I don’t know about you, but I find something extremely rewarding in whipping up a fun meal without leaving the house. They say necessity is the mother of innovation, and never does this ring truer than when all of the shops are closed and I make something delicious using the various bits and bobs I find in my cupboard at home!! It also feels fabulous to make something that’s virtually FREE (because I follow my own pantry-stocking advice and have great base ingredients at home already).
Index
Kale Sauce Chickpeas
Pastina with a Jammy Egg
(Fill-in-the-Blank) Tonnato
Udon Noods with Crispy Garlic and Wakame
Kidney Beans & Fregola in Broth
Tortellini in Brodo
(Brown Butter) Bean Harissa Miso Gochujang Pasta… Soup
BONUS: Carbonara Croutons
Chickpeas & Kale Sauce
This kale sauce has been hounding my (and probably your) Instagram feed & explore page for months if not years. With good reason, as it turns out, because it is delicious and uncomplicated, not to mention nourishing and easy on the eyes. This is my more brothy take on the original recipe.
Ingredients (serves 2)
3 tb olive oil
6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 shallot, thinly sliced
3 cups fresh or frozen kale (or spinach)
2 cups (500ml) vegetable or chicken stock
400g cooked chickpeas (drained)
1 lemon, juiced
1/4 cup creme fraiche
A pinch of pink pepper (optional)
Instructions
Heat up the olive oil in a pan and add the sliced shallot and garlic, cooking until they become fragrant and slightly golden, then remove from heat.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the kale and cook until bright green and tender (3-5 minutes). Drain, and place the kale into a blender. Add in half of the shallot and garlic mixture, and the stock, and blend on high for 2 minutes until completely blended.
Add the chickpeas to the pan with the remaining shallot and garlic slices and cook for a few minutes.
Pour over the kale mixture and mix well. Stir in the lemon juice.
Divide across 2 bowls and serve HOT with a dollop of creme fraiche and a pinch of pink peppercorns.
Pastina with a Jammy Egg
Pastina, aka the clickbait that got you here! The ultimate feel-better soup (more mentally than physically, maybe). The chopped chives are optional, everything else is probably already in your cupboard.
Ingredients (serves 2)
1/2 cup pastina
2 cups chicken stock
1 egg (whisked)
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup FINELY GRATED Parmesan
2 eggs, medium-boiled
Chopped chives (optional)
Salt & pepper to taste
Instructions:
Bring the chicken stock to a boil in small pot, then reduce to a simmer.
Add the pastina and cook until most of the stock is absorbed.
Remove from the heat and stir in the egg, letting it cook in the hot pasta.
Add butter, cheese and pepper. Eat slowly out of your favorite bowl with your favorite spoon.
Feel much better.
(Fill-in-the-Blank) Tonnato
Here, we take a classic starter (vitello tonnato), but delete out the vitello (veal) and the mayonnaise, and add in some form of seasonal vegetable. In the summer, I make it with juicy tomatoes. In the winter, you could top it with any kind of radicchio.
Ingredients (serves 2 as a starter)
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tin or jar of really high-quality tuna in olive oil (ideally @pyscis.conserves if you
can get your hands on them!)
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 garlic clove, peeled
Olive oil (4-6 tbsp)
4 tbsp small capers, drained
Sea salt & black pepper
Tomatoes of choice (heirloom tomatoes in thin slices or cherry tomatoes quartered)
Instructions
Place lemon juice, tuna, garlic, and 2 tbsp capers in the food processor and begin blending, adding olive oil slowly until the smooth paste turns into a pouring consistency. Season with salt and black pepper.
Pour the tonnato sauce onto a plate, top with sliced fresh tomatoes, and sprinkle with the remaining capers.
Udon Noods with Crispy Garlic and Wakame
Easy, chewy, quick, and full of umami!
Ingredients (serves 2)
1 package udon noodles
2 tb sesame oil
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced into even slices
1 tb wakame
1 tb sesame seeds
Dashi broth concentrate + 2 cups (500ml) water
Instructions
Start with the crispy garlic: heat the sesame oil in a pan over medium heat just until warm (not hot), then add the sliced garlic and fry til golden (about 2 minutes), flipping them carefully halfway. It may look like the medium-heat oil isn’t doing anything but be patient and don’t increase the heat to speed up the process (the garlic will burn). Remove the chips using a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel. Once they cool down, they can be stored in a sealed container for about a month!!
Cover the wakame seaweed with a cup of hot water and allow to rehydrate for 5 minutes.
Cook the noodles according to the package instructions.
Prepare your dashi broth by adding a few spoons to 500ml of hot water. Season to taste with salt or more dashi concentrate.
Assemble the noodles, broth, and wakame in a bowl and sprinkle over the garlic chips and sesame seeds.
Kidney Beans & Fregola in Broth
Fregola is a rustic Sardinian pasta: small, round, with a range of gold and brown tones. It’s toasted and nutty, each grain with a rough surface perfect for catching sauce or broth.
Ingredients
1 cup cooked kidney beans
1/2 cup fregola sarda
2 cups (500ml) beef stock
a handful of chopped cavolo nero leaves
2 tb chopped chives to garnish
A few drops of olive oil
Instructions
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, then add in the fregola and cook for 15 minutes. Drain and set aside.
In a separate pot, bring the beef stock to a gentle simmer, then add in the kidney beans and chopped cavolo nero, cooking until the leaves soften.
Divide everything across two bowls, and sprinkle with a spoon of chopped chives and a drizzle of olive oil.
______ in Brodo
Both of the components here can be freestyled to your heart’s desire. Tortellini would be the classic choice, pictured above are agnolotti!
Choose whichever pasta-parcel (ravioli, tortellini, agnolotti, etc) you can get your hands on and whichever broth you like (or have). There’s no real recipe to write down here but if I must: cook the pasta, heat up your brodo of choice, combine, enjoy!
Miso butter white bean gochujang pasta… SOUP
If you thought I could see this tweet and not recreate it IRL - think again. She’s not much of a looker (you’ll see) BUT I wanted to prove to myself - and more importantly to y’all - that pantry staples can be the start of something delicious. And the joke is on the original tweet because it was a 10/10 creation.
I zhuzhed it up by incorporating brown butter rather than just regular butter, because brown butter makes everything better, and added shallots and garlic for extra personality. The gochujang makes its appearance in the crispy shallot topping, and I replaced harissa with furikake (a substitute that wouldn’t fly in most scenarios).
Ingredients (serves 2)
2 tb butter
2 shallots, finely sliced
3 garlic cloves, finely sliced
380 g cooked cannellini beans
1 stock cube (I know there are 2 in the photo, but I just used 1)
2 tb miso paste
1/2 cup miniscule pasta (I chose tiny shells)
2 tb olive oil
1 tb gochujang paste
2 tb furikake (optional)
Instructions
To brown the butter: place the butter in a small light-coloured pot over medium heat (the light-coloured pot is important, otherwise you won’t see it browning). Continuously stir the butter (movement is important!!). Once it melts, it will start foaming and sizzling. Keep going. After a few minutes, it will turn golden, and some toasty brown bits will appear at the bottom of the pot. It should have an intense nutty aroma!!!
Add in half of the sliced shallot and cook until translucent (about 3-5 minutes). Then stir in the garlic and cook for a few more minutes, until sizzling and fragrant.
Pour in the cannellini beans, liquid and all. Stir well, then plop in the miso paste, about 2 cups of water, and the stock cube. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for a few minutes to let the flavours get to know each other, then add in your pasta and cook according to the package instructions.
Meanwhile prepare your crispy gochujang shallots: heat up the olive oil in a small pan, add in the shallots and bring to a sizzle. Add in the gochujang and stir well, continuing to cook til the shallots get crispy. They will look kind of burnt but it’s just the gochujang working its magic.
Serve the soup/slop topped with the crispy gochujang shallots (plus the gochujang-infused olive oil) and sprinkle a bit of furikake on top.
Carbonara Croutons
Finally, in today’s abomination of Italian cuisine, we have… ✨carbonara croutons✨. A vague and distant nod to carbonara, using what was on hand to me and improvised from start to finish. I’ve never been to an Olive Garden but I could see these doing well there.
Ingredients
2 cups old bread (for instance ciabatta) cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1/3 cup chopped guanciale/pancetta/speck (I used Speck above)
1 egg yolk
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180C/375F and line a tray with baking paper.
Add guanciale/speck to a pan over medium-high heat and cook for 4 to 5 minutes until golden. No oil is needed, as it heats up up, the fat will render out and it will fry in its own fat.
Remove the pieces but keep the fat the pan, then move the bread cubes into the pan and toast them until golden. Remove and pop into a large bowl.
Meanwhile, combine the egg yolk and the grated parmesan in a small bowl with the salt and pepper, then pour the mixture over the croutons and toss to coat well. Also add in the guanciale/speck pieces!
Arrange on the baking tray and bake until crispy, about 10 minutes. They taste best right away!
And on that note… THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE!
As the lucky mother of this prodigious, creative, productive and penny-savvy kitchen wizardess, I will attest to the fact that she (and of course YOU) can whip up something/anything delicious if you have your basics in the pantry... and a few things in the freezer doesn't hurt either! Just dare!
No risk, no fun ;)
There's something about making something out of nothing that's extremely satisfying. The miso butter soup looks so flavorful.