Chilli Tomato Pasta Recipe

I finally made it back to Mydatewithfood!

Hi all, it feels like it's been ages since I last updated Mydatewithfood.  When you are away for too long, people will start asking you questions like: "How come you never update your blog anymore?", "What happened to your blog?" or "When are you going to update your blog again?". Ok, let me take this opportunity to answer your questions...First, it's because I was away overseas for three and a half weeks, then after I came back I was busy running errands for my parents.

And lucky for me, things are slowing down and I thought to myself...since I'll be 'home alone' today, why not update mydatewithfood (because my husband is out for his company Christmas party). So, I've decided...today is the day to start updating my blog again =)

So...why did I post this pasta recipe on my come back? It's because me and my friends are planning for a Chirstmas trip out of Sydney next month and I will be in charge of preparing pasta for our dinner, while my blog buddy (Sydney Indulgence) will be in charge of desserts.

I originally made this pasta specially for my husband...because he loves his Asian food. So, I always try to add an asian touch whenever I cook western food. So is this recipe an Italian recipe with Asian influence or it's an Asian recipe with Italian influence? I'm not sure myself...I guess it works either way. To make sure that my friends could accept this Half Italian Half Asian pasta, I decided to post it up on my blog so they can use their imaginary taste bud and see if their stomach could digest this humble creation of mine.

Chilli Tomato Pasta Recipe

There are actually 3 parts that u need to prepare in the recipe, it might looks like a long process, but trust me... it's really easy:

1) The chilli tomato paste

2) Preparing the sauce for pasta

3) Fried egg - sunny side up

Measurement below is approximately for 4 servings.

Chilli Tomato Paste Ingredients:

- 12 big red chillies

- 2 fresh tomatoes (sliced)

- 6 Shallots

- 4 Garlic cloves (half for chilli paste and half for cooking)

Pasta Sauce/cooking Ingredients:

- 2 fresh tomatoes (diced)

- 1 onion (diced/sliced)

- Fresh chives (chopped) - set aside some for garnishing   

  (when I cooked the pasta this time, I forgot to buy fresh chives so I substituted with dried chives)

- Button Mushroom (diced/sliced)

- Thickened cream ( I use less fat)

- For the meat and seafood I used minced chicken and Fish fillet

  (feel free to add any type of meat/seafood of your preference)

- Salt, black pepper, sugar

- Olive oil for cooking

- Chilli sauce Sambal abc (optional) - can be found in Asian grocery

- Your choice of pasta (cooked until al dente)

Fried Egg Ingredients:

- Fresh Eggs

- Oil for frying

METHOD: 

1) Making the chilli tomato paste

- Blend the ingredients in blender then set aside

2) Cooking the sauce/ingredients:

- Heat up the wok/pan with olive oil

- Add in the chilli paste, stir until chilli is dry and fragrant

- Set a side

- Heat up the same wok/pan with olive oil (is okay if the wok/pan still has some chilli paste)

- Add in garlic, stir until fragrant

- Add in the onions, give it a quick stir

- Add in the minced chicken, stir until chicken is almost cooked, then add in fish fillet, give it a quick stir, add in fresh tomatoes, lightly stir until minced chick and fish are cooked

- Add in the chilli tomato paste, give it a stir

- Add in mushrooms and stir

- Add in some fresh chopped chives

- Add in sugar, salt and black pepper until u get your desired taste (you can add sambal abc now if u like)

- Once u r happy, add in the cream according to your taste, mix well.

- Served hot on top of  your choice of pasta

- You can cook your pasta (until al dente) while you are cooking the sauce/ingredients or you can cook it after you finished cooking the sauce/ingredients.

3) Fried Egg

- Prepare a sunny side up egg, MAKE SURE the yolk is still raw, then add it on top of the pasta, add some chopped chives.

- Mix them before eating it!

- Yummo!!!!

 

Creamy Fettuccine with Truffle Egg

When asked by a social-climbing Paris hostess how he liked his truffles, Curnonsky replied, "In great quantity, madame. In great quantity."Curnonsky (Maurice Edmond Sailland) French writer (1872-1956)

Truffle...world's most famous and most romanticised mushroom. It is the Louis Vuitton of mushrooms, where everyone just wants a piece of it.  Add a small amount in a simple dish will certainly gives an incomparable taste. The intoxicating aroma of mushroom is its signature. 

This dish is inspired by the truffle egg fettuccine that I had in Buon Ricordo few weeks ago, althought this is nothing close to what I had there, but good enough for a homemade meal.

What makes this dish a champion is the Tetsuya's Black Truffle Salsa for butter (80g $26.95) and the Simon Johnson's black truffle oil (250ml $29.95) that I bought from David Jones. The Tetsuya's salsa has a very strong pungent and woody scent of the black truffle. The truffle oil is fairly strong too. Combined together, anyone can create the most pungent truflly dish one can imagine.

The Truffle Egg

To make my homemade truffle egg, I mixed a small amount (approx. 1/2 teaspoon) of the truffle salsa with the egg (3-4 eggs). Leave it for a while (approximately 15 minutes) so the egg will be infused with the scent of the truffle. Then add in approximately 1/4 cup of cream. Mix well.

Creamy Fettuccine with Truffle Egg

Ingredients:

- Sliced mushrooms

- Fettuccine (or pasta of your choice)

- A Handful of chopped onions

- 2 Chicken thigh fillets (cut to desired size)

- 1/2 cup Full or light thickened cream

- Salt and Pepper to taste 

- Chopped chives for garnish.

- Parmesan Cheese

- The truffle egg mixture 

Method:

1) Cook pasta in a large saucepan of boiling, salted water, following packet directions, until al dente. Drain pasta.

2) Heat 2 teaspoons of truffle oil in a large, non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat, add in the chicken, cook until golden. Remove to plate.

3) Add in onion and mushrooms to pan, stir occasionally until mushroom soften. Add in the cream. Add in the chicken. Add salt and pepper to taste. Give it a quick stir.

4) Place the fettuccine on a serving plate. Add the chicken and mushroom mixture to pasta.

5) Quickly heat up pan with oil and add in the egg mixture. Give it a quick stir and dish up. Egg should still be runny. I actually overcooked my egg. 

6) Add the runny scrambled egg on the pasta, add some parmesan cheese and pepper as desired. Garnish with chopped chives.

7) Toss pasta and enjoy your homemade truffle egg fettuccine!

 

On the side: Combine The Tetsuya's Black Truffle Salsa with butter for a flavourful and aromatic spread, serve with warm bread and....It's heaven on top of your bread.

Wagyu Beef Sausage Spaghetti

"No man is lonely eating spaghetti; it requires so much attention." (Christopher Morley)

I owe today's post to a friend (MT), who emailed me in the afternoon specifically to inform me the special discount on wagyu beef sausages at David Jones.  I was so excited that I went straight to David Jones after work, where I almost missed my stop because I was so immersed with an article in MX post about a $12,000 Louis Moinet watch that has dinosaur fossil in it. If this doesn't drop your jaw, how about a $320,000 limited edition that has fragments of dinosaur bones? 
Apparently, the release of this masterpiece has caused a scare buying all over the world among the watch enthusiasts.

Even though I didn't manage to score a $12,000 watch, but I did managed to bring home a $23 sausage treat. 
Every time I enter the gourmet world of David Jones Food Hall, I got so carried away with the varieties of food there, I could walk from aisle to aisle observing every single product on the shelves, section by section from the bakery to fine cuts of meat, the cheese counter, the fine olive oils to luxurious chocolates. The staffs are so polite, I feel shopping in there becomes an experience itself.

So I went up to the butcher and look for the wagyu beef sausages, there are so many types of gourmet sausages available. I bought 3 of the wagyu sausages  and I saw the mango and chicken sausage..."Interesting"....I bought 2 of these. I also bought a tomato jam ($15) which supposed to lavish the sausage even more. We'll see if it's as good as it looks. 

My bill came up to $23.77, not bad for a wagyu beef treat, so if you can't afford to have wagyu steak all the time, why not try the wagyu beef sausage? Afterall, they are still wagyu beef aren't they?  =D

 I decided to use the wagyu sausages to make pasta for dinner. So below you find the recipe for my "Wagyu Beef Sausage Spaghetti". 

First, I pan fried the sausages until it's golden (doesn't have to be totally cooked, as we will cook it again while preparing the pasta sauce) and I sliced it to smaller pieces.

I haven't tried the mango and chicken sausages yet, I'll try it over the weekend, will definitely share my thoughts with you guys on this then.

Ingredients:

- 3 Wagyu beef sausages (pan fried and sliced to smaller pieces)

- 3 Garlics (chopped)

- 1/2 green capsicum (sliced thinly)

- 1/2 red capsicum (sliced thinly)

- Small bowl of button mushroom (cut according to your preference)

- 1 tsp fennel seed

- 1 tsp italian herbs

- 1 fresh tomato

- 1 cup of spaghetti sauce.

- A Handful of fresh oregano leaves

- 350 gm of spaghetti ( or pasta of your choice)

- Olive oil

- Salt and black pepper to taste.

- Parmesan cheese (optional)

Method:

1) Heat up a large fry pan,  add in olive oil.

2) Saute the garlic until golden, add in the sausages, add in mushroom. Stir until mushroom darken a little bit then add in the green and red capsicums. Stir for 2 minutes until tender.

3) Add fennel seeds and Italian herbs, give a quick stir until fragrant. Add the chopped tomato and the spaghetti sauce. Cook for 5 minutes and season with salt and pepper.

4) Add in the fresh oregano leaves and give it a quick stir.

5) Meanwhile, cook your pasta until al dente. Drain.

6) Toss the sauce with the pasta and serve it.

My husband gave me one word after the dinner, "I-chi-ban" (in english means first or number one), I guess he was just trying to say  it's good.

I have to admit the wagyu beef was abit too salty for me, but the saltiness really compliment when cooked with pasta. I think I could handle more of these sausages, maybe I should go back to David Jones again.

Tomato Pesto Linguine

 

"Life is too short, and I'm Italian. I'd much rather eat pasta and drink wine than be a size 0." - Sophia Bush

I love basil pesto, such a quick and easy thing to make that can be eaten in so many way. Not only it's good with pasta, it tasted as good on toast/bread, sandwich, salad or even just as a dip.

This tomato pesto linguine is another simple yet delicious recipe. It takes less than 30 minutes to cook. 

I made the basil pesto using the left over basil leaves from yesterday and I adapted this pesto recipe from Jamie Oliver's cookbook.

 

Basil Pesto

Ingredients:

- 1 garlic cloves (the original recipe is only 1/4 clove but because I like garlic, I put more)

- Half bunch of basil leaves

- A handful of lighty roasted pine nuts

- Olive oil

- salt & black pepper

- Small squeeze of lemon juice

- A handful of Parmesan cheese

Method:

1. Place the garlic, basil leaves and pine nuts into food processor or blender. Process until the ingredients are blended well.

2. Add in the olive oil and mix well, add enough to bind the mixture into the right consistency, then add in the parmesan cheese.

3.Taste the mixture, add salt and pepper accordingly, squeeze in abit of lemon and taste again. You can add any of the ingredients more until you get the right taste.

Again, please note that the measurement of this pasta is an estimation only. You can always add a bit of this and that until you get the right taste. Just make sure you put small amount first and add more.

Tomato Pesto Linguine

Ingredients:

- 1 packet Linguine (or pasta of your choice)

- Basil pesto

- 4 chicken tight fillets (cut into dice size)

- 2 garlic cloves

- 5 button mushrooms (I used the big ones when I prepare this, you can put as much or as little as you like)

- 1 fresh tomato

- Spaghetti sauce

- White wine ( I add approximate 7 tablespoon, you can put less or more, you may even opt out)

- A handful of parmesan cheese

- Salt and black pepper

Method:

1) Marinate the chicken with basil pesto, a pinch of salt and black pepper. set a side. 

Make sure you don't use all the basil pesto, as this it to mix with the pasta.

2) Chop the garlic. Set a side.

3) Slice the mushrooms. Set a side.

4) Deseed the tomato and cut into dice size. Set a side.

5) In a large pot with salted boiling water, cook the pasta until al dente.

6) Heat a large saucepan, add in the olive oil, add in garlic, add in the chicken, stir for 5 minutes, add in the mushrooms, stir until mushroom turn softer and darker, add in the tomato, add in white wine, add in the spaghetti sauce (you can add more if you prefer more sauce on your pasta). Add salt and pepper accordingly. Give it a quick stir.

7) Placed the cooked linguine (pasta) on to a serving plate/bowl. Spoon the sauce over the pasta, add the basil pesto on top of it, sprinkle with Parmesan.

8) Mix well and ready to eat!