The British Larder Inspirational recipe diary

I could not wait for summer to arrive this year just so that I could dust off the barbecue and make this dish again. Spiedini in Italian means meat on a skewer, in other words a kebab.

I would like to say that the inspiration came from my holiday to Italy and the rolling hills of Tuscany but in this case it is less romantic. The inspiration came from my visit to New York. Well I could say that there is a big Italian community in New York and that I have eaten the best ever cannoli in Little Italy but I hope  my find is authentic Italian.

I found this dish -pieces of meat coated in breadcrumbs on a skewer called spiedini in one of the hundreds of beautiful delicatessens in New York city and thought that this concept was well worth exploring.

I love the Italians way of

I love the textures and flavours of this dish. The cold fragrant tomato jelly against the warm carnaroli risotto pearls laced with the highly perfumed opal basil. It’s simply a clever and outstanding piece of cooking even if  I have to say so myself. Now that is perhaps slightly big headed but then I’m at least allowed once to admit that something has been done well!

On Friday morning the happy smiley vegetable delivery man turned up with a box of outstanding, fresh and interesting goodies. It was so interesting that I could not contain my excitement.

I had to drive Elly my pet bunny to the vet; all the way I was talking to her telling her about the wonderful vegetables. I’m sure it took her little mind of the visit to the vet as she was nibbling on a branch of the opal basil that I had pushed

This recipe has been  specially developed, designed and made for Nanette aka Gourmet Worrier. I have only recently met Nanette via the internet, however it feels as if we have known each other for many years. I love the posts on the Gourmet Worrier, Nanette writes about real life and cooks with real food. So when Nanette asked me if I would develop a recipe for her blog Gourmet Worrier I was honoured and delighted.

I thought for a while what I should cook. As I’m a true girly girl and like real girly things I imagined that Nanette would indulge in girly things too. I was almost day dreaming and conjuring up an imaginary friend at a Alice in Wonderland Tea Party, this reminded me of the nursery rhyme “What are little girls made of?”……… “Sugar and spice and all things nice…”

I dreamt about spicy chocolaty biscuits

I’m going to tell you about my visit to Restaurant Sat Bains again and again…! We had a brilliant time and experienced the warm glowing feel that you get when you are in the presence of someone who has a true inbred passion for his career.

Sat is very proud of his Indian roots and when questioned on his favourite spice his response was fenugreek.

I then asked the obvious question why had he not opened an award winning curry house, and with a broad and very infectious smile Sat replied  ‘I’m born British’

It was an unexpected answer but he is incredibly proud of his upbringing which was obvious when he was telling us about his mothers cooking and how she used fenugreek in a potato dish that she used to make for them.

I was very pleased to have discovered that Sat has on his menu a dish