Stewed Gizzard and Tagliatelle in Spinach

Hey y'all!

 

Here's a recipe I came up with last week. It's nothing dramatically new. I just had a day when I felt like eating pasta. I had some macaroni at home but at the last minute, I decided using the Tagliatelle in Spinach that had been sitting in my kitchen for a while. When it was time to think of the animal protein to accompany the meal, I gave that a long thought. You'd think it was more than a normal meal I was pondering on. Thing is, I'm not much of an animal protein fan. I can well eat my meals and do without it. But in this environment, people tend to frown on that. I eat them mostly because I know my body needs them. I like fish/seafood a lot and like beef the least. For chicken, I'm just indifferent although I have a little love for turkey. So this day, I had no animal protein at home and I really did not feel like doing chicken seeing as I seemed to be having that too many times. I have this belief that poultry goes best with pasta, actually. And since I eat a lot of pasta, well, I was tired of all that chicken. It then occurred to me that Wait a minute! I love Gizzard! That's one of the few animal proteins I just cannot pass. So, I went off to buy half a kilo of Gizzard. I wanted as little as possible as I was the only one eating it. So, I came up with this meal:

 

Gizzard - Half a kilo

Tomatoes - 7

Scotch Bonnet (rodo) - 10 (I eat a lot of pepper. Reduce yours if you don't)

Onions - 2

Olive Oil - 2 tbsp.

Italian Seasoning - 1 tsp

Garlic (powdered) - 2 tsp

Maggi chicken cube

Cayenne powder - 1 tsp

Salt

Granoro's Tagliatelle with Spinach 

 

I washed the gizzards of dirt. I was pleased to discover that Half a kilo of gizzard was so much that I had to keep some away. I even took some time admiring this particular gizzard. This was nicely pink and I just bought it from one of these neighbourhood frozen food shops. The packed ones I've been getting from those popular big chain supermarkets were not even as much or pink or fleshy or lovely looking before being cooked.

 

Yummy gizzard

 

Seasoned the gizzard with some Italian Seasoning, a bit of Maggi, a teaspoon of Garlic powder and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Add half an onion and a quarter cup of water. Let cook. Then put aside afterwards.

 

While that's cooking, clean the tomatoes and pepper and onions. Put in a blender and pulse. I didn't puree as I always like my pepper to be rough and not smooth.

 

Blended pepper

Next, pour the olive oil in the pan or wok. Then add some chopped onions. When the onions turn transparent, pour in the blended pepper and let cook on medium heat for about 15minutes.



 

When cooked, add all the dry ingredients and the juice from the cooked gizzard. Let cook for about 5minutes. Add some more chopped onions then add the cooked gizzard. Cover and let cook for another 5 minutes then take off the burner.

 

While the sauce was cooking, boil some water in a separate pot. Add a bit of salt. When it's boiled, put in the pasta. I used 4 rolls of the Granoro Tagliatelle in Spinach.

 



Tagliatelle pasta with spinach

Let the pasta boil for about 5mins as tagliatelle cooks quickly then drain in a sieve or colander. Look how beautiful that is.

 

 

I at first tried to mix the sauce with the pasta but I found that to be unnecessary as the strong green colour of the pasta did not let the colour of the sauce come through. So, I served the meal this way.

 

Yum!

 

My personal opinion is that this meal is suitable for weightwatchers. The pasta is infused with spinach to make it healthy. Kinda like wheat bread, I think. Gizzard too is known to be a healthy source of protein as against red meat.

 

Oh yeah! It tasted fantastic!

 

NB: Writing this post tonight has helped me none. The plumbing is bad in my flat so there's no running water. I didn't want to cook anything that'll cause me to have dirty dishes so I'm stuck with eating bread for dinner. I now went to write this post. Now, I'm hungry for real food. Just swell!