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Speaker 2: You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in collaboration with me
Speaker 2: and m Intelligence Style for Busy Women. Today's December eighteenth,
Speaker 2: and you can feel the festive quality the River Cafe,
Speaker 2: the Christmas trees on the lawn, and the room looks great.
Speaker 2: We have lights, we have people coming in to spend
Speaker 2: more time at lunch, and there is a feeling of
Speaker 2: the celebration. So we're going to talk about what we're
Speaker 2: actually cooking in the River Cafe right now. And so
Speaker 2: here we are with Sean Owen and Joseph Tavelli, the
Speaker 2: executive chefs, and we're all going to talk. So tell
Speaker 2: me about what we're cooking today, Sean. We both have
Speaker 2: your chef's sites on Joseph in preparation for tonight. Sean,
Speaker 2: running away from the.
Speaker 3: The middle of lunch.
Speaker 2: Don't worry idea what they're celebrating in there, because we're
Speaker 2: in here. So what did you I was on the menu?
Speaker 2: What are you thinking about when you're thinking about your menu?
Speaker 4: Yeah, this week I think is pulling out all the
Speaker 4: stops for decadent dining. I think people feel that they
Speaker 4: can eat in a way this last week coming up
Speaker 4: to Christmas, than the way that they're not going to
Speaker 4: be eating in January. So I'd like to just put
Speaker 4: on some things I just think sound quite flamboyant decadent.
Speaker 3: I mean, today at lunchtime, what is it Thursday?
Speaker 4: I've put on the penne with the vodka and tomato
Speaker 4: and Chilian cream. But I was trying to explain to
Speaker 4: the chefs how to cook that. So it's not just
Speaker 4: a tomato sauce with a vague hint of vodka, but
Speaker 4: it has to be a tomato sauce with vodka cooked
Speaker 4: into it. And then what we've also done is put
Speaker 4: it through the movie. So it's very smooth.
Speaker 2: Why did you take it through the recipe?
Speaker 3: Just say it tastes step by stay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so with vodka cream and.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so been using the penne. That is a smooth penney,
Speaker 4: so it hasn't got the ridges on it, which I
Speaker 4: think is really nice for that kind of dish.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you disagree with it.
Speaker 4: And then fry some garlic, a couple of clothes of garlic,
Speaker 4: drain the liquid off the tomatoes and chopped tomatoes, put
Speaker 4: them in, and then I put like a good glug
Speaker 4: like probably I mean for a whole restaurant of people,
Speaker 4: I would use a whole bottle of vodka, but if.
Speaker 3: You're making it for two, maybe not a whole bottle.
Speaker 5: It good.
Speaker 4: It's a good, good, generous shot of Vogora two depending
Speaker 4: on how in our case, probably half a bottle of vodka.
Speaker 4: Then cook it down with a flick of chili and
Speaker 4: let that cook down so it's really well cooked down
Speaker 4: for about twenty minutes, and then we put it through
Speaker 4: the movie so it's really smooth. And another thing we
Speaker 4: never do it, Yeah, I think so nice, there's no gesture.
Speaker 4: And then put a splash of cream in to just
Speaker 4: give it a bit of kind of extra lux feel.
Speaker 4: And then when we're serving it, we're warming up the penne,
Speaker 4: well we're heat cooking the penneating the penne, adding that
Speaker 4: to the tomato sauce, and then putting what I would
Speaker 4: think would be an extra shot of voka in it,
Speaker 4: and a good big massive pinch of black pepper and
Speaker 4: a bit of olive oil. So it's really like don't drink,
Speaker 4: don't drive offter and many don't.
Speaker 3: Give it to a king. I was going to say,
Speaker 3: may the taste.
Speaker 2: Everybody probably wanted to taste the tomato sauce like never before.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I put it on for staff lunch and
Speaker 4: I said, without the extra shot of AKA. But it's
Speaker 4: really warming and it's got a bit of a kick.
Speaker 4: It feels a bit like a bit of fun, which
Speaker 4: is just nice on lunchtime.
Speaker 3: I think beautiful.
Speaker 5: It's funny how somethings just suit certain moments, isn't it.
Speaker 5: It's obviously a Christmas thing, you know, Like in fact,
Speaker 5: someone said to me, what keep asking me what's your
Speaker 5: Christmas drink? And maybe I was thinking a bit morning after,
Speaker 5: but anything, it was bloody Mary. You know, it's not
Speaker 5: something I have very often, but for some reason it
Speaker 5: sort of suits now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and of course you could have it on a
Speaker 3: Monday in March.
Speaker 4: But somehow that last week of the year where you
Speaker 4: pulling out o the stops, I've put on the tagler
Speaker 4: Reini with cavia, which is something that is just the
Speaker 4: real last week of the year, something that's a bit like.
Speaker 3: People, Yeah, how do you make that taller?
Speaker 4: Reini, just some butter, like a few drops of lemon juice,
Speaker 4: a little bit of black pepper, and then put that
Speaker 4: on the plate in a nice tower and put a
Speaker 4: spoonful of caviar on top.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's really nice here in these things. Because you know,
Speaker 5: I'm not there by definition when you're telling people how
Speaker 5: to do this, because I'm at home waiting for my shift.
Speaker 5: But you've just described exactly what I said last night.
Speaker 5: Almost won't work. Well.
Speaker 2: The other night I came in, I was on the
Speaker 2: other side. I was in the kitchen. I was a
Speaker 2: table and there was belita on me still, which I
Speaker 2: think was also partly inspired by the time of year,
Speaker 2: but also inspired by the fad that we had some
Speaker 2: much delicious mustarda that had been made.
Speaker 5: It's also true, oh my gosh, we've never had such
Speaker 5: good mustada from Jeneva, and a mustarda is supposed to
Speaker 5: be from Cremona. But this Jeneva mustada is what did
Speaker 5: you think was just the actual fruits that the way
Speaker 5: they come from a special sweet factory.
Speaker 3: Let's tell people what it is.
Speaker 5: So it's a fruits with mustard essence, mustard essence which
Speaker 5: you can't buy here. You know, it's the same essence
Speaker 5: I think you'd used for mustard gas. So you can't
Speaker 5: go to a pharmacy, and it's not I think even
Speaker 5: in Italy it's not easy to get hold of. So
Speaker 5: it's generally because quite often, you know, people would have
Speaker 5: a jar of fruits and just add a few drops
Speaker 5: from a pipet. But these days you just buy already done.
Speaker 5: So you've got this lovely sweet fruit which is often candied,
Speaker 5: although not always, but in our case very much is
Speaker 5: this year so kind of candied fruits with just these
Speaker 5: few little drops of mustard essence, and it has that
Speaker 5: lovely you know, sweet hot kind of an equal kind
Speaker 5: of an equal balance, really nice, and it's great with
Speaker 5: loads of things, you know. It's you know, certain mustadas
Speaker 5: are delicious with cheese, for example. But the thing we
Speaker 5: do with it more often than not here is have
Speaker 5: it with boiled meats.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: This bullito misto with these kind of three sauces is
Speaker 5: really fundamental. And in fact, when I'm asking a chef
Speaker 5: like I did the other night, to make this billito,
Speaker 5: probably for the first time, she'd ever like put it
Speaker 5: on the plate, you know, the plate of the meats
Speaker 5: with a few lentils and maybe a carrot or whatever
Speaker 5: else is good, but it's nothing. I have to just
Speaker 5: take them to the past and say, now look with
Speaker 5: the sauces, because it's so much, you know, part of
Speaker 5: the mustada. Then we have horse radish, which is obviously
Speaker 5: equally spicy and still sweet as we put cream.
Speaker 2: In, so.
Speaker 5: Horse radish with great horse radish and then chop it
Speaker 5: more finely still, and then we always mix it with
Speaker 5: crem fresh because we have this most amazing crem fresh
Speaker 5: from the nils Yard dairy they make for us. So
Speaker 5: we mix the two together and then just a few
Speaker 5: drops of vinegar and salt and pepper and that's it,
Speaker 5: you know, and we probably make that more days than not.
Speaker 5: You know. It's really loads of things. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: so that's oneful. So it has that. It's kind of
Speaker 5: like creamy, rich hot sauce. These mustard fruits, you know,
Speaker 5: which can be figs or pears or the jars we have.
Speaker 5: At the moment you open there is one, yeah, one
Speaker 5: at the moment there's actually a strawberry in there. I've
Speaker 5: been avoiding the strawberries, but anyway, there's a yeah, but
Speaker 5: the factory that makes these. This roman ango is amazing.
Speaker 5: They candy strawberries, you know, like that is just like
Speaker 5: it's another thing.
Speaker 4: Yesterday I was putting mustada on the blast, but there
Speaker 4: was little tiny orange like.
Speaker 5: It wasn't a apricot maybe or even nothing. There's all
Speaker 5: sorts of it's.
Speaker 3: A kind of tiny orange like maybe like a mandarin
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 5: And then there's a third sauce, which is we make
Speaker 5: two versions of a similar source. One we call dragon
Speaker 5: Cello because it's with tarragon. It's probably the only thing
Speaker 5: we ever do with tarragon here or Bangyette, and they're
Speaker 5: exactly the same. But the Bangyette sauce is probably more
Speaker 5: traditional pier montee sauce, similar to like a sort of
Speaker 5: Southern French sauce, I suppose, but with boiled eggs chopped
Speaker 5: and tons of parsley and the yellow.
Speaker 2: Do you just use the yellow?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but there's some When I was in bowl and
Speaker 2: Aisy and in real they were only using yellow. But
Speaker 2: Richard's mother used to make it all on a board,
Speaker 2: never used a bowl, and so you would you know,
Speaker 2: you'd have the egg, you'd have all the ingredients and
Speaker 2: then you combine it, chop it all on the board
Speaker 2: and then scoop it up.
Speaker 3: Nice to make it with.
Speaker 5: Yeah, just shoppened it yesterday, just ready for you.
Speaker 3: Just how it used to make that. We used the
Speaker 3: medical or time.
Speaker 2: I mean in the early early days we were all
Speaker 2: on the matalon and then it became kind of uncor.
Speaker 3: Knives. Let's bring back maybe we could do.
Speaker 4: That for.
Speaker 5: It's a great.
Speaker 3: Workout.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: At once, well there was a double bladed one which
Speaker 2: was that very nice, and then the big really big
Speaker 2: one like that.
Speaker 3: It's really like upper body.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, to the left way. So so what about
Speaker 2: the let's talk more about the meats.
Speaker 5: So then the meats. Yeah, you can have all sorts
Speaker 5: of things. I mean, and there's loads. I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: I think I like blito actually all year round is delicious.
Speaker 5: And there's plenty of restaurants, you know, all over the
Speaker 5: sort of central and northern ity that just specifies, you know,
Speaker 5: like we have carveries, you know, just you know, boil
Speaker 5: and roast things. But what's lovely about this time of
Speaker 5: year is people are more likely to order it. I
Speaker 5: mean that's the truth. You know, people fancy it, you know,
Speaker 5: it's freezing, it's raining. Something warming with this burjawed fruits.
Speaker 3: On that we had the other night that we.
Speaker 5: Had tongue, which is very commonly we have tongue ox tongue.
Speaker 5: We had beef. We had some beef brisket that we cooked,
Speaker 5: and I came in early and put them on at eleven,
Speaker 5: so they were boiled slowly the day until the evening.
Speaker 5: And then coin. I think coachino is pretty much essential
Speaker 5: for us for a blito mistake.
Speaker 2: I just love.
Speaker 3: I really like what we do.
Speaker 2: Just a coin and lentils as a as a plate.
Speaker 2: Nothing else we do.
Speaker 5: We never get zamponi anymore. I'd love to. I haven't
Speaker 5: tried it for years. Actually, I'd like to try it again.
Speaker 5: Maybe it's too much.
Speaker 2: It's like eating like.
Speaker 4: I did belita yesterday language and I didn't put tongue
Speaker 4: in it. I don't know why, because I wonder whether
Speaker 4: that's one of those sort of ingredients that's slightly less approachable.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it puts people off.
Speaker 5: So I put.
Speaker 4: I mean it's not it's perfectly delicious, but we didn't
Speaker 4: have any left anyway, But I really put. I got
Speaker 4: spatchcocked chicken and just cooked it with white wine and
Speaker 4: a bit of water, but like not boiling it, but
Speaker 4: kind of raising it or boiling it probably, And then
Speaker 4: did the sort of chicken cocino and brisket and that
Speaker 4: was just and then we sold a lot.
Speaker 3: But I didn't think.
Speaker 4: She did it with massive artichokes tolio on a plate
Speaker 4: and lentils on the same plate.
Speaker 5: Sorry. Wow, I just put on.
Speaker 4: The sideplate and I put the lentils on the plate
Speaker 4: because I thought why not?
Speaker 3: Why not?
Speaker 2: And then we were talking about, you know, but to
Speaker 2: chicken and not to chicken, you know, sometimes.
Speaker 5: Funny put the chicken out. We sold loads more.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's probably more than put it.
Speaker 5: Out when I put the chicken in the night had it.
Speaker 5: We didn't sell as many. The next lunch, I didn't
Speaker 5: bother with the chicken and just had the tongue and
Speaker 5: the brisket and we sold loads of it. It's just
Speaker 5: the weather and the day, you know.
Speaker 2: And then we have the Christmas desserts.
Speaker 4: One of the most easy desserts I think you can
Speaker 4: knock up at home for maximum impacts and low workload.
Speaker 4: It's a pressed chocolate cake because it's really looks it
Speaker 4: tastes amazing, but it's very easy to make. But it's
Speaker 4: like and also it's basically a chocolate soufle, so you're
Speaker 4: not set up for failure by not letting it rise fully.
Speaker 4: If you're making it home, you press it so no
Speaker 4: one knows how it really did rise. And it's just chocolate, sugar,
Speaker 4: are butter and eggs, but the eggs separated and then
Speaker 4: folded through the white. It's just really delicious. So it's
Speaker 4: as light as a souffle, but slightly pressed so it's
Speaker 4: a little denser. And we serve it here at the
Speaker 4: River Cafe around Christmas with either the zabagli or ice
Speaker 4: cream or the most shocking to anyone that makes vincentto
Speaker 4: Vincanta ice cream, which is like sort of borderline sacrilege
Speaker 4: but also amazing.
Speaker 5: I don't know. I think if you're gonna cook with vincentto,
Speaker 5: I think Vincanta ice cream is the thing that kind
Speaker 5: of keeps its because it's not like reduced. You know.
Speaker 5: I was actually thinking of making something to go to
Speaker 5: Christmas pudding. It's like, you know, you don't cook the
Speaker 5: wine down, you just add the eggs and it's just perfect.
Speaker 5: No I don't think. I think it's well.
Speaker 3: I always feel embarrassed when we go to Tuscany and
Speaker 3: if they're like, there was somebody who really objected to it.
Speaker 2: Do you remember one of our or it was somebody
Speaker 2: who saw who how can you possibly make ice cream?
Speaker 2: But you know it comes from with Vincentta, but it
Speaker 2: comes also from again Dada Rogers, who when she came
Speaker 2: here and wanted said Boni, but during the war you
Speaker 2: couldn't get Marcella, and so she combined Bristol cream sherry
Speaker 2: with rum. That's a recipe for the ice cream. And
Speaker 2: I love that ice cream. I like it better than
Speaker 2: I don't like a heart.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that ice cream is really that ice cream.
Speaker 4: I mean you don't have to have an ice cream
Speaker 4: machine to make it, and so that is what you know.
Speaker 3: You can make it at home. I could make it
Speaker 3: in my house because I don't. I bet you have
Speaker 3: an ice cream machine.
Speaker 5: Well I do, but I really put it in the freezer.
Speaker 5: And actually I love making ice creams like that at
Speaker 5: home more.
Speaker 4: I think because you make the does that you make
Speaker 4: the egg yolks, the sugar, the vincanto alcohol, cook that
Speaker 4: over a bammary volumeizes then you just make folding whipped
Speaker 4: cream and then you can just put it in your
Speaker 4: freezer done.
Speaker 3: You don't have to.
Speaker 5: It's a lot of whipping press chocolate ice cream and
Speaker 5: the big balloon.
Speaker 2: I think the hint about thee or the Vincena ice
Speaker 2: cream is that when you are cooking it at the
Speaker 2: on the top of the stove, and one of the
Speaker 2: nice things about making that ice cream is always that
Speaker 2: you don't have to worry about it curdling. When you
Speaker 2: make a vanilla ice cream, you'res have always worried that
Speaker 2: it's going to curdle, but doing that ice cream because
Speaker 2: there's no cream in one of let a bubble. But
Speaker 2: I always think it's really important to cook it a
Speaker 2: long time because it gets that taste where it's almost
Speaker 2: sticks to the side.
Speaker 3: I always used to stop.
Speaker 2: Making it when it started sticking to the edges and
Speaker 2: you knew it was getting thick and it was sticking,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it would even go a bit dark. It
Speaker 2: would go darker, and sometimes you'd get those little kurdles
Speaker 2: of little.
Speaker 3: Lumps from the eggs.
Speaker 2: And I rather like that, yeah, because otherwise it can
Speaker 2: taste a bit eggy and insipid and if you just
Speaker 2: have to keep cooking and cooking and cooking it. I
Speaker 2: remember always putting it back on the stove, and that
Speaker 2: memory not taking it off too soon. And then the
Speaker 2: other last Christmas go on Italian and adaptation of I
Speaker 2: think the Christmas cake again from Trieste, from a recipe
Speaker 2: that was changed over the years.
Speaker 3: So I met.
Speaker 2: Data in nineteen sixty eight, but she was cooking and
Speaker 2: teaching Rose for years. Rose was a friend of Richard's
Speaker 2: and Rose new daughta before I did, and really talked
Speaker 2: about her influence to Wendy Foster, to Rose, to Natalie Gibson,
Speaker 2: the group of Richard's friends. She showed me all the recipes,
Speaker 2: the recipes that she'd written for her Christmas cake, and
Speaker 2: it was so beautiful to see. I wish I had
Speaker 2: it because every year something would be crossed off.
Speaker 5: Every year, something would be.
Speaker 2: Changed every year, and ultimately what you had it started
Speaker 2: out with. You know, I've never made a British Christmas cake,
Speaker 2: but I guess it has a lot of nuts. It
Speaker 2: has a lot of fruit. I don't know if it
Speaker 2: has a lot of nuts, but it's fruit, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's a bad with butter and sugar and and eggs
Speaker 2: and data. What she did was she put more alcohol
Speaker 2: in so marinated everything she put in. Everything that went
Speaker 2: in was marinated first in brandy. And then I remember
Speaker 2: she also became quite healthy and really had a really
Speaker 2: hated butter. She thought butter was cholesterol. It was all
Speaker 2: that cholesterol, and that was really bad for you. And
Speaker 2: she I would kill Richard. You one said to me,
Speaker 2: You're gonna kill Richard, you know, because you put so
Speaker 2: much butter your food and her own husband. So she
Speaker 2: was really reducing the butter, increasing the alcohol, and decreasing
Speaker 2: the fruit. And so in the end what you had
Speaker 2: was mostly cake with nuts, with chocolate with raisins and
Speaker 2: some candied fruit, but maybe just you know, enough to
Speaker 2: be in there. And then she every year kind of
Speaker 2: increased chocolate, and so again it was a kind of
Speaker 2: strange to have it really a Christmas cakes that has
Speaker 2: so much chocolate. And the first recipe that Rose and
Speaker 2: I put in I can't remember which book we put
Speaker 2: it in, but it was pages and pages.
Speaker 3: It was in the.
Speaker 2: And then I think we also adapted it. Then it
Speaker 2: was in the Green Book. And I know that when
Speaker 2: I make it now I also cut out the the
Speaker 2: fruit and put more nuts and chocolate in it, and
Speaker 2: then more alcohol.
Speaker 3: It's so good, it's a really good case.
Speaker 2: I meant to bring some in for you because I.
Speaker 4: Still have, Like I I was thinking I was going
Speaker 4: to make a christ also thinking maybe I should make
Speaker 4: a Christmas cake. But then the boring thing about Christmas
Speaker 4: cake is all I mean, it's a lot of the
Speaker 4: currants and yeah, kind of with Dada's cake, it's just
Speaker 4: all the good stuff.
Speaker 3: It's all the glasses and so it's not too dry.
Speaker 3: I'll bring them in. I have some.
Speaker 2: And then also the I think the great thing about
Speaker 2: that cake is the marissap he came over anywhere, and
Speaker 2: I put as much sugar, put all the ground almonds
Speaker 2: in and then equal amount of sugar, so there's like
Speaker 2: sugar and ground almonds. And then to hold it all together,
Speaker 2: you just we just put our brand and so the
Speaker 2: whole thing becomes it's quite a dry paste, but it
Speaker 2: is it's total.
Speaker 5: Was that does I think I did, because I think
Speaker 5: it's coreat.
Speaker 2: So you put the mars, so you make this paste
Speaker 2: and then you press it on the top and then
Speaker 2: you get it. You make it flat, and then you
Speaker 2: get a fork and you kind of take the fork
Speaker 2: and run it through, so it kind of lifts up
Speaker 2: with the idea and being that when you put it
Speaker 2: under the grill, you know, the top bits of it
Speaker 2: will get grilled. And so he did that and it's
Speaker 2: not a cake that the kids really like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, more alcohol and the end. That's the case.
Speaker 4: It reminds me when I was a really young chef.
Speaker 4: I came to your house to help make that for
Speaker 4: a photoshoot or something, and Rose and Ruth were both
Speaker 4: there making it and I was just helping, like make
Speaker 4: the cake. And then it came to the bit to
Speaker 4: grill the masa panel. Not to grill the mas pan.
Speaker 4: I presume you wanted to, Yeah, otherwise didn't want to.
Speaker 2: I think if you don't, if you don't grill it,
Speaker 2: I can't. You know, you need to cook the mars pan. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's to make it sort of tasty.
Speaker 3: Then we always I remember it was quite heated. I
Speaker 3: remember you were getting heated and I was like, I
Speaker 3: don't know what.
Speaker 2: Okay. So we have the ice, we have the with vadka,
Speaker 2: we have the bulita mista with sauces and Maustada and
Speaker 2: then we have the Vincento ice cream with the Saboni
Speaker 2: and we have a candied hazel nut and Clemantine Christmas cake.
Speaker 2: Happy Christmas, Happy Christmas, Happy Christmas.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Next week, I'm with the Table for I'm with the
Speaker 2: absolutely wonderful Rashida Jones, actor of The American Office, Parks
Speaker 2: and Rec and Black Mirror. We're going to talk about
Speaker 2: her parents, cooking, eating on set, traveling, and all the
Speaker 2: memories she has of food and music. Watch this conversation
Speaker 2: on Tuesday, December twenty third, along with all our other episodes.
Speaker 2: Just head over to our YouTube channel or simply listen
Speaker 2: wherever you find your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Ruthie's Table four was produced by Alex Belle and Zad Rogers,
Speaker 1: with Susannahlot, Andrew Sang, and Bella Silini. This has been
Speaker 1: an atomized production for iHeartMedia.