The Strangest Pizza

During our time in Brighton, we went to a pizza place called Pinocchio. A family place with a typical Italian restaurant menu, nothing fancy, but honest food. That said, their trademark pizza, named (of course) Pinocchio Pizza, might have had the strangest mix of ingredients. It had mushrooms, olives, sweet peppers, prawns, anchovies, sausage and artichokes. So it was like a combination of two or three different pizzas. Of course, I had to try it. Quite an experience. Surprisingly, Wolfie wanted to try it, so I had to share a few bites. And he liked it too. Moral of the story: you can get creative with a pizza.

Siciliana pizza

When I had my old job, in the last few months actually, my colleagues and I had a special pizza lunch once, I can't remember exactly why, someone's birthday or something. We ordered pizza from a restaurant owned by the family of a colleague of Italian origins. As a jest, I sent the menu to my wife and asked her to guess which pizza I would choose. Her answer: "You had the Siciliana. There are 24 pizzas so tell me I know you well! " she was right of course. What gave away the answer: the olives, the capers and anchovies. All things I love, especially in Italian dishes. Now they have 35 different ones on their menu, but she would have found the right one all the same. Anyway, her answer deserves to be a great unknown line. She does know me well.

Swordfish

Just to be nice to my veggie wife, I have decided to avoid meat for Lent. So when we recently had lunch at Côte Brasserie, I went for their grilled swordfish on their March menu. The dish was meant for me: it had ratatouille and a capers, black olives and anchovies dressing. All the stuff I love. And yummy, healthy, grilled swordfish, which I don't think I've had in nearly twenty years or so. It's just as tasty as a steak, if not tastier, but has none of the unhealthy content. And it has no bones. I have to confess, I did not make time to check its conservation status, my curiosity was too strong to risk feeling guilty, and in any case I like to fish because of its health benefits. And this swordfish tasted great.

Chercher la puttanesca

J'y ai pensé aujourd'hui: ça fait un bail que je n'ai pas blogué sur la puttanesca, ça fait aussi longtemps (mais quand même moins longtemps) que je n'ai pas mangé de puttanesca. Cette photo date de la dernière fois où j'en ai fait une. Je la fait plutôt à la philistine: je mets d'habitude des sardines plutôt que des anchois. Et les pâtes qui accompagnent la sauce sont rarement des spaghetti (oui, je ne mets pas de s à spaghetti, c'est déjà un pluriel, bon). Je songe donc à en manger dans un futur proche. Mais comme je suis un peu vegge, je songe, au lieu d'en faire une philistine, d'aller m'en commander une dans le meilleur restaurant italien que je puisse trouver. Je vais me lancer en quête de la meilleure puttanesca au monde. Rien que ça.Je pars parfois dans des quêtes gastronomiques comme ça: le meilleur hamburger, les meilleurs fish and chips, le meilleur pouding chômeur, etc. Cette fois, ce sera la puttanesca. J'irai dans les bordels napolitains, s'il le faut (non c'est pas vrai). Ou en tout cas, je pourrais saisir l'occasion pour enfin revoir l'Italie.

Le temps des olives

J'ai acheté des olives au marché français hier. Parce que pour moi, le marché français se résume beaucoup à faire des stocks d'olives que je mange en une semaine. Il y en avait une grande variété: sans piments, avec noyau, sans noyau, grecques, à la provençale, avec anchois, avec feta, etc. Je n'ai pas acheté de celles avec feta que vous voyez sur la photo de gauche, cela dit j'ai pris une grande variété. Celles avec aïl sont incontournables, j'ai aussi un faible pour celles aux anchois, j'en prends quelques grecques ainsi que des olives à la provençale, parce que c'est difficile de faire plus français que des olives aux herbes de Provence. Vous ai-je dit que j'aimais les olives? Oh et la dame vendait de la moutarde de Dijon aussi, mais j'hésite à en acheter car j'en ai déjà ici. Et c'est pas aussi spécial que les olives.

Improvised pasta alla puttanesca

A week ago, I was alone here while my wife was away, so had to cook for myself. I don't really like being alone much, not only because I miss her but because I lost habit of cooking for one, but on the bright side it allows me to cook things she would not eat. So that's what I decided to do that night.

It might not be very original to say, but I love Italian cuisine, maybe more than any other. There is one particular type of pasta dish I like, it is alla puttanesca. I discovered it at Misto in Montreal, last August. There is everything in that sauce I like: capers, olives, a bit of chilli for the taste and a bit of fish for the protein intakes. I am usually not a big fan of tomato sauce, especially with pasta, but I love the mix of tomatoes and fish (a surprisingly successful marriage of flavours), and it works wonders in the recipe. It is usually a spaghetti dish, but we don't have spaghetti so I had it with fusilli instead.

This was not the only change I had to make to cook it. We don't have anchovies, so instead I put in a tin of sardines. It was a great idea as I didn't know what to do with it. I also put harissa instead of chilli. And I am not sure if proper puttanesca has onions, but I put fried some anyway. But the rest was following the recipe with orthodoxy: loads of capers and as much as I could of olives (in other words what was left in the jar). You can see the result on the picture. I know, the bowl on the left looks messy, with the sauce on the side.

I mention following the recipe "with orthodoxy" in the previous paragraph, but I think the nature of the dish, and its appeal to me, is its improvised, messy, completely unorthodox recipe. I don't know if this is a urban legend or not, but it was supposed to have been invented by prostitutes. The Wikipedia entry also mentions another origin, much less romantic than the other one. The first theory is just seedy enough to remain mysterious without being tasteless (bad pun I know) and fits the dish's exotism.