For this week's Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by Myriam from once upon a tart, I tested a recipe from a cooking show.

There is a German Cooking Show called Das perfekte Dinner (The perfect dinner). In this show 5 participants are inviting each other to a "perfect" dinner. After the dinner the guests rate the host up to 10 points.

As I have still a lot of tomatoes and basil in my garden I tested the recipe of Maria. Unfortunately I can't find any Italian sausages here, so I used Chorizo and as usual I did some other minor changes.

Maria failed the flambé. I think she should have to flambé the sauce without the pasta. So I did, and it worked fine.

Mafalde alla Vodka
serves 2

1 Chorizo, peeled and chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
2 big ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded, thinly sliced (~600 g)
fresh basil leaves, chopped
fresh oregano, chopped
1 peperoncino, finely chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 shot of vodka (about 20 cl)
200-250 g Mafalde or other pasta

Fry chorizo for about 5 minutes. Set aside. If you have a very fat chorizo, remove half of the fat.

Fry peperoncino, onion and garlic (in the remaining fat of the chorizo) until soft, add tomatoes, chorizo and herbs. Season with salt and pepper. Let simmer for about 30 minutes.

Cook the pasta in plenty of salted water, drain when "al dente". Before adding pasta to the sauce, flambé the sauce with the vodka.

Mix pasta and sauce. Serve immediately.

It's a delicious pasta recipe, but I think not really "perfect dinner worthy".

weekend herb blogging

More recipes and entries in English.