It was always a wonder to me that different shaped pasta can have such distinct taste (or rather texture which affects the taste and overall experience) even though they were all originally made of the same ingredients. It’s like noodles in China, there’s thin and thick and round and flat but there’s no where near as many varieties as pasta.
I remember there was an episode on Masterchef, I believe it was the 2012 season, where the contestants had to name the pasta. This to me was an impossible challenge since I could hardly name any of them, or at least I’d have no idea what the proper Italian names for them were.
After tasting many different pastas, my favourite is still spaghetti. I think it has the best chew and surface to coat the sauce.
I also find pastas one of the hardest dishes to style. No matter what I do (or Yuye does) the pasta just doesn’t look pretty on the plate. I’m not sure how people do it for magazines but I’ve tried and tried but with no success. If any of you have tips, please let me know!
Even though styling is an issue, I still love eating pasta. In fact we make it all the time at home, although the lack of styling makes me not want to put them on the blog. Today’s attempt was slightly more successful than others so I decided to share it with you all. It has a combination of tomato and cream which balances out the flavours very well.
Chicken, tomato and snow pea sprout pasta
Serves 2
Ingredients
• 200g roast or poached chicken (we used poached with seasoning as we had left over chicken)
• 2 medium vine ripened tomatoes, cut into wedges
• 10 pieces semi dried tomatoes
• 1 can whole peeled tomatoes in juice
• 100ml cream
• Handful snow pea sprouts
• Handful baby spinach leaves, roughly torn or chopped
• 250g dried pasta (I used spaghetti)
• 1 tbsp dried parsley
• 1 tbsp dried basil (or fresh if you have it)
• Salt & pepper to taste
• Grated cheese to serve
Instructions
1. Heat a flat pan with olive oil to medium high and quickly fry the chicken with parsley and basil.
2. Add in fresh tomatoes and cook for 2-3 minutes, then add in can of tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste and cook down for roughly 10 minutes.
3. In the mean time, heat a medium pot with water and a pinch of salt. Cook pasta in the pot until al dente (cook according to packet instructions). Drain and set aside when done.
4. When the sauce is slightly thickened, add in semi dried tomatoes and cook for a further 2 minutes.
5. Turn off the heat, stir through spinach and some snow pea sprouts, then stir through the cream. Mix well and add more salt and pepper to taste.
6. You can stir the pasta through the sauce like we did here, or you can just serve the pasta with the sauce on top, either way is fine.
7. Garnish pasta with more fresh snow pea sprouts and grated cheese.
Question time: What’s your favourite type of pasta? Do you prefer to eat tomato or cream based pastas?
10 comments… add one
Rosa November 3, 2012, 12:00 am
A great way of using leftover chicken. This pasta dish looks scrumptious!
Cheers,
Rosa
Alex November 3, 2012, 3:43 am
It looks great!
My favourite pasta? At the moment, macaroni.
yummychunklet November 3, 2012, 1:50 pm
That is one delicious looking bowl of pasta!
Libby November 3, 2012, 6:58 pm
I LOVE pastas. Not too fussed about what sort – I love them ALL.
As for the sauces, I like anything (tomato-based, cream-based) though these days I tend to stay away from heavy creamy sauces and opt for olive oil-based ones instead
kitchenriffs November 5, 2012, 3:50 am
I love pasta, though I prefer the chunky tubular shapes (penne, rigatoni) because I usually make a sauce with some texture to it (chunky), and a more distinctive shape works better with my sauce. I agree that trying to photograph pasta is hard. I usually shoot the texture and the shape (which is another reason to use something other than spaghetti). I’ll often use both a backlight and a sidelight, and the one on the side is quite low, so its light scrapes across the surface of the food, helping to reveal texture (the backlight throws some shadows so it reveals shape; you’ll want to use some fill to soften them).
Choc Chip Uru November 5, 2012, 7:23 am
Your pasta looks so simple and delicious my friend, perfect after a long day… or any day
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Jenn and Seth November 8, 2012, 9:01 am
bookmarked this pasta dish, it sounds wonderfully simple and delicious!
Charles November 8, 2012, 9:20 am
There is a pasta shape which I love (don’t know why I love it so much… it’s just pasta, but it’s amazing with creamy sauces) and I can’t for the life of me think of the name of it. It’s quite rare too… not something I often see, but if I think of the name I’ll tell you so you can give it a try! Great looking pasta dish too you’ve got – I’ve never tried snow pea sprouts (or even seen them before) – what a cool idea
Nami | Just One Cookbook November 14, 2012, 4:45 pm
Looks so delicious. Yesterday I made spaghetti with sun dried tomatoes and I ate 2 servings! I love pasta and it’s so dangerous. I promised myself no more pasta for a while, but your pasta dish made me crave for some… beautiful and delicious dish, Jenny!
nipponnin November 28, 2012, 6:48 am
Absolutely beautiful photos! Love the dish!