Back from the holday break and bristling with New Year’s resolutions, one of which is to update this site more often, and the other of which is to cook a meal from a new recipe once a week. How legal I choose to be about “new recipe” depends entirely on me, and I think that I won’t mind adding some freestyling in there, along with actual written instructions.
This week I chose to improvise, and naturally it has me off to the worst possible start. I don’t know what it is about absolutely basic recipes that escapes me — I am totally retarded with omelettes, for instance, and helpless at simple tasks like cooking spinach — but I am consistently defeated by the most ordinary things. Roast a turkey breast? Hey sure! Bake a fritatta? Bring it on! Pour a bowl of cereal? I guess, but be ready with that fire extinguisher.
Pasta salad definitely falls into the category of simple foods that completely escape me. I’ve tried about three times at pasta salad, including again tonight, and no matter what I do it ends up tasting like… well… a bowl of cold noodles.
This week’s attempt included a dressing that was based on a pre-mixed balsamic vinaigrette that included rosemary and chili pepper, and an awful lot of vegetables: Green, white and red onion; celery; tomato; parsley; lemon juice and a bunch of herbal seasoning.
For a little garnish, I grated some cheese on top and added fresh black pepper to the mix. It’s a thing of beauty.
And it still tastes like a big bowl of cold noodles. To be totally accurate, it tastes like spicy cold noodles, because the chili-infused oil added a heat that kicks in exactly two seconds after any given bite — long enough to add body without actually contributing flavor.
God damn it. The sandwich at least is enjoyable. You cannot miss by adding cranberries to a turkey wrap, and the whole wheat wrap just made things sweeter. And just as soon as I figure out how to make a pasta salad that doesn’t make me want to cry, this will be as fun to eat as it is to look at.
Try this: make the dressing before you do anything else, and increase the classic vinagrette ratio so that it’s 1:1 or 1:2 instead of 1:3, because oil has….less flavour. Then, undercook the pasta slightly and after draining (NOT rinsing) toss it in the dressing. The hot pasta will continue to ‘cook’, soaking up the dressing into it’s starchy fabulousness. As well, you can then let it sit in your fridge for three days while the flavour builds instead of getting a big bowl of sogginess.
November 15th, 2007, at 4:56 pm #