bits and pieces

Or, How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Bowl of Pasta (and an Avocado).

I like pasta. I like avocados. So, when I saw the recipe for Pasta with Avocado, Ginger, Pine Nuts, and Cilantro (they call it Coriander) in the book Noodles in 60 Ways: Great Recipe Ideas With a Classic Ingredient, I thought I’d try it. Now, I wish I hadn’t, and I feel like I’ve wasted perfectly good ingredients by turning them into something inedible.

The recipe itself is fairly simple. You basically toss linguine, avocado chunks (doused in lemon juice to prevent them from browning), and pine nuts together, dousing them in a huge amount of olive oil and (more) lemon juice with some ginger and coriander (I used dried because I forgot to buy fresh) in it. I didn’t full realize the dousing part until I started making it though; I like olive oil, but 1/3 cup of it for a dish serving 2 people seemed like a bit much. I considered being more conservative with it and starting with a smaller amount, but I didn’t.

As you can see in my photo, the end result was a pile of greasy, lemony noodles with some other bits in there somewhere. Contrast that with the photo in the book, which is clearly less shiny of a dish; perhaps they did what I should have done and only added olive oil sparingly. I ate a few bites of it, even adding more pepper and some garlic powder to try and “fix” it, but I just had to give up after all. Hopefully my guts will forgive me for this error!

I’m not really sure if using less oil or lemon juice would have saved this dish though. Beyond the quantity of oil, it just seemed like something wasn’t working and I’m not sure what would have fixed it. And honestly, I’m not sure I want to try at this point, so I’ll move on.

I think in future, I need to be careful when making recipes from Noodles in 60 Ways. I’ve tried 3 so far, and 2 of those didn’t taste or look appealing, while the third tasted all right but didn’t sit well afterwards (though that could be my own stomach to blame). Those aren’t very good statistics!

Sometimes a recipe takes a lot of preparation and effort to try out, but the end result is well worth it. Unfortunately, Pasta with Lentils and Arugula is not one of those recipes. It took a lot of chopping and dicing and stirring and boiling, and then, in the end, the dish just tasted ok. Not even worth making again, as far as I’m concerned.

I wanted to make something new tonight, so I turned to this recipe from the Everyday Food cookbook, which has mostly been good to me so far. I read through the whole thing several times, so I knew it would take some effort, but I went for it.

The preparation was not extensive, but I have learned that coring and dicing plum tomatoes is not my idea of fun. I can deal with the tears induced by chopping an onion — which I did for this recipe — but what a pain to remove the guts from tiny tomatoes. I usually like raw tomatoes, so, to me, that’s removing the best part! But I squirted out the seeds and guts of the poor things.

Then there was all the multi-tasking and coordination. Three pots were required, one for the onions, one for the pasta, and another for the lentils, and they all had their own heats and schedules and whatever else. I managed ok, but it was not my idea of fun, especially when there was a lot of standing and waiting and stirring.

And then, after all of that, when everything that needs cooking is cooked, you basically mix it all up into a sort of warm, sloppy salad. At that point, I worried that it would all be a bit ruined, mainly because of the smell of the lentils in this all. It’s sort of like working with paint, where the colors are lovely on their own, and if you mix them right, it can work, but if you mix them wrong, you get a blob of grayish brown.

Well, this wasn’t quite the grayish brown blob I feared I’d get, but it was very strange. It’s like a warm pasta and green salad, but then there are the lentils, so it’s a bit weird. I got a bit of everything in each bite, and it wasn’t that it tasted badly together. It was just a weird combination of textures and tastes, and not quite what I expected. And it wasn’t all that filling, even though I ate what seemed like enough in my bowl.

There were some good parts though, at least in what I learned. I think the onions turned out quite nicely, all brown and soft, but with plenty of flavor. I could see blending them with a different kind of pasta (spaghetti?) and some spices as a quick dinner. And I managed to cook the lentils to about the right consistency, though I’ve not cooked them before. So at least there was that.

Here’s the recipe in full detail:

Pasta with Lentils and Arugula
Serves 6

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 large onions, halved and thinly sliced (4 cups)
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 12 ounces plum tomatoes, cored and diced (about 2 cups)
• 3/4 cup lentils, picked over and rinsed
• 12 ounces orecchiette pasta
• 1 bunch (8 ounces) arugula, stemmed and coarsely chopped
• 1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving (optional)

Directions

1. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add onions and 1/2 teaspoon salt; cover, and cook until onions wilt, about 20 minutes. Uncover; raise heat to medium. Cook, stirring often, until onions are dark brown, 20 to 25 minutes more.
2. Add 1/4 cup water; stir to loosen any browned bits from pan. Stir in tomatoes; remove from heat.
3. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, cover lentils with water by 1 inch. Bring to a simmer. Cover; cook until lentils are tender but still holding their shape, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain; stir into onion mixture. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Cook pasta in a pot of salted water until al dente. Reserve 1 cup pasta water; drain pasta, and return to pot.
5. Add lentil mixture, arugula, cheese, and reserved pasta water; toss. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with more cheese, if desired.

Orecchiette are small ear-shaped pasta shells; fusilli or farfalle can be used instead. You can also replace the arugula with two cups whole fresh Italian parsley leaves.

Note: Before using arugula, always wash it well in several changes of cold water, until you no longer see any grit in the bottom of the bowl.

Continuing to work my way through the book Noodles in 60 Ways: Great Recipe Ideas With a Classic Ingredient, I decided to go with one that was even easier than the last one.

For dinner tonight, I made Linguine with Tuna and Tomato Salsa, with the only cooking being the prepration of the linguine. The rest of the ingredients became a salsa and topping for the pasta, and it only took a bit of chopping and mixing everything to get that together.

The ingredients are very simple, including cherry tomatoes (I had to use sugar plum grape tomatoes, since that’s what I was able to find at Whole Foods), red onion, fresh herbs (basil and parsley, the latter of which I left out), olive oil, garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. And then tuna from a can, which they suggest having separately. You mix up the salsa, flake the tuna, and then put it all together with the pasta.

Everything came together nicely, though I’d definitely recommend mixing everything up together a bit more than I did. I sort of just plopped it on top of the linguine, which was pretty to look at, but then I ended up with patches of plain pasta.

I think I’d make this one again, since it’s pretty easy, though it seems more like a spring or summer dish than fall or winter one. The recipe also suggests using tuna and dill instead of tuna and basil as an alternative, and that sounds pretty good.

Here’s a close-up of the salsa on its own, since the colors are so nice, and then the recipe following:

Linguine with Tuna and Tomato Salsa
Serves 4

Ingredients

• 13 1/2 oz linguine
• 9 oz canned tuna, flaked into chunks
• Salsa
• 9 oz cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 red onion, sliced
• 5 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• 5 tbsp chopped fresh basil
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
• Salt, to taste
• Ground black pepper, to taste

Preparation

1. Prepare salsa. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
2. Bring a pot of salted water to the boil. Add linguine and cook until al dente. Drain and transfer to a large bowl.
3. Add tuna flakes and salsa to pasta and mix well. Serve warm or at room temperature.

As I currently have a bit of time on my hands, I’ve decided to do a bit more cooking and try out some new recipes. I picked up a few cookbooks about noodles and Japanese food, and have picked out a bunch of them to work my way through. We’ll see how many of those I get around to, but first up I went for an udon dish that seemed simple enough.

The recipe is Udon with Chicken and Spring Onions and it comes from the book Noodles in 60 Ways: Great Recipe Ideas With a Classic Ingredient. I wasn’t entirely sure about the book after noticing some poor editing and possibly translated content, but I went ahead anyway.

The ingredients were fairly easy to gather, though I had to stop by the local Chinese market to track down light and dark soy sauce (not be confused with low-sodium and regular soy sauce). Oh, and I had to settle for baby shiitake because Whole Foods didn’t have larger ones. But then it’s simple.

You basically boil dashi, then add the soy sauces, mirin, salt, and sugar. Next comes the pieces of chicken breast, then the veggies (cabbage, green onions) and mushrooms. Heat up some udon noodles, pour the broth and toppings over it, and you’re done.

As you can see in the photo, the end result didn’t quite look like the photo in the book. The broth was much darker than I thought it would be, which made the chicken end up looking like fried tofu (it’s chicken, really!). The flavor was all right, not too salty, not too sweet, just sort of in between. But it wasn’t really anything remarkable. Maybe even a little underwhelming. Ah well. :)

Here’s the recipe if you’d like to try it out:

Udon with Chicken and Spring Onions
Serves 4-6

Ingredients

• 8 cups dashi
• 2 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 3 tbsp light soy sauce
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp mirin
• 1 lb chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 6 spring onions, halved lengthways then cut into 2 inch pieces
• 6-8 shiitake mushrooms, wiped clean and stems discarded
• 1/4 head cabbage, cut into squares
• 1 lb udon

Preparation

1. In a large pot, bring dashi to the boil. Add salt, soy sauces, sugar, and mirin. Stir until sugar dissolves.
2. Bring broth back to the boil and add chicken. Simmer for 10 minutes or until chicken is tender. Skim off any foam that rises to the surface.
3. Add spring onions, mushrooms, and cabbage and simmer for another 2-3 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to the boil. Add udon, stir, and cook for 3 minutes or until udon is tender. Drain and rinse under cold running water then drain again.
5. Divide noodles equally among 4-6 serving bowls. Ladle hot dashi broth over udon and serve immediately.

I figured I should try a non-Asian dish for once, so I went with the lovely Spring Risotto with Peas and Zucchini recipe from the Everyday Food book. The photo just makes it look so nice, with the green of the zucchini and peas popping out from the risotto, and it is spring after all, so why not?

This was my first attempt at risotto and my first time cooking with wine, so I definitely learned a few things. Like that risotto requires lots of stirring (oy!), and that I should have remembered to buy a corkscrew before I’d already started the prep for cooking (Oops! But I don’t drink wine, so why would I have had one?). Also, I didn’t have a good onion — I think I accidentally threw away the good one instead of the bad one last week — so I had to skip that part. Oh, and I didn’t halve part of the broth and water mixture, so I had to toss what was left and make a new batch to compensate.

Despite the few mistakes, I think it turned out pretty well, and I would definitely make it again, with an onion and the proper broth proportions. And maybe less parmesan cheese (for my stomach’s sake). :)

Here’s the recipe for reference:

Spring Risotto with Peas and Zucchini
Serves 6

• 2 cans (14.5 ounces each) reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 to 2 large zucchini (1 pound), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Heat broth and 2 1/2 cups water in a small saucepan over low heat; keep warm. Meanwhile, melt 2 tablespoons butter in a 3-quart saucepan over medium heat. Add zucchini; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring often, until zucchini is golden, 8 to 10 minutes. With a slotted spoon, transfer zucchini to a plate.
2. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add onion; cook until soft, 5 minutes. Season with 1 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Raise heat to medium. Add rice; cook, stirring, until translucent around edges, about 3 minutes. Add wine; cook until absorbed, about 2 minutes.
3. Cook, adding 1 cup hot broth at a time (stir until almost all liquid is absorbed before adding more), until rice is tender, 25 to 30 minutes total.
4. Add zucchini and peas; cook until peas are bright green, 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in remaining tablespoon butter and parmesan. Serve, topped with more cheese.