Pasta Basics + 3 Recipes

★★★Noodley Goodness! ★★★

In this entry I will first talk about some basic things when it comes to making pasta based dishes and then I will write down three recipes for a pasta dinner - a vegetarian one if you wish so. Let's go! (^o^)/)

When I boil pasta, I do the following things:

1. Put water into a pot
2. Add soup stock/cubes/powder (usually clear vegetable broth)
3. Bring to boil
4. Throw in the pasta, cook it until it's good to eat
5. Get rid of the water - do not douse noodles with cold water!!
6. Add garlic/herb/salty butter - or normal butter and mix/toss the noddles so they get coated evenly

Penne + Garlic Butter

I know many people add oil at the beginning of cooking the noodles, like, they pour some into the water before they boil it. I don't do that because it just floats on top of the water and doesn't do much, except get your sieve all oily when you drain the water. Adding butter to the still hot noodles prevents them from sticking together and adds a nice flavor to them as well - especially if you use flavored butter!

My mom really likes to eat her pasta plain like this because it tastes plenty already! Also because it was cooked in broth instead of just water (or water with some salt in it). ☆


RECIPE: Pumpkin (Kabocha) + Spinach Pasta

Pumpkin + Spinach Pasta, Egg + Spinach Soup, Tofu/Mozzarella + Tomato + Basil Salad

I know pumpkin is out of season right now but it's one of my favorite pasta recipes. Although I really hate peeling pumpkins (I almost sacrificed part of my finger preparing this the first time but I have learned!).

The types I would recommend for this recipe:

Kabocha - this is the type of pumpkin that is eaten a lot in Japan. It's skin is green and rough and the inside is yellow/golden with a more floury texture compared to squashes and it usually tastes very sweet. I really like it (also when grilled or roasted) and I'm a little sad you cannot get it easily and cheaply over here.

Butternut Squash - a very small squash type with light orange/tan skin and darker orange flesh inside. It's usually very firm and shouldn't show any threads or fibers when you look at the flesh. Otherwise it'll become a vegetable knot in your mouth then you eat it and a pain when trying to make it into a sauce.


I didn't write down the exact measurements - I'm trying to get into that habit but I usually cook without a recipe book and exact measurements and just improvise. I can give you rough estimates though.

For about 4 plates you need:

1/4 of a small Kabocha Pumpkin or alternatively 1/2 of a small Butternut Squash - about 500 gr I think
2 onions - normal sized
500-600 gr preferably fresh spinach - whole, frozen spinach works, too but do not take the already processed kind that comes out all gooey (or more, because it shrinks when you cook it in terms of volume)
200 gr carrot (leave in one piece)
1 thumb of fresh garlic or some garlic powder/seasoning
1 thumb of fresh ginger
salt
pepper
oil (cooking oil or olive oil)

Parmesan cheese
grated other cheese (a salty kind would probably be good like Cheddar or so)
250 ml (cc) of cream or cream cheese

Veggie Tip: Instead of using cream or cream cheese to add texture to the sauce (for example if you're a vegan or if you don't like cream or don't want to eat it because of the high fat and the calories), I'd recommend using a few small potatoes (around 300 gr should suffice, or it will dilute the taste of the pumpkin) instead. They'll make the sauce creamy and smooth.


Soup Tip: To make optimal use of the ingredients, this dish comes with a spinach and egg soup! You don't have to make it if you want to make the pasta but I recommend it! Here's what you need in addition to what's written above:

(optional: 200 - 400 gr chicken or pork)
some coriander seed (50 gr or so)
2 cardamom seeds


Add the spices into a tea-egg or teabag or the like to hang it into the soup. If you want to add meat, you have to clean it first before putting it in to cook with the rest, to get rid of excessive oil and other nasty tasting things. If you can wait, I'll be putting up an entry about this next.


How to:

Skin the onions and set one aside for later. Take the other one and cut in a star - do not cut all the way through just make it open up like a flower or star shape or just cut in an X. Put that into a pot with water. Wash the ginger and cut it in as well, making a checkerboard pattern or just make little gashes along one side. Put that into the pot with the onion and the water as well. Skin the cloves or garlic and set one aside. The other one can go into the water as well with the rest.

Skin the piece of carrot if you haven't yet and put it in with the rest. The carrot is used for flavoring and also for some color and texture later on. Carrots have a natural sweetness to them, so you can reduce the amount of sugar you need to add to the broth, making it healthier! :) Also, if you use it in the sauce later, the orange color will make the sauce look very appetizing.

Skin the potatoes and the pumpkin carefully and take out the inside part of the pumpkin with the pits and the like if you haven't and add them into the mix, add a teaspoon of salt and then bring it to boil. For skinning pumpkins, I'd recommend using a good, sharp knife and just shaving the skin off instead of using a peeler. Or, if you don't have a sharp knife available - it happens - clean the pumpkin skin well and boil it on it's own shortly - just put the pieces with the skin down into some water and heat it up until the skin softens. Then you can peel it off with a knife.

Once the vegetables are soft, get another pot or bowl and take out the potatoes, pumpkin and carrot (and the rest of the stuff if you have a food processor, otherwise, it's a bit hard to mash up the onion, ginger and garlic - unless you like it really, really chunky... if you want to do that, I recommend cutting things up at the beginning instead of leaving them as a whole).

Heat some cooking oil or live oil in a deep pan or in a pot. Add finely chopped garlic and after a few minutes a finely chopped onion. Add the soft vegetables and about 200 ml of the broth. If you have a food processor or the like, use it to make a smooth sauce out of this. If not, use a fork and mash the vegetables up - I prefer mashing usually because it leaves the sauce a bit chunky and I like having little bits of veggies instead of a smooth sauce.

Add more seasoning as you see fit, like pepper and salt and if you didn't use any fresh garlic, garlic powder. Also add in the cream cheese or cream here if you want to include some - you can use it in addition to the potatoes as well, or instead of the potatoes. That's up to you.

Then add the spinach and stir until the spinach is good. Once you've accomplished this, add the still hot pasta! So while you've been handling the sauce, boil the pasta as well.

Mix well and then add grated cheese to the mix and the Parmesan. Keep some of both for the garnish.


That should be it! :)


RECIPE: Egg & Spinach Soup

For the soup, you can proceed like this:

Once you've gotten the broth, you can get rid of the stuff inside like the bag with the spices (or whatever else you used), ginger, onion and garlic - unless you've pureed them along with the other veggies for the sauce. If you added meat, just leave it in the broth.

Bring it to boil and prepare 3-4 eggs (I usually go with one per person but you can use less if you want). When the soup is boiling, turn down the heat again. Crack the eggs into a bowl - don't mix them. Use chopsticks or a spoon and stir the soup while you pour in the eggs. This will create nice egg-ribbons. If you stir very quickly they'll be very small and fine. I usually go with a moderately fast pace so the ribbons are a nice size - as you can see in the picture. The important thing is for the soup to be still hot but not super boiling so the egg solidifies but doesn't turn into bubbles.

Once you've gotten the egg in, just put in the spinach and heat the soup up again so the spinach gets cooked. And the soup's pretty much done. You should taste it of course to make sure you're not lacking any spices~!



RECIPE: Tofu/Mozzarella + Basil + Tomato Salad

To complete the dishes shown in the picture, have a quick salad recipe.

250 gr tomatoes (cocktail/cherry tomatoes but normal ones work, too)
1-2 blocks of smooth, fresh tofu - the kind you can eat as it is without preparing it in any way 150-200gr I reckon but really, it's however much you want to eat ;) OR 1-2 balls of mozzarella cheese
50-100 gr of fresh basil leaves
balsamic vinegar or any other dressing you like
(optional: green onions or chives)

Basically just cut everything up and put it in a bowl to mix. Since the tofu is very soft, instead of cutting it up I just squashed it carefully as it was. In terms of dressings, I'd recommend sour dressings or vinegar based ones because that goes better with the basil and the tomato but it's up to you. I personally would use either an Ume/Plum dressing (you can buy it in Japan) or creamy balsamic vinegar - the dark, saucy kind (Aceto di Modena or something like that I think it's called).


This was the first basic menu to kick-off this blog. I think the next entry will be about some basic meat preparation tips. See you then! Ｂｙｅ♪ ヾ('-'*)ヾ(*'ー'*)ノ(*'-') /~ Ｂｙｅ♪