Italian aroma

“Daney Daney Pey likha hain khaney waley kaa naam” – which colloquially means each grain has the name of the person who will eat it (it is the fortune of the person to have a certain meal or not). Well, the same with more spice in Hindi movies: “goli goli pey likha hain marney waley kaa naam,” which means on each bullet is written the name of the person who will die.

Before I take you along on this blog, I will try my best to keep the suspense of why the introduction to a culinary adventure got its inspiration from a Hindi muhavra and Bollywood film.

Today, we tried to prepare a pasta dish a bit different from our normal standard. Initially, Pamela did not show much interest, maybe due to the somewhat lengthy procedure… she must have thought to leave it to me. But in the end, she seemed to have willy-nilly enrolled in Italian cuisine and did all the steps to prepare this awesome dish - a recipe to die for without killing for.

Spinach and Ricotta Conchiglie - Conchiglie, which means large pasta conch (a kind of shell) designed to hold delicious stuffing, in our case, a mixture of chopped spinach and ricotta cheese. With their concave shapes, they are one of the most useful pasta forms as they trap any sauce. So far, we have prepared long pasta like spaghetti, spiral-shaped fusilli, butterfly-shaped farfalle, and stuffed ravioli, either with fresh crème sauce, tomato sauce, or pesto sauce. We have even tried flat pasta lasagna, designed to be baked between layers of sauce.

Pasta is one of the staple foods of every authentic Italian meal and is a versatile food. It is considered to be low-fat and rich in complex carbohydrates. However, it is important to choose the sauce carefully, as overloading it with cheese or cream sauce will turn pasta into a high-fat food. Of course, the number one rule of great Italian cuisine is fresh is best.

Actually, the colorful picture of the recipe in the book on Vegetarian by Nicolas Graimes drew my attention, and I thought, why not try it? Without revealing the secret of this recipe, here are the pictures of the cooking process. In other words, let me try to illustrate the entire procedure through photos taken by me. I hope silence speaks volumes, and in that way, I will not be infringing copyright as Pamela did in a previous post.

Finally, the suspense – what made me write “Daney Daney Pey… naam” – is actually that I invited one French friend (the person who taught us to prepare any pasta) for dinner. Due to some miscommunication, he did not show up. So, it was the two of us who had our mouth-watering, irresistible pasta, supple in texture and deliciously sauced and stuffed (a bit of boasting on my part, maybe). But truly, it came out so good that we were left licking and relishing every morsel. It would have been our pleasure to share a meal with our friend :( but surely next time :)