Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals #27: Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca
This is our 27th cooking/blogging experiment from Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals. This one was going to be our dinner the night before the City2Surf, so we were thinking “carb-loading.” And what’s better for carb-loading than pasta? With that in mind, we chose “Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca, Crunchy Salad, Garlic Bread, and Silky Chocolate Ganache.” We made sure to watch the episode so we knew what we were in for. I was on cooking duty for this one, and I actually pulled it off in 29:49!

Substitutions: We used fettucine instead of spaghetti (simply because we already had a box of it in the pantry). We used a pinch of dried chilli instead of a fresh red chilli. For the dessert, we had an Australian mandarin rather than a true clementine. Other than that, everything was as written in the recipe.

Quick verdict: Nice! This is the perfect pre-race meal, if you ask me. My fettucine went a bit gluggy, but that’s more to do with me overcooking it and not separating the strands enough. The sauce was a different sort of puttanesca than I’m used to: the Snook normally doesn’t put tuna nor so much tomato in his version. He wondered at its authenticity but agreed with me that it was a very tasty tuna pasta regardless. The crunchy salad was better than I expected, but be warned – the recipe makes a LOT. We had heaps left over. The ganache was simple but effective, and having it with cookies and orange wedges was a nice combination. Overall we both rated it a 9.5 out of 10. It was quick to make and very tasty, but it just lacked the “wow” factor to make it a perfect 10. It’s a great weeknight meal though… or even a pre-race feast!

Read on for a photo essay of the preparation.Pre-start prep: We got out all the necessary ingredients, tools, and cooking vessels. The kitchen was clean (well, as clean as it gets) and everything wiped down and ready to go. The oven was turned on to 180C, the kettle was filled, and the food processor was fitted with the slicer disc. We had a baking sheet for the bread, a big pot for the pasta, and a frying pan for the sauce.

First up are the ingredients for the garlic bread: ciabatta, garlic, parsley, and olive oil.

Next up are the components for the crunchy salad: fennel, radishes, lemon, and olive oil.

Here are all the ingredients for the pasta: fettucine, tuna, garlic, capers, anchovies, chilli flakes, parsley, black olives, passata, and cinnamon.

Lastly, the ingredients for the dessert: 70% dark chocolate, butter, cream, clementines, and biscuits/cookies.

Pots and pans, ready to go! The baking sheet is for the garlic bread. The big pot is for the pasta, and the bowl on top is for the chocolate ganache. The frying pan is for the sauce.

We also needed the food processor for this one, with the slicing disc attachment. The bowl is for the salad, and the greaseproof paper is for the garlic bread. (Note: this bowl ended up being way too small for the salad, so I had to get a bigger one!)

And I’m off! I started by slicing up the top of the ciabatta (not all the way through the bottom).

Then I wetted a big piece of greaseproof paper, scrunched it up, and spread it out on the benchtop.

To flavour the bread, I chopped up some parsley and crushed a few cloves of garlic.

I rubbed the garlic and parsley all over the bread and down inside the cuts I’d made. Then I drizzled over olive oil.

Lastly I sprinkled on some salt and pepper.

I wrapped up the loaf in the damp paper and put it into the hot oven to toast.

Time to start the pasta! I filled the big pot with water from the kettle.

I put a large bowl over the boiling water and then added the chocolate bar (broken up) and some butter to melt.

I also added cream and then grated in the zest of a clementine.

I briefly removed the bowl to add the fettucine and some salt to the boiling water. Then the bowl went back on top.

Next I moved on to the sauce. I poured the oil from the cans of tuna into the frying pan.

Then I crushed in some garlic…

…and then added chilli, capers, and anchovies. Yum.

I finely sliced up the stems of the parsley for the sauce…

…and roughly chopped the leaves as well.

After adding the parsley stems to my pasta sauce, I gave my melting chocolate a stir.

Next I added the tuna to the sauce.

I also tore up the black olives and added them as well.

Finally I added the passata and the cinnamon to complete the sauce.

The ganache was finished so I spooned it into some small cups to serve.

I put them in the fridge to cool a bit.

Finally time to make the salad. I quartered the fennel and removed the cores.

Then I fed them into the food processor. WHIZZ!

I ended up with a LOT of fennel.

Then I sliced the radishes (including the tops) and added them as well.

To dress the salad, I added extra virgin olive oil…

…along with lemon juice…

…and salt and pepper.

Then I had to toss everything together, trying not to get salad EVERYWHERE. (Easier said than done.) The salad is done!

The pasta was well-cooked by this point, so I drained it in the sink. (Jamie simply scooped it out into the sauce, but I didn’t think it would all fit in my frying pan.)

Then I put the pasta back in the pot and poured in the sauce.

I used tongs to toss it all together.

The final step was to add the chopped parsley and stir it through.

The finished pot of fettucine alla puttanesca!

Nearly forgot the garlic bread! I pulled that out of the oven and unwrapped it. It smelled fantastic.

Here’s the completed meal of fettucine alla puttanesca, crunchy salad, and garlic bread.

And here’s the dessert of silky chocolate ganache with cookies and mandarin wedges.

Tasting notes: Everything was really tasty. I’m used to garlic bread that’s soggy with butter, but this was nicely crunchy from the olive oil. The pasta may have not been an authentic puttanesca, but it was still a damn good tuna pasta anyway. I just wish my fettucine hadn’t stuck together so much. I didn’t expect much of the salad but it was a really nice textural contract to the pasta. The raw fennel was less aniseed-y than I feared, and the pepperiness of the radishes complemented it nicely. The Snook felt that melting the chocolate over the pasta water was a nice idea, but it wasn’t practical for getting a really good rolling boil going below. (He felt that may have contributed to our sticking problem.) But overall there was nothing in the meal we didn’t like, and we had plenty of it leftover to eat after the race the next day. We both rated it 9.5 out of 10. Would make again!

Stay tuned for another recipe from Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals!

Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals #26: Spinach & Feta Filo Pie
With this meal, we venture into the second half of Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals! It was the Snook’s turn to cook this week, and we chose “Spinach & Feta Filo Pie, Cucumber Salad, Tomato Salad, and Coated Ice Cream.” We picked the recipe because we had silverbeet and tomatoes to use up from the veggie box, and we happened to have all of the ice cream coating ingredients too. Unfortunately the time was a complete BLOWOUT, and he finished it in 43:57. (And even that wasn’t quite long enough, as you’ll see!) But those flavours… YUM.

Substitutions: We used silverbeet (just the leaves) to substitute for 75% of the spinach. We used some Tasty cheese instead of Cheddar. We forgot the fresh red chilli for the cucumber salad and had to use dried chilli flakes. Everything else was as written in the recipe.

Quick verdict: This was a total winner in terms of flavour. The pie was excellent! The Snook had been worried about the cayenne sprinkled between the layers of filo, but it provided just the right amount of heat to counter the rich cheesy interior. The tomato salad was beautiful, and I can totally see myself spooning that onto some bread for bruschetta this summer. The cucumber salad was just okay, but I found the leftovers improved the next day. But the dessert? It was a revelation! The first of Jamie’s “simple” desserts that was actually greater than the sum of its parts. I rated the meal as 9.5 out of 10, while the Snook gave it a 9. The only real drawback was the TIME. There is just no way to prepare this meal in under 30 minutes. The pie is meant to cook for 18-20 minutes, which means you need to get it in the oven in 10 minutes flat. There’s just no way. It took the Snook more than 20 minutes to get his in! And when he went to serve it, he decided the egg filling wasn’t set yet and put it back in for another 10 minutes (that I didn’t even count in his official time). So this one gets major points for flavour, but you’re not gonna make it in 30 minutes.

Read on for a photo essay of the preparation.Pre-start prep: We got out all the necessary ingredients, tools, and cooking vessels. The kitchen was clean (well, as clean as it gets) and everything wiped down and ready to go. The oven was turned on to 200C and the food processor was fitted with the standard blade attachment. We had a large frying pan as the sole cooking vessel!

First up are the ingredients for the pie: pinenuts, eggs, feta cheese, Cheddar cheese, oregano, lemon, butter, silverbeet/spinach, filo pastry, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg.

Next the bits for the cucumber salad: cucumber, black olives, balsamic vinegar, spring onions, lemon, chilli, and mint.

Next the tomato salad ingredients: basil, garlic, white wine vinegar, and tomatoes.

Lastly, the ingredients for the dessert: coffee beans, hazelnuts, chocolate, and vanilla ice cream.

Our sole frying pan, ready to go! We’ve also got some dishes ready for the salads.

The food processor has the standard blade attachment ready and waiting.

And he’s off! The first step is to get the pinenuts toasting in the frying pan.

While that happens, he gets to work on the filling. Five eggs get cracked into the bowl…

…along with quite a lot of lovely feta cheese.

He also grated in some Tasty cheese for extra gooeyness.

He finishes the filling with dried oregano, lemon zest, and olive oil.

The pinenuts were toasted by then, so he added them as well.

He put the frying pan back on the heat and got the spinach/silverbeet wilting with some butter.

Time to prep the filo! He spread out a layer of greaseproof paper on the bench and smeared it with olive oil.

Then he laid down a large single layer of filo sheets, sprinkling it with more oil, salt, pepper, and cayenne. This was repeated twice more for a total of three layers.

The spinach continued to wilt.

Once it was finished, he added it to the filling and mixed it all up.

Now to assemble the pie! He put his triple layer of filo into the frying pan (still in the paper!) and pushed it down along the edges.

Next he added the filling to the pan to fill the crust.

To finish the pie, he folded the edges of the filo up and over, letting them fall artfully into wrinkles and crinkles. He also trimmed the paper close to the edge of the pan. The pie cooked on the stove for a few minutes before going straight into the oven.

Now on to the cucumber salad. He scored it all over with a fork…

…before chopping it up into pieces.

To make the dressing, he tore up ten black olives.

He then finely sliced some spring onions.

He mixed the onions and olives in a bowl along with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice, and chilli.

He then finely sliced some mint and added it along with the cucumbers. Here’s the cucumber salad, ready to be tossed and eaten!

Now for the dessert. Rather than grind our coffee beans in a blender, we just used our actual coffee grinder.

He then put hazelnuts and chocolate into the food processor…

…before whizzing them up.

He combined the chocolate/nut mixture with the coffee in a bowl.

It made a sort of lovely “soil” to sprinkle over our ice cream. He set it aside for now.

The last thing to make is the tomato salad. He began by adding basil leaves, salt, pepper, garlic, olive oil, and white wine vinegar to the (clean!) food processor.

More whizzing!

It was slightly thinner than a pesto, and vibrant green.

He poured the dressing into a serving bowl…

…before adding the tomatoes (which he’d artfully chopped into random cheffy chunks).

A pinch of salt and some basil leaves to garnish finished the dish!

Here is the pie as it finally came out of the oven… before going back in for another 10 minutes.

Here is the tossed cucumber salad, ready to eat. (There was a lot of dressing in there, maybe too much.)

The yummy tossed tomato salad is ready.

And here’s the pie out of the oven – finally!

Finished meal of spinach and feta filo pie, cucumber salad, and tomato salad.

For the dessert, we simply scooped out vanilla ice cream and sprinkled the crumbly soil on top.

Tasting notes: Everything was really good. The cayenne in the filo was a bit strong if you were just eating the crust alone, but together with the filling it was nicely balanced. The filling was set perfectly (though we did bake it more like 30 minutes instead of the 18-20 Jamie suggested). The tomato salad was gorgeous, with the raw garlic providing a nice bit of heat. It was like eating really good bruschetta without the bread! I liked the cucumber salad better than the Snook; he found it a little boring. We both agreed that the ice cream was surprisingly effective. (Be warned – the recipe makes a LOT. We halved and still had enough for dessert three nights running.) I rated the overall meal a 9.5 and the Snook gave it a 9. This would be a really nice one to share with guests on a summer day! Just don’t expect to finish the cooking in less than 45 minutes…

Stay tuned for another recipe from Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals!