This is our 27th cooking/blogging experiment from Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals. This one was going to be our dinner the night before the City2Surf, so we were thinking “carb-loading.” And what’s better for carb-loading than pasta? With that in mind, we chose “Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca, Crunchy Salad, Garlic Bread, and Silky Chocolate Ganache.” We made sure to watch the episode so we knew what we were in for. I was on cooking duty for this one, and I actually pulled it off in 29:49!
Substitutions: We used fettucine instead of spaghetti (simply because we already had a box of it in the pantry). We used a pinch of dried chilli instead of a fresh red chilli. For the dessert, we had an Australian mandarin rather than a true clementine. Other than that, everything was as written in the recipe.
Quick verdict: Nice! This is the perfect pre-race meal, if you ask me. My fettucine went a bit gluggy, but that’s more to do with me overcooking it and not separating the strands enough. The sauce was a different sort of puttanesca than I’m used to: the Snook normally doesn’t put tuna nor so much tomato in his version. He wondered at its authenticity but agreed with me that it was a very tasty tuna pasta regardless. The crunchy salad was better than I expected, but be warned – the recipe makes a LOT. We had heaps left over. The ganache was simple but effective, and having it with cookies and orange wedges was a nice combination. Overall we both rated it a 9.5 out of 10. It was quick to make and very tasty, but it just lacked the “wow” factor to make it a perfect 10. It’s a great weeknight meal though… or even a pre-race feast!
