I got stuck in rotten traffic on the way home from work the other night, bored and hungry, for almost an hour and a half (I only live 4 miles from my office!). My lovely hubby asked me if there was anything he could do to get dinner underway and I jokingly replied "make the pasta!". I was pleasantly surprised when he said "ok... how?" and so promptly referred him to my Pastalicious blog post.
What a hero! By the time I got in the door, the pasta dough was resting in the fridge and he was busy clearing up the work surface. He'd never made pasta dough before and it was delicious, which goes to show that it is worth giving it a go! He made 300g flour / 3 eggs which, with other ingredients, will easily feed four.
I rolled the dough out and turned half of it into spaghetti for dinner, and half into tagliatelle to store for later in the week. The tagliatelli just had to be hung out to dry for a few hours and then stored flat on a tray with semolina.
The sauce was an easy one. Firstly, we boiled the broad beans, shelled them and set them to one side. Then we pan fried a couple of thinly sliced purple onions, three smashed cloves of garlic and one deseeded red chilli until they went soft. Then I melted a big knob of butter into the mix and added a couple of sliced courgettes and cooked them until almost done.
Finally, a glug of single cream, a handful of freshly grated parmesan, the broad beans, a squeeze of lemon juice, salt, pepper and chopped parsley. The spaghetti cooked through in about 3 minutes and I just lifted the pasta straight out of the water and into the sauce, ready to be served. Yum, yum, yum!
Leftover roast chicken has lots of uses but I think risotto is one of the more obvious ones. Saying that, risotto is a bugger to get right and I'm definitely still learning the trade.
For years I've ignored the requirement for some kind of special rice (arborio, carnaroli) and, fair enough, my risottos have tasted wonderful... but they took 3 hours to make. Here is an attempt with arborio rice, I'd say it took about 45 minutes. Yeah. Fair enough then. I'll pay for the stupid special rice in future.
I used up some of the stock that I made earlier in the week, if you made some you'll see it's all wobbly and a bit like jelly - that's a good thing. I had about 700ml, which went into a pan on the hob to heat up.
I chopped up a couple of onions and sticks of celery, heated up a large frying pan with oil and butter, and cooked them until they were soft - thinking about browning but not going brown. In went a teacup of rice, stirred until coated in the oil and butter and warmed through. Then a teacup of white wine, which sizzled and bubbled when added to the pan. I stirred that until the wine had disappeared.
At that point, in goes a big spoonful of stock (I think my ladle was in the dishwasher) and stir stir stir until it's all absorbed, before adding another spoonful. Keep going until all the stock is gone. The rice wasn't quite entirely cooked yet, the grains still had just a little too much bite to them, so I added a little hot water to finish it off.
I popped some broad beans on to simmer, ready to skin them. They are a beautiful peircing green when you take off their jackets, the only issue we had with them is that they were quite elderly beans, picked late off the plant, so they did have a slightly mealy texture to them. Lovely young peas or beans is what you really want.
Then stir in the leftover chicken, the broad beans and lots of grated parmesan.
Finally, when the risotto was hot through again, I stirred in some chopped parsley and seasoned with freshly cracked black pepper and a knob of cold butter.
What a hero! By the time I got in the door, the pasta dough was resting in the fridge and he was busy clearing up the work surface. He'd never made pasta dough before and it was delicious, which goes to show that it is worth giving it a go! He made 300g flour / 3 eggs which, with other ingredients, will easily feed four.
