pasta salads

[devlin]

My husband now and again gets a wild hair and decides he has to make pasta salad. He's not a cook. His repertoire is pretty much limited to pastas and grilled cheese sandwiches, but he likes to think he can cook. The other problem is he refuses to follow a recipe. The result, as you might imagine, is that nearly anything he does is generally bland, not good. And he knows it too. But still, he insists on trying it again, and again without a recipe.

So, I know you can't help me with THAT, but can you help me out with a decent pasta salad? Something I might be able to do that would salvage the thing he ends up with? No meats here, just pasta, veggies and the seasonings.

[Chufi]

Fresh herbs are very good to enliven pasta salad. Use lots of them, much more than you think. Mint, coriander, basil, parsley, oregano. Or thyme and rosemary chopped up and warmed in some oliveoil for a while.

Also for pasta salad, I like to have the ratio pasta/other ingredients reverse from when I'm eating hot pasta for dinner. My pasta salad looks more like "vegetable salad with pasta"

[Shalmanese]

Have you tried just a bit of heat? Some cayenne pepper or some red pepper flakes really give a bit of dimension to pasta salads. Also, I find it's better to cook cold pasta salads slightly more al-dente than hot pasta. When it cools, the pasta hardens slightly.

[Jaymes]

I used to have the same problem with my husband. For some reason, he loved to make pasta salads. They were always bland. If I added something within his view, or something he could easily see in the salad, he'd become quite insulted and say I "ruined it."

In order to keep the peace, I had to toss in inconspicuous things while he wasn't looking. I found bottled herb and spices mixes best. Easy to grab, easy to toss in, hard to spot. Garlic salt always helped and was my number one choice. Also good were cajun spices like Tony Cachere's and Emeril's. And Mrs. Dash. Hot sauces and flavored oils also worked as did balsamic vinegar and/or a squeeze of lemon.

I eventually left the boy, so now I put what I damn well please into my pasta salads. In addition to the ubiquitous EVOO, anchovy paste, capers and olives (a la Pasta Puttanesca) are favorites. As are good-quality canned tuna in olive oil and fresh, sweet onions.

Edited May 30, 2005 by Jaymes (log)

[Della]

You didn't say if cheese is ok to add. I find a few crumbles of goat cheese or feta cheese adds that little bit of flavor and tang I like in a pasta salad.

And ditto on the red pepper flakes. Very important to me in my pasta salad.

OR - maybe some hot peppers. I don't know if you have access to something like "mamma lil's hot peppers" but I like them in pasta salad quite a bit.

[Episure]

In addition to the red pepper flakes. , I recommend adding toasted sesame seeds and sun dried tomatoes.

I also add toasted white mustard seeds but that idea may be too alien for you.

[saskanuck]

I make a really good mediterranean-style pasta salad that is very tangy. None of that mayo-based dressing for me. I dislike most traditional types of pasta salads.

And as noted above, cooking the pasta a little firmer than al dente works best. Also make sure to rinse your pasta in cold water until it's just barely warm.

I cook some rotini (works best in this salad), add in some crumbled feta cheese, diced tomatoes, black olives, celery, sweet peppers, broccoli and whatever other vegetables rock your boat. Cucumber tends to make things watery, so I generally leave it out or put it on top of individual plates when serving.

Dressing is s&p to taste, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar if you have it, some fresh garlic, a sprinkle of dried oregano and basil, and enough extra-virgin olive oil to make the dressing creamy when you whisk it.

This salad is best eaten right away at room temperature, as it's not nearly as good if it's refrigerated for later.

It is definitely not bland or boring, and is very colorful.

[Corinna Dunne]

I make my pasta salad along the lines of saskanuck above. However, I always dress the pasta when it is hot so that the dressing soaks in a bit. I tend to use a dressing of mainly EVOO with some lemon juice, freshly ground salt and pepper and freshly minced garlic.

When the pasta has cooled down to room temperature, I then add in some veg for crunch: red peppers and celery and chopped tomatoes with some fresh herbs like parsley, basil and a little cilantro (or corriander as we call it over here!). And just like saskanuck's recipe, I sometimes add crumbled feta cheese, but just before serving, and would add some mint and black olives in this case (a kind of Greek pasta salad).

To me, the 2 big offenders in making pasta salad are: using left over pasta and throwing too many different ingredients in so that it loses focus.

[snowangel]

In my mind, there's a 3rd offender. Serving it really cold.

[devlin]

Thanks folks. Those are all great suggestions. And because I decided it was time to just come right out and say something, I had a conversation with my husband last night, a complaint, more than a conversation, about the whole "cooking" thing and he's allowed that I'm right, that if he's gonna cook something he needs to learn more about food first. He doesn't even know the basic spices for pete's sake. I've been teaching myself to cook for the past several years, in addition to teaching myself the methods of "artisanal" breads (we've built a monstrous wood-burning bread oven recently), and we're both very interested in food, but he's left the work of it to me. And I've been working and reading and experimenting and cooking and paying attention. When I want to feed people, I go out of my way to make sure it's good. But he's always figured he can just wing it and if it turns out okay, well good, but if it doesn't, no big deal, *he'll* eat it anyway. But that probably means nobody else is having a good time.

Anyway, both the suggestions here and the act of finally putting this annoyance up in print and addressing it has finally, apparently, made a difference. So, useful all around.

many thanks,

Devlin