Trout, pea and chive pasta and dreaming of the summer

Dinner tonight was in a hurry – thankfully just the making part, the eating was a little more relaxed.  We made a trout, pea and chive pasta with a silky coating of creme fraiche. 

First I steamed the trout fillets and then used the pan of water to cook the pasta and peas together.  The pasta we used was a small-ish tube cross shell – perfect for scooping up the peas!

Once the pasta was cooked and drained, I used some of the reserved cooking water to thin out the creme fraiche into a nice sauce.  Into this went the chopped chives, then the peas and pasta.  The final step was to season with salt and pepper and stir through the flakes of trout.

It tasted even better than I hoped, definitely one to make again.  Is anyone else suffering from work and life overload and struggling to feed themselves well?  I feel like I’m living on bread and dairy at the moment, and I long for the salads and fresh dinners of summer sat on the patio.

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Flammkuchen

There are some fantastic Christmas markets in Manchester at the moment, full of delicious foods.  From Raclette melted over new potatoes and gerkins, to spaetzle and paella there are all kinds of goodies.

One of my favourite things at the Christmas markets is Flammkuchen – a German style pizza topped with a creamy sauce, bacon and onion.  When I cook so much at home, it always feels quite expensive to eat at the markets.  So instead we decided to give it a go at home.

I went in search for a recipe – mind you, it took me a while to get the spelling correct!  I was inspired by this recipe because it used quark – an ingredient I’ve seen before but never known what to do with it.  Here was the perfect opportunity to quell my interest – turns out it’s like cottage cheese without the lumps.  Quite nice!

Flammkuchen

Pizza dough
Creme fraiche
Sour cream
Quark
Pancetta or bacon
Onion
Black pepper

Preheat your oven 220°C.

Roll out the pizza dough as thin as you can.

Finely slice the onion – the thinner the better as the onion isn’t pre-cooked.  I used pancetta rather than bacon and sliced it into lardons.

In a bowl mix equal amounts of creme fraiche, sour cream and quark. 

Spread the creme fraiche mixture over the pizza dough, top with sliced onion and bacon before popping it into the oven for about 10-15 minutes or until it’s golden.

All it needs before eating is a good grind of black pepper…or not if your Mr Rigg.

Any other suggestions on what to do with the remaining quark would be graciously received!

Been too long…

My laptop power cable broke – think sparks and spitting sounds!  Thankfully, I live with a super resourceful man, who minutes later had ordered a new lead on ebay. 

However, since the end of last week my laptop power supply has been diminishing so quickly there was only time to briefly check my emails.  I do have some lovely bits to share in the coming days if I can just catch up.

Here’s a sneaky peak of our Flammkuchen we made this week…it was scrumptious…

Asparagus and streaky bacon spaghetti

It is asparagus season and I’m planning on eating as much of it as possible!

Last night we made a sort of carbonara with asparagus and streaky bacon.  I say ‘sort of’ because we aimed to use eggs…and then discovered we had none. 

Instead, dinner was salvaged by a combination of creme fraiche and tallegio cheese.  Together with oven baked asparagus and crisp shards of streaky bacon it was a match made in heaven.  The tallegio provided a wonderful silky texture which was like that of egg yolk.

Asparagus and streaky bacon spaghetti

Feeds 2

Bunch of fresh asparagus
3-4 rashers of streaky bacon
Spaghetti for 2
2 tbsp creme fraiche
Piece of tallegio cheese, cut into small cubes

Preheat the oven to 200°C. 

Snap the woody ends of the asparagus – they will break naturally.  Pop them into an oven proof dish, drizzle with olive oil, scatter over some salt and pepper and if you’d like some lemon thyme leaves.  Put them in the oven for between 5 and 10 minutes – remove when tender.

Meanwhile, put the spaghetti on to cook in boiling salted water.

Snip the rashers of streaky bacon into small pieces and fry in a hot pan until crispy.

Once the asparagus is cooked, remove and slice into smaller pieces. 

Drain the spaghetti, mix in the creme fraiche and stir well.  Add in the asparagus and crispy bacon, followed by the cubes of tallegio.  Mix well and eat right away.