I finally got around to cooking a nice dinner at home. I'm missing European, esp. Italian food. So tonight I went Italian. Previously that day I'd visited Da Paulo Gastronmia in Cluny Court. I'd mistakenly thought it was a new stand alone mom&pop affair, when in fact it was just a new outlet of a successful Italian traiteur/deli. They sell good fresh pasta, and I was hoping to get some high quality storecupboard staples, e.g. boutique balsamic vinegar, spicy olive oils, De Cecco dried pasta, passata, etc.
Unfortunately they cater more to cooks-who-don't-cook rather than cooks-who-do. An astonishing variety of Italian desserts, salads, grilled vegetables and pasta dishes are available chilled and pre-packaged. They sell one type of dried pasta, two types of balsamic vinegar (a very basic brand, along with a super expensive organic one) and commercially produced olive oil. None of what I was led to imagine by their gourmet sounding write-up in TimeOut.
I'll say that they do have an impressive range of Italian wines. But drinking wine in this country is a real luxury when the taxes bring it to around three times the cost in UK and Australia. They do have a good range of continental hard cheeses and fly in their Parma ham. Their coffee sucks, but their baristas just push a button and use sachets of pre-ground coffee beans.
I got pasta, buffalo mozzarella and balsamic vinegar from here; decent prices for Singapore, not too bad. The nearby Cold Storage supermarket provided the other essentials for tonight's dinner - smoked salmon, strawberries and fresh herbs. I made a pesto with pecorino and basil - they claimed not to have any parmigiano; something I'm a bit incredulous about as it is, after all, a general purpose Italian deli. Later on I spied some hiding underneath the ham; the shop assistant must not have noticed - and I've snobbishly decided that Grana Padano is beneath me.
We had soy and linseed bread from Cedele with an olive oil and balsamic dipping bowl. I'd put in some snipped red chilli and a few grains of lightly crushed cumin seed for a bit of interest.
Then we had the buffalo mozzarella and beef tomato salad - which was filling enough, but we moved onto the chicken saltimbocca. I'd used tarragon as I'm still exploring the nuances of this herb since discovering how it tastes about six months ago. I'd originally planned to use the snowpeas as the green garnish to provide interest to the plate; but snowpeas and fish go very well, so I moved them to the next dish. I used chopped remnants of the beef tomatoes (near the stem and round part) to make a crushed tomato jus from the frying pan.
The Parma was faultless - sweet, salty and full of flavour. It crisped up nicely on frying. The chicken breasts were a tad overdone, but not overly so. I'd defrosted and halved one I had in the freezer. Then we moved onto the straw-and-hay pasta with smoked salmon cream sauce. I made a quick sauce by gently heating double-cream with NZ smoked salmon slices. The infusion of oily smoky fish into the unctuous whiteness made a delicate sauce that gently coated the pasta.
We finished with some strawberries macerated in balsamic vinegar and raw sugar.
I wished Leon were here to eat this with me. I kept thinking of how this is the sort of treat I'd make for us after we hadn't seen each other for a while; or something I'd do to try to make up for periods when I was taking him for granted.
I thought that this is the sort of thing one might do to try to impress someone; but my dining companion seemed non-plussed - he enjoyed it well enough. Maybe he was trying not to be impressed at something I seemed to carry off so 'effortlessly' (I wish). Mind you, I didn't set out to try to impress - just to cook a nice meal at home.
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