Sunday, September 24, 2006

Pink Pasta Salad

I had a rather terrible kitchen experiment today; so to recover I made myself an egg salad sandwitch and watched Nigella, on the food network. It was one of her forever summer shows, and she made a rice salad with prawns on top. I was only half paying attention, but she metioned that often the best things recipes come out of using up what you have on hand. This pasta salad is very much along such lines, as I tried to create something in the spirt of prawns on rice for my lunch to take to school tomorrow.

Pink Pasta Salad
150 g orzo pasta
1 can tuna (the little can), but I think salmon would be good too
1/2 recipe for red sauce (below)
1/2 tsp olive oil

1. Cook pasta.
2. Coat pasta with olive oil (so it doesn't stick). Let pasta cool. (I went I had a shower).
3. Drain tuna, toss with pasta and sauce.

Red Sauce
This is a recipe from Jaques Pepin's Fast Food My Way, which was a birthday gift from my brother. He makes the sauce with wasabi paste - but most commercial wasabi paste is actually derived from horseradish, so I don't feel bad about the subsitution. I had to admit, the sauce is not red, but a sad pink colour. But its deliciousness makes up for it. I know the ingredients sound sketchy, but remember Jaques Pepin would not lead us astray.

1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 tbsp ketchup
1-2 tsp horseradish
juice of one lime

1. mix. that's it.

I made this sauce earlier in the week, to go with some broilled salmon. Since I still had some in the refigerator I figured it would be the perfect dressing for my pasta salad. Preliminary taste tests suggest it is a winner.