I started so well with keeping you all up to date with the project, never fear we didn’t fail!
The only thing was life got in the way. We had P’s Granny’s Birthday on Wednesday so popped over there to say hello, and on Thursday I got the chance to see a film as a trial audience member. It was great fun, it’s called the 7 Psychopaths and as a black comedy delivers lots of laughs, great fun. However there was no dinner to be had for Gillies that night, as the film started at 7 and I wasn’t out of there until 10 and by the time I got home eating seemed a little bit pointless!
We never got to eat the Pork Belly, so this is Sunday’s project. We managed to eat our way through almost all of our larder. We still have some lentils (unsurprisingly) and the baked beans never got eaten, but the real triumph of the week was pasta.
The beautiful thing about pasta is that it is so utterly versatile, have it as a dish on its own, as an accompaniment to something else, to beef up soups and broth and with approximately 60 different types to choose from you’re never far from something delicious. I was given a pasta maker a couple of years ago but it broke rather tragically, however before its untimely demise, it made some of the most delicious pasta I’ve ever had, springy and light and simply beautiful. Dried will see you just as well as fresh though and while homemade is always best, don’t worry about it.
GOLDEN RULES
1. Make sure that you use plenty of water to boil the pasta (1 litre of water for every 100 grams of pasta).
2. Bring the water to a hard boil before you add salt (around 10 grams of salt for every litre of water). Then pour in the pasta and return to boil.
3. Stir occasionally to prevent it from sticking and continue to boil, without a lid.
4. Don’t over-cook. The pasta should be “al dente”, which means it should be “firm to the bite”, yet cooked through. It’s better to taste the pasta before draining it.
5. When it’s ready drain the pasta but don’t rinse it with cold water. The pasta should be hot when mixed with the sauce. (If you are using the pasta for cold salads you may rinse it with water or drip on a little oil to prevent it from sticking while it cools).
6. Timing is important. The sauce and pasta should be ready at the same time. In many recipes such as carbonara, bad timing would result in bad pasta. Mix the pasta with the sauce as soon as it is ready. Leaving the pasta on its own might result in sticking.
7. With very few exceptions, pasta should be served immediately. According to an Italian saying, “The guest should wait for the pasta, not the pasta for the guest!”.
8. Don’t eat too much. People fall into the trap of serving family sized portions for one and overdosing.
9. Don’t cheat. I have seen amongst other things someone thinking it was OK to squeeze tomato ketchup all over pasta as a tomato sauce substitute and on one occasion someone making macaroni cheese with condensed milk. Use good ingredients and it will never fail you.
Know your pasta combos
If you’re making a fine delicate sauce, such as a fresh tomato one for example it will go best with a fine delicate pasta, spaghettini (a thinner spaghetti) for example; while oil based sauces or thicker tomato sauces go better with thicker flatter pastas such as linguini. If you go for real thick pasta like fettucini it can stand really robust flavours like Fettucini Alfredo which basicially consists of cream cheese, some cream and some cheese, with some more cream and some cheese sprinkled on the top. It’s amazing, but would drown most pasta.
Seafood pasta is my favourite, Vongole (VON – go – lay) is heaven and P’s mum makes a dish that despite my best efforts I cannot rival. Steaming bowls of pasta drizzled with olive oil, spiked with garlic and chilli as clams peep out from the bowl is one of life’s greatest pleasures. There are two camps those with tomatoes and those without, I have never tried it with, why mess with perfection after all? For this one with such delicate flavours nothing heavier than spaghetti, please and it’s particularly good with Vermicelli or Capellini.
Seafood generally works better with thicker pastas, Pappardelle for example as there is more surface area for the delicate flavours to stick to. YUM.
The chunkier the pasta the better is goes with chunkier sauces especially ridged ones as this gives something for the pasta to stick to inside and out which make for a much stronger depth of flavour, our cheese, creamy mushroom, chunky meat sauces, arrabiata or pesto work best with these kinds of pasta. More delicate sauces go better with smooth pasta. If you’re baking it, go for the thickest tubes as they can stand the cooking time.
My mum would argue that there is nothing better than a plate of spaghetti with olive oil, salt and pepper. However I am including 3 recipes below that make Gillies a very happy girl whatever the weather.
Pasta with anything in the fridge – “Economy”
This was devoured by the bowlful last week, staving off hunger like a pro. Ingredients vary to whatever you have to hand… we had the following: 4 chorizo slices, a green chilli, mushrooms, a red onion, garlic and a half empty bottle of olive and tomato pasta sauce (about a teaspoon or so left) some dried spaghetti.
Slice up all ingredients, keeping the onions in rings as best you can and fry in just a little oil, the chorizo should give up some of its own too and you don’t want to soak everything.
Heat the pasta in a litre for every 100g of salted water and when it’s still got some bite (no one likes flaccid pasta) drain and return to the pan with a little oil to stop it from sticking. Or you can keep some water at the bottom of the pan. Add the ingredients from the frying pan and some of the pasta sauce (only enough to lightly cover it, you don’t want to overpower everything else, most people always make this mistake and smother their pasta, it really isn’t necessary.) Season as you like, transfer to a bowl and eat as quickly as possible. Student food it maybe, but delicious it certainly is.
Pasta with chilli, lemon and prawns – “SImple Luxury”
This is P’s signature dish, he makes it for me when I am sad, tired, stressed, overworked or just plain hungry, it never fails to put a smile on my face and is beautiful in its simplicity.
Use Linguini, small cooked prawns (or you can use nice big ones it’s no matter, though small are the originals) 2 small chillies one red and one green (not the birds eye ones, that would be crazy!) the juice of two lemons and 4 cloves of garlic very thinly sliced to they virtually melt into the oil.
Heat olive oil on a medium heat and add the chilli and the garlic, leave to soak in the oil so that all the flaours are absorbed for 15 to 20 minutes raise the heat a little (by about a quarter) add the prawns and let them soak up all the oil and flavours, then put it on a really high heat for about thirty seconds to get it really excited. Be very careful not to burn the chillies as they will go black taste and look horrible.
Meanwhile the linguini should be cooking in salted water, drain when al dente and mix everything in together. While mixing it all squeeze two lemons into the pot and stir through.
You should have a plate full of gorgeous colour; pink prawns, green and red chilli with the glossy yellow pasta. It tastes delicious, all tangy with the sweetness of the oil and the prawns. God it’s wonderful.
Spaghetti Carbonara – “The Classic”
You will find a million and one recipes for this in every book and on every website there’s someone claiming they can master the dish. Most make it too complicated or drown it in cream. The trick, as with most things, is to keep things nice and simple.
Use spaghetti, diced pancetta and about three egg yolks, a small white onion very finely chopped and a couple of cloves of garlic done the same.
Lightly fry the pancetta, onion and garlic while the pasta cooks on the hob. Crack the eggs and separate the yolks and whites. In the yolk bowl break them up a little bit DON’T whisk them or you’ll simply scramble them when they heat. As always when al dente drain the pasta and stir in the egg yolk and the pancetta onion and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. EAT.
So there you have it, three wonderfully easy, always pleasing, filling and comforting dishes which can be made for as little as 3 pounds, or used to impress a girl or boy on a date. Pasta is your friend.
This post has been written listening to the rather fabulous Rory Charles: http://rorycharles.com/ do check him out the CD on this site is the one I’m currently listening to.
hungrygillies 