Mark Peel's Pesto (Pasta)

Pesto is a flavorful Italian condiment that is often used as a topping for crisp bruschetta, on a delicious no-tomato-sauce pizza, as a sauce for summery pasta, it even tastes fantastic when just spooned over golden oven roasted chicken. There are infinite possibilities with how you can combine and use this versatile pesto to liven up a dish.



Pesto is usually made with fresh basil leaves, pine nuts, garlic and olive oil - all crushed to make a deliciously fragrant sauce. Fresh pesto is vibrant and brilliant green in color and is best when used immediately. But I know a lot of people make pesto and stash it away in the refrigerator for a rainy day. This pesto keeps for at least 2 weeks when refrigerated. As the basil gets oxidised quickly, make sure to pour a thin film of olive oil to keep the discoloration minimal. The appearance suffers but the taste is just as good. Once you make a batch of this use it liberally on sliced toasted baguettes, inside a wrap or make a delicious roasted vegetable sandwich.



This recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart's Living Cookbook . A compilation of over 1200 recipes from the first decade of the magazine. It's a great book to have on your shelf, especially because it's so extensive and still has one of the best indexes that I've seen in a cookbook. So it's very easy to find a recipe with an ingredient that you have on hand and want to use up (very good for an ingredient hoarder like me, as I often buy a whole bunch of shiny new things to cook with and run out of ideas before the actual ingredient runs out). I've bookmarked quite a few recipes and cannot wait to try them out in my new oven!



Recipe

Difficulty level - Easy
Cooking Time - 5 mins
Makes - 1/2 cup - enough to use as a sauce for a pound of pasta - serves four.

Mark Peel, chef/owner of Campanile in Los Angeles, makes this coarse-textured pesto using a mortar and pestle rather than a food processor. Basil leaves turn black if exposed to the air after they are cut, so pour extra virgin olive oil over the surface of the sauce to preserve its brilliant color.

Ingredients

3 garlic cloves
3 tbsps pine nuts, toasted ( I used walnuts instead)
1/2 tsp kosher salt, plus more for seasoning ( I used sea salt instead)
1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup coarsely chopped fresh basil leaves
1/4 tsp of fresh cracked black pepper ( my addition )
Fresh lemon juice

Method

Using a mortar and pestle, crush the garlic and the nuts with 1/2 tsp of salt and 1tbsp of oil until pulverized. Add basil; work until you have a rough paste. Whisk in remaining oil in a stream. Season with salt and lemon juice.

To make pesto pasta - Cook pasta in rapidly boiling salted water until al-dente, usually takes around 10 -12 mins for dried pasta. Drain the pasta and reserve some of the cooking water. Coat the pasta liberally with the pesto. You can also add fresh grape tomatoes, olives, roasted eggplants and any other veggies that you like. If the pasta gets too dry, use the reserved cooking water to thin the sauce out.

Note - if you don't want to go the mortar, pestle and exercise route, blend all these ingredients in a blender to a coarse paste. It's totally optional but I add about 1/4 cup of grated Parmesan into the pesto just before using it. Feel free to leave this out if you don't intend to use it. If you do not plan on using the pesto immediately and want to refrigerate it - do not add the cheese until just before serving/using.

Spaghetti with roasted red and yellow peppers, aubergine and olive stuffed bocconcini

Phew! that was a lot of words for a title. This pasta dish is so versatile - you can toss in any veggie that you fancy and happen to have on hand. It's a hassle free and simple recipe that literally takes minutes to prepare and tastes so good.



I've used what was fresh and easily available at the market on that day. Originally, I planned to make a sauce with these gorgeous green tomatoes that I found. But chickened out at the last moment fearing my toddler would find the green tomatoes too tart. Probably next time around......:)

Nevertheless the dish was simply delicious with each ingredient shining through boldly. Loosely based on a pasta dish - Evelyn's Everything Pasta, that I loved and always got at Cheesecake Factory. I know that CF is not gourmet, but I think the food is pretty decent and they have a sizable number of options for vegetarians. Works for me.



The original dish had penne as the pasta, broccoli, eggplants, red and yellow peppers, olives, flat leaf parsley,pine nuts and Parmesan. Feel free to experiment with what ingredients you have on hand. Multitask - cook the pasta while the vegetables are being sauteed or roasted to save on time for a quick week night meal!



Recipe

Difficulty level - Very easy
Cooking time - 30 mins
Serves - Two greedy people

Ingredients

1 pound of spaghetti (Use any pasta that you like)
1 red pepper cut into strips
1 yellow pepper cut into strips
1 medium sized eggplant/aubergine cut into thin slices
2 cloves garlic, crushed
4 tbsp of good olive oil
2 tbsps walnuts ( Use pine nuts if you can find them )
1/2 tsp red chilly flakes
1/2 tsp of dried oregano or dried mixed herbs
10 -12 fresh basil leaves roughly torn apart
4 - 5 bocconcini or mozzarella cut into cubes
2 tsp Parmesan cheese grated

Method

Cook the pasta in plenty of salted and rapidly boiling water for 10 -12 minutes, until al dente. Drain and keep aside. Reserve some of the pasta water. You can get this going on the side while you work on veggies.
Heat 2 tbsp of the olive oil in a heavy skillet or pan and place the eggplant slices in a single layer without overcrowding them. You want them to get brown and crispy on the edges. Do it in batches if you have to, but do not toss all of them in. Season the eggplant slices with salt and pepper. Remove and keep aside.
Alternately you can bake/roast the eggplant slices in 425 F oven for . Just brush the slices with olive oil and bake until lightly browned. You could also roast the red and yellow peppers whole. Once the peppers are charred on the outside, remove and place inside a paper bag and allow them to steam. This allows the skin to peel off easily. When cool enough to touch , remove the skin and slice the flesh into strips.
Heat the remaining olive oil in the same pan. Add the garlic and saute till an aroma is given off. Do this on a low flame, you don't want to brown or burn the garlic but just infuse the oil with all of its flavor. Next add the nuts and heat them till they get crunchy. Add the chilly flakes and dried herbs, the red and yellow peppers and saute till the peppers are tender-crisp. Add the roasted eggplant slices.
Finally add the torn basil leaves and mix gently.
Add the pasta and combine with all of the veggies making sure that the oil coats all the strands and the seasoning is distributed evenly.
If you find that the pasta is too dry you can add a tiny amount of the reserved pasta water to moisten it. Just before serving toss in the cubed mozzarella or bocconcini. Grate Parmesan over the pasta and garnish with more fresh basil leaves. Serve hot with crusty garlic bread on the side.

Penne with Basic, Awesome Tomato sauce

The crazy Domino's pizza ad has my toddler enamored with pasta. He will eat pasta for breakfast, lunch and dinner if I let him. So instead of ordering in I decided to make some of the Basic, Awesome Tomato sauce that Deb from Smitten Kitchen promised was .....well, basic and awesome. And it was AWESOME.



I always always always trust Deb when it comes to recipes that work. She has useful tips and hints and has tried and tested the recipe out completely with step by step pictures and instructions. Her recipes never disappoint....however lofty and expensive the ingredient list.

One bite - and the sauce took me right back to a fresh tagliatelle with tomato sauce dish that I had at a charming Italian restaurant in Soho. Considering that I practically thrived on not-so-stupendous pasta dishes while eating out at some places that were not vegan/vegetarian friendly it was quite impressive that it didn't taste like sauce that came out of a jar.

Italian food, even when it is vegetarian tastes simple,clean and delicious. It's primarily because the cuisine relies essentially on the freshness and natural flavors of the ingredients. You can taste the tang of the tomato,the fruitiness of the olive oil with just enough heat from the dried chilli pepper flakes and a hint of garlic. No one condiment stands out or overpowers the other. It is a beautiful marriage of all the flavors and they all live together in harmony and happiness. The only thing that was missing was a good shaving of Parmesan. But I didn't miss it all that much as the sauce more than made up for it.



I found that this sauce also freezes well and keeps fresh for up to a week in the fridge. Infinitely flexible too - you can thicken the sauce,tear and toss a few fresh basil leaves and voila! what have you here - a decadent pizza sauce. Also pairs well with cheesy garlic bread, as a dip for fried mozzarella sticks and forms a great base for a pink sauce when some fresh cream is swirled in.

For the pasta - this sauce works with both fresh and dry pasta. Cook according to package instructions and as a rule don't overcook the pasta. The pasta should be cooked al-dente. Typically takes about 10 - 12 mins of rapid boiling in plenty of salted water.

This recipe henceforth is going to be my go to for a Basic and very Awesome Tomato sauce. Instead of paying the pizza delivery guy a ton of money for something that won't come even close to tasting as good as this - let's get cooking!

Note : I modified the sauce a wee bit by adding some dried herbs - basil on one occasion and dried oregano on another. They both tasted equally good. I highly recommend the herbs for an additional Italian flavor boost.
Also as the tomatoes that I used weren't as red and plump and juicy as I would have liked them to be, I added about 3 tbsp of tomato puree that you can buy in a tetra pack at the grocery store. It gave the sauce a thick and rich red tomato-ey glow.
The white wine was omitted in my version of the sauce. I substituted with plain old regular water.



Recipe

Source : Smitten Kitchen

Moderately Easy Tomato Sauce

A more involved, seasonal update of the Basic, Awesome stuff.

Makes enough for one small/medium pizza.

4 roma tomatoes
1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Pinch of red pepper flakes
Splash of white wine
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt

Bring medium pot of water to a boil. Poach the tomatoes for one minute only, and then drain them. As soon as they are cooled off enough that you can touch them, peel them. The peels should come right off. If they don’t, make a slit in the skins. This always does the trick.

Drain and dry the pot. Put it back on the burner over medium heat. Pour in olive oil and let it heat completely before adding the garlic and stirring it for a minute with a wooden spoon. Add the red pepper flakes and stir it for anther minute. You do not want the garlic to brown. Put the peeled tomatoes in the pot, along with the wine, sugar and salt. Break the tomatoes up with your spoon.

Let the sauce simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes break down. Carefully taste without burning your tongue and adjust seasonings, if necessary.