Food For Thought – Christmas In Rome

Hello from Roma!  I met up with my wife Ramona here a week ago and we have been renting a great apartment in the Trastevere neighbourhood with Ramona’s friend Ann Dusing, who makes an appearance in this week’s Food For Thought.  In my column, I called Ann a retired history professor, when in fact she is a retired classics prof, so my apologies.  I had the best intentions of uploading photos and recipes from our Christmas meal, but the vagaries of the Internets have left me with little time and no patience…so once I get back to Colorno at the end of the week I promise to get on the ball and add more photos and recipes.   Special thanks to Gabriella Marino and her family for inviting us for dinner on Christmas Eve. If you would like to listen to Gabriella, Ann and the sounds of Rome contained in this week’s Food For Thought, click here

The highlight of the dinner I cooked for Christmas Day was a ‘thigh’ of lamb. So here is a photo of that, with more to follow once I get to a more ‘communicative’ place to work.  This cut, from the top part of a leg of lamb, was pre-cut into thick slices, but the cuts didn’t go all the way through the piece of meat, so it held together well while roasting, but had the advantage of cooking more quickly, with more of my seasonings penetrating the meat.  I chopped together some rosemary, garlic, and lemon rind, added salt and pepper and rubbed it into the spaces between the slices and all over the top.  I rested the thigh on a bed of sliced onions and sliced fennel, and a couple of bay leaves, then surrounded it with par-boiled potatoes I drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper.  I roasted it in a convection oven at 200 degrees Celsius for about an hour.  How much rosemary, salt, pepper, garlic, etc.?  -Q.B.-  q.b. stands for Quanto Basta, a typical Italian recipe abbreviation that stands for ‘just enough’ or ‘until just enough’ .

Here is a shot of the fennel and orange salad my wife Ramona made.  It’s from a recipe I learned in Sicily, usually made with blood oranges but this time of year it’s great to make with sweet navels.

Fennel and Blood Orange Salad
Blood oranges have a very sweet, dark flavour and are almost purply inside. Use regular, seedless navel oranges if you can’t find them.

Ingredients:
2 large bulbs fennel
2 blood oranges
2 stalks of celery, leaves included
1/2 cup small black Italian or French olives
extra-virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Cut the stalks and any bad spots off the fennel bulb and reserve a few of the fronds.  Slice the fennel crosswise into the thinnest slices you can make.  (I use a Japanese mandolin for this)  Layer the fennel onto a wide plate or shallow casserole.  Slice the skin off the blood oranges and then cut crosswise into narrow slices.  Place the blood orange slices over top of the fennel.  Chop the celery stocks and leaves together and sprinkle over the orange.  Add salt and pepper to taste, and drizzle all over with olive oil.  Top with the olives and garnish with a few of the fennel fronds.  Serve cold or at room temperature.  Serves 4.