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! :)

Warm weather food.

This fresh, zesty Asian salad makes an incredible hot weather meal. I first tasted a similar dish, made with ripe mangoes and grilled chicken, at a dinner party five years back, and while I've tried to recreate it a couple of times with varying degrees of success, it was only last month that I conjured up a mindblowingly fresh and appetising version.

I served it as a prelude to an awesome Moroccan roast chicken (more about that another time), but it was so good on its own I almost wish that was all I'd prepared. Almost.

I knew immediately what I wanted for lunch when I saw green mangoes for sale earlier. I chose chicken for my protein this time around, but shrimp really is the best. Or have it with chicken and shrimp, or neither! That's how versatile and forgiving this salad is.

Here's what I roughly used - a lot of it depends on the sweetness of your ripe mango and the tartness of the green, so adjust the ratio of lime juice to sugar accordingly.

Leigh's make it up as you go Thai mango salad
Serves 4

2 + 5 tbsp fish sauce
1 + 1 tbsp sugar (or equivalent in gula melaka syrup)12 prawns, shelled and deveined (or use 1 chicken breast, sliced)
juice of 1 large lime (not the tiny ones you have with belachan and hokkien noodles)
zest of 1/4 large lime
1 red chilli, sliced
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 sweet, ripe mango, cut into cubes
1 green mango, skinned and sliced into thin strips
handful of fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped
generous handful of roasted cashew nuts

1. Combine 2 tbsp fish sauce and 1 tbsp sugar. Add prawns, toss well to coat, then cover with cling film and marinate in the fridge for at least 1 hr.
2. In a bowl, combine lime juice and zest, remaining fish sauce and sugar, and the sliced chilli. Stir well and then taste and adjust the seasoning. Set aside until needed.
3. Heat oil in a non-stick pan. Add the prawns, in batches if necessary, and cook until pink and cooked through. Alternatively, cook the prawns on an oiled electric grill.
4. Tip ripe and green mango onto a serving plate. Throw in the cooked prawns and mint, and drizzle over the dressing. Toss well to combine.
5. Top with the roasted cashew nuts and tuck in!