The Humble Tuber
What is it about eating a hot potato that makes us feel so good? We have many ways of taking carbohydrate and we may eat more bread or more pasta or even more rice but for most of us, potatoes are our first love. We never tire of chips, mash and roast potatoes and everyone, or their mother, knows how these are best made, what varieties of potato should be used, when they should be peeled, how they should be cut, if they should be rinsed, which fat or oil should be employed.

In Lancashire, beef dripping is preferred and in Belgium it is reputed that horse fat is used for making what is considered to be Europe’s finest chips. New season jersey royals have arrived but sadly, like so many other grossly extended crops, they appear to be impostors. These early potatoes, once grown in richly loamed, seaweed-enriched soil, are being forced in poly tunnels. Well they don’t fool me; I find myself increasingly waiting for the first of the English or Egyptian “news” that have such a superb flavour.

I’m using new potatoes in today’s pasta dish which does rock the boat of all reason, starch and yet more starch all within the same plate of food seems strange. But is the Genoese inclusion of potatoes so different to the chip butty or a forkful of roast potato, Yorkshire pudding and gravy?

Spaghetti alla Genovese (serves 2)
Pesto
Leaves from bunch of basil
1 clove garlic crushed
1 teaspoon pine kernels, lightly toasted in a dry frying pan
Salt and pepper
50 – 75ml olive oil
½ tbsp freshly grated parmesan
150g good quality spaghetti or linguini
8 cooked and sliced new potatoes
Hand full of cooked fresh beans
Freshly grated parmesan
In a food processor, process to a paste the basil, garlic and pine kernels, together with a little salt and pepper. Then add enough olive oil in a thin stream to produce a loose textured puree. Finally quickly mix in cheese.
Cook spaghetti in salted water until tender, and drain in colander retaining 4/5 tbsp of cooking water in a large bowl. Add the new potatoes, fresh beans, pesto and finally the spaghetti, toss together and serve with parmesan, if you think it is required.

The Pizza Pilgrimage
This month I’m treating you to my week-long pizza pilgrimage on the Amalfi Coast. Having touched down in Naples we jumped into a taxi and weaved our way through its seedy backstreets, I had the window down trying desperately to get a whiff of a “Pizza Neopolatina.” Passing pizzeria after pizzeria at breakneck speed, every manoeuvre considered in order to gain pole position. I looked on from my back seat, firmly strapped in, one hand on his horn the other gesticulating a message to his mucker’s, muttering things under his breath about pork and the Madonna, what a great city. Once we’d arrived at the port I was past caring that he’d ripped us off on the fare, the poor bloke had suffered palpitations racing us here. I just hoped the boat down to Amalfi would prove to be as entertaining and the food, what about the food. Well with a bit of rummaging through guide books we found some great food and service and some shockers, probably 50/50 to be honest. It’s fair to say the quality of ingredients was exceptional, and it’s no wonder Italians eat so well at home. The restaurants, well good and bad really and my pizza well worth the hype.

Here’s some of the best dishes we ate; Lemon shaped Pasta with Clams, Broccoli & Garlic, Octopus Salad, Seafood Risotto, Whole Baked Sea Bass, Fish Baked in Lemon Leaves with Wild Fennel. The winner was a lunch dish of Linguini with Anchovies, Bottarga, Chilli and Amalfi Lemon Zest, whilst sat perched on a terrace overlooking the Amalfi Coast and dreaming of what I was going to eat for dinner.

Linguini with Anchovies, Broccoli, Garlic, Chilli and Lemon Zest
Serves 4
450g dried linguini or spaghetti (Dececco Pasta is good)
500g Broccoli (Broccoli stalks chopped and head separated into florets)
10 salted Anchovy fillets in olive oil
3 gloves garlic chopped
1 pinch of chilli flakes
Grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
Extra virgin olive oil
Knob of butter
Chopped parsley
Ground pepper

Cook the chopped Garlic, Lemon Zest, Chilli and Anchovies in the olive oil on a very low heat. Stir from time to time don’t let the garlic get any colour it should form a paste add more olive oil if it’s too thick.

Cook broccoli in a pan of salted boiling water until just tender, 3-5 minutes, drain and add to the anchovy sauce leave on one side keeping warm.

Cook the pasta, when it’s al dente drain in a colander reserving ½ a cup of cooking water, add pasta and cooking water to the sauce and toss along with parsley, knob of butter and ground pepper, until well coated serve immediately and imagine you’re on a sunny terrace on the Amalfi Coast.