Page 292 - YC Cooking School

Quick and Easy Dinners 2

yuppiechef.com/cooking-school.htm

10 tips for hassle-free chorizo and pea penne pasta

1. Add pasta to salted, boiling water
It’s really important that you cook your pasta in salted, rapidly boiling water. Mix in a few
pinches of salt and allow it to dissolve before popping your pasta into the pot. The salt will
flavour the pasta as it cooks. If you choose to add oil at the end, rather than to your pasta
water, make sure you give it a good stir to stop the pieces from sticking to each other or to
the bottom of the pot. Cook your pasta for about 12 minutes or until it’s al dente.

2. Cook pasta until it’s al dente
This term is used to describe perfectly cooked pasta. In Italian, it means ‘to the tooth’, which
is how pasta is supposed to be served – not sloppy and soft but firm when you bite though
it. Test if your pasta is done, not by throwing it against the roof but by fishing a piece out the

pot and giving it a good nibble.

3. Make a creamy roux-based sauce
Follow the roux method of making white sauce by mixing the flour and butter to form a
runny dough-like consistency, then cooking it a little to minimise the floury taste. Add milk

or cream to the roux in stages and allow the sauce to thicken. The ratio for a roux is equal
parts flour to butter. Feeling daring? Add a dash of mustard for more flavour.

4. Other uses for a roux
You can also use the roux method to thicken soups and stews. Create a roux in a separate

saucepan or pot and add it to the cooked soup or stew. Then whisk or stir until the lumps
have been worked out and the sauce becomes lovely and thick.

1/2