Meat Free Monday #13 - Marmite XO farfalle poached in miso with shitake and kale - umami fest

The thing I like about Twitter is you get the news just so much faster than any other medium - at least a day or two faster than the newspaper, and even faster than the radio bulletins.
Before Marmite XO had even gone on sale it was being tweeted by one particular marmite lover as it was being served at the first Underground Midnight Feast - note: pays to be one of the marmarati. The Marmarati? Well they also seem to have converted Donal to the 'dark' side (i.e. the marmite side). So it was time to try it out. I had read the underground midnight feast post while I was letting some pasta dough rest in the fridge. I went back to rolling out the dough thinking of marmite. Marmite. Pasta. Marmite pasta? Now there was an idea. But google marmite pasta and all you come up with is pasta with marmite sauce (a student classic by the sound of it) but what about mixing it in the pasta dough - after all you can do it with everything else - beetroot, nettles, blue curacao, squid ink, spinach, saffron, chocolate to name a few (though not at the same time).

Well last Monday I picked up a jar of XO and had a go.

200g OO flour
2 eggs
1 heaped tsp Marmite XO (I saw you licking that spoon!)

It comes out the colour of gjetost and you get marmite flavour hands as you knead the pasta dough - yum!

Marmite as we all know is rich in umami so what about a umami fest - a real pick-me-up? That is what I ended up with - miso, shitake mushrooms and kale also being rich in umami.

I had been wanting to try farfalle for a while. Unfortunately no sign of the fluted pasta wheel (so many venues, so many kitchens - it gets confusing), so after rolling out the pasta to thin lasagne-like strips I just cut them into rectangles and pinched them in the middle. If you cook them in the miso they soak a bit of the flavour too hopefully, and any marmite flavour they release is kept - best of both worlds. Oh and and its saves time and washing up - not that these things matter ;)

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