italian

Butter-Sautéed Gnocchi with Caramelised Onion & Vegetables

Butter-Sautéed Gnocchi with Caramelised Onion & Vegetables
Sometimes all you need for great tasting food is to cook it low and slow until everything becomes more than the sum of its parts.

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Thai Green Curry Risotto, Revisited.

thai green curry risotto in pot and on plate
What better way to break in a brand-new pot than to cook one of your favourite dishes in it? I've made this fusion of Italian risotto and Thai green curry before click here for the recipe), and it has been a while since I made either risotto or this variation.

The results weren't as creamy as the last time I made it (The culprit was a fairly unremarkable can of coconut milk instead of the one I usually use), but it was still delicious, and the new pot is the perfect vessel for making risotto; heavy bottomed, even heat distribution, and plenty of surface area for the rice to toast, and to coax out its starches as the liquid evaporates.

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Eggplant Zucchini Lasagne

eggplant zucchini lasagne

There's something both simple & complex about lasagne; it's an elaborate dish, but one that comes together over several hours of slowly-simmering sauces and carefully-roasted vegetables. This is a fairly simple one, just roasted eggplant & zucchini slices, a tomato sauce, and bechamel, stuffed between layers of noodles and topped with mozzarella cheese.

The very definition of comfort food.

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Bacon, Zucchini & Sundried Tomato Gnocchi

bacon gnocchi 01

This is lunch.

Sometimes I need to raid my fridge and pantry to put together odds and ends that aren't quite enough for individual larger dishes, marrying pantry staples such as pastas with stray vegetables that will spoil in a short while.

The results can be delicious, such as this dish. The Gnocchi (a pillow-like morsel made of potato flour, pronounced nyo-kee) was bought from the store and pan fried in a little butter, which gives it a bit of crispness (they can be boiled like fresh pastas too). The sauce was some turkey bacon browned, then garlic, onion & celery, followed by chunks of zucchini, then tomato, and finished with a spoonful of sundried tomato paste and a little squeeze of harissa. No water was added. The prepared gnocchi was stirred in and left covered for a few minutes to soak up the sauce, then finally tossed with a good handful of chopped parsley.

bacon gnocchi 02

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A Hankering for Noodles

ingredients for fried noodles
I am a lazy cook. No other way to say it. I have no patience for slowly stirred sauces, carefully watched pots, or preparations that need fifteen different components plated at the last minute. If it all sits together in a bowl and I can eat it with one utensil, then so much the better.

I am also a stubborn cook. Stir fries have often tantalised me, and every time I try my hand at one I learn a little more, make it a little better. I'm at the stage now where I can't quite bang out a hundred plates of noodles that all look and taste the same, but the outcome is generally tasty, and even when my own pantry conspires to throw me a curveball, I can generally deal with it.

Recipe - Thai Green Curry Risotto with Vegetables

thai green curry risotto
I'm not one of those people who is averse to what is generally known as 'fusion' cooking. In fact, if one thinks about the history of food then really everything is fusion cooking in one way or the other.

However, rarely do I attempt to combine things from two different food cultures -- I'm still learning, but once in a while a bit of experimenting is good. So today's dish combines two of my favourite dishes: Thai Green Curry and Italian Risotto. I'm certainly not the first person to make this dish -- there are dozens of recipes online for the same -- but I did go into it with a bit of trepidation. The results turned out pretty damn delicious, so here's my recipe.

Roasted Tofu Salad Recipe

A bowl of roasted tofu salad
(Since a couple of people asked for the recipe of this after I tweeted it yesterday, and I got tired of repeating the same in chat windows and comment boxes, and figured I might as well post it here.)

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