It’s theme week! Wow, time whizzes by when you’re occupied. Theme week this time would be all about pasta. I would try to offer a variety of pasta dishes that can be easily made at home. The only extent I didn’t venture into would be to make pasta noodles from scratch. Not because I don’t want to but I don’t have a pasta maker and I wouldn’t trust my rolling skills with the pin to achieve that thinness and texture of a proper pasta. So, that is a hint on a next buy for tools and wares. 🙂
This dish is a replication of what I had at Antipodean, Bangsar while lunching with some girlfriends. It’s such a cute restaurant. There’s no menu, everything is written on the walls. Although their version of this dish was way simpler, I adapted the ingredients to make it more filling. Roasting the pumpkin gives it a rather smoky flavour and combined with its sweetness and the saltiness of the feta and bacon, makes a great combo. For those who wish to go meatless, you can just as easily skip the bacon and just double up the pumpkin. I wasn’t sure how my family would receive this at first because my husband would always complain that the certain funky pasta dishes I make, with little meat or no sauce, is not as filling. But hubby came back asking for seconds so I gather that was a score!
FUSILLI WITH ROAST PUMPKIN, BACON AND FETA RECIPE
For two and a half
Ingredients;
Fusilli pasta (or any other types)
2 cups pumpkin, peeled, chopped into cubes
6 rashers of bacon, sliced into pieces
Olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
Salt
Black Pepper
Parsley, chopped
2 pinches of fennel powder
Feta cheese, crumbled
Paprika
Steps;
1. Toss the cubed pumpkin in some paprika, olive oil and black pepper. Place them on a tray and put them in a pre-heated oven of 180 degrees Celsius for 20 mins or until the flesh is rather soft. Salt some boiling water and tip in your fusilli.
2. In a frying pan, add some oilve oil and fry your bacon till they’re crisp. Do not discard the fat. Remove the bacon first. Check to see if the pasta is done, when it is, tip your garlic into the bacon fat, sweat it for a second and then add some fennel powder and a pinch of paprika. Add the cooked pasta and bring back the bacon. Toss it around carefully and add some chopped parsley. Season with a bit of salt and pepper.
3. Toss in the roasted pumpkin and turn it around gently, you don’t want the pumpkin to break into a mush. Finally, plate with some feta cheese crumbled on top. Drizzle more olive oil all over and sprinkle the final bits of parsley.
