Lemon parmesan herb pasta

Stolen, stolen, stolen. Before you get bored with all of my recipes, here's one I found on one of my absolute favourite blogs who in her turn got it from the Martha Stewart website. I modified it a bit to make it less of a theft and a bit more of a creative effort. Erm.

 

Green asparagus at its best

Long time no post. But there was a conference to be run, job applications to be written and a parent to be shown around town. All done now. And I'm back to cooking.

After an (unfortunately not so brief) period of cold, windy, wet weather, spring has finally returned. And it brought not only rhubarb and strawberries but also the most wonderful, marvellous, extraordinary spring vegetable which goes by the name asparagus. Contrary to most people, I'm not a huge fan of white asparagus. I can only stand it with plenty of sauce hollandaise but that would make me go up a couple of dress sizes, so: thanks, but no thanks. White asparagus and me won't become close friends anytime soon. It's ligneous and wobbly and watery and tastes... ...unpleasant. Not at all like its green brother which I love to oblivion. It is crisp and pretty and tasty and you don't have to peel it. Always a big plus.

Lemon chili prawn pasta

You know those dishes that can transport you to a completely different place, a completely different time, a completely different feeling? This simple pasta dish is one of them. It tastes of summer in an intense way that very few other dishes do. It's reminiscent of warm summer nights in Italian cities, of lunch at beach restaurants with your skin and your hair still salty and sticky from the sea, of azure skies, rocky beaches, and weeks of walking barefoot. Of wine drunk from water glasses, of hot, dry air heavy with the smells of rosemary, thyme, and oregano, of glowing sunsets, sandy flipflops, and loud and colourful saturday markets. Sunny, summery freedom in a nutshell pasta bowl.

It's one of my favourite and certainly one of my most-cooked recipes from Sophie Dahl's first cookbook, and it is absolutely made for those times when you think that you can't possibly walk around another day wrapped in jumpers, scarves, hats, coats, and warm boots. With a dish like that, summer can't possibly be that far away.

Make yourself a bowl of this stuff and enjoy your 4-months-early trip to warmer, sunnier places. And it will cost you much less than a round-trip ticket to Rome. Nice for impressing guests, too.

Triple-cheese saffron tortellini in a lemon basil cream sauce

Making my own pasta resulted in one of the biggest messes (if not the biggest mess) I ever left a kitchen in. And that includes the time when I made a fondant-covered three-layer orange buttercream cake for my mum's 51st birthday.

So why even blog about something that made me scrub and vacuum-clean the whole kitchen and wash more dishes than I've ever washed consequent to making one (!) bowl of food? Simple answer: because it was absolutely and totally worth it. Full stop.

East Coast Pot Pie

As far as I can tell pot pies are something very American. At least I had never heard of them before when I encountered them all over the American food blogs on Tastespotting. But, oh, did I fall in love!

I'm already a sucker for open pies but top them with a lid of pastry and I'm in heaven. Even more so if they're made in cute little individual pots. Awwww!

So, last week their time had finally come. We had some mushrooms and prawns left over that had to be eaten, and I was in charge of dinner. (Errm, to be honest: I put myself in charge of dinner by chasing everybody who wanted to help out of the kitchen. Everybody being my mum.) Pot pie, here I come (or you, depending on the point of view. But that is beside the point. I'm babbling. Again).

It's not like I've ever been to a beach on the American East Coast (or anywhere on the East Coast, for that matter) but this pie tastes exactly like what I imagine an afternoon there to feel like. It tastes like a fresh breeze with a hint of sea and salt, like summer holidays, long, sunny days, and some lazy hours on the veranda of a pastel-coloured wooden house overlooking the sea. And that's why I named it East Coast Pot Pie. Feel free to give it another name if you wish to do so.

They looked very promising, coming out of the oven, all golden and crusty. But then hacking one's fork into the crust, cracking it open, and being hit by that heavenly smell of the filling... ... oh my god, it was heaven! Grade: A+. Do come again.

East Coast Pot Pie

(Recipe for the crust loosely based on one by Naturally Ella)

75 g/3/4 cup flour (wholewheat or all-purpose)

6 Tbsp butter

2 Tbsp curd

2 egg yolks

A generous pinch of salt

A generous pinch of sugar

2 shallots

Half a clove of garlic

8-10 button mushrooms

Half a lemon

180 g/0.5-0.75 cup prawns (cooked)

100 g/0.5 cup feta cheese

A generous glug of white wine

0.5 bunch of dill

Salt

Pepper

Olive oil

First, make the pastry: Put flour, salt and sugar in a food processor (or a blender or whatever). Cut in the butter and pulse until you have a crumbly substance. Put that into a medium bowl, add the curd and the egg yolks, and knead into a smooth dough, adding more butter or flour if necessary. Wrap the dough in cling foil and refridgerate.

Chop the shallots, the mushrooms, and the dill. Mince the garlic. Heat the olive oil in a pan and fry the shallots and garlic until translucent. Turn up the heat, add the mushrooms and a pinch of salt, and fry for another few minutes, then add the prawns. Continue frying until the mushrooms are almost done, then deglaze with a healthy glug of white wine. Squeeze in the lemon juice, then take the pan of the heat, add the dill, crumble in the feta cheese and give it a good stir.

Preheat the oven to 200° C/400° F.

Remove the pastry from the fridge and divide it into thirds. Take two small pie pots, line each with a third of the pastry, then add half of the filling to each. Make the remaining pastry into two disks, put one on each pot. Now you can either brush the crust with olive oil or forget it like the blithering idiot that I am.

Bake for 25-35 minutes, then serve with some fresh cucumber and a glass of white wine.