New Years' Brunch, a novel type of pasta, and the return of your favourite blogger

Happy New Year everyone! It's been almost a year since the last post, but I'm back now! 

Today's post reflects the overall route I plan on taking with this blog...Good quality, easy to make food. Of course, I will still have my one-off multi-course, multi-element dishes with complex elements and flavours, but to make writing the blog more sustainable for myself, I'm going to try to give you guys some recipes which I like to make as a college student, and which look complex and taste good without too much of a mess. 

Given that it's the start of 2024 and I'm home with my parents and grandparents to celebrate the turn of the year, I figured I'd make a fun brunch to celebrate. On the menu today: 

• Testaroli with pesto
• Scrambled eggs
• Croissants (Chocolate and Almond)
• Parfait
• Aperol Spritz

By the way, the croissants were store bought (I KNOW...My philosophy has been to make things from scratch, but with the kitchen being as busy as it was, I wouldn't've got the time to bake it)

If you want the recipes, scroll down to the bottom and I'll write them out for you (I didn't realise blogger ruins the links I've been putting at the bottom so the recipes are inaccessible, so I'll write them out for you instead)

First, the Testaroli. Testaroli are a type of pasta common in the Lunigiana region of Italy (Think around Tuscany). They're a type of spongy pasta, and they're airy and soak up sauces well. They're very commonly eaten with pesto, and that's how I first tried them too. 

With this type of pasta, you want to make sure it's not too thick when you cook it in the pan, so that the bubbles have a chance to rise all the way to the top and the interior is nice and spongy. Making it too tall results in a very doughy and sticky product, whereas you want a mildly sticky and relatively light pasta. 

As for the pesto, I've written about the same recipe probably 3 times at least, but Samin Nosrat's recipe for pesto is one of my all-time favourites, although I like to add a couple of small twists. Primarily, I think it works well to zest a bit of lemon in to add some sourness and I love to use a mix of walnuts and pine nuts in the pesto to provide a nice earthy flavour. 

Now for the scrambled eggs. I've been using Heston Blumenthal's recipe for eggs for the longest time, and it really works. If you're interested, try making his recipe exactly, and then experiment with the ratios. I usually add a tiny bit of parmesan or other salty cheese to the eggs and top them with some cut chives for freshness and chilli oil for spice, but it really doesn't need that at all. Also, I usually serve eggs with bread, but given that I ordered the croissants, I served them plain. These scrambled eggs generally have a nice creamy consistency, which makes them feel akin to a mousse or a thicker sauce than to scrambled eggs, so they work very well without bread too.

(By the way, for anyone who knows me, you know that Heston is my favourite chef and so I'm a bit partial to him, but I would also suggest trying out Gordon Ramsay's recipe and picking the one you like better)

The croissants are good, but honestly they were a bit much, and you could do without them. Even if you're getting croissants, smaller sized croissants are enough given that people will usually want seconds of the pasta and the eggs. 

As for the parfait, it's possibly the simplest element. The only real work I had to do was to slice some strawberries and toss them well in a bowl of sugar and lemon juice. After a day of sitting in that mixture, the strawberries were nice and sweet. After that, all I did was put some vanilla yogurt, chocolate granola and strawberries in a nice looking glass, and serve it. 

The difficulty of this meal is also in making it look good while still keeping it quite chill and rustic. Too professionally plated and the lunch becomes only about the food and not about the conversation and the people, so it's quite an important balance to understand. That being said, I'm a bit of a sucker for very well plated food, so even if you do plate it incredibly, I don't think it would take too much away from the meal.

Anyway, all that said, here are your recipes. 

Testaroli:

This recipe is sufficient for 3 people or 5-6 people if there are multiple dishes

450 millilitres water plus more as needed

300 grams 00 flour plus more as needed

Pinch of salt as needed

This is legitimately the cleanest pasta you can make...it makes no mess, doesn't dirty too many pots and pans and is very easy to make. 

1. In a bowl, mix the ingredients until well combined. Add more water and flour as needed so it achieves a smooth, somewhat thick consistency, sorta like a slightly thicker crepe batter. It should fall off a spatula slowly but mix back into the batter immediately, not in ribbons. 
2. Heat a nonstick pan over medium heat, and make sure to wait until the pan is actually hot.
3. Pour the batter into the pan until the entire pan is covered in a layer 3-5mm thick, making sure that the batter is evenly distributed. 
4. Leave for 4-5 minutes until the bottom looks like a pancake and has developed holes, but has not yet begun to brown. Then flip the pancake-like disc upside down and cook for 1-2 minutes more, again making sure it doesn't brown. 
5. Put the pancakes onto a cutting board and leave it for a couple of minutes until it cools. Then cut into bite-sized pieces (I usually go for diamonds).
6. Then, boil for 2-3 minutes until al-dente and your pasta is cooked. Save some of the pasta water if you're making the pesto (maybe about 1 ladleful)

Pesto:

I modified this recipe from saltfatacidheat.com, the recipes there are quite good, and I especially love the focaccia and pesto if you're looking for good ideas. =

15 grams pine nuts

15 grams walnuts
2-3 medium cloves garlic, peeled
70 grams tightly packed basil leaves
60 grams finely grated Parmesan
30 grams finely grated Pecorino (If not available use more parmesan as a substitute)

1 lemon, zested
Sea salt
80 millilitres extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as needed

 

1. Pound the garlic, walnuts and pine nuts until they form a fine paste and no clear pieces are visible.
2. Cut the basil into small pieces and add in small batches into the mortar and pestle until all 70 grams are combined, along with salt to draw out some of the water. I like to go until the leaves are mostly paste, with a few of them still in slightly larger, visible pieces
3. Add in the parmesan in small batches and continue pounding until it is combined
4. Don't get distracted by the possible connotations of the recipe
5. Add a bit of lemon zest as needed and the olive oil and mix in. I usually use a spatula here, because using a mortar and pestle causes the oil to splatter all over the place, but hey, you do you. 
6. If you're lazy, do everything I did above, but just in a nutribullet or blender. 
7. Keep tasting the pesto and adding salt and zest as needed. depending on how salty and how zesty you like it
8. If you're making this pesto with pasta, heat it up in a pan over low-medium heat and add a bit of the pasta water to form a sauce that can coat the pasta...but please for the love of god only a bit of water. Anything more than 100ml for 4 or less portions of pasta is WAY too much.

Scrambled Eggs:

Now this recipe I'm proud of. I've been making these for a while now and improving on little aspects of the recipe until it became perfect for me. 

4 large eggs (around 24 grams of protein)

25ml milk

20ml cream

Salt

Ground pepper

10 grams butter plus 25 more grams for browning

Lemon Zest

Fresh chives

Chilli oil (OPTIONAL BUT RECOMMENDED)

Toasted piece of bread (OPTIONAL)

1. In a bowl (ideally glass) mix the eggs, milk, cream, salt, pepper and 10 grams of butter until combined (the butter will probably still be a knob that didn't combine, but everything else should be homogenous).
2. On a medium-high heat stove, place a smaller pot with boiling water. The idea is to cook the eggs over a pot of boiling water, so make sure the bowl can fit on top of the pot without touching the surface. (I usually use a pot that I've been meaning to clean, because the hot water usually loosens whatever is stuck to the sides, and then it comes off easier).
3. Stir the eggs every few seconds to make sure they don't stick to the sides, and as they cook, break up any large pieces into smaller bits. 
4. As the eggs cook, simultaneously place about 25 grams of butter on a hot pan on medium-high heat and let it melt and cook. Once it becomes a light brown colour, take the pan off the stove, and as its colour darkens more, pour it into a bowl to stop the cooking.
5. When the eggs fall off a spoon and are not runny, but still resemble a thick sauce, stop the cooking and immediately spoon into a bowl or onto a slice of bread. Top with some butter, lemon zest, fresh chives and some chilli oil.

This recipe is inspired by HESTON BLUMENTHAL, so if you want to try making the original or want a picture of how the eggs should look, just search it up on youtube. 

Parfait

This is an easy, low-maintainance (and possibly high protein) snack.

Flavoured Yogurt: Vanilla, Chocolate or any berry works well (Protein yogurts make this a good bulking snack)

Granola: Again, Vanilla, Chocolate or berry nut mixes work well

Fresh berries: Whatever you can get your hands on

Sugar (OPTIONAL)

Lemon (OPTIONAL)

Protein Powder (OPTIONAL): This one is for David, my roommate, who adds his unflavoured protein powder to anything, from smoothies to egg fried rice...at least in this recipe it actually works

1. Slice your berries into smaller, bite-sized slices and toss in a bowl with a bit of Sugar and Lemon and leave for a day or two, or if you're lazy or on a diet, just slice them up and set them aside.
2. If you're using protein powder, consider combining it with your yogurt or dusting a TINY amount of it on top if it looks good.
3. In a clear glass (the taller the better), spoon in some granola, then some yogurt, and then some of your berries. Repeat until the glass is full, making sure the top layers are yogurt and berries for maximum insta story aesthetics, and to show your friends just how well you eat.
4. Munch Munch Munch...that's about it.

For the croissants, just order them, it's easier than making them, and I'm too lazy to find you a recipe this time. If my new years' resolution of restarting my blog survives 6 months of college, maybe I'll make them during my summer holidays and post about them.

And YEAH...That's it. I'm going to try to blog every week, but if it becomes more rare, just know there are more important people in my life who I'd rather talk to...make of that what you will.

Have fun, and I hope the recipes helped!