We’re back, and it’s another pasta recipe (surprise surprise). Can you tell pasta’s my favourite food? This one is a super tomatoey, garlicky and punchy dish. Think arich, garlic, chilli and tomato sauce over pappardelle with a super tasty and fresh seasoned mozzarella on top. This another quick one, perfect for a weekday dinner. The creamy mozzarella really balances out that rich tomato and mild heat from the chilli. If you can get it, I’d recommend going for a high quality buffalo mozzarella for this dish. The mozzarella is served raw so we’re really after high quality ingredients as there’s no hiding. I’m gonna give you fair warning, this is a very garlicky dish (cooked in the sauce and raw with the mozzarella) so I don’t recommend eating this right before a social gathering, unless you’re all eating it.
Garlic, Chilli Tomatoey Pappardelle With Dressed Mozzarella
Sevres 2 | 30-40 mins cook + Prep
Ingredients
1 ball good quality buffalo mozzarella
4 cloves garlic, 1 clove minced and the rest thinly sliced
2 red chillis, deseeded and thinly sliced
Large handful basil minced
Large handful parsley minced
1tsp red wine vinegar
A few good glugs of good quality extra virgin olive oil
1 tin plum tomatoes
180g dried pappardelle
2-3tbsp grated parm + more to serve
Method
Tear the mozzarella into bitesize chunks and place in a bowl. Add the minced garlic, 1/4 of the chilli, a small handful of parsley & basil, red wine vinegar and a good few glugs of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, stir, cover and chill in the fridge until ready to eat. This can be done a few hours ahead
Heat 2-3 tbsp olive oil in a medium sauce pan over medium/high heat. Add the sliced garlic and the rest of the chilli. Cook, stirring frequently, until the garlic just begins to turn golden and is fragrant (should take around 5 mins, depending on your hob).
Add the tomatoes, and about 1/2 tin of water. Squish the tomatoes with a spoon. Bring this to a boil then lower the temperature and simmer for 20-30 mins until the sauce has thickened.
Add in the rest of the parsley & basil, and the grated parm. Season to taste with salt & pepper.
Cook the pappardelle in heavily salted pasta water until al dente. Reserve a mug of pasta water towards the end of the cooking time. Combine the pasta & sauce, and add some pasta water to reach your desired sauce consistency.
Serve the pasta with the torn mozzarella on top & more parm if you like!
For me there is no better way to spend a Sunday than making a ragu. There is something so relaxing and therapeutic about focussing your whole mind on cooking for a few hours. Every step requires so much care and attention from chopping all the veggies perfectly to simmering it all down. All that time and effort is immediately made worth it when you taste the first bite and you realise you’ve made something really special. Making a ragu such a rewarding experience in so many ways – the process of cooking it and the amazing meal you get at the end. Anyway, enough of my love letter to ragus – lets talk about this sauce.
This sauce is the culmination of all my ragu-related learnings over the years from the Italian cooking heroes Anna Del Conte & Marcella Hazan. I always like to have a ragu in my freezer as it makes for such an easy but still tasty and high quality dinner. So I usually have a few boxes of ADC or Marcella bolognese, and now I’m adding this white ragu as a freezer staple (high praise as I only have a half freezer & 1 of the drawers is unusable from constantly freezing shut). It’s a much richer and creamy version of its tomatoey conterpart, and there is space for both in my heart. The sauce is SO flavourful from the love and time that goes into cooking it – I really can’t recommend it enough!
Creamy White Sausage Ragu
Serves 4-8 (depending on how saucy you like pasta – see notes) | 2.5-3.5 hours prep + simmer time
Ingredients
2 cloves garlic
25g butter
1tbsp olive oil
1 white onion
1 bulb fennel
454g sausage meat (or sausages removed from their casing)
Prep the veggies: peel and crush the garlic with the side of a knife; finely dice the onion; quarter the fennel, remove the core and finely slice.
In a casserole dish/dutch oven, heat the butter and oil over medium/low heat. Add the garlic and cook until golden. Remove the garlic and set aside.
Add the onions and cook until starting to soften and turn translucent. Add the fennel and cook until slightly softened – 10-15 mins.
While the veggies are cooking, combine the sausage meat with the fennel, thyme, oregano and salt & pepper.
Once the veggies are cooked, turn the heat up to high and pushed the vegetables to the side of the pan and add the sausage meat – this ensures the meat browns rather than stews. Leave the to cook undisturbed for a minute or two until brown, flip the meat and repeat on the other side. Leaving the meat like this allows it to brown & form chunks, this adds so much flavour and means it won’t completely break down in cooking.
Use a spatula to break the sausage meat in large chunks and stir through the vegetables. Cook, stirring occasionally until the meat is cooked through with lots of brown/caramelised pieces. A good fond will start to form (this is the brown stuff sticking to the bottom of the pan) – don’t be afraid! This will be a source of a lot of flavour.
Once the sausage is ready, add the milk, bring to the boil and then reduce the heat to low. Simmer until the milk has almost completely disappeared, through this step scrape the bottom of the pan to release the tasty tasty fond. Marcella says to add the milk before the wine as it protects the meat from the acid of the wine, and I trust that woman with my life. Add the wine and again reduce until all the liquid is almost gone.
Add the stock, turn the heat as low as it’ll go and place the lid on the pan slightly askew. Leave this to simmer for 30-45 mins. Add the cream and simmer for a further 45-60 mins.
Once cooked, take off the heat stir through the parsley and parmesan. Serve with your favourite pasta and more parm and parsley on top.
Notes: you’ll notice the service size is quite a big range. This is because the way Italians & English have their pasta is very different. The english way is to add a lot of sauce, but the Italian way is to be much more sparing with sauce. I lean towards the Italian way, especially with this sauce – it’s so flavourful so a little goes a long way. When I have this dish I usually combine the sauce with a little pasta water to thin it out slightly to cover all the pasta.
Angelina is very often talked about as one of the best restaurants in Hackney, and I’m ashamed to say I spent over a year of my life living just down the road from Angelina and never went. But, over a year on from that flat and I finally took the trip to Angelina, and here I am giving you a review. I went with 2 foodies who you’ve all be introduced to before – my friend Ros and my cousin Bryony – check out their foodie instas linked. We opted for the 10 course tasting menu (made possible by a discount provided by my cousin) on a day we’re now trying, and not succeeding, to rename 10 course Tuesdays. Spoiler alert: it was delicious. Angelina is an Italian-Japanese fusion, which at first scared me a little as I’ve had so many sloppily done fusions, but this was nothing like the others. They blended these two very distinct cuisines absolutely perfectly, which made for such an exciting and sophisticated meal.
Sardines with focaccia and shiso koso
I have to admit I’m still struggling to work out how these dishes formed 10 courses, as we got a lot more than 10 plates. I’m not complaining though! First up we got 3 dishes, which definitely included some of the top dishes of the night: focaccia, sardines & shiso kosho; Hokkaido milk bread, sweet potato & sesame; taleggio, tobiko & moromi. The sardines were one of our favourite of the night, you can’t go wrong with focaccia and a salty fish. The sweet potato dish was like a little katsu sando – really delicious. The taleggio was probably the first taste I got of how flawlessly they had combined Japanese and Italian flavours. It was a little wonton cracker covered in taleggio with fish roe and moromi – I was so impressed with how they balanced the strong cheesy flavour with a much lighter, Japanese flavour. It was perfectly balanced.
Next up was the chawanmushi, clam & bresaola. This was a polarising dish on our table. It is a steamed, set egg custard topped with clams and little bresaola chunks. I really enjoyed how silky it was and the bresaola added a lovely saltiness.
Chawanmushi, clam & bresaola
After this we had our raw course, consisting of 4 dishes. My favourite of this set was the sea bream ceviche with ponzu and sea purslane. The fish was buttery soft. In this course we also got a radicchio salad with smoked burrata and pistachio – this was really amazing. I’d never had a smoked burrata before but it was such an interesting flavour – it was strong and smokey but really light and creamy at the same time. We also had oyster with pomegranate and shiso. I’m a huge oyster fan so loved this, it was very fresh tasting. Lastly we go the sea trout with crispy spinach crackers and caviar. This took the form of almost a tare tare that we spooned onto the crackers. Again delicious, although I found the crackers a little oily.
L: sea bream ceviche with ponzu and sea purslane, R: Radicchio salad with smoked burrata and pistachio
Next we had our fried courses consisting of monkfish skewers with pickles, and kalettes with tentsuyu. The monkfish was great – super meaty fish, perfectly cooked and crispy on the outside with some sharp pickles to cut through the rich fish. Kalette is a relative of the sprout, which I am known to hate, however I loved the kalettes (or at least I love kalettes cooked like this). They were tempura served with the tentsuyu which is a kind of salty sharp dipping sauce.
L: Monkfish skewers with pickles, R: Kalettes with tentsuyu
We moved onto our pasta course of fazzoletti, wild garlic and walnut which was absolutely incredible. I didn’t feel too much of the Japanese fusion here, but it was a really fantastic plate of pasta. So buttery and garlicky, with the crunch from the walnuts.
Fazoletti with wild garlic and walnut
For main we had short rib with celeriac and gremolata. The short rib was rich and meaty, which paired perfectly with the buttery celeriac puree and fresh gremolata. We found the short rib a little tough, but we went on the first night of the new menu so I imagine they were still ironing out a few kinks
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Lastly dessert, which I always think is the great test of a restaurant. Lots of restaurants put out amazing savoury dishes but really fall down at the dessert – I’m happy to confirm Angelina is not one of those restaurants. The dessert was listed on the menu as rhubarb, blood orange and nori. A very simple name but the dish was a little more complex: vanilla creme anglais, poached rhubarb, blood orange sorbet, caramelised nori and this delicious crumble type thing. The nori was the really striking thing about this dish – you can tell it’s nori, but it has a sweetness to it which went so well with the sharp fruit flavours. A perfectly balanced dish, yet again.
Creme anglais rhubarb blood orange and nori (photo credit @rosontour)
This meal was such an amazing experience for all of us. We had dishes and flavour combinations we’d never tried before but all of it worked so well. As dubious as I was about a successful Japanese/Italian fusion, I’ve really been converted. The dishes all worked so well, I’m so impressed by the inventiveness of the chefs. I really recommend this restaurant as a great special occasion place (or just to anyone looking to recreate 10 course Tuesday). The 10 course menu costs £59 at full price. They also offer a 5 course tasting menu too for £39!
This dish was born out of my mum mishearing carbonara as crabonara – at the time neither of us had any idea that she had just inspired one of my best recipes yet (in my opinion anyway). It really is what it says on the tin – a carbonara but with crab instead of bacon. It’s a super quick dinner, perfect for a week night, that doesn’t skimp on quality or flavour. It really is a 15 minute meal – everything can be prepped while the pasta cooks. It’s creamy and rich like a carbonara, but with the delicate saltiness of crab instead of the salty punch from pancetta. 2 different but equally delicious meals. This version is a lot less rich than my Perfect Carbonara as it uses only the 1 egg per person, making it a bit more suitable for an everyday meal.
Crabonara
Serves 2 | 15 mins
Ingredients
200g long pasta (spaghetti or linguine work well)
100g mixed crab meat
1 large clove garlic
2 eggs
50g parmesan, grated + more for service
Freshly ground black pepper
Splash of olive oil
Method
Cook the pasta in heavily salted boiling water 2 mins shorter than the packet says
In the meantime, heat up a splash of olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and fry until lightly golden. Add the crab and cook, stirring often, until warmed through. Set the pan aside
Beat the eggs with the parmesan in a bowl and add freshly cracked black pepper. Near the end of the pasta cooking time, add 2-3 tablespoons of pasta water to this mix while stirring (this will temper the eggs).
Once the pasta is cooked, transfer it to the frying pan with the crab in. Turn a hob to low heat but keep the pan away from the heat for the moment.
Add the egg mix into the pasta pan, be sure to keep moving the pasta continuously to avoid scrambling the eggs.
Move the pan on and off the heat, stirring continuously until the egg is cooked and a silky sauce has formed (a few mins, depends on your hob). If you think the pasta is too dry add a tablespoon or two of pasta water until it’s your desired consistency.
Serve with more freshly cracked black pepper and grated parmesan.
Just wanted to start off this review by saying this place makes it into my top 5, maybe even top 3, Italian places in London just so you know which direction this review is going in (hint: it’s a good one). I’ve been to Bancone more times than I remember but I keep going back and bringing new people. I’m yet to find a person who didn’t enjoy their meal there. It’s pasta, but done so well, and for a very reasonable price given the quality you’re getting. You could easily get 3 courses of sharer food and wine for under £40 each – I’m always shocked when the bill comes given how full and content I am. There are 2 locations, Golden Square and Covent Garden, I’ve been to both and the food is equally good. I generally find it easier to get bookings at Golden Square as it’s bigger and they have a tree in the middle of the room which is fun. But I also really love the booths and the vibe at Covent Garden. All the more reason to go to Bancone twice to try each location!
L: Burrata with pumpkin, R: Tomato focaccia
Starting with drinks and this time I didn’t get a whiskey sour! Instead we went for a 500ml carafe of rose – it was on the only one on their menu and was a really delicious, light rose. Now, this trip was with 2 Bancone lovers (my friend Ros who featured in my B.A.M post, and another friend Maisie) and we have a strategy at Bancone: we limit our starter orders to leave as much room as possible for the pasta (the best things on the menu), but obviously we can’t skip the starters completely. This time we got the focaccia with tomatoes, and burrata with pumpkin. Both were absolutely delicious, and went perfectly together. The burrata was beautifully creamy and paired so well with the pumpkin and crunchy walnuts. And the focaccia was perfect for soaking up any burrata left on the plate (no cheese waste allowed).
Had to get in a burrata cut open pic
For mains, we went for 4 pastas and shared. Our two staples that we always get are the bucatini cacio e pepe and the silk handkerchiefs with walnut butter and confit egg yolks. First, the cacio e pepe is easily one of the best examples of a cacio e pepe I’ve ever had – super cheesey, creamy & peppery. And the silk handkerchiefs, this dish has long been a contender for my all time favourite pasta dish. It’s made of sheets of pasta with a gorgeously rich walnut butter that is absolutely indescribable, and if that wasn’t enough it’s topped with a confit egg yolk that you can burst over the pasta. If you only ever listen to one of my recommendations, this pasta should be it.
L: Silk handkerchiefs with walnut butter & confit egg yolk, R: Bucatini cacio e pepe
After the 2 staples, we get another 2 dishes & usually like to try any new additions to the menu. This time we got the courgette, lemon and ricotta ravioli with semi dried tomato butter, and the braised ox cheek pappardelle with Barolo vinegar. Both were absolutely delicious. The ravioli ended up being one of our favourites as the lemon added a real freshness (even with the butter sauce). On the other side, the ox cheek was deliciously rich with a slightly chewy pappardelle – absolutely perfect. The universal favourite is always the silk handkerchiefs, but the ravioli was a real unexpected highlight of the meal. It doesn’t quite take the top spot, but it added such a lovely freshness to an otherwise very rich and buttery meal. Somehow after all this we still weren’t full and after a long debate about whether to get more pasta, we decided against it and opted for an Udderlicious sundae (mine had malt and malteser ice cream, caramel, caramelised hazelnuts and whipped cream if you were wondering).
L: courgette, lemon and ricotta ravioli with semi dried tomato butter, R: Braised ox cheek pappardelle with Barolo vinegar
Every dish we had was just as amazing as the last – and I’m sure that’s true of the whole menu. Bancone never fails to impress me and the standard has never slipped. I really recommend this place for a dinner that feels really high end but at a lower price. It’s also a great place to take visiting parents to impress them (mine will confirm). Let me know in the comments if you’ve ever been/if you do go! Especially if you try the silk handkerchiefs.
Find them at Golden Square 8-10 Lower James Street W1F 9EL, or Covent Garden 39 William IV Street WC2N 4DD.
Bakes By Meg 