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Monica Galetti

incorporating Recipes and Cooking
csearle
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Monica Galetti

#384296

Postby csearle » February 6th, 2021, 8:08 pm

I used to watch Masterchef. My favourite bit was usually at the start of the competition when the contestants were tasked with a challenge set by one of the judging chefs. I liked the bit when he/she demonstrated how it could be done. Anyway I remember seeing Monica Galetti making these Tagliatelle ai gamberi. I watched the footage over and over again until I reckoned I'd included everything.

I must say that it takes a bit of preparation, but can be finished off in the time it takes pasta to cook, so is ideal for when guests come around - remember that? In my opinion it tastes bloody fantastic, so I thought I'd share it...

Tagliatelle ai gamberi

Serves 1

Ingredients
  • 6 Whole tiger prawns
  • 1 Banana shallot
  • Herbs (sage, rosemary and bay leaf)
  • 3 cloves Garlic
  • 0.5 Red chilli
  • 2 tblsp Tomato paste
  • 0.5 Fish stock cube
  • 2 tblsp Fish sauce
  • 0.5 Preserved lemon
  • Olive oil
  • Salt
  • Black pepper
  • 100ml Brandy
and for the pasta (or just use fresh)
  • 160g Pasta flour
  • 2 Eggs
Directions
  • Make tagliatelle in a pasta machine and boil pan of water (or just use fresh). Prepare fish stock adding fish sauce.
  • De-vein tiger prawns by scoring along back. Fry heads and shells in olive oil with chopped shallot and squashed garlic and roughly chopped herbs plus a touch of salt and pepper, little piece of red chilli. Add tomato paste and brandy (burn cup off then pour in). Add fish stock. Simmer. Sieve off solids of sauce. Re-heat.
  • If making the pasta toss the tagliatelle in flour. Add to boiling water.
  • Fry the prawns on both sides, look just to colour them. Add a half of sliced chilli and sliced sage. Add some preserved lemon.
  • Add a little sauce to the prawns. Reduce until sticky.
  • Add some sauce to a pan then add tagliatelle and coat.
  • Plate-up the tagliatelle into a bowl then add prawns on top. Garnish with sauce, sliced chilli and sliced sage.

Chris

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Re: Monica Galetti

#384304

Postby redsturgeon » February 6th, 2021, 8:39 pm

Looks very tasty Chris.

Monica was featured on Desert Island discs this week.

John

csearle
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Re: Monica Galetti

#384307

Postby csearle » February 6th, 2021, 8:43 pm

redsturgeon wrote:Monica was featured on Desert Island discs this week.
Yes I listened with interest. I hadn't had any idea of her background.

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Re: Monica Galetti

#384932

Postby AJC5001 » February 9th, 2021, 12:48 am

csearle wrote:so is ideal for when guests come around - remember that?

Tagliatelle ai gamberi

Serves 1


I think I've discovered why you have no guests! :lol:

Adrian

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Re: Monica Galetti

#394873

Postby johnstevens77 » March 12th, 2021, 11:40 am

I still watch Master Chef the Professionals and am often bemused as to where Monica sources her ingredients. Calves’ brains, sweetbreads and sea urchins come to mind. I haven’t eaten calves’ brains or sweetbreads since I was last in France, 4 years ago, (I ask my sister-in-law to get them for us, she is a good cook). Sea urchins are delicious and often available in seafood markets in France but try to find them here in East Devon! It isn’t only Monica who uses obscure ingredients though, the last to come to mind was that Nepalese chef in last year’s final who cooked lamb’s brains. Now they are truly delicious, rich, unctuous and wonderful pan fried with beurre noisette. As usual, I asked the butcher if he could get any, he thought that he might be able to get a whole lambs head but I couldn’t be bothered with that. Then again I wanted some mutton a while ago, “sorry, I can only get frozen Australian mutton!” What happened to head to tail eating in the UK?
Rant over.
john

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Re: Monica Galetti

#395569

Postby DiamondEcho » March 14th, 2021, 9:55 pm

I recall when they used to say you could eat every part of a pig but it's squeek.

There's a combo of reasons I think. Two-adult working households, ready-meals, increased wealth meaning offal is now perhaps ironically niche (upper?) market than mass market. Mad-cow disease and so on. Fast-foodification, what demand for a pungent joint of mutton to roast when those ready-made Tesco lamb burgers are so much simpler to dish up? Perhaps there is also some kind of weird inverse correlation to the number of hours of hit TV shows centred on cooking.

I don't even recall the last time I saw chicken livers for sale.

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Re: Monica Galetti

#395886

Postby johnstevens77 » March 15th, 2021, 7:00 pm

DiamondEcho wrote:I recall when they used to say you could eat every part of a pig but it's squeek.

There's a combo of reasons I think. Two-adult working households, ready-meals, increased wealth meaning offal is now perhaps ironically niche (upper?) market than mass market. Mad-cow disease and so on. Fast-foodification, what demand for a pungent joint of mutton to roast when those ready-made Tesco lamb burgers are so much simpler to dish up? Perhaps there is also some kind of weird inverse correlation to the number of hours of hit TV shows centred on cooking.

I don't even recall the last time I saw chicken livers for sale.


Chicken livers are available in Wairose and Tesco around here.I buy the organic, free range ones from Waitrose, they seem more natural to me and a better consistency than the giant, livers from intensively reared chickens. I buy them about once a month for a lunch dish, sometimes sautéed with chasseur (hunters) sauce, sometimes just flambé or maybe with a red wine sauce. I also make parfait for our light evening meal. When my son was here for two months over Christmas and New Year it became worthwhile to make terrines, I use about 33% livers to 33% fat pork belly with 33% of something else, i.e minced veal, venison, lean bacon. Seasoning vary according to the end result required, could be oregano, chorizo, hazelnuts, olives, green peppercorns, fat lardons. It is important to have the correct proportion of fat otherwise the terrine will be crumbly and tasteless. I always pan fry a spoonfull befor baking it to taste for consistency and seasoning.

john

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Re: Monica Galetti

#395942

Postby DiamondEcho » March 15th, 2021, 10:02 pm

I appreciate that liver and perhaps especially chicken liver can be a 'Marmite' love or hate thing. I absolutely adore it. I don't think mass-market British cookery historically has done liver many favours, over-cook it and it's just ruined. Many of us will have had to endure plates of such elephant-hide like food in school lunches and been put off for life. When I left school I loathed it with a passion and never imagined having that opinion alter later on.

I've made chicken liver pate before, simple enough just once done you can't keep it more than say 2-3 days, tricky if no one else in the household is a fan!

John, I used to enjoy a fantastic sauteed chicken liver dish in Sharm in Egypt. It was a staple of many diving trips over there. I'm sure it had garlic in it it and presumably herb/s, though it came over as delicate rather than loaded with many flavours. Just cooked pink, melt in your mouth, served with a drizzle of jus from the pan and a basket of just made mini-pita bread. Divine! Do you happen to recognise a recipe for them from that description?

... Meanwhile I'll ask at Waitrose next time I'm there.

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Re: Monica Galetti

#395952

Postby AleisterCrowley » March 15th, 2021, 10:46 pm

csearle wrote:[*]1 Banana shallot



No idea. Is that a thing? Is it a shallot? Is it a banana ?

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Re: Monica Galetti

#395972

Postby Dod101 » March 15th, 2021, 11:57 pm

I never watch master Chef but the lady was on BBC2 this evening with Giles Coren at The Torridon, an upmarket hotel in would you believe Torridon in the West Highlands of Scotland. I rather like her. She came across well and Giles looked like a young graduate in comparison. Mind you she has chef skills which Giles was clearly lacking, in fact I do not know why he was there except, as a restaurant critic, he is a bit short of work at the moment.

The Torridon is in the most wonderful location but is a bit too corporate for my liking. I have others place in the Highlands where I would rather be.

Dod

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Re: Monica Galetti

#396261

Postby johnstevens77 » March 16th, 2021, 6:57 pm

[quote="DiamondEcho"

John, I used to enjoy a fantastic sauteed chicken liver dish in Sharm in Egypt. It was a staple of many diving trips over there. I'm sure it had garlic in it it and presumably herb/s, though it came over as delicate rather than loaded with many flavours. Just cooked pink, melt in your mouth, served with a drizzle of jus from the pan and a basket of just made mini-pita bread. Divine! Do you happen to recognise a recipe for them from that description?

... Meanwhile I'll ask at Waitrose next time I'm there.[/quote]

Sorry but chicken livers were never on any menu in the 4 and 5 star hotels that I worked in. Except as an ingredient in chicken liver pate.
But it would be popular with the Lebanese as part of a mezzeh of course. A suggesiton. You could sauter the livers in olive oil with dukkah and a little crushed garlic, nice and pink as you said, season, let them rest a minute or two and enjoy as you wish. https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... +spice+mix. Although I would make my own, it is available, again, in Waitrose. I do recall eating lambs kidneys in Cairo seasoned with dukkah, so it should work with livers as well. (In Khan al Khalili market while it was still permissible for outsiders to shop there, I was working in the Nile Hilton at the time, we walked everywhere).

john

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Re: Monica Galetti

#396304

Postby DiamondEcho » March 16th, 2021, 10:18 pm

johnstevens77 wrote:Sorry but chicken livers were never on any menu in the 4 and 5 star hotels that I worked in. Except as an ingredient in chicken liver pate.
But it would be popular with the Lebanese as part of a mezzeh of course. A suggesiton. You could sauter the livers in olive oil with dukkah and a little crushed garlic, nice and pink as you said, season, let them rest a minute or two and enjoy as you wish. https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... +spice+mix. Although I would make my own, it is available, again, in Waitrose. I do recall eating lambs kidneys in Cairo seasoned with dukkah, so it should work with livers as well. (In Khan al Khalili market while it was still permissible for outsiders to shop there, I was working in the Nile Hilton at the time, we walked everywhere).
john


No, I wasn't thinking at places where you worked but as part of a more local mid-market cuisine. I recall the place I have in mind as feeling more like a taverna (ie as found in Greece), easy-going, low-key, with good fresh BBQ/grilled food.
Interesting your point about Lebanese mezzeh, so I 'Tripadvisor'd' Lebanese restos in the Naama Bay area of Sharm and looked at a few pins on the map that were where we often ate. 'Fairuz Finest Lebanese Cuisine' https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restauran ... Sinai.html
I know I've eaten at that place, and it's quite probably where I had the dish in question. The menu includes 'Chicken liver - pan fried with garlic, lemon juice, coriander and pomegranate sauce' https://www.facebook.com/Fairuz.sharm/p ... 314535374/
Piping hot into fresh made pita... quite possibly that's it!
Next step I'll check into other Lebanese variants of that dish and try which ever sounds most memorable, thanks for your help!

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Re: Monica Galetti

#396656

Postby johnstevens77 » March 18th, 2021, 10:03 am

The chicken liver sounds super. I would very much like to read the menu but the web page asks me to allow Facebook to install cookies on my pc and that I will not do! Maybe you could copy and paste into a post here or if not email it to me? We love M.E. and Mediterranean food. We spent 8 years in Cyprus, Jordan and Eygypt, including 3 months on the Isis and Osiris, Hilton International River Nile cruise ships.

I recommend "Middle East Cookbook by Tess Mallos". I sometimes use it to remind me of possible recipes. Last month I made pork afalia (Cyprus) that we often put on the daily special in Cyprus Hilton coffee shop. Trouble is that the role of executive chef is management, one does not get too many opportunities to actualy cook local food and I solicited many suggestions for the daily specials came from the local staff.

john

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Re: Monica Galetti

#396960

Postby DiamondEcho » March 19th, 2021, 2:13 am

johnstevens77 wrote:The chicken liver sounds super. I would very much like to read the menu but the web page asks me to allow Facebook to install cookies on my pc and that I will not do! Maybe you could copy and paste into a post here or if not email it to me? We love M.E. and Mediterranean food. We spent 8 years in Cyprus, Jordan and Eygypt, including 3 months on the Isis and Osiris, Hilton International River Nile cruise ships.
I recommend "Middle East Cookbook by Tess Mallos". I sometimes use it to remind me of possible recipes. Last month I made pork afalia (Cyprus) that we often put on the daily special in Cyprus Hilton coffee shop. Trouble is that the role of executive chef is management, one does not get too many opportunities to actualy cook local food and I solicited many suggestions for the daily specials came from the local staff.
john


It was superb, in all it's simplicity. There aren't many 'random dishes' chanced upon on holidays from 20+ years ago I still recall clearly and would love to recreate.
Oh yes, if you aren't already on FB I expect it is going to try and get you to register or what ever. I was already registered and that link didn't trigger any install requests (or similar) FWIW.
To post it here I'd have to host it somewhere first... hmm, I don't think I can do that, I haven't access to such a facility. I looked but don't believe I can attach a picture onto a PM from inside TLF either. PM me yr e-mail tho and I'll send a JPG file of that page. Perhaps see it that works.

My appetite for M-E/Near-East food ebbs and flows. Great at first but after say a year in-country I get totally burned out on main courses that are tending towards 'Three freshly BBQ meats + bread or rice' which it seems can be their version of our 'meat+2 veg'. That's inland Turkey mostly, I appreciate there is way way more to it regionally (esp east and south) of course, not least the seafood and veg.

Nile cruise ships, interesting! What was the rough ratio of nationalities you were catering to?

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Re: Monica Galetti

#397258

Postby johnstevens77 » March 19th, 2021, 11:12 pm

This is way off topic now! I have no idea what the nationalities of the passengers were, I had my hands full training the staff including morning meetings, in Arabic, after the passengers had gone for their early morning tour, sometimes at 7 am! I did manage to visit all the temples though, including Abu Simbal, my wife was with me, she went several times. At the end of my stint, 3 months without a day off, I returned to my sous chef's position at the Nile Hilton and a weekend off at Club Med in Hurgarda, I wanted to go diving but failed the medical. I was just too stressed out. (I did my diving when working in Tortola).

john


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