One of the things I love about cooking is how the simplest ingredients can be transformed into a feast. Recently, we went round to see a friend who is an Italian chef. He cooked pasta and a tomato sauce (amatriciana); we had a salad of shaved fennel, orange and olive oil; and a piece of delicious cheese, some good crackers and a few squares of chocolate to finish. It was a sensational weekend lunch. Today’s tender and light dumplings are just so – peas and onions make the sauce, but plentiful olive oil and butter, plus some generous seasoning, take them to another level. The pudding is a tiramisu of sorts, and all the better for it: blissfully easy to pull together and indecently delicious.
