Focaccia with Blue Cheese, Pears and Walnuts

It is some time ago now, that I had a focaccia in a pizzeria in a small village between Locarno in Switzerland and Domodossola in Northern Italy. What was striking about it was the ideal combination of flavours and textures, blue cheese and pears, with the walnuts adding a crunch to the whole thing. Walnuts and pears are of course available in abundance in autumn, which makes this a tasty dinner when the days are gloriously colourful but are getting shorter. I tried to redo it from memory and it turned out to be pretty much how I remembered it. 

 

What you need

(the following amounts would be for two people)

• 500 gr Pizza dough (I was lazy and bought it ready made) rolled out in two 24-cm rounds
• 200 gr Gorgonzola, possibly with some Mascarpone or Crème Fraîche (not pictured) to make it more spreadable
• 1 onion, sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced
• 2 pears (conference are good), sliced
• 100 gr walnuts, chopped
• optional, pepper or a raclette spice mix (pepper, nutmeg, paprika)

What you do

1. Preheat the oven to a pizza setting (ventilation and grill, 280°).
2. Distribute garlic and onions, both very thinly sliced on the dough.
3. Sprinkle with (not too finely) chopped walnuts.
4. At this point you may want to prebake this for about 3-4 minutes.
   
5. Add the sliced pears in a circle.
6. Cover with the Gorgonzola (and mascarpone/crème fraiche if using).
7. Bake for a total of about 10 minutes; the cheese topping should have started browning. 
8. Season with pepper or the raclette spice mix.

 

Walnut Pesto

This is a quick-fix cold pesto that works very well with almost any kind of pasta. If the ingredients are at hand it can easily be made in the time it takes to get the pasta al dente.

It has a very strong nutty flavour. If too dry, add a bit of pasta water before serving.

 

 

What you need

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 – 5 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 200 g walnuts, soaked in boiling water for 5 – 10 minutes, then drained
• 100 g pecorino romano, grated (not in the picture), parmesan if you don’t like sheep’s cheese
• 50 – 100 ml olive oil
• 100 ml fresh cream or double cream (if watching the pounds, single cream may do…)
• salt and pepper to season
• optionally: some finely pounded chilli pepper to taste

What you do

• Grind the nuts and mix with the pecorino.
• Blend with the liquid ingredients and, if necessary, some pasta water, to the desired consistency.
• Mix with ready pasta and serve with more grated pecorino or parmesan.

Walnut Sauce with Strozzapreti

This is another quick-fix meal: making the sauce takes no longer than for the water to boil and the pasta to cook. Leftovers can be frozen and warmed up in the oven or a steamer.

I came across strozzapreti in a specialist Italian shop. Like orechietti or the thick fusilli, they are somewhere between fresh and dried pasta, packed with a sell by date like the dried variety but softer and chewier like the fresh stuff. The name is intriguing as it means “priests stranglers”.(and of course, as all the smarta***s will point out, in the picture we have fusilli.)

The walnut sauce was inspired by an Italian recipe but only to the point of two ingredients, walnuts and cream. There is no real intention to make this a traditional Italian sauce, but as the cold spell persists, so does the need for comfort food…

What you need

• 400 g of pasta (ideally fresh, but in any case, high quality stuff!)
• 50 g butter
• 100 g ground walnuts (or pecan for a slightly different but equally palatable flavour)
• 1 medium sized onion finely chopped
• 1-2 pressed cloves of garlic
• 100 ml Marsala
• 100 ml cream
• 200 ml crème fraîche
• seasoning with vegetable stock (powder, possibly dissolved in the Marsala), Cajun spice mix and paprika

What you do

1. Fry the onions in the butter (add the garlic as well unless you want the flavour to be more prominent, in which case add it right at the end) until they are glassy, perhaps slightly golden.
2. Add the ground up walnuts and allow to develop their flavour while stirring.
3. Pour in the marsala and simmer until it seems to have been absorbed by the nuts.
4. Add the cream before stirring in the crème fraîche.
5. Season to taste with vegetable stock, Cajun spice and paprika.

Serve with freshly ground parmesan cheese.