Pasta with Squash and Brown Butter

When I was forced to cook for myself back in my undergrad years, and soup noodles with boiled bok choy and canned sardines was getting tedious, I would escape from dorm and stay with my cousin Sandra in downtown Montreal for the weekend.

We would pore over food magazines, Epicurious, cookbooks or just bounced dinner ideas back and forth based on our cravings. One food magazine we flipped through for inspiration even in the frigid December was a summer issue of Donna Hay. She’s my first food idol, her pictures are always alluring, simple and clean, her menu ideas entertaining and fresh.

A while ago, Sandra had dated a tall, handsome fellow with the finest manners, even the Queen couldn’t stifle a crush on him. He had a sexy, deep chuckle to compliment Sandra’s shrill laughter and he always made her smile in a way that even her eyes twinkled. For her birthday, he bought her Donna Hay’s Instant Cook and on the inside front cover scribbled in thick black Sharpie was a love note that went something like this:

Happy birthday, may you cook many more drool-worthy meals…so you can share it all with your friends, especially me. 

I treated that cookbook like my own, I studied each page like a textbook, furiously bookmarking recipes that caught my attention. Sometimes I used my old Canon point and shoot to photograph a recipe like the eggplant ricotta and parmesan bake.

However, my impatience to have my own cookbook grew too strong. One quiet morning, I succumbed to my unrelenting desire need for the beautiful books, so rather than memorizing the chemical structure of branched-chain amino acids and how many ATP are produced from 1 glucose molecule (Biochem anyone?), I jumped on Indigo.com and purchased not one-but two Donna Hay books. I convinced myself: they are an early Christmas gift…the shipping is free…I’ve been mostly frugal this month! 

Soon enough, a slender cardboard package arrived at my front door. I tore threw it like a kid on Boxing Day and jumped up and down. They might not have endearing notes scrawled on the inside, but they belonged to me, and it wasn’t long before I bought more of her books including Entertaining and Modern Classics Volume 1.

One of the things I love about Donna Hay is the inspiring, easily adaptable recipes. I first made this pasta on Thanksgiving weekend back in October (we Canadians celebrate the holiday a month before our neighbors). If you were here on the East coast, you may recall how oddly warm that weekend was, so warm in fact, I sat outside on the balcony in my pajama shorts and a t-shirt (short sleeves! in the fall!) and slurped my pasta with the sun beaming on my face. And of course, the best part of this dish is the brown butter. Did I get your attention? Repeat after me folks, brown butter. Brown butter. Brown butter. I don’t think I need to explain, it really is the best thing ever.

 

The brown butter is laced into every noodle, the squash accentuating its caramelized flavour and the parmesan tones down the sweetness with its salty pungency. This sauce is so phenomenal, so brilliant, it will knock your socks off. Don’t wear socks? Pants! It will knock your pants off!

The procedure is a breeze: golden fat is slowly melted to a beautiful deep color, turning your kitchen into a nutty, sweet heaven. Then this liquid gold is tossed with pasta and cubed squash plus a generous handful of sharp parmesan. Tada! That's it.

Just remember, brown butter makes everything taste ridiculously good. If it was drenched over cardboard, I bet you would like it too (but not advised).

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Recipe here!

A Dinner to Please Any Crowd

One major epiphany I had in my university days as I swam languidly in cookbooks, finding my passion for food and cooking, was the magic of something called slow-roasted tomatoes. I don't recall exactly how I came about making them, but I do remember sinking my teeth into one, still warm from the oven. My heart skipped a beat, I couldn’t believe the candy-like juices swirling in my mouth and how the flavor of seemingly innocent everyday tomatoes had increased ten-fold while sunbathing in the oven. It was like my first kiss, that excitement, that rush to do it again, how it wasn't at all like what you expected.

Cooking tomatoes at a low temperature for an unusually long time concentrates its sweetness, turning even butt ugly tomatoes into the white swan of all tomato cookery. You don’t even need a recipe (but I'll give you one anyway), just fresh, meaty tomatoes, the Roma variety will do the trick. All you need to do is halve them, gut out the seeds and juices, brush with minced garlic, sea salt and olive oil, roast at 200°F for at least 5 hours. It will look pretty dull for a while, but soon, its skins will shrivel and the peppery scent of tomatoes will linger as you cook the rest of your dinner.

I served them as crostinis for my friends this weekend as an appetizer. I rubbed garlic onto baguette slices, topped with slabs of the wrinkled tomatoes adorned with basil. There was a loud orchestra of crunching and bread munching across the table, including a mumbling words that sounded vaguely like “Mmm...SOO...good!” If there was a tomato god, I suspect he would approve and feast on these crostinis everyday.

For the main course, I decided on parsley risotto with roasted mushrooms. I don't make risotto often, but I've always been obsessed with its creaminess, its warmth, its comforting goopy texture. I like trying new recipes and wanted to take a swing at Jamie Oliver's risotto for a while, and it did not disappoint. The herb does duo duty with its vibrant pop of color while perfuming the rice with grassy notes, and when it reaches your mouth, it releases its sharp, clean flavors, reminiscent of dashing meadows and sunshine. Button mushrooms enhance its earthiness, adding a slight meaty texture to the otherwise smooth risotto.

  

But no dinner is complete without a side of vegetables and roasted cauliflower could be your new best friend. They were crispy on the outside, yet still soft to the teeth, caramelized even, and entirely transformed from your old stand-by of raw vegetable sticks. Despite the explosion of miniature white trees descending on the counter, when I chopped them into bite-sized pieces, they charmed me 30 minutes later, sizzling in the pan, fiery hot and seared to golden perfection. 

When the time came for dessert, oohs! and ahhs! chimed from the dining table like a christmas choir as I unfurled the Earl Grey-Infused Chocolate Tart. Then, as if on cue, the salted caramel sandwiched between the chocolate ganache and the pâte sablée (short pastry) oozed out like hot lava, only it wasn't hot, it was a cool, dark liquid, sticking to your fingers the way only good things should.

As I sliced triangles onto mismatched dessert plates, my friends exchanged excited chatter. Sadly, I lost a good amount of the caramel, as evidenced by the pool of copper liquid moving amoeba-like from the pan, to the cutting board, to the granite tabletop.

Armed with forks, we dug in. Though it was more like we hammered in. The pâte sablée was rock solid and stubbornly refused to break apart, but oh dear gawd, was it goood. I could feel every muscle, every ligament, every bone in my body relax. Even my brain shut up.

The ganache was cold to the tongue, but it melted ever so slowly, teasingly, just like Lindt truffles do so well. The caramel cut through the sweetness of the chocolate like a knife, bestowing it with notes of amber and a hint of salt. The buttery crust added a stark contrast to the silkiness of the other layers, its crumbly, sandy, even nutty texture, reminded one friend of the Almond Rocha candies. 

For a few moments, it was quiet. There was only the clinking and clanging of forks scraping empty plates for caramel. There's no denying it, this is a sinfully rich dessert and may leave your friends clamoring for more, but one thing's for sure, I will definitely be making this tart again and again.

But the best part of all was the rhythm of chit-chat, the eruption of giggles, the tension when someone reached the climax of a story, and the undeniable chemistry between my friends was something I haven't felt in a while. At least not in my own home. The last time I hosted a dinner party with friends was nearly two years ago, in Montreal. It was something I loved, bringing friends together made me very happy, very satisfied, solidifying my home. It's taken sometime and a few unexpected turns to get to this point, but I can safely say, that I've settled in Toronto. It feels like home.

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Recipe here!