Here Is Some “Shelf Love!”
I’m going to make something that has “shelf love!”
I’m learning some valuable lessons on using what I already have on my shelves – thanks to the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen!
I dipped into the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen cookbook called “Shelf Love” – a really cool concept from this London-based Chef!
My friend Betsy gave me this terrific cookbook – a unique title which I explain here:
So, in the spirit of the cookbook, I cleared my shelf of pasta, Rao’s Arrabiata sauce and tomato paste, along with onion, garlic and chicken from my refrigerator – and it was time to cook a one-pot chicken pasta dish!
Here are the ingredients for the dish:
6 chicken thighs
I large onion, diced as you see above
4 garlic cloves, diced as seen above
2 tbsp thyme leaves
3 tbsp tomato paste
dry spaghetti
parmesan cheese
bread crumbs
parsley
grated lemon zest
salt and pepper
Put the chicken in a hot pot with oil and let it brown nicely on one side for 7 minutes, then slide in the onion and garlic:
Turn the chicken over and mix it all together, sweating the onions and garlic until softened and slightly brown – about 5 minutes!
Add the tomato paste and thyme, stirring it all in for a minute…and also turn on your oven to 350 degrees.
Add 2/3rd of a cup of water and let it simmer for ten minutes, then add another cup of water…or in my case, I added a cup of the Rao’s sauce to give it an even richer flavor!
After ten more minutes…it’s time to add the pasta!
My pot was the perfect size for the pasta to lay flat…the recipe asks to push the past to the bottom and lay the chicken on top, then cover with a lid and put it in your oven for a half hour!
Mix together the parmesan, bread crumbs, parsley, lemon zest and thyme…and this will be your coating for the chicken later!
Add parsley finely chopped parsley and after 30 minutes, your pasta should have absorbed all of the liquid in the pot!
As you can see…the pasta was cooked, soft and swirling around the chicken pieces…so add your crust topping and stick it back in the oven,turning it to broil…about five minutes is all you will need…
After broiling, it comes out looking like this:
As you can see, it toasted nicely, but the downside to a “one pot” dish is that it looks messy – until you plate it, then it can be presented to your friends or family like this:
I was very happy with how this looked on the plate: when you scoop it out, the pasta forms a nice base for the chicken, but also mixes in nicely – a true “one pot and one scoop” dish!
I have cooked with Ottolenghi before:
This Orzo dish with Prawns was delicious as well…here is the recipe:
There are some ingredients I don’t use, like Okra for example – just don’t like the texture. So I was eager to read this review from Chef Bernadette when she tackled it as part of a cooking challenge I was part of:
Here’s another of the dishes featured in that review series as well:
The week began with a delicious sweet potato mash – click here for that recipe and review:
I loved taking part in that series – it’s how I learned to make this unique Indian dish:
Yes, they are “hard-boiled egg stuffed meatballs!”
See my review here:
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Categories: Bite Eat Swallow, Bite! Eat! Repeat!, Chef memoirs, Cookbooks, Eat This!, Food, Food Writing, Recipes, Wacky Food, World's Wildest Food
Bite! Eat! Repeat! 
Leave it to Yotam. The Man!!! Looks fabulous!
Yes, please!
Holy cow! I would have thought the pasta would stick together in a giant plank! How simple is this!
It was a fun experiment and I’m glad it worked…I also made pasta once by cooking it in the bare minimum of chicken stock so that as it cooked it absorbed it…unique and tasty as it infused the pasta with flavor!
A whole new world…
Looks really good!