Gennaro Slow Cook Italian: Venison Casserole
Gennaro Slow Cook Italian: Venison Casserole
Gennaro's Octopus Salad
Gennaro's Octopus Salad
Slow Cook Italian: Slow-roasted carrots
Slow Cook Italian: Slow-roasted carrots
Gennaro Slow Cook Italian: Split-Pea Soup
Gennaro Slow Cook Italian: Split-Pea Soup

Gennaro’s

Slow

Iam so pleased my book Slow has been re-published in a newly updated edition with over 100 recipes for one-pot soups and stews, slow-cooked pasta sauces, braised meats, roasts, breads and desserts as well as lots of lighter dishes.

I have also included a selection of new plant-based dishes like my Vegan Lentil Ragu for everyday meals and a centrepiece Filled Baked Pumpkin for a more formal occasion.

Slow Cooking is one of my favourite ways to cook; it’s simple, stress-free and allows you to get on with other things safe in the knowledge that slowly, slowly the stove-top or oven is doing its job.  

‘The great thing about slow cooking is that you use economical cuts of meat and, by adding herbs and spices, you can produce a meal fit for a king giving you maximum flavour for minimum effort.’

Gennaro

Stews and sauces bubble on the hob, a roast cooks in the oven with herbs gently infusing the meat, breads and cakes bake, all filling the house with mouth watering smells and creating that special warmth which nothing else can.  

This book is about taking it slowly but surely, enjoying the simple things in life, learning how to make the most of a few basic ingredients and above all relaxing and enjoying good food.

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Order Gennaro: Slow Cook Italian

Zucca ripiena arrostita

Whole roasted and filled pumpkin

This is a wonderful way of cooking a pumpkin or squash whole. Packed with nutritious vegetables and spelt, it makes a delicious main course dish.

The way the spelt is cooked with the vegetables is the same method you’d use when making risotto: as the spelt absorbs the stock, you keep adding more stock until the spelt is cooked through. I love Delica pumpkins, but you could use other types of squash to make this dish, too.

Method

  • Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6.
  • Take the Delica pumpkin and, using a sharp knife, carefully remove the top so you are left with a ‘lid’. Scoop out the seeds inside and discard. If any of the flesh comes away, roughly chop it and set aside.
  • Heat the olive oil in a large, deep frying pan and sweat the herbs, garlic, chilli, onion, chopped carrot, parsnip, celery, leek, mushrooms and any pumpkin flesh on a medium heat for 10 minutes, until softened.
  • Stir in the spelt and walnuts, then increase the heat, add the white wine and cook until absorbed. Stir in the tomato puree and a ladleful of hot stock, stirring well until the liquid is absorbed again. Add more hot stock and continue cooking in this way, like you would when making risotto, for about 15 minutes until the spelt is cooked.
  • Drizzle a little olive oil into a roasting tin, then place the carrot halves inside and the Delica pumpkin on top – this creates a sort of base preventing the pumpkin from sticking to the tin.
  • Drizzle the inside of the pumpkin with a little oil and sprinkling of salt, then fill with the spelt mixture. Cover with the pumpkin ‘lid’ and roast in the oven for 1 hour.
  • After 30 minutes, reduce the temperature to 180°C/350°F/ gas mark 4. 10 minutes before the end of the cooking time, remove the lid and let it cook in the roasting tin, flesh-side up.
  • Remove the pumpkin from the oven and leave it to rest for a couple of minutes, then slice and serve.

From: Gennaro Contaldo’s Slow: Easy, Comforting Italian Meals Worth Waiting For (Pavilion Books).

  • Whole Roasted and Filled Pumpkin
  • Whole Roasted and Filled Pumpkin
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Ingredients

4 servings

1 Delica pumpkin (approx. 1.5kg /3lb 5oz)
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
Needles from 2 small sprigs of rosemary, finely chopped
Leaves from 4 sprigs of thyme, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, diced
½ red chilli, finely chopped
1 small red onion, finely chopped
2 carrots – 1 finely chopped and the other sliced in half lengthways
1 small parsnip, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
½ leek, finely chopped
7oz chestnut mushrooms, roughly chopped
5 ½ ozspelt
1oz walnuts, roughly chopped
2 ½ fl oz white wine
½ tbsp tomato puree (paste)
1 ¼ pints hot vegetable stock/stock cube

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