Creamy Mushroom Pasta With Sausage

As you may already suspect by now, I love pasta - it may even be safe to say that I enjoy all food Italian. I had concluded many years ago when I visited Rome twice in a short span of 3 months, that one has to be really unlucky to get bad food in Italy.
I look forward to July when I would be vacationing in Turino and Milan.

In the meantime, I am happy to whip up a quick and tasty pasta dish in my humble kitchen.




Originally a vegetarian recipe featuring just mushroom, I tried to perk it up with sausages.
The white wine cuts through the creaminess to keep the dish refreshingly light. I am now totally enamoured with cooking with cream and white wine. You can find this similar pairing in my last pasta dish, Spaghetti with Creamy Garlic Prawns which was equally delicious.


There is really nothing much more to say about this easy everyday concoction. I leave you with the photos and the recipe. Bon Appetite!

Creamy Mushroom Pasta With Sausage

Recipe
250g. Spaghetti
100g. Sausages sliced
60ml. Olive oil
600g. Swiss brown mushrooms, sliced
2. Garlic cloves
125ml. White wine
300ml. Cream
3tbsp. Finely chopped Italian parsley
30g. Grated Parmesan cheese

Method:
1. Cook pasta to al dente and set aside.
2. In a frying pan fry sausage until cooked.remove and set aside.Heat olive oil in the same pan and fry mushroom for 3 minutes until softened. Add crushed garlic cloves and fry until fragrant.
3. Add white wine and simmer until 50% of liquid has evaporated.
4. Add cream and chopped parsley. season with salt and pepper.
5. Add cooked spaghetti from (1). Toss well to coat. Add sausage and serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

Spaghetti With Creamy Garlic Prawns

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This one is for the serious aromatic lovers - garlic, leek and parsley- this recipe has it all in generous portions.

I am thankful that I am not allergic to to any of the aromatic vegetables. I have a colleague in Italy who is allergic to garlic and I don't know how he overcome meal time challenges at one of the gastronomic capitals of the world. I imagine it to be pure torture.
I am also fortunate that I happen to love the distinctively pungent aromas of wonderful herbs and vegetables such as garlic, parsley, coriander, celery etc. I well up in frustration when friends I dine with reject herbs with a strong smell. I try hard to be tolerant but it will always remain beyond my comprehension.

In a world laden with processed food and additives, garlics boost our immunity and minimise heart ailments. Leek on the other hand,is a great source of fibre and has laxative, antiseptic and anti-arthritic properties.




Cooking a recipe like this will have all your neighbours thinking that you are a great cook. The aroma is intoxicating and evokes imagery of sizzling gourmet food. It doesn't hurt when the recipe is really easy to manage.
So who's afraid of the aromatics???


Spaghetti With Creamy Garlic Prawns
Recipe:

2 tbsp Olive oil
16 Raw medium size prawns, shelled and deveined
30g Leek chopped
40g Garlic, minced
1/2tsp Chilli flakes
125ml Dry white wine
50ml Cream
250g Spaghetti
3 tbsp Chopped flat leave parsley

Method :

1. Season prawns with salt. Heat half the oil in a frying pan and prawns to the pan and cook at high heat for 2-3 mins or until cooked. Remove from the pan, cover and keep warm.

2. Start cooking pasta in a large saucepan of boiling water until al dente. (I used tagliatelle which required me to cook for 12mins hence I start early here)

3.Heat the remaining oil in the same pan, add the leek and cook, stirring over medium heat for 2-3 mins or until softened. Add the garlic and chilli flakes and stir for 1 mins.

4. Pour in the wine and simmer for 4 mins or until reduced. Add the cream and simmer for 3 mins or until just thickened.

5. The pasta should be ready and drained by now.

6. Stir parsley into the sauce and season with salt to taste. Return drained pasta into the pan and stir to coat.

7. Divide among serving bowls and top with prawns.

Bill Granger's Spaghettini With Crab, Lime And Chilli

I am currently in love with Bill Granger's recipes. This is possibly the fourth time I have cooked from his cookbook. Previous attempts included the poached peach in Rose Water, crumpets and more recently the souffle pancake.. I bought his cookbooks after my third trip to Sydney last year and after my third visit to his restaurant Bills at Darlinghurst. I recall an avid recipe book collector friend once told me that somehow, she did not feel compelled to own his books because the recipes were so simple.
I totally agree with her on the simplicity part but boy, simple as they may be, they do work so beautifully.

Take this spaghettini number for example, as the forward to the recipe claims, it is an Asian-European fusion recipe that really works. It literally takes less than 10mins to put together and the flavours are so refreshingly addictive!  The zestiness of the citrus juices married beautifully with the chopped spring onion,coriander (the recipe called for parsley which I did not have) and crab meat. I went a little bit further by throwing in some chopped coriander roots and a dash of Old Bay seasoning and the end result, I swear, is totally restaurant worthy!


I wish I had tried out this recipe earlier then I would most definitely have cooked it for the last party I hosted... with a dish so easy to put together, I would have more time to mingle with the guests than slogging over the stove!

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Spaghettini With Crab, Lime And Chilli (adapted from Bil's Sydney Food)
Recipe :

150g               Crab Meat
Juice & zest    2 limes
Juice               1 lemon
1 clove           Garlic, crushed
1/4 cup           Chopped coriander
1/4 cup           Chopped green spring onions
1 small            red chilli, finely chopped
1 stock            Coriander root, finely chopped
1 tsp                Sea Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Dash               Old Bay seasoning
1/4 cup            Extra Virgin Olive oil
200g               Spaghettini

Method :

1. Place crab, lime and lemon juices, lime zest, garlic, cordiander, coriander root, spring onions , chilli, sea salt and pepper , Old Bay in a bowl and stir in olvie oil to combine. Taste to adjust the seasoning.

2. Cook Spaghettini in rapidly boiling salted water in a large saucepan, according to manufacturer's instructions. Drain well.

3. Toss pasta into crab mixture and serve in individual bowls.

Beaufort Mac And Cheese & A Le Creuset Giveaway

When the team from the newly branded Wayfair on-line store (previously CSN) offered to do a giveaway collaboration, it was easy for me to decide on the Le Creuset mini cocottes. For those who are not familiar, Wayfair is possibly one of the largest home-stuff on-line store that sells everything from Toy Boxes to furniture to kitchen ware.

Some of you may already know about my weakness for Le Creuset cocottes. I first fell in love with Le Creuset 2 years ago when I was taking a short break in Paris. Since then, I have already accumulated 10 cocottes (my last count :) ) of various sizes in my kitchen. Apart from their outstanding functionality, their seasonal colour collections also have the ability to make me irrational at the store.

These stone ware mini cocottes are easier to store and are great for serving and baking. Giving pizazz to the everyday Mac and Cheese is easy by baking them in these individual portion cocottes.
Of course, Mac and Cheese, as the name implies is all about the cheese. I further glam'd up the dish by working with some French Beaufort cheese. The Beaufort is a sharp flavour cheese that is similar to the Gruyere. Produced in the Beaufort region in the French Alps, I was first introduced to its distinctive flavours in Europe a few years ago. It melts easily and blends well with the Mascarpone and heavy cream that I used for this recipe.

If you are not able to get Beaufort, fret not, replace with Gruyere or your favourite cheese. Le Creuset's Mini Cocotte cookbook recommends the use of equal parts of Gorgonzola, Fontina and Parmesan.
Totally easy to prepare and quite easily the favourite household comfort food for the cold/cool season.

Wayfair will be giving away 4 mini stoneware cocottes at Køkken. (Closed on 11th December 2011)
To be eligible for the giveaway, please ensure you do the following : (Giveaway is opened to US and Canada residents only)

1. Leave a comment on this post. (make sure your contact can be traced from the comment)

Add extra comments to improve your chances of winning by doing the following : 

1. Like Køkken on Facebook and come back to this post to leave an extra comment to inform that you have done so.
2. Like Wayfair on Facebook and come back to this post to leave an extra comment to inform that you have done so.
3. Follow @Køkken69 on Twitter and tweet the following message. Come back to this post to leave an extra comment to inform that you have done so.
I just entered to win a set of 4 mini @LeCreuset cocottes hosted by @Kokken69!  Enter here : bit.ly/teUhSW lockerz.com/s/161922307
The Giveaway will end on 11th Dec 11:59pm  EST and results will be announced on 13th Dec. Good luck! 



Recipe : (adapted from Le Creuset's Mini Cocotte)
450g/4 cups                 Macaroni
20g  /1/2 stick              Butter
150g/1/2 cupe              Heavy whipping cream
150g/ 6oz                    Beaufort Cheese (you can replace with 50g/2oz each of Gorgonzola, Fontina and    
                                    Paremsan)
100g/ 1/2cup               Mascarpone Cheese
50g / 2oz                     Chopped Walnuts
Salt & Pepper    


Method :
1. Preheat oven to 220C/ 430F.
2. Lightly butter the 4 mini cocottes
3. Part cook the macaroni in salted boiling water for 3-4mins. Do not cook through. Pass the pasta under cold running water to stop them from further cooking. Add a few drops of oil to prevent them from sticking together.
4. Melt the butter in a small heavy saucepan. Add the cream and all the cheese. Stir until all the cheese has melted. Add salt and pepper to season. Add the chopped walnuts. 
5. Add the cooked macaroni into the cheese sauce and divide into the 4 mini cocottes. Sprinkle with some Beaufor/ Parmesan cheese. Bake for 10 to 15 mins until the tops are golden brown and a crust forms. Take the cocottes out of the oven and let them rest for 5 mins before serving.

Prawn Mousse Ravioli with Meyer Lemon Butter

When my first experiment with the Meyer Lemons turned sour (no punt intended), I promised myself that I would not lose heart. With the remaining 3 precious fruits sitting in my refrigerator, I tried my best to lock in the taste of the sweet tartness and the scent of the mild floral zest in my memory...refluxing the phantom flavours over and over on my palate... wondering, imagining, fantasising about how the floral citrusy flavours would work with different ingredients.

I was sure of one thing and that is, I had wanted to abandon desserts and work with something that is more savoury. Picking the brains of ZenCanCook over Twitter last weekend, I found new direction. Stephane had shared that the unique floral aroma of the Meyer Lemons would go well with fish and crudo. This immediately reminded me of the memorable Fluke Sashimi With Yuzu dressing I had at Nobu.... it was simply sublime.

Armed with these new inspirations, the 1/2 kg fresh sea prawns I had bought in the morning and my new Kitchen aid pasta roller attachment, I set my mind on making a Ravioli dish,filled with a prawn mousse which I had seen in one of the Junior Masterchef tag challenges with Justin North and Matt Moran.
The recipe in the challenge dresses the Tortellini with prawn oil which I felt could over power the flavours of the Meyer Lemon. I opted instead for a simple Lemon Butter sauce.


The verdict? Almost sensational.... ;) . The mild tartness of the Meyer Lemon was perfect as a dressing for the Ravioli and the floral aroma of the zest in the dressing and the prawn mousse was simply delightful. The flavour was refined and very elegant. What I can improve on, though, is my pasta. I wish I could get it thinner and more pliable. I am guessing that I did not knead and rest the dough enough to get the right silky and soft texture.

Two Meyer Lemons used up and one more left. I would be happy to simply juice it and enjoy it as a tall cold  lemonade :)

Recipe :
Pasta & Prawn Mousse (Adapted from Junior Masterchef)
Pasta Dough

200g type ‘00’ flour (I used plain flour)
2 eggs
1 tablespoon olive oil
Pinch sea salt

Prawn Mousse

600 g green prawns, whole (about 300 g prawn meat).
¼ teaspoon flaked salt
1 egg white
120 ml cream
zest of ½ a lemon

Lemon Butter Sauce
112g   Unsalted butter
Pinch of salt
2 tsp   Lemon zest
1 tbsp Meyer Lemon Juice
Method :
1. Pasta Dough

Combine flour, eggs, olive oil and salt in food processor. Process until mixture forms a ball.
Remove dough from processor and knead briefly on a lightly floured bench until smooth. Wrap in plastic wrap and rest at room temperature.

2. Prawn Mousse

Remove the heads from the prawns then peel the tails to remove all of their shells.
Take the prawn meat and remove the intestinal line by running a small knife along the back of the prawn tail, then scrape out the intestinal track then discard.

Process prawn meat, salt and white pepper in a food processor until a coarsely chopped. Add egg white and blend until mixture is smooth. Add cream and lemon zest and process until just combined. Avoid over mixing. Place into a piping bag and refrigerate

3. RavioliDivide dough into three balls. Flatten each ball into a disk and pass through the pasta machine on the widest setting. Fold pasta in half, lengthways and repeat without changing the roller settings. Cut pasta if it gets too long. Gradually narrowing the pasta machine settings 1 notch at a time. Roll the pasta through until the finest setting. Run through 3 times then cut out 3 rounds with a 10cm round cutter.

To make the Ravioli, brush one half of each circle with egg place a little of the prawn mousse in the center of each circle (about the size of a 20cent piece) and top each with another wrapper, pressing it around the edges to seal in filling.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add 1 tsp of salt into the water. Working in 2 batches, cook ravioli until they rise to the top, 2-3 mins.
4. Sauce Meanwhile, make the sauce. In a frying pan, add 1/2 the amount of  butter and heat until just bubbling and frothy. Transfer first batch of Ravioli into pan using a slotted spoon along with 2 tbsp of pasta cooking liquid. Add 1 tsp of lemon zest and add half of the lemon juice. Swirl to combine. Transfer to plate.

5. Repeat with the next batch of Ravioli.

Crab Fat Spaghetti - Taba ng Talangka

I first learnt about this wicked cholesterol inducing crab fat paste from Amy Ma's guest post at Chubby Hubby's blog. I first tasted it on my first visit to Manila, Philippinnes this January at Chef Laudico Bistro Filipino. I then bought it at a supermarket at Makati - determined to experiment with it when I got home. I remember coming home from that trip excited by some of the food I had eaten there. I first made Corned Hash Rice and I gushed to Trissa of Trissalicious about how I was inspired to make the Ensaimada. (a brioche bread topped with butter cream, granulated sugar and shredded cheese - sinfully rich)

I also remember being puzzled by the way most people define Taba ng Talangka as crab fat. I have eaten countless crabs but I have not seriously seen any fat under the crab shell. Crab Roe/ Paste on the other hand is a prized ingredient that even the Chinese would gladly use for their high brow delicacy dishes. When I googled this fascinating ingredient, a slew of flatteringly disturbing descriptions popped up  : wicked cholesterol hell, artery clogging, you-only-live-once - food descriptions which are almost always synonymous with comforting, deliciously orgasmic flavours... though an article suggests that it is may be a libido suppressant...

Popular dishes prepared with Taba ng Talangka are usually simple to make and include eating it with rice, (paella style) and cooking it with seafood pasta, to name just a couple. In Amy Ma's post, the chef had served the spaghetti with seared Hokkaido scallops, Chef Laudico served his linguini with calamari... and so it appears that this rich curd-like roe is best used to enhance the flavours of the sea.

When I finally got down to make this a couple of days ago, I decided to do it with vermecilli pasta and serve it with seared scallops. Feeling strangely sinful even before I started cooking, I felt oddly inhibited as I stared at the rich curd swimming in the even more oily fat ( the roe is prepared and preserved in copious amount of oil, salt, calamansi juice and what not).  Perhaps it was because I had been over eating on my last business trip or perhaps it was due to the stubborn 3kg weight I had put on after I started blogging.... but whatever it was, a little voice was nagging inside me telling me that  I SHOULDN'T eat this, that I have to be more disciplined in my food consumption.

I then modified Amy Ma's recipe and omitted the cream that was added to the pasta sauce to make it even richer and creamier. Without the cream, my pasta still retained the breezy flavour of the sea but it lacked the smooth, indulgent creaminess I had tasted at Chef Laudico's restaurant. The 'kick' was not there and I have to admit that despite all good senses and reasonings, some food are meant to be enjoyed in all its artery-clogging, cholesterol reeling, libido suppressing goodness - so, I will have to do this again the right way, without inhibitions and without regrets!

Recipe From http://chubbyhubby.net/blog/?p=584

Poached Eggs With Pasta- My Twist To The Traditional Birthday Noodles

It is amazing how the birthdays of my dearest, my best friends, my family all seem to fall in the month of January and February. L, my sister and 2 of my close knit friends' birthdays fall in January. In Februray, including myself, there will be another 4 birthday girls within our close knit circle celebrating birthdays. I am not a person big on birthday celebrations. I am extremely bad at remembering birthdays and refrain from letting people know about mine.

I remember commenting on Zurin's blog once that age is getting increasingly irrelevant in today's world. I sometimes feel that we are entering an ageless era. One cannot avoid turning pages of any fashion magazine today without being besieged by youthful images of  men and women (especially women) in their fifties, sixties looking like some immortal sphinx!

Admittedly, science has played a big role in youth preservation, health enhancement and beyond.  Some of these solutions overwhelm our expectation and imagination while others yield reports to demonstrate efficacies of certain natural food families e.g. Royal Jelly, Pine Bark Extract, Mushroom Extract, Ginseng.
Whatever they are, the ultimate objectives underlying these solutions strive to achieve the common goal of prolonging live and extending youth.
A Korean colleague of mine once made a comment which floored me but at the same time set me thinking. We were talking about the benefits of taking Korean Ginseng extract - he takes them regularly for general well being - to enhance energy level, boost immunity - all to cope better with the highly demanding tasks we are engaging in both at the work front and family front. He then lapsed into a playfully pensive mood, lamenting that actually he preferred to be free from these 'super supplements' for he feared when it is time for him to go, his nutrient enforced cells will be resisting the siege and cause more suffering to those last few moments on the death bed.

Well, that was a little bit of food for thought. What I really want to post on this blog is actually a dish to celebrate the 2 birthday eventful months. One of the most traditional dishes presented during chinese birthdays would be noodles served with 2 hard boiled eggs. It is ceremonial to dye the shell of the hard boiled eggs in red. Everyone in the family will be expected to partake of one red egg while the birthday gal/guy will need to take 2 of them. As we get more and more exposed to the western world, these noodles and eggs gradually started to disappear during birthday celebrations. They are often deemed old fashioned and unhip. Replacing them are visually appealing western style birthday cakes.
As I was flipping through some old Japanese Food Periodicals a few days back, I saw a picture of poached eggs. Poached to take on the appearance of a snow white pouch, these are drizzled with a mayonnaise dressing. I have never made poached eggs before and all of a sudden I thought the poached eggs paired with the Mentaiko Angel Hair Pasta I made last week would offer a nice modern twist to the traditional birthday noodles and eggs.

Poaching eggs, for those who have never done it before - be warned! It is NOT EASY! I wasted 4 eggs before I got these 2 that look boderline decent. A few points which I will pay attention to when I do this again next time :
1. Water needs to be bubbling but not too vigorously.
2. Once the egg has been poured into the water, leave it - do not be tempted to poke at it, stir it etc.
3. I will use my soup ladle to cradle the egg instead of letting it float and swim in the bubbling water.

The dressings, so easy to make, pair brilliantly with the poached eggs.



Ingredients for Poached Eggs :

Eggs                Let there be extras...
Rice vinegar     2 % of the volume of water. (if you use 1l water, add 20ml)

Dressing:
Tomato Mayo
2 Tbsp        Mayonnaise
1 Tbsp        Tomato Ketchup
1 Tbsp        Milk

Worchester Mayo
2 Tbsp       Mayonnaise
1 Tbsp       Worchester sauce

Method :

1. For dressing, simply mix all ingredients together.
2. In a frying pan ( I started using a saucepan but changed to a more shallow wok) add enough water to give a height of 3-4cm of water.
3. Add 2% of vinegar and heat to low boiling.
4. Break an egg in a small bowl. Slowly ease this into soup ladle immersed in the boiling water.
5. Leave this to set and cook.
6. Once egg white is cooked, (yolk should still be liquid, if you prefer this to be harder, boil longer but egg white may become a little tough. I suppose you can reduce the amount vinegar if you prefer to cook the yolk longer but want to prevent the egg white from toughening) drain water carefully from ladle and transfer egg into a bowl of cold water.
7. Use your hand, gently scoop the poached egg from the cold water and pat dry with dish towel.

8. Top with Mayo dressing and garnish with Nori (seaweed powder) powder.

Please refer here for spaghetti recipe.

Sakura Ebi Mentaiko Pasta

While preparing for my last post on Sakura Ebi Fried Rice, I had tried to google about Sakura Ebi and found a whole avalanche of interesting recipes using Sakura Ebi (Cherry Blossom Dried Shrimps). The Japanese sites were especially inspiring and one that stood out was a simple yet what appeared to be a universally embraced recipe : The Sakura Ebi Pasta. This is one of those recipes that is exotic east meets west - where the Japanese takes Wafu（和風）flavours and incorporates it with western cuisine and ...lo & behold... there has been no looking back since. This is especially true when the pasta sauce is based on a Mentaiko butter sauce which is easily the favourite Wafu spaghetti recipe in Japan and beyond.

For those who are not familiar with the Mentaiko (明太子), these are actually spicy pollock roe. They are also sometimes referred to as spicy cod roe. The mentaiko has a salty and spicy taste - as a result of the marinating and light fermenting process in chilli, sake and konbu. It is actually very flavourful. One can buy these at the supermarkets over the sushi / sashimi counter. Bought over the sashimi counter, they would still be in their own membrane/ sac. These will need to be slit open with a knife and the delicious roe can then be scraped out.

These are mixed with butter, lemon juice, a little Japanese mayonaise and a little Olive oil. I did not use up all the Mentaiko butter and had wrapped the remaining butter using cling wrap into a log (like a susage) and stashed it away in the freezer.

Topped with the Sakura Ebi which were lightly pan fried to a fragrant crunchiness, this pasta dish is actually very very good. What would I do differently next time? - Add some fried onions and sprinkle some seaweed dust.



Recipe :

1-2 sacs                    Sashimi grade Mentaiko
1 tbsp                       Unsalted butter
1/2bsp                      Japanese Mayonnaise
1 tsp                         Olive oil
1 tsp                         Lemon juice

1 portion                   Spaghetti
Handful                     Sakura Ebi

Salt & Pepper           To taste

Method:

1. Slit open the Mentaiko sac and remove egg roe. Mix softened butter, mayo, olive oil and lemon juice in a bowl. Add in egg roe and mix well to get a smooth creamy sauce.

2. In a shallow frying pan, add a few drops of olive oil. Add Sakura Ebi and toast fry until it is fragrant and crispy.

3. Prepare spaghetti as directed on packaging.

4. Toss drained spaghetti in a dollop of Mentaiko butter sauce.

5. Top with Crispy Sakura Ebi.