Chili-Ginger Infused Pasta (Ginger Balsamic)

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Ginger Balsamic along with "what's in the fridge" were my inspirations for dinner one night that was even better than I imagined.

"What's in the fridge" means that I look at the odds and ends of veggies in my crisper and say, what can I make with that? For this recipe I had the following (but feel free to substitute whatever is in your crisper!)

  • Regular cabbage

  • Purple cabbage

  • Some tri-color carrots

  • Some diced splines from Kale (yes I save the splines and find a use for them later)

Chili-Ginger Infused Pasta

The remaining ingredients are:

  • Thin spaghetti pasta

  • enFuso Chili Cilantro Olive Oil

  • enFuso Ginger Balsamic

  • enFuso Estate Blend Extra Virgin Olive Oil

  • Cashews (diced)

  • Fresh mint (diced) - I have in my herb garden (optional but better with this)

  • Kosher salt

I slow saute'd all of the veggies (also called "sweating") in enFuso Chili Cilantro olive oil. I used my favorite heavy weight every day pan by All Clad. I recommend heavy pans for this purpose. As the veggies started to slowly break down and caramelize the sweet aroma of cilantro filled my kitchen.

Saute'd Veggies

When I saw that I was really getting some caramel brown sweet clusters on the bottom of the pan, I brought out the enFuso Ginger Balsamic, the other primary inspiration. I generously doused the cooking veggies with it, de-glazed the bottom of the pan to get up all of the goodies, then covered the pan and allowed the balsamic to glaze the veggies and begin to make a sauce as they further broke down. I let it cook about another 10-15 minutes. Just before serving I added a pinch of Kosher salt to taste and stirred it in. When the veggies were ready to go, they were soft to the tooth with bits of brown caramelization and plenty of ginger glaze.

Meanwhile I cooked some thin spaghetti pasta. I like the Barilla protein plus pasta as this is a vegetarian dish and needs some protein augmentation. After cooking and draining. I lightly coated the pasta with some extra virgin olive oil.

 I plated the dish like this ...

I put the spaghetti on the plate and made a hole in the center. I filled the hole with the rich spicy gingered veggies. Then I topped it with chopped cashews, diced fresh mint, a final drizzle of enFuso Ginger Balsamic, and sprig of fresh mint.

Spaghetti Pasta with gingered veggies

To eat it I ran my knife through the pasta to bring all of the flavors together. What a treat! I certainly consider this a fusion dish. I loved all of the flavors going on. The sweet yet tangy and spicy caramelized veggies were so good and the pasta was the perfect complement. The cashews added the needed richness while the mint gave a fresh finish.

Spaghetti pasta mixed with gingered veggies

So many great flavors jumping in the mouth! This one was a winner.