aixcentric

It’s unusual for Paris Match to devote a whole page to a recipe, but then this is an unusual story: how news of a dish shot around the world.

It started in Finland where food stylist Jenni Hayrinen cooked up a late supper, Baked Feta Pasta, posted it on instagram and found that her account went rapidly from 20,000 to 80,000. Feta sales increased by 300% in Helsinki…American bloggers picked it up then people started posting themselves cooking the dish on Tiktok.  Now says Paris Match, it has 923 million hash-tags worldwide.

Not wishing to be left out of the blogging phenomenon, Aixcentric had to have a go.  Here’s the recipe, a few amendments and my verdict:

Recipe from Paris Match:

1. Drizzle a little oil into an oven-dish and put in a 200g block of feta topped with some chopped red pepper and a sprinking of oil.
2. Surround with 500g cherry tomatoes, rolled in the oil.
3. Add black pepper and sea-salt and cook in the oven at 200c for 15 mins, then 225c for 10 mins.  Meanwhile cook 450g pasta.
4. Mash the feta and tomato mixture with a fork then mix in the pasta.  Add a little basil and serve.

Amendments:

I’m really not keen on tomato skins in cooked dishes so used canned peeled plum tomatoes. Added crushed garlic. Thinking it looked a little basic, I threw in a big handful of green olives and was pleased I did.  The magazine quotes people as adding spinach and asperagus, or roasted beetroot.

Verdict:

‘Wonderful’, said M Aixcentric.  Super-simple and tasty.

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRzQ-Ngt3Do