Pasta, Pie & Potatoes

Why the summer table doesn't need to be all salads and sandwiches, a head's up as to my forthcoming online Home Ec workshops & the bones of a recipe for crab linguine

* This is a post that has been gathering dust in my drafts folder across these weeks of summer, so forgive some references to the beginnings of summer that is now all but behind us.

I have an affection for pasta. Chiefly, in knocking up dishes that feature its gloriously bland bulk. It soothes & satiates hunger with every forkful spun like a ballerina in strings of spaghetti or tangles of tagliatelle. Chubby rigatoni and stumps of ditaloni bring equal pleasure to the table. When beseeched by one grown up child or another for a plate of something able to deftly deal with hunger, its odds-on either pasta or ‘something with bread’ will materialise.

I never tire of its humble magnificence, where scant ingredients can translate into a hearty meal when pasta joins the party. A pasta al forno dish has me at first glance on a menu, baked to greedily swell and soften amongst bedmates that invariably include tomatoes or a rich cheese sauce. Or both. That it only requires a quick dunk in a pan of salty scalding water bolsters its attraction further, for being time poor is cited as a key driver for a reliance on ultra processed & prepared meals I’ve gleaned from others, those lamenting about life that finds us all in the fast lane it would seem.

This bowl of linguine (pictured above) is out of kilter with my usual repertoire (crab isn’t a staple of our everyday table) but a doorstep catch-up with our fishmonger - infectiously ebullient and long in friendship - resulted in a couple of dressed crabs finding their way into the kitchen. A ubiquitous red chilli, diced & jewel-like, is smashed to a paste with garlic & lemon zest. Aided by a splash of white wine, dash of cooking water, glug of olive oil and squeeze of lemon to join the crimson pulp in the mortar; all told a medley of daringly bold flavours punctuated by parsley & pepper and able to stand up to the punchy notes of crabmeat.

I fell hard for gratin dauphinoise across my youth. Drenched with double cream, licked with garlic & a smattering of gruyere at every opportunity, this dish has become a stalwart of countless suppers and catered events I’ve had a hand in across the thirty or so years since first initiation. Such spuds never fail to rouse greed nor discourage second helpings, for softer-than-butter potatoes drenched with rich dairy until they cut with a spoon make a friend of most.

The version pictured was served beneath the first balmy evening skies we enjoyed this year. Such temperatures serve to both dial down hunger & steer me towards a lighter offering, rather than one weighed down with a lump of meat and heavy sauce. Instead, a mountain of dressed green leaves and basket of bread with salty butter for company might have raised eyebrows at first suggestion, but was plentiful enough of a meal to find additional helpings being tucked into with vigour, without complaint from the carnivore camp.

I learned a harsh lesson with gratin dauphinoise in recent months, leaning into another method & take on this recipe that I’d wager has been penned a hundred different ways. Notwithstanding this was a recipe from a published and revered chef, the results came up woefully short of the mark. The old adage ‘if it’s not broken, don’t try and fix it’ came to mind as I tried in vain to salvage my sorry looking spuds. Apologies were profuse and myself pink-cheeked as I set them upon the table for dinner guests. My own take on this dish, barely tinkered with since I landed on it all those years ago, has only failed me once, when I used a sack of waxy potatoes by way of a rueful oversight. I am neither naive or nonchalant when it comes to cooking and entertaining, so weaving an unacquainted recipe into a menu for friends renders me a simple fool, for a test kitchen is not the place for guaranteed success. Relying on the familiar, the proven and those dishes that find you brimming with confidence in their creation when playing host to dinner guests will be a far easier gig.

I am assured by others that pie is the way to every persons heart. Not my own I should add. A pie fashioned from scratch is a measure of my love for you, since I am yet to find pleasure in its consumption. I’ve been called out for this on so many occasions across the years, where others are incredulous as to my palate. I’ve been faced with gravy drenched meat and offal filled slabs of pie, where declining to devour is not an option. I’ve tasted regretted forkfuls of every version of pie I’ve cobbled across the years. Much as I try valiantly to find the same comfort in this meal that others do - for surely pie, along with fish & chips, has been a staple of the British Isles since time began - it remains elusive. Not withstanding my own distain, I’m partial to making them. I know their currency and it’s weightier than gold.

There is a patience required in bringing together the many parts of a pie; the roasting or braising of any meat, the creation of its rich sauce or gravy, the pastry, the blind baking…it can be stretched across hours if a straight run in the kitchen is off the cards. No finger of shame is pointed for shop bought pastry, nor do I tut at expletives used when the pastry repeatedly tears as it’s lifted to line the case; profanities and pastry go hand in hand in my kitchen. My cocksure spelling of the word Guinness comes by way of years spent cutting the singular letters required - questionable double use of N’s and S’s - from pastry trimmings, to write atop pie crusts within my takeaway kitchen.

So I urge you to roast a bird, wrestle with pastry, strip the cooked meat from the bones and muddle it with a sauce. A lump of butter, white wine, a splash of chicken stock, a heavy pour of cream and generous sprinkling of tarragon can be relied on in the instance photographed above, one that puts chicken at the front of it’s title and etched on the pastry lid for clarity. Soften diced carrots within a steamer pan, put some colour on mushrooms in a hot frying pan sizzling with butter and gently sweat a couple of onions over a low heat until they are translucent and syrupy in their consistency. My tip here; onions always take longer than anyone thinks to get them entirely soft and melt in the mouth tasty. My bet is twenty five minutes atop a gentle heat will do it, but when you think they are done, grant them another five minutes and they’ll not disappoint.

For some, a pastry lid defines a pie. Shortcrust or Puff, both make the grade. For others, to earn its stripes a pie must be clad in pastry. Follow your own rules here. If encasing the pie in pastry, bake blind, remove the paper and baking beans at the eleventh hour and brush the inside of the pastry case with eggwash to help alleviate any sogginess once filled, returning to the oven briefly until golden. Curb any impatience as to letting the mixture cool completely before carefully upending into the pastry case. For the same reason, if you’ve ever tried placing a pastry lid on hot pie filling you’ll understand this advice. Ignore at your peril.

For anyone interested, I’ll be throwing out some dates here soon for my digital Home Ec kitchen clinics. Whilst these are intended to be restricted to paying subscribers moving forward, I’ll be piloting the idea without a paywall for all my subscribers in the first few weeks so as you can gauge for yourself the value it might hold for you. You’ll be able to submit your kitchen conundrums via a chat I’ll open each week here in Substack ahead of the online session, during which I’ll explore and discuss these questions posed amongst a myriad of other food related topics and recipe ideas. A show of hands please if this idea piques interest with you.

Thank you as always,

Millsie :) x