Pizza, Jump-in-the-mouth

Veal!

But pizza first. I love pizza, but it's hard to get the exact taste and texture combination that everyone enjoys. Whenever I'm trying to order a pizza in some place there are always at least two or three that I want to try, so I have to persuade the boyfriend to order a different one than me so that I can have both. Every restaurant has a different crust too, from the Pizza Hut balls to the wall ten inch thick, to this place which makes them so thin that I think it barely constitutes as a pizza at all (but is bloody delicious). I've always been tempted by the moist looking crusts that I've seen on New York pizzas in films (the bit in Saturday Night Fever when John Travolta gets two slices of pizza for breakfast and eats them squashed together... mmmm), but haven't encountered anything similar here. Most pizzerias tend to make crusty crusts. So what's the problem? Make your own.
I'm trying to steer clear of recipes that involve yeast, because I'm a dirty stinking coward, and there are two that I've earmarked to attempt. First is the Perfect Pizza from Heston Blumenthal's In Search of Total Perfection, but I'm still waiting for the whip, chains and ball gag that are mandatory for attempting any of his recipes, to be delivered. And second is from Not Only Spaghetti! which is just so simple, it's almost ridiculous. I didn't really like to do this but I've copied out the 'recipe' if anyone wants to try.

Take about a pound, 1oz. baking powder, and water (or milk in some recipes), salt. In some cases sieved mashed potatoes may be added. Make a dough and leave it to rest for 3 hours, then knead it again and divide in sections which are then rolled out into rounds about 6 inches in diameter and about a quarter of an inch thick. Put these on a greased pan and cover with any combination of the following; peeled tomatoes, anchovies, sliced onions, mozzarella or gryuere cheese, chopped mushrooms, oregano, salt, pepper, garlic, black olives (stoned). The pan may be greased with lard. Cook in a very hot oven and serve immediately.

Doesn't get any more straightforward than that! One of the very first recipes I made for this blog are from this book, and at the time I lamented that proper measurements or temperatures weren't given. Now I'm like, whatevs, ain't nothing but a thang.
Here are the usual suspects
I made the dough, put it in a bowl to do whatever it was planning to do for 3 hours and started in on the appetizer - Jump In The Mouth.
When I told the boyfriend what I was making he lol'd and said he couldn't believe that the author or editor of the book would translate Saltimbocca so literally. Apparently it's a very popular dish in Italy and Spain of strips of veal wrapped in ham and fried with sage. So delicious that all you have do do i open your mouth and in they jump!
But first a word about veal. Veal is a by product of the milk industry therefore if you drink milk, eat cheese, and slather yourself in whipped cream, you have an obligation to eat veal. I really don't see the logic in consuming lamb instead of mutton (courgettes instead of marrows?) but not their bovine equivalent. Veal isn't cruel, not in Britain these days. Foie gras is cruel, oyogu hone is cruel, monkey brains is cruel! Plus veal tastes really good.
Off my soap box, I bought this piece of veal in Sainsbury's, it wasn't cheap, but the butcher behind the counter gave me a coupon for a £2 discount which made me really happy. Ever since I stumbled on this guy in America basically using coupons to get free food from his local supermarkets I've been fascinated with coupons. Supermarkets use so many incentives to attract your custom that if they're willing to just give things away, and you'll shop there anyway, you might as well take advantage of it.
Results:
Eeesh what a bloody mess this jump-in-the-mouth looks like. More like i-jumped-from-a-five-story-building-kids-don't-do-drugs. But it's absolutely delicious. The only changes I would make are obviously the presentation, and the overpowering scent of sage. It's a very medicinal flavour and next time I might just use a few sprigs to season the cooking butter, instead of attaching a leaf to each piece.
The pizza is a beaut. I didn't roll the dough out as thin as ought to have done but it was still cooked through yet chewy, not brittle like I had expected. I might play around with the toppings in the future but this is a good place to start.
Heston, I'll be with you in a few minutes, please assume the position.

Chicken a la Marengo

There is an absolute glut of Italian cook books out and about, ooh a bit of tomato,mozzarella and pasta and you have a light and nutritious lunch! Yum yum! Yeah and it's all along the same lines, which is when I saw " Not only spaghetti!" in a charity shop my first thought was 'No shit!'

It was written by 'a family cook in Italy' in 1980 so you know there's probably a Mafiosi connection! Exciting stuff.

The recipe is for a dish that was allegedly a favorite of Napoleon, he first 'visited' Italy a few days after his wedding to old Josephine, but you know, on his own.

I'm cooking at the boyfriend's this time as a kind of a romantic gesture. I explained to him that my old mate Bonaparte had pretty plain tastes and this isn’t going to be necessarily conducive to any particular amorous pursuits - more like a big bit of gristle. He was game and even volunteered to sponsor the purchase of the Madeira that his recipe requires. Supermarket own brand £2 sherry would have been just as good (probably), but now we're stuck with a nice bottle of Duke of Clarence Rich Madeira.

This thing is called Chicken a la Marengo and is truly fit for... an Emperor of the French. Seriously, this requires the use of three separate pans to prepare something that consists of 4 main ingredients. No thank you. I used dried mushrooms because i though they would have more of a concentrated flavour, instead of soaking and frying them I just soaked them and added them to the chicken later. There are no measurements in this recipe, it's probably meant for fairly experienced cooks who know exactly what measurement 'add dry white wine' refers to. I confess, I wasn't 100% sure and thus the resulting chicken bath.

I then took the chicken out to create the sauce (ignore the lumps of flour - all cats look the same in the dark) before combining all the ingredients for a final few minutes.

Result: I love Napoleon. Local boy done good, 'A throne is just a bench covered in velvet' and all that stuff... He famously had pretty basic, peasant tastes and maybe that's the reason this dish looks and tastes a bit like a plate of mud. I'm not sure what the Emperor would have as a side dish in Italy, but I've decided to serve it with Rigatoni. The chicken is pretty much fried chicken with an earthy, warm flavour of mushrooms and Madeira. It's thick because of the flour but still feels really light, I found it delicious. I would make it again maybe to use up the rest of the Madeira, however I would balk at using almost half a bottle of wine for cooking instead of drinking ;)