Tag: pasta

Malloreddus con salsiccia: a taste of Sardegna

The cuisine of Sardinia is wonderfully complex and delightful, a real testament against the modern world’s preconceived ideas about the Mediterranean diet. On this arid, beautifully diverse island, it’s wild boar that reigns and not the creatures of the sea. The mix of influences is what makes Sardinian cooking so incredible. I have neither the knowledge nor profound understanding of this remote, rather enclosed culture to follow this thread properly, yet I do enjoy a more practical approach of this topic. Read More

Penne con asparagi e panna- Pasta with asparagus and cream

The first asparagus I ever ate was wrapped in prosciutto- yes, yes, this was in the US. It did not impress me and, truth be told, I haven’t given it lots of consideration. I started eating asparagus about 10 years ago, when I moved to Belgium. Belgians consider it a noble vegetable and so it is. It is a celebration of spring; from late March till mid-June you can see people with bunches of asparagus everywhere you look…a bit like the French and their baguettes. I’m pretty sure it was not social pressure, but curiosity that made me try the green (I prefer the green), long-line, phallus-like stems. I, obviously, loved it! I never put it in pasta before, I guess it’s the wisdom that comes with age that made me do it today. We picked a beautiful bunch from the farmers market and headed home to make one of the easiest, but most memorable dishes: penne with asparagus in a cream sauce. Read More

A story with pasta, but not about pasta

pasta

I was never pasta-crazy, maybe because in my family we don’t do pasta. And if we do, we do it very badly. I would never order it in a resto (come on, for sure they have something better) and I very rarely suggest making pasta at home. BUT my man used to live in Italy and he is the definition of a pasta lover.

Over the years I learned how to become friends with it. I learned not to boil it to a mush, I learned not to drench it in Parmesan and garlic (well…) and I learned that even I have a favorite pasta dish (butter, sour-cream, smoked salmon, parsley & black pepper, in case anyone’s wondering). But today’s story is not really about pasta, it’s about making the best with what you have.

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