Recipe: Pea Sformato with Prawns

Ingredients for One

For the Pea Sformato:

1 cup of  pureed peas (from frozen, canned or fresh peas)  

1 cup of milk

some plain flour

10g butter
20g grated Parmesan

some breadcrumbs

1 beaten egg white

a pinch of nutmeg

salt and pepper

For the prawns:

a handful of whole un-shelled prawns

2 shallots

a drizzle of olive oil

1 cup of Marsala

Preheat the oven to 180 or gas mark 4. Butter the inside of your smallest oven dish (about 10 by 15 cm) or a couple of ramekins if you have them and then coat the buttered sides with breadcrumbs. 

Make some béchamel by heating the milk with the nutmeg, salt and pepper. Whilst this is heating up, melt the butter in another saucepan adding little bits of  flour gradually until you have just about formed a paste. Then combine it with the milk and stir it very well until there are no lumps and it is nicely thickened.

Next, add the pea puree ( this can be flavoured with other things too if you like, for example, I put anchovies in mine and heated them together so that the small fillets had dissolved into the puree) and the grated Parmesan to the béchamel and stir. Gently fold in the beaten egg white ensuring that it doesn't lose any air in the process and then pour it into the dish or ramekin you have prepared. Top with a sparse layer of breadcrumbs and bake for about half an hour until the breadcrumbs are beginning to look slightly golden. 

During the final 10 minutes in which the sformato is cooking, heat the olive oil in a frying pan whilst you finely chop the two shallots. Fry the shallots and then add the prawns along with the Marsala with about 5 minutes to go so that the alcohol reduces and the prawns are cooked.

Turn out the sformato whole or cut into slices and serve with the prawns immediately. 

* Note: to give the prawns a bit of a kick, add a chopped fresh chilli when you fry the shallots.

Prima Paella Ockenden

After cramming a length of brick-red chorizo and a conveniently space-efficient wad of saffron into my already bulging backpack on the way home from Alicante (and having learnt it's correct pronunciation), I was  understandably desperate to have a go at making the first paella of my life on my return.

All of my memories of eating paella, from the takeaway delight shared with my boyfriend among the daisies in Greenwich Park to the veritable feast that Miguel rustled up for us in Spain, are full of friends and smiles. Eager to continue with the social nature of Spanish food, I wanted to make my first venture into its cuisine with my housemates as my guinea pigs. In all honesty though, I couldn't handle waiting for a formal occasion at which to ceremoniously open the hallowed chorizo together, my re-awakened taste buds were already gasping for salvation from the somewhat limited repertoire of spices to be found in Italy and so I ate about half of it in various different fridge raids.

How Jamie's Paella looks

Although I was loosely following Jamie Oliver's interpretation of paella ( to be found here: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/seafood-recipes/paella), I was reassured to have the assistance of my Chilean friend Josefa in the kitchen whilst the rice bubbled away in it's saffron-infused stock. Josefa advised me on suitable pans and expected colour and consistency but maintained that as long as you follow the basic principles, almost anything goes when making this Spanish staple. A must though, is the garlic and lemon mayonnaise that she generously whipped up to her grandmother's recipe as the final touch to garnish our plates. Overflowing with chorizo, prawns, pancetta and chicken, the yellowed rice was smokey, salty and spicy, making a great contrast with the fresh tang of the mayonnaise. Unfortunately this is a flavour combination that I probably won't be tasting much more of here in Tuscany due to the conservative nature of our local stores (although I'm sure these types of ingredients can be found in more cosmopolitan cities like Milan), so I will have to wait until my return to England where our national 'palate' is more open-minded  and where my paella will also benefit from fresher seafood!

How our Paella looks