.::Classic Tomato Pasta::.

I must admit this recipe is a very basic, useful, easy, tasty, and definitely very addictive, once you know how to make it. It’s a all-purpose food; comfort-food-in-the-middle-of-winter, impress-food-when-you-are-making-3-course-meal-for-the-special-someone; weekday-family-food-when-mum-just-got-home-from-work-and-is-tired, or for every other occasions out there. Try it today and you will know I am speaking nothing, but the truth! 🙂

INGREDIENTS

1 canned tomato (chopped in tomato juice)

Ham/bacon strips

Button mushrooms, sliced

2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 onion, chopped

Herbs

Salt and pepper

Pasta of any kind

Cheese, grated

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat olive oil on a saucepan. Add onion, and then garlic. Fry until fragrant.
2. Fry the bacon/ham/chicken/pork (any meat, really). Once they brown, add mushrooms.
3. Add tomatoes and let it simmer and the sauce will thickens.
4. Add herbs (bay leaf, parsley, coriander, etc). Season with salt and pepper. You can prepare this sauce a few days ahead and store it in airtight container. Reheat before use.
5. In the meantime, cook the pasta. Once the pasta is cooked, add the pasta into the tomato sauce. Add some of the pasta water to thicken up the sauce and also to add some flavour from the saltish water.
6. Serve hot, with cheese and more herbs.

Basic tomato sauce for pasta

It great with spaghetti,

Or even fettuccine, or linguine, or any other kind of pasta!

Burrrp!!

.::Walnut sauce pasta with ham and chicken involtini::.

I got the walnut sauce idea from one of Nigella Lawson’s series. The clever use of bread and milk made the sauce very creamy and smooth, without being “bready” at all. And the toasted walnut just allow the nutty flavour to permeate through the pasta and the sauce. Yum! I decided to make involtini to go along with the pasta as well.

Involtini (known also as braciole by Americans) means small bundle, or something which is wrapped up by something else. Involtini is basically thin slices of meat/vegetables rolled with a variety of ingredients, from cheeses to minced meat, mushrooms, onion, spinach, etc. After being stuffed and rolled, involtini are often tied with kitchen string or pinned with wooden toothpicks to hold the stuffing. It is usually pan-fried till brown. Kitchen string is removed prior to cutting and serving, though in some cases, the string is left on when the meat is served.

INGREDIENTS

Spaghetti/Penne (a handful to feed two people)

Walnut, toasted and chopped

10 small button mushrooms, sliced

4-5 cloves of garlic, grated

1 onion, diced

A splash of cream

A splash of wine

1 teaspoon of lemon juice

1 slice of stale white bread

1/2 cup of milk

salt and pepper to season

Cheese, grated

Ham

Shredded chicken

Some kitchen string

DIRECTIONS

1. Soak the white bread with milk. Put aside.
2. Bring water to boil. Salt the boiling water generously and cook the pasta until al dente.
3. Prepare the involtini. Wrap the chicken in ham and tied with kitchen string. I would recommend using streaky bacon instead of ham, as bacon have better flavour and ample fat, but since I ran out of bacon, I will have to do with ham.
4. Heat a saucepan with some vegetable oil and fry the involtini until the ham is cooked. Put aside  for a couple of minutes. Remove the string and cut the involtini into a few bite-size pieces.
5. In the same saucepan, saute the onion until fragrant. Add mushroom.
6. Meantime, add the bread+milk, grated garlic, walnut, lemon, salt and pepper into blender and blitz it until smooth.
7. Fry the mushroom until dark brown in colour. Add wine. Cook for a min or so, until some of the alcohol evaporates.
8. Add the pasta to saucepan. Moves the pan around so pasta is in harmony with the onions and mushrooms. Add cream and walnut sauce to the pasta. Make sure the pasta is coated with the sauce.
9. Serve the pasta immediately. Topped with involtini, grated cheese and some chopped walnuts.

.::Spinach and mushroom risotto::.

You can basically whip up risotto with any kind of ingredients and truth is, you would probably end up with a delicious risotto anyway. Like rice, it goes well with a lot of things, from avocado to zucchini.

The secret is to how to make the perfect risotto. Not too dry, not too wet or squishy. Each rice needs to be plump, soft and explodes with flavour when eaten. The secret lies in the stock. The rice will absorb the stock while cooking, which then dominate the flavour of the dish. Add the ingredients towards the end, just when the rice is about the cook. So that the flavours from the ingredients doesn’t leak out during the long cooking, else chances are, you will end up with tasteless mushrooms or other ingedients of your choice.

Start by frying up some white mushroom. Such a beauty. No added seasoning. Just plain. Au naturel..YUM!

Then fry up some chopped onions, until fragrant.

Add the rice and cook until semi-translucent, put in a splash of wine and a knob of butter (for richness), add the stock, one ladle at a time until all the stock is soaked up beautifully by the rice.

While waiting, prepare the spinach.

“Spinach is good for you” – Popeye 🙂

After about 30 mins, or so when all the stock have been soaked by the rice, add the ingredients of your choice. It’s mushroom and ham for me.

A close-up shot

Add the Popeye’s food.

Optional step – You can add cream in the risotto to make it thick, smooth and creamy, or you can leave it out if  and only if you are:

1) lactose intolerant*;

2) cream-hater;

3) runs out of cream.

* FYI, cream don’t usually cause lactose intolerant, as the lactose is found in the water portion and not the fat portion (which unfortunately is what makes up the cream)  🙂

Serve immediately.

Okay. Let me see if I can convey through to you the scope of the deliciousness and flavor of this risotto:

It was utterly, blissfully b-e-a-u-tiful. D-i-vine. E-x-cellent. The smooth creaminess of this dish, the powerful-yet-not-overpowering stock-soaked rice, sucellent mushroom, ham and spinach. YUM. The herbs and cheese provide more dimensions of taste and flavour to this dish.

INGREDIENTS

Arborio rice

Chicken stock, lots and lots of it

Onion, chopped

Garlic, chopped (optional)

Spinach

Ham

Mushroom, sliced

Cream

White wine (Red is perfectly fine as well, depending what you have in stock)

Butter

Cheese and herbs (I used oregano and parsley)

Salt and pepper, for taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Fry up some sliced mushroom. Set aside.
2. Fry chopped onions for 1-2 minutes. Add arborio rice. Stir around in the pan until the rice is semi-translucent.
3. Add a splash of wine and a knob of butter. Stir around for 1 min or so, until the alcohol is half evaporated.
4. Slowly add a ladle of chicken stock (one at a time) to the rice. Stir around a bit, and let the rice soak up all the juicy stock. (Tip: Do not stir the rice around too much while cooking, else the rice will bec0me mushy and stick together)
5. Once the rice is nearly cooked all the way through and soft (takes about 30 mins or so), add the ingredients. Stir around.
6. Add a splash of cream. Season with salt and pepper, if needed.
7. Serve immediately. Sprinkle with cheese and herbs. Voila!

.::Mushroom and basil spaghetti::.

There is no other food more comforting than homecooked food. In a cold, summer day (yeah, we do get cold days during summer), it is really heartwarming to come back to your apartment, already filled with earthy, mushroomy aroma and scent of basil and cracked black pepper [I am describing how it must have felt for lucky OKK, as I am always the one doing the cooking :-)].

This dish is extremely easy and fast to make, as of a lot of pasta dishes. Like an Italian would say, let the ingredients decorate the pasta. Ok, I made that one up. But just so you know, I do let my ingredients decorate my dishes. It is true that we eat with our eyes. For me, I would fail if my dish looks sluggish and unpresentable, even if it tastes really good. But then, it’s homecooked food, so no pressure~~

You can use either spaghetti, linguini or fettucine for this dish, really. Or even short pasta like penne. But since there’s not too much sauce for this dish, I went with spaghetti (though the real reason is probably cause I only have spaghetti at that time).

INGREDIENTS

Spaghetti (depending on how many you are cooking for)

10-15 White button mushrooms (sliced)

Basil leaves

Cream (a splash)

Black pepper

Onion and garlic (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. Cook your choice of pasta (I prefer spaghetti for this one) in boiling water, added with lots and lots of salt. The Italians said the boiling water for pasta should be as salty as the Mediterranean. This really gives the pasta its flavour, even before cooking it. Make sure your pasta is ‘al dente‘.
2. While your pasta is boiling away to perfection, fry chopped onion and garlic with some olive oil till fragrant.
3. Add mushroom and fry until mushroom is all nice and brown.
4. Add a splash of cream to the mushroom.
5. By this time, the pasta should be done. Add the pasta to the mushroom and cream. Add some of the boiling pasta water along with it. The starchy water helps with the texture of the pasta dish.
6. Close the heat. Sprinkle basil leaves and cracked some fresh black pepper. Stir around and serve while hot.

.::Deluxe Homemade Pizza::.

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