Despite being a massive food lover and having loads of compliments weekly on my food dishes my blog has so far been very short on recipes. This is because so many of the dishes you see posted on Instagram were created using someone else's recipe and I feel it would just be wrong to post the recipe. However just before I moved to Glasgow I created this little dish using my own initiative.
I picked up the cocoa pasta from Hotel Chocolat not long after it opened in Aberdeen. Admittedly I am not a huge chocolate person but I find it hard to say no to an opportunity to experiment in the kitchen. I hit up the recipes on Google but found that cocoa pasta usually accompanies...meat. I cooked the one veggie recipe I had unearthed which involved mushrooms but I just wasn't feeling it. The savory taste of a mushroom and the bitter taste of the pasta just wasn't mixing well in my mouth.
A FYI, at the time of the original Instagram I got asked whether or not is tasted like chocolate. It depends what your definition of chocolate is. If you only know chocolate to be a creamy Dairy Milk bar then no, it doesn't taste like chocolate. If however you know that true chocolate is bitter when not mixed with anything, then yes, it does taste like chocolate. Bitter dark chocolate. It is also naturally vegan, though this recipe isn't.
A FYI, at the time of the original Instagram I got asked whether or not is tasted like chocolate. It depends what your definition of chocolate is. If you only know chocolate to be a creamy Dairy Milk bar then no, it doesn't taste like chocolate. If however you know that true chocolate is bitter when not mixed with anything, then yes, it does taste like chocolate. Bitter dark chocolate. It is also naturally vegan, though this recipe isn't.
It was then a few days later that I spotted the cream cheese in my parents fridge. And I realised this could be a balance to the bitter flavours of the cocoa pasta.
Ingredients
50g cocoa pasta
100g cream cheese (can add more)
2 spring onions, chopped
1 teaspoon chili flakes
1 teaspoon oil to fry
Method
1. Put the pasta on to cook. My method is to boil water in a kettle, then add to a pan of pasta, then bring back to the boil before simmering until needed.
2. Slice the spring onion.
3. Heat the oil in a frying pan.
4. Gently fry the onions, be careful not to brown and burn They will soften - that is them ready.
5. Add the chili flakes.
6. Take of the heat
7. Put the cream cheese in a bowl and mix until it softens.
8. Add the onions and chilis
9. The pasta should be cooked by now - may need a few more minutes - drain when ready
10. Mix the cream cheese into the pasta
11. Serve
