Nigellissima episode 4 – Nigella shares her culinary talent as she presents delicious Italian-inspired food. In this episode, Nigella reveals a secret passion for one of the tastes of Italy with her dark and deviant liquorice pudding, before introducing us to the joys of fregola – the Sardinian sun-dried and toasted couscous – in a light, tomato-hued recipe of couscous with clams.
Nigella’s dinner party guests are served a simple yet sumptuous meal of butterflied leg of lamb and baby aubergines with oregano and roasted red onion. Dessert is an irresistible meringue gelato cake with sharp raspberries and a dark chocolate sauce.
Nigellissima episode 4 recipes:
Butterflied leg of lamb
This has to be the easiest, speediest way of cooking a roast. I just give it a fast track marinating treatment with some balsamic vinegar, olive oil and salt. Once it’s garlanded with bay leaves it’s simply ravishing.
Liquorice puddings
No one does liquorish like the Italians. I have an exuberant passion for the stuff. I normally chill these puddings but there is something to be said for eating them straight away, and although it does feel verging on the deviant, with a little sea salt sprinkled over. Out of this world!
Meringue gelato cake with chocolate sauce
This is a no-churn affair. You mix everything together, wodge it into a loaf tin, freeze and you’re done. I went to great lengths to acquire a bottle of Elisir San Marzano, which has a peculiarly Italian, chocolate-coffee-herbal hit. Feel free to use coffee liqueur or rum or, better still, a mixture of the two in its place.
Sardinian couscous with clams
At the time of writing, I confess you will need to go to an Italian deli or specialist food outlet for fregola, the sun-dried and toasted Sardinian “couscous” specified for this recipe. I wouldn’t substitute regular couscous for the fregola, which is rather more like dense pasta peas than semolina grains, and thus most comparable to the larger Middle-Eastern or Israeli couscous which could be used in its stead.