Polpo Feast at home

Emily got me the Polpo cookbook as part of my Christmas present after we visited their restaurant last summer and fell in love with their Italian (or Venetian to be more accurate) style tapas called Cicchetti.

The book is beautifully designed with an unusual binding, the illustration of an octopus on the front and lovely photography which includes lots of shots and stories of Venice making me want to go.

I had a flick through and wanted to make everything but decided on things which wouldn't be too tricky as the first attempt. I know Mat loves the deep fried risotto balls called Arancini which we tried when we went to Polpo so decided to make those and half my work by making loads of risotto the night before and saving some to deep fry. I used Jamie Oliver's trusty basic risotto recipe instead of the one from the book. After the risotto has cooled roll into a ball with a small piece of mozzarella in the middle and roll in fine cornmeal (or polenta). Heat up some sunflower oil (enough to cover the balls) and deep fry for 2-3 minutes.

I served this with some hot chilli shell-on prawns (again really easy) just fry in oil, chilli and garlic until cooked or hot if using pre-cooked prawns. Delicious.

A bit of greenery seemed like a good idea too especially in January when we are suppose to be eating healthy and also to balance the deep fried arancini so I decided on the raw courgette (or zuccini as they call it) salad. The courgette is finely sliced, mixed with rocket and a lemon, olive oil and parmesan dressing, the extra parmesan I popped on top stopped it being too virtuous. This had loads of crunch and flavour - I will definitely be putting raw courgette in salads again. Lemon, rocket and this green veg is a great flavour combination.

But I think the show stopper of the meal was the crostini topped with prosciutto, fig and mint. Simply toast slices of a baguette, top with the ingredients, drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil over and season. As with all the dishes serve immediately - and we ate immediately too, everything was just perfect bitesize mouthfuls of deliciousness.

Even though a little effort compared to going to the restaurant, I cant wait to make more. Homemade pizza's will be made very soon I think. Thanks to Em for the pressie - I will cook you something from it on your next visit (might even be all this).

Homemade Blackberry Gin

Around November I spotted a recipe in the Waitrose food magazine for Blackberry gin and thought I would give it a go to hand out as Christmas presents. I tried a friends homemade damson vodka the previous year which was delicious and sounded really simple.

I purchased a huge Kilner jar which I sterilised by heating in the oven and filled with layers of 900g blackberries and 500g caster sugar popping a vanilla pod split lengthways in the middle. I then topped up with 70cl Gordon's gin, as it is going to be flavoured by the fruit a cheapish london dry gin is ideal something like Hendricks would be wasted in this mix. Once sealed I gave it a shake to help dissolve the sugar and popped it in the fridge. For the first week I gave it a gentle shake everyday and just once a week thereafter. It fermented for six weeks but can be up to eight.

After six weeks I strained the liquid through a sieve and decanted into bottles - I got approximately 1200ml of gin so I made little tags and gave them out as presents which included serving suggestions such as neat with ice, lots of lime and fever tonic or topped up with prosecco. It was delicious and seemed to be well liked enough for me to do it again next year.