Nigellissima

I decided that I wanted to try something from someone who I have no experience with. At one point in my life (for 7 years) I was a house cleaner, and I would often see Nigella Lawson books in client’s kitchens. Nigella Lawson is stunning, and all of her books prominently feature her and her bedroom eyes on the cover.

I chose Nigellissima because it was the only book of hers at the library.

the introduction

I NEVER read an introduction in a cookbook, let me read it so you don’t have to. The overall purpose of the introduction in this case is to let the discerning Italian cooks know that the recipes in the book are not meant to be actual Italian dishes. Hence the subtitle of her book “Easy Italian-Inspired Recipes”.

Nigella Lawson’s introduction begins by informing me that when she was sixteen or seventeen she decided she was Italian. Which is great.

Being from the states, I can’t tell if her teen life that she describes is hoity-toity, or normal for a Brit. When she was taking her exams to go to Oxford she had to plead to take Italian instead of French. She took a gap year in Italy, and her job while she was there was working as a chambermaid! Which I think is like a house cleaner! Immediately I knew I could trust her because once a cleaning lady, always a cleaning lady. She talked about hanging out in the kitchen in the house she was living in with the Nona (grandma) of the house, absorbing information about cooking Italian food.

One thing that is still nagging at me is this excerpt about her being super broke at this time. “When our wages didn’t stretch to wine, we drank the vodka and gin we’d bought duty-free on the way over, spritzed with dissolvable aspirin from our medicine bag; mixers, costing more than wine, were beyond our budget.” Until now I thought she was making a cocktail with aspirin, but I think she meant it as a joke? I can’t find anything online saying that an aspirin spritzer is even a thing.

the food

Her book has five chapters: Pasta, Meat Fish & Fowl, Vegetables & Sides, Sweet Things, and An Italian-Inspired Christmas.

Here is what I’m thinking I’ll make: Pasta: Quick Calabrian Lasagna, Vegetable: Green Beans with Pistachio Pesto, Dessert: Italian Apple Pie.

Italian Apple Pie: This is not actually a pie, it is an apple cake. I liked that this recipe included a food processor version of the directions, and a by-hand version. I do not have a large food processor, so I am often a little stymied by baking recipes that require a food processor, when I know that a hand mixer will do the job just fine. Looks wise, Mine turned out looking exactly like the photo. Recipe notes: She says to use superfine sugar in the cake, and turbinado sugar for the sprinkling on top of the cake. I used regular sugar for both.

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Do it taste good? I liked it a lot! It has a nice crunchy bottom, that at times reminded me of a snickerdoodle cookie.

Quick Calabiran Lasagna: This recipe was chock full of surprises. Ham? Hard-boiled eggs? sauce that is basically tomato water? Sure! Putting this together was really quick and easy. I hope that it tastes good!

I have a bone to pick with this the way this book was written. I had a suspicion while reading the introduction to the book that the copy was not edited, and if it was, not very well. The intro seemed stilted and her stories were weirdly written. The intro for this recipe solidified what I thought, with this passage written verbatim “The recipe comes courtesy of an Italian informant of mine from Calabria, where sliced cooked ham and hard-boiled eggs are part of the local lasagna, and is known in Casa Mia as Lisa’s Lasagna. This recipe comes courtesy of an Italian informant from Calabria, where sliced cooked ham and hard-boiled eggs are part of the local lasagna.” See what I mean? Mistakes like this make me think that maybe I can’t trust that these recipes are any good, or if they were even written by Nigella Lawson. Was she phoning it in?!

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She says to serve this lasagna at barely above room temperature, and to let it sit for 2 hours after getting it out of the oven. I think this might be crucial to the structure of this lasagna because this thing is juicy.

Do it taste good? This really won me over. Lasagna is not something that I crave usually. The cheese can be overwhelming and I often feel like crap after eating it. This recipe has much less gooey cheese and is saucier. The ham and the eggs added some textures that broke up the meat and the noodles. I served it as suggested, slightly above room temperature, and I stand by my assessment that this lasagna would be a soupy mess if you attempt to eat it minutes out of the oven. I would make this again!

Green Beans with Pistachio Pesto: This was very easy to put together. It has the same elements as any typical pesto. Remember when I said that I didn’t have a food processor? I actually have one but it’s very small. This recipe called for the pesto to be blitzed together using an immersion blender, but I used my tiny micro-food-processor. It turned out great! Basically after you make this pesto you just mix it with green beans cooked to your personal preference. In the intro to this recipe, she goes so far as to say don’t even use this pesto recipe, just use store bought. Which my feeling is, why say that in a cookbook? Why even make anything in here? What is existence?

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Do it taste good? I can’t review this without also stating that pesto sauce was the muse in creating this blog. I once tried the whole30 diet and made spaghetti squash with sausage and pesto for dinner and it looked like barf. But it tasted divine! I liked this recipe and I think that it is an easy way to punch up a side dish of regular green beans. You can even use store bought pesto!

final thoughts

While there were some slight issues with the books copy editing, I did enjoy making these recipes. They didn’t have a ton of ingredients, the recipes were easy to follow, and I was introduced to some new ideas and concepts in cooking. I would recommend this book, and I would try her other books as well!

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