtrade nut company and so thought it was a good idea too. I then went and visited the farmers in Malawi who cultivate the nuts which confirmed in my mind that it was a good idea.

Are you involved with any other feel-good initiatives?

Not really, I do odd bits and bobs as the requests come in.

Where do you get your shirts made?

A gent called Dometakis in Great Portland St London W1. He makes shirts for a lot of us showbiz types.

You trained as a doctor – what is it about helping people?

I’d been led to believe it was but there was a lot of paperwork and hanging on the telephone trying to find a bed for a sick patient.

The Earth is having a hard time. What should people do to help other than buy nuts?

Turn all appliances off at the mains, oh and try and find a way out of using fossil fuels. I think probably someone’s got to invent something.

Would you like to be patron saint of Greenbang? We’ll give you a Greenbang T-shirt, some jam and a free column whenever you’d like to have a rant.

What’s the catch? How big’s the jam ?

Anything else you’d like to add?

I mentioned the nuts, right…?

Thank you for taking time out.

For more information on Harry’s Nuts! and to get a pub/ off licence/ shop/workplace/cafe near you to stock them please go to www.chooseliberation.com/harry

Filed Under: Featured, Interviews

Red wine with seafood isn’t a crime!

September 25, 2008 By Leave a Comment

In this video, Miles explains how the recipe has been designed to match with a delicious New Zealand wine and dispels the myth that only white wine goes with fish.

Seared tuna on herby Puy lentils with garlic-pickled girolles and thyme crème fraiche.

TunaSteak Ingredients

4x120g Tuna steaks
2 cups Puy lentils
3 cloves Garlic
1 Onion (chopped)
1 handful Rosemary and sage
1 cup Nobilo merlot
2 cups Water
1 bunch Parsley
Olive oil
200g Girolle mushrooms
¼ cup white wine vinegar
2 Tbsp Castor sugar
1/2 cup Crème fraiche
2 Tbsp Chopped thyme
Rocket for garnish
Salt and pepper

Method

  1. Mix the chopped thyme through the cream fraiche, season and set aside
  2. Heat 100ml olive oil in a sauce pan with garlic, onion, sage and rosemary.
  3. Add lentils and cook for 2mins so the lentils are coated in oil. Pour in the merlot and reduce the liquid to half.
  4. Add water and cook lentils with a lid on for 20mins or until soft. Season with salt and pepper and add a handful of chopped parsley.
  5. Sauté the girolles in 50ml olive oil with 1clove of sliced garlic till brown. Add sugar, vinegar, some more chopped parsley and again season with salt and pepper
  6. Heat more oil in a large pan and sear the tuna steaks at a high heat very quickly on each side. The tuna should be served rare.
  7. Spoon some of the ‘herby’ lentils into the centre of a plate and top with a handful of rocket. Then put on the tuna and arrange some of the pickled girolles on top and around the plate. Finally spoon on some of the thyme crème fraiche.
Filed Under: Seafood & Fish

Lamb Hot Pot

September 25, 2008 By Leave a Comment

LambHotPot_03Autumn lamb, in my opinion, tastes much better than Spring lamb. It has a stronger flavour because the lambs have had longer to graze and grow, and you can be far bolder with the flavours you add to it, than you could with the more delicate Spring lamb.

Sadly lamb is not cheap whether Spring or Autumn, so it helps to accompany it with other less expensive ingredients. With food prices reflecting the credit crunch and the potato season in full swing its never been a better time to make the most of the humble potato. Incredibly nutritious and filling, potatoes have a wide range of uses and are packed full of goodness. They are an excellent source of low fat energy for your brain and body. They also provide a valuable amount of several important nutrients: Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B6, and iron – packing far more nutrition than either rice or pasta.

I know there are different varieties of potatoes best suited to different treatments, e.g. King Edwards make great roasties, while Charlottes are supreme in salads but I tend to buy all-rounders, it makes life a lot simpler. I’ve recently been trying out Rooster potatoes and they’re pretty good, we’ve had them mashed and roasted, with no complaints so far. I used them in this recipe too and they held their shape to my surprise. I thought they might fall apart but instead the tops were crunchily browned while the underneath soaked up the cooking juices and became lovely and soft.

Lamb Hot Pot
Serves 4

DicedVegIngredients
2 finely diced carrots
2 finely diced celery sticks
2 finely diced onions
1 crushed garlic clove
2 sprigs of rosemary
75g butter
4 large chump chops
150ml white wine
650ml good lamb or beef stock
8 thinly sliced Rooster potatoes
salt & pepper

Method

  1. Pre-heat oven to 180ºC / Gas Mark 4
  2. Lightly cook the vegetables, garlic and rosemary in 50g of butter. Then remove from the pan and keep to one side.
  3. Melt the remaining butter in the pan and brown the chops on each side. Then remove from the pan.
  4. Add the wine. Boil and reduce until almost dry.
  5. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Place the chops into a shallow braising dish and cover with the vegetables. Season with salt & pepper.
  6. Lay the sliced overlapping potatoes onto the chops, pour over the hot stock, and place into oven for 1 hour. Be sure to baste the potatoes every 15 minutes.

LambHotPot_01 LambHotPot_02 LambHotPot_04

Oh, I could eat it all over again! Such a simple dish with fantastic British ingredients, so flavourful and so satisfying, it was the perfect meal for a chilly evening.

This recipe is one of Andrew Fairlie’s from the Albert Bartlett website.

Filed Under: Featured, Meat, Recipes

Britain’s quirky breakfast habits revealed

September 24, 2008 By 3 Comments

Do you prefer your OJ with bits or no bits? Your crusts on or off? Your eggs sunny side up or over easy?

The research released today by innocent uncovers some of the nation’s unusual breakfast eating habits… Did you know that a quarter of Brits won’t touch cereal that’s gone soggy? 15% say they won’t touch orange juice with bits in while 7% say they wouldn’t consider drinking it without.

‘Bits aversion’ is not just about drinks either – a further 7% leave the bits in jam and marmalade, the same percentage insist on toast with the crusts cut off.

More than 1 in 7 of us demand matching cutlery but perhaps weirdest of all, well over half a million of us won’t eat anything at all if it’s served on a patterned plate…!

It seems that our food quirks don’t change over time, either. 93% of us say that our eating and drinking habits have remained the same as they were in childhood.

Cilla Black once revealed a fondness for segments of orange dunked in raw Oxo cubes. Are we just a nation of oddball eaters?

Shilpee Nutritionist Shilpee Mehrothra comments: It seems that the UK has some quite unusual eating habits at breakfast time, but what is great to see is that people are taking the time each morning to eat breakfast, as this gives you that vital energy that you need first thing for your body and brain.

Re-hydrating yourself after a long night’s sleep is important too. A boost of fruit is just what the doctor ordered, to give your morning feast of pastries, eggs or soggy cereal an injection of vitamins and to help you meet your target of 5 pieces of fruit and vegetables a day.

For more information visit www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/oj

Aren’t folk funny! I guess we all have our little quirks, I know lots of people with a ‘bits aversion’ but personally I don’t mind them, whether it’s in OJ, marmalade or yogurts. I do however have to have my toast ‘just so’, not too light not too dark and when it comes to eggs – no runny stuff thank you! I bet you’ve got your own quirks when it comes to breakfast, I’d love to hear them.

Filed Under: Health
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