Being as I live alone, I usually find cooking to be more hassle than its worth, and I’m not particularly competent in the kitchen anyway. Plus I find that preparing my own meals takes up valuable time that could be better spent drinking or vegging out. However, I recently learned about a thing called squid ink pasta, which may just be the Gothest food ever created, and so I’ve decided to share a recipe that you can make with this strange, love it or hate it pasta offering with little to no hassle.
What is squid ink pasta?
It does exactly what it says on the tin. It is pasta, like linguine or spaghetti, into which actual squid ink is mixed, giving the pasta both a distinctive flavour and of course, a black colouration darker than your soul. It can be bought either dried or fresh, from posh little deli’s, and probably Waitrose and other shopping venues that are generally considered to be not for the likes of us.
The fact that the pasta itself is pure black is more than enough to put off the non-adventurous gourmand, but we’re Goths, goddamnit, and we’re going to eat the damn black food and we’re going to like it.
The flavour of squid ink pasta is basically a little bit like the sea-or like the sea would be if it wasn’t full of pollutants and shit. Saltier than normal pasta, but not offputtingly so.
What to make
Squid ink pasta’s obvious partner in crime is seafood, and fortunately it’s really easy for even the most culinarily challenged to pull off some of the basic, simple recipes that show off squid ink pasta in the best light.
My current favourite recipe is one that I made up on the fly, and all you’ll need is the pasta itself, some king prawns or mixed seafood (prawn, mussels and squid rings, for instance) some garlic, chilli, white wine, and cherry tomatoes. If you have a bit of basil, that works well too-and don’t bother salting the pasta water, squid ink pasta is salty enough as it is.
If your pasta is dry, put it on to cook, and in the meantime, throw about half a glass of white wine into a frying pan with your garlic, chilli, tomatoes and seafood (and basil if you have it), and cook it for a few minutes before adding the hot drained pasta and tossing it.
Plop it out onto a plate, cover with parmesan and pepper, and go for your life.
More squid ink pasta recipes can be found here and here, and it is worth buying some of the dried version just to impress your fellow Gothlings with too if you can’t convince yourself to actually eat it.
