Asparagus Pesto Pasta

This is most definitely a leftover mash-up. I have some pesto sitting in my fridge from the mozzarella and cherry tomato salad, week-old somewhat flaccid asparagus and a random assortment of pasta.

• 3 tablespoons pesto (you can make it yourself or use storebought)
• 1 bunch asparagus, washed and cut into 1.5 inch segments
• 2 servings pasta
• Grated parmesan reggiano
• Freshly ground black pepper and salt

In a large pot, cook asparagus in salted water till just tender. Scoop the cooked asparagus from the water and set aside. In the same water, boil pasta till al dente and drain.

Return the pasta and asparagus to the pot, add pesto and give it a good stir to mix everything up. There's no need to add more olive oil as the oil from the pesto should be enough. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with a sprinkle of parmesan.

Gnocchi with Summer Vegetables

I'm giving gnocchi another chance, and trying out Cuz from Canada's suggestion.

Panfried in butter, then finished off with some lemon juice at the end, the sauce is a classic French brown butter sauce. The green zucchini and mushrooms should make for a nice light complement.

I'm making this as a side, so have ready 2 small portions of gnocchi for this recipe.

• 1/2 zucchini, diced
• 5 mushrooms, sliced
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• Freshly ground black pepper and salt

Cook gnocchi in a large pot of salted water until they float to the surface.

In the meantime, saute zucchini and mushrooms with 2 tablespoons butter in a frying pan until tender. Remove from pan and set aside.

When the gnocchi are cooked, add the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and saute gnocchi until the butter browns slightly. Add the cooked zucchini and mushrooms and toss well. Add the lemon juice right at the end, along freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste and serve immediately.

Crabmeat Pasta in a Creamy Tomato Sauce

Love eating this in restaurants. Hate that there's never enough crabmeat. Solution? Make it myself at home and load up on the crab.

The last time I remember eating this was at Surburbia at Sentosa. It's one of my favourite restaurants, mostly because it's quiet, set amidst lush greenery and the food is pretty good too. A perfect hideout on manic weekday nights.

I'm pulling out all the stops tonight. Premium crabmeat, organic plum cherry tomatoes, wild Greek oregano and pink Australian sea salt.

Fine dining at home? Totally, absa-f**kin-lutely possible.

Serves 4:

• 4 cups cooked crabmeat
• 1 can roma tomatoes
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 4 basil leaves, finely sliced
• 2 tablespoons cream
• 8 cherry tomatoes, halved
• Salt and pepper to taste

If you're using frozen or raw crabmeat, make sure it's thoroughly thawed and drained nefore you start. Heat a frying pan with 2 tablespoons of butter, saute till done and set aside.

In a pot, heat up olive oil on medium heat and saute the garlic till soft and fragrant. Add canned tomatoes and break up into small bits with your spoon. Add wine, oregano and basil and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce the heat and let simmer till liquid has reduced by half and is nice and thick.

Just before serving, add the crabmeat, cherry tomatoes and cream to the sauce and let simmer for 2 minutes. Season with freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste. Add cooked pasta (preferably linguine) and mix well.

To serve, place a small mound of pasta on a plate, and top off with a generous helping of sauce and meat. Delish.

More for the last meal:

• Buttermilk pancakes
• Perfect scrambled eggs
• Saffron-scented pumpkin and apple soup
• Rosy borscht
• Panfried foie gras with a balsamic raspberry reduction
• Shrimp paella
• Triple chocolate cake
• Lemon meringue pie

Grilled Red Pepper and Sundried Tomato Pasta

Homemade roasted peppers are just the bestest of the best. I occasionally make large batches of these and store in jars with olive oil. They keep well and make great additions to salads, pasta and just generally everything.

To roast the peppers, simply grill them whole over the stovetop until the skins have blackened in the fire. In my case, since my stovetop is a hotplate, I'm just placing them on the hotplate till they get as blackened as possible, then using my butane torch to finish off the job.

Pop the peppers into a plastic bag for a few minutes. This lets the steam loosen the skins from the peppers. Then remove them and peel skins off, slice them to remove the stem and seeds, and you're ready to rock and roll.

Serves 2:

• 1 roasted bell pepper, sliced into strips
• 2 pieces of sundried tomatoes, sliced into strips
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• A pinch of chilli flakes or 1 teaspoon finely diced red chilli
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Splash of white wine
• Freshly ground salt and black pepper

Heat olive oil in a saucepan and saute garlic and chilli till soft and fragrant. Add peppers and sundried tomatoes and mix well. Add a splash of white wine and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Throw in the cooked pasta and toss till well coated, and sprinkle your choice of crumbled feta or grated parmesan reggiano over before serving.

Other items on the Red, White and Ooohhh menu:

• Mozzarella and cherry tomato salad
• Boeuf bourguignon with mashed potatoes
• White chocolate and cherry cupcakes
• Red rubies in coconut milk
• Raspberry macarons with a buttercream filling
• Cream scones with homemade raspberry preserves and freshly made whipped cream

Project Gnocchi

Alright... I'm giving this one last shot. Fingers and toes crossed that I don't bomb again.

Since I've never tasted the sweet sweet taste of gnocchi success, I'm trying out this recipe. Hopefully, I will be making gnocchi like an Italian grandmother soon.

Since this is a trial run, I'm going to start with a small batch. This is the final proportions I came to for 2 small servings:

• 225g starchy potatoes
• 1/2 an egg (as a novice, I'll start with a little more)
• 1 cup flour
• Pinch of salt

Although the recipe calls for much less flour, I found the dough to be way to sticky and simply not coming together. So I added more and it seemed to work out just fine.

Right... Boiled the potatoes, mashed them and let them cool. So far, so good.

Spread them out on a floured board, drizzle egg, 3/4 cup flour over and a sprinkle of salt. Then I used a icing knife to scrape and fold, scrape and fold...

Keep adding flour until the dough becomes firm enough to handle, then knead gently. You'll end up with a pretty decent looking ball of dough.

Roll into long strips and cut into 2cm long pieces.

Press the back of a fork into the lumps of dough to make little lines...

At this point, the tension is killing me. Will they hold up? Or fall apart? Or will they be too rubbery? I really can't take the humiliation of defeat AGAIN. My ego is too fragile and may not survive.

I fire up a pot of salted water and as it boils, the suspense mounts...

One lone gnocchi drops into the pot...

As it hits the water, it sinks to the bottom and I'm staring at it intently. It doesn't dissolve... That's a good sign.

I stick a fork into the water and give it a gentle nudge... It holds up ok...

Finally, it floats to the surface, which means it's done.

Tentatively, I fish it out and prepare to give it the taste test. Not much of one since I seldom eat gnocchi, but what the hell.

It's soft with a slight bite to it, with a distinct potato flavour. It's not bad, tastes about right. So, I drop the rest in and toss it with leftover bolognese sauce.

Success! I have conquered the evil potato pillows and am rewarded with dinner. I still don't know why gnocchi is such a big deal. It seems like an awful lot of trouble for something that tastes so subtle. All in all, a rather anti-climactic night. Fuggit... I win and that's all that matters.

Evil potato pillows

I hate gnocchi. Them evil bastards are impossible to make.

They've defeated me once. In the most humiliating way possible. The moment they hit the water, they dissolved like a bad strategy being ripped apart by intelligent people.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of gnocchi. But I take defeat personally... and very, very badly.

I'm going to give it one more try in Project Gnocchi. And, if it doesn't work, I'll never eat gnocchi again because it will mock me with every bite.

If it works, it will be my new favourite food. So there.

Hearty Bolognese Sauce

It's an oldie but a goodie. Hearty, meaty and very, very comforting. Just the thing I need today.

• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1 celery stalk, finely chopped
• 1 medium carrot, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced (or 2 teaspoons of roasted garlic paste)
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 rashers bacon, finely chopped
• 500g ground beef
• 500g  ground fatty pork
• 5 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 can peeled roma tomatoes
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• Freshly ground salt and black pepper

Cook onions, celery, carrot, and garlic in oil in a large heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes.

Turn up the heat and add bacon, beef, and pork, stirring and breaking up lumps, until no longer pink, about 6 minutes.

Add the canned tomatoes, breaking them up with your spoon. Stir in tomato paste, milk, wine, water, and gently simmer, covered, until sauce is reduced and thickened, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Add paprika, oregano, and salt and pepper to taste and remove from heat.

Yum, yummy, yum yum....

Portobello and Feta Ravioli

I reckon it's high time I popped the cherry on my virgin pasta machine. Making fresh pasta is really therapeutic, what with all the kneading and bashing of the dough.

That said, it's probably a good idea to attempt this with 2 essential pieces of equipment: an electric mixer with a dough attachment and a pasta rolling machine.

If you're a real masochist and want to attempt this by hand, you can try, but I guarantee it will be painful beyond belief. The last time I attempted it was in Bangkok and the results weren't pretty. But then again, I was using an empty wine bottle as a rolling pin in an unfamiliar kitchen so I shouldn't have been that surprised.

It's a good idea to start with the filling first so it has time to cool down.

• 150g feta cheese
• 20 baby portobellos
• 1/2 teaspoon of oregano
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons butter

Slice the mushrooms while heating up a saucepan on medium heat. Melt butter and add mushrooms, letting it sweat down and get as much moisture out as possible. Season with oregano and pepper and let cool completely.

When cool, drain through a wire strainer, using a spoon to force out as much liquid as possible. Chop finely, then crumble in feta cheese and mash them up into a well-mixed mixture with your hands. Set aside and start on the pasta dough

The basic ingredients for pasta dough is straightforward: Eggs and flour.

The proportions are easy to remember too: 100g of flour for every egg. Roughly 150g of dough makes for one serving.

So, for today, I'm making dinner for 3, so you'll need:

• 400g of flour
• 4 large eggs

To make the dough, put 300g of flour into your mixer and crack in the 4 eggs. Start beating on low and you'll start getting a sticky dough. Add the rest of the flour bit by bit and the dough is worked over by the hook until it starts to form a solid mass that pulls away from the sides of the bowl. You'll know when to stop adding flour when the dough is solid and firm and no longer sticky.

Remove from mixer and knead well for 10 minutes with your hands.

Roll out the dough into sheets with the pasta machine. Start with the thickest setting and run through, and once again on the medium setting.

To assemble the ravioli, lay out a pasta sheet and place teaspoon sized gobs of filling spaced 3cm apart. Brush the edges with water and fold the dough over and seal the filling.

You can use a round cutter to trim the edges, or a knife to trim into squares.

Before cooking, let the ravioli dry on a floured tray for at least 2 hours. An air-conditioned room helps move things along a little faster. Dry one side for an hour, then flip the lil' suckers over and dry for another hour.

To cook, boil in water till they float to the top and al dente, drain and toss with your favourite sauce. You can use a classic tomato, creamy carbonara or a hearty bolognese like I'm doing today.

Pasta Carbonara

This is one of my most frequently made dishes. Quite simply because the ingredients are always available in my kitchen.

Although it has a thick creamy texture, surprisingly enough, authentic carbonara contains no cream. It is the semi-cooked egg that creates the creaminess.

Serves 2:

• Any noodle pasta for 2 (An easy way to estimate a single serving of pasta is to wrap your thumb and forefinger around the pasta. For a man-sized serving, the thumb and forefinger should just touch. For girl-sized servings, the forefinger should reach the top joint crease of the thumb.)
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 5 rashers of bacon, cut into small strips
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
• 1 1/2 cups grated parmesan reggiano
• Freshly ground black pepper

Cook pasta in a large pot of salted water till al dente.

Fry the bacon till crisp and set aside. In the bacon fat on medium heat, saute the garlic till soft, being careful not to burn or brown the garlic. If you really really really want a creamier pasta, add 1/3 cup of cream at this point.

Add the cooked pasta, along with a small amount of pasta water to the pan of garlic. Add bacon and toss till well mixed.

Take the pan off the heat, and add egg bit by bit, stirring it well each time. The heat from the pan will cause the eggs to thicken and become creamy. Grind a generous amount of black pepper over and add 1 cup of grated parmesan and stir till pasta is completely coated.

Garnish with leftover parmesan, a light dash of pepper and serve.

See the rest of the Italian Idyll menu here:

Appetizer: Bruschetta
Dessert: Tiramisu
Drink: Summer Berry Sangria

Chorizo and portobello risotto with prosciutto crunch

Risotto has a bad rep for being difficult to make. Which is totally undeserved as far as I'm concerned.

Like most things in life, it needs some care and attention, which doesn't necessarily mean being difficult. The science behind risotto is simple. The constant stirring and the gradual addition of liquids coaxes out the starches from the rice grains. This is what gives you the creamy texture of the dish.

This is a western take of one of my favourite childhood meals. A typical after-school lunch would be a simple plain porridge with bits of seasoned pork, topped with crumbled deep fried crispy vegetarian salted fish. That stuff is near impossible to buy, and it's such a treat because my Grand Aunt from Penang would make it and send it over.

It's simply layers of sheets of beancurd skin and fermented beancurd paste. It's arduous to make because each layer had to be completely sun-dried before the next layer went on. It could take up to a month to make, depending on whether the weather was cooperative. When deep fried, it puffs up into a crispy, pungent, salty little pillow of melt-in-your-mouth scrumptiousness.

This risotto dish is inspired by the blend of contrasting textures and flavours from my childhood. It combines the creamy velvet of the risotto, with the chorizo lending a spicy kick, topped with the contrasting crunch of crispy and salty proscuitto in every bite.

Serves 4 as entree, 8 as appetiser

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cups sliced chorizo
• 3 cups sliced portobello or any other mushrooms you prefer
• 8 slices of prosciutto
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• Fresh thyme
• 1.5 cups dry white wine
• 6 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 cup butter
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 cups arborio rice (or any short grain rice)
• 1 cup grated parmesan reggiano
• Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a skillet and brown chorizo. Add mushrooms and thyme and saute until tender. Chuck in the booze and simmer until liquid is absorbed and reduced by about half. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 160C. Spread out the prosciutto slices on a non-stick baking sheet for 10-12 minutes until crispy. Drain on paper towels to remove excess oil and set aside.

Get all your ingredients ready and stand by to stir for at least 20 minutes. Putting the TV on usually helps to distract you from the lactic acid building up in your bicep. Switch arms every once in awhile, you really don't want lopsided arms.

On medium heat, melt butter and cook onions and garlic till tender and translucent. Dump in the rice and stir it around for a couple of minutes. Turn heat down to low.

Now, the trick from here is to add liquid cup by cup, stirring gently until each cup of liquid is absorbed before adding the next. There are no shortcuts here, just patience and a watchful eye. There are no hard and fast rules either, just keep adding liquid and stirring until the rice grains are cooked al dente.

As you stir and add liquid, the mixture will become creamier. This is a sign that the rice grains are absorbing the liquid and the starch is being released. When the risotto is done, stir in the mushroom mixture and half a cup of grated parmesan and mix well.

Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Garnish with a sprinkle of grated cheese and top with a crispy slice of prosciutto.

This is my favourite rainy weather dish - curled up in front of the TV and wrapped up in a blanket. The ultimate comfort food.