Simple Cooking

I picked this up from the internet somewhere and the sauce is really offbeat and unusual. The flip side is, it is a bit laborious but makes for a really impressive fancy meal.

Dont forget to tell the everyone what all you have used, thyme, wine, cider vinegar......Great to impress!

This is what you need:

1 pack (450gms) pasta, such as linguine or fettucini
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 1/4 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs, cut into 1-inch cubes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup of dry white wine
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
2 Tbsp chopped fresh mint
1 1/2 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme (dry ones can work as a substitute, but use 3 tbsp in that case)
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 teaspoons honey
1 teaspoon sherry vinegar or apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt and more salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

This is how to cook it

Heat salted (1tbsp salt) water in a large pot for the pasta. As the water heats, prepare the chicken. Heat olive oil in a large skillet on medium high. Season the chicken pieces generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add the chicken pieces, spreading them out initially and then not stirring them, so they have an opportunity to brown. Once lightly browned on one side, use tongs to flip the pieces over so they brown on the second side. When pieces are browned on both sides, and just cooked through, remove to a paper towel lined plate.

Deglaze the pan with white wine. Use a wooden spoon to scrape up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the chicken stock and let liquids reduce by half (turn up the heat if necessary). Add the cream, mint, thyme, lemon zest, honey, salt, and vinegar. Reduce the sauce by half again.

Once the pasta water is boiling, add the pasta and cook following directions on pasta package. When pasta is ready, drain and add to cream sauce when cream sauce has been reduced by half and is thick enough to coat a spoon. Add chicken to the pasta and sauce. Add more salt and pepper to taste.

Garnish with a little chopped fresh mint and thyme.

Serve immediately.

Again a pretty simple recipe. You need to use fresh sausages, not the frozen, mass produced ones, because with the frozen ones you cant get the meat out of the casings and the fresh ones taste much better. If you cant find the sweet sausage, just use the plain fresh sausage.

This is what you need:

1 large sweet sausage
1 large hot and spicy sausage
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic
3/4 large (28 oz) can of whole tomatoes
Olive oil
1 lb (16 oz) spaghetti pasta
Salt
Grated Parmesan cheese

This is how it is cooked

For the Sauce:
Take the sausage meat out of the sausage casings. Break up into pieces and mix the sweet and spicy sausage meats together. Alternatively, if its only plain sausages that you can get your hands on, just add cayenne powder and crushed pepper to the skillet when adding the sausages. Brown the sausage meat in a large skillet on medium high or high heat with a little olive oil. In a separate skillet sauté the onions and garlic until the onions are translucent. Purée the tomatoes in a blender, add to the skillet with the sausage meat. Add the cooked onions and garlic.

For the Spaghetti

Fill a pot at least half full with water and bring to a boil. Add a tablespoon of salt. Slowly add the pasta, stirring to prevent clumping. Allow the water to come to a boil again. Cook, uncovered, with a fairly vigorous boil, for as long as the directions on the pasta package say, usually about 10-12 minutes. When pasta is al dente (good to bite but not too soft), remove the pot from the heat. Add a cup or two of cold water to the pasta to stop the cooking. Drain the water from the pasta through a colander. Mix in the sauce and coat the spaghetti evenly.

Garnish with grated Parmesan cheese and serve.

This is a very simple spaghetti recipe but has that small deviation from the regular. This recipe was shared over by my fab Danish friend while I was studying in Copenhagen. Those were the days when the time and will to cook after an exhausting day in the classes were both scarce and this quick meal was fantastic.

This is, as one says, a pretty firgiving recipe. You dont really need to be too careful with the amounts. A little bit more here and little bit less there, wont do too much damage.

So here's to you Hennie!!






What you need

Half pack of Spaghetti boiled, not too soft
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves of minced garlic
1-2 red/green (red looks better) chopped chillies (the big, fat, relatively harmless ones and not the small killer ones!)
3 medium tomatoes cut in boat shapes and deseeded
8-10 sun-dried tomatoes chopped
Handful of walnuts (crushed roughly)
2tbsp full of any sauce you might like (pesto, aubergine, mushroom) or you can add App. 10 fresh basil leaves

How to Cook

In a largish pot, boil some water and add half a spoon of salt and one tea spoon of oil. The salt is so that the spaghetti absorbs some of the salt for taste and the oil is to avoid the spashetti from sticking to each other. This method is universal for whenever Spaghetti or Pasta or Macaroni is cooked a la dente. Be careful of not over cooking the Spaghetti. You should check it by biting a bit of it to see if its soft enough and does feel too dry when you bite it. Strain the water and set aside in the pot.

Next, in a sauce pan, heat the oil and add the chopped garlic and chillies. Fry lightly, then add tomatoes (fresh and dried) and the sauce/basil leaves. You can smell of fried garlic and feel good that something is going right! Cook for about 4-5 min (till the tomatoes are hot and quite soft, not too soggy though). Then add the walnuts and salt (according to taste, one tsp should be fine, but go slow, you can always add more salt later if its not enough) and freshly ground pepper. The pepper should not be the powdered type. That would not taste or look any good. Avoid pepper if you cant lay your hands on the freshly ground one. Cook for 1 min. Pour it into the spaghetti and mix well. Serve hot.

Eating leftover of this is also not bad since the juices are absorbed into the spaghetti even better but its a bit dry...ahhh student days!

Let me know how it turns out...would love to hear from all!