Recipe corner: maritozzi (Roman cream buns)

It's been a good few weeks since we got back from Rome and we still find ourselves talking frequently about the trip, which is probably a sign that a) it was a good holiday and b) we need to get ourselves back there as soon as ever we can. Which, unless someone wins the lottery, is unlikely to be this year. So, in the meantime, we console ourselves with glorious Italian food.

This weekend, I made maritozzi, which are light, sweet buns split and filled with whipped cream. One restaurant we went to also served a savoury version wherein the buns were split and filled with whipped anchovy butter. As rich as it sounds. For mine, I made two versions - one where the sweetened cream was rippled through with raspberry puree and another where it was combined with the sweet pistachio paste that I brought home from Rome. But, really, the world is absolutely your oyster here. 

The buns themselves are a lovely texture managing to be both light and robust, and while they are sweet they are not overly so; I split one and had it toasted with butter and jam and that was also delicious. I suppose they are tending towards the brioche, but slightly less rich.

Chef's note one: I baked a test batch for 20 minutes and they were beginning to dry out, 18 was perfect. But, it's always worth starting to test slightly early. For an enriched dough like this one, you want the internal temperature to be between about 90 and 93 degrees to ensure they're cooked.

Chef's note two: I never have whole milk in, we are skimmed all the way in this house. So, after a bit of research online, I discovered that I could combine 290ml of skimmed milk with 2 tsp of double cream which should achieve around the same fat content as whole milk.

Chef's note three: you could make these the night before and leave to prove in the fridge. Ensure that they come to room temperature before baking. Having said that, they seem to last extremely well in a sealed container.

Ingredients

300ml whole milk (see note above)

530g strong white bread flour

1 tbsp fast action dried yeast

1/2 tsp salt

1 medium egg yolk

70g runny honey

60ml olive oil (plus extra for greasing)

Makes 10 buns

Pour the milk into a small saucepan. Whisk together the honey and the olive oil. Place the dry ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook and break in the egg yolk.

Set the saucepan of milk over a low heat and bring it up to a low heat (the best way to test this is with a clean finger. It should not feel too hot to the touch). When the milk is warm, whisk in the honey and oil mix. Turn the stand mixer on to a low speed, and, when the egg is incorporated, start to pour in the liquid.

Once everything is added, and the dough is coming together, whack the speed up a couple of notches and knead for 7 mins (note: if you're doing this by hand it may well take longer. Be aware that this is quite a soft, sticky dough and a mixer is preferable if at all possible).

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave to prove for 60 - 90 minutes, or overnight in the fridge.

When making the buns, divide the dough into 10 equal pieces, shape into balls and place on two lined baking trays. Prove for a further 30 minutes, switching the oven on to 180 around 10 minutes before you are ready to bake to ensure it is up to temperature. Bake these for around 18 - 20 minutes, turning the trays round halfway through if the temperature distribution in your oven is uneven.

Once cooled, these can be split and served with any sweetened, flavoured cream filling of your choice. 

Fresh from the oven

Scruffily filled with raspberry cream

All'Oro, Rome

Although every meal we had in Rome was memorable, our dinner at All'Oro will linger in the memory for a long time to come, and is quite possible that, come the end of the year, one of our best dishes will have been taken here. 

Whenever we go to a new place, we always want to eat as locally and typically as possible, and the trouble is that a lot of high end restaurants, particularly when situated within hotels, tend to be the kind of mishmash "modern European" cuisine which, no doubt, is fabulously delicious, but not of its place. Which is why we were delighted that All'Oro offered a "Classics" tasting menu. 

It looked deceptively short and simple, for which we were grateful after a few days of quite intense consumption courtesy of our friend A. However, what we had failed to account for was the fact that All'Oro take their appetisers EXTREMELY seriously. There were twelve in total - all bite size, yes, but twelve of the richest most delicious bites known to greedy man. Having reached the end, we already felt like we had had a substantial meal. A couple of highlights:

This was the restaurant's "take" on a Caesar salad. A Caesar salad biscuit. So pretty, but so intense with umami flavour (I like the fact that you can see my notebook creeping into the back of the shot here. Also, you can't see it from this angle, but the dish in which these biscuits were served was actually the hollowed head of a Roman emperor. So clever!)

The Panzanella sphere - ohhhh. This needed to be eaten in a single bite as the centre was liquid essence of tomato. Again, as beautiful to look at as it was to eat. D and I couldn't stop grinning for a good couple of minutes after this one.

The meal proper kicked off with a "savoury tiramisu". I will admit to being slightly wary - I enjoy a good tiramisu but can sometimes find them to be lacking in texture. Here, crispy pork cheek was used to bring that much needed textural variety to a light as air potato foam and meltingly soft cod. The gentle bitterness of the cocoa powder was also welcome. 

All'Oro's take on a carbonara is probably one of the most delicious things I have eaten in a while. Again, crispy bacon was used to bring texture to cloud like layers of pecorino and parmesan cream, and the bite of the black pepper ensured that the dish was not too cloying. The egg shell presentation was whimsical without being twee.

Of two pasta dishes proper, it was the second that was our favourite - a cappelletti filled with a delicious savoury consommé which popped in the mouth, flooding it with flavour. 

There may have been flagging at this point, and the oxtail rocher, while delicious, was incredibly rich and the accompanying celery gelee failed to offer the relief of any acidity to cut through it.  Still, I thought, just dessert to come but...no. While All'Oro's take on a classic tiramisu was as fantastic as you might it expect, it did not signal the end of the meal. Instead...petits fours. And, like the appetisers, these were taken very seriously indeed. I can't resist sharing a picture of the doll with candyfloss hair, even if I was almost on the point of either weeping or swearing off food for life.

So, All'Oro. Amazing. Next time (and I can't imagine going to Rome and not making a return trip here) we plan to try the other tasting menu which appears to be slightly less rooted in Roman tradition, which, judging by some of the dishes mentioned on the a la carte, could prove extremely interesting. I cannot recommend it highly enough in terms not just of food but exemplary, fabulous service. I just beseech you - make sure that, when you go, you are EXTREMELY hungry.

When in Rome (eat as the Romans do)

Pretty much every main meal we ate in Rome, we tried to seek out restaurants doing Roman food - sometimes traditional and sometimes a more modern spin but always rooted in the rich culinary tradition of the city.

We were there in the springtime, so it was the season of the carciofi (artichoke); a troublesome vegetable that I've never really bothered with at home. But, partly due to the variety grown over there, and partly due to the time, trouble and copious amounts of oil employed in cooking them, these were a genuine delight, rendered almost creamy in flavour and texture. They seem to like to put them in a lot of things: sandwiches, pasta and even tossed through a plate of simply cut and shredded meat to make a surprisingly rich main course.

The classic pasta dishes of Rome, the mainstays of every menu, appear to be carbonara (cheese, guanciale, egg), cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper) and gricia (cheese and guanciale). The pasta that we ate was definitely firmer than we tend to have it in Britain - not crunchy but definitely exhibiting that classic, if elusive, description of "al dente". And the dishes were a bit saucier than I tend to cook them which was interesting to note. 

Offal also plays a big part in Roman cuisine. Oxtail popped up on most menus - including the most beautiful, rich, sticky bowl of oxtail risotto which is definitely one to recreate at home. On our final evening, we tried the local delicaies of Roman style tripe and pork tendons. I try not to be squeamish about food but, I must admit, I had struggled with the idea of trip when our good friend A had proposed it earlier in the trip, but when it turned up on a tasting menu it was only right to try it. And reader, although it probably won't make my top ten dishes of the year, it was very tasty indeed (although I think that is mainly down to the delicious sauce it was tossed through; that quiveringly pallid Yorkshire dish of tripe and onions still carries no appeal whatsoever). The tendons, to the right of the picture, were lightly pickled and, although the texture was slightly odd, were very interesting to eat.

La bella vita - a sojourn in Rome

We've just got back from a lovely few days in Rome. Despite forecasts to the contrary, we basked in glorious sunshine, walked our feet off and ate. Oh my word, how we ate. We ate so much that for two days after we got back we consumed little more than toast which we nibbled at like Victorian consumptives. Roman food is RICH.

We went with an Italian friend, A, who lived in the city for five years while studying. We asked him to show us "typical" Roman food and he did us absolutely proud, taking his mission extremely seriously. And so as well as an abundance of typically Roman restaurant dishes (highlights to follow in a future post) we also sampled the wares of a local market, had three cone gelato, enjoyed the deep fried delights of Roman "suppli" and learned that Romans take their biscuits extremely seriously.

This is a selection of the wares from La Biscottificio Artigiano Innocenti, a noted local bakery. To describe these as biscuits is selling them somewhat short. 

Here we see an example of a typical Roman street food, a suppli. This particular one consisted of rice in a rich tomato sauce with a generous amount of mozzarella at the centre. Gorgeous. Elsewhere, we also tried a cacio e pepe version; deep fried cheesy pasta is just as dirty and delicious as you might expect.

Testaccio market is a must visit for a foodie in the city. We spent a very pleasant hour or so drinking wine and eating cheese at one particular stall, and also bought a few bits to take home including a fabulous deli meat called Ciauscolo, which is best described as a sort of spreadable Mortadella. 

This gelato is from a shop called Torce. It has been awarded three cones, which is the ice cream equivalent of three Michelin Stars and it was absolutely divine. Our only sadness was that we didn't have time to try more than a few flavours (but definitely one to seek out and revisit in the future). On A's advice I tried the vanilla (the benchmark of the true gelato master), paired with a beautifully sharp and vivid scoop of raspberry. D went pistachio, strawberry and, in a stroke of maverick genius, cream of habanero chilli (some of the flavours were a little...eccentric). Magnifico.