A 10-Minute French Pasta Side Dish Every Home Cook Should Know

Now one thing I really wanted to talk about this week is French style pastas because I came across quite a few pasta dishes but most of them come from unexpected sources from a famous French chef which is none other than Paul Bocuse himself. In his book you can find five or six pasta recipes that he put on the map about you know more than 30 years ago including the French style macaroni and cheese. We're not going to do that in that video, surely the next one, so I'm going to be sharing here in this series of video three pasta dishes and we're going to be starting with a very simple Paul Bocuse special which is called a pasta with cream and basil but at the end of the day there's more than that into it. It's fresh pasta with peas, cured ham, basil and of course cream and I'm just wondering exactly how is it going to compare to the usual Italian taste that we have so let's get started. So let's begin by looking at the ingredients for that recipe and I'm sure you've already made dozens of pasta dishes typically Italian style pastas and they are the ones the usual suspect right you would have tomato, onions, garlic that sort of things but look at this this looks already different there's no oil we use butter you got the pasta we've got some cream and yes there is some basil but basil is used a lot in France so not to say typically it's going to be Italian but for the rest we've got cured ham and peas and these are frozen peas you're going to have to pre-cook them but it's a very interesting combination and Bocuse stress that you really just need to cook the pasta just al dente and as soon as they cook it's just an assembly and you stir everything through the ham into the peas you put the cream the basil and it's done so very fast affair as well and I think it's going to be interesting because I've never tried it so I'm really really curious so let's go on the stove and make this pasta. All right so let's try this French style pasta from Paul Bocuse so mise en place food prep everything has been prepared already we've got the frozen peas I've got 150 grams for the recipe 400 grams of fresh pastas he said that you can use dry pastas but make sure they're al dente if you do this. I've got the cream the ham was one thick slice of cured ham and I've diced it it doesn't say in the book how to you know how to prepare it how to cut it but I think the same size of the pea is going to work. I've got my butter we've got the basil leaf here at the ready salt and pepper of course I've got two pans on the side with boiling water one for the pasta and one for the peas the peas is the first thing we're going to do here I'm going to prepare so as I said two pans of water that's for the pasta that's for the peas so the peas very simple boiling water a bit of salt and I'm going to add all the peas in there okay once they're in what we're going to do we're going to really just blanch them and make sure we keep the color so we're going to rinse them in the cold water and have them on the side so you want to have that kind of bright green color now the way to do it for the blanching the easiest is that all what I'm going to do here I'm going to wait for the boil to come back okay and that's going to be it as soon as the boils come back on here I'm going to drain the peas rinse them and we're done my peas are boiling I'm turning the heat off and immediately I'm going to rinse this under cold water I'm done so this is how it looks like so we've stopped the cooking in effect and we're going to preserve the I'm going to leave this on the side while we prepare the pastas okay so the next thing we need to do is to cook the pastas and bogus really stress the point that as soon as they are cooked you need to immediately have a pan ready and we're going to have the pastas with the peas the ham the butter and everything toss everything add the basil and we're done so make sure you got a pan you choose a pan I'm using a saute pan because it's got this high you can use a casserole dish or anything and count the right time for your pastas fresh pasta I've got here it's only four minutes cooking time we don't want to overcook them if you use dry pastas look at the instructions on the packets you have the precise timing to have them really al dente okay so this starts to boil on here I'm going to add some salt I'm going to put the pastas in all right so raging boil on here I'm going to put the heat higher and I'm going to use a timer and count really four minutes all right so I've checked the pasta has been more than four minutes almost five minutes plus a little bit see the packet even was surely mentioning when the boil starts to start counting but that looks pretty good you should be al dente yeah perfect so boom I'm gonna drain this so here we are so pasta remember you don't rinse them under cold water nice and warm I'm taking my other big pan here and let the assembly begin exciting so let's do that french style pasta so we get the pan on here as per bocus of course we don't use oil it starts here with butter so I'm gonna start by melting the butter and as soon as it's melted we're gonna add the ham and the peas okay the ham is going in doesn't really look like an italian pasta does it okay the ham it is also to add the peas now peas with cured ham I've already seen this so we're just gonna leave this to cook for about a minute or two maximum and then add the pasta in okay so let's not waste any more time we're adding these pastas I'm gonna stir that through it's a lot of pastas everything 400 grams I've respected the measurements and I'm gonna toss this with everything and immediately after that salt pepper and cream all right I'm gonna do my my salt and pepper now interestingly it says that the cream should not boil at all so we're gonna just add the cream like that it says 100 ml of cream so it's really not a cream dish it's just to bind a whole lot and not really cook it I'm gonna warm this up let it thicken ever so slightly put the basil in and that's gonna be it last step a handful of fresh basil interestingly bocus is saying that this is a pairing pasta dish that you can use with any meat in sauce so any kinds of stews or anything with a sauce on the side it says it will be a perfect pairing which is very interesting maybe the base of cream could mingle with whatever sauce you have and you know the basil the peas and the raw ham but virtually that's it so I'm gonna toss it a bit more I'm gonna try it out okay so remember side dish looks pretty good actually just like that does it look Italian I don't think so it's really it's really the difference I want to try the peas the ham and everything and my food with the basil right okay so the cured ham is definitely something that works when you bite into it it really add that saltiness and brings the whole pasta to life the basil is a nice kind of herby addition you know the typical basil taste and the peas what they add on here is a touch of crunchiness and freshness because they're really just barely cooked and you can also al dente in the same texture as the pasta yeah and the peas you see this is what makes me think this is more of a side dish than a pasta dish because it's not a common thing to have but if you had that with another sauce mixed to this with some meat like from your stew or like a slow cooked kind of beef or something like that I think that would work like really really well I think Paul Bocuse did it again all right so we had that first impression I give you a bit of an idea of how it tastes like but keep in mind one very very important thing with French style pasta dishes is that we actually use pastas not as a main dish to eat compared to the Italian style it is mostly just a side dish at least the recipe from the chef so this is no exception this is actually going to be shining if you pair it with a piece of chicken that's got a sauce a little jus a piece of beef that has been a piece of beef with a stew for instance with a nice kind of gravy whatever you have this is going to be the perfect pairing that you can have so if you want to eat it like this you can but ideally you want to use this as a side dish for all kinds of occasion and when you're at home and you may be surprising some people with that now next time we're going to be exploring the famous macaroni and cheese French style from Paul Bocuse the gratin macaroni which is you would have guessed also considered to be a side dish and it is made in a totally different way than the classic so I hope you're gonna come back again and if you try that one let me know if you pair it with something else how it went how do you like it and perhaps if there's other pasta recipes you know from France that you've heard about that you've made already okay that's why I'll leave you with that picture I'll see you next time of course on the French cooking academy for another episode