Pasta Nigellissima

70s style dining experience

Unlike Nigella I do not have packets of pasta that I just look at because they are pretty.  I don't have space in my kitchen or my life for this kind of frivolity. I don't really think I have space in my life for Nigella, but she is a little bit lovely.

This is nothing like Nigella's pasta recipe - the only ingredients I think it has in common are smoked mackerel, capers and pasta. 

However, when I saw her make her version it did make me think about making a pasta and mackerel dish. Although I intended to make something using orzo, I didn't have enough for 2 people and so made a slightly different dish using fusili and whatever was in my fridge that I thought would go.

Pasta Nigellissima ingredients

• As much pasta as you want for 2 people
• 2 small smoked mackerel fillets (100-150g), flaked
• 2 spring onions, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon capers, finely chopped
• 2 handfuls rocket
• A handful cherry tomatoes, halved
•  1/2 bunch parsley, finely chopped
•  3 tablespoons breadcrumbs

How to make pasta with smoked mackerel

1. Cook the pasta in salted boiling water until al dente.
2. Meanwhile, heat about a dessert spoon olive oil in a large frying pan, and when hot, fry the breadcrumbs until lightly browned.  
3. Turn the oven onto a low heat and warm two pasta bowls.
4. Just before the the pasta is cooked, reserve a small cup of the cooking water, then drain the pasta and blanch with boiling water.
5. Tip the pasta back into the pan you used for cooking it in, and put it on a low heat.
6. Add the mackerel, spring onions, chopped capers, rocket and cherry tomatoes, and stir thoroughly.
7. Season well with salt and pepper.
8. Add a little of the reserved cooking water to help the ingredients soften a little and coat the pasta. Start with about a tablespoon; add more if you think it needs it.  
9. Remove from the heat then stir in the parsley and crisped breadcrumbs.
10. Tip into the warmed bowls and serve immediately. 

Sweet chilli chicken salad

Some people and a bit of salad

This is a delightfully fresh-tasting salad. Grateful thanks to chef extraordinaire, Miss Kate "K-Dog" Turner for the recipe.

Serves 10.

Chilli chicken salad ingredients

• I large bag rice noodles
• 2 whole cooked chickens*
• 3 red peppers
• 1 bunch spring onions
• 2 carrots
• 1 cucumber
• 2 mangoes
• 3 avocados
• I bag mange tout (snow peas)
• I bunch coriander (cilantro)
• Peanuts - about 4 handfuls (I have small hands. Maybe 3 handfuls if you have man-hands)
• A large quantity sweet chilli dressing

*Preferably, buy and cook your own chickens. As in, buy dead chickens then cook them. Though if you want to buy live chickens, spend time raising them, then slaughter and cook them, I take my hat off to you.
Instinct tells me the £4.49 ready-cooked chickens from Tesco probably didn't have a happy a life. If you didn't like the Henry Pig salad photo, consider becoming vegetarian. Personally, I prefer to know that my lunch lived a happy life before it was slaughtered so mI could eat it.

Sweet chilli dressing ingredients 

• Juice of 1 lemon
• White wine vinegar, or preferably, rice wine vinegar - about the same quantty as the lemon juice
• Sugar, or, preferably, palm sugar (1/4 cup), dissolved in the same quantity boiling water
• I dried chili, de-seeded (keep the seeds)
• Coriander powder
• 3 tablespoons fish sauce
• 4 crushed garlic cloves

How to make sweet chilli dressing

1. In a small pan, mix together the lemon juice, vinegar, sugar in water, powdered coriander, fish sauce and garlic cloves.
2. Simmer gently for about 5 minutes, till it starts to thicken.
3. Add the crumbled dried chill along with the seeds.
4. Garnish with fresh coriander leaves. 

How to make chilli chicken salad

1. Cook the rice noodles in some light chicken stock for about 5 minutes.
2. Drain and refresh under cold water.
3. Immediately toss in 1 teaspoon sesame oil, or, if you have some to hand, some sesame-based dressing.
4. Toast raw peanuts lightly in a pan then crush. 
5. Slice the peppers into long, very thin strips
6. Slice the spring onions diagonally into short strips.
7. Cut the carrots and cucumbers into julienne strips.
8. Cut the mango and avocado into thin strips.
9. Chop the coriander.

Lay everything out on separate plates and let people help themselves.**

**For salad club only. At home, mix everything together with the noodles and top with the toasted crushed nuts. 

Sweet potato and ginger soup

I tried making a ginger and sweet potato soup from a recipe I found in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jan/26/10-best-ginger-recipes

This soup is weird, though as I tasted tiny sips, I also found it strangely addictive. That said, I didn't even get to adding the cream or maple syrup before deciding it tasted more like a pudding than a soup.

I turned it into something much more savoury by adding:

• 1 extra tablespoon light soy sauce (so 2 in total)
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 3 teaspoons tamarind paste 
• 2 large squeezes chilli paste

The original recipe does include lime juice which I will add after the soup is heated and before serving, otherwise it will taste bitter. 

I think this soup could be transformed into something much better and plan to try it with these modifications:

• Chilli seems essential to this recipe; ginger is just not enough
• More ginger to add a warm kick rather than a back note
• Coriander seeds to compliment the ginger and add depth of flavour
• Swap 1 sweet potato for a savoury root vegetable to reduce sweetness: maybe this is the swede recipe I have been looking for?
  http://www.localgreens.org.uk/redeem-swede-contest-registration
• Squash, pumpkin or celeriac could be worth considering. I think parsnip will be too sweet. (I also secretly hate parsnip but daren't admit it to anyone.)
• Add red lentils to thicken the soup: this will add roughage and make it more filling. Lentils in soup like this will have a negatory effect on flavour.
• I think some freshly chopped mint leaves would boost this soup no end, but, lets face it, most of us are unlikely to add this.

Oh, and this is probably just me, but I hate smooth soup I make myself. Maybe because I never add cream. But I prefer to mash it with a potato masher, leaving in some small chunks of vegetables. I also hate washing up the food processor more than any other job in the kitchen. 

Photo to follow.