Friday 30 August 2013

Recipe: Pappardelle with slow roasted tomatoes and peppers

This recipe landed in my mailbox as a notification from the Great British Chefs website and looked so simple and so delicious that I decided to try it.  Being me, I had to modify it and here's my comments.

Ingredients:  amounts are deliberately vague to match what I had and served 1 (there was left over pasta dough)
Pasta dough:
100g pasta flour (I used ordinary which isn't as nice to work with but it's very much more frugal)
1 egg
splash of olive oil

Sauce:
olive oil
clove of garlic, crushed
half a small onion, cut into thin wedges
some tomatoes, quartered (the recipe said Heirloom, I used home grown)
quarter of a red, orange or yellow pepper, sliced thinly.
a handful fresh basil or parsley (I used parsley as I don't like basil very much - basil would be better if you like it but parsely was delicious too)
Some cheese, finely grated (I used not-parmesan - I didn't need very much)

Method:
Place the tomatoes, onion, garlic and pepper in a small roasting dish, drizzle with oil and roast in a slow oven until gorgeously gooey and fragrant.  I gave it a good l;ong time which made it power expensive and next time I will do it in Handy Andy (my halogen oven) instead
While they are roasting, make the pasta dough, rest it, do the usual with the pasta maker and cut into strips about 3cm wide.

When the tomatoes are ready, snip in the parsley and pop it back in the oven while you cook the pappardelle in boiling, salted water until al dente, then drain well (it took about 90 seconds, that's all).  Check the tomato mix and season as needed.  I just added a little sea salt

Arrange the pasta in a bowl with the tomatoes and a sprinkling of grated cheese over the top.  Eat and enjoy

That was the theory and it all worked really well.  The roasted veg mixture was fantastic - a really deep, intense tomatey hit that was just incredible.

Just a couple of comment.
I didn't really go a bundle on the wide pasta ribbons: the flavour was OK but somehow it didn't work.  When I make it again (and I will) it will be linguine or fettuccine type pasta.  The other thing I will do is steam off the tomato skins before roasting as they were a little tough.  But, honestly, it was absolutely gorgeous. So simple and so scrummy.  And using value flour and tomatoes from the garden, the whole dish was under 60p

Just one word of advice - grated knuckle doesn't really enhance the grated not-parmesan flavour one little bit!  Don't try it!  OK?

2 comments:

  1. lol and *wince* at grated knuckle!!!!

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  2. It's not so bad really, just gave me a bit of a shock! :-)
    J x

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