Cooking pasta is easy until it goes wrong. And then it is a disaster.
Fortunately, chef Kyle Marshall has provided us with a simple penne pasta recipe that we can all try to perfect our skills.
Penne is a short cylindrical pasta, ideal for thicker sauces that can fill up the cylinder.
Even if you’re a master in the kitchen, you can still whip up Marshall’s delicious dish.
When Marshall was 23 years old he was faced with a toss-up as to whether to play cricket professionally or study to be a chef.
He chose to do both and, in 2013, while playing for Eastern’s Cricket Union he decided to also sign up for a part-time cooking diploma at Capsicum Culinary Studio's Boksburg campus.
After graduation, he went to England for six months to play club cricket for Barnoldswick Cricket Club and while there got his first taste of working in a professional kitchen with a part-time job in a little 20-table café in a village in northern England.
When Marshall returned home from the UK in 2015, he landed his first hotel job at the Southern Sun Hyde Park Hotel where he worked as a commis chef.
A year later he moved to 54 on Bath in Rosebank. After three years at the Rosebank-based hotel, he moved to Palazzo Montecasino where Marshall says he learned how much he could achieve on his own, which gave him the confidence to be where he is now, creating and executing his own menus.
Below is one of his favourite go-to recipes.
“It's right up there on the top of my list if I had to choose my last meal ever,” says Marshall.
Bacon and mushroom penne
INGREDIENTS
400g cooked penne
½ red onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic (made into a paste)
250g mushroom, roughly chopped
250ml cream
100ml white wine
150g bacon, diced
50g grated parmesan
A handful of chopped parsley
Salt and pepper
METHOD
Bring a pan up to high heat and add the chopped bacon. Allow the fat to render and the bacon to brown slightly. Next, add the onions and garlic and sauté until golden.
Once golden, add the mushrooms and cook until most of the moisture is out.
Deglaze the pan with the white wine and cook until the wine has evaporated.
Turn the heat down to medium and add the cream.
Bring the cream up to a slight rumble and then add the cooked pasta and fold it in.
Add the parmesan and chopped parsley and fold in evenly.
Plate and enjoy while watching a game of cricket on the telly.