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Plain pasta
By Ann | March 21, 2008
I made spaghetti with garden vegetables from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics a few days ago, but have been putting off a post about it. Why? Well, I love garden vegetables, I love pasta, but this was pretty darn bland. Perhaps Martha feels similarly because I can’t find the recipe on her website (and thus am unable to post a link — sorry.)
Even the photo above looks a bit hideous.
The sauce had a lot of promise, combining finely chopped celery, carrot, red onion, crushed red chili and garlic with loads of veg: 1 zucchini, 1 yellow squash, 1 eggplant, 2 tomatoes and lots of leafy, fragrant fresh basil. Everything is stewed together until tender (10-15 minutes) and then tossed with spaghetti. The result is… exactly as it sounds. Despite the sting of crushed chili, and a shower of freshly grated Parm-Reg, this dish was tasteless, bland and boring. I’m not sure what could have improved it (Sriracha? Nooo…) but I can’t help but think there’s a better, more savory, creative and delicious way to combine all these ingredients.
In particular, I’m thinking of a recipe from one of my favorite books, River Cafe Cookbook Easy, for spaghetti with zucchini and capers. This recipe uses many of the same vegetables as Martha’s pasta — zucchini, tomatoes — but combines them with capers, white wine vinegar and dried and fresh oregano in a way that heightens each ingredient, making the dish unique, exciting, vibrant.
Topics: Cooking the Books |
2 Responses to “Plain pasta”
Comments
« Trading Tastes: The United States Regional Cookbook | Home | Recipe No. 10: In which Martha surprises me »
March 21st, 2008 at 6:58 pm
CtB is right to describe the dish as bland, but I do give it a nod for great texture. And I know I’m a boring traditionalist, but I suggest more tomatoes for the sauce to give it extra tanginess. Does that make me a bad person?
March 22nd, 2008 at 5:57 pm
I love all those vegetables! I can understand that if you felt a twinge of disappointment if the dish turned out un-flavorful because those veggies are pretty hearty one but by itself there isn’t much flavor. I think the stewed vegetable sauce would do better with some lemon juice to round it off before serving to brighten up the flavor.
And I’d double the garlic in this sauce too for a more rounded flavor in the future.
Just my two cents