Invalid food - something with pasta?
- rosemary
- 10 hours ago
- 4 min read
"Fanny Cradock tells us to smash up some chicken, put it in a jar, cover with cheap brandy and simmer (a slow cooker will do it) for 24 hours before straining. As she says – it's miraculous."
Catherine Phipps/The Guardian
My husband has a mildly upset stomach, so I'm trying to think of appropriate foods for dinner. Yesterday we had a very bland greens and potato soup which was not greeted with much enthusiasm I have to say. I admit it didn't have a lot of taste - he added some Worcestershire sauce, having read my article on 'Always add ..." which he said improved it. I was just comforted by it and had another sip of wine.
Today I was thinking pasta. Indeed I am still thinking pasta, but trying to avoid anything creamy, other than the creaminess of adding pasta water to whatever sauce I had concocted. It's also a miserable day, so I really don't want to venture out to the shops for yet another ingredient. Besides there are things in the fridge that need using - pumpkin, spring onions, carrots, sauerkraut ... Whatever I decide however, it won't be as elaborate as what Mrs. Beeton is suggesting above. And there won't be flowers on the table. Our garden is pretty much bereft of flowers at the moment.
It won't be Fanny Cradock's chicken either - an insane idea which possibly has real benefit. Do you eat the chicken or drink the brandy I wonder? Or maybe then cook the chicken in the brandy. But maybe it's not so insane . I had a look and found that the Americans seem to be big into preserving chicken in bourbon - as shown here - so why not brandy? You can certainly get chicken paté with lots of brandy, so maybe that's what you do with your smashed chicken in brandy. I don't think that's what Fanny Cradock intended however.
So no brandy - however good it is for all kinds of ailments - but there will be a bottle of rosé - mostly for me I confess.
But back to my pasta. My first thought was the spring onions - I have a bunch in the fridge and still in good condition, so I thought I would like to use them - lots of them - maybe half the bunch. And so I went looking for recipes, and actually found quite a few - and virtually all of them looked very tempting. Mild and soothing too. Spinach, spring onion and basil pasta - Adam Liaw/Sydney Morning Herald - the only problem being I have no ricotta or basil and can't be bothered to go out; Spring onion pasta for the little sister - _nibbly_/Instagram; Spring onion linguine (Cipolotto) - rosie mackean pasta queen/Instagram - I was very tempted by this one; Spring scallion pasta - Colavita; Creamy orecchiette with spring onions, fennel and bacon - Sasha Marx/Serious Eats - again too many extras; Charred spring onion and lemon pasta - Bosh/Facebook - also tempting because of using the whole bunch although there was cream cheese again; Spring onions and fresh tomatoes pasta/Buono Pappa
And there were lots more, some with a tomato twist, some spicier but at this point I remembered that onions of any kind were possibly the worst thing you could feed to someone with digestive problems, so it was back to the blackboard - and my other main, got to use up, ingredient - pumpkin.
I guess there was not a lot of varation here. First roast your pumpkin with some kind of herb or spice, then mash it with more tasty things, making it creamy with milk, cream, pasta water - maybe tomatoes. Add some cheese at some point and give it a crispy topping of some kind - breadcrumbs or nuts ... So here are just a few variations: Creamy pumpkin pasta - Jar of Lemons; Pasta with pumpkin - Vincenzo's Plate; Cheat's squash pasta - Jamie Oliver; Butternut squash and pancetta - Gennaro Contaldo
It might have been at this point that I realised the unsuitability of the spring onions, and so did a bit of a dip into what I should or should not involve in a pasta dish for a semi invalid and here I found that sauerkraut was a good thing - it's fermented and fermented is good, which got me rather excited, because I like sauerkraut, have half a jar in the fridge and vaguely remembered a Nigel pasta and sauerkraut recipe. But no apparently not. And I wasn't having much joy at finding anything else when David asked what's for dinner. When I said possibly sauerkraut and pasta he rebelled and almost demanded meat. I muttered something about bacon and paused for thought.
So as usual I think I'm going to make something up - with pumpkin - roasted with sage and garlic - maybe paprika too and maybe some of those carrots. Tomatoes - maybe of the sun-dried out of a jar kind, and spinach (frozen) and lots of bacon. Sage somewhere or other. Something crunchy on top. If my milk hasn't gone off I shall add some milk. If it has it will be pasta water. Maybe a splash of that rosé. After all my alcohol free week begins tomorrow and if I use it in the pasta I won't have an excuse to drink the rest tomorrow.
Invalid food in general? Keep it very bland. Liquid. No dairy, no onions. Bananas. My mother and grandmother used to serve us beef tea - which I guess is really beef stock.
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November 30
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2017 - Nothing
2016 - A herb for all seasons
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