Pantry Puttanesca

It's been awhile since I cooked purely for pleasure, longer still since I made dinner for myself. Cooking for one is, rather ironically, a treat in the Khoo household. You see, making your own dinner takes some forethought, as there is always food of some sort on the dining table, but I was in the rare mood to spend some time pottering about the kitchen doing something unrelated to work.

Eschewing cookbooks and food websites, I flicked through my mental archive of toss-it-together recipes instead and almost immediately decided on pasta Puttanesca. Why, I have no idea. I'd barely skimmed through an article on it weeks, possibly even months ago, and all I remembered were these key words – tomatoes, anchovies and whore's pasta. (Culinary lore believes that Puttanesca was named after ladies of the night, who lured men into brothels with the sauce's intense aroma.)

I vaguely remember olives and fresh herbs in the equation, but I was too lazy to trek out to the grocer's, and really, isn't the absence of a recipe the best bit about non-work cooking? Somewhere along raiding my pantry and mentally rocking up a recipe, I decided to corrupt it all with a topping of garlicky breadcrumbs, just because there was panko in my kitchen drawer. This is bastardised Puttanesca at its worst, comforting home-cooked supper at its best.

Leigh's pantry Puttanesca
Serves 2

1 small box cherry tomatoes
4 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
¼ cup panko or stale breadcrumbs
Handful pasta (I used wholewheat spaghetti)
1 tin anchovies 
handful of baby spinach
handful of feta, crumbled (optional)
handful of basil, torn (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Toss the cherry tomatoes in 1 tbsp olive oil and ⅓ of the garlic. Pop these into the oven and roast at 180C until the tomatoes start to blister and shrivel. I didn't time, but it probably took me about 30 mins. Remove from oven and set aside.
2. Toast the panko in a small frying pan with 1 tbsp olive oil and ⅓ of the garlic, tossing or stirring occasionally until the crumbs are golden.
3. Cook the pasta until al dente in a pot of salted water. Drain and reserve ¼ cup of pasta water.
4. Heat the remaining oil in a pan and saute the remaining garlic until fragrant. Add in the anchovies and cook, stirring continuously, until they melt. Tip in the roasted tomatoes, give it a good stir and then add in the spinach. Cook, covered, for a min, and then add in the cooked pasta. Add a few tbsp of the reserved pasta water and toss to coat the pasta.
5. Crumble in some feta to taste, and stir through the basil, if using. Eat immediately, preferably in front of the telly! :)

Life and death in my kitchen sink.

I cried the last time I walked in on my mom while she was killing crabs for our dinner. No, I'm not some squeamish vegan, but I admit I'm waaay more comfortable cooking dead animals. Delusional, I know. I wish I could be one of those gung-ho farm chicks who raise and slaughter their dinner but no, I definitely have a long way to go before I can, if ever, embrace the whole farm to table lifestyle.

The womenfolk in my house have never cooked with frozen crabs and after I mentioned that I had to test a crab recipe for work, I returned home today to find a pail of live crabs waiting for me. Thankfully, my dad was on standby and all I had to do was to nod my head.

I felt like an executioner, and my heart broke a little when I peered over his shoulder and saw the twitching pincers. It's ironic really, as I am technically fueling the slaughterers each time I bite into a piece of fish or meat. My aunt's convinced that this streak of compassion may just lead me to become a vegetarian one day. Maybe. But for now, I'm gonna be sticking to supermarket meats, and crossing my fingers that there won't be another crab recipe to test. Loser.

Make it from scratch.

Changes don't happen overnight. More often than not, they manifest stealthily, sinuously... kinda like vines creeping up wrought-iron fences. Some changes are inconspicuous, inconsequential, while others are huge, especially when cast upon unsuspecting ol' me.

It started off innocently enough. On Monday, I initiated a Messenger chat with a friend to arrange for dinner, having missed a gathering while I was away in Japan. She suggested that we pop over to hers for some nosh and I, in typical dessert queen fashion, offered to bring dessert. The dinner was set for Friday, and I immediately started plotting the logistics. Bake cupcakes on Thursday night after chap goh meh dinner. Zip home after work on Friday, make frosting and ice cupcakes, pack them and cab over. Easy peasy. And then I lost myself browsing recipes online.

Fast forward to a wet, gloomy Friday evening. My work had taken and left me stranded in the middle of the CBD where every other person was waiting/calling for a cab. I had exactly an hour to get home, conjure up a batch of icing, frost the cupcakes and leave the house. My feet were aching, and I was starting to feel like an underdressed clown amidst the sea of perfectly coiffed executives. Deciding to brave the rain, I eased out of the taxi queue and went off in search of a bus-stop. And guess what cranky ol' me had to flip-flop past? Three dessert places. Ice-cream. Pastries. Perfectly iced cupcakes.

That's when it dawned on me. I should have bought dessert instead! A box of macarons or chocolate truffles, or maybe a tub of ice-cream. That would have saved me the late-night baking sweatshop and a prior trip home. Instead, when I had volunteered to bring the sweets, I had, without any further thought, already set my mind on baking something. Buying a readymade dessert could not have been further from my mind.

Thanks to the string of work-related recipe testings, cooking and baking from scratch have become so ingrained in me that I never thought to consider non-culinary possibilities. For a person who loves convenience and efficiency, and who only in the past year roasted a perfect bird, fully overcome her fear of knives and really derived pleasure from cooking, this change is huge. It's monumental. And I love it.

Next up? Bread and homemade ice-cream, me thinks. Can't wait. And here they are, the babies born out of Thursday night's baking sweatshop. I couldn't be prouder.

earl grey cupcakes with vanilla bean and cream cheese frosting

adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini gâteau au yaourt, and a million other recipes

The pantry diaries.

So, I was lounging on the couch with Sophie Dahl's cookbook on my tummy, mentally running through my pantry as I lingered over any recipe that caught my eye. This is a routine I've been through for several years, way before I began my career in food writing. I almost always end up dismissing the recipes as, more often than not, I do not have the ingredients in my pantry. The kitchen really is still the domain of my Peranakan aunt and I didn't see the point of stocking up on bottles of balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar and all those fancy schmancy things Western recipes ask for. Granted, I don't always want to cook the dishes, but being the female that I am, I like having the option of actually trying out a recipe without having to lug back a cartful of condiments I wouldn't use for another two years.

But as I flitted through the beautiful Sophie's book today, it dawned on me that a good portion of the ingredients the recipes called for were already in my pantry. Balsamic vinegar, check. Fleur de sel, check. Rolled oats, check. Grapeseed oil, check. I may not have nicely fillet pieces of sole waiting in my fridge, but as far as condiments and dry ingredients go, I am pretty much covered.

And that, my friends, is the beautiful byproduct of the many recipe testings I have to do every month. A job in publishing may hardly pay the bills but boy, does it stock your pantry!

{image from weheartit}