Opium pasta. Sounds pretty cheeky, eh? I was feeling pretty cheeky when I gave this fettucini dish a little nickname. Sprinkle in some poppy seeds, and voila – opium pasta.
Actually, I got the idea to sprinkle in some poppy seeds because I am in flipping love with Penzey’s Salad Elegant sprinkle. I know “salad” is half of the name, but the mix also has some parmesan cheese in there, and it rocks a pasta like you wouldn’t believe. The stuff’s as addictive as opium (opium’s addictive, right? otherwise this wouldn’t make sense. even if it isn’t, let’s just pretend that opium is highly addictive, ’cause that’s how good this Salad Elegant is).
Unfortunately I ran out of my stash of Salad Elegant a while ago, and was jonesing for more. This wasn’t that close, but it made me think of it. Just used some ricotta and pasta water for the sauce, plus some dried garlic and onion power with poppy seeds and salt. I think I need to toast the poppy seeds next time to add a little depth and nuttiness.

A little bit of chicken doens’t hurt either. But plain is tasty. We just happened to have some chicken that day. So I ate it with the pasta.