Buffalo Chicken Pasta Bake

Call me crass, call me unsophisticated, but don't you ever, ever say i'm not tasty! Nom.

I came across this recipe originally from a great blog with great photography, How Sweet It Is and tweaked it to suit my own tastes, and have also included a buffalo chicken sauce recipe!This pasta bake is the sinfully unholy amalgamation of macaroni cheese and buffalo wings!

There would be only one improvement to this dish and i feel almost as though i should not say it in the interest of public safety! But... if you actually made buffalo wings, plucked the meat from the bones and used THAT instead of the poached chicken i used... you may be in United States-Hyrbrid Heaven.

Penne with Lamb Shank & Swiss Brown Mushroom Ragout

In case you can't tell, i'm really getting into mushrooms lately. There' something in them that you cannot substitute, something in the rich umami flavor that has lately stuck in my mind, drawing me to make more mushroom dishes! And this comes from a guy who, in his younger days, could not stand mushrooms. Years of eating only your standard field mushrooms, always reduced down to a ridiculously strong flavor through grilling, or pizza toppings, made me detest the humble mushroom. Since then my palate has grown but i still never use regular mushrooms in cooking, finding their flavor to be a bit too harsh.

And so in comes the swiss brown. Whilst i normally gravitate towards mushrooms suited to Asian cooking, such as enoki, shiitake (my favorite) and oyster, these mushrooms simply aren't well suited to the Italian richness of a ragu. Swiss browns are a close relative to the standard mushroom but with a more earthy flavor. Their texture is also a touch firmer so they stand well to the rigor i put them through in this dish.

Note that in this dish i take the meat off the shank before i cook; this is simply because i forgot to get them cut to fit in my dish! In an ideal world, put the whole shank in the pot. 

Penne with Italian Pork & Fennel Sausage, Brocolli and Parmesan

My boss at work comes from an Italian family, and is occasionally dropping hints at how to make a good pasta. One such recipe he mentioned was spaghetti with brocolli, a pasta simply tossed with olive oil, parmesan and small brocolli florettes. I stumbled across a more extravegant recipe in the Carmine's cookbook (Carmines is a famous old-school Italian restaurant in New York for those who don't know), which added Italian Pork sausages and a few other ingredients. So i thought i'd give it a go!

I was pleasantly surprised to find such a different tasting pasta dish to add to my repertoire. A good quality Italian sausage is key to this dish, so make sure you go to a reputable butcher or delicassen.

Fettucini with Chilli Prawns

A quick and easy Sunday night dinner, fettucini with Chilli prawns. This recipes really only takes as long as it does for the pasta to cook! I think that chilli pairs wonderfully with any seafood.

Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe

I love a simple pasta. Back in the days of highschool holidays, i would get up every day and devour an entire packet of spaghetti, with a simple sauce of olive oil, basil, garlic and fresh chilli, covering it in a snowstorm of parmesan cheese.

Gone are the days of devouring entire packets of pasta, but there is nothing more satisfying than a simple sauce for pasta that can be whipped up in seconds. This roman pasta is perhaps the simplest that i have yet seen, consisting of only 2 ingredients to the sauce. Better still, they are ingredients that i always have hanging around! Bewarned though, that the pepper can pack a bite! If you don't like it so peppery, i can only say that you shouldn't make this dish.

Penne with Salami, Olives, Basil and Capsicum

So this is the second recipe i've cooked in Ringwood, and this time the core reason behind cooking was simple: my mum wrote 'pasta with salami and olives etc' on the fridge whiteboard. So there wasn't much leeway tonight! Nonetheless i've cooked it anyway, to fairly decent familial reviews.

Ingredients (serves 3)

• 4 cups penne pasta
• 1 tomato
• 1 red capsicum
• 3 tbs olive oil
• 1 medium onion
• 1 handful black olives
• 75gm salami
• 1 handful fresh basil leaves
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed

Method

Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling water until al dente. Drain and set aside. 
Dice the tomato flesh, onion and capsicum

Slice the salami into long thin strips

Pitt the olives and cut into small pieces.
Heat a medium saucepan over low-medium heat and then add the olive oil
Add the onions and garlic and saute until soft, careful not to colour the onions

Raise the heat to medium-high
Add the salami and cook for a further 3 minutes. 
Add the tomatoes, olives and capsicum and cook for a further 1 minute.

Pour the sauce over the pasta and season with salt and pepper.
Throw in the basil and toss the pasta through.

Serve with freshly grated parmesan on the side.

Pappardelle with Cos Lettuce, Peas and Prosciutto

 Pappardelle seems to be back in vogue again, and it's unusual that it's current reputation as an elegant pasta is quite converse to it's rustic appeal a decade or so ago. Also in vogue is the cooking of lettuce, which provides a taste almost like a mustardy spinach, to a dish. So i suppose this dish is very much a 'fad' dish; but that's not to say that at the same time it's not very very tasty.

As i couldn't find fresh pappardelle at the market i purchased fresh Lasagne sheets and cut them into 3cm thick ribbons which provides the same end result. Also, if you don't have a reputable grocer, don't use fresh peas: the frozen ones will be better, and cost a 10th of the price.

Spaghetti All'Amatriciana

It's budget time! I'm trying to go lean on the wallet lately so i'm back to ensuring that my meals cost less than $5 per person. And pastas and other carbohydrates tend to be a good way of doing it! I don't mind though because i adore pasta, and this is one of the simplest, cheapest and tastiest to make.

If i could change one thing in every kitchen around the world, i think it would be to destroy all pre-made pasta sauces. They're nasty, overly salted junk! And it's cheaper, and easier, not to mention tastier to make your own tomato bases.

Don't knock the Gnocchi

Gnocchi... most of us have tried to make it, most of us have failed. Most of us will try again, and this time we shall succeed!! And once we do, then we can mix things up a bit with sweet potatoes and flavourings. But for now, the basics.

The 3 Cardinal Rules of Gnocchi:
1. No water!!! Gnocchi is so often ruined because there is too high a water content in the dough; the main cause of this is waterlogging the potatoes when boiling. Put the potatoes in the oven people!

2. Do you like the taste of raw flour? No? Then use as little as possible!!

3. Don't give me that saucy look. Choose your sauce wisely. Gnocchi goes better with sauces with a high oil count, and the heaviness of the potatoes does not lend them to 'summery' sauces like oil and chili. Go for gold with carbonaras, sage and burnt butter, or if you must go tomato, go a ragout.

This recipe will make 3-4 serve of gnocchi.

Ingredients:
1kg of starchy potatoes like desirees
2 cups of flour MAXIMUM
Salt
1 egg Method:
Put the potatoes into the oven at 180 degrees for an hour or so until they're easily pierced with a fork. Remove and leave to cool enough to handle (these are hot potatoes after all).

Peel the potatoes (you should be able to do this with your fingers) and either push through a ricer or grate using a block grater so that a fine consistency is achieved. Mix through one lightly beaten egg. Gradually add flour to the mix until you can handle the dough without it sticking everywhere (don't add any extra as more will be incorporated as you knead). Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes or so.
Split the dough into 4 balls.
Roll the first ball out on a board until it's a log around 3cm thick.
Then cut the log into pieces around 3cm each. You should end up with... a 3cm cubed cube. Get it?
Roll the first piece into a ball, and then press lightly onto the prongs of a fork to create a ridge.
Roll the ball along the ridge so that it goes around able half of the ball. This is not just for presentation; the ridges will grab your chosen sauce better.
You may have noticed, you no longer have a ball. You have an oval, or a log. That's okay, just lightly press the gnocchi into the shape below. Set the finished gnocchi piece onto a floured surface or a sheet of baking paper.
Repeat for the remaining pieces, and then for the remaining balls of dough.

You can then freeze the gnocchi on a baking tray; when solid you can throw them in a freezer bag to save room. Else you can boil them up straight away!
To cook, bring a pot of salted water to the boil. Drop in the gnocchi and as they float up to the top, scoop them out with a slotted spoon. Tomorrow i'll put up a sauce to have with the gnocchi.

Night night