Party of four 20/08/2016

Party of four 20/08/2016

Who: 

Me, resident food critique, our Greek neighbours

Place: 

Chez nous

Menu:

To start: 

Samosa chaat with tamarind sauce and chimichurri sauce

Main:

Butter chicken
Pilau rice
Salad of coriander, red onions, tomato and cucumber

Dessert:

Homemade fruit tart with nectarine and grapes from our lovely neighbors

I make - pasta with yogurt, peas and chilli

This has to be the best pasta I've ever made and I have made a lot of pasta dishes in my cooking life. The recipe came from the culinary wizard, Yotam Ottolenghi. And for once this is one of Ottolenghi's recipes which does not require a spice pantry fit for a king, not that I am complaining.

With a few ingredients easily accessible which may already exist in your fridge and pantry, the sum is so much more than its individual parts. The taste is perfectly balanced and the flavor is not overly complex. Livened by the gentle yogurt tang, soothed by sweetness from peas, based in undeniably aromatic basil savory note, the dish is given a final sparkle by a subtle fiery kick of chilli. Although the taste reminds me of summer, the end product is warm which makes it perfect for a crisp autumn evening when the long days are gone. I urge you to give it a go!

Pasta with yogurt, peas and chilli

for six people

500g Greek yoghurt
2 teaspoons of garlic powder (or 4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed)
90mL + 60mL olive oil
100g + 400g fresh peas (or frozen, defrosted)
500g pasta (conchiglie pasta shell or farfalle)
60g coarsely chopped walnuts (or pine nuts)
2 tsp kirmizi biber/turkish pepper, to taste  (I mix Aleppo pepper and Urfa chilli flakes. Ottolenghi suggested a substitute using regular chilli flakes with a tiny amount of smoked paprika)
40g basil leaves, roughly torn
240g feta, broken into chunks
Salt and freshly ground white pepper

To make the sauce: In a large bowl, puree the yoghurt, garlic, 90ml of the olive oil, 100g of the peas and 1/2 teaspoon of salt with a stick blender. You can use a food processor for this step.

Cook pasta while preparing chilli nutty oil. Cook the pasta in plenty of salted water according to the package. While it's cooking, heat the remaining oil (60mL) in a small frying pan over medium heat. Add the walnut pieces and chilli flakes, and fry for four minutes, until the nuts are golden and the oil deep red. Season the nuts with a pinch of salt. At the same time, heat the remaining peas in a pan of boiling water, then drain.

Drain the cooked pasta into a colander, shake well to get rid of as much as water possible. Let the cooked pasta sit in the bowl steaming away further moisture for 10 minutes. Stir the pasta a few times with a rubber spatula to help cool down the pasta. Add the warm pasta to the yogurt sauce . Add the peas, basil, feta, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and plenty of white pepper, and toss gently. Transfer to serving bowls, spoon over the walnuts and the chilli-infused oil, and serve immediately.

This dish tastes best when it's just made, when all flavors are the brightest in harmony. The leftover may need additional stir-in sauce to refresh the flavor and it certainly tastes much better blood-warm than fridge cold.

Summer of 2016

Time is flying at speed of light ever since I entered 40. Months and years pass me by before I have a moment to say, what? Well, it's not the quantity but the quality, remember? I will try.

This July we spent six fantastic and exhaustive days in the Alps. The Alps must be the place where the fittest people go. Because while I was trying with every bit of my sweat and concentration to focus on a very steep and slippery road (upwards and down), people kept passing me by, running, in fact, most of the time, as if they were walking along the beach promenade. Despite the testament to my physical ability, this trip is an unforgettable experience for me. I start to understand why people have been fascinated about the Alps for all these time. The vastness of this mountain range, the most vivid color you will find in the midst of summer and the ever changing terrain, how can one be ever bored there!?

Shortly after we came back, we had the pleasure of our nieces and nephew visiting. How big they have grown! Long gone the image of them playing with their toys when they were half of our height. They are now as tall or even taller than I am! And what a nice group of fine young adults they turned out to be. They are eager to talk to me and help me around the house. They are such a pleasure to have around.

And this summer is also a summer of incessant heatwave, at least 5 degrees above normal, sometimes 10 degrees. I don't remember British summer being so long. It's nice, having a proper summer finally, although I am behaving a bit like a Brit when one always longs for the opposite. Well, life is good here, with heatwave or not, considering what else is happening across the globe. I am grateful.

This weekend, we managed to go through a kilo of Greek Yogurt! A kilo! How did it happen? Not every gram is eaten but the whole kilo is either in the form or dessert or salad waiting in the fridge. And I just realised I need more to make this pasta salad for the next week when more heatwave is expected.

How bad can it be when the only thing I get to complain is not enough Greek yogurt?

I hope you've had a good summer.