Dinner in the Yellow House

Presto Pasta Night: Marital Miscommunication Edition

The picky eight-year-old picks peas and proof that our house really is yellow

This year, aside from tomatoes and zucchini, the veggie I most wanted to plant in our garden was peas.  I told my spouse this, and he carried out my wishes, even building a nice big trellis for the peas to crawl up.  When the  actual pea pods started to show on the plant, though, something was wrong with them.  They weren't fat enough.  I asked Tobias what kind of peas he had planted.  He planted snow peas.  Not shelling peas.  Not risi-i-bisi peas, not sit-at-the-kitchen-table-and-bond-with-your-daughter-as-you-shell-a-mountain-of-garden-fresh-peas peas.  Nope, snow peas, the kind you don't shell.  The kind where the actual pea part is so small that you have to eat the pod or else you're stuck eating nearly nothing.   

But don't get me wrong: we both love snow peas.  Eaten straight off the plant they are at their best: sweet and juicy.  It's just not what I envisioned for my Summer of Peas.  And also, what the heck do you do with them anyway? Aside from just steaming them and serving them hot with melting butter, I mean. 

Inspiration struck in the grocery store when I saw some black tiger prawns going cheap.  I've seen prawns and peas as a combo on lots of Chinese restaurant menus but never ordered them.  I wasn't sure what seasonings to use, but I knew I wanted ginger.  Here is the result:

Prawn and Pea Stir-Fry, Yellow House Style

250g snow peas with strings removed and chopped in half
20 black tiger prawns, shelled and veined
2 tablespoons chopped ginger
3/4 cup orzo
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon sweet chili sauce
1-2 teaspoons hoisin sauce

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the orzo and toss to coat with the melted butter. Add the chicken broth, bring to a boil, lower to a simmer, cover, and cook for ten minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the oils in a wok or large frying pan. Add the ginger and cook, stirring occasionally, for three minutes. Add the peas and cook for five minutes, or until the peas are slightly softened, but still a bit crunchy. Now add the prawns and cook until they're nice and opaque and curled up and prawn-coloured.

Scrape the orzo into the pan with the prawns and peas and stir over low heat. Add your sauces and adjust the quantities to suit you.

Serves two ravenous adults, or two adults, one picky-eight-year-old and one 19-month-old that's already stuffed himself on blueberries.

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There are tonnes of variations on this theme.  I wanted to make it a bit more spicy with hot chili sauce, but I was out of that particular condiment.  Another thing I want to try is black bean and garlic.  You could also try it with spring onions and chopped garlic along with the ginger, and leave out the sauces. 

I had intended to make this as a regular stir fry and serve it over rice,  but I got to thinking about how long it'd been since I'd participated in Presto Pasta Night, and this was inspiration enough to try the orzo version.  An Italo-Chinese fusion dish!

Thanks to Ruth for keeping on keeping on with the PPNs.   

Presto Pasta Night: TV Dinner Edition

The title is a misnomer for me, since I don't have a TV and I didn't eat this for dinner.  But it's the type of thing one might eat for a dinner in front of the tube, which is why it appears in the TV dinners chapter of Nigella Bites.  She calls it linguine with garlic oil and pancetta.  My version uses fettucine and, because I didn't have any garlic-infused oil, just crushed garlic cloves. 

This is exactly the kind of dish that appeals to me when I'm eating alone and feeling lazy, but like I need something more heartening than a peanut butter sandwich for lunch.  Depending on how much oil you use, it can be a little messy to eat, so wear a splatter guard.  For the full effect, serve this in a deep Japanese-style bowl that you can hold on your lap.  If you do have a TV, watch it while eating this.  If not, may I recommend the Britain's Got Talent clips available on YouTube?  Have a splatter guard ready for your computer also, and some Kleenex for your eyes. 

To make it, peel about six garlic cloves and crush them a bit with a big knife. Put them in a roasting pan or Pyrex dish with around two tablespoons of good-tasting olive oil (I used a lovely Portuguese one that I bought at Charelli's) and around 4 ounces of roughly chopped pancetta.  The quantities are completely flexible, of course, and depend on how many you're feeding.  I was just feeding my greedy self.  Put in the oven at about 450 degrees and set your pasta water to boiling.  I found that the amount of time it took for my water to boil and then for the fettucine to cook was exactly how long my pancetta wanted.  Your mileage may vary, but the pancetta should be nicely sizzling and crisp-looking. 

If your oven dish is large enough, drain the fettucine and plop it into the dish along with a handful of chopped parsley.  Mine wasn't, but I used a spatula to get all the tasty bits off the bottom of the dish so I wouldn't lose out on any flavour.  Mix well and gobble down.  Nigella suggests no parmesan with this and surprisingly, I agree.  A good dusting of freshly ground pepper is nice, though. 

My favourite part of this was the garlic cloves.  They're not for everyone, I suppose, but I thought they were delicious.  Not quite as sweet and creamy as roasted garlic, but without the bite of raw garlic, and with a bit of the flavour of the oil infused into the clove, in addition to the the oil taking on the flavour of the garlic.  Yum!  Of course, use garlic-infused oil if you prefer or even just regular olive oil if you are not a garlic lover. 

Thanks to Ruth for hosting Presto Pasta Nights.  I have missed the past two weeks but I am back in the pasta-cooking saddle once again. 

Presto Pasta Night: Addis Ababa Edition

New York one week, Ethiopia the next.  Can you tell I've got a bit of wanderlust right now?  Good thing I can satisfy it (a little, anyway) in the kitchen.  But what does pasta have to do with Addis Ababa?  Well, according to Marcus Samuelsson, Italian is the only type of foreign food you can find there.  So, he published a recipe for trout spaghetti in his wonderful book, The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa. 

I am using his book as an entree into the world of African cooking, which I want to learn in order to cook for my little sister, who lives at the base of Mt Kiliminjaro, in Tanzania.  It's a little wimpy of me to start with one of the more European-influenced recipes in the book, I know, but I can't resist anything noodly and furthermore, I'm still a little scared of injera. 

One great thing about this recipe is that it can be made fairly quickly.  The trout has to cure for a few hours, but you could prepare that and then disappear for a couple of hours, say, take in a Tae Kwon-Do class or something?  Then come back and do the rest in about thirty minutes. 

I also loved that I got to use three of the herbs I currently have growing in my garden: mint, chives and basil.  But just a little bit of basil, thank goodness, because my spouse is very protective of that plant. 

As for the berbere, you could make your own, which is probably a smart thing to do, but if you, for example, enter the spice store and realize that there is no way you can happily gad about collecting all the necessary spices with your 17-month child in tow, then don't worry, you can also get a premixed berbere.  I went to my favourite bulk store, For Good Measure, and they mixed me up a pot on the spot. 

So, without further ado, here is how I made Marcus Samuelsson's Trout Spaghetti:

Into a rectangular glass dish, put two trout fillets that you have sliced as thinly as you can manage.  Squeeze two limes over them and add as much chopped mint as you want.  Now add a tablespoon of berbere and 1/4 cup of olive oil and mix it all around.  Cover with Saran wrap and put in the fridge.  Put on your dobok and go to Tae Kwon-Do. 

Come back from Tae Kwon-Do, take your dobok off, put on some pajamas, and stir the trout bits around. 

Put on some salted water to boil.  Once it has boiled, add your spaghetti and cook for nine minutes.  Chop up an onion and put it into a frying pan with 1/4 cup olive oil, a tablespoon of berbere, and 3 tablespoons of butter.  Cook over low-medium heat for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Meanwhile, string and cook some delicious fresh peas to serve alongside.  Also, get your ricotta ready.  I used storebought ricotta, but Marcus Samuellson would have you make your own fresh cheese.  If you want instructions for that, you're own your own, because I took the lazy route: stir some salt and chopped chives into a half cup or so of ricotta. 

Now, drain your spaghetti, put it back in its pot and scrape every last tasty bit of the onions and sauce into the pot and mix well to combine.  Fold in your trout bits and a couple of chopped up basil leaves.  Serve dolloped with the cheese and with some nice sweet peas alongside. 

The berbere-flavoured noodles make for a very unusual pasta.  It definitely tastes like Ethiopian-Italian fusion, which is exactly what it is, I suppose.  I will make this again soon. 

Thank you again to Ruth, the host of Presto Pasta Nights, who appears to be persisting in her South Beach Diet efforts.  What stamina!

Presto Pasta Night: I ♥ NY Edition

The truth is, I've only ever been to New York once, and it was 11 years ago.  But I can love it from afar, can't I?  And one day I will love it in person again.  And when that day comes, the first thing I will love is a visit to S'mac, the macaroni and cheese restaurant.  Yes that's right, a restaurant that serves nothing but macaroni and cheese!  Only in New York. 

But since that visit is still long off, I have decided that I am going to try to recreate all of the scrumptious-sounding mac n' cheeses on the S'mac menu.  I see now that they have put up an instructional video and a recipe for their mozzarella mac n' cheese.  I didn't see that the last time I visited the website, or else I would have started my quest with that one.  Instead, I started with the one that sounded the tastiest: the manchego mac with fennel and shallots. 

Here is how I made it:

5 T butter
2 T flour
2 cups milk
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/2 onion, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
2 1/4 grated manchego cheese (available at Charelli's)
2 cups elbow macaroni
1-2 fennel bulbs, sliced
1 T olive oil
8 shallots, chopped
1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs

Put shallots and fennel in a pyrex dish with the olive oil and cook at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, or until the fennel is to desired crunchiness.  Remove from oven, lower the oven temp to 350 degrees and chop up the vegetables a bit more if desired.  Set 6 cups of water to boiling in one large pot and the butter to melting in another.  Once the butter has melted, add the flour and cook over medium heat for a minute or so while whisking.  Whisk in the milk, add the onion, paprika and bay leaf and simmer for fifteen minutes to thicken, stirring frequently.  When the water boils, add salt and macaroni and cook for eight minutes. 

After the white sauce has thickened, remove from heat, remove the bay leaf, add salt and pepper to taste, and stir in the cheese.  Keep stirring until it has all melted.  This is the most fun part of the recipe.  Drain the macaroni and add it, with the vegetables, to the the sauce, mixing well.  Now spoon the mac n' cheese into a nice blue casserole.  Non-blue casseroles are also acceptable.

Melt the remaining 3 T of butter in a small pan and add the bread crumbs.  Cook over medium heat until browned a little, mixing with a wooden spoon.  Spread breadcrumbs over mac n' cheese and cook at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until bubbly. 

Serves 4 for supper, with a green salad in a plain vinaigrette and a nice crisp New Zealand sauvignon blanc (or in my case, beer and nothing). 

In the yellow house, everyone loved this, though the flavour of the manchego is pretty subtle.  Next time I would add more fennel (I used just one small bulb) and more shallots (I used six).  I am not opposed to a little Tabasco on top, but keep in mind that manchego is expensive and subtly flavoured, so if you want to taste it, go easy on the hot sauce and/or ketchup. 

Thanks again to the wonderful, stalwart Ruth, who is undertaking the amazing task of hosting Presto Pasta Night while she is in the throes of the South Beach Diet, Phase 1!  Good luck Ruth!

Presto Pasta Night: Conair Spiral Iron Edition

Or Fusilli lunghi bucatti with eggplant, tomato, parsley and sausage

I couldn't not buy these fusilli lunghi when I saw them at For Good Measure a couple weeks ago.  They embody everything that I wished my hair was when I was fifteen: hard, unmoving spirals.  I spent 2-3 hours (no exaggeration) on a regular basis, hidden away in my bedroom with my Conair spiral iron to get my hair to look just exactly right.  Hundreds of perfect spirals all over my head.  Thankfully, we don't have any pictures of those years.  I shudder to think of what it actually looked like.  I prefer to enjoy the memory through a fifteen-year-old perspective; and this pasta helps me do just that. 

Still, woman cannot live on fusilli and memories, she must have a sauce!  And I wanted it to be an eggplant sauce.  I bought first, and asked questions (of my cookbooks) later.  It was fairly slim pickings, surprisingly.  I sort of assumed my Gastronomy of Italy would have an eggplant sauce for pasta, or, failing that, I could always use the Joy.  Neither had one!  But luckily, Marcella Hazan did.  She had two, actually, and I may try her Eggplant with Ricotta next time.  This time I went for Eggplant with Tomato, Parsley and Chili Pepper.  I made one slight substitution.  Lacking chili peppers, and also concerned about how their flavour might conflict with our rustic, homebrew Supertuscan, I used sausage instead.  In the yellow house, sausage is a completely valid substitution for oh, basically, any ingredient. 

Here is how to make the sauce:

The trickiest and most time-consuming part of this dish is frying up the eggplant.  (I had assumed for years that my spouse disliked eggplant as much as he dislikes anchovies.  A dinner of eggplant parmigiana during our courtship went over like a lead balloon.  A few weeks ago, he told me it was his favourite vegetable!  What?  Since when?  Men are unfathomable!)  According to Marcella, the only way not to have oil-sodden eggplant is to use a lot of very hot oil.  I am not crazy about pouring bucketloads of oil into a frying pan, and I tend to think Marcella is a little pedantic about these things, but I've not had a lot of luck with frying eggplant in the past (hence my eggplant parmigiana failure, perhaps?) and thought I'd give it a try.  It actually does work.  I don't know why, but the eggplant cooks up much nicer, and seems less oily when it's fried in a lot of oil at high temperature, rather than in just a little oil.  Oh yes, and you should peel the eggplant and salt it down if you're a good person (I'm not) and slice it fairly thinly lengthwise beforehand. 

Get your oil nice and hot.  Test if it's hot enough by holding the end of one of your eggplant slices into it.  It should sizzle nicely.  Slide in a few pieces of eggplant at a time (don't overlap them) and let them sizzle away until the underside is nice and golden.  My oil wasn't hot enough for the first batches, and I didn't get a really nice colour until I turned up the heat.  I am a bit wimpy when it comes to hot oil, especially with a 16-month old underfoot. 

Once the bottoms are golden, flip the slices and cook the other side.  Marcella says to only flip them once and I obeyed.  But in my opinion, this process leaves a lot of room for error.  If you flip them twice, don't do as my daughter did yesterday when her stegosaurus sculpture wouldn't stand properly and throw the whole project away.  Assuming you like eggplant, a few imperfectly fried slices is not going to damage the final product, in my opinion.  Marcella, I'm sure, disagrees, but to me, pasta sauces almost always taste good, even if some parts of the process go wrong.  So be relaxed about eggplant frying, is what I'm trying to say. 

But before you start frying the eggplant, stick your sausages in the oven at 400ish so they'll be ready to slice up and stick in the sauce at the end.  Also, if you're short on time and good at multitasking, you could start the garlic, tomatoes and parsley cooking.  They need about 25 minutes, during which you might even finish your eggplant.  Put three or so cloves of roughly chopped garlic in a pan with 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat and push them around until they're golden.  Now add a handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley and around 2 cups of canned chopped tomates.  Simmer for 25 minutes. 

Now, if you're brilliant, you might have all three elements of the sauce ready at the same time.  My sausages needed about 40 minutes, and I didn't start the tomatoes until after I'd done the eggplant, so my timing was not perfect.  Put on the water for your pasta: fusilli lunghi if you're nostalgic for your days as a Spiral-Headed Princess, or spaghettini if you take Marcella's word as gospel.  Once the pasta's cooking, chop up your fried eggplant however you like it, and slice your sausauge.  Add them to the tomatoes and stir around.  Enjoy the aroma.  Pretend you're in Italy.  Stir...

Ding!  The timer went off.  The pasta is al dente.  Scoop up some spirals into a bowl, spoon over the (extremely chunky, in my case) sauce, and serve to your adoring public (or, in my case, a picky seven-year-old that insists on grating Cheddar overtop).  Serve with a salad (or, in my case, nothing, because, as I explained to my family "There's plenty of veggies in the sauce!") and some robust Italian red wine.   

Merci once again to Ruth.  Without her hosting these pasta events, I would neglect my beloved food blog even more than I already do.

Presto Pasta Night: When the Cat's Away Edition

I've been meaning to join in on Presto Pasta Night ever since Ruth started this event six weeks ago, but I never seem to find the time.  Several times I've been halfway through eating some pasta dinner and then, with fork halfway to mouth, thought "Oh shoot!  I should have photographed this when it still looked good!"  But this week, my spouse is away on business and all of a sudden I seem to have much more time on my hands.  And I always thought it was the kids that took most of my free minutes away! 

Anyway, though I miss him, I confess I get a certain amount of pleasure out of my spouse leaving town.  This pleasure is often in the form of highly-flavoured seafood dishes (he might call them "fishy") that I love to eat myself but don't want to inflict on others.  My number one favourite dish to eat when I'm only cooking for myself is Nigella's pasta with anchovy sauce.  Oh man, it's good.

Here is the sauce cooking.  Doesn't that look appetizing?  No?  Well, to me, it's ambrosia.   

Here is how to make the sauce:

Slice an onion as thin as you can manage.  Heat up some olive oil in a pan and add the onion.  Cook for five minutes.  Now add some wine.  Nigella uses Marsala, I never have any.  So I typically use whatever red I've got frozen in a little baggie in my freezer, or I might have an open bottle of our homebrew wine that I am using for cooking, or if I'm extremely lucky, a little bit of real storebought wine left in the bottle from the night before.  Oftentimes, I confess, I use Tosca cooking wine, which I know would make some people swoon, but you know, it usually turns out fine, as long as it's in relatively small quantities.

Anyway, where were we?  Oh yes, adding the wine to the pan.  Nigella recommends 100mL I believe, but I tend to add just whatever amount looks right in the pan.  I want the onions covered, but just.  Because then you're going to leave them to cook on low heat for half and hour with no lid, so that win'es gonna evaporate pretty fast.  So make sure you use enough, or add more if necessary. 

Oops, I forgot to tell you (this is why I will never be a cookbook author) that you should have set 6 anchovy fillets to soaking in enough fatty milk to cover them before you started cooking the onions.  Okay, so assuming you did that, now chop them up as finely as possible and add them to your onions.  Would it be great for these anchovies to be imported from Italy and to be deboned?  Yes.  Are mine usually?  No.  Is this sauce still amazing  no matter how lowbrow your ingredients?  Yes. 

Okay, now throw in the soaking milk and about a tablespoon of olive oil and stir and cook over medium-low for a few minutes.  Add a handful of chopped parsley, preferably flat-leaf.  I tried curly and it's not quite as nice.  Stir and taste.  Add some more fatty milk, or even, if you dare, cream, or even, if you double dare, WHIPPING CREAM. 

Now for the choice of pasta.  I am basically having a torrid love affair with spaghetti lunghi and eat virtually all sauces with this shape of pasta.  However, anchovy sauce is traditionally paired with bigoli (great photos of this dish, eaten in Venice by The Amateur Gourmet) and I would love to try this one day too.  Here is my photo of the final product:

I have one more night to eat as a I wish before the spouse returns, and I think another choice from How to Eat is probably in order.  I'm going to pop by Neptune this afternoon and get something bivalvish, I think.  Or perhaps prawns.  Definitely something fishy. 

Merci beaucoup to Ruth for hosting this event and encouraging me to write about one of my favourite things to eat.