Saturday 5 February 2011

Steak Strips with Creamy Mustard Pasta

23/70


First of all I will point you to this page on the Quorn website where the full recipe details for this are.


This is a pasta dish using Quorn steak strips (which I do think are one of the best quorn products available). Unfortunately, I am not particularly enamoured with this recipe and I think (much like with the Lemon Chilli Linguine) that part of the reason is that it uses lemon in a savoury dish again and I am just not that keen on it.


Basically, the steak strips are fried off with onion, garlic and then the green beans and sweetcorn are added. The pasta is cooked alongside this so it is a fairly speedy dish to make. The 'sauce' as it were is a combination of creme fraiche (I used half fat), wholegrain mustard and lemon zest.


This is what the dish looks like when served:




You can probably tell from this photo that the dish is fairly dry (another similarity with the Lemon Chilli Linguine). But the flavours are quite strong. Unfortunately I found them a bit overwhelming and not in a particularly good way.


The recipe advises 1-2tbsp of mustard should be stirred into the creme fraiche, I generally quite like wholegrain mustard to I bunged in 2tbsp. Mistake. It was simply too strong. If I ever did make it again I would definitely err on the side of caution.


The lemon zest shines through as another very vivid element. I think I just do not really like lemon flavouring in anything other than cakes, puddings and pancakes. My husband likes it even less and proclaimed that he scored this dish 3/10. I was not that harsh, I give it a 4/10.


Points wise this is a fairly good bet. Based on the recipe serving 4, each portion contains 8 propoints, made up as follows: quorn steak (2), pasta (4), half fat creme fraiche (1), oil (1).


This is a nice simple recipe and the premise is good - I like the idea of using the creme fraiche as a base for a creamy sauce but for me the overwhelming lemon flavour stopped it from being particularly enjoyable. Oh well, you can't like them all!

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