Reading Food

Cheezy butterflies colored in red and green
aka Farfalle on a sauce of cream, ham and cucumber

Iingredients:

250 - 300g Farfalle
150 - 200g Appenzeller cheese (3 - 6 months old)
1 mid-sized onion
1 - 2 cloves of garlic
100 - 150g cooked ham aka Proscuotto Cotto
200 ml single cream
half a cucumber, preverably a vegetable one (hard to find these days, I know)
salt
grounded pepper
basil (either 3-4 leaves or dried one)
optionally: dill, (grounded) nutmeg and sugar

Preparation:
Cook the Farfalle in a wide pot (adding only some pinches of salt) till they're al dente (usually after 6-8 minutes, depending on the sort of noodles you're using; also see description on wrapping).

Next on, we do the sauce, which will need much more work ;)
First you peel and cut the onion into small dices. Afterwards, you try to do the same to the clove(s) of garlic. Depending on your (lack of) taste you use only one clove instead of two.

Now heat up a pan with some oil in it and add both the cutted onion and garlic. Roast them gently, while you wash and quarter the half cucumber. Next on, cut the ham into small pieces (dicing it) and put it into the pan, together with the quartered pieces of cucumber. Add about 2-3 pinches of salt and, if you like, 1-2 pinches of sugar.

Now mix it up and let it roast a bit, maybe 5 to 10 minutes or so (avoid them cucumbers getting brown). During this, you prepare the cream (normally you would just cut open the cream bag / unscrew its bootle / open its containment) and the cheese.

The cheese has to be cut into small dices. Some receipts also tell you to add some flour - I didnt use that; you probably could use some sauce thickener, too.

Next, you pour the cream into the pan, stir it up a little, wait, till it is somewhat heated up and finally add the cheese.
For this, you dont want the cheese get burned on the bottom of the pan, thus you turn down the heat somewhat (on my stove, 3 is the maximum, 0,5 the minimum, 0 of course off; so I turned it down to 1) to let it simmer a bit for itself. Whilest letting it simmer, you stir the content of the pan all the way. At last, cut the basil into small pieces, add it to the mix, as also about 1-2 pinches of grounded pepper.

If you like, you could also add pinches of nutmeg and dill. I only added dill, thou.

Now you're nearly done. Let the sauce in the pan simmer a bit, add some olive oil to the strained Farfalle, and now off with it, out with the dishes and the silverware and onto it ;)