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| BOCCA
by Jacob Kenedy |
BOOK
REVIEW |
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To
order a copy of BOCCA <click
here>
 "To
love eating is to love life and to love cooking is to
love giving pleasure to other people"
~ Jacob Kenedy
 In
the heart of Soho lies one of London’s most popular
Italian restaurants. With reservations booked out weeks
in advance, food critics have dubbed it one of the hottest
spots in London today. Now, in this eagerly anticipated
release, readers can bring home a taste of the culinary
genius of restaurant Bocca di Lupo to their own dining
room table. With Bocca, leading chef Jacob Kenedy brings
Italian cooking back to its regional roots and reinvents
it as only he knows how.
Jacob’s cooking is simple and delicious and embraces
the rich diversity of regional specialities. Covering
everything from Tuscan bread and tomato soup and Venetian
tagliatelle with pigeon ragù, to Lazian suckling
pig, Piedmontese meringue gelato cake and Neapolitan
coffee with zabaione, Kenedy’s recipes capture
the unique culinary traditions in which each region
takes pride, and are full of brilliant anecdotes and
stories.
This extraordinary book includes over 200 recipes with
photography from the acclaimed Howard Sooley, who travelled
the length and breadth of Italy with Jacob to capture
a way of cooking that is generous, exuberant and joyful.
It is designed by Caz Hildebrand, best known for the
Moro series and all of Nigella Lawson’s books.
"Bocca di Lupo might just
be Britain’s best Italian" ~ Terry Durack,
Independent
"The dishes are rustic, regional,
absolutely untranslated, utterly authentic, unbelievably
winning" ~ Giles Coren, The Times
- This
is quite simply the most beautiful, intelligent and
practical cookbook I have ever seen - David Vermicello
(Amazon review)
This is quite simply the most beautiful, intelligent
and practical cookbook I have ever seen. From the
first page, it set my taste-buds tingling, my mouth
salivating, my body wrapt in anticipation of the aromatic,
strong yet subtle tastes of Italian food at its very
best and most creative, traditional regional dishes
each with the author's own original twist. Jacob Kenedy's
book starts with the simplest of raw ingredients and,
with the wave of a magic wand he turns each dish into
a masterpiece. I have tasted his wonderful creations
many times in his restaurant - in this cookbook he
lays bare all his secrets with unequalled candour
and generosity (there is easily enough content for
two cookbooks here), sharing anecdotes from his own
fascinating background, his views on food and life,
memories of zucchini flowers eaten at the edge of
a volcano, even the card-game "posso". In
the dedication, food is seen as the music of love.
I (a musician) certainly love this wonderful food!
- Delicious
recipes beautifully presented - Noodle (Amazon
review)
I have eaten at Jacob Kenedy's fabulous restaurant
on many occasions and was delighted to discover that
he had decided to share some of his secrets. Many
of the recipes are surprisingly easy using readily
available ingredients though I think I will find it
harder to find cuttlefish ink and pig's blood, if
I am tempted to try the seppie col nero or sanginaccio.
- Italian
cooking at its best - E M Humphrey (Amazon
review)
Some of the pictures are like a dream, all of them
fantastic. And the recipes?
Jacob Kenedy was born in London in 1980 and still lives
there today. When he graduated from St John’s College,
Cambridge, he was already a chef at Moro, and continued
to flit between the kitchens there and those at Boulevard
in San Francisco for ten years. In 2008 he opened the
critically acclaimed Bocca di Lupo, twice awarded London’s
best restaurant. You can find him at the stove there
most days of the week. In 2010 he opened Gelupo, a gelateria
and delicatessen in the same street, which made a lot
of people very happy, and in the same year co-authored
the award-winning Geometry of Pasta. Jacob believes
that to love eating is to love life, and that to love
cooking is to love giving pleasure to other people.
He loves both in equal measure, and hopes you do too.
BOCCA
SAMPLE RECIPES
MALFATTI / SPINACH AND RICOTTA DUMPLINGS - Lombardy
 My
dad always used to cook these for me as a kid, and I
used to love them. In fact, he still does, and I still
do. The flavour is incredibly delicate, the texture
soft, with all the comfort of eating baby food, thanks
to the ricotta. Not truly a cheese, ricotta is a by-product
of the cheese-making process: whey that has been cooked
and drained. So you find buffalo ricotta in Campania
and Puglia (very rich, creamy and wet); sheep’s
milk in the far south, the islands, Tuscany and Piedmont
(my favourite, creamy and farmyardy); and cow’s
milk, the commonest everywhere. As by-products go, this
is to my mind the very best.
Ingredients
250g fresh spinach
250g ricotta (sheep’s milk is best)
50g Parmesan, freshly grated, plus plenty extra to
serve
1 large egg
40g plain (or Italian 00) flour, plus plenty extra
for rolling
Nutmeg (a few grates)
24 sage leaves
75g butter
How to make
Boil the spinach in well-salted water until tender,
refresh it under cool running water and squeeze as
dry as you can. Chop it very finely with a knife and
mix with the ricotta, Parmesan, egg and flour to make
a very soft dough. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper,
but not a heavy hand - the flavours are very subtle,
and so too should be the salt.
Bring a pan of salted water to the boil (the spinach
water is fine if you still have it). Drop a walnut-sized
lump of dough in a bed of flour and roll it into a
rough ball: it will be too soft to make a perfect
sphere, but that is why the dumplings are called malfatti
- ‘badly made’. Cook it in the water to
see if it holds together. If not, add a bit more flour
to the mixture and test again. Once the dough is just
(but only just) firm enough to withstand cooking,
roll the remainder into about a dozen golf balls,
again coating them in plenty of flour. Simmer for
7 - 8 minutes for a slightly oozing middle, counting
from when they rise to the surface.
While they are cooking, fry the sage in the butter
until the leaves are crisp and the butter hazelnut
brown and foaming. Drain the malfatti, and serve with
the butter and sage poured over, and a liberal sprinkling
of grated Parmesan.
Variations
A light tomato sauce works well if served under the
malfatti rather than over them, and dotted with tiny
knobs of butter. Or try draping the freshly cooked
malfatti with thinly sliced lardo (cured pork back
fat), still serving with butter, sage and grated Parmesan.
Serves 4 - 5 as a starter or 2 as a main
MUSSELS WITH CELERY, TOMATOES AND THYME - Veneto
 I
spent a little over a week travelling around Lake Garda,
just as spring was breaking, the snow-caps melting,
the sun shining but the tourists not yet arriving from
over the Dolomites. Curiously, it was in Malcesine that
I had the best plate of mussels I have had in my life
- despite the distance from the sea, and the abundance
of freshwater fish dishes on authentically local menus.
There is therefore some claim to say this recipe
is from the Veneto, but I have no idea how typical it
is. I have probably cooked the dish for more people
at Bocca di Lupo than ever ate it on the shore of Lake
Garda - of that I am pretty much certain.
Ingredients
3 celery stalks, sliced on the bias into 2cm chunks
4 garlic cloves, broken but whole
8 sprigs thyme
A good pinch of crushed dried chilli flakes
200ml extra virgin olive oil
400g cherry tomatoes (look for datterino or baby plum),
halved
1kg mussels, bearded
20 basil leaves
How to make
In a wide pan, fry the celery, garlic, thyme and
chilli in the oil very gently for 5 minutes, to infuse
the flavours. When the garlic threatens to colour
on its broken edges, crank up the heat to high and
add the tomatoes and mussels, a good amount of pepper
and a tiny amount of salt. If your pan is wide enough
(the mussels no more than two or three deep), you
should be able to cook it easily, just by shaking
the pan for 3 or 4 minutes until all have opened.
In a narrower, deeper arrangement I prefer to pick
the mussels out as they pop - they are ready as soon
as this has happened, and my dislike for overcooked
mussels is so entrenched it extends even to the people
who make them that way.
In either case, when the mussels are open, stir in
the basil, taste for seasoning and serve with good
bread. The liquid will be a rich, velvety broth -
quite sparse as it is only the natural juices of the
ingredients, hence its pure and intense flavour.
Serves 4 as a starter or light main
ESPRESSO GRANITA
 Granita
di caffè is made in almost every good caffetteria
in Italy, and is as good as the coffee that makes it,
and therefore as the café. This poses a challenge
to the home cook, unless you have a proper espresso
machine. The best alternatives are to use a stovetop
‘moka’ machine, or to get friendly with a
local coffee-shop owner. Once you have made a good coffee
(page 444), the rest is impossible to get wrong.
Ingredients
600ml espresso
200ml water
200g caster sugar, plus extra for the cream
Whipped cream, to serve
Method
The espresso should be mixed with the water and sugar,
and stirred until the sugar has dissolved. The mixture
can then be frozen - see watermelon granita (page
402) if you need any assistance here.
Serve it with plenty of cream, slightly sweetened
and whipped to soft peaks. I use 100g sugar (caster
or icing) per 100ml of whipping cream. Italian cafés
often layer the granita and cream, but the cream in
the middle may freeze, which I find unpleasant. Better
just to fill glasses two-thirds full with the granita,
and mound the cream up above the rim.
Serves 6 - 10 (depending how much coffee
they like)
To
order a copy of BOCCA <click
here>
Published
27 July 2011
This
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