Macaroni & Marmite

You will either love or hate this recipe, and thankfully I love it. There is something about this salty umami dish that I find intensely comforting. Like most of the dishes here, it is almost embarrassingly fast to make, requiring you to only spoon a few ingredients over the pasta and melt it together.

The seed of this idea comes from an episode of Nigella Bites I watched months ago, probably whilst sprawled hungover on the sofa in a slightly stained silk kimono watching food network. It is essentially just a riff on noodles in butter and cheese, with the addition of some yeast extract.

The first step is to cook your pasta, according to the packet instructions, when your pasta is cooked drain and return it to the hob with the heat off and add about a tablespoon of marmite and a large knob of butter, and stir together until both have melted and combined.

Grate in a little parmesan allowing it to melt and then stirring it into the hot sauce. Serve and top with a little more grated parmesan.

ingredients

150g Macaroni
1 large tablespoon Marmite, or to taste
1 large knob of butter
4 tablespoons grated parmesan

Pasta with Deconstructed Pesto

This is a great pasta dish to make for a late night supper in summer, when you have really fresh basil. So it is without irony that I made this dish last on a cold and rainy february evening.

The concept of this dish, is that it contains all of the same ingredients as pesto, but rather than blending them, they are added to the cooked pasta individually and the flavours are allowed to meld for a few moments.

The great advantage of this dish is that it takes no time to prepare, you can literally prepare the ingredients for the sauce while the pasta is cooking.

Start by cooking your pasta, I prefer to use macaroni for this dish, but you could also use penne or fusilli. While the pasta is cooking roughly chop some fresh basil and sprinkle it with salt. Peel and chop or crush 2 large cloves of garlic.

Drain the pasta when it's cooked and return it to the hot pan off the heat, add the basil and about 2 tablespoons of good quality olive oil stirring to combine, add a small handful of pine nuts to the pan and grate in some parmesan, stirring until it combines to form a cohesive sauce.

Serve steaming hot, preferably curled up on the sofa, topped with more parmesan and some freshly ground black pepper.

Ingredients

150g pasta
30g fresh basil roughly chopped
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons of freshly grated parmesan plus more to garnish
a small handful of pine nuts
salt & pepper to taste

Pea & Leek Pasta Risotto

This is a little gem of a recipe, and part of the reason that it is so wonderful is that everything that you need for this dish is non perishable, and will keep for at least a month in the fridge. This makes this a great standby dish. You will need a specific type of pasta for this recipe, often called orzo, which is often used in soup, and which is shaped similarly to large grains of rice. This pasta is cooked in a frying pan, rather than a saucepan, much like a risotto, but it has an advantage over risotto because it doesn't require stirring. I must credit Nigella Lawson for the inspiration behind this recipe, as I often do, which I have adapted slightly since I discovered it a couple of years ago.

Firstly chop your leek finely, and fry it in a scant amount of oil in a hot frying pan, seasoning lightly. Add two large handfuls of frozen peas to the pan, and stir allowing them to soften slightly in the hot oil. At this point, if you like you may add some pancetta, finely chopped to the pan, and allow it to brown. Pour the orzo pasta into the pan, and put the kettle on to boil, stirring the frying pan to mix. Add the boiling water to the pan and turn the heat down to a medium low heat.

After about ten minutes most of the water will have evaporated and the pasta will be tender, start stirring to ensure that the pasta doesn't stick and take the pan off the heat. Add a large knob of butter to the top of the pasta, and allow it to melt, making the pasta slight and glossy. Finally add some parmesan cheese and some freshly crushed pepper, stirring to combine.

I can't state enough how charming this recipe is, it's perfect for a weekday dinner curled up on the sofa and eaten out of a bowl in front of the television.

Ingredients

olive oil
1 leek
150g pancetta cubes (optional)
150g frozen peas
boiling water
250g Orzo pasta
salt & pepper (to taste)
parmesan cheese (to taste)
large knob of butter