My journey with cooking took a dramatic turn at Carluccios famed London eatery - The Neal Street restaurant - famous for its prodigies Jamie Oliver and Gennaro Contaldo.
One nippy march morning, I walked into the warm belly of the basement kitchen to the smells of fresh coffee and chefs preparing lunch for the staff. I watched in amazement as each went about his work like he was born to it. To me this, in itself, was a revelation. The silent synchronicity of passion.
Not knowing what to say or do I quietly attached myself to Luigi, who was making a big casserole of pasta with rabbit ragu. I saw him pour a few glugs of oil into the pan and as the sweet smell of warm olive oil wafted up - I realized I was in a culinary mecca of sorts.
I watched with fascination as he went about deftly stirring the onion sofritto, sloshing in white wine in abundance and then adding the mince. There was an air of superiority that he wielded with every turn of the spatula. The casual nonchalance was all about knowing what to do, but to me he was making the moment more and more magical, the smells from the casserole were strikingly simple- onion, bayleaf and evaporating wine came up in tantalizing wafts.
When the rigatoni was finally tossed up with the ragu – there was no telling that this was a dish for the staff and not for some celebrity visiting the Neal Street dining hall!
To my surprise, Carluccio had seen me observe every step and asked me if I would like to taste a squid ink tonarelli (a type of pasta) made by him - to which of course I nodded my head with vigour that would put a chameleon to shame.
In a jiffy he tossed up glossy black ribbons of squids ink pasta with scallops, prawns and bright orange scallop roe. A spectacular dish emerged; one that would cost top dollar and here it was in front of me - made by the master himself!
Needless to say I dug in with gusto and looked up only after I had wiped the plate as clean as before anything went on it!
I loved every bit of it though I would have liked more prawns and scallops but dare I say that to the master? Dare I did, and said it to him in the most suggestive way.
His reply – was my first lesson in the art of pasta making- he smiled and said “Mandaar, it’s a pasta dish, not a seafood platter. The seafood is just the supporting cast, the star is the pasta!”
Now I knew why the Italians were so crazy about the pasta, the flour, the water, the eggs, the source, the drying, the sauce - the al dente cooking……………………..
It was always about the pasta!
