Day 95: grove meets shoal
I find it quite hard to write about something that doesn’t remind me of anything. Allow me to explain. Most of my entries into this blog - a reflection of my style - are about the memories evoked by eating or cooking a particular food, but if you’ve never tasted anything like it before then how can it remind you of something? That’s kind of how I feel about today’s pick. Sure, I could go on about how each (individual) ingredient reminds me of a past event or a fond childhood memory, but I’ll save that for (another) rainy day. The complete and final assembly of all the ingredients in Nigella’s Spelt Spaghetti with Olives and Anchovies delivered an entirely new taste sensation; one I already knew I would love and one I look forward to repeating very soon.
Nigella’s Spelt Spaghetti with Olives and Anchovies
I’ve been excited about this all week; in fact, I’ve been excited about it since I saw it as Nigella’s #RecipeOfTheDay last week, which is exactly how it ended up on this week’s list.
As always, I forgot something on the shopping list - that hopeless piece of paper I take shopping with me but never look at; that piece of paper that has replications throughout the house that I always manage to lose and have to make another copy of - so I subbed pine nuts with cashew nuts. I think any nut would be OK, but I wanted something soft and sweet(ish). I feel something like walnuts may have changed the taste too much, although could very well still be good. That might be why my pesto-like anchovy and olive verdant paste had a slightly creamy hue about it. Measurement-wise, I chopped about 20g of plain (unsalted) cashew nuts into pieces that were roughly the same size as pine nuts and then took two tablespoons of that to equate to two of the pine nuts. Of this 20g, there was about half a tablespoon left of the chopped cashews so I threw those in as well. Obviously, I only chopped the cashews to that size on this occasion for comparative purposes: there’d be no need otherwise as they’re all getting blitzed anyway Next time, 15g might be a more accurate substitute.
Flavour musings
Two briny powerhouse ingredients of land and sea unite with the freshness of lemon and parsley, and the wholesomeness of spelt spaghetti, to form this bowl of zingy, earthy, saline goodness in Nigella's Spelt Spaghetti with Olives and Anchovies.
I may have over-blitzed the sauce into an almost purée-like state, but once I start with those stick blenders I can't stop! I made extra sauce to go with lamb (and something) tonight! Stay tuned!
