Hello team!
This week’s newsletter is quite exciting, because it sees me launch a new recipe series.
Those of you who follow me on Instagram might have seen that this week I launched Feeling Myshelf, which is focussed on bringing you comforting, vibrant recipes revolving around your store cupboard ingredients. Each recipe will contain no more than 4 fresh ingredients. The rest will all be non-perishable bits.
I’ll be dropping the recipes in the newsletter every week (extra recipes!!), starting today with a creamed corn and pancetta pasta. These recipes will be available for free, but if you like my work and would like some more recipes, you can become a paid subscriber.
Paid subscribers will also be getting a recipe for a rich, hearty pork and porcini ragu, as well as a bit of behind the scenes goss about my recipe development process.
Enjoy!
Sophie x
The Recipes
Feeling Myshelf Episode 1 - Creamed Corn and Pancetta Pasta
Corn chowder is something my mum used to make a lot when I was a kid, and the flavours of it I’ve always loved. I’ve taken those flavours and put them in a creamy pasta dish, because tinned sweetcorn deserves to have the spotlight, and go with things other than tuna mayo. Of course, you can swap out tinned for the same weight of frozen or fresh if you had it.
Serves 2
160g sweetcorn
½ chicken stock cube
90g pancetta
40g parmesan
2 spring onions
3 tbsp double cream
200g rigatoni
salt, pepper and olive oil
Bring a large saucepan filled with water up to a boil, and season it to taste with salt (it should be as seasoned as if it were a soup).
Drain your tin of sweetcorn, then add 2/3rds to a blender, along with ½ a chicken stock cube and 125ml water. Whizz it up to a sauce.
Finely slice your spring onions.
Add your pasta to the boiling water, and cook it for 2 minutes less than the packet tells you to.
Get a saute pan over a medium heat, and add 2 tbsp olive oil. Get your pancetta into the pan whilst it is still heating up, and let it gently cook for 5 minutes, or until it is crispy and the fat has rendered out.
Add all of your spring onions to the pan (apart from a few of the greens), as well as your remaining sweetcorn and chilli flakes, and cook these for 3 minutes, until the spring onions and have softened and the corn has taken on a little colour.
Pour your sauce into the pan, and grate in your parmesan and add your cream.
Once your pasta is cooked but still al dente, lift it out of the water with a slotted spoon, and pop it directly into the sauce. Add a splash of pasta water, and give it a really good mix, until you have a glossy sauce coating your pasta. Season it to taste with salt and lots of black pepper.
Spoon your pasta into bowls, and sprinkle the tops with a little more parmesan, your spring onion greens and black pepper. Serve it up.
Pork and Porcini Ragu
This time of year calls for leisurely days spent at home, slowly braising something delicious to curl up with on the sofa at the end of it. This ragu does exactly that - sweet, fatty pork and earthy savoury porcini make for a very tasty pasta sauce.
The recipe for the ragu serves more people than the cavatelli does, because ragu freezes really well, and it’s always nice to have some stashed away for another day.
The sauce also tastes even better if you give it a couple of days to sit - make it up to 3 days in advance, and leave it in the fridge to hang out.
Here are my tricks for making the BEST ragus: