Rigatoni with crude almond-chilly sauce served with a rocket and rosewater salad

When I want to make a pasta dish, nothing can stop me. Regrettably, I don't have a pasta maker at home, so I have to do with commercially available pasta. Somewhere along the way I will get one of those nice pasta makers, with the fettuccine and ravioli cutter. But for now, I must be content with what I can get.

This sauce is my trademark recipe. And everyone who has ever tasted it has asked me for the recipe. It is a tomato and cream based sauce; but the real heroes are the almonds (or walnuts, whatever suits you). I make many versions of this sauce, but the most quick and crude one, as this, involves no blending and no fine chopping. Everything is just cut up coarsely and simply simmered in a saucepan and poured over cooked pasta. I used rigatoni, but use whatever you have handy- spaghetti, fettuccine, fusilli- basically any pasta. If you are serving this for a dinner party, you could blend the sauce to make it smooth and even. But, for me the crude version fits best; I like the textural effect on my palate.

I used some white wine in the pasta, to de-glaze the saucepan before adding the tomatoes. Again, superb flavour quotient. Make sure that you use a nice rich white wine. Always cook with a wine that you would think suitable to drink. Nothing lesser.

The salad absolutely compliments the pasta. It is not always necessary to serve some sort of bread with the pasta. Try salads instead. That gives you a mixture of hot and soft (pasta) against cold and crunchy (salad); and every good chef will tell you that balanced colours, textures and flavours make a good dish. Also here, the sweetness of the almond sauce is well balanced by the sharpness and slight bitterness of the rocket leaves in the salad. The flavours marry well together, and you have to try it to know what I'm talking about. 

The dressing for the salad is quite the usual; just a few minor tweaks- I used some rosewater, some maple syrup instead of honey, and some white wine vinegar (keeping in mind the white wine in the pasta) instead of the usual vinegar or juice of lime. I served the salad with a dollop of thickened sour cream, which unfortunately, I forgot to add before clicking the pictures. Some of you may find the rocket leaves a bit too tart, and hence the sour cream.

Too much said already. Here goes.
Prep time: 20-30min
Cooking time: 20min
Serves: 2-3 people

Ingredients

Rocket Salad

1 bunch rocket leaves, washed, dried and end of stalks removed

6-10 cherry tomatoes, halved

5-6 black olives, pitted and sliced

1 medium onion, sliced, rings separated and placed in ice water till serving time (this keeps them crunchy)

1 small cucumber, cubed with peel

5-6 almonds, roasted and sliced

3-4 stalks asparagus, pan fried with butter, salt, and pepper; chopped medium

100g thickened sour cream for serving

Dressing for salad

2tsp olive oil

1 tsp rosewater

2 tsp maple syrup

2 tsp white wine vinegar

Zest of half a lime

2-3 cloves of garlic, shredded

Pinch of ground black pepper

Salt to taste

Rigatoni 
150g rigatoni pasta or any other pasta, boiled with salt, drained and tossed with 1tsp olive oil
2tsp olive oil
1 pod roasted garlic, peeled
2-3 dry red chilies
5-6 almonds, room temperature
4-5 leaves of sweet Thai basil,  keep 1 sprig aside for garnish
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
Splosh of white wine
5 medium tomatoes, chopped roughly
1 red bell pepper, chopped medium
50g mild cheddar, grated
50ml full fat milk
A dash of full cream
A pinch of ground black pepper
Salt to taste

Method

Rocket Salad

In a large bowl, add all the ingredients for the salad. Keep refrigerated until serving time. Pour the dressing over the salad just before serving (to prevent veggies from sweating) and toss gently. Serve cold with a dollop of sour cream.

Rigatoni
Coarsely blend the roasted garlic, dry red chilies and almonds. Heat olive oil in a sauce pan. Add the almond-chilly mixture. Stir for 2min until the mixture is slightly golden. Now add the aromatics, the thyme and basil leaves. Use your discretion while adding these, more if you want intense flavours, less if you like it mild. But with fresh herbs, always remember that less is more. Now add a generous splosh of white wine. Allow the spices to simmer for 2 minutes, stirring gently.

Add the chopped tomatoes, pinch of salt and pepper. Simmer for 10-12 minutes or until the tomatoes are completely cooked. At this point, you could take the sauce off the flame, allow to cool and blend to get a smooth mixture. If you prefer to go my way, then just continue to keep the crude sauce on the flame and go on with the rest of the recipe.

Once the tomatoes are done, add full fat milk and cream. Simmer for 2 minutes. Please make sure not to add the cream when the tomatoes are half done, this will just split the cream. Add the red bell pepper, stir for 2-5 minutes. Add the cheddar, and take the sauce off the flame. Pour the sauce steaming hot on a bed of rigatoni, serve with a cold salad.

Mango yoghurt cake with spiced almonds and fresh mangoes

Mangoes! As mush as I like to eat them just as they come, they make such a versatile flavouring ingredient for desserts that it’s hard to stop myself from fantasizing about a mango mousse, a mango soufflé, a mango ice-cream…the list is unending! This however, is a simple mango cake. No exotic ingredients and no gourmet requirements. Just some nice plump mangoes, a whole lot of yoghurt and some crunchy almonds.

The most exciting bit is the icing, which is made from strained yoghurt (hung curd, as we call it). It has an almost cream cheese like consistency; it’s lighter than cream and gives a nice tang to the cake. The cinnamon spiced almonds are a storm…hard to keep them aside till the end (make some extra, just in case you end up eating some before you finally plate up).

It’s a lovely combination of colours and flavours. Try not to miss out any ingredient; the small things make a difference.

Just a word of caution here: I used 3 eggs because the ones I bought were really tiny. You could use 2 eggs if they are large ones. Once you start whisking in the eggs you will know if the batter is going to be too thick (you don’t want to lose the sponginess of the cake). Remember, its 300g of flour (a lot), so use your discretion. If you want to be safe, use 3 medium sized eggs.

Serves: 8-10 people

Prep time: 20 min (plus overnight time to strain yoghurt)

Cooking time: 40-60 min

Ingredients

1kg full cream milk yoghurt
1 cup unsalted butter (can use sunflower oil instead)
250grm caster sugar
3 eggs (tiny to medium sized)
300g all purpose plain flour, sifted with 1tsp baking powder
2 mangoes, flesh cubed
50g slice almonds
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Fresh mint sprigs

Method

Pre-work

To make the yoghurt icing, line a large sieve with a clean tea towel and place over a bowl.  Add all of the yoghurt and leave to strain in the fridge for at least 4 hours (or overnight).

Making the cake

Preheat oven to 160˚c.

For the roasted almonds, scatter the sliced almonds onto a baking tray and sprinkle with cinnamon.  Place in the oven for 5-10 minutes or until golden and roasted. Set aside to cool.

Grease and line a 23-25cm cake tin.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the butter and sugar.  Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking until each egg is completely combined. Whisk until fluffy. Stir in half the yoghurt until fully combined. Don’t over mix. Fold in the flour until just combined. Then fold through half the cubed mango, reserving the rest for the top of the cake.

Pour the cake mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 40-60 minutes or until a cake skewer is inserted and comes out clean. Cool in the cake tin for 5 min before cooling on a cake rack.

Icing

Once completely cooled, spread the remainder of the thickened (strained overnight) yoghurt over the top of the cake and scatter with fresh mango cubes, cinnamon roasted almonds and fresh mint sprigs.

Note: Store this cake covered and refrigerated as the yoghurt will begin to sour if left at room temperature (I'm talking about Indian temperatures).