Orzo in a Deep Tomato Sauce with Spicy Zucchini

 This is the list of food items I brought home with me to Glasgow after Christmas (not including edible presents):

* one kilo of chocolate chips

* four boxes of PC Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese

* two kilos of orzo

* fluorescent food colouring

* Hibiscus and Rosehip tea  (J noted that bringing tea back was "like bringing coal to Newcastle", and while I agree in principle, the British seem to currently have an obsession with making all of their herbal teas flavoured like sickly sweet fruit. I don't want Strawberry Lychee Pineapple Sparkle Sensations, I just want a standard, respectable herbal tea.)

And even though I cleverly brought an empty suitcase with me, when this haul was combined with the spoils of Christmas and my other shopping binge (~2 kilos of fake pearls), not everything fit in my bag. I had to very, very sweetly (for what else is in my nature?) ask J if he would mind terribly carting the orzo and chocolate chips with him in his bag. He was obliging, but not thrilled. It did look like a pretty grotesque amount of chocolate and pasta. And really, pasta and chocolate are both available in Glasgow on almost every corner of the city.

"But not in these shapes!" was the eternal cry echoing through the Gatineau hills.

Shape matters. Every now and then one would like to make a faster, brothy and light orzo risotto to accompany a nice piece of chicken, or turn the grains into a pasta salad that is actually of a palatable consistency and hardy enough to pack for lunches or a picnic. No, these are not daily urges, but they may strike half-a-dozen times or so in a year and wouldn't you be pleased to see the little pasta guys waiting for you in the cupboard when that happens? The answer is yes. Yes you would.

And sure I can chop up a bar of dark chocolate to throw into some cookie dough, but sometimes you want the uniformity that the chips provide. Sometimes you don't want the chaos of the chocolate shards popping up here and there in your baked goods. Sometimes you just want everything in its right place. You need chocolate pieces that know how to behave properly! (Now smooth your apron. Pin your hair back up. Good. Phew.)

A few days after we returned home, I clearly needed to make something that would convince J that his efforts had not been in vain, so I cooked up this dish. I had been thinking about Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce for some time now after reading about in a couple of blogs. It really is that easy: butter, half an onion and a couple of cans of tomatoes. For a couple of years this sauce was a standard in my father's repertoire and although he is a cook capable of great finesse, I think he relished the idea of just throwing a couple of things in a pot roughly and letting them cook. I remember the first time I witnessed this I asked when the garlic or the basil would be entering the equation. "This sauce doesn't need it. It's just the simplicity of the butter, tomatoes and onion cooking together for a while" was his (paraphrased) reply. And he was absolutely right and I ate it pretty regularly for the next couple of years.

So I had this idea to use that same sauce as a rich base for an orzo risotto. The sauce was started in the usual way except I never took the onion halves out. Normally you do this before serving, but the really soft and buttery onions were always my favourite element of this sauce. I would sneak pieces of them out before they were thrown away. In my sauce, the onion stays. While it's still in a rather large pieces, if it cooks for long enough all of the layers separate and become more manageable to eat. I then added some white beans, some orzo and a couple of finely chopped sage leaves for a bit of depth. Then a lot of stirring happened. When it started to look a bit less soupy, a bit more gloopy, I added some stock and kept on adding some at intervals until it was perfect.

While all of this was going on, I sliced some long lengths of zucchini on my new and trusty mandolin. The first zucchini was sliced on the finest setting and the second one on a wider setting. This way, the two thicknesses cooked at different rates and the skinnier ones got sweetly browned while when the thicker ones were supple and succulent. They were sauteed in olive oil, salt, garlic, pine nuts and chili flakes. You want these puppies to be a bit spicy because the sauce, especially if you leave the onions in, will be quite sweet. 

And then everything was ready. The pasta was cooked, still still firm, the zucchini were spicy and juicy and golden. Everything was just waiting to be served up and enjoyed. And then J was 45 minutes late for dinner. Jerk. Sure he had a good excuse, but still everything had to be turned off and then re-heated while I made indignant huffing noises. In the end, the dish was so flavourful, especially with grated parmesan and some pepper, that I forgot all about J's tardiness and he forgot all about carting my weighty goods across the ocean. Aww. Food bribery; the pathway to forgiveness and emotional eating.

      

Comments

[katie]

Dad, you should have come over. I had loads of leftovers.

That wheat sounds good Stina. Just throw some extra in your bag for me next time you go!

[dad]

it's almost midnight. i leave for calgary in 5 hours and i'm hungry already...the last time we made mussels. i now lust after the buttery tomato sauce...

[stina]

Hihi, this post makes me feel less crazy for bringing back my favourite parboiled wheat (far from bulgur) from Sweden...