Caponata. By Anna del Conte.

Eggplants in a Sweet-and-Sour Sauce.
Caponata, a Sicilian creation, appears in many different versions throughout the island.
The dish can be garnished with tiny boiled octopus, with a small lobster, with shrimp, or with bottarga (the dried roe of the mullet or tuna fish), a speciality of Sicily and Sardinia

Ingredients
Serves 4
700 gr eggplants
vegetable oil for frying
salt
the inner sticks of 1 celery head, coarse strings removed
7 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, very finely sliced
225 gr canned plum tomatoes, drained and chopped
freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp white-wine vinegar
1 tbsp grated bittersweet chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids)
4 tbsp capers, preferably in salt, rinsed
One third cup large green olives, pitted and quartered
2 hard-boiled, free-range eggs

Method
Cut the eggplants into 1-2 cm cubes.
Heat 2-3 cm vegetable oil in a skillet.
When the oil is hot, add a layer of eggplants and fry until golden brown on all sides.
Drain on paper towels, sprinkling each batch lightly with salt; repeat until all the eggplants are cooked.

Wash and dry the celery and cut into pieces the same size as the eggplants.
Fry in the oil in which the eggplants were cooked until golden and crisp; drain on paper towels.

Pour the olive oil into a clean skillet and add the onion.
Saute gently for about 10 minutes until soft.
Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring frequently, over medium heat for about 15 minutes.
Season with salt and pepper.

While the sauce is cooking, heat the sugar and vinegar in a small saucepan.
Add the chocolate, capers, and olives and simmer the mixture until the chocolate melts.
Add to the tomato sauce and cook for 5 minutes longer.

Mix the eggplants and celery into the tomato sauce.
Stir and cook for 20 minutes so the flavours of the ingredients blend together.
Pour the caponata into a serving dish and leave to cool.

Before serving, cover the caponata with the hard-boiled eggs which have been passed through the smallest holes of a food mill, or pushed through a metal strainer.

Caponata is one of the recipes in Anna del Conte's Gastronomy of Italy (Pavilion Books, ISBN: 1862051666, 29.95).

Budino di ricotta by Anna del Conte.

Using plain flour instead of Italian 00: in breadmaking, use a mixture of half strong white (see below) and half plain flour, but the dough produced will not be as stretchy and extensible.
00 produces a much crisper result that can’t be imitated with either flour.
In cake making use slightly more baking powder but no other changes.

Meeting Anna del Conte.

Meeting Anna del Conte | The Foodie Bugle
Her final paragraphs in her autobiography are very moving, describing the silence and solitude experienced by the partner that is left behind.

“There is nobody to tell me what article I must not miss in today’s newspaper, what television programme I must watch; nobody to switch on the radio for me so I can listen to my favourite piece of music while I’m cooking….
And, worst of all, nobody to deal with banks, bonds, insurance policies, and to ring up and talk to people I cannot understand.
At the venerable age of 82, there seems little hope of feeling less lonely, less quiet or less tired….And then I think of my grandchildren and all the meals I have yet to cook and share with them. Suddenly I have a reason for living.”

Ricotta Cake by Anna del Conte (Italian Kitchen).

"When you make the cake I would recommend creaming the butter and sugar for around 7 minutes.
This lets lots of air into the mixture which will make your cake taste light.
And if you are using a KitchenAid remember every few minutes to scrape the sides down with a spatula so that all the butter and sugar is being mixed evenly together."

Torta di Ricotta
Ricotta Cake
Serves 10-12

120g sultanas
300g caster sugar
120g unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 large eggs, at room temperature
grazed zest of 1 organic lemon
6 tbsp potato flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1kg fresh ricotta
unsalted butter for the tin
icing sugar, to decorate

1. Soak the sultanas in hot water for 15 minutes to puff them up.
2. Reserve 1 tbsp of the caster sugar. Beat the butter with the remaining sugar until pale and creamy and then add the eggs, one at a time. When all the eggs have been incorporated, mix in the lemon zest, potato flour, baking powder and salt.
3. Heat the oven to 180.
4. Press the ricotta through the small-hole disc of a food mill, or through a sieve, directly onto the other ingredients. Do not use a food processor as this would aerate the ricotta. Fold the ricotta thoroughly into the mixture. Drain the sultanas, pat them dry with kitchen paper and fold into the mixture.
5. Generously butter a 25cm springform cake tin and sprinkle with the reserved caster sugar to coat the bottom and sides.
6. Spoon the ricotta mixture into the tin and bake for one to one and quarter hours or until the cake is done (it will shrink slightly from the sides of the tin). Leave to cool in the tin. Unmould the cake when cold and place on a flat serving dish. Sprinkle with plenty of sifted icing sugar just before serving.
Ricotta Cake by Anna del Conte (Italian Kitchen)

Anna Del Conte shares a few of her top tips.

Queen cucina: Anna Del Conte - Britain's indisputable authority on Italian cooking - shares a few of her top tips | Features | Lifestyle | The Independent



Del Conte writes that "one of the best possible ways to serve linguine" is with the "simplest of all dressings": garlic, olive oil and chilli flakes.

"It's important what you put in, but equally important what you leave out.
Somehow, the British use more sauce with pasta than it needs and you tend to add too much parmesan.
It should always be used with discretion."

I learnt why my rendition of the Venetian classic risi e bisi (rice and peas) never matches the one I had near the Rialto bridge ("should be made with very young peas"), why the gorgeous Tuscan bean soup ribollita tastes even better with keeping ("it should be prepared a day in advance to allow the flavours to develop before it is reheated, hence its name 'reboiled'") and why the strands of my cooked spaghetti lack life after draining. (It does not have the requisite goccia or a drop of moisture: "Experts never drain through a colander but lift it out of the water with tongs... spaghetti should be quite moist when the sauce is added".)

"...how to overcome the "invasively metallic" taste of tomato purée. Here's the advice in The Gastronomy of Italy: "[It] should be used sparingly and allowed to cook in the sauce for some time. A small amount of sugar helps the process."

"In salads, there's a lack of oil and too much vinegar. It should be four parts of olive oil to one or two of wine vinegar or lemon juice," said Del Conte. "In Italy, we say you need four people to dress a bowl of salad. A generous person to pour the oil, a wise person to sprinkle the salt, a miser to add the vinegar and a patient person to toss it – 33 times is said to be the minimum. Where pasta dishes call for butter, I don't think you use enough. One chef was amazed at the amount I used."

Oliver, was "the ideal taster and tester. He did not have a very discerning palate... If he described a dish as 'rather bland' I knew it would not be appreciated by the average English eater." According to Del Conte, the Italian condiment company Sacla increases the quantity of garlic in its pesto destined for Britain. Contrary to popular belief, she says, "the Italian use of garlic is very moderate".

“Peperonata, a southern stew of pepper, onion and tomato, "is now popular everywhere... Excellent with a plain frittata.
If any is left over, it makes a delicious sauce for spaghetti".

Anna Del Conte’s ragù bolognese sauce.

Greatest recipes ever: Anna Del Conte’s ragù bolognese sauce - Country Life
‘Anna is the queen of Italian cookery, and this is as far removed from the ghastly spag bol (made with cheap mince, burnt onions and ketchup) as it can be. This is a slow-cooked classic.’ /Tom Parker Bowles/

Ragù bolognese sauce
Extract from Anna Del Conte’s The Classic Food of Northern Italy Published by Pavilion Books.
Makes enough for six helpings of pasta.
Ragù is the perfect example of Bolognese cooking: rich yet well balanced, lavish yet restrained, meaty yet fresh-tasting.
There are hundreds of versions of ragù, but the classic one, the one that everybody identifies with its place of origin, is the bolognese.

Nowadays, ragù is out of fashion-too rich, unhealthy, bad for the heart, bad for everything, but certainly not bad for the palate.
This recipe is not too rich, I think.
It follows closely the precepts of a classic ragù, but is lighter on fat.
Remember that it is important to chop the vegetables finely, so that they are the size of grains of rice.

Ingredients
60g/2oz butter
2tbsp extra virgin olive oil
60g/2oz unsmoked pancetta, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 bay leaf
400g/14oz lean chuck or braising beef, coarsely minced
2tbsp concentrated tomato paste
150ml/5fl oz red wine, such as a Sangiovese or a Barbera
2 pinches of grated nutmeg
Salt and freshly ground pepper
150ml/5fl oz meat stock
150ml/5fl oz full fat milk

Method
Heat the butter and oil in a heavy-based saucepan and cook the pancetta for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
Add the onion, and when it has begun to soften, add the carrot, celery, garlic and bay leaf.
Cook for a further 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

Put in the minced beef and cook until it is medium brown in colour and nearly crisp, crumbling it in the pot with a fork.
Do this over a high heat so that the meat browns rather than stews, but be careful not to let the mince become too brown and hard.

Add the tomato paste and continue to cook over a high heat fr a further 2 minutes.
Still over a high heat, add the wine, nutmeg, salt and pepper and the stock.

Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down to very low, so that the mixture will reduce very slowly.

Set the lid askew over the pan and cook for about 2 hours, adding a couple of tablespoons of milk from time to time.
By the end of this time all the milk should have been added and absorbed, and the ragù should be rich and thick, like a thick soup.

Taste and adjust the seasoning.
The ragù is now ready to dress a dish of homemade tagliatelle, thus producing one of the greatest dishes of Emilia.

PS
Del Conte:
"Spaghetti bolognese originated in New York.
The clever immigrants put them together to suit American taste but ragu is never served with spaghetti in Italy.
Spaghetti keeps the sauce on the outside, so it's better for oily sauces like pesto.
Tagliatelle is more absorbing because of the eggs it contains, so it's ideal for meat ragu – but don't use too much.

For every 400g of dried pasta, there should be no more than 350g of meat ragu.
In Britain, we have ragu with pasta.
In Italy, it's pasta with ragu."

Italians relish pasta for its own sake.

Risotto with Lemon (Risotto al Limone).

Anna Del Conte was born in Milan but left in 1949 to learn English in London, where she met her husband Oliver Waley (1925–2007).

She published her first book, Portrait of Pasta, in 1975.
She became the first cookery writer in England to specialise in Italian food. Since then she has written 7 Italian cookery books and a memoir.
Her books have won countless prizes.
Today Anna Del Conte lives in Dorset on the outskirts of Shaftesbury.

Risotto with Lemon (Risotto al Limone) - The Happy Foodie

Serves 2
2 shallots
1 stick of celery
60g unsalted butter
1 tbs olive oil (not extra virgin)
300g risotto rice, preferably Vialone Nano
1 litre vegetable stock (I use Marigold stock powder)
zest and juice of 1/2 unwaxed lemon
needles from 2 small sprigs of fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 egg yolk
60ml (4 tbs) grated parmesan, plus more to sprinkle
60ml (4 tbs) double cream
Maldon salt to taste
good grating pepper, preferably white


Put the shallots and celery into a Magimix and blitz until they are a finely chopped mush.
Heat half the butter, the oil and the shallot and celery mixture in a wide saucepan, and cook to soften the mixture for about 5 minutes, making sure it doesn't catch.
Mix in the rice, stirring to give it a good coating of oil and butter.
Meanwhile, heat the stock in another saucepan and keep it at simmering point.

Pour a ladleful of the stock into the rice and keep stirring until the stock is absorbed.
Then add another ladleful and stir again.
Continue doing this until the rice is al dente.
You may not need all of the stock; equally, you may need to add hot water from the kettle.

Mix the lemon zest and the rosemary into the risotto, and in a small bowl beat the egg yolk, lemon juice, parmesan, cream and pepper.

When the risotto is ready - when the rice is no longer chalky, but still has some bite - take it off the heat and add the bowl of eggy, lemony mixture, and the remaining butter and salt to taste.
Serve with more grated parmesan if you wish, check the seasoning and dive in.

Anna's husband was her 'chief taster' because he had a British palat.
Anna and Waley shared a respect for reserve, for the British stiff upper lip and a dislike of the modern cult of sentimentality – 'all that crying and hugging and saying, "Love yoooo!" and, "You are amazing!' she says, with a curl of the lip. 'But I do love the British sense of humour – the Italians have none at all. Oliver [who died in 2007] was extremely witty, quick witted. He'd make a slight remark, quickly said, almost under his breath, that would be so funny and clever.' He was the first reader of all her books and the first taster of her recipes. It was a long and happy marriage, so readers of her recent biography, Risotto with Nettles, were taken aback by her almost casual admission of a passionate affair 10 years into her marriage and two other more minor affairs later.

- Dorset lives – Anna del Conte | Dorset Life - The Dorset Magazine
- Meeting Anna del Conte | The Foodie Bugle
- Books by Anna Del Conte!