Linguine with Chanterelles

It was my mum's last night with us yesterday, so as a special treat I made a dinner featuring one of her favourite things - chanterelle mushrooms. I sent her down to the market to get the ingredients and she came back with enough mushrooms to feed a small army - or maybe a number of sailors from the naval academy down the road that we keep spotting (we are hoping to befriend a few of them). These mushrooms, according to mum, are quite difficult to find in England, but are currently in season and there are stacks of them on most fruit and veg stands that I have seen in Venice. I was also lucky enough to sample them on holiday in Austria a few weeks back and they are a good addition to lots of dishes and compliment all sorts of flavours. Also worth trying if you don't usually go for normal button mushrooms, as they do have a different taste and texture. I think this pasta dish went down well with the girls, even Holly who had mushrooms on her list of dislikes but was willing to suffer through a mushroom based meal just to keep mum happy.

This recipe serves 6 and the ingredients area as follows:
300g Chanterelle Mushrooms (slice any larger ones in half but I left most whole)
1 Packet Linguine/Spaghetti
1 Small bunch Parsley (finely chopped)
200g Bacon Lardons
1/2 Bottle Dry White Wine
150ml Single Cream
1 Large White Onion (chopped)
2 Cloves of Garlic (finely chopped or crushed - we don't have a garlic press unfortunately)
Salt & Pepper to taste
Olive Oil

To start, wash all the mushrooms and chop any large ones in half. Put a pan of water on the hob with a pinch of salt and leave to boil. Add a glug of olive oil to a frying pan and add the chopped onion and garlic and cook until soft, add the lardons and fry on a medium heat until starting to brown.

Once the water is boiling add in the packet of linguine and make sure it is all underwater before leaving to cook for about 10-15 minutes until it is soft but still has a bit of bite to it (Al Dente).

Next add in the white wine and simmer until half the liquid had been reduced, add half the chopped parsley and salt and pepper to taste (a pinch of each should do). Place all the mushrooms in, don't be alarmed if it seems like loads as they do shrink down. Once the mushrooms have shrunk down a little, stir in the cream and leave to simmer for a few minutes. Drain the pasta once ready and add to the frying pan, stir in the mushrooms and bacon and let the pasta soak in some of the sauce. After a few minutes, top the pan with the remaining parsley and serve.

We had a bowl of parmesan on the side and a salad with some cherry tomatoes as well, but if you prefer veg to salad you could add some chopped courgette or asparagus to the frying pan before adding the wine.

We visited the Accademia Gallery yesterday as well, they have a wonderful exhibition on at the moment that features a lot of Leonardo Da Vinci's drawings and sketches, including the Vitruvian man. They have all of the explanations in English and Italian. The gallery is quite small but full of excellent paintings, some by the Masters of  Renaissance art like Titian or Bellini.

Perhaps more importantly than the gallery, we also found a great gelateria near the gallery that had blood orange (arancia rossa) sorbet and coconut ice cream - my favourite - and sat on some steps over looking the Redentore to enjoy it!

Will keep you updated on the sailors.. ;)

Roasted Vegetable & Chorizo Tart

At the start of the week I sat down with the girls and went through everyone's likes and dislikes...(ice cream - yes, cauliflower - definitely not) to make sure that my weekly 'menu' would go down well with everyone, I also wanted to make good use of the market stalls while some of my favourite fruit and veg is still in season. I decided to make a simple roasted veg tart with a little chorizo for our first dinner at home, as I haven't quite braved the fish market yet and the butchers shop has so many salamis I don't even know where to start.

For this recipe you will need:

1 Medium Pumpkin or Squash (peeled and roughly chopped)
1 Courgette (sliced and halved)
1 Red Pepper (remove stalk & seeds and roughly chop)
2 Onions (white or red)
4 Cloves of Garlic (crushed with the back of a knife)
200g Chorizo (sliced and quartered)

1 Ready rolled Puff Pastry (you won't catch me on great British bake off I prefer to cheat)

Small bag of Rocket Salad
Handful of Cherry Tomatoes (halved)
Handful of shaved Parmesan
Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil & Balsamic Vinegar to taste

I roast the vegetables, chorizo and garlic with a glug of olive oil, pinch of salt and pepper for about 20-30 minutes on 200C or until the pumpkin or squash is softening. Then simply transfer the veg onto the rolled out pastry and bake on a tray for a further 20 minutes on 150C until the pastry around the edges are golden brown. You want to roast the veg first to reduce the water content especially in the courgettes as they will make the pastry soggy in the middle if you don't. God forbid your tart should end up with a soggy bottom!

I dress my rocket salad and cherry tomatoes with a 2 parts olive oil to one part balsamic with a pinch or salt and pepper to taste and then serve on top of the tart with the parmesan sprinkled over the top. It can easily be made into a vegetarian meal by taking away the chorizo or for a slightly cheaper alternative you can fry off some bacon lardons and use them instead.

In other news, we visited St. Marks Basilica and the Campanile this morning, we got there early to avoid the queues and managed to not be persuaded to stop for a coffee by the well dressed waiters in  St. Marks square. We got up the tower while it was sunny and the view was amazing - it is 8 euros, but you have to do it once. We also timed our visit to the Basilica well as we got to see the mosaics that decorate the walls lit up which only happens between 11:30am-12:30pm and the lights really add an extra dimension to the gold tiles. The museum up on the terrace is also well worth a visit, with lots of interesting tapestries to look at.

Do avoid being tempted into eating in the St. Marks area, the waiters are keen salesmen and will try any tactic to persuade you to choose their place. While walking past one restaurant earlier, a waiter told me he had pizza, pasta and fish - looked me up and down and said "or big fish"...because I clearly look like a girl with a large appetite!

                                                  The 4 of us at the top of the Campanile

Welcome to Venice!

Venice is one of the most unique cities in the world, famous for its architecture and artwork and most importantly (for me) its food! I am currently studying here for a term as part of my final year of a history degree and this blog is most definitely another method of procrastination to avoid the masses of reading for my first seminars next week...

I moved into my flat in Venice, the home of Spaghetti Vongole and Risotto on Tuesday with my three new flatmates with eight massive suitcases and my Mother in tow, who claims to be staying for five days but could quite possibly have taken a three month sabbatical and will be crashing on our sofa for the whole duration of our stay.

We could not have asked for a better apartment, on a wide street about 10 minutes from Saint Mark's square we have numerous bakeries, fruit market stalls and a fish market right on our doorstep and a keen accordion player that serenades his choice of three songs from eight in the morning through to late evening.  I'm sharing the flat with three friends, who I bonded with over a mutual struggle with our Italian lessons two years ago. Having never lived with any of them before we are still in the phase of making sure everything is clean so we don't annoy each other in the first week. Lucy and I are both naturally very messy and we are sharing a room, so I can't imagine it will be that long before we have trashed the place.

The best thing about living abroad, especially in Venice are the market stalls that make it so easy (even with our limited Italian) to buy fresh produce which makes dinners seem a lot healthier and tastier, even though the Parmesan tastes so good you have to add a little extra to your dinner. Emily and Holly were in charge of buying fruit and veg this week and Emily reckons she embarrassed herself by asking for pesce (fish) instead of pesca (peach) at one of the fruit stalls...so I'm not sure if we will be returning to that one until our Italian has improved. The girls persuaded me to start a food blog after sampling my cooking on the first night - I've promised to cook most of the meals throughout our time here, mainly because my parents invested a lot of time in teaching me how to make a good béchamel sauce and I actually enjoy cooking. I love kitchen equipment as well and this year, receiving a new knife for Christmas got a similar reaction to my teenage brother receiving the new version of Xbox.

I don't fancy myself as a master chef, and have repeatedly been told by my cheffy friends that I would never be allowed in a professional kitchen because I'm just too messy, but I cook simple, mostly crowd pleasing meals which are easy to make after a totally hard day enjoying Bellinis and Aperol Spritz in the many bars that Venice has to offer.