Tag Archives: pasta

Spaghetti Bolognese

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Everyone has a recipe for spaghetti bolognese, or “spag bol” as it’s fondly known in our house. My Mum taught me to make it when I was about ten, so I could probably do it with my eyes closed.  She learnt to make it with a can of corned beef when the family were posted to Malta with the Army during WWII and living on strict rations. A family of seven received one 450g can of Fray Bentos corned beef in their fortnightly allocation.

Fortunately, nobody needs to eat canned meat these days, so this adapted version uses fresh minced beef. It also uses lots of mushrooms, which is something which was added to the recipe after the war. As a mushroom fan I think they are an essential ingredient, but you can of course leave them out. A lot of kids don’t like them.

You may think it’s a bit “retro” to use an oxo cube, but it’s one of those recipes I’ve been making forever, it works, so why change it?  I sometimes double the recipe which makes enough to freeze some for another day, or to make a small lasagne.

Every kid should have spag bol in their repertoire by the time they leave home. When our kids were in their teens they each had to cook dinner one day a week. They had to put the ingredients on my shopping list and then after dinner the other two had to clean up. Our youngest son usually made spag bol. Maybe get yours to make it next time?

2 Tbs olive or vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
250g mushrooms, wiped and sliced
500g minced beef
400g can peeled tomatoes, chopped
Water
1 beef oxo cube or beef stock cube
1 Tbs tomato paste
3 tsp dried oregano or 1 Tbs fresh chopped oregano or marjoram
3 Tbs dry sherry or red wine
1 tsp sugar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Heat oil in a large frying pan and cook onion and garlic until soft but not brown.  Add mushrooms and continue to cook and stir for a few minutes until the mushrooms have softened and are starting to brown.  Add the mince and continue to cook and stir, breaking up any large bits, until the meat is browned all over.  Add tomatoes, a can of water (using the empty tomato can) and remaining ingredients.

Simmer the sauce, stirring every five minutes or so, for 30-40 minutes, adding more water whenever the sauce gets too thick.  You will probably use about 3 cans of water altogether.

Serve with cooked spaghetti or fettuccine, grated cheese (Parmesan or cheddar or a mixture) and a mixed salad.

Serves 4

Pasta with Peas

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This quick and easy vegetarian pasta recipe with its crunchy crumb topping will appeal to fans of frozen peas.

500g pasta of your choice (I used penne)
2 cups frozen peas
1 cup fresh ricotta cheese
Juice of ½ a lemon
Good pinch of chilli flakes
Small handful of fresh basil (keep a couple of sprigs to serve)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
To serve:
1 Tbs olive oil or butter
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup breadcrumbs (stale bread blitzed in food processor)
¼ cup pine nuts

Cook pasta until al dente in boiling, salted water, then drain. Cook peas in boiling salted water until tender then drain. Place half the peas, the ricotta, lemon juice, basil, garlic, chilli flakes and seasoning in food processor and process until smooth. Mix into the cooked pasta with the remaining peas, saving a few to garnish.

While pasta and peas are cooking make the topping. Heat the olive oil or butter and add the Panko crumbs and pine nuts. Stir fry until golden. Remove from the heat and mix in the Parmesan.

Serve pasta topped with the crumbs and remaining peas, garnished with a basil sprig. If liked, drizzle with some Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Serves 4

Variations: use a mixture of ricotta and goat cheese or feta cheese to give the sauce a bit more punch. Add some asparagus spears, cut into lengths and steamed.

Pasta with Chorizo, Crispy Chickpeas & Roasted Brussels Sprouts

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I’ve always loved Brussels sprouts, even back in the days when my mother used to boil the Bejeezers out of them to go with the Sunday roast. Nowadays I prefer them roasted or stir-fried, until they’re cooked enough to be slightly charred, but still a bit crunchy.

If you’re a fan of Brussels sprouts I think you will like this recipe. If you’re not, give it a try. Some die-hard haters have been swayed when they have tasted their first roasted sprout. Vegetarians can just leave out the chorizo or use prawns instead, if you eat fish. Feel free to play with the quantities of pasta, sprouts and chorizo. I halved the pasta but left everything else the same. The crunchy chick peas are a real winner and make a tasty addition to almost any dish.

500g Brussels sprouts, trimmed & sliced vertically into 3
2 Tbs olive oil
400g can chickpeas, drained and patted dry with paper towels
1 tsp garlic powder
500g dry pasta of your choice
250g chorizo, sliced
2 Tbs currants
An extra 2 tsp olive oil
A handful of fresh sage leaves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/3 cup roughly chopped hazelnuts, walnuts, or pine nuts (left whole)
To garnish:
Balsamic glaze
Extra virgin olive oil, walnut or hazelnut oil

Preheat oven to 200°C. Mix sprouts with 1 Tbs oil and season to taste. Spread out on a baking tray lined with baking paper and roast for 10-20 minutes or until starting to brown around the edges. They should be cooked, but still have a bit of bite to them. Alternatively you can cook the sprouts in an Air Fryer. Cook the pasta in a large pan of boiling salted water.

Meanwhile in a non-stick frying pan heat the other tablespoonful of oil. Mix the chickpeas with the garlic powder and a good pinch of salt, then stir fry them for 10-15 minutes until golden and crunchy, stirring frequently. Remove from the pan and set aside. Add sliced chorizo to the pan and cook, stirring often, until browned on both sides. Cover the currants with hot water for 5-10 mins, then drain.

Drain pasta, keeping one cup of the liquid, then put the pasta back into the pan with the reserved liquid and the sprouts. Cook for a minute or two, stirring, until liquid has almost disappeared.

Add the currants, chorizo and chickpeas. Mix well and season to taste. In a small frying pan heat the two teaspoons olive oil and cook the sage leaves for 20-30 seconds, add the nuts then turn off the heat.

Serve pasta garnished with the sage and nuts, a drizzle of oil (olive, hazelnut or walnut) and a drizzle of balsamic glaze around the edge.

Serves 4

Variation: use peeled green prawns instead of chorizo.

Pasta with Jerusalem Artichokes & Chorizo

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It’s Jerusalem artichoke time and I’m always on the look out for new recipes.

I wouldn’t recommend growing them in a suburban garden because they tend to take over and become impossible to eradicate. We grow them at our farm where we have plenty of room.

These root vegetables look a bit like ginger and can be used in any way you would cook potatoes – boiled, baked, pureed into soup or whatever. The flavour is slightly sweet, like a parsnip. Some people avoid them because they cause wind. Others are unaffected or perhaps they don’t care.

To minimise the wind issue, my suggestion is to use them in a recipe which has other ingredients, such as this pasta dish, rather than in a soup made with 100% Jerusalem artichokes. Or mix them 50-50 with potatoes in a mashed or roasted recipe. Some recipes say to peel them, but we just give them a trim and a good scrub, as you would with new potatoes.

This recipe serves 4 so I made half. As you can see I used some penne pasta and some spiral because they both needed using up!

500g penne or another pasta of choice
1 cup diced dry-cured chorizo (about 250g)
500g Jerusalem artichokes, peeled or scrubbed and cut into 5mm slices
1/3 cup water
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tsp chopped fresh thyme or 1 tsp dried
2 tsp olive oil
4 cups lightly packed baby spinach
1/3 cup cream
2 tsp lemon zest
1 Tbs lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
To serve:
2 Tbs toasted pine nuts
2 Tbs currants in port (see note below) (optional)
Grated Parmesan cheese

Cook pasta in boiling salted water, according to package instructions, until al dente. Drain and keep about ½ cup of the cooking liquid.

Meanwhile in a large nonstick frying pan, cook chorizo until lightly browned and crisp. Remove from the pan and set aside leaving any fat in the pan. Add oil and artichokes and cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes or until starting to brown. Add the water and simmer for 5-7 minutes, or until the artichokes are tender and most of the liquid has evaporated. Add garlic and thyme and stir for a minute or two.

Add spinach, pasta, cream and reserved liquid. Season with the lemon zest and juice, salt and pepper. Mix in the chorizo and serve garnished with the pine nuts, currants and grated Parmesan.

Serves 4

Note: Currants in port: place some dry currants in a small jar and cover with port. They  keep in the pantry for months. A very useful addition to many dishes. Delicious to garnish chicken liver paté or foie gras spread on toast or crackers.

Pasta with Prawns and Pernod

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Back in March I posted a recipe for Chicken with Pernod, given to me by my cousin Mary Beth. Pernod adds a wonderful depth to any sauce. Once you’ve made it you will understand why this chicken dish was the most popular in Renés restaurant.

Today’s recipe is a loose interpretation of one by British food writer Simon Hopkinson. In his version he keeps the heads and tails from the prawns and makes a bisque-like, smooth sauce to go with the pasta, by pushing everything except the prawns through a sieve. This is my chunky version. French in style, with lots of butter and cream, this recipe is not on the Weight Watchers diet, but it is absolutely delicious and perfect for a special occasion. We had it to celebrate a birthday in Covid lockdown.

400g raw shell-on prawns, fresh or thawed from frozen (see note)
50g butter
2 shallots or a small onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
1 Tbs Pernod
¾ cup white wine
2 ripe tomatoes or 8 cocktail tomatoes, chopped
150 ml cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
150g dried long pasta (linguine, tagliatelle, fettuccine)
Grated rind and juice of ½ a lemon
1 Tbs chopped dill

Peel prawns and put the pasta on to cook in plenty of boiling, salted water until al dente. Heat the butter in a large frying pan and gently cook the onion and garlic until soft and translucent, stirring from time to time. Add the prawns and cook, stirring, for a minute or two, until they change colour. Add the Pernod and wine and cook on a moderate to high heat to reduce by half. Add the tomatoes, cream, lemon rind and juice and cook, stirring, for 3-4 minutes, until the sauce has thickened a bit. Season to taste.

Mix cooked pasta into the sauce with the chopped dill, saving a few sprigs to garnish.

Serves 2

Note: if you only have cooked prawns, add them to the pan a bit later, with the tomatoes and cream. If you are making the recipe with peeled prawns, either cooked or raw, you will need about 200g.

Pasta with Chicken, Bacon, Artichokes & Spinach

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Roast chickens were half price when I did my supermarket shopping this week. They are always handy to have in the fridge to whip up one or two quick meals.

I used one drumstick and one thigh to fill a couple of wraps for lunch. Onto the wraps I spread some home-made mayonnaise, then topped with the chicken, a few roasted pumpkin cubes with pesto (leftover from the previous night’s dinner), some lettuce leaves, grated carrot and a little Tomato Kasaundi – a delicious curried chutney which isn’t on Café Cat yet, but will be in due course. You could use another chutney. Invented on the spur of the moment, this wrap filling was a winning combination.

In an attempt to follow a fairly low carb diet we don’t eat a lot of pasta – maybe once or twice a month. When we do, I like to make something tasty with lots of additions, so it’s not all pasta. The only thing I had to nip to the corner shop for was the spinach, everything else was in the fridge or pantry. If you don’t have a cooked chicken in the fridge you could pan-fry one chicken breast instead.

250g pasta of your choice
80-100g chunky bacon bits (lardons)
2 Tbs olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 cooked chicken breast, shredded or chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 cup artichoke hearts (from a jar or can), sliced
2 cups baby spinach leaves, firmly packed
1/3 cup cream
To serve:
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Cook pasta in boiling salted water until al dente. Drain, keeping 1 cup of the cooking water, then put back into the pan with the reserved liquid.

Meanwhile cook the chunky bacon bits in a non-stick frying pan until browned and crispy. Remove from the pan. If you like discard the bacon fat but I usually keep it. Add the oil and onion to the pan and cook, stirring often, until soft and starting to brown. Add the onions to the pasta with the bacon, chicken, garlic, artichokes, spinach and cream. Turn on the heat just long enough to heat everything through, stirring. Season to taste.

Serve the pasta topped with grated Parmesan and freshly ground black pepper.

Serves 2-3

 

Chicken in a Pot with Pasta

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This delicious one pot recipe comes from one of my favourite no-nonsense cooks, Nigella Lawson. As the chicken, leeks and carrots cook they create a delicious stock which soaks into the pasta. Nigella uses a very small pasta called Orzo or Risoni, which looks a bit like grains of rice. I only had a small amount of Risoni at the bottom of a packet, so I made up the difference with another small pasta.

The recipe will serve at least six. We had it on its own, but you could always add a crusty loaf and a green salad to feed more people. Choose a large heavy pot with a lid which will hold the chicken, with room around it for the vegetables and pasta. Mine is an oval Le Creuset casserole (from the 1970s, when orange was a very popular colour!) which can be used on the stove top as well as in the oven. Nigella uses dried tarragon, but as I have fresh in the garden at the moment I used that.


1 Tbs olive oil
1 whole chicken (1.5 – 1.7 kg)
3 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 leeks (the white part and some of the green) sliced
2 large carrots, cut into sticks
Finely grated rind and juice of 1 large lemon
2 Tbs fresh tarragon, chopped (or 2 tsp dried)
2 tsp salt
½ tsp dried chilli flakes (optional)
1L to 1.5L cold water
300g Risoni or other small pasta
6 Tbs chopped parsley
To serve:
Freshly grated Parmesan

Preheat oven to 180°C and prepare the vegetables. Heat the oil in a large heavy-based casserole with a lid. Dry chicken with paper towels and place in the pan, breast side down, for 3-5 minutes, or until nicely browned. Turn the chicken over and then add the garlic, lemon rind and juice, tarragon, salt and chilli flakes, if using, filling the space around the chicken. Add enough water to cover the vegetables, but not the browned chicken breast which should be left sticking out of the liquid. Turn up the heat to bring the liquid to the boil, then cover the casserole and place in the oven for an hour to an hour and a quarter, by which time the chicken will be cooked. Add the pasta, pushing it under the liquid and stirring it as best you can.

Cover and return to the oven for 15 minutes or until the pasta is cooked. Remove from the oven and leave to stand for 15 minutes before serving. Mix in some of the parsley and scatter the rest on top. Serve a bowl of grated Parmesan on the side.

Serves 6-8

Note: if you don’t have a casserole dish which can be used on the stove top, brown the chicken breast in a frying pan, then put it into the casserole with the remaining ingredients and add boiling water instead of cold.

Brussels Sprouts with Black Garlic & Pasta

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Black garlic is sweet and pungent. Ottolenghi calls it “licorice meets balsamic meets essence of garlic.” I have heard it called  Poor Man’s Truffles.

Like all vegetables, Brussels sprouts, which our mothers and grandmothers loved to boil to death, are completely transformed by roasting in a hot oven. This is a delicious recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi which I have adapted with the addition of pasta and a couple of tweaks to turn it from a vegetable side dish into a vegetarian main course for four. By the way, I used Orecchiette pasta shapes which look a bit like mushrooms in the photo!

A friend lent us a black garlic-making machine. It looks a bit like a rice cooker and you just put the garlic heads in for 270 hours on a very low heat. We had to banish it to the garage because it was stinking the house out, but now we have plenty of black garlic. You should be able to find black garlic at your local farmer’s market.

500g brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved lengthways
3 Tbs olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp cumin seeds
12 black garlic cloves
2 Tbs fresh thyme leaves or 1 Tbs dried
30g butter
2 Tbs pumpkin seeds
1 Tbs lemon juice
1 Tbs Tahini
250g pasta of your choice, cooked al dente
Sesame seeds, toasted, to garnish

Preheat oven to 200°C and put the water on to boil for the pasta.

Place sprouts in a bowl with 1 Tbs of the oil and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well then spread out in one layer on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Bake for 10-15 mins until golden brown but still crunchy.

Meanwhile lightly crush the cumin seeds in a pestle and mortar, then place in food processor with the black garlic, thyme and the remaining 2 Tbs of olive oil. Blitz to form a paste.

Cook pasta according to package instructions. In a large wok or frying pan heat the butter until it turns a nutty brown. Add the black garlic paste, sprouts, pumpkin seeds, lemon juice and tahini. Cook, stirring, for 2-3 mins, then add the cooked pasta and a little of the cooking liquid. Check seasoning.

Serve in 4 individual bowls sprinkled with the sesame seeds.

Serves 4

Pasta with Pesto and Avocado

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After all the rich food of the festive season you’re probably ready for some simple but satisfying recipes to please the whole family. This pasta dish hits the spot.

500g pasta (shell or penne)
2 ripe avocados, roughly mashed
1 cup pesto (preferably homemade)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
To serve:
Grated parmesan cheese
Extra virgin olive oil

Cook pasta until al dente. Drain then mix in the avocados, the pesto and salt and pepper to taste. Serve topped with parmesan cheese and a drizzle of oil.

Serve with a simple green salad.

Serves 3-4

Pasta with Prawns and Pepperoni or Chorizo

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This recipe comes from my friend Ferne. She’s made it for me twice, once in Canberra and once in Brisbane where she now lives. Both times it was delicious.

Any kind of pasta will work, but my preference is to use fresh fettuccine, sold in most Australian supermarkets in 375g packets.

With a mixed salad and some fresh crusty bread, this recipe will serve 4.

375g fresh fettuccine
20g butter
250-300g pepperoni or chorizo, sliced
350g peeled raw prawns (weight after peeling)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 cup dry white wine
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
½ a fresh diced chilli, seeds removed, finely chopped
Handful chopped parsley
½ cup cream
Extra virgin olive oil to garnish

Cook pasta according to packet instructions then drain. Meanwhile heat butter in a large frying pan and cook pepperoni or chorizo for a few minutes, until starting to brown. Add prawns and garlic and continue to cook, stirring, until prawns turn pink. Add wine and lemon juice and cook over moderately high heat for 3-5 mins, to reduce the sauce by half. Add chilli and seasoning to taste. Mix in the cooked pasta, the parsley and cream. Divide between 4 bowls. Top with extra chopped parsley and drizzle a little oil around each serving.

Makes 4 servings