I have been challenged!

- Rosemary

I have been challenged with an ingredient. Back in the summer my friend Jamie (who has since moved to Toronto 🙁 ) challenged me to make a meal using horseradish.  I put together 5 or 6 dishes, including a dessert – a horseradish cheesecake, and served all our friends.  Once again Jamie has challenged me with an ingredient.

This time Jamie challenged me with a jar of cuttlefish ink. Cuttlefish is very similar to squid.  Their ink is a bit salty with a slight taste of the sea. 

I have decided to showcase this ingredient over the next couple of weeks. First up I decided to make ink pasta carbonara.

I made the pasta using my Philips pasta maker.

I used flour, egg, cuttlefish ink and water and waited for the pasta maker to spew out playdoh, I mean pasta!

I lightly floured the pasta (to keep it from sticking).

Sorry the pasta is hard to see in the black container I have it in. But check out my assembly line of ingredients, this is how I always cook, all my ingredients line up in order of use, it really takes the stress out of cooking!

I set of pot of water to boil and I placed diced pancetta a skillet over medium heat with a little bit of water. I reduced to low when the pancetta started to brown.

I find adding a bit of water when browning bacon or pancetta really helps with rendering out the fat instead of just burning the meat.

Once the water was boiling I placed my pasta in it for a few minutes before draining, reserving ¼ cup of water. I then added minced garlic and red pepper flakes to the pancetta, cooking for one minute.

I added the reserved pasta water to the skillet, scraping the bottom on the skillet with a wooden spoon. I added the pasta and 2 beaten eggs to the skillet.

I then tossed and tossed while the egg cooked for a minute or two.

I removed from heat, tossed in chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Then served topped with shaved hard cheese. (For the shaved cheese I literally took my vegetable peeler and shaved off from a block of hard cheese, worked great!)

How did it taste: Really different, in an exciting good way.  The “sea” taste from the pasta paired with the rendered pancetta and slight spicy kick from the red pepper flakes – pure yumminess!  This was an exciting dinner.  Stay tuned in the coming weeks to find out what else I have come up with for this challenge!

Sea Ink Pasta Carbonara
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Ingredients
  1. 1 recipe for cuttlefish ink pasta, below
  2. ¼ cup pancetta, diced
  3. 1 TB water
  4. 1 clove of garlic, minced
  5. 1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
  6. 2 eggs, beaten
  7. Salt and pepper to taste
  8. 1 TB parsley, chopped
  9. Shaved hard cheese, such as parmesan for serving
Instructions
  1. Heat a pot of water to boil. Add pasta and cook stirring occasionally to keep from sticking for 3-4 minutes until the pasta is cooked. Drain reserving ¼ cup of the pasta water.
  2. Meanwhile heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add pancetta and 1 TB of water. Cook and stir occasionally for 4 minutes. Reduce to low heat and continue to cook and stir occasionally until the pasta has been drained.
  3. Add garlic and red pepper flakes to the pancetta. Stir and cook for 1 minute.
  4. Add reserved pasta water to the skillet. Scrape the bottom of the skillet with a wooden spoon. Then add pasta and egg. Toss continually for 1-2 minutes until the egg is cooked.
  5. Remove from heat and toss in parsley. Season with salt and pepper and served topped with shaved hard cheese.
Notes
  1. serves 2
Cooking with Rosemary http://www.cookingwithrosemary.com/
Cuttlefish Ink Pasta
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Ingredients
  1. 250 g flour
  2. 1 egg
  3. 3 tsp cuttlefish ink
  4. water
Instructions
  1. Place flour into the Philips Pasta Maker with linguine noodle attachment. Close the lid of pasta maker.
  2. Place egg, cuttlefish ink and water up to 95 ml in a small container. Whisk together.
  3. Turn on pasta maker for 1 cup setting. Slowly pour liquid mixture into the hole in the lid.
  4. As the pasta comes out of the maker lightly flour and cut into 8 inch lengths.
Cooking with Rosemary http://www.cookingwithrosemary.com/

One thought on “I have been challenged!”

  1. Pingback: Part Two of Cuttlefish Ink Challenge | Cooking with Rosemary

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