Saturday 25 March 2023

'Bagnet verd e bollito' aka boiled beef and authentic salsa verde

 


I found this recipe of mine in a folder. I used to write about food for a website and I created this dish to enter a competition (never heard anything out of it...). So here it is. This is a typical dish from Piedmont that I have adapted so it can be replicated if, like me, you live in the UK.

'Bagnet verd' e bollito (Piedmontese green sauce and boiled beef)

Serves 4.  

 

Ingredients for bagnet (green sauce)

1 small bread roll

3 tbsp wine vinegar (I used balsamic as it’s sweeter; if using other vinegar, add 1tsp of sugar)

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

half a chili pepper, finely chopped, seeds discarded

50g parsley

one anchovy fillet (I used one from a jar of anchovy fillets in oil)

a glug of olive oil

Unlike the salsa verde that has been widely adopted in the UK, the original Piedmontese recipe has an extra ingredient, chili. Although chefs keep adding other herbs, such as basil and mint à la Jamie Oliver, this sauce is based on parsley. And it certainly doesn't have capers or pickles. There is also a red version, where you add chopped tomatoes and half a chopped pepper. The red version is runnier in texture and is often served cold as a pasta sauce in summer.

Method

  1. Crumble the soft, white inside of your bread roll (called mollica in Italian) in a bowl, add vinegar and marinate briefly. Discard the crust or keep it to mop up the sauce off your plate later on!
  2. In a blender or mouli, add the garlic, chili pepper, parsley, anchovy and mollica (squeeze excess vinegar before you add it). Add olive oil. Blitz or puree it. Bagnet is not a runny sauce, but if your mix looks too dry, add more oil and combine.
  3. Store sauce in the fridge in a jar, box or covered bowl.

 

Ingredients for bollito (boiled beef)

750-800g beef brisket

2 celery stalks with leaves on, chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 carrot, sliced

1 clove of garlic, chopped

10g fresh parsley, whole

big sprig of rosemary, whole

big pinch of salt

To make the bollito

If you are having bollito in a restaurant you might find bollito misto, which is mixed boiled meat. This might include beef brisket, tongue, veal, chicken or capon and even pig trotter. I made a simple bollito as my mum makes, using a cheap but tasty cut, beef brisket.

 

Method:

  1. Place the brisket in a tall saucepan. Fill with cold water till it’s covered. Add the celery, onion, carrot, garlic, parsley, rosemary and salt.
  2. Bring to the boil then cover and simmer for around two hours. I had a 750g piece and it took 2 hours and 15 mins on a low heat. If you are unsure, fish it out, cut a tiny sliver and taste it. If it’s not cooked, place back in the pan.
  3. Take the brisket out but don’t discard the water. This is good broth that can be reduced to make soups. I reduced it boiling it quickly and added potatoes and other veg, then liquidised the lot with a hand blender, getting an extra meal out of this recipe. You can pop the cooled and covered pan in the fridge and do it later or the day after.
  4. Back to the brisket! You can eat this hot or cold. Slice the brisket and serve with bagnet. I like to have a fresh salad to accompany this dish, but you can have boiled veg if you prefer.

 

 

Growing up in Italy and living my life in the UK 

I was born in Piedmont, a region in the North West of Italy, renown for full-bodied red wines, such as Barbera and Barolo, and white truffles – and infamous for Asti spumante (which can be as good as champagne if you ignore cheap bottles). My village, Castagnole Lanze, is located between Alba and Asti. Visit http://www.lanze.it/ and click on English flag to read about the village and its Adopt a Vineyard Row initiative.

I grew up in a restaurant, which is still open under our family name but rented by another family - none of us children wanted to take it over. Running a bar and restaurant is really hard work and we found this out from an early age as we helped our grandmother as waiters and dish washers when they had big functions. I learnt to bake cakes quite soon but didn't do much cooking when I was younger as my mum and other relations were very good cooks.

Ironically I learnt to cook in London when I came over to practise English. I was renting a small flat in Bloomsbury with a friend and I did experiment with food using a double pan I had taken from my mum and packed in my case. I even took one of her wooden spoons! Fresh Italian ingredients were not as common or inexpensive as they are today, but we did enjoy a few good meals.

After I graduated, I moved to London and that's when I embraced international cuisine, learning to use a wok and appreciating curries. I worked for women’s magazines for several years as a subeditor and now live in Cambridge, working from home as a freelance writer and volunteering for local charities. The change of my career was due to having my daughter and not wanting to go back to commute to work inhouse as it would have meant not seeing my daughter much and giving up the charity work.

I have written a few food recipes for a parenting website and other sites, but I’m an amateur cook with no formal training. I tend to experiment, changing recipes and adapting them to what I have in the fridge or my equipment (at present our oven is temperamental so I’m using the slow cooker more). I cook Italian, Chinese, Indian, English, Japanese and even American food. I recently tried making a Vietnamese cake. My partner, who is English, does a lot of cooking and sometimes steals my family recipes.

The recipe I have chosen is a Piedmontese dish. I have followed the original recipe and asked my brother and mum for advice as it has been interpreted by chefs in ways that veer off our tradition. When we had a mouthful of this dish, my partner and I felt like we were back in Italy - the aroma and flavours are so strong and fragrant they remind me of my mum’s and grandma’s kitchen. Sadly my grandma is not with us anymore, she used to cook for the restaurant, so I couldn’t ask her input.

This bio was written in 2010. A lot has happened since then and it was lovely to find this file in my computer with this great recipe. 


Copyright Simone Castello

 

Sunday 12 April 2020

Easter weekend food - in lockdown

Sushi lunch for garden birthday - Friday

My daughter, now 13 and I made this sushi with very few ingredients since her favourite sushi restaurant is closed. All this food (including the little rice salad bowls) was made with 300g of sushi rice. I put the rice in a pan, cover it with water, put lid on and boil as instructed on the pack. The rice is soft and a bit sticky, we added sushi flavouring, which is basically rice vinegar with sugar and salt (you can use wine or apple vinegar and add a bit of sugar and salt). We used seaweed rolls to make those in the box. Fillings for all sushi was achieved with a small packet of smoked salmon, a red pepper and an avocado. I served a few slices of cucumber as we did not have any pickled ginger. Garnishes are parsley and chives, both from my garden. We made good use of an old trampoline... We used some plastic moulds to make the sushi rectangles (two soy sauce compartments from two takeaway sushi boxes I had kept alongside these pretty trays), which were pressed down and refrigerated so they stayed together.




Easter Sunday - a celebratory meal

The inspiration for the puff pastry spiral came from an Italian recipe which I have anglicised. In Italy torta salata (savoury cake) is traditional for Easter. You can find it here: https://ricette.giallozafferano.it/Girella-di-sfoglia-ripiena.htmlI used bought puff pastry and made it smaller (there is only three of us) so there was enough to do the base of an apple pie (apples and dots of berry/quince compote with cane sugar on top). Back to spiral, I had four rectangle, two filled with ham and turkey ham and blue cheese, two filled with scrambled eggs and peas - this would down better than spinach and ricotta, which is the traditional filling. An alternative could be sausage meat (get the casing off some cooked sausages and perhaps boiled carrots)....





Sunday 6 October 2019

Charity shopping - creating my style on a budget!



Inspired by a troll who typed that charity shop dresses make you look shabby and down-and-out, here are a few photos of items I bought from charity shops in England, charity sales and second-hand/discount shops (leather jacket, spotty raincoat). 

Not only a bargain, but this second-hand fashion is environmentally friendly.

Sunday 7 July 2019

Finding my style after pregnancy and motherhood

Michela, 11
Michela, 12

Now my daughter is 12 and is finishing her first year at secondary school, I am suddenly feeling 'free' because she is more independent and my partner works from home so I can go to more networking events, work full time if I wish to without feeling guilty, work the odd weekend or treat myself to a non-family activity...

Looking back I did suffer post-natal depression, which made me hyperactive and then worked from home for three years to stay with Michela. I went back to work as a contractor when she was in primary school, starting part time, then full time for brief periods and doing volunteer work all along. I had my midlife crisis and a bout of severe depression, which was very similar to SAD but I refused to take antidepressant and tried other ways to pull myself out of it. Working and thinking of my daughter and partner who needed me did help, although I felt really dull inside and sometimes I had no feelings for my loved ones while I did not like myself one bit.

I want to show you my journey with photos and have picked the most unflattering one of my depressive months, although I am smiling you can see I am not really myself (I ate lots in summer as I felt happier and did not feel like eating in winter so my weight went up and down. This is a summer pic taken in Italy, in 2017, after I gorged myself for days in France - gorgeous, tempting food...).


Photo 1 and 2 is me in my 30s, before and during pregnancy (5 months, just before going to a swimming class); photo with green top is after pregnancy, I did manage to lose the baby weight. Jumping to my 40s... photo in the swimming costume, it's me looking happy on holiday after going through a difficult winter with SAD, surviving tennis elbow and set to face another awful winter and the onset of an eye condition. Small head and shoulder pic and picture in the orange dress is now... looking slimmer, happy and having found my style (not just hair and clothes but also a confident, calmer attitude). I am planning to write an ebook on how I conquered depression and how I manage it - it was there as a teenager, bit me really hard after pregnancy, but I am feeling good now...


Wednesday 13 February 2019

PechaKucha: my impro challenge





It took me years to fight the fear of public speaking and this is the ultimate test: giving a presentation without having seen the slides. I survived!

Sunday 11 November 2018

Book review: Panda's Rule by Maria Abid




Order here: paperback, £18.99; ebook, £3.95



I don't do a lot of product testing any more (I have to earn a living after all), but the press release for this book caught my eye. A book written by an 11 year old? As it happens I have an 11 year old daughter who is also keen on writing. We have a project in the pipeline for a children's book too... a collaboration.

When I told her about this book, she wanted to read it. We love pandas, although she prefers penguins a bit more. When she was tiny we used to play a panda game, I was mama panda, she was born paw first, she fed on mama panda, mama panda climbed a tree to get her a bamboo stick, mama panda took a nasty thorn off her paw... I invented this game so I could laze in bed for a few moments at weekends. She is and always was very mobile and I just wanted to lie down in bed early in the morning on a weekend.

So two panda lovers. She read the book straightaway and gave me this honest feedback:

  • A good book with a good amount of drawings and images.
  • I wanted more description of the days the panda lives through. It rushed on and I wanted to know more.
  • The book is a bit big in size but I prefer the book to an ebook.
  • This book is suitable from birth to age 8. I am too old for this book. However I enjoyed it.

This is my 11-year-old feedback. I then gave her mine and she agreed on some of the points I raised.
  • The book could have benefited from editing by an adult. There are a few typos and a lot of adjectives are used, sometimes they are not necessary. The best use of adjectives is on page 32 at the very top.
  • The book is charming and I felt it was too short, but maybe it's part of a series.
  • I agree that this book is for young children. Parents can read it to babies and continue reading it until the child can read it herself/himself.
  • Some of the images are of not enough high resolution for print. They will be fine on the ebook though.
  • I would have liked a bit more of a connection between the story and the Chinese creative projects. 
  • Page 46, the song is close to the Disney one, even if some words have been changed. I advise caution, copyright issues are very intricate. It's always wise to seek permission or at least credit the original inspiration, even with a tiny note at the bottom of the page.
I think this is a great effort and creativity should be encouraged in children as much as possible. I am a professional writer/editor so pardon me if I was a bit too precise in my comments.

I hope my feedback is not taken the wrong way, it is meant constructively not critically. I do wish the author success and recognition. Keep writing - we would love to read more stories!

Tuesday 6 November 2018

Sugru will fix it!


I have a warm relationship with Sugru's PR. I get their products to test now and then. I have been very busy with work lately, but could not resist when they emailed me to suggest I should try their child-friendly range. Before they launched this range, Sugru was for adults only. 

So I got some Xmassy stuff and decided to make a start with the red Sugru to fix a few things. Spot my broken things and my daughter's broken things... We did not need to be precise with a few items but the whisk and the bag's zip fittings were done with care. Why change the zip when you can fix it so easily? It's my fave messenger-style bag, essential for a cyclist like me. We are hoping to do some Xmassy stuff, but in the meantime, you can see how useful Sugru can be!

If you like what you see, you might enjoy reading the Get started with Sugru page, with basic tips and a few ingenious projects to get you started. I am not being paid for this post, I just get the Sugru samples and try to fix something.

If you’ve already mastered the basics, they post weekly projects on sugru.com. They also have a newsletter. You can sign up if you click this link. There is a discount for your first order too.

Sunday 12 August 2018

Long time no see: achieving work-life balance



I have not posted in a long while. Here I am, trying my hand at punting (I resisted long enough to get a pic then got worried about my balance!).

I have been working in paid and voluntary jobs so there is little time to continue blogging... Yesterday I wrote this article on LinkedIn about achieving work-life balance. I think I might have succeeded, if you are still trying hang on and do not lose hope, it has taken me years....


Monday 7 August 2017

Frasier the English way: a berry custard sponge recipe

I saw a wonderful cake on a French website and decided I had to make it. The original cake, a Frasier, it's a strawberry cake made of sponge and filled/covered with custard that requires 8 eggs. I wanted to make an English version without the butter, so here it is, with less eggs and ingredients that are found here. I also added blueberries, why not?

Strawberry & blueberry custard sponge
Ingredients
  • For sponge: 3g baking powder; 63g white flour; 46g sugar; 2 eggs; bit of oil for the tin
  • For custard:1/2tsp vanilla extract; 27g cornflour; 2 yolks; 50g sugar; 250ml milk
  • To decorate: a punnet of strawberries and one of blueberries

Method
Start with sponge. Separate the eggs and beat the whites until stiff, as if you are making a meringue. Add sugar gradually, yolks, flour and baking powder. Oil your baking tin and pour in the sponge mix. Bake at 180C (gas mark 4) for 30 mins or until it's cooked. I use a toothpick to find out if the inside has cooked. Let it cool.

While the sponge is baking, you can make the custard. Boil the milk with the vanilla extract and half of the sugar. Let it cool. Beat the yolks with the other half of the sugar and add cornflour. Add the yolk mixture to the cooled milk one and place on the hob. Cook, stirring often, until it thickens (see pic for consistency). Cool the custard. 




Cut the sponge in half with a bread knife. Sandwich with fruit and custard. Keep some fruit and custard for the top. Voila' a frasier with an English twist!


Friday 4 August 2017

Back to school... already!

Mural at Michela's school

As soon as the school finished, the uniform offers arrived. Some shops cunningly discounted their old stock and pushed the new stuff out. Michela, aged 10 and looking forward to be a 'senior' in primary school, was outraged. "It's too soon, I have just finished Year 5," she complained.

Michela stays the same size for ages and then grows in the summer months, so I am not that tempted to buy ahead. I bought a few bits in size 11 years because I know she will fit them come the autumn. However there is the issue of the handy-me-downs, which I am grateful to receive but do not meet uniform guidelines... 


What to do? An email from Dylon's PR pinged into my inbox and asked me if I wanted to try some colours from the new range. I jumped at the chance and selected three shades of blue, all compliant to the school's guidelines. I put selected handy-me-downs, added an acqua pashmina of mine that looked a bit faded.... I was very pleased with the results. I followed the instructions carefully and no dye remained in the washing machine's drum, my partner's main concern (if something breaks or malfunctions in our house, it's my fault). See for yourself.... I am pretty chuffed.

Before Dylon

After Dylon, perfect uniform hue!
As you can see, even my pashmina looks great! These were not new clothes and they do look new now (I have not ironed them yet, sorry). In the bundle there are tops, shorts and tees - ready for school... My daughter likes them so much she wants to wear the shorts (previously pink and purple respectively) in the holidays.