Tarragon Chicken Pasta Bake - Baby food for Grown Ups

It's not crumble, it's pasta bake for grown ups. 

I think I must have eaten maybe three pasta bakes in my life and I don't know why it's not more. Pure comforting stodge, an often cheesy creamy carb fest that's gone crispy on the top. A random Nigella recipe popped up on my Facebook feed the other day for an insanely simple pasta recipe involving ham, creme fraiche and peas, the easiest supper ever with room to make it more grown up if you should so wish. The other night I set out to cook tarragon chicken risotto, which is a post Sunday roast special in our house. Except I didn't have any risotto rice* or parmesan. Or onions. Nightmare. I found a secret stash of arborio rice when cleaning out my cupboard the next day, you should do it some time, you find all sorts of things!!!!! After about 15 minutes deliberating whether or not to go to the shop (which would have taken four minutes) I took up the ready steady cook challenge and made do. And that's how this recipe came along. 

Feeds two with leftovers for drunken midnight feasts.

Preheat the oven to 180c. Cook enough pasta for 2, use a short pasta like penne or fusilli. Gent fry a finely chopped onion (I used two manky spring onions as it's all I had) in  a splash of olive oil or melted butter and add a minced clove of garlic after five minutes. Add a heaped teaspoon of dried tarragon (if you have fresh, great, just add it a bit later, when you add the chicken) and a splash of white wine. Let it bubble for a couple of minutes (but don't let it all evaporate) and add a couple of handfuls of shredded left over roast chicken and season well. Stir in a tbsp of creme fraiche and baby leaf spinach if you have it (this is a super flexible recipe). Grate in a handful of parmesan or cheddar. Drain your pasta which should be cooked by now and mix the chicken mixture with it. Take either individual ceramic dishes or one big one and divide the mix between them. Top with breadcrumbs mixed with the chopped zest of half a lemon, a bit more grated cheese and salt and pepper. Bung it in the oven and it's ready when golden.

Devour with your chosen green, chicory for me, peas for The Husband (I can't stand peas) and then collapse in a carb coma about ten minutes later when you realise how much bigger your eyes are than your fat pasta filled stomach. 

*In desperation I even googled 'Can you make risotto with pudding rice?' The resounding answer was a definite no. 

'Nduja Linguine - Pasta Sauce for grown-ups

The day I discovered 'nduja (en-doo-ya) was a very happy day indeed. There was a stage when every food writer/journo/blogger was banging on about it so I thought it's probably worth a try. It was worth many tries and I implore you to give it a go. 'Nduja is a spicy, spreadable sausage from Calabria, Italy, and it is made with potentially undesirable parts of a pig's head with a firey whack of chilli. You can buy it in chunks, wrapped in its casing,  (see left) and you can melt chunks of it in purpose made clay erm, melting devices, you can stuff rolled pork belly with it, make scotch eggs with it (I will be soon,) or you can do as I have done here, and very simply melt it in a pan and toss through some pasta. The flavour is unique and really quite punchy, a little goes quite a way.

Feeds one: This is a quick dish so start by getting your pasta on the boil, I like to use linguine, something about how it feels on my toungue, ooh err, I just love it, but use what you have. Gently fry half a finely chopped onion and a small minced clove of garlic in a little olive oil, in a medium saucepan and cook until nice and soft. Break off a thumb sized piece of 'nduja and push it round until it have broken up and melted, leaving you with vibrant red oil and tiny nuggets of pork. Drain the pasta when al dente and add to the 'nduja pan along with a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley, I like the freshness of it, although it's not essential. Mix the pasta and sauce really well and flop it into a bowl, topping with plenty of grated parmesan. In 8 or 9 minutes you have a bowl of pasta to be proud of, so twirl away and don't worry about the fact you're eating pig's head. 

Spaghetti with Chorizo and pretend Parmesan (Pangritata)

Pasta crumble - tastes less studenty than it sounds/looks

As with many culinary delights, pangritata was borne out of poverty, and is known as a 'poor man's substitute for Parmesan'. Italians would never use poverty as an excuse not to eat well. Happily,  I can afford Parmesan, but I enjoyed this immensely and totally recommend giving it a whirl. The little bit of crunch it provides is awesome and the perfume of the rosemary works brilliantly. Perfect weekend lunchtime food. Pasta pretty much being a permanent fixture on the menu in my house at the weekend being quick and easy, using pretty much staple store cupboard ingredients.

Serves two. Get your spag on the go first of all. Into a dry frying pan add about 100g chopped chorizo and let it get crispy and oily. Add some chilli flakes, a clove of finely chopped garlic and a big handful of cherry tomatoes. Keep cooking until the tomatoes burst their skins. In a separate smaller frying pan, fry a large handful of white breadcrumbs (ciabatta preferably) in a glug of olive oil. They are ready when they have crisped up and browned slightly. Now stir through two sprigs of rosemary (leaves removed from the stem) which have been very finely chopped. Drain the pasta and add it to the chorizo/tomato pan, stir through and sprinkle liberally with the pangritata.

Add Parmesan if you want to be totally outrageous.

Daube Provencal, snow food at its best

Check out the fancy pasta!

If there was ever a time to use food as a hot water bottle, it is NOW people! We need to be warmed from the inside out and this recipe for beef daube provencal really hits the spot. There are many different versions of this very classic French dish but this is mine and it works nicely. Perfect for entertaining as the hard work (not even mildly strenuous actually) is done the night before.

Feeds 4. Take a kilo of beef braising steak, and if not done already, cut into smallish chunks. Put in a big bowl. Add to the bowl the following ingredients in no particular order: a bouquet garni of parsley, bay and thyme, two onions, finely chopped,  three cloves chopped garlic, one hot crushed dried chili, two celery stalks finely chopped, a couple pared slices of orange zest, half a bottle of red wine, a decent glug of brandy, salt and pepper, one large finely chopped carrot and mix well. Stick in the fridge overnight. When you are ready to cook pre-heat the oven to 160c. Carefully remove the beef from its marinade and pat dry on kitchen roll. Take a big casserole and brown the meat well in some olive oil. Remove and put to the side. In the same pan fry a decent handful of diced smoked bacon or pancetta and when crispy and coloured, scoop out all the veg from the marinade bowl, add to the pan and cook for 10 minutes until softened. Add the meat back, along with the rest of the marinade and a tin of chopped tomatoes. Mix well, bring to the boil and place covered, in the oven. Cook for at least three hours but keep checking that it hasn't dried out, add more wine or some water if it does. When finished the beef should have really broken up, not in chunks anymore, more an appetising meaty mush, that tastes mush nicer than anything called mush. When you dish up, remove the herbs and orange zest. It's great with mash but I think it works best with some nice fat fettuccine, or even better, exciting fancy multi-coloured pasta I got for Christmas from my Auntie!

The French might be furious that I eat this with pasta but who cares, it tastes divine. The orange is subtle but sets it apart from a normal ragu. You can jazz it up with a gremolata of chopped parsley, raw garlic and a little lemon zest, but you might not notice the lovely soft flavours so much. Either way it will warm your bones.

Sprouts - Mini cabbage genius

Wooooo it's 2013 and time to be good (better, anyway) and all that jazz. It seems my current favourite cookbook (yes I have jumped on the excellent Ottoloenghi band-wagon and am obsessed with 'Jerusalem') is packed with healthy, interesting, veggie based ideas that make my mouth water. This is a good thing and it's already changing the way I think about meals and putting dishes together. I can't really blog every recipe I cook from the book, that wouldn't be very interesting for anyone, but basically, if you haven't got it, buy it, and be happy forever!

You know when it's all got a bit indulgent when you are lying on the sofa/floor hungover, and all you can think about is green veg and how much you would like some. This was me yesterday, New Year's Day. Happy bloody new year. I grilled a load of asparagus (yeah I know it's not in season and was from Peru or something but we can't all be perfectly seasonal all the time) and devoured it with glee, with a bit of olive oil, salt and lemon juice. Simple. And I felt better. My body hadn't quite forgiven me for drinking the crate of Cava the night before but we were getting there. Veg is good and although I eat a fair bit, I need more. I want to think of it less of something on the side of my meat, boiled quickly and without much thought, and more of part of the main event. Fear not, I am not going to suppress my carniverous side but try to eat more veg and enjoy it in interesting and new ways.

Sad sprouts

Look at these sprouts. They look so sad an un-appetising, and have never been top of my list. I eat them becuase they are good for me and The Boyfriend loves them. I don't like them on their own, but with a nice salty partner, classic sprouts and pancetta at Christmas is great, but why just Christmas? I saw something on telly the other day where they were really finely sliced and used in a sort of fritter and I couldn't believe I had never thought to do something like that. They are really mini-cabbages, and when sliced up take on a whole different persona, and are great in anything from stir-fries to pasta. Even when they are a few weeks old and bit wrinkly, just take off the outer leaves and it's good as new.

This recipe for sprout and broccoli pasta was a ready steady cook moment, really couldn't be arsed to go to the shops but we were both starving hungry and needed a quick lunch. Everything is done in the time it takes for the pasta to boil. Feeds 2. Get enough pasta for 2 boiling away, I used linguine this time, but only because it was all I had. Take a handful of brussels sprouts (yep just found out it's brussels, not brussel!), trim, remove any skanky bits and finely slice. Take a handful of broccoli florets and also slice finely, you want it to cook quickly. If I was making this just for me I would have finely sliced most of the 'trunk' of the broccoli as I love it, but that would have been a step too far for The Boyfriend. Toast a handful of pine nuts in a dry frying pan until golden. Eat a few while still hot. Don't burn your mouth or fingers. In a medium saucepan, heat a splash of olive oil and gently fry the sprouts, broccoli, a chopped chilli/pinch of chilli flakes and a sliced clove of garlic until softened but still with a little bite. Add a splash of white wine and let it bubble away for a minute. Add a tbsp creme fraiche/single cream and a handful of grated parmesan. Season with lots of black pepper. Drain the pasta, but add a splash of the cooking water to the pan with the veg, add the pasta to the veg pan with the pine nuts and mix well. Dig in.

I am aware this is a very simple and basic pasta recipe but this time last year I wouldn't have used sprouts in that way, and I wanted to share it! It's a good 'use up the dregs in the fridge' recipe, just chop up whatever veg you have and go with it. It's so good The Boyfriend didn't even notice there was no meat in it...

Emergency Food for Mother Hubbard Moments - Garlic, Chilli and Parsley Spaghetti

BOSH! Hangover/hunger gone!

Strangely, I sometimes find myself cooking this when completely overwhelmed by too many recipe books bursting with exciting ideas. Sometimes it's all a bit much and you need things to straightforward, quick and easy, when you can count the ingredients on one hand, you know you can cope. It's also good for when the cupboards are pretty much bare. This makes an excellent lunch and has become a rather favourite hangover cure; the carb load combined with the heat of the chillis, a good slick of peppery olive oil and salty garlic tend to do the trick. It will also keep vampires away, but never mind.

Feeds two: Get a good hand-full of spaghetti (or half spag, half linguine as I used, in a proper Mother Hubbard moment) on the go in a pan of boiling water. Meanwhile, in a large frying pan or another saucepan (big enough to hold the pasta) gently heat about four tbsp of olive oil, if you have some tasty extra virgin then all the better. Yes, it's a lot of oil, but it's just this once and you'll want to drink it once it's all garlicky). GENTLY fry two or three finely chopped cloves of garlic and a big pinch of either dried chilli flakes or a finely chopped fresh red one. Do not burn them, if it gets a bit carried away, simply take the pan off the heat until things calm down, the idea is to take the raw edge off the garlic and infuse the oil. Just before the pasta is ready add a big handful of chopped flat leaf parsley and season liberally. Take off the heat. Drain the pasta and tip into the pan full of oily goodness and mix well. Top with a bit of grated Parmesan and enjoy an incredibly simple but delicious bowl of spaghetti.

Whoever said that parsley counteracts the effects of garlic on ones breath, I think, was incorrect, but you be the judge.

Accidentally Girly Spaghetti

2012 is all about pink food

I won't pretend this was done on purpose, but I did think a bowl or neon pink pasta was hilarious, slightly scary and worth posting. May I suggest cooking this on Valentine's day when the lurid pink would perhaps be more appropriate! This was a very quickly put together supper when the cupboards were barer than Mother Hubbard's and I grabbed some prawns and baby spinach from the shops on the way home. Little did I know the spinach contained shredded beetroot, but it was a happy discovery. It tasted good, and who doesn't like pink pasta??! So this is pink garlic prawn spaghetti.

Feeds two. Get enough spaghetti for two on the boil. While that is happening, in a big-ish saucepan, gently fry some finely chopped garlic in olive oil. After five minutes add a decent splash of white wine and let it bubble for a few minutes. Add to this as many raw peeled prawns as you like and a few generous handfuls of baby spinach and shredded beetroot salad (from a bag from M&S in my case) and let it wilt for 30 seconds or so. Stir in a big tbsp of creme fraiche, shout 'bugger me, it's gone pink!!!' and season. Drain the spaghetti and stir into the pan with the sauce, mix well and get a squeal of excitement or grunt of disapproval depending on who you serve it to.

Pheasant Ragu

A pan full of lush

A spare brace of pheasant? Yes please! A kind friend delivered the promised goods, and I promptly hung them up in the garage, vowing not to forget about them. A few days later I decided it was now or never, rolled my sleeves up and skinned and gutted them, ready for the pot. I sat at the garden table, constantly looking over my shoulder for naughty foxes (Surbiton foxes are alarmingly bold) and dealt with the pheasants with my usual, slightly clumsy method, head, wings and legs off, then off with it's pyjamas and yank, out come the sausages, or something like that. Anyway, I eventually got them oven ready and proceeded to scare small boys playing in the street as, with bloodied hands I threw a heavy bag of pheasant parts in the dustbin. Mwahaha. Mr Pheasant was destined for ragu, and Mrs Pheasant awaits her fate in the freezer.

Pheasant makes a lovely ragu, much lighter than beef but just as, if not more tasty. Like all these slow cook jobs, it's easy as pie and cheap. No complaints there.

Makes enough ragu for 4 fatties. Add a generous glug of olive oil to a large casserole dish and add a couple of chopped carrots, a chopped onion, two sticks chopped celery and a few cloves of garlic, you guessed it, chopped. Let this soften gently, don't burn it or let it colour too much. Add a whole skinned pheasant to the pan and let it brown all over. Add a couple of bay leaves, pour over 1/3 of a bottle of red wine, a tin of tomatoes and season. The bird wants to be mostly covered by liquid at this point so top up with water if needs be. Season well, bring to the boil and then let it simmer, covered for about an hour. At this point give it a stir, turn the pheasant over and give it at least another half hour, leaving the lid half off to allow it to reduce a bit. The meat is cooked when it the legs come away from the body with a gentle nudge. Turn the heat off, remove the pheasant and shred the meat, and put it back in the pot. When all the meat is back in, check for seasoning. When I did this it was lacking a bit of oomph so I grated in some of that awesome 100% cacau chocolate and a few sploshes of Worcester sauce. It worked a treat and was perfectly oomphy after that. If the ragu still looks a bit wet, give it a blast to reduce further, otherwise simply serve on top of pasta, not forgetting a good grating of Parmesan.

Just what you need on a chilly winter's evening, now I need to find something yummy for Mrs Pheasant...

Sunday Night Ragu

Spag bol: beloved by most as a fail proof and inexpensive student/weekday staple/can't think of anything else to cook with mince dish. Yet say the word ragu and I instantly think of  something special made with slow cooked hunks of meat, beef, lamb, venison, whatever you have, gently simmered for as many hours as it takes to allow it to be shredded into soft sweet strands, all melty and delicious. I actually looked it up on Wikepdia and I think we have just bastardised and cheapened Ragu alla Bolognese into a reliable and easy weekday fodder.  I think of good old reliable bol as being the Primark to a decent ragu's Prada. Now we all love and need a bit of good old Primarni every now and again, but a proper slow ragu cooked with time and love, is really where the quality and taste is, a necessary treat. This may not make sense to boys reading this but never mind.

I went home for the weekend to stay with the rentals and had to leave on Sunday, before Mum's legendary roast beef (with the best Yorkshires known to man). Being the kind and generous soul she is, Mum actually cut off a chunk of the roasting joint and gave it to me to take home! How nice is that?! So I eventually got back to Surbiton, having left Salisbury, the train being diverted via Southampton Central (ggrrr), and proceeded to make beef ragu, and this is how you make it:

Feeds 3 (random I know but it was a random bit of beef, just add more tomatoes and wine if using more meat). Take a 400g piece of beef topside and slice in half lengthways so you have two thinner bits of meat. Brown in olive oil in a casserole and season. Remove and set aside and fry a chopped onion until starting to soften, then add 4 chopped cloves of garlic and a decent pinch of dried chilli. (I also threw in a spoonful of Colombian aji, a fiery hot pepper sauce that my friend Simon had just brought over with some amazing empanadas as a tasty and very welcome present). Add a tin of chopped tomatoes and a glass of red wine, return the meat to the pan with all the juices, and add water if the liquid doesn't quite cover the meat. Put the lid on and simmer for a couple of hours, poking it about every once in a while to make sure its not sticking and adding more water if it looks like it's drying out. It's done when you can shred the meat with two forks, do this on a chopping board and then return all the meat back into the sauce (if it doesn't seem like it wants to shred, try from a different angle as the 'grain' of the meat is directional). I made a little gremolata which I thoroughly recommend (a mixture of finely chopped lemon zest, garlic and parsley sprinkled over the top), which really sings on top of the deep savoury meaty richness. Plop a few big spoon fulls of ragu over some pasta and the world is suddenly a better place.

MY Spicy Meatballs (not Mama's)

You know you want it...

I once read in a 'foodie' magazine that one should never use wine when cooking, that one wouldn't be happy to drink. Balls to that. I have, on average, 4-5 half drunk, verging on vinagary bottles of red in the kitchen, plus a cheeky, definitely undrinkable white in the fridge (why it's still in the fridge 3 weeks after opening, I don't know). I would never throw wine out; it vexes me to pour the delicious freshly opened Rioja I'm glugging into the casserole, when a bottle past it's best will do fine. Like I said, I usually have a nice collection of said 'mature' wine, so this rarely happens.

So yes, there is red wine in this recipe. This one pot wonder of a dish is brilliant because, um, it's in one pot. It also involves minimal faffing, is great to cook in a massive batch for the freezer, and tastes lush.

Feeds four: Pre-heat the oven to 200c. In a large bowl combine 500g beef mince, 2tbsp chopped stoned black olives, 2tbsp grated Parmesan, 1tbsp chopped parsley, as much chopped fresh or dried chili as you desire/can handle, 1 egg and a smallish finely chopped onion and seasoning. Roll into same sized meatballs, big ones, little ones, you choose ( I like little ones because you get more, yessss), and place in a very lightly oiled deep baking tray or casserole dish. Bake for 20 minutes. Now add a very big glass of red wine, rolling the meatballs round a bit and bake for another 10 minutes. Stir in a tin of chopped tomatoes, mix well, combining the meat juices and wine with the tomatoes and bake for a further 10 minutes, or until the tops of the meatballs have browned and the sauce has thickened. Serve with whatever type of pasta you fancy and get stuck in.*

*Do remember this recipe is for 4, so don't feel you have to eat the lot, it can be very tricky resisting this urge, and The Little Dinner Lady takes no responsibility for weight gain caused by this recipe, or any other recipe for that matter. She has her own to worry about.

Spaghetti Marinara for Mama

This is another holiday favourite, I don't know why, as it's just as good at home, it's probably got something to do with the price of seafood in the Algarve...

Using cutlery is advisable

I cooked this for my Mum's 60th birthday feast whilst on holiday, having already kicked off with home-made calamari (which I don't recommend making this for 7 in a still boiling hot kitchen, even at 8pm!) Very simple and easy, but timing is essential if you want to avoid over-cooked pasta and rubbery prawns. You can use any variety of sea dwelling creatures

This recipe is for 4, just to make life easy. Finely chop a couple of onions and garlic cloves and fry slowly in a big saucepan in olive oil until really soft and sweet. While this is happening cook your spaghetti. Make sure all the seafood you want to cook is prepared, squid cleaned and sliced into rings, clams/mussels rinsed (any remaining open, discard), and heads off prawns if you wish. Once the onions and garlic are lovely and soft, throw in a big glass of white wine and bring to a simmer. Add the seafood, season, give it a good stir and simmer with the lid on for a few minutes. Have a look, if the prawns are pink and the molluscs are wide open you're good to go. If not, just leave a minute longer. Stir in a big desert spoon of creme fraiche, a handful of chopped parsley, a pinch of chili flakes, mix well, then add the drained spag and mix really well.

Serve with wedges of lemon, and make sure you share the prawns out equally to avoid squabbles.

Excess Sausage Cure Part 2

Somehow, there are STILL sausages in the freezer, what was the deal? Buy one get twenty free?? But there are worse things life can throw at you than your freezer being full of sausages, like the bow falling off your Ferragamo pumps (still weeping) or finding out your credit card bill is twice what you estimated it to be (still hyperventilating). To counteract the bad things life sends your way, a nice supper is essential, I live by this philosophy, and good grub will pick me up from the darkest of moments, bad food however, will ruin everything and prompt a massive sulk and possibly an argument with long suffering Boyfriend. Hence it's best to just eat nice things. Which can be anything from a Big Mac to a roast chook and everything in between, I ain't no foody purist type.

So in a final attempt to banish the sausages (I think there might be one pack lurking still in the bottom drawer...) it was time for sausage pasta. Sounds like something my sister would serve the kids she nannys but actually its brilliant and you can make it more grown up, depending on diners.

Take all the meat out of the skins of a pack of sausages, I cut a slit in the skin and just pop it out (buy nice ones, cheap ones are worryingly 'smooth'). Fry a chopped onion and some garlic, when softening add the sausage meat and mush it up and cook like you would mince for a nice bol. Keep it all frying away, get the pasta on, any is good, try to avoid cooking four times as much as you need, as I always do. Add some chilli to the meat and some chopped thyme and season. At this point there are choices to be made, either add grated parmesan and serve as it is, or add chopped tomatoes, or add some white wine and creme fraiche or combine both options. The sausage meat provides carnivorous lush factor and the rest is just sauce.

However, I must warn...it is scarily easy, when cooking this dish, to devour a whole pack of sausages between two, what with the mandatory and numerous taste tests the poor cook has to carry out, and even when you are good and leave some in the pan, there is always the 'well there's not quite enough for another meal' argument. Nom nom. January diet is going well then.

The Comfort of Carbonara

We often find ourselves waking up a bit late on a Saturday, head a little groggy from too much booze the night before. It's a bit late for breakfast but need something NOW to sort things out. So often when I'm trying to think of something easy, quick and gorgeous to cook, Spaghetti Carbonara pops into my head. When I suggest this to Boyfriend, his eyes light up (as much as they can when a headache is pounding behind them) and I get a very enthusiastic 'Yes. I want that one.' A very energetic set by Kissy Sell Out was on i-player, helping me along the way.



Get twirling



By no means am I claiming this to be authentic, but it's similar to what they serve in my favourite Italian restaurant. Quite why people mess about with separating egg yolks and creme fraiche in various bastardisations of carbonara I will never know. This recipe takes as long as the pasta takes to cook. Perfect when feeling delicate and in no mood to wait for a feed. I find it preferable to feed Boyfriend pretty quickly after he demands food, otherwise his blood sugar levels drop and out comes Mr. Hyde. This is dedicated to my little sister to whom I have given this recipe to a million times. I don't think she ever actually writes it down.



Get the spaghetti going (normally I don't care what pasta I use but with this, spaghetti really is the best). Chop an onion and gently fry in a big saucepan, when it has softened a bit add chopped pancetta (I get the tubs of the ready chopped stuff - GENIUS) or bacon, and add to onions, keep stirring it so it doesn't burn. You want the onions really soft and juicy. While this is happening grate a handful of parmesan, take a small jug, and beat one or two eggs in it (we had an eggy breakfast this morning so only one for today), add the parmesan and approx. 200ml of single cream depending on how saucey you like it. I like it saucy. Grind lots of black pepper in, along with saltand mix. By now the onion mixture and pasta will probably be done, drain the pasta and add to the onion pan, turning off the heat. Pour over the eggy cream mixture, add a handful of chopped parsley and mix it all up really well. The heat from the pasta and onions will cook the eggs and the result is a bit like mini scrambled eggs. I add the juice of a lemon, which isn't traditional but it perks it up a bit, along with the parsley. And there you have it, pasta version of bacon and eggs.