April 17th, 2009

some kind of girly pasta salad

Today’s lunch was one of those days when I felt: I kind of want salad, but I want something warm, kind of want pasta, but it is too heavy, plus the fridge was not so inspiring… you know, confused taste buds :) Then my designer mind quickly took over the situation, dividing the confusion: Ok, what is the context? In the middle of editing photographs and graphics. Problems? Want something fast+warm+light+easy yet satisfying. Solution: Warm pasta salad, or should I call it warm salad pasta? :) It took like 10 minutes to prepare and 20 minutes to eat (I am a slow eater)

I feel rather girly today, so a frilly pasta is a must :) This is called tripoline, it looks like fettuccine but with frilly edges, most of the time Marco feels this is too girly, but he is not home today, preparing his exhibition tonight, so I am rather free to make the girly pasta :) I was planning only to make a simple tomato and basil dressing but then I found a bottle of wonderful taggiasche oilve from Liguria and salted capers from Sicilia in the bottom of my cupboard, they looked so good so I just added it to the tomato+basil dressing.

Some Kind of Girly Pasta Salad

For 1

Cooking sondtrack: Bonobo (of course!) - One Offs, Remixes and  B sides

50g dried tripoline pasta (if you can’t find it, any long pasta will do)

1 ripe tomato (I used sicilian one)

2 handful of mixed salad leaves, I used lettuce, raddichio, baby spinach and rucola

3 red radish, wash and slice roughly

1 teaspoon of salted capers, wash and drain

Some taggiasche olive

Sea salt and pepper

5 basil leaves, thinly sliced

3 tbsp of Ligurian extra virgin olive oil

Feta cheese or salted ricotta

Boil half liter of water in a saucepan, add some coarse salt, when boils add the pasta, cook according to the instruction (mine was 9 minutes). In the meantime, wash the salad leaves, drain and set aside. Thinly sliced the tomato, transfer to a small bowl, add the olive, capers, basil and olive oil, mix well and season with sea salt and pepper, 3 minutes before the pasta is ready, add all the salad leaves and radishes. Drain all together, toss with the dressing, transfer to plate and crumble the feta cheese on top. Serve with fresh ciabatta. Buon apetito!

After lunch, taking a quiet 10 minutes relaxing time, savouring the food, then, a good cup of Italian coffee to get me ready to roll again :)

Filed under: food, life