Pasta with yoghurt, peas and chilli - Ottolenghi recipe

Pasta with yoghurt, peas, parsley , feta
with walnuts toasted in chilli olive oil on top

Various recipes lately have been making me realise how awesome peas are.  Including this unusual recipe from Ottolenghi for pasta with yoghurt, peas and chilli.

Overall verdict:  lovely.  Though unexpectedly not that hot (in the temperature sense) because the yoghurty mixture isn't hot when you mix it with the pasta - it kind of tastes more like a pasta salad than a main course pasta dish, if you know what I mean.  I really really liked the nuts toasted in olive oil with chilli flakes especially - that is totally happening again for me on top of other pasta dishes.  And I think I might test out other options with the yoghurty pasta sauce concept as well - burnt aubergine in it would be nice, I reckon..

Anyway.  Back to this recipe:   you blend some yoghurt, peas, garlic and olive oil in a food processor:

Yoghurt, peas, garlic and olive oil

While you cook the pasta, toast some nuts in olive oil with chilli flakes.  Ottolenghi says pine nuts but I went for walnuts because I like them better and had some left over from this pesto experiment.   And also I didn't have any pine nuts.  You should, at the same time, cook the remaining peas - Ottolenghi suggests doing this in a third pan but I didn't want my lovely husband to hate me (he does the washing up) so I just put them in with the pasta, half way through.  You can totally tell from Ottolenghi's recipes that he creates them in a restaurant kitchen where he does not have to do the washing up or be married to the person who does the washing up.

Toasting walnuts in olive oil with chilli flakes

Toasting walnuts in olive oil with chilli flakes

Toasting walnuts in olive oil with chilli flakes

Chop up some feta and herbs - Ottolenghi says basil but I went for parsley for roughly similar reasons to the pine-nuts/walnuts thing earlier!  I think mint/dill would be nice too.

Feta and parsley

You then stir it all together - adding the yoghurt mixture slowly to the pasta to avoid it splitting - and with the nuts on top to look artistic.

Pasta with yoghurt, peas, parsley and feta

Pasta with yoghurt, peas, parsley and feta

Pasta with yoghurt, peas, parsley , feta
with walnuts toasted in chilli olive oil on top

Walnut, goats cheese and parsley pesto

Pasta with walnut, goats cheese and parsley pesto and roasted yellow peppers, asparagus and courgettes

An article in the Guardian reminded me about making pesto.  I tried making pesto a while back and it was nice but not significantly nicer than shop bought pesto.  But this article reminded me that one of the advantages of making your own pesto is that you don't have to stick to the pine nuts/basil/parmesan thing, you can make up your own recipe.  So, on a whim, I bought some walnuts, parsley and hard goats cheese and made my own.  I just chucked some of all three of these in the food processor and added olive oil until it looked right.  Not the most precise recipe of all time but it tasted pretty damn good.  I think I prefer parsley to basil in pesto, largely because of the more robust flavour.

Walnut, goats cheese and parsley pesto

Walnut, goats cheese and parsley pesto

To go with it, I roasted some vegetables - courgettes, yellow peppers, asparagus and some chopped garlic along with lots of salt and black pepper and olive oil.  I love roasted vegetables so much.  While they were roasting, I cooked the pasta and then combined.  Hmmm.  Definitely experimenting with pesto again..

Roasted yellow peppers, asparagus and courgettes

Pasta with walnut, goats cheese and parsley pesto and roasted yellow peppers, asparagus and courgettes

Roasted garlic and creme fraiche spaghetti

Roasted garlic and creme fraiche spaghetti

I've been working late a lot recently and so my lovely husband has been taking on more of the cooking.  The other day he made a particularly lovely pasta dish involving roasted garlic, creme fraiche, mushrooms, mangetout and spaghetti.  Mmmm.

To make it, he first of all roasted the garlic, which takes around an hour so worth bearing that in mind if you're really hungry!

Roasted garlic and creme fraiche spaghetti

There are a number of ways to roast garlic but he went for the method described here (the bottom of the page, "roasting garlic for cooking purposes") which seemed to produce some pretty tasty roasted garlic. 

Then, he fried up the vegetables - an onion, a selection of mushrooms and some mangetout (though, really, any vegetables would work) - added a good slug of white wine, cooked for a while longer to let that reduce, stirred in the creme fraiche, left it to heat through, then added the roasted garlic and the spaghetti. 

 

Roasted garlic and creme fraiche spaghetti

We decided to pack up the left overs for lunches during the week but, if you wanted to, I bet it would make for a lovely frittata di spaghetti.  That's the Italian way of using up left over spaghetti which - like much Italian cooking - is straightforward but very very good.  All you do is grease a pan (olive oil/butter/as you wish), put the spaghetti in it, crack a couple of eggs in (more if you have loads of left over spaghetti, obviously) and then cook.  Particularly good with a little cheese on top. 

capri lemon pasta - Maria Elia recipe

capri lemon pasta

Have been eyeing up the recipe for capri lemon pasta in Maria Elia's The Modern Vegetarian for a little while and, since I had both leftover lemons and leftover double cream, I thought the universe was trying to tell me something.

I decided to skip the asparagus as no English asparagus was available and I'm rather of the opinion that bad asparagus is worse than no asparagus. So just podded broad beans, peas and the double cream and lemon sauce. And some parsley because I had some parsley and a handful of chopped parsley never hurts anything.

I usually like her recipes but I thought this one wasn't written quite right - her suggested ordering leaves you with no time to pod the broad beans which is the most time consuming bit of the whole dish - and, if I'd followed her directions to the letter, I think the sauce would have ended up too liquidy. I skipped the cooking water she directs you to add and, even then, had to let it all simmer together for a couple of minutes to get the sauce thick enough.

 The resulting dish is lovely, though, like a lemon posset with added yummyness. My husband thought it was too lemoney, though, and would have preferred it as a side dish. It occurs to me that it would be a lovely way to serve broad beans and/or peas as a side dish. Mmmm.