Top chef Angela Hartnett, of London's Connaught Hotel, shares her family's Italian recipes.
Angela Hartnett's Cucina is a new Italian cook book. Angela Hartnett became chef-patron at London’s Connaught Hotel in 2002 – and is also executive chef at Cielo in Boca Raton in the US. She’s one of the few British women chefs to hold a Michelin star. But more than that, she’s earned the respect of the famously foul-mouthed celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay – under whom she trained at Aubergine. Ramsay has described her as ‘the new Elizabeth David’. She’s also earned the praise of the equally hard to please Michael Winner, who described her as: ‘far and away the best of Gordon Ramsay’s circle.’
Hartnett first learned about Italian cuisine from her beloved Nonna, her Italian grandmother, and this rich family heritage is reflected in the book. Angela Hartnett’s Cucina is sub-titled Three Generations of Italian Family Cooking, and has a satisfyingly rustic appearance to complement this theme: a thick textured cover, clearly displayed recipes – each prefaced with a little background from Hartnett, and a selection of photos from the family album.
Although Hartnett was born in Britain, her maternal grandparents came from Bardi in Emilia-Romagna, butmoved to Wales in the 1930s. Like many Italian immigrants they opened a fish and chip shop. They later moved to Essex, and opened another chippie – where the young Hartnett used to work on Friday nights.
It was the hours she spent in the family kitchen helping her Nonna, that led to her passion for cooking Italian food – and her appreciation for the importance of fresh produce. As she writes in the book: ‘shopping and cooking for Nonna taught me to understand what great Italian cooking is all about: start with the very best raw ingredients and do very little to them; just let them speak for themselves…’.
Although her cooking inevitably became more sophisticated once she started classical training as a chef, her Italian understanding of food is still her main culinary influence. This book features recipes that reflect her distinctive style – with everything from Italian kitchen classics like handmade gnocchi and pasta, minestrone soup, saltimbocca, osso buco and spaghetti alle vongole - to the more sophisticated recipes that she might serve at the Connaught – such as halibut with pepper confit and fennel salad, roast pigeon with sausage and date stuffing, and lamb rack nicoise.
There’s not a huge amount in it for vegetarians – though given her mentor, Gordon Ramsay’s contempt for them it’s surprising there’s any at all. However the book features some options including several lovely vegetable soups, a great sounding mushroom ragu, aubergine parmigiana and several salad dishes. There’s also a good selection of delicious sounding desserts, such as her Nonna’s zabaglione and a squidgy apricot tart.
At the back of the book there’s a section on basics like fresh tomato sauce and biga, a basic dough starter for lots of different types of bread.
You can order Angela Hartnett’s Cucina, published by Ebury Press £25, click here
Read about a Piece of Italy in Scotland, and Angela Hartnett's recipe for focaccia
