Smoked salmon and scrambled eggs

Fresh fruit Salad

Bellini Cocktails

This famous delicious cocktail (shown above next to the fresh fruit salad) was invented at Harry's Bar in Venice, in 1934.

Ingredients 2 ripe peaches, peeled, halved and stone removed, or the equivalent using tinned peaches in natural juice chilled champagne or sparkling wine 2 chilled champagne glasses

Method
1. Place the peaches in a small blender and purée until totally smooth. This can be done well in advance and kept in the fridge. Spoon half into the chilled champagne glasses and slowly top up with champagne, stirring as you pour. You should ideally have one third peach purée to two thirds champagne. Serve straight away as a pre-dinner drink with the Cupid's Caviar, leaving plenty of time for a second glass each.

A day on the Orient express

While on the Orient Express we had a delicious range of food and more than enough alcohol (more than we are used to) to sustain us throughout the day. To remind me of the day I wanted to recreate some of the dishes that we had had, and share these with Cafe Fusion readers.

Bellini cocktails

Fresh Fruit salad /Insalata di fresca fruita

For meat eaters

Smoked salmon, caviar and scrambled egg served on an English toasted crumpet with bechemel sauce.

For us vegetararians / per vegetariano

Scrambled egg with wild mushrooms, served on an English crumpet with baked pomodoro and bechemel sauce.

Dessert

Fresh medley of berries served with a quenell of mascarpone and sparkling wine


For more information on Bath and the Orient Express trip click on the relevent links

Just seen Gordon Ramsey 'F Word' cooking programme , featured a giant Jaffa Cake ( a chocolate covered cake with an orange jelly centre for those that don't know). The website is

Pimpthatsnack.com

Projects include lots of favourites including this giant Oreo cookie.

On a recent trip to Italy



We went to Vetri sul Mare. A little off the beaten track it is on the coatline towards Salerno.Here we found an amazing ceramic factory covered in tiles (reminiscent of spain). Lots of the shops sell a range of tiles and we brought back tiles to decorate the home. You can see the largest was a view of Positano which we decided to use as a splash back to the cooker in our cucina.

Easy Arrabiata pasta/pizza sauce

This is a quick sauce made from a tin of tomatos or if you have had an abundance of home grown tomatos the equivalent (blanched with the skins removed).


Ingredients

1 tin of chopped tomatos
1 medium onion finely chopped
couple of tspns chopped Jalapeno chilli peppers
Tblspn sugar
Finely chopped
Handful of fresh basil leaves
marjoram
chives

Olive oil

Method:

Saute the chopped onion in about a tablespoon of olive oil until transparent, add the tin of chopped tomoatos and cook for a further minute, add the herbs, sugar and a generous glug of olive oil and simmer for about 10-15 minutes until the sauce is reduced by about a third.

Use stired into pasta for a quick meal, or use as a basis for pizza. It is also tasty as a relish and will keep in the fridge for a few days.

You can leave out the chillis for the basis for other sauces such as bolognese.

Portobello Food company

Just discovered this site offering a unique range of Italian foods and deli items:

http://www.portobellofood.com/

Portobello food are London's first and best online Italian supermarket delivering direct to your door. Although delivery is the same day in London with their fleet of vans and friendly drivers; the rest of the UK is catered for by delivery through Parcel Force.

There is lemons from Sorrento, Italian potatos with selenium, handmade icecreams and sorbets such as the Amalfi lemon sorbet, olive oils, bread, cheeses and anything else you can think of!

Scones

There is nothing more English than serving fresh baked scones, served with a generous helping of cornish clotted cream and a fresh raspberry conserve and a cup of tea on a fine afternoon in the garden. This particular recipe I have had for years, but I have now converted the measures into metric.

450g Self raising flour, or plain flour with a tsp of baking powder added.
1 tsp salt
115g unsalted butter
60g caster sugar
250mil milk

(milk or beaten egg to glaze)

Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl

Rub in the butter until you have the consistency of breadcrumbs, add the sugar and kneed to a soft dough.

Roll out on a floured surface to about 1cm thickness, cut into rounds (makes about 8 - 12 depending on size).

Bake at gas mark 6 for 10 minutes or until golden brown on top.

Variations: add sultanas, or for savoury version add some herbs or grated cheese to the dough mix and sprinkle some on top before baking.

Create your own del.icio.us recipe book.

Del.icio.us is one of the best free recources on the net.

Always looking up recipes on the net? If you look up lots of recipes and keep adding them to your favorites folder, sooner or later your favorites list becomes unmanageable and out of control. The solution? is to use the social bookmarking site del.icio.us.

There are lots of advantages to using a service such as del.icio.us. the main one being the extensive tagging capabilities. You can categorise any subject or category by adding a "tag", so in a way, you are building a subject index for all of your links. Also you are not tied to one computer, you can access your links anywhere there is a PC and a net connection.

I often tag recipes with either their type or main ingredients, so if I want to look up all the recipes with pizza, or strawberries that's easy to do. Another feature is to see what recipes other people have added to their del.icio.us bookmarks.

Getting set up with del.icio.us is easy, and free.

Go to http://del.icio.us/. The sign-up procedure is very easy to follow.

Dont forget to add Cafe-fusion.co.uk to your list of favourites!

Asparagus con Balsamico

this is an easy dish which I use as an accompaniment to other dishes and goes well served alongside fresh salmon.

Tip: with Asparagus, hold the spear and bend until the spear snaps at a point near the end. this ensures that you only keep the tender, freshest part of the spear and discard the remaining part.

Bunch of Asparagus spears (best in season), cooked until just tender (about 6 minutes in boiling water.

drain and leave to cool slightly while you

Heat 1-2 tblsps olive oil in a frypan, add a handful of pinenuts and toast slightly.

Add the drained asparagus and saute for a couple of minutes.

Add the balsamic (about 2-3 tblspns) to the pan and ensure that all the ingredients are coated for a further 2 minutes.

Serve topped with shavings of parmesan cheese with for example a fresh baked piece of salmon and new potatos.

Deconstructed Pesto

A new twist on the classic sauce. You will need (rough quantities only)

A couple of handfuls of fresh basil leaves, torn A couple of handfuls of fresh pre toasted pinenuts grated parmesan cheese (or pecorino if you do not have parmesan to hand) olive oil.

Cook some pasta, for example linguini according to the instructions on the packet.
And all the above ingredients and toss to coat all the pasta.

Serve with a nice salad

Pesto alla Genovese

Making your own sauces is so much more tasty than shop bought varieties and I like to make this in the summer time and served tossed into fresh pasta.

For a cold dish for packed lunches to work I add the pesto to cooked and cooled (under running cold water) pasta twists and add some toasted pinenuts and grated parmesan served on a bed of mixed lettuce leaves, sliced tomatos and torn basil leaves.

You will need:

60g fresh basil leaves 1 clove of garlic 1 - 2 tblsps of olive oil 30g finely grated Parmesan cheese Malden sea salt to taste



Put all the ingredients, except the parmesan into a blender and blend to a rough to fairly smooth consistancy. Transfer to a bowl and stir in the parmesan. this will keep for 2-3 days in the refridgerator, but is best used as soon as possible.

Serve tossed into pasta (e.g. 12oz pasta will be enough for 3-4 people)

Shortbread

This is one of Gills recipes taken from a family recipe.


Serving suggestions.

Lemonade

What to do with all those lemons you have growing in the garden!

When Gill and I are in Italy (and at home during the summer) there is an abundance of lemons that need to be used other than in a nice Gin and Tonic! Kept in the fridge it will last a couple of days.

You will need:

10 large lemons
2 & 1/2 litres of water
about 300g caster Sugar or to taste

Peel the zest from the lemons leaving as much pith behind as possible as this will make the lemonade bitter.

Add the lemon zest to the water which you bring to the boil in a large saucepan, simmer for about 5 minutes then turn off the heat and leave to cool.

Juice the lemons and remove the pips.

When the pan of lemon zest has cooled add the collected lemon juice.

Chill and serve with ice.

Italian Focaccia con Rosemarino e olio

This is one of my favourite Focaccia recipes with a good savoury taste from the olives and pine nuts.

For the dough you will need

1/2 tsp yeast 300g strong white (00) bread flour
1 tsp salt
2-3 tblsp Olive oil
200 ml room temperature water

Method

prepare the bread dough by mixing all the ingredients together and kneeding for about 8-10 mins until you have a pliable dough that is smooth and elastic, cover and leave to prove for 30 minutes or until double in size in a warm place.

For the filling/topping

1/2 red onion sliced thinly 2-3 fresh rosemary sprigs (stalks removed) 100g pitted black olives pine nuts olive oil to drizzel Malden or other sea salt

Once the dough has doubled punch out the air and kneed again. Stretch out the dough and add some of the pine nuts, olives, onion and rosemary and continue kneeding until mixed through the dough.

Roll out to a rough 12" x 10" rectangle on a baking tray, press your fingertips into the dough to form dimples and then sprinkle over the remaining olives, rosemary, onion and pine nuts.

Heat the oven to 190C, gas mark 5

Re cover the dough with a damp cloth and leave to prove for a further 30 minutes.

Drizzle with olive oil and bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes or until golden in colour and the centre springs back when lightly pressed.

Place on a wire rack to cool and serve cut into chunks with fresh cheese such as Taleggio or Parmesan and olive oil to dip.

A View from Ravello in Italy looking towards Maori and Minori.

The Recipe files blog , also highlights places to find ingredients or equipment, will include readers favourite recipes and restaurant reviews.



This is me in Ravello at the famous Cumpa Cosimo restaurant.

Address: Via Roma 44-46, Ravello, Italy
089 857 156

The proprietor Seniora Netta Bottone (pictured with me in headlock) is famous both locally and internationally and has been featured on TV with Sophie Grigson. Despite the armlock, the food was wonderful and the service excellent. Any meal feels like a family affair, the food is grown vicino locale at the family farm in nearby Scala. Newspaper cuttings adorning the walls attest to Nettas popularity! Well worth a visit!