Cheese and Pears

Archive for July, 2009

Sicilian Recipes: Spaghetti with almonds and basil

Posted on Jul 22, 2009 11:13:10 PM

This spaghetti recipe is a sure shot, something to cook for your guests, who will be amazed by this sauce, and will ask you: “how did you do that? It’s delicious.” And you will say, in a casual I-get-that-a-lot manner “oh no, it’s really easy, it just takes ten minutes.” Except that it does.

You can say whatever you want about Jamie Oliver, but his recipes work. This one is taken from Jamie’s Italy, and it’s a Sicilian sauce. The beauty of it is that it’s not a cooked sauce, it’s all with raw ingredients, a sort of pesto.

For 6 people:

• 450g (1lb) spaghetti
• ½ clove of garlic (it’s one clove in the original recipe, but Jamie is a bit too generous with garlic for my taste)
• 4 handfuls of fresh basil
• 150 g (5½ oz ) of almonds
• 150 g (5½ oz ) of grated parmesan cheese
• extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper
• 600g (1 1/3 lb) of tomatoes

Toast the almonds in a pan (no oil), smash the garlic with a  pestle and mortar. Add the almonds, garlic and basil to a food processor and whiz them until you have a coarse powder consistency. Pour the mix in a bowl and add the tomatoes cut in half. Gently squeeze the tomatoes with your hands, mixing well. Add the Parmesan cheese and add a bit of olive oil to loosen up. Add salt and pepper if you feel like it, but it’s not always necessary.

That’s it, when the spaghetti are ready and drained, pour them in a bowl and serve. This spaghett recipe will make you popular.

Dublin Restaurant: Ely Wine Bar

Posted on Jul 17, 2009 05:29:13 AM

This post is about food review of a Dublin restaurant I went to last weekend.

Should I quit my job at The Company and try to make it as a food critic? Someone at Ely bar wouldn’t agree…

Menupages.ie is a website where you can review restaurants, every review gives you points, that you can exchange with lunch offers. My profile is cheeseandpears.com  (they don’t let you leave a link). I had bad and good experiences. The latest one so far, at Ely wine bar in city centre hasn’t been positive at all. You can see my review here.

Now, this is the reply of an Ely employee.

Hi Cheese & Pears,

My name is and I work for ely winebar here in Dublin.

I am just following up on a comment that you left on http://www.menupages.ie in relation to your experience in ely. (apologies for contacting you through these means, but unfortunately this is my only method of communicating with you).

Firstly I would like to say that at ely our main focus is our customers and the experience they have with us – it is with regret that I read your review.

Our stew has been a signature dish on our menu for the past ten years, and is organic and from our family farm in the Burren, Co. Clare. There have been times where we have taken the stew off the menu, but we have had to promptly put it back on due to popular demand. It is unfortunate that you didn’t enjoy yours and a real pity that this was not brought to our attention on the day and we could have looked into this further and made any amendments that may have made your visit an enjoyable one.

You reference to our ice-cream offering is incorrect and mis-leading. It is an offer for sale at €5.95, not €7.00 and for that it is three large scoops of our own homemade ice-cream and our home biscuit. Having not ordered this I feel that it is a very unfair judgment on your part.

It is also worth noting that our venison dish is an offer for sale at €27.95 and not €30.00 as quoted in your review thus again incorrect and mis-leading.

Lastly I fail to understand your reference to a 10% tip. It is quite clearly printed on all of our menus (in all three ely venues) that “Service is not included except on parties of 6 or more when a 12.5% gratuity will be added to your bill”.

We have always, and will continue to welcome feedback from our customers on our offering, and have always trained every member of our floor staff to check their tables regularly (without intruding) to ensure that everything is as it should be. On the rare occasion that something is amiss, this allows us the opportunity to rectify any problems there and then and ensure that our customers leave happy.

Perhaps had we know of your disappointment with our offering during your visit it would have not only have afforded us the opportunity to clarify and correct any issues you had but also allowed us the opportunity to reassure you that we are committed to offering the best produce and best customer service possible.

The time this person took to reply to my poor review deserved a reply, so here we go.

Our stew has been a signature dish on our menu for the past ten years, and is organic and from our family farm in the Burren, Co. Clare. It is unfortunate that you didn’t enjoy yours and a real pity that this was not brought to our attention on the day and we could have looked into this further and made any amendments that may have made your visit an enjoyable one.

There was no amendment to do, I did like your stew, it’s just that it tasted like boiled meat. There’s nothing wrong with that and indeed it was really good, but I was (and still am) puzzled. I thought that the “a stew boiled is a stew spoiled” was one of those simple, unquestionable truth, but I’m having doubts.

You reference to our ice-cream offering is incorrect and mis-leading. It is an offer for sale at €5.95, not €7.00 and for that it is three large scoops of our own homemade ice-cream and our home biscuit. Having not ordered this I feel that it is a very unfair judgment on your part.

I didn’t remember the price of the ice-cream, so I looked in the Menupages menu. And yes, I admit that sarcasm about something I didn’t order is sort of a cheap shot.

It is also worth noting that our venison dish is an offer for sale at €27.95 and not €30.00 as quoted in your review thus again incorrect and mis-leading.

I trusted  my friend when he said “30 euros for a venison dish, are they crazy?” Why did he order it then? I hear you asking. That’s a mystery to me too. Anyway, he obviously rounded to 30. Accept my apologies for not doublechecking, but even with €2.05 euros less, I still think the dish was either too expensive or too small.

Lastly I fail to understand your reference to a 10% tip. It is quite clearly printed on all of our menus (in all three ely venues) that “Service is not included except on parties of 6 or more when a 12.5% gratuity will be added to your bill”.

When the waiters deserve it, and the guys that served us that night surely did, I tip 10% anyway. My reference to the tip was just an advice for those who don’t read through the menu and don’t check the receipt before leaving the restaurant.

Easy Recipes: Melon and ham | prosciutto e melone

Posted on Jul 7, 2009 05:37:28 AM

Another easy recipe: this dish is very popular as a summer appetizer, and just like with Cheese and Pears, is one of the few recipes where the name totally matches with the ingredients and the final result is as good as its ingredients. This usually works as appetizer, but it cam be a filling main course if you don’t feel particularly hungry.

The ham that you see is not Italian Prosciutto di Parma, but some excellent German smoked ham bought at Lidl. The magic here is all in the combination of the sweet and the salted, so the aim is to lay the slices of ham and cantaloupe in a way that you can cut a piece of both and bring them together to your mouth. The trick is to make sure you’ll cut the ham following the meat fibers, not perpendicularly, as it won’t cut easily.

I found this out after taking the picture.

More easy recipes

Risotto Recipes: Spinach Risotto with Walnuts

Posted on Jul 1, 2009 06:21:17 AM

The magic of risotto recipes has happened again: taking two flavors that you know they’ll match (and walnuts, as it turns out, match with pretty much everything) and making a risotto out of them, even if you’ve never done it before.

It’s quarter end, and we’re all pretty crazy down at The Company, so this time I won’t go over the risotto routine again (sauté, toast rice, add wine etcetera), you can find it at the the post that started it all, the mushroom risotto recipe.

Risotto recipe for people:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• ½ onion, chopped
• between 250 and 320g (9-11oz) risotto rice
• ½ glass white wine
• ½ litre (1 pint )of stock
• 200g (7oz) frozen spinach
• 100g (3 ½oz) walnuts, half roughly chopped, half finely chopped
• 30g (1oz) butter
• a handful of grated Parmesan

Thaw the spinach in boiling water, drain, squeeze and set aside.

Heat the stock.

Following the routine, add the finely chopped walnuts at stage 1 with the sauté, and the spinach at stage 3½.

When you’re finished, just before serving, stir in the rest of the walnuts.

More risotto recipes