From this recipe for a creamy, tomato-y pasta - wow, it's delicious. There was much left over and I had it for breakfast and lunch the next day.
Made for 10.
The main substitution was that I used chicken breast chopped into small pieces instead of shrimp - my boyfriend and little sister will absolutely not eat seafood. So I chopped 8 breasts (2 were huge) into small bits and fried them for 10-15 minutes in the butter and oil mixture on a medium-high heat. It produced a LOT of liquid: I drained it and continued to fry for a couple of minutes on a high heat. Put the chicken to one side.
Added a bit of butter to the hot pan along with 2 chopped onions and 4 minced garlic cloves. Cooked till translucent, then added half a bottle of white wine and half a litre of vegetable stock. Allowed to reduce briefly on a high heat before adding roughly 700g of passata. Salt + pepper. Stirred on medium high heat for quite a while - probably 15-20 minutes, I didn't really keep an eye on the time.
In the meantime I boiled 1kg of pasta in salted water and drained it.
Once it started simmering, I added 3 cups of cream to the sauce while my boyfriend (who was meant to be stirring it in) exclaimed over how pretty the cream looked. Finally got him to help mix it! Salt + pepper. Left it for five minutes on a medium heat before putting the chicken pieces back in. Stirred. Ran hot water through the pasta and mixed it into the sauce. Served - there was TONS. Enough leftovers to feed a good few people.
The pasta was still too cold and we didn't leave it in the sauce on the heat long enough: it was cold and the eight people eating then ALL had to use the microwave. Sigh. Served with some grated cheese. My mum commented that it was very like a dish that her friend used to make a couple of decades ago. It's nice to be reminded how cooking can be such a historical thing.
Also a quick recipe for cheese-onion-mustard scrambled eggs that I made the other day and forgot about. One serving.
Half an onion, chopped and fried in butter on a medium heat until beginning to soften. Two eggs cracked into the pan and swirled round. Handful of grated cheese thrown in and mixed. Heat turned down to low. Teaspoon of mustard added. Salt + pepper. I like my eggs a tiny bit runny, so I spoon them into a bowl sooner rather than later. The whole thing takes about 5 minutes.
