easy tomato chilli garlic pasta

An easy pasta dish with fresh rigatoncini, tomatoes, garlic, chilli, herbs and parmesan.

I love going to the farmers' market, but I tend to stick to fruit and vegetable purchases when I visit. Recently, however, a fresh pasta vendor caught my attention as I was strolling past his stall. He was down to his last few containers of fresh pasta and he was willing to get rid of them quickly for a good offer. I bought two containers for five dollars, and opened up the one of them as soon as I got home to make a delicious fresh pasta lunch. I am not quite sure what this variety of pasta is, but it looks like it may be rigatoncini, a smaller version of rigatoni. Ridged, slightly curved, and with straight-cut ends. Lovely and rustic.

The idea for this rigatoncini recipe started with the basic ingredients of aglio e olio pasta - olive oil, garlic, chilli, salt and pepper. I embellished it with fresh tomatoes and dried mixed herbs, stretched the sauce further with cooked pasta water, then crowned the final dish with finely grated Parmesan cheese. Simple! To make it vegan, simply omit the Parmesan, or substitute it with vegan cheese or nutritional yeast instead. Also, feel free to use other types of pasta - other medium-sized ridged tubular pasta such as penne rigate or tortiglioni will work well, and spiral pasta such as fusilli or rotini should also be suitable.

You can easily modify this tomato chilli garlic pasta recipe to make a good vegan pasta dish, too.

easy tomato chilli garlic pasta
(serves 2 as a main)

350g / 12oz fresh pasta or 200g / 7oz dried pasta (ridged tubes and spirals work well in this recipe)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 red chilli, thinly sliced (use less chilli and/or remove the seeds if you want it less spicy)
4 tomatoes, sliced into eighths
1 teaspoon dried mixed herbs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/3 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Cook pasta in a pot of salted boiling water until just slightly shy of al dente. Exact cooking times depend on the type of pasta used - different shapes and sizes have different cooking times, and fresh pasta cooks faster than dried pasta. Reserve 1 cup of the pasta water. Drain the pasta and halt the cooking process with cool running water, then drain again and set aside.

Warm up the olive oil in a pot or saucepan with low heat. Gently cook garlic and chilli in the olive oil for 2 - 3 minutes or until the garlic is soft and golden. Add tomatoes, dried herbs and the reserved pasta water. Turn up the heat to bring the mixture to a boil and then turn down the heat and allow it to bubble moderately for approximately 10 minutes or until the tomatoes are tender and disintegrating, and the liquid thickens to form a light sauce. It should not be too watery, but it is also not very thick. There should be just enough sauce to thinly coat all the pasta when you add it.

Turn up the heat and then add the cooked pasta along with salt and pepper. Stir the pasta through the sauce for about 30 seconds or until everything is warm. Add more salt and pepper to taste, if you like. Ladle the pasta into bowls and top with grated parmesan.

Fresh rigatoni with tomato, garlic, chilli and parmesan.

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recent delights: organic pasta; dinner @ itali.co, st kilda; fig & fennel bread @ rustica sourdough bakery, fitzroy

Oh hello! I think I'm way overdue for another post on some of the recent odds-and-ends in my food world. Today's going to be a carb-heavy issue. Pasta, pizzas and bread. You've been warned.

So first of all let's talk pasta. I bought some organic pasta from the shops some months ago, which I've been meaning to blog about, because they're pretty different from the standard pasta I usually eat.

These lovely little morsels pictured below are strozzapreti tricolore from Montebello in Italy. Prior to this, I've not had pasta in the strozzapreti shape, so the mere novelty of it all engaged me. Plus, it apparently means priest strangler in Italian, which also brings forth the question, does everything just sound better in Italian? Also, they come in three colours. Technically, it's really four - we've got the chilli ones in red, the nettle ones in green, the wholemeal ones in brown and the classic ones in beige. They're gorgeous AND tasty. The chilli is distinctive, and it will infuse the pasta water with a good dose of heat. The nettle ones have a pleasantly earthy taste, similar to spinach. I have to confess that I've been cooking them in a rather un-Italian fashion, using them in lieu of noodles in my Asian-style broths. I quite like them that way!

Montebello - Strozzapreti Tricolore Pasta.

Getting a bit closer to home, and with less food miles, we have Australian-made pasta, too. Hurrah! These are mixed olive leaves from L'Abruzzese, a South Australian company. The green ones are flavoured with spinach powder. The "leaves" are so charmingly rustic, and they also cook up well, retaining a great al dente bite. I figured that they would go beautifully in a gentle, creamy base, so I tossed them through some mascarpone, as well as some other ingredients I no longer remember. My instincts proved correct - it was a delicious match. I've noticed L'Abruzzese also have pasta in native Australian flavours (lemon myrtle! wattleseed! excitement!!), as well as a gluten-free range made with buckwheat, chickpea, rice and lentil flours. Buoyed by my good experience here, I might try those next time.

L'Abruzzese - Mixed Olive Leaves.

I bought both of the above pastas at Ripe the Organic Grocer in Prahran Market, but you can probably find them in other stores that stock a good range of organic pasta, as well. Or you may find something else which is just as fun to cook and eat!

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Moving on. I recently accepted an invitation to a complimentary dinner at itali.co ( 1/173-177 Barkly St, St Kilda) to experience a set menu created by head chefs Piero Roldo and Lino Maglione.

Firstly, we were treated to some kitchen demonstrations - a behind-the-scenes look at how they make pasta and pizza. Here's a fleeting shot I managed to catch of one of the steps to creating a squid ink tagliolini.

The making of squid ink pasta at Itali.co.

We ate so much and I won't be posting all the photos here, but if you'd like a comprehensive pictorial summary you can check them out under the Media/PR Events album in my Facebook page.

I shall indeed share with you my favourite savoury and sweet dishes of the night, however.

Behold...

Slow-cooked boneless rack of rabbit, filled with sun-dried tomatoes, olives and basil, served with a red cabbage strudel, and carrot puree.

The description alone is enticing enough, but I did not anticipate how well-executed and beautifully cooked it would be, and in turn, how much I would love it. The rabbit came out in the form of a succulent involtini, rolled with little tangy, salty and herbaceous hits from the tomatoes, olives and basil. The red cabbage strudel, put simply, was like delicious sauerkraut in pastry. The carrot puree was smooth, unctuous, and indulgent. I adored all of it.

Rabbit involtini, red cabbage strudel and carrot puree at Itali.co.

My favourite dessert of the night was the strawberry nutella pizza. You're probably not surprised.

For days afterwards, I would get random cravings for that delicious chocolatey hazelnut spread that we all know and love. I fairly blame it on this pizza. It's a simple concept and a flavour combination that has been no doubt done many times in many places, but what really elevated this pizza was that gorgeous crust. I could try to replicate this pizza at home (and ha, I probably will) - the toppings will be easy - but that perfectly cooked dough, with its beguiling stretch and crunch... I'll have to come back here for that.

Strawberry Nutella pizza at Itali.co.

Other notes: The general quality of the food I sampled here was excellent. A few didn't quite grab me so much, but besides the two dishes mentioned above, there were several others that I enjoyed - the pan-fried Canadian scallops with cauliflower pannacotta, the black ink tagliolini with assorted seafood (especially when drizzled with the chilli oil condiment on the table), and all the other pizzas I tried - one was a lovely summery one with swordfish on an eggplant base, and the other a deliciously pungent mushroom and truffle pizza. Additionally, a shout out to owner, Remo Nicolini, who was an excellent host - he is clearly passionate about food and it really shows in the way he runs the place.



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Last, but not least, in this series of carb-laden treats...

Hi, bread with juicy figs and aromatic fennel seeds. Why art thou so yummy?

This is the fig and fennel ficelle from Rustica Sourdough Bakery (402 Brunswick St, Fitzroy). Apparently this bakery has been around for quite awhile, but Simon and I only stumbled upon it recently when he wanted some takeaway coffee. We went in and discovered the ficelle. I also discovered, unsurprisingly, that it is even more delicious toasted, with butter. What isn't, really.

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What are some of your recent delights?

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d.o.c. pizza and mozzarella bar, carlton

A few weeks ago Simon and I went out for dinner at D.O.C Pizza and Mozzarella Bar (295 Drummond St, Carlton) with fellow blogger friends Bryan (+ Fakegf), Winston, Daisy (+ Mr. Bao), and Yasmeen. It was great fun. We chatted, we ate, we ate, we ate, we chatted, we ate some more... and finally left with very, very full bellies.

Now as a disclaimer, I tend to struggle a little as a food blogger when I have to keep track of and pay attention to more than a few dishes in one sitting, and have even given up on processing such posts in the past, so bear with me if this one is not quite up to scratch!

Let's start with an easy one - drinks. The Baladin range of soft drinks on the menu caught our eyes. I got the Spuma and Simon had the Ginger. On paper, both sounded similar, stating ingredients such as orange peel, vanilla and spices. Upon drinking both, we discovered the differences. Spuma had a more bittersweet herbal quality to it, probably due to the use of Chinese rhubarb, while Ginger had sweetly seductive honeyed notes that melted upon the tongue.

Soft drinks from Italian brewery Le Baladin. Here, the Spuma Nera.

We had a long rectangular table, so for the main savoury meals, we divided into two parts of four - thus, Winston, Yasmeen, Simon and I shared a few pizzas amongst ourselves, while Bryan, Fakegf, Daisy and Mr. Bao in turn had their own selections.

Winston had been to D.O.C. before and he suggested we get the antipasto platter - a daily assortment of selected ingredients. I'm not sure if I can identify everything properly, but my favourites here would be the bresaola (air cured beef) and smoked Scamorza (a smoky mozzarella in the fior di latte style). There was also a very strong, crumbly cheese which was too pungent for a few of us to handle, and even those who liked it could only have a little bit at a time. Made for good fun passing it around and checking out everyone's expressions as they tasted it for the first time!

antipasto platter.

For pizzas, we had:

Pizza Tiger Prawns with tomato, mozzarella, endive, fresh chilli. It's a nice, fresh combination of flavours. I would've liked there to be more than one prawn on each slice, though... am I greedy?

tiger prawn pizza.

Pizza San Daniele with San Marzano tomato, fresh DOP buffalo mozzarella, DOP San Daniele Prosciutto. I've actually never been too keen on prosciutto as it's generally a bit too funky for me, but the prosciutto in this pizza is quite subtle and delicate.

San Daniele prosciutto pizza.

Pizza ai Porcini with wild mushrooms, truffle oil in bianco with grated DOP pecorino. Mushroomy, earthy, and creamy, this is my favourite out of the three.

wild mushroom pizza.

While the pizzas were enjoyable, and they are what D.O.C. is famous for, I also really liked their desserts. Here's what we had:

Sweet goats cheese, tiramisu with pavesini and montenegro. I'm not big on tiramisu desserts and wouldn't have gotten this if I was by myself, but I was surprised by how much I adored this one. It's light, it's sophisticated, it had me going back for more.

tiramisu dessert.

Coppa gelato - a delectable cup of mixed gelati. The chocolate one was easy to identify; the pinkish one was suggested by the others to be strawberry, though for some reason it tasted more like blood orange to me; and then there was one that was reminiscent of eggnog, which in retrospect was probably zabaglione.

mixed gelati dessert.

Nutella calzoncino with vanilla bean ice cream. With that classic chocolate hazelnut filling, the little calzone, along with the ice cream, made for sticky, sinful comfort food.

nutella dessert.

Sweet pizza with Belgian white chocolate, fresh strawberries, vanilla bean ice cream. Even though I don't usually go for white chocolate, I really looked forward to this one, because it sounded absolutely lush, and it did not disappoint. So satisfying!

sweet pizza dessert.

All in all, I had a very positive first impression of D.O.C, and I would return again as I am quite interested in trying some of the other pizzas. Simon did feel that it was a bit pricey, however, with each pizza clinking in at around the 20-dollar mark, so we'll have to see how we go!



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