"The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." (Maya Angelou)
Wednesday, 18 February 2015
Food, Music, Food, Music, Food, Music... Ad Infinitum
Last time out this section got a bit of a grilling (pun intended!) from my fellow veggie blog-friends. Fret not, mis amigos, this time, I've got a beautiful, lovely, delicious veggie recipe for you. This first appeared in the January issue of The Observer Food Supplement under the theme of how to feed four for a tenner. The total of the recipe below amounts to just over four quid. Photograph by Jean Cazals and text by Sam Harris, chef patron of Zucca.
Tiella
large white onion 1, thinly sliced into rings
olive oil 4 tbsp
garlic 2 cloves, crushed
fresh mussels 200g
medium-sized waxy potatoes 4, thinly sliced
red pepper 1, cut into thin strips
large courgette 1, cut into thin discs
risotto rice 100g
tin of whole tomatoes 1, drained of juice and cut into quarters
Sweat the onion with a pinch of salt in olive oil for 10 mins, then add the garlic and cook for a minute.
Add the mussels and 100ml water, put the lid on and allow the mussels to open up. Remove from the heat, reserve the liquid and take the meat from the shells.
Take a baking dish and in layers place a little of the potatoes at the bottom, then the onions, pepper and courgette. Sprinkle some rice over, add a few pieces of tomatoes, then the mussel meat. Continue doing so until everything is used up.
Pour over the juice the mussels were cooked in, and add 150ml cold water. Cover as tightly as possible and place in an oven heated to 180C/gas mark 4 for 40 mins, until everything is cooked. Rest for 15 minutes and serve.
The mussels opening up in the pan bring to mind slow-burning music (remember Killer Opening Songs last week? Same pattern but non-jazzy). That's why I have enlisted the help of two of the more famous Brazilian singers in the history of that country's rich musical history: Simone and Roberto Carlos. Have you ever met someone after 20 years of not seeing each other? 20 Years. That's the name of this track. Enjoy.
If we talk about layers in cooking, then, I have to mention Beth Hart, because she is a "layered" singer. I love the way this song just keeps building up until around the three-minute mark she hits a high note with her trademark husky growl and then, the way she keeps that high note and just carries on... damn, she's just the "baddest" girl in town. Love me some Beth Hart and her Baddest Blues.
We're going out tonight with a bang. Why did I choose this recipe? Mainly because of the risotto rice. I love the way the rice sucks up the water and cooks ever so slowly. This is what this track does to me. Even though it's a few decades old, it leaves me feeling tender like that risotto rice. Mel Torme's Comin' Home. I defy you to stay quiet.
Next Post: "Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music", to be published on Sunday 22nd February at 10am (GMT)
Labels:
A Cuban In London,
Baddest Blues,
Beth Hart,
Cubans in London,
Food,
Mel Torme,
music,
Roberto Carlos,
Simone
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I love Mel Torme. :)
ReplyDeleteGreat recipe !
ReplyDeleteMussels are my favorite ...had them when out to dinner a few nights ago
Thanks for sharing this recipe , I am going to make it next week
Smiles ...
Food and music ... A man after my own fantasies. (I'm a truly rubbish cook, but will pass the recipe on to a daughter who cooks wonderfully. Then we both listen to music while she cooks!)
ReplyDeleteI am left standing outside looking through the window at the diners when you turn to mussels and vegetables, CiL. Like Walter Mondale, a once-upon-a-time vice president and presidential candidate from Minnesota asked during a debate, "Where's the beef?"
ReplyDeleteI liked the Mel Torme music most among the three. It must reflect a stage of life I am going through; I kept staring at the motorcycles rather than at the girls. I kept wondering what one of them (the motorcycles, not the girls) would be worth today in like-new condition. And, I did learn something new: I did not know Judy Garland had a television show.
P.S. It is minus eighteen Celsius here. How are you doing, buddy?
ha, mel is an easy one....but beth...very nice...a voice i could listen to anytime...
ReplyDeletethat dish sounds delicious as well...mouth watering...
I wondered about that, too. Technically speaking it's not meat so it shouldn't be a problem. Plenty of vegetarians eat fish.
DeleteGreetings from London.
Sorry, that reply was meant for Sage! :-)
DeleteGreetings from London.
I like Beth Hart and will have to hear more of her and your dinner sounds great--I just wonder if the hardcore vegetarians will get you for eating mussels (but they this dish).
ReplyDeleteThis is one dish I just have to try...it looks irresistibly scrumptious!
ReplyDeleteAnd the music is fabulous too...
Thanks so much! :)
Looks delicious! And without the mussels, it's vegetarian! Hurray. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThank you, thank you, thank you.... Mel Torme still stirs me! Nice recipe, too, I might have a go at that.
ReplyDeletehm, time to pay the kitchen a visit. :)
ReplyDeleteAll one needs some food and tunes indeed. I have heard the decade old one.
ReplyDeleteLos mejillones van bien en cualquier cosa seguro que tu plato está muy bueno y es completo, un buen día.
ReplyDeleteGood food.. good music. I love mussels .. that looks absolutely yummy... good thing I'm not a vegetarian. ;)
ReplyDeletegreat recipe, I'd have to skip the mussels though,
ReplyDeletehmmmm.... i'm getting hungry... for more music and food...
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. I did wonder abotu the seafood/vegetarians but plenty of vegetarians eat fish. You can always skip the mussels, though. I have made this dish without the mussels, actually, because seafood is not popular in my family (I blame myself for that).
ReplyDeleteGreetings from London.
That recipe looks delicious and will pass on to the cook in the family ... Mel Torme. Yeah my generation first took notice of him with Night Court and I haven't thought of him in a spell. Enjoyed the clip. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteSounds very good on this super cold day here. Thanks. k. (Manicddaily at wordpress.)
ReplyDeleteThat recipe sounds good to me! Just about anything with seafood in it sounds good to me.
ReplyDeleteNice segue into the "layered" singer, too.
Have a super weekend!
Hmm ... the recipe sounds delicious and I'll try it. But I always have this reaction (disbelief) when I come across a vegetarian recipe and seafood is the main ingredient :).
ReplyDeleteWhen I first moved to the US from India two decades ago, I had to relearn what vegetarian food means (at least the definition of it in the West). For Indians, anything that can move (as in mobile which sets it apart from plants) is NOT vegetarian food. Whether it's red, white or any other kind of meat is immaterial at that point.
In fact, there are some sects who will only eat those parts of a plant that can grow again--like fruit, vegetables and leaves--but not roots (because an uprooted plant will die) since a plant is a living being for them.
Hmm ... the recipe sounds delicious and I'll try it. But I always have this reaction (disbelief) when I come across a vegetarian recipe and seafood is the main ingredient :).
ReplyDeleteWhen I first moved to the US from India two decades ago, I had to relearn what vegetarian food means (at least the definition of it in the West). For Indians, anything that can move (as in mobile which sets it apart from plants) is NOT vegetarian food. Whether it's red, white or any other kind of meat is immaterial at that point.
In fact, there are some sects who will only eat those parts of a plant that can grow again--like fruit, vegetables and leaves--but not roots (because an uprooted plant will die) since a plant is a living being for them.