Quarantine Cooking: Making Pasta with Epermarket Produce

This is part of our Quarantine Cooking Recipe Series.

The heroes at Epermarket have not taken a break since the start of the Chinese New Year. In the face of the coronavirus outbreak, they worked faithfully to supply a hungry city with a third of the normal staff. We are especially grateful to their delivery team, who are dropping off neat piles of groceries outside our doors then sending us text messages to collect as they drive away – reducing human contact for safety purposes. 

When we told our friends at Epermarket that we were working on this recipe series, they kindly sent us over an order. With our bounty, we put together two hearty pasta meals. All ingredients for both dishes are available on their website, and they deliver to the Shanghai, Suzhou and Kunshan areas. 

Vegan Kale Pesto with Whole Wheat Spaghetti and Yellow Squash

Image by Cristina Ng/That's

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

• 2 cups fresh kale

• 1 cup fresh basil

• ½ cup raw cashews

• 3 garlic cloves

• 1 ¼ cup olive oil

• Juice and zest of one lemon

• 1 tbsp nutritional yeast

• Salt to taste

• A packet of whole wheat spaghetti

• 1 Yellow Squash (spiralized or sliced into ribbons)

Method:

1. Mix the pesto ingredients in a food processor or blender.

2. Boil the pasta according to package directions in salted water.

3. When pasta is done, throw the spiralized squash into the pot.

4. Drain pasta and squash, mix hot pasta and vegetables with the pesto. Serve immediately 

Sausage and Peppers

Image by Cristina Ng/That's

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

• 500g  Italian sausages

• 2 cans of tomato sauce

• 5  tablespoons butter

• Half a white onion

• Half a red onion

• 4 cloves garlic

• 1 red bell pepper

• 1 yellow bell pepper

• 1 green bell pepper

• 1 teaspoon dried basil

• 1 teaspoon dried oregano

• Optional: red pepper flakes or ground red pepper

• ¼ cup red wine

• Glug of olive oil

Method: 

1. Brown sausages in a hot pan. Remove from pan and slice on the diagonal. Set aside.

2. Add two cans of tomato sauce to a medium-sized pot. Slice the onion in half and put one side into the pot face down. Add garlic cloves, butter and salt. Bring to a simmer until it the mixture thickens into a sauce.

3. While the sauce is cooking, stir fry the sliced mixed peppers, garlic and onions for about three minutes until softened.

4. Once the tomato sauce looks good, transfer enough to cover the onion carefully to a blender and mix until the onion and garlic break down. Return to the pot.

5. Add sausage, vegetable mixture, dry herbs and red wine to the pot and simmer until vegetables are tender and sausage is heated through. Optionally, finish with red pepper flakes for some heat. Serve on pasta (we chose tagliatelli) or with crusty bread. 

See listing for Epermarket. 

This is part of our Quarantine Cooking recipe series – click here for more. 

[Cover image courtesy by Cristina Ng/That's]