Friday, January 09, 2009

Pasta al Vongole


I love pasta al vongole. And, after several months of pleading, Jan finally cooked it for me again tonight. In the past she has used palourdes but they're a bit too big and this time she used coques, which are actually cockles but close enough to clams to make no difference. Excellent. If you need a recipe look here but ignore the bit about making your own pasta, that's rubbish. Buy a good quality dry Italian pasta.
I have fond memories of Italian food. I ate a lot of it when I was young. It's my comfort food. When I'm ill and cooking for myself, or more to the point, when Jan's not well and I have to bloody well cook for myself, then I resort to something simple like pasta or rice with butter and cheese. If you live in the Arctic and don't have butter then use garlic, olive oil and a few chili flakes. Simple, tasty and filling. Bloody excellent.
Anyway, we're sitting chatting about the food when the conversation got round to zabaglione. We chatted about our early lives and in particular how, after the war, our mothers used to build us up with the odd egg or two. At one point Jan looked me up and down and in a sarcastic tone said, "your mother obviously did a good job of feeding you up!" See what I've got to put up with!

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