Cath said ‘Try it before you judge it. And please don’t call me dude.’

She was right. Thanks to the ciabatta, this dish is yummy AND filling. The crunchy slightly burnt bread which sops up the juices and oil of the salad is a highlight.

Thinly slice your onion and put it in a bowl drizzling over the red wine vinegar and a good pinch of salt. Cut the crust off the bread, tear the white part into thumb sized chucks and dry-toast them in a frying pan.

Now prep the dressing by grating the zest off your lemon into a small bowl and squeezing in the juice from one half. Now add the lemon oil and oregano, a pinch of salt and ground black pepper.

Now get the body of the salad together in a big bowl  – roughly cut up the tomatoes, leaving out the stalky bit, then wash, dry, chop and add the lettuce, and stone, half and add the black olives (I do this by squashing them with the palm of my hand.

Give your dressing a quick stir then add it to the bowl along with the onions and toasted ciabatta chunks. Mix well and then tear the mozzarella into chucks and place on top of the beautiful mound of salad. Serve in a pretty bowl.

Prepare a bundt (ring) tin with greaseproof paper on the bottom and a small amount of olive oil up the sides, making sure also to coat the central spout.

Sift the sugar, flour, baking powder, ground almonds and a pinch of salt together in a large bowl. Add the zest of all the citrus fruits.

Make a well in the centre and into it pour the milk, orange juice (squeezed straight from the oranges), the mandarin oil, a few drops of almond essence and the eggs. Mix well – using a hand or electric beater – for a few minutes until you have a smooth batter.

Pour the batter into the bundt tin and put into a preheated oven at 180^oC/360^oF. It’ll take about 45 minutes with a fan-assisted oven, a little more in a normal oven. You can tell it’s cooked when you start to smell delicious orangey aromas in the kitchen and when a skewer comes out clean. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool then sprinkle with icing sugar.

The cake can be eaten warm as a pudding served with fresh summer fruit and cream – but is also delicious the next morning as a breakfast cake. The cake keeps really well, retaining its moistness and zest.

Grate the cheese into a bowl (big enough to fit the cooked pasta too) and mix with a very generous quantity of freshly ground pepper. Don’t stint – the piquant pepper is the counterpart to the cheesy richness.

Cook the spaghetti in abundant salted water according to the instructions. When you drain it, keep back half a cup of the starchy pasta water.

Pour the drained spaghetti over the cheese and mix with a couple of forks (sometimes the waiter does performs this ceremonial act before your very eyes). Add a teaspoon or so of the cooking water and toss thoroughly. Serve at once – this needs to be eaten hot, so the flavour of the pepper comes through, and moist.

Cook the spaghetti in abundant salted water according to the instructions. Meanwhile fry the onion in the oil for 5 minutes, then add the anchovies for another 5 minutes, until they break up. Add the drained pasta to the onion anchovy sauce and mix in the grated cheese. If it’s too dry add a spoonful or two of the pasta water (which by now, being a pro, you’ll have kept aside as a matter of course).

Lightly fry a whole, peeled clove of garlic in a good drizzle of olive oil. Once it’s started to brown, remove the pan from the heat and let it cool for a minute. Add the lemon juice and remove the garlic.

Add the pasta to a pan of boiling, salted water and cook until it’s al dente.

As soon as it’s ready drain and mix in with the olive oil and lemon juice. Before serving mix in the lemon rind, chopped parsley a pinch of salt and grated parmesan to taste. Now stop the clock (about 8 minutes right?).

Put your drained and washed chickpeas into a food processor with the chopped up garlic, tahini, lemon juice, cumin seeds and a big pinch of salt. Process it till it’s a smooth paste then add the oil 1 tablespoon at a time, with the machine running if possible. If not whizz it between adding the spoonfuls. Check for seasoning, add some ground pepper and it’s ready.

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water, making sure there are no lumps. Add the flour, the salt, the yeasty water and oil to a mixing bowl. Mix it all together with a plastic dough scraper and then turn onto a floury surface. Knead it for 10 minutes till it bounces back to the touch and feels elastic. Make it into a big dough ball and put it in an oiled bowl, drizzle all over with olive oil, then leave in a warm place covered with a tea towel. It should take about 1 hour to double in size. Now grease a baking tray with some oil and ease out the dough onto it. Next flatten it out in the tray with your fingers until it’s about 2cm thick. Pull off clumps of rosemary leaves and push them into the dough. The better they’re inserted the less likely they are to burn. Cover again with a tea-towel and leave for half an hour to rise some more.

Preheat the oven to 220^oC/425^oC/GM7. When the dough has again risen to about twice the thickness make more indentations with your fingertips, drizzle all over with olive oil and sprinkle on a good dose of rock salt. Now whack it in the oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Turn out onto a wire rack so it doesn’t sweat underneath.

Last time we went round there for a cup of tea (a habit Guida has taken to with gusto since we moved in next door), there were a couple of tins of our lemon oil knocking around, so Guida whipped up a quick lemon olive oil cake for the kids. It has no fat in it apart from the oil so is a great cake for anyone preparing for the bikini / speedo days of summer.

Preheat the oven to 160^oC/320^oF. Whisk the eggs for a minute (in a mixer), then add the sugar and whisk for 5 minutes more. Now gently, but thoroughly, mix in the flour and baking powder. Now mix in the oil and then the milk till you have a uniform batter. Pour 2 thirds of this into a greased baking tin. With the final third, mix on the cocoa powder before pouring it into the white batter. Don’t mix it again,. but bake it for  30 minutes, keeping your nose alert for ‘done’ smells. Test it with a sharp knife or skewer – which shouldn’t come out with any gunk on it. Take out and turn onto a rack to cool.

Linguine with red duck sauce.

First thing to emphasise is that it’s the sauce that’s red rather than the duck – so spare your blushes. Something about the recipe here. Brown one duck leg or thigh per 1.5 people in olive oil. Remove the duck, pour off the fat and sauté a sliced onion, carrot, celery stick and a couple of garlic cloves. Once they’re softened return the duck pieces and add a glass of red wine a can of chopped tomatoes, a cup of stock and a handful of rosemary.  Simmer on a low heat for a hour or so until you can pull the meat off the bone. Then reduce to a nice thick sauce for another half hour or so. Season with salt and pepper. Cook about 80g of dried linguine per person. And mix in the sauce.

Chicken with black olives and bell peppers

Marinate two chicken breasts or legs per person, add half a cupful of olive oil, two cup fulls of black olives (pitted or not), two sliced red peppers and two sliced green peppers, chopped rosemary, oregano, bay leaves and sage, and 5 cloves of chopped garlic.

Heat up a large saucepan over a medium flame, pick out the chicken pieces and sauté on both sides until golden brown. Then add the rest of the marinade and sauté for several minutes more. Once the peppers are tender season with salt and pepper and you are ready.

Roasted potatoes

Clean your potatoes. The quantity depends (obviously) on how many people and how hungry they are, but always always do more than you think as they’ll always get eaten. Slice into wedges. Cook over a medium heat for 30 minutes in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan with lots of olive oil and chopped rosemary.

Spinach

Italian spinach doesn’t seem to wilt and disappear as much as the stuff I’ve had in the UK. Anyway, roughly chop whatever spinach you can and steam it in a thick saucepan with a spoonful of butter and a grating of nutmeg.

For July, when the tournament starts, we’re going to do a series of 10 minute meal recipes so the footie fanatics amongst us don’t go undernourished. At Nudo we’re also thinking of doing a special World Cup gift box with yum foods that can be turned into an instant, delicious and healthy dish. Whaddya reckon? Here’s one to get you going.

Finely chop the shallots and garlic. Fry in a good drizzle of olive oil and after a minute add the pancetta. Once the pancetta starts to colour, add the chilli, season with salt and pepper and cook for a couple more minutes.

Cook the spaghetti in plenty of boiling salted water. Once it’s ready, drain and add to the pancetta. Mix in the chopped parsley and serve with a generous grating of parmesan cheese.

For all our adoptive tree parents, this time of year is one of great anticipation, as the due date for the precious new arrival approaches. Any day now, a stork will arrive carrying your bespoke bonnie bundle – a package of divine extra virgin olive oil from your very own Italian olive tree.

There are a few things you should know about the new addition to your family. Just as with grapes, there are hundreds of varieties of olives, each producing a different tasting oil. In addition, the olive oil from a leccino olive grove in Umbria will taste quite different from leccino oil from a Le Marche grove. Even adjacent groves can produce very different tasting oils, depending on the terrain, the care of the trees and how quickly after picking the olives are pressed. The differences are so great, in fact, that even within our Nudo family of producers, there is more than a generous drizzle of competitiveness. Naturally, every grove owner believes their olive oil is the best. But who is right? Along with your olive oil you will find a tasting card, which you can send back to us, or fill in the online tasting card at http://bit.ly/96KRa0 and we will announce which grove wins the popular vote.

To help get you going, we’ve compiled some tasting notes of our own.

Aleandri

This year the oil taste profile was affected by the dry summer. The oil is medium fruity, with a herbaceous leaning and the smell of almonds and artichoke. Overall it’s very well balanced with a leaning towards the sweet end of the scale. The taste profile diagram is shown above. Around the edges, clockwise from the top are the different internationally recognised type of flavours you find in olive oils – fruity, green, bitter, peppery, sweet, almonds and artichoke

Ardelio

This oil has a delicate golden yellow colour. It has a light flavouring and sometimes a peppery after-kick, which is indicative of a high concentration of polyphenolic antioxidants and freshness. It has an acidity level of less than 0.5% (it needs to be under 0.8% to be classed as extra virgin).

Dell’Orso

This is a very high quality oil (though not quite as good as the exceptional 2008 pressing) from an organic grove. All the groves in the region were affected by ‘mosca’, an olive fly this year; what this means, is that the olives have to be picked as early as possible which has the effect of producing an oil that is slightly more peppery. This year, the oil is green with a golden hue. The smell is fruity with a hint of cut grass and the flavour is fruity with a slight bitterness and a spicy tip. The acidity is 0.5 (it needs to be under 0.8% to be classed as extra virgin) and it hits 6.8 on the peroxide scale.

Fiorano

This year the oil is light to medium on the fruity scale. Although the colour isn’t a reflection of quality the oil this year is yellow with a hint of green. The ‘nose’ is strong with hints of almonds, leaves and artichokes. The acidity 0.16 (it needs to be under 0.8% to be classed as extra virgin, so this is really low). Overall the quality is high and this years oil is sweeter and less peppery than from the previous harvest.

Fonte Carella

The colour of the oil is straw-like with a tendency towards green. The aroma is intense and fruity with hints of freshly cut grass. The taste is peppery and spicy due to the early harvesting of the olives by hand (the longer you leave the olive on the tree the milder the oil is, but the higher the oil content is – so it a balance of quality versus quantity and we go for quality). It is one of the best years for oil from Fonte Carella because the trees didn’t produce great quantities, and so a tonne of quality was pumped into each and every fruit.

Il Professore

Again, a great year, though not as great as last years. The acidity is pretty low 0.34  (it needs to be under 0.8% to be classed as extra virgin) and the peroxide level is 7, which means that the olives were in a good condition when they were pressed. It is a medium fruity oil with a green nature and almond flavour. The oil is overall sweet, with a peppery note and a medium intensity of bitterness. There is also an aftertaste of almonds. It has a beautiful yellow colour. The polyphenol level is around 500 (these are the cardioprotective compounds in the oil, so the more the better).

Il Taccolito

As Rita says, this delicate oil should be treated gently, like you should treat a women. It is well balance, medium fruity, with a very low acidity (i.e. very high quality) of 0.02% (it needs to be under 0.8% to be classed as extra virgin). It has a grassy nose (i.e. smell) with hints of grass and tomatoes. And it has a almond flavour with slight peppery aftertaste. At pressing the oil was rather green, but we have noticed it is becoming more yellow.

La Morla

This oil is very well balanced. Its colour is yellow with a green hue. Its nose is medium fruity with hints of almonds and artichokes, whilst its taste is again well balanced with a hint of bitterness and a medium intensity of pepperyness. All topped off with an aftertaste of almonds. Yum. It’s polyphenol count hits the highs at 445 (these are the cardioprotective compounds in the oil, so the more the better).

Lina

This is a light subtle oil with a fresh fragrance of artichoke, tomatoes and green apple. There is a peppery after-kick which you should watch out for, which is a sign of the healthy antioxidants in the oil. The acidity level is less than 0.3% and the colour is a lovely golden yellow.

Rosalio

The oil has a beautiful golden green glow. The smell of this oil is evocative of freshly cut grass and a hint of artichoke. In taste oil is well balanced but milder and more delicate than in previous years. It has a buttery textures followed by a herbaceous, cut-grass flavour. This oil is at it’s prime now, so drizzle with impunity.

DO you want to adopt your own olive tree in Italy? Click here to become an adoptive parent today.