Recipe - Kitchen Cabinet Linguine
My go-to spaghetti dish when I've been too lazy to go food shopping...
This recipe is from Episode 9, Julia Is Alone At Last. You can listen to the episode here.
In Episode 8, my guest, Rachel Belle asked me what my favourite thing to cook alone was. It’s this — an anchovy and onion linguine recipe that I stole from Ottolenghi and bastardised it with a dish that an ex boyfriend cooked me one Valentine’s day. I've been making this a lot for myself recently and the reason that I think it works so well for the solo cook is that I guarantee that you will have most of the ingredients already in your cupboard. It’s not a particularly beautiful or glamorous dish, so it feels a bit private to me somehow. Is this the nature of kitchen cabinet recipes? That they are quite telling of which ingredients the cook values enough to stash away in a cupboard, ready for emergencies?
Makes: One dish for one human
Time: 20 minutes at the most
Faff Level: 2/10
Ingredients:
115 g linguine/spaghetti or any other skinny pasta
1 tin of anchovies - obviously all tins and jars come in different sizes. I use between 30 - 40 g. Keep the rest in the fridge for future pasta emergencies.
2 tsp of anchovy oil from the tin
1 clove of finely chopped garlic
Pinch of tarragon, ground coriander, cumin, onion/nigella seed, pepper - you don’t have to use these exact spices, see what you have in your cupboard.
Pinch of sugar
Chopped fresh parsley (if you have it… I never have it)
1 finely chopped, small onion - if you hate anchovies or don't eat fish, make this into an onion pasta and use a larger onion (maybe throw in some additional spring onions for good measure).
Optional grated parmesan (if you are forgoing the anchovy)
Directions:
1. Boil pasta.
2. While this is boiling, fry onions and garlic low and slow for about 5 minutes.
3. Add drained and chopped anchovies and all the herbs/spices. Again, fry low and slow for around 10 minutes until the ingredients get all melty and look a bit like cat food.
4. Drain pasta, toss through sauce and garnish with some lovely chopped parsley. If you have gone for the no-anchovy option and are using just onion, add parmesan.