Almond Biscotti

 

I was unsure whether to use their Italian, Spanish or Catalan name when giving this post its title but in the end I chose the name by which they are known in England - Biscotti.  They are called Cantucci or Cantuccini in Italy, Carquinyoles and Carquinyolis in Spain and Catalonia.

The almond plays an important part in the cuisine of all the Mediterranean countries, you'll find it equally in savoury and sweet recipes, rich in vegetable protein and calcium it is an ideal food for anyone looking to improve their diet.

My recipe contains aniseed, mildly addictive for horses and humans.  I spent my youth trying to catch difficult ponies walking for hours in ever decreasing circles in the hope of catching some cunning New Forest pony who would outwit me every time. Until someone told me that a bit of anise oil on a sugar lump will turn you into the equivalent of the pied piper for horses.  I  suspect it is the same for people.  When I offer these to house guest, I watch them returning to the biscuit jar all day long, one is never enough.

The secret to making a biscotti (means twice cooked in Italian) is to cook them so they rise a little and are cooked but still pale on the first cooking.  Then they are cut and cooked again in order to dry them out.  So you end up with a biscuit that is hard and dry but melts in the mouth.  You don't want to break your teeth!  I always make a large batch as they keep for months in a jar.

Ingredients

500 g plain flour
350 g sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
2 teaspoons aniseed's
250 g whole, unpeeled almonds
5 large eggs

How to go about it

Preheat the oven 180°c.  Prepare 2 large baking trays and put baking paper on each one.  In a bowl mix flour, sugar, baking powder, vanilla sugar, aniseed and almonds, mix all together.  Lightly beat the eggs in another bowl and add to the flour bowl until you have a sticky dough, you might not need all of the eggs.  It will be sticky.  Turn out onto floured work surface, have extra flour available if needed. Divide into 6 equal parts.  If you like you could weigh it and divide by 6 to make it more equal.  Roll each amount into a long sausage shape and place 3 on each tray.  Bake trays separately if your oven doesn't bake evenly for 25 minutes a time, keep an eye on them as they can burn easily, especially underneath.  They should be light golden.  Roll off of the tray and paper and cut diagonally.  Put paper back on the tray and place cut biscotti, cut side down on paper.  When they have all had the first cooking reduce the oven to 100°c and then put both trays back in the oven and bake for 1h30.  Turn off oven and leave them in the oven overnight, with out opening the door.  Next day put them in a jar or other airtight container.

Curly Endive Salad with Romesco Sauce

This salad is called Xato (pronounced chato) in Catalonia.  It is tradionally made with tuna, anchovies and raw salt cod, I have left out the salt cod for this recipe as it is not to everyone's taste.  Escarolas (curly endives) are now in season and you will see that a lot of villages in Catalonia having this traditional salad with competions for making the romesco sauce.

To make authentic Romesco sauce you really need Ñora or Choricero dried peppers, you can buy them from Spanish suppliers online.  If you make it without it will not be the same and in my mind it is worth to source them, they come dried on a string and can be hung up in the kitchen.  If you have a garden or greenhouse you could grow them.

Ñoras

Choricero

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 escarola (curly endive)
Small tin of anchovies in oil
Tin of tuna in oil
50g black olives in oil

For the Romesco sauce

2 tomatoes, cut in half
15 Almonds
15 Hazelnuts
slice of rustic bread
7 garlic cloves
75 ml extra virgin olive oil
2 Ñora or Choricero
Splash of red wine vinegar
salt

How to go about it

First put the dried peppers in a small bowl and cover with boiling water and leave for a few hours to soak. Wash the escarola, use only the really light green leaves, save the outer, darker green leaves and use in a soup if you wish.  Put the drained escarola in the fridge to crisp up.

The romesco can be made in the oven or in a frying pan.  Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to the pan and gentle fry the whole unpeeled garlic cloves, keeping one back to add raw.  If you prefer a milder flavour of garlic then cook all the cloves.  In the same pan fry a piece of bread and tomatoes.  Dry fry the nuts. Or you can roast the ingredients in the oven 160c for 20 minutes, roast the nuts for only 10 minutes and keep an eye on them as they burn easily.  You can make this in a pestle and mortar or use a hand liquidizer.  Scrap of the flesh from the peppers, skin and seed the tomatoes and mix with all the other ingredients add the vinegar at the end, just a teaspoon to lift the flavour a bit. Loosen the sauce with a splash of boiling water and toss the escarola in a bowl with the romesco,  you might not need all of the sauce, you can save it for another day.   Arrange on plates and top with anchovies, tuna and olives.

Aubergine with Basil and Mascarpone

The vegetables are starting to change in my garden, now we're getting into the real high Summer.  I entered the kitchen with a variety of things and my hands started to prepare this dish without even thinking about it.  I didn't have any pine nuts for pesto,  so substituted it for almonds, adding a bit of parmesan and marscarpone, so this is not a pesto, just in case there are any Italians reading.  I once discussed pesto with and Italian and sort of touched on the idea of the addition of lemon.  His face changed from friendly, chatty  to a very serious one.  He looked me in the eye and told me that there is no lemon in pesto.  Point taken and I agree, pesto is pesto.  Let's leave it at that.  If you make something similar get your own name and leave pesto alone!

Serves 4 as side dish

Ingredients

2 aubergine's
1 bunch of basil
olive oil
2 tablespoons of parmesan
4 tablespoons of mascarpone
15 almonds, roasted
salt and pepper

How to go about it

Cut the aubergines in half, lengthwise.  Score the flesh in crisscross fashion and sprinkle with salt, leave for 20 minutes.  Meanwhile liquidise basil, parmesan, almonds, mascarpone with oil to make a sloppy sauce.  Rinse aubergines, pat dry and fry cut side down in olive oil until golden.  Turn and fry other side.  Remove from pan and let cool a little.

 

 A few minutes before serving,  spread the sauce over the aubergines and grill for a few minutes until golden.

Peach and frangipani tart

There's one thing I have an almost unlimited supply of in my garden and that is almonds.  We have about 5 large productive trees, that give us about 70 kilos plus of almonds, still in there shells, per year.  Minus the loads that my Labrador eats!

So being of tight nature I am determined to use them.  This week the peaches have finally started to  ripen.  I have been squeezing them everyday to check and in the last couple of days they have been falling off the tree in heavy ripeness.  So I decided to marry them together to make this unctuous tart.

I asked my husband what he thought of this tart and he said that he needed to eat more of it, until he felt he could comment.  What does that mean? 

Makes a 23cm flan dish


Ingredients


For the paté sucre


200g plain flour
100g unsalted butter
50g ground almonds
50g sugar
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons cold water
grated zest of a lemon


Filling


6-8 peaches, depending on size
100g ground almonds
100g unsalted butter
100g sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon plain flour
2 tablespoons kirsch or eau de vie or rum
2 tablespoons of red currant jam or quince jelly


Preperation time 20 minutes


Cooking time 40minutes


How to go about it


Preheat oven to 200° c, put in baking tray in middle of oven.


Make the pastry by rubbing the butter into the flour.  Add sugar, almonds and lemon zest, mix.  Mix in egg yolk and cold water.  Knead for a few seconds.  Wrap in cling film and refrigerate.


To make the filling whizz all ingredients together except the jam.


Cut peaches in half, twist and cut out stone and slice into large wedges.  Reserve on a plate. 


Butter flan dish, roll out pastry and line dish.  Put in frangipani and arrange peach slices in decreasing circle, pushing them into mixture.  Place in oven on preheated oven tray and cook for 10 minutes on 200°c.  Turn oven down to 175°c and cook for a further 30 minutes.  Cool. 


Mix jam and water and heat up and then paint over flan.

Green almond salad

I think after the winter everyone is longing for a bit of sun and fresh food.  Long gone are the heavy dishes of winter.

Whole green almonds, before their hard shells are formed, sometime between the third week of April to the second week of May are just right for this citrus salad.  You have to time it right or you can be too early or too late.  It is crunchy, the interior is still soft and has a slightly sharp taste.  Perfect for this salad

I made it with rocket but that is what I had in the garden but it could go with other types of lettuces


rocket
fresh peas
1 orange
1 lemon
4 whole green almonds


wash rocket, shell peas, remove peel and pith from orange and lemon and thinly slice them along with the almonds and arrange all on a plate

make a dressing with the juice of a lemon, teaspoon of honey, sprig of mint, chopped and olive oil

drizzle over the salad and season with fleur de sel