Sharing one of my new favourites

For a long time, I was firmly against the concept of a pasta salad. Coming from the UK, the very words conjured up images of sad little plastic tubs full of claggy pasta on supermarket shelves, wolfed down by hungry office workers or stressed students. They just struck me as singularly unappealing. However, in the past year or two, separated from the sight of these abominations by thousands of miles, I have discovered the joys of home-made pasta salads. These barely deserve to share a name with their supermarket equivalents, they are so superior. While they are still at risk of suffering from a certain dryness, they have such great potential, and have become one of my favourite dinner options. With little effort, a simple salad can be transformed, elevated, into a delicious standalone meal. I love playing with textures and flavours – somehow the medium, perhaps its simplicity, seems to unleash creativity and a sense of freedom in my cooking.

Today’s version, a play on an old Gousto recipe, incorporates one of my all-time favourite flavours: roasted red grapes. Their sweet intensity paired with salty feta is just perfect. I know grapes in savoury dishes can be divisive, but I hope that this recipe will convince you that they deserve a place in your heart (well, tummy!). It’s a simple recipe which you could finish in half an hour at a push, and works just as well as a week night meal as it does next day in the lunch box. I would even serve this to guests – perhaps spruced up a little bit, but easily delicious enough to satisfy any host’s pride. I hope you’ll enjoy – please do let me know what you think in a comment if you give this one a try!

Ingredients

Small bunch of seedless red grapes
Half a block of feta (or to taste)
Ground cumin
Green beans (optional)
Almonds (flaked or whole)
Spring onions/scallions (optional)

Cooking time: 30-35 minutes.

Step 1

First things first, get the oven pre-heating to between 180 and 200 degrees Celsius (356 to 392 Fahrenheit), depending on the ferocity of your oven. Then take your washed grapes and slice them all in half down the middle length-ways. Add them to a baking dish (I use my Le Creuset or an enamel roasting tin), with a splash of olive oil and a turn of salt. When the oven is ready, pop them in and set a timer for 10 minutes. This should be long enough that they’re starting to cook down a bit, and their juices are starting to leak into the pan. If you have particularly small or large grapes, you may need to adjust this cooking time a little, by a few minutes either way.

Step 2

When the grapes are nicely starting to roast, remove the dish from the oven and add your feta. This can go in whole, no need to chop it up. Then coat the feta with a generous dusting of ground cumin. Aside from a bit of black pepper, this is the only spice flavouring the dish, so you don’t want to be stingy. You’ll want plenty of that delicious, warming taste.

Put the dish back in the oven, setting the timer for another 10 minutes or so.

Step 3

This is essentially an optional step, but if I’m trying to up my veg consumption, I’ll take the dish out after 7ish minutes not 10, and add some chopped green beans. Douse them with olive oil and salt (it’s fine if they mix in with the grapes, or you can keep them separate if you’re unsure about relative cooking times). Return the dish to the oven for a further 3-5 minutes.

This is likely to be the right time to put your pasta on to cook – you’ll want it to be ready at close to the same time as the oven ingredients so you’re not having to worry about keeping it warm. You can use pretty much any pasta (although I wouldn’t recommend any time of noodle form pasta like spaghetti or linguine), but my recent favourite has been orzo/risoni. I find the size works well for the most even distribution of the other ingredients when they all come together.

Step 4

While the beans and/or feta are cooking, you can prepare your almonds. If you’re feeling fancy, use flaked almonds (usually found in the baking aisle of the supermarket). If, like me, you’re trying to keep costs down, you can just chop up whole ones, which are usually a lot cheaper (and can often be bought in larger quantities). Some people would probably object to the skins, but weirdly when they’ve been cooked with lovely salty olive oil, I think they lend an interesting bit of chewy texture.

When time’s up on the feta, add in the almonds, making sure they’re nicely drizzled with olive oil, and add some extra salt if needed. Then put everything back in the oven for 3-5 minutes – just enough to get the nuts toasting.

Step 5

Finally everything comes together! Pull the pan out of the oven and start mixing it all up. For maximum creaminess from the feta do this as soon as possible, while it’s still hot and melty – it starts to solidify surprisingly quickly. Start by mashing apart the feta, then add in the pasta and mix it all together. I do this in the oven dish to help keep things hot. At this point you can also add in your chopped spring onions/scallions, reserving some to garnish. They’re not essential, but add a nice bit of tartness which goes well with the saltiness of the feta and sweetness of the grapes.

Season with pepper to taste, then serve immediately, keeping any leftovers for lunchboxes (preferably re-heated!). You’ll end up with a deliciously varied, fun and simple dinner, which has the added bonus of being pretty balanced too!

---

I hope this recipe becomes as firm a favourite for you as it has for me. I’d love to hear any feedback you have, so please share in a comment! Thanks very much for reading.