This dinner was so exciting - not only was it a fabulous colour, but almost all of the ingredients were alliterative! In the interests of full disclosure, this was pasta with pork, potato, (chilli) pepper, and probably some other p-words that I've forgotten a few hours later.
Despite John suggesting that 'purple pasta' bore some resemblance to vomit, tonight's dinner was really quite good. It started out with my Friday adult students telling me about the lunch they'd had at a Chinese restaurant - noodles with pork, sweet potato, onion and spinach. The day before we had bought purple sweet potatoes at Home Plus, and I was eager to cook with them. I was convinced that we had bought curled mallow (in fact, I still am convinced) but the hunt for it proved fruitless, so the spinach equivalent was missed. It was flavoursome but in an amazingly subtle way, with a kick from the chilli.
I also made myself a fragrant pumpkin risotto for lunch, which was delicious - I added pumpkin chunks between the adding rice and adding wine steps, and cinnamon as one of the spices. Nutmeg or ginger would have gone well too.
Anyway, the proper recipe:
Purple Pasta
Serves 2 with small second servings (more alliteration! I'm so happy)
200g pork, chopped into bite-sized pieces
2 purple sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into small cubes
1 onion
1.5 garlic cloves (one of the cloves was smaller than my littlest fingernail)
2 servings spaghetti
400ml hot vegetable stock
Honey
Soy sauce
1 green chilli
100ml cream
Seasoning (including chilli powder)
The pork, potatoes, onion and garlic were chopped and fried in a hot pan for five minutes. The vegetable stock was added and the pan was brought to a boil before being put on a low heat to simmer. The spaghetti was also put on a low heat in a separate pan for fifteen minutes. The potatoes had turned the pale stock a pretty burgundy colour, to which roughly a tablespoon each of honey and soy sauce was added, along with the chopped green chilli. The nearly-cooked pasta was drained and added to the pork pan, along with the cream and seasoning, and heated through (about five minutes). Served, with the sauce now a pretty lilac colour.
