Dinner Recipes @Not Quite Nigella

Category Archives: Dinner recipes

Recipes for dinner

Prawn, Lemon & Garlic Ravioli & Patrice Newell Garlic

The first thing I should say about this recipe is that while it looks fancy enough, you can have this all done in about half an hour including cooking time. Secondly – and this may be a biggie depending on how you feel about strong flavours or how Vampirish you are, but don’t be scared off by the addition of raw garlic. However I will preface it by saying that for this dish, find the best possible garlic you can. I used Patrice Newell garlic which is a biodynamic, organic garlic grown in the Hunter Valley of NSW that is only available for a short while online as it sells out so quickly and is used by Kylie Kwong and Damien Pignolet. The better the garlic, the better the flavour of the sauce and it will lack the acrid burn of raw garlic. Dare I say that if you can’t source a great quality garlic, you may need to saute it for a few minutes but if you can, dig in with gusto. This garlic was delicious and sweet and unmistakeably garlickey in flavour.

Patrice Newell garlic

Most garlic sold in Australia is imported from China and at 99c for 5 bulbs it is often a very attractive option. However after tasting this garlic it’s hard to think that I could go back to that. There was even a note letting me know that once the bulbs start to shoot I could plant the cloves to get my own bulbs in the Summer months. The garlic also makes the most divine garlic bread.

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51 comments | December 30, 2009 by Not Quite Nigella

Italian Sausage Stew – The Happy Husband Maker

italian sausage stew

This is one of those recipes that I didn’t consider putting here until Mr NQN’s repeated requests for it and insistence that it was worthwhile convinced me otherwise. To me, it was a stew and I didn’t think people wanted stews that were simple to make but they were indeed something that people were after. The fact that my recipe for Beef and Beer Stew was so popular and stumbled upon repeatedly was a testament to that. This recipe is one that I call the Happy Husband Maker. If the Beef and Beer stew was a Marriage Maker, this is the Part II. How to have a Happy Husband.

sausage stew cooking

This is great as it’s a real storecupboard freezer meal. I always have sausages in the freezer on standby and they’re more often than not Italian ones. The rest can really be from the pantry as you can see so it makes for a great emergency meal.

tomatoes couscous

The quantity that this makes is enough for 4 or for as we like to have it, for the two of us over two nights for dinner. It’s very versatile, sometimes I prefer to use cannellini beans or whatever vegetables I may have or are in season (zucchini added in at the end works well too). You could also do this in a pressure cooker or slow cooker. The black olives are essential though so please don’t forget these, they provide a saltiness and a texture to this that is wonderful. I confess that I do sometimes make this without them if I don’t happen to have them.

So tell me Dear Reader, what’s your Significant Other’s most requested meal?

Italian Sausage Stew

An Original Recipe by Not Quite Nigella

1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic thinly sliced
1 tablespoon oil
3-4 Italian sausages
1×425g tinned chopped tomatoes
3 large carrots, chopped diagonally
3 cups chicken or beef stock
1/4 cup chopped black olives
1 cup Pearl Couscous (or orzo/risoni)
Parsley to serve

1. In a large saucepan fry sausages on medium heat until browned on the outside. Remove from pan and drain on a paper towel. Then add oil and fry onion and garlic until onion is translucent. Add carrots, tomatoes, stock and black olives. Chop sausages into bite sized pieces and add these too. Simmer for low heat with the lid on for 30 minutes stirring occasionally (I’ve even left this without stirring and it has been fine).

2. Add pearl couscous and simmer on low heat for another 10 minutes. Test for seasoning, if it needs some salt and pepper add it (usually it does benefit from some). Serve with pasta, rice or with some lovely bread to soak up the juices.

italian sausage stew

46 comments | December 11, 2009 by Not Quite Nigella

Pomegranate and Pistachio Chicken

pomegranate chicken 6

I was perched on the top tier of my pink stepladder and shooting a picture of a roast chicken from above and my neighbour had come out onto his balcony and proceeded to stare at me like I was a freak. Perhaps I was and just didn’t know it and in a moment that just emphasises how freaky I had become, I clicked away not caring. Hello ladies and gentlemen. I am a food blogger and a food blogging addict.

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63 comments | December 3, 2009 by Not Quite Nigella

Baked Figs with Gorgonzola Sauce, Buon Ricordo Book Review & Win 1 of 4 copies!

proscuitto figs 1

Food is sexy, there’s no doubt about it and figs are one of the sexiest fruits I can imagine and fresh figs are truly things of sensual beauty. If you get a good one, the right one will see you swooning in ecstasy. Get a dry, light one and you’ll probably wonder what all the fuss is about and you won’t feel the sexy vibe at all whilst others will be moaning in pleasure at their juicy fig. It’s like being at a Swinger’s party where everyone is having a good time except for you. Or so I’ve heard.

wrapping figs

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178 comments | November 11, 2009 by Not Quite Nigella

Pink Pasta for BCA Month & The Silver Spoon Pasta Book Review

pink pasta 5-1

It may sound provocative, but I am up for anything. Cooking for events that is. If I have the time, I will have a dish for you. So when my girlfriends and I decided to hold a Girl’s Night in for Breast Cancer Awareness evening this month, I knew I could contribute a pink dish. The only hitch? They wanted something savoury for the dinner. Sweets were sorted and were baggsed eagerly by the rest of the girls. They saved me the main as they knew that I liked a challenge (either that or they didn’t want to deal with a pink main). I have been frantically busy with the Sydney International Food Festival so I hadn’t really thought about what to do until a review copy of The Silver Spoon Pasta landed on my doorstep. I flicked through it poring over pasta dishes for my husband (who is a pasta fiend) before seeing a dish that was so perfect for my girlfriends and I that I placed the ribbon bookmark (pink of course, see it was a sign!) in that page.

moet bottle

That evening, I contemplated my liquor cabinets. I needed 200mls of white wine and when I looked up, I saw a bottle of the perfect thing, Moet Brut Rose in exactly the right size in a blushing pink shade! As I was walking home I realised that I hadn’t bought flowers and when I was about to turn back I spied a big overgrown tree full of pink flowers spilling out of the neighbours fence onto the street. I snipped some and took this as another sign that the universe was in support of the pink dinner.

pink pasta 4-1

It was relatively quick to make and everyone adored it and yes I know, I know, it’s not strictly pink is it. I perhaps should not have used the porcini fettucine as that has a decidedly brown shade to it and a regular pasta (or indeed a beetroot pasta) would have been more fitting but I had not the inclination to make some nor did I see any to purchase. I did explore some recipes for beetroot pasta but many had said that the colours drains from the vivid pink to a pale pink which just would have been rather disappointing. I do prefer my smoked salmon uncooked but it wasn’t too bad at all and it was eaten happily by all with some taking seconds.

the silver spoon pasta

As for The Silver Spoon Pasta, this was a cookbook that many of these girlfriends wanted. The Silver Spoon is seen by many as the definitive cookbook for Italian just as Je Sais Cuisiner or I Know How To Cook is to French. Originally published in 1950 by the Architecturel magazine Domus, the recipes are easily achievable as the ingredients are easily sourced (with perhaps the exception of a white Bianco D’Alba truffle). The photographs are lovely but simple in styling, often styled in a bowl or pot on a textured surface.

the silver spoon pasta 1

Maltagliati with Peppers

The book of 350 recipes is split into two sections: dried pasta versus fresh pasta with the dried pasta further split into long pasta such as linguine, spaghetti and less common ones like Buccatini and Bavette among others and short dried pasta like Fusilli, Rigatoni and less common ones like Ruote and Sedani. The fresh pastas range from Cut pastas like Bigoli, fettucine and my favourite papardelle (for which I now have 9 new recipes!) as well as pastas like Maltagliati which means “badly cut” in Italian. The other fresh pastas are filled pastas including Agnolotti, Pansotti, the wonton-like Casonsei and Tortellini. You get the picture though, we’re talking every shape of pasta you could dream up. The fresh pasta section comes with 3 recipes for fresh pasta dough (plain, green and red, how Italian flag!).

the silver spoon pasta 2

Most of the recipes for the sauces are made up of 6-7 ingredients or less including things like olive oil, butter and salt and pepper so they’re very achievable. Preparation times and cooking times are listed for each recipe so it is easy to figure out which ones are good for fast cooking after work particularly if you buy the fresh pasta (although there are instructions for making your own pasta too, should the urge strike). They explain the differences in wheat flour used for dried versus fresh pasta (fresh or homemade pasta uses soft wheat flour) and they explain why the addition of egg improves the consistency and how each should be cooked – fresh pasta absorbs more water and requires less time to cook and can be stored for up to 15 days. Also importantly they teach you which sauces match with which pastas.

the silver spoon pasta 3