Sparrow Grass Penne
asparagus, chilli, gomaiso, olive_oil, pasta, pine_nuts, sesame, tamari, white_onion
ingredients
Servings: It's pasta. If more people turn up, make more pasta. It just means people get less sauce.
- Penne Rigato (by preference make it good durum stuff, the kind that looks white-yellow rather than brown)
- Asparagus (one bunch)
- Tamari
- fresh red chilli to taste, not much
- medium white onion
- pine nuts
- Gomaiso (if you can't find this see below)
- Good quality, acidic, lemony, fragrant olive oil.
Gomaiso. 'Go-My-Sew'. What do you mean you don't have any gomaiso? Ridiculous! Well then do you have
- An oversized bag of sesame seeds
- Sea salt
Mix 4 parts sesame seed with one part sea salt, and then pound it to bits in a granite pestle and mortar until the salt is almost invisible to the naked eye. Now you have
soundtrack
Anything incomprehensible, noisy and Japanese for making the Gomaiso
(Afrirampo would be a good choice, for example). Anything by Thievery Corporation
for the rest.
process
Add the halved, tailed asparagus spears briefly to a pot of boiling water, taking them out sooner rather than later.
Make the pasta using the asparagus water as you leave the asparagus to dry off.
Gently fry the onion and chilli up with a little olive oil, adding pine nuts a little bit later.
Splash a half tablespoon of tamari in and add the asparagus to finish cooking in this new environment without getting greasy inside.
Toss the (now cooked) pasta with plenty of olive oil, stir in the asparagus mixture and top with plenty of
gomaiso. Discard weary arms.
I feel obliged to point out that owing to an accident of genetics I, like many others, simply cannot smell 'asparagus wee',
the effect of which Marcel Proust described as transforming his chamber pot into a 'bouquet of flowers'.
Be aware that people who do have this superpower will probably be able to tell whether you have just
'been'. Also do not eat this before attempting to escape from supervillans with cost-effective access to sniffer dogs.
Consume with any of: pickled ginger, nori flakes, miso soup, garlic naan bread, mixed olives, goat's cheese, lime and sweet potato won-tons, scottish red ale.
There is still no decision about which microformat to use for recipies, otherwise this entry would be using them.
Gelin-style Tempeh Wrap
chilli, coriander, garlic, lemon, mandarin, onion, pepper, soy, tempeh, wrap
ingredients
makes 3 wraps (dinner for 1). Scales linearly.
- tempeh (250g, diagonal cuts)
- 4 cloves of garlic
- half a red pepper, chopped
- juice of half a lemon
- five spring onions, chopped diagonally
- quarter of an onion, diced
- one red chilli
- wholemeal tortillas
- dried coriander (leaf)
- Kalamata olives
- soy sauce
soundtrack
Beginner's Mandarin Chinese Lesson 4
process
Marinade the tempeh with the lemon juice and garlic. Begin heating some oil in a pan. After a half hour of trying to figure out what the hell "Gelin" means in Mandarin realise that it's actually a rendering of "Green", who is a fictitious person that the authors inserted into the lesson in order to make things "easier" to understand. Realise the oil is getting pretty hot, tip the slightly overmarinaded tempeh into the pan, turning down the heat, and turning over as soon as they are browned underneath. Put the onions (both kinds), pepper and chilli in. Stir occasionally, but leave it a bit if the tempeh tries to crumble. While they cook, put the tortillas somewhere to warm up. Add soy sauce and coriander leaves to taste. When it's done, transfer to a bowl. Take out the warm tortillas, wrap up bits of the mixture in them and Nom Nom Nom
verdict
* * *
The chilli & lemon thing works as well with tempeh as it does with everything else, and the marinade with garlic worked well too. The coriander leaves defied the second law and clung straight away to the tempeh. It was pretty nice and would have got more stars if it wasn't for the tortillas I used. I don't care how good for you whole foods are, I'm going back to the white, extra salty kind for the next set of wraps, purely for their structural properties (ie they actually soften and wrap stuff). I'm glad I forgot to use the olives - I don't think they would have added much and I'll get to use them later.
There is still no decision about which microformat to use for recipies, otherwise this entry would be using them.
