Eat pasta with love - recipes
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CAP 1: Ednamay's spaghetti Bolognese from Cellarmasters in the Kitchen CAP 1: Ednamay's spaghetti Bolognese from Cellarmasters in the Kitchen
Cape Town - Whether you opt for fast and wholesome, slow-cooked comfort food or a budget-beating bake it’s hard to imagine catering without pasta in the cupboard.
In fact a range of pasta, as we need variations in shape, size and thickness so that whatever the sauce, topping or accompanying fare, we can select the appropriate product. The basic rules are worth following most of the time: Use long shapes like spaghetti and linguine for olive oil, tomato and smooth seafood sauces.
Tagliatelle, fettuccine and pappardelle are the best companions for chunky meat sauces like Bolognese, (yet most of us use spaghetti).
Tubes, like penne, macaroni, rigatoni and cavatappi (corkscrews) are versatile, as they make good partners for cream sauces, vegetable sauces, and those containing sausage and chicken.
The small shapes, also known as pastina, include risoni, orzi, conchigliette and stelline (stars), are perfect for soup.
Big tubes like cannelloni and flat sheets like lasagna are best baked, and fancy shapes like cappelletti (little hats) and ravioli are usually stuffed, a job for keen cooks and homemade pasta.
Old favourites sometimes need resurrection – budget-stretching meals should not be boring and just one special ingredient can lift a simple dish into the gourmet sphere. Here’s a quartet of pasta recipes that can be varied to suit palate and purse, occasion and taste. I have included an oriental option, a reminder that pasta originated in the Far East and made its way to Italy centuries later.
And, as always, remember the mantra – cook pasta with love, serve with verve and eat it with gusto.
Prawn spaghetti with lemon vodka sauce
Having friends over for a week night supper? This is a great dish for easy, fast entertaining, and with 20 prawns to feed four, not exorbitant. There is booze in the sauce which gives it an edge, and cream to add a touch of luxury. The recipe can be found in one of Donna Hay’s recent titles, Simple Dinners, published by Hardie Grant Books.
400g spaghetti
20g butter
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
20 raw prawns, as large as you can afford, peeled and deveined but leave tail shell on
250ml (1 cup) cream
30ml (2tbs) vodka
30ml (2tbs) lemon juice
Half cup parsley leaves, preferably flat-leaf
Sea salt and black pepper
Cook the pasta in a large saucepan of salted boiling water for 12 minutes, or until al dente. Drain and keep warm.
Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat, add the garlic and prawns and cook for 2 minutes, remove from pan and set aside.
Add the cream, vodka and lemon juice to the pan and simmer for 5 minutes.
Return the prawns to the pan with the pasta, parsley and season to taste.
Toss and serve. Serves 4.
Rice stick noodles with Kecap beef
Look East for inspiration and you will find a treasury of quick-and-easy, well-balanced meals in a bowl using some or other variation on noodles. Here’s one where 300g of steak feeds four in a balanced blend of exotic flavours and ingredients.
Replace peanut oil with sunflower oil, broccolini with broccoli, if preferred. Kecap manis is a sweet dark soy sauce, flavoured with star anise and spices. The recipe comes from Noodles in Style series, published for Woolworths in 2001.
250g dried rice stick noodles
3tbs peanut oil
300g rump steak, sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 stalk lemongrass, white part only, finely chopped
3 spring onions, sliced into 3m lengths
200g sugar snap peas or mangetout
1 bunch broccolini, roughly chopped
45ml (3T) kecap manis
2tbs soy sauce
1tbs fish sauce
2tbs snipped garlic chives.
Pour boiling water over the noodles and leave for 10 minutes or until tender. Drain.
Heat half the oil in a wok, add the meat, garlic and lemongrass in batches and stir-fry over high heat until the steak is browned. Add the spring onions and the greens and stir-fry until bright green and crisp-tender. Remove and keep warm. Add the remaining oil to the wok and then the noodles, stir-fry for one minute. Stir in the kecap manis, soy sauce and fish sauce to coat the noodles. Return the meat and vegetables to the wok, plus any juices and heat through. Stir through the chives and serve immediately. Serves 4.
Pasta primavera
With thoughts of spring surfacing, here’s a recipe that heralds the new season, and has been doing so for thousands of years, as it dates back to the era of the Etruscans and ancient Greeks.
As with most classics, it’s still good and fresh, an appetising, green and meat-free dish bursting with healthy ingredients. Substitute dried tagliatelle for fresh if preferred, and cook it until al dente, adding the beans and peas later. The Food of Italy is a compendium of delectable recipes published by Murdoch Books in 2000.
120g broad beans, fresh or frozen
150g fresh asparagus, cut into short lengths
350g fresh tagliatelle
100g French beans (slim green beans) trimmed
120g peas, fresh or frozen
30g butter
1 small fennel bulb, thinly sliced
375ml thick cream
2tbs grated Parmesan or other grana cheese, plus extra to pass around
Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil, add the broad beans and asparagus and simmer for 3 minutes. Remove the vegetables with slotted spoon and set aside.
Add the tagliatelle to the saucepan and when softened, add the French beans and peas, and cook for about 4 minutes, or until the pasta is al dente.
Heat the butter in a large pan , add the fennel and cook over low heat without colouring for about 5 minutes.
Add the cream, season with salt and pepper and simmer for a few minutes.
Peel the skins from the broad beans. Drain the pasta, French beans and peas and add to the frying pan.
Add 2tbs of Parmesan and the broad beans and asparagus. Toss to coat. Serve immediately, passing extra cheese. Serves 4.
Ednamay’s spaghetti bolognaise
Here’s an old favourite, lent extra flavour with mushrooms and speed with bottled sauce. It was served weekly in the Strydom family home in Table View where Louis grew up before he became winemaker to Ernie Els’s showpiece cellar on the Helderberg slopes. He now cooks and serves it to his three children just as often. The recipe is one of those contributed by winemakers in Cellarmasters in the Kitchen, by Wendy Toerien, published by Struik Lifestyle. If you don’t have mushrooms, you could substitute coarsely grated carrot for an inexpensive alternative.
25ml olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
125g button mushrooms, chopped
250g beef mince
1 400g can tomato and onion mix
1 400g bottle bolognaise pasta sauce
2tsp sugar
Salt and ground black pepper
500g spaghetti, cooked until al dente
250g cheddar cheese, grated
Heat the oil, add the onion and garlic and fry gently until translucent. Add the mushrooms and fry until starting to soften. Add the mince and brown well, using a fork to break up clumps. Add the tomato and onion mix, the bolognaise sauce, and the sugar and seasoning, bring to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes. Transfer the contents of the saucepan to a deep ovenproof serving dish, add the spaghetti and mix well. Sprinkle over the cheese and place dish under a preheated grill until cheese has melted. Serve with Italian bread. Serves 4-6. - Cape Argus