Tessa Kiros's Mozzarella in Carozza

My Dad has about five books by Tessa Kiros. Even by the standards of today’s food publishing, they’re beautiful: this one has a black velvet ribbon pagemarker. They are books for home cooks, and she relies heavily on her heritage – Greek and Finnish – and her home – Tuscany – for inspiration. She writes about the feelings of food, and its connection to place, as much as the food itself. Remind you of anyone? Yup, I can’t help feeling that Tessa would be Nigella, if Nige wasn’t (even) better looking, and better connected. 

Which isn’t to say this book is as good as How to Eat.  Like her other books, it’s OK, and definitely in the tradition of genuinely readable cookbooks. But the ‘must make’ percentage is low, and they’re mainly easy family meals. They’re totally in my wheelhouse, just not that tempting. Venezia: Food & Dreams contains lots of charming wiffle-waffle about the city (see also: the ‘Venetian Feast’ section of Nigella’s Feast for more) and lots of recipes which, truly, crop up in every book about Venice. Bigoli with anchovy sauce, risi e bisi, beef carpaccio, Bellinis. The monkfish lasagne sounded a right faff, as did the many pasta with seafood dishes. I’d make pasta e vongole every week, if there was an accessible, sustainable, reliable source of clams near me. But there isn’t, so I really wish it didn’t feature in EVERY vaguely Italianate recipe book.

Anyway, Tessa leaves me feeling melancholic. Perhaps she doesn’t want to be a big name slebby TV cook? But her glossy books, and lifestyle-pimping, make me think she does. And so I feel sad for her. Still, if Nigella ever goes full recluse, we’ve got her replacement good to go.

So, I made Mozzarella in Carozza (another extremely familiar recipe, which I once made, disastrously, as part of an ‘Italian Feast’ in Home Economics, to be served to teachers. I mainly remember that a small part of the ice cream maker fell off and got frozen into the ice cream, and we couldn’t find it). Surprisingly, Tessa doesn’t point out that this translates as ‘mozzarella in a carriage’. The ‘carriage’ is a deep fried white bread sandwich, made even more Elvisian by béchamel sauce, and an egg dip. My husband and I had one each and were utterly stuffed by them – both exhausted and exhilarated by the hundreds (thousands?) of extra calories ricocheting around our bedtime bodies. I recommend these only if you’ve just rotivated a garden by hand, built a wall, or birthed a baby. Actually, it would be a nice thing to make an invalid you were trying to build up. But this isn’t the 1800s, and I don’t know any invalids. Eat it with a salad, but don’t go thinking it will help.

Makes 2

For the béchamel:

2 tbsp butter
4 tbsp plain flour
125ml milk
nutmeg

1 large egg, beaten in a shallow bowl.
large handful of dried breadcrumbs (I make these by ‘blending’ a few slices of bread, then spreading them on a tray and sticking them in the oven at around 150 degrees for half an hour)

4 slices of whitebread
1 ball of mozzarella (cheap is better), sliced finely
a few shreds of ham (optional)

lots of mild olive oil, or veg oil

Make the béchamel – you know how, or you can look it up. I’m not your mum. Helpfully, you can do this well in advance, and use it cold.

Pour the oil in a large frying pan – I am too wussy to really deep fry on the hob, but the more you dare use the better, I’m sure.

Spread béchamel on all four slices of bread, right to the crustless corners.

Make two mozzarella and ham sandwiches, and pinch the edges closed.

Dunk them in the beaten egg, and then in the breadcrumbs – coating as thoroughly as you can.

Fry them in the oil, turning when golden brown. If you're lucky the face of a beautiful woman will appear in the crispy carapace (see pic below, right). Eat immediately, and then do a thousand star jumps, cackling.

Aldo Zilli's Duck Ragu

So first up is Aldo Zilli’s ‘The Zilli Cookbook’ (2003). The cover features Aldo tucking into a lovely bowl of  that queen of dishes, Pasta Alla Vongole- which is a bit odd given that there is no recipe for this in the book. That is quite odd isn’t it? Did he think ‘well, it’s such a classic, I won't waste a page giving a recipe that’s in countless other books’. Probably not, because he did put in recipes for Spaghetti with Chili, Garlic and Oil (on which he inexplicably puts BASIL, what the what??) and Lasagne. I find this outrageous, though not surprising. Gordon Ramsey and Angela Hartnett have both published books and/or articles where they give recipes for Pasta with Tomato Sauce. Spread across two pages, with a photo. Definitely not value for money.

My grandmother is from Naples, and there are a lot of recipes we eat as a family that I’ve never seen in a cookbook – and I don’t think she made them up. So there isn’t an excuse for chefs/writers to fall back on the same old recipes. Lasagne might be a classic, but unless your book is badged for ‘people who only want to use one recipe book ever’ or ‘people who don’t have Google’, it’s a cop out.

I really wasn’t looking to slate Zilli – despite the fact that I don’t understand why anyone would feel the need to own this book (…Dad). Is ‘Aldo Zilli’ really a chef, or just a collection of Italian sounds used to add culinary legitimacy to Morrison’s, Alfa Romeo, Centre Parcs, and Prezzo (as listed on his website)?  All his restaurants seem to have closed, he produces a range of baby food, he gets to go on Saturday Kitchen sometimes, gives ‘masterclasses’ to the public, and appears at OK! Magazine parties. 

I chose to make duck ragu – on the grounds that ragu is always lovely, but I’ve never seen it with duck. Aldo recommend you use two breasts, skinned and cubed. Availability and price lured me into buying a crown and taking it off the bone before cooking. Honestly, these are both stupid ideas. I should have bought two legs, cooked them whole, and pulled the meat off the bone afterwards. It would have been about a hundred times tastier. Aldo even says, in a sidebar, that the dish is inspired by a restaurant in Abruzzo, which cooks a whole duck in the sauce, then serves the meat separately. Well duh! I would also start if off with a soffrito, rather than just the onion Aldo uses. It wasn’t horrible, especially with a lot of Parmesan, but the meat was a bit dry, and flavourless. So this is how I would do it:

Duck Ragu (for four – ish)

Olive Oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, ditto
1 stick of celery, ditto
2 cloves of garlic, ditto
2 duck legs, skin off
2 tins of chopped tomatoes
Teaspoon of tomato puree
Splosh of red wine (optional)

Brown the duck legs over a high heat in something which isn’t Extra Virgin Olive Oil (just for the burning issue). Remove from pan.

Gently fry the veg in Extra Virgin Olive Oil until soft and tranluscent. Put the duck legs back in, and heat it all up, before adding the tomatoes, puree, and wine. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer, with a lid, for about an hour.

Check to see if the meat is falling off the bone. If not, give it a bit longer. When it’s ready, pull all the meat off, and shred it as finely as possible. Obviously, this is easiest if you’re making in advance, and have let the sauce cool. But no biggie, and it doesn’t matter if the chunks of meat are still quite chunky.

Or! Leave the duck legs whole and serve them with veg or salad as a second course, after serving the sauce with pasta and lots of Parmesan. I really think this would be very nice indeed, and I might do it soon.