Pasta di Federico

A cousin from Italy was staying over and he wanted to cook one of his regular pastas that he whips up after a day at uni for him and his housemates. It reminded me of quick pastas my mum makes!

A dead simple pasta, but what makes this pasta so good is the little details in the cooking. Basically, take your time...and fry things off seperately. I don't like using too many pots for a quick pasta, but it is really worth it.

Federico, diced onions and then fried off very slowly on low heat with a lot of oil. This was the key...and decent amount of olive oil with the onions in a stone cold pan that he then brought to slow sizzle for about 15 minutes will he preped the rest.

Diced and sliced zucchini and red peppers...and some diced speck...or thick slice or proscuito or bacon. While the onions were cooking, again very lightly and slowly fried off the veg in a seperate pan...with a healthy lug of olive oil. You don't want the veg to sizzle as they hit the pan...let them soften the build to a sizzle...he even put a lid on to steam/sizzle.

When the onions were ready, he added a tin of tomatoes and threw the pasta...once the sauce began to boil, he added the veg and fried off the proscuito, again seperately. Then added the proscuito to the sauce.

Once the pasta was cooked, added it the the sauce in the pan and tossed it around. A very lightly sauced pasta and not too dense with vegetables. But the extra flavour created by the oil was delicious.

The key to this pasta is taking your time...and keeping things to a low heat. It still will only take about 20 to 25 minutes to make. So well worth it! Delicious.

Linguini with Tomato, Basil and Trout.

Had a couple of whole rainbow trout that I had roasted the day before - had cooked them simply in the pan with a couple of whole cloves of garlic, salt and pepper and white wine.

Also, had a huge pile of ripe tomatoes that needed to be cooked, so I made a simple tomato pasta sauce - garlic, onion, the chopped fresh tomatoes and heaps of basil. Cooked this for while, and it smelt and tasted amazing - you don't need to do much to tomatoes this good.

This sauce is perfect with seafood stirred through, like green prawns, pipis, or tuna. So the roasted trout was perfect - I flaked it off the bone and stirred this through the sauce on the boil with some white wine while the pasta cooked. I reserved some of the trout, and marinated it in lemon, olive oil and salt and pepper, which I threw on the pasta just before we ate - with parmasen cheese too of course.

A great weekend lunch pasta with a glass of white now the weather is warming up.

Teriyaki Ling with Lemon and Ginger.

This was a delicious quick dinner. Hannah marinated ling fillets in ginger, lemongrass, soy, sesame oil, honey and lemon. While rice was cooking, seared this in a pan with all the marinade so it was created a delicious sticky sauce. Then threw the pan in the over for a bout 10 minutes.

Served on rice with bok choy and oyster sauce on the side, a great mid week dish! yum.

Turkey Stew with Grilled Fennel

We are seeing a lot more turkey in supermarkets at the moment which is great and the real cheap cuts which a great for winter cooking. We cooked up two turkey legs like lamb shanks. Seasoned and fried off in a baking tray. Then once browned took the out and fried onion, garlic, celery, carrot, red peppers...and once they softened a bit, threw in some tinned tomatoes and white wine Then put the legs back in and stewed this on a low oven for about 3 to 4 hours.

The turkey had turned into a beautiful stew as it was falling off the bone. We were thinking of having this with polenta, but by that stage were feeling a bit tired for all that stirring. So we had fennel on hand and decided to cut into big wedges and chargrill it. The fennel was a great side to the turkey stew, as you could sop up chunks of the stew as it broke apart. Of course, some crusty bread on the side was needed. Delicious.

One Pot Spaghetti Carbonara

This is becoming a tradition when we leave Hannah's family farm - a pasta before we hit the road - we have come to call it 'breakfast pasta' - as it is perfect for a late brekky and it's made with bacon and eggs!

This time I decided to cook it all in one pot - as we had delicious leg ham so it didn't need cooking like bacon. When the pasta was cooked and drained, back in the pot I tossed though the shredded ham, 3 lightly beaten eggs and heaps of parmasen cheese and butter. Stirred this threw and when the eggs were all creamy I threw in halved grape tomatoes and parsley. Topped with a bit more cheese and parsley - a drizzle of olive oil, I think this was the best one I had cooked. But then again, eating it on the verandah of a farm in the hunter valley may have had something to do with it.

Dory Schnitzels with Italian Bread Salad

I picked up some John Dory fillets and they were the perfect schnitzel shape so I decided to make a big batch of them and keep them in the freezer for when we felt like a schnitzel fix.

Hannah came up with this salad, based on those chunky italian paesanella salads made with leftover bread. We chargrilled red peppers, put on some peas with onion (which we always have with schnitzel) tore the bread up and warmed it in the oven with herbs, chilli and olive oil.

I decided to throw some rosemary, tyhme and garlic in the oil I was frying the schnitzels in to flavour them a bit more. It worked well as the herbs sealed to the fish. When they were cooked we tossed all the cooked salad ingredients with cos lettuce and threw some anchovies threw. Just squeazed lemon and a drizzle of olive oil as dressing. Almost felt like a healthy(ish) version of fish and chips!

Parpadelle (homemade) with Mushroom Ragu

We had not pulled out the pasta maker for a while and we cranked it up one chilly sunday as we had tray of mixed mushrooms to cook. And this really did not take long at all...and was worth the extra effort.

I had a small tray of mushrooms - oyster, shitake, field and straw. In a pot I fried them with some garlic, rosemary and salt and pepper, than once they sweated for a bit I added a lot of red wine - enough to cover them. Once this simmered for a bit with the lid on, I added a tin of tomatoes.

While that simmered away Hannah made the pasta dough - we tried spelt flour this time and decided for parpadelle. We used the same technique as lasagne, then just cut them into big thick strips. They cooked very quick but the spelt flour worked a treat - and the ragu was very creamy and rich - a perfect winter pasta.