Posted in Primo piatto recipes, Stories from the Olive Grove, tagged chili, chilli, hints, ingredients, Italia, Italy, Magazine, night, Nudo, olive oil, pizza, recipe, Times, tips, vegetarian on May 1, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Pizza night? Remember to add a good drizzle of Sicilian chili olive oil to give your pie a bit more bite.
We are honoured to have been featured recently in Vegetarian Times magazine’s gorgeous ‘pizza night’ shoot, complete with handy hints on the best tools to get the job done. We’re definitely getting out our red olivey tin tonight – get yours from the Nudo Italia shop.
Posted in Primo piatto recipes, tagged chickpea, ciabatta, croutons, Jason Gibb, olive oil, recipe, rosemary, salt, soup, thyme on March 1, 2013 | 2 Comments »
So I’ve hit that age where I’ve started cutting down on the carbs a bit. (Cath says she’s never going to hit that age). To be honest my take on abstinence involves little more than having a bit less pasta and a bit more sauce, or a bit less bread and a bit more cheese, so it’s not exactly hair shirt territory. But when I come across a low carb, stomach filling, delicious meal I feel the delight of a zealot. This soup is one such dish. Though, as Cathy is keen to point out, it’s even more heavenly with these cheesy carb-a-licious croutons.
Ingredients for 2
Ciabatta bread – 60g/2.1oz
Parmesan cheese – 40g/1.4oz
Extra virgin olive oil with thyme – 2 tblsp
Garlic – one clove
Rosemary – couple of springs
Extra virgin olive oil – 2 tblsp
Chickpeas – one 400g/14oz tin (240g/8.5oz net weight)
Vegetable stock – 400ml/13.5fl.oz
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Cut the bread into cubes and put in a bowl with the thyme oil and the grated parmesan. Season with salt and pepper. Once everything is soaked up spread the bread on a baking tray and bake for about 10 minutes, till they’re crunchy and light brown.
Chop the garlic and gently sauté with the rosemary in the plain olive oil in a saucepan. Wash the chickpeas and add them to the saucepan with the stock. Season with salt and simmer on a low heat for 10 minutes.
Remove the rosemary and a few whole chickpeas and liquidise the rest. Get your serving bowls, pop some of the croutons in the bottom (if they are hidden they don’t count in the carb calculation, apparently) and fill with the soup. Make it look pretty with a few whole chickpeas, more croutons and a drizzle of thyme olive oil.
Posted in Antipasti recipes, Primo piatto recipes, tagged basil, cheese, drunken, Nudo, olive oil, pecorino, pecorino ubriaco, quiche, recipe, roast, Roelof le Roux, ROUX, tart, tomato on January 17, 2013 | 2 Comments »
This is a recipe inspired by the brilliantly named Pecorino Ubriaco or ‘drunken pecorino’ cheese traditionally made in the Tuscany region of northern Italy. This hard cheese, aged for six months in grape must (pressed grapes in the advanced stage of the wine production process), adds a complex aroma to baked dishes. And we’ve used it here with some sun-ripened vine tomatoes and Nudo’s basil olive oil to make my favourite ever quiche.
Ingredients for 8 people
300g cherry tomatoes on the vine
4 eggs
250ml pot of double cream
Handful of basil leaves, torn or shredded plus to garnish.
150g ‘Drunken Pecorino’ (Pecorino Ubriaco) cheese
1 t red wine vinegar
Sea salt and black pepper for seasoning
Ingredients for the pastry
280g of plain flours, plus a bit for dusting
70g cold butter, cubed
70g Nudo basil olive oil or plain extra virgin olive oil
Pinch of salt
First, make the pastry. Put the flour, butter and basil olive oil in a deep bowl, rubbing it together with your fingers until it mixes through and becomes crumbly. Add 8 tablespoons of cold water and mix everything together with your hands until combined in a ball. Dust a flat surface with some flour and using a rolling pin, roll out the pastry into a round a bit bigger than a 25cm baking tin or tart dish. You can also freeze this pastry to use later.
Using the rolling pin, lift and drape the pastry over the tart dish letting the pastry hang over the sides of the dish. Using your fingers, press the dough into the corners of the dish to ensure full coverage of the surface. Cut remaining pastry off the sides of the dish with a sharp knife. Then chill in the fridge for 20 minutes. Heat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 5.
Roast the tomatoes on the vine on a low shelf in the oven, pricking each tomato with a needle to avoid bursting. Lightly sprinkle with red wine vinegar and salt before roasting. Whilst the tomatoes are roasting, prick the chilled tart base with a fork and line the dish with a large circle of greaseproof baking paper or tinfoil and fill with baking beans. Blind bake it in the oven for 20 minutes. If you don’t have baking beans, monitor the tart base closely for excessive rising.
While the tart base is baking, in a big bowl beat the eggs. Gradually beat in the cream, followed by the shredded basil and seasoning to taste. Finely grate the ‘drunken pecorino’ cheese. When the tart base is done, also take out the tomatoes.
Sprinkle half the cheese over the base. Remove the tomatoes from the vine and scatter over the base, then pour over the cream mix, taking care to leave some of the tomato tops exposed. Finish off by sprinkling the rest of the cheese over the top of the mixture. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Leave to cool in the dish before serving with some small, fresh basil leaves as a garnish.
Posted in Antipasti recipes, Primo piatto recipes, tagged cherry, healthy, light, natural, Nudo, olive oil, pattypans, recipe, roast, Roelof le Roux, rosa, salad, tomato, veg, vegetables, vine, zucchini on January 16, 2013 | 1 Comment »
There are few things as lovely as walking around a local whole food market getting inspiration for the feast you’re going to prepare later. This past week brought a great find in the shape of gorgeous red and yellow varieties of ‘rosa’ cherry tomatoes on the vine. They are packed with so much flavour that even just a light roast produces a star ingredient.
Hungry from the trip to the market, I settled on the quickest way to serve a delicious, fresh dish for lunch. It being January, my family is focusing on eating lighter, more nutritious meals so I settled on this old favourite: roast tomato and vegetable ‘salad’.
Ingredients for four people
1 punnet of assorted cherry tomatoes, preferable on the vine
6 Courgettes/zucchini, small
6 Pattypan squashes, small
200g/7 oz baby spinach
100g/ 3.5 oz Danish-style feta cheese
1 t Red wine vinegar
Sea salt, black pepper to grind
Ciabatta bread, small.
Nudo lemon olive oil to drizzle
Preheat your over to 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 5. Cover a baking tray with some tin foil and place the tomatoes on the vine in the first half of the tray. Alternatively place the vines on a cooling rack on the baking tray. Now an important trick: to ensure that the tomatoes roast and wrinkle beautifully without bursting and losing most of its juice, prick each little tomato twice with a needle. Drizzle over the red wine vinegar and lightly grind over some sea salt and black pepper. No olive oil is necessary, especially if you’re using a cooling rack. Roast for 20 minutes.
Roughly chop up the zucchini and pattypans, trimming off the tops. Take out the tray with tomatoes and arrange the vegetables on the other half of the baking tray. Drizzle lightly with some olive oil and sprinkle with a grind of sea salt and black pepper. Roast for another 20 minutes and then take out to cool slightly. Whilst roasting, tear the ciabatta bread into small 1-inch pieces. In a pan, add a little olive oil and pieces of bread and toast over medium heat. Watch this closely as you want the bread to toast on the outside whilst remaining warm and soft on the inside.
In a large platter or bowl, cover the base with baby spinach leaves. Whilst still warm, remove the tomatoes from the vine and arrange tomatoes and vegetables and the pieces of ciabatta on the bed of spinach. Cut the feta into cubes and add to the salad. Drizzle with olive oil and add another grind of salt of pepper to taste. Serve.
Posted in Primo piatto recipes, Secondo piatto recipes, tagged cheese, feta, fresh, Jason Gibb, kebabs, lamb, mint, Nudo, olive oil, recipe, sauce, skewers on October 23, 2012 | 4 Comments »
Cooking with mint makes me think of the beautiful eastern side of the Mediterranean – Greece, Turkey and beyond. In this recipe we’ve paired our new mint olive oil with a Turkish treasure – the lamb kebab. Once you’ve marinated the lamb with coriander, turmeric and paprika, you can then grill, chargrill or barbeque it. The easy-peasy minty feta sauce can then be generously daubed over the meat.
Ingredients for 4
Diced lamb – 400g/1lbs. Either dice yourself into 1.5 inches/4cm cubes, or buy it diced.
Extra virgin olive oil stone ground with fresh mint – 3 tbsp/45ml
Fresh lemon juice – 1 tbsp
Ground cumin – 1tsp
Ground coriander – 1tsp
Cayenne pepper – ½ tsp
Ground smoked paprika – ½ tsp
Black pepper – ½ tsp
Garlic – 2 cloves crushed
Red pepper – 2 cut into 1 inch/2.5cm pieces
Red onion – 2 cut into small wedges
For the feta sauce
Feta cheese – 200g/7oz
Natural/Plain yoghurt – ½ cup/120ml
Olive oil with mint – 2tbsp
Garlic – half a clove crushed
Pepper – freshly ground
Salt – good pinch
In a bowl mix the ingredients for the marinade: mint olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, coriander, cayenne pepper, paprika and black pepper. Cut the lamb into 1 ½ inch/4cm cubes, and pour over 3 quarters of the marinade. Cover and leave in the fridge for at least an hour or even better, overnight.
Make the feta sauce by blending all the ingredients together in a food processor. Check the seasoning as some feta is saltier than others.
Grab your skewers and alternate the vegetables and meat pieces, but not too tightly. Grill them till they are nicely brown. Six minutes on each side is probably enough. Serve the kebabs hot with a no-holds-barred dollop of the feta sauce.
Posted in Primo piatto recipes, tagged advice, best way to make salad dressing, dressing, grandma, healthy, italian, nonna, Nudo, olive oil, pepper, perfect, perfect salad, salad, salt, sauce, tips, vinegar on September 25, 2012 | 4 Comments »
We are sometimes asked for advice about how to make great salad dressings using our flavoured oils. We have to admit, we are very lazy on this front. We often go no further than to simply make the salad, scatter over some sea salt and thickly ground black pepper then drizzle it generously with either garlic, mint, basil or lemon oil. This method, whilst completely bone idle, is nonetheless quite consistent in producing ‘mmms’ and ‘ahs’ from those who eat it.
If you want to actually get your hands dirty, put a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, a pinch of seasalt, a grind of black pepper, 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar and 8 or 9 tablespoons of a good olive oil in a jar and shake it like a crazed carnival-goer. Pour over the salad and mix it well with your hands to ensure good coverage of all those thirsty leaves.
If, on the other hand, you simply want the basic laws of making the perfect salad dressing you can’t do better than this Italian advice:
A miser should see to the vinegar
A spendthrift to the oil
A wise man to the salt
A judicious man to the pepper
And a madman to the mixing.
With such simple advice, your next salad dressing could only be delicious.
Posted in Primo piatto recipes, tagged bread, cold, croutons, garlic, home made, homemade, hot, Jason Gibb, pomodoro, rain, soup, summer, tomato, winter on June 20, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Whenever I make soup I promise myself I’ll make soup more often. It’s tasty as can be, easy as pie and you feel you’re doing the right thing for your body. Some people have soup snobbery and don’t consider it a proper meal; this repast is the perfect repost to those doubters. It is bursting with sunny Mediterranean flavours and as filling as any ‘proper’ meal.
Ingredients for 4
Vine tomatoes – 1.5kg/3lbs
Extra virgin olive oil – 3tbls
Extra virgin olive oil with garlic – ½ cup/120ml
Crusty loaf – 300g cut up into cubes
Parmesan cheese – 2 tbls grated
Garlic – 3 cloves finely chopped
Tomato paste – 1 tbls
Arugula/Rocket – 40g
Lemon juice – 2 teaspoons, freshly squeezed
Preheat the grill/broiler. On a baking tray drizzle a tablespoon of the oil over the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper and place under the broiler/grill. Once the skins have softened and blistered, but before they are cooked through take them out, and peel, seed and chop them. Do this over a sieve with a bowl underneath to catch the juices.
Preheat the oven to 400oF/200oC. In a bowl mix together the cubed bread, 2 tablespoons/30ml of garlic oil, and the parmesan. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle this onto a baking tray and bake for about 15 minutes. You want them to be crunchy and light brown.
While the croutons are baking, heat the rest of the plain oil in a pan and fry the chopped garlic until golden. Then add the tomato juice and tomato paste and simmer until the sauce is thick. Then add the tomato pulp, season with salt and lots of freshly ground pepper, and thicken up. Once it’s a nice soupy consistency, add ¼ cup/60ml of garlic olive oil and let cool.
Once the croutons are done, chuck half of them into a bowl and mix in the arugula/rocket, the lemon juice, 2 tablespoons/45ml of garlic oil and season. Mix the rest of the croutons in with the tomatoes. Serve out the soup and garnish with the arugula/crouton mixture.
Posted in Primo piatto recipes, tagged arugula, italian, Jason Gibb, Keith Floyd, olive oil, prawns, recipe, rocket, salad, shrimp on June 1, 2012 | 4 Comments »
This is one of those recipes that you just couldn’t serve outside the summer months. The ingredients would be below par and it would feel just – well – wrong. But roll in May, and this is a delicious easy Summer lunch. The recipe calls for half a cup of perfectly chilled dry white wine – we leave it to you how best to utilise the rest of the bottle, though would suggest you could look to Keith Floyd, undoubtedly the best TV chef ever, for inspiration. He was never shy of a bit of ‘stomach-marinating’.
Ingredients for 4
Vine ripe tomatoes – 2/3lb/ 300g
Extra virgin olive oil with garlic – 6 tbls/90ml
Shrimp – 600g peeled and cleaned.
Dry white wine – ½ cup
Lemon juice – 1 tbsp freshly squeezed
Parsley – ¼ cup finely chopped
Rocket/arugula – 2 bunches
Salt and pepper to taste
Peel, seed and chop the tomatoes. Heat 3 tablespoons of garlic oil in a pan over medium heat. Season the shrimp and add them to the pan, and turn down the heat. As the shrimp begin to give up their juices add the wine. Once the shrimp are cooked (they’re pretty quick so take care not to overcook) take them out with a slotted spoon, put onto a plate, and add the lemon juice. Reduce the juices to a half over a medium heat. Then remove the pan from the heat and add the rest of the garlic oil, the chopped parsley, arugula, tomato and shrimp. Season, toss well and serve before the arugula is completely wilted.
Posted in Primo piatto recipes, tagged balsamic, cathy rogers, Nudo, onion, recipe, sapa, tart, thyme, vinegar on April 24, 2012 | 6 Comments »
Cathy came up with a delicious tart which uses our Nudo sapa. It will also work with a good balsamic, if you can’t get hold of any.
Ingredients for 4
Onions – 800g
Butter – 50g
Olive oil – 2 tablespoons
Sapa – 10ml
Puff pastry – 200g
Parmesan – 60g
Thyme – couple of sprigs
Preheat the oven to 180ºC /gas mark 4. Peel the onions and cut into thick rings. Put them in a pan with the butter and oil over a low heat for 20–30minutes. Near the end add the sapa.
Lay the pastry over a flan dish. Cover with oven-proof paper weighed down with some baking beads (or any dry beans you can get your hands on), and whack in the oven for 10 minutes.
When the flan is back out of the oven lay down a base of shaved parmesan and then add the onion mix. Sprinkle some chopped-up thyme over the top and cook for 15–20 minutes at 180ºC /gas mark 4.
Posted in Primo piatto recipes, tagged basil, bread, brown, buffalo, bun, fresh, Jason Gibb, leaves, mozzarella, mushrooms, Nudo, olive oil, panini, portobello, recipe, Sunday, sundried, tomatoes on April 5, 2012 | 3 Comments »
This is a recipe as comforting as your lover’s arms, as juicy as a ripe peach, and easy like Sunday morning. Perfect for fast food lovers who don’t want to stoop too low.
Ingredients for 2
Portobello mushrooms – 200g/7 oz
Basil olive oil – a couple of tablespoons
Salt and pepper – to taste
Floury white bun/bread roll – one per person
Mozzarella – 140g/5 oz of the fresh gooey stuff
Basil – 12 leaves
Brush the caps of the mushrooms with the basil olive oil. You either want one large mushroom per bun/bread roll or a couple of smaller ones. Grill with the cap up for 5 minutes. Then turn over, brush the gills with more oil, season with salt and pepper and grill until cooked through. Cut the bun in half and put both halves on the grill, cut side up. Lay the sliced mozzarella on one of the halves while its still grilling. Chop up the sundried tomatoes, and when the cheese is melted pop in the mushroom, sprinkle over the tomatoes and basil leaves and enjoy.
