How to entertain like an Italian

Last week I went to a marvellous lunch in Oxford’s Christ Church college dining hall hosted for its members by the Guild of Food Writers. The room - shown right - was just breathtakingly beautiful, lit romantically although the event was held in full daylight, with lights all down the long trestle tables. The oil paintings round the walls must have been quite priceless - the room must have looked the way it does for a century or more.

The menu was inspired by one of my favourite Italian food writers Ann del Conte’s new book The Painter, the Cook and the Art of Cucina which is sumptuously illustrated with paintings by artist Val Archer. And while the quality inevitably faltered in one or two dishes due to the sheer size of the gathering (about 250 guests, I would guess) what struck me was just how easy it was to put together and how simple it would be to replicate at home.

Here’s what we ate and drank:

Antipasto - a selection of salumi and roasted vegetables such as aubergines and artichokes (dead easy - just buy these in from an Italian deli or in jars)

Primo - Trofie pasta with pesto. This would have been nicer if made with freshly made pesto but is undoubtedly easier with ready-made. The caterers used the sponsor Sacla’s pesto which is not bad. A pesto from a deli or supermarket chill counter would have been better

Both these dishes were paired with a Fontanafredda Gavi di Gavi 2006 - a smooth, dry white that was fine with the antipasti, but particularly good with the pesto

Secondo
Brasato al Dolcetto (braised beef in Dolcetto) with polenta and green beans. The only course of the meal that required any real work and even then it could be done beforehand. Essentially it’s a pot roast with a red wine sauce, thinly sliced before serving (a classic Italian trick to make meat stretch). In the original recipe, which I’ll try and get permission to post on the site, a 1 kg (2.2lb) joint serves 6-8. If you baulk at making polenta at the last minute you could, del Conte suggests, replace it with mashed potato. The beans can be blanched and reheated just before serving

The match with this and the cheese below was a Barbera Bricco Tondo 2006, again from Fontanafredda - a bit young to have developed any real character but basically a sound match.

Formaggi
Montebore (a marvellous Piedmontese cheese of mixed cows and ewe’s milk which, according to Del Conte is claimed to be the only cheese served at the grand Renaissance banquet to celebrate the wedding of Isabella d’Aragona, daughter of the King of Naples to Gian Galeazzo Sforza, son of the Duke of Milan in 1489!) Not easy to get hold of but a good Italian artisanal cheese such as a Pecorino would be fine as a substitute.

Dolci
Sciroppo di rose (rose syrup) ice cream with a selection of homemade Italian biscuits including baci di dama and brutti ma buoni (great name for a biscuit - ‘ugly but good’!). There’s a recipe for the latter in the book which looks quite fiddly but you could easily buy in a range of Italian biscuits from a deli or quality supermarket and serve them with a home-made or shop-bought ice cream or sorbet.

It was partnered with a delicately sweet, quite delicious Fontanafredda Moscato d’Asti Moncucco 2006 - a classic pairing.

Five courses and very little work for the cook. What could be better?

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