It's about time I made the Baked Feta Pasta.
My question to my past self is: why didn’t I make this sooner?! I don’t usually do food trends, except this one on TikTok (from 2021) included everything I love: feta, tomatoes, and pasta. I made my own tweaks on it, and tried a new method for cooking pasta.
In honor of 1 year for Sweetly Savory's YT channel, which was a few weeks ago, I decided to do a food trend to celebrate! I settled on making the "Baked Feta Pasta" TikTok trend. I know that it was from last year, and it was really big – and then it kinda like fizzled off, but I'm here to bring it back! (or try to)
This was my version of the #TikTokBakedFetaPasta!
Method:
Start off by thinly slicing the onion, leaving it in long lanky pieces. I opted for onion instead of shallot in this recipe because of cost. What you get for a large shallot versus an onion is probably twice the price, and while we splurge with the feta, the onion swap isn’t too much of a deal breaker for me.
As for the block of feta I found that it was dang expensive. I usually get a pre-portioned container that’s only a few bucks, and I’ll most likely get it that way if I choose to make this recipe again.
I chose a lovely 8 inch by 8 inch glass baking dish for aesthetics, but you’ll see it makes it a little tough for mixing and bake times.
Finish adding all the seasonings, and it’s pretty enough to eat – not before baking in a pre-heated 400 degrees Fahrenheit, or 204 degrees Celsius, oven.
Bake time is going to vary from this video to what you cook, since everything was crammed in my baking dish….
Time for PASTA!
I learned of a new method to prepare pasta from Ethan Chlebowski, who’s incredibly in-depth video I highly recommend and I’ll link it below. The gist is to shorten cook time for the same al-dente result.
I won’t get into the specifics of it, as my results didn’t come out as expected. Here are a few take-aways from this first-time trial:
1. Don’t worry about weighing the pasta and water for exact ratios
I understand that cooking and baking do heavily rely on exacts and have experienced these results. But as a home-cook who doesn’t have the luxury of time (anymore), I tend to stick to tried and “true” methods. My prediction would be if you have enough water to cover the pasta, rather than weighing it out, you might get the same results. I say this because I follow the steps of using a shallow pan and checking the temperature for cook times. Which brings me to point number two:
2. Alternate pastas, gluten free or chickpea, cook differently
I cook chickpea pasta over regular pasta for the overall health benefits. Everything is fine in moderation, but I found for my diet, the best change I could make to still enjoy pasta was to swap in chickpeas. As you can see, the water gets far starchier than if it were prepared normally with the big pot of boiling water for 7 to 8 minutes. And for this application, I would at least try it the first time (or second time now) with regular pasta. With that being said:
3. Try this method a few times before disregarding it
Science wasn’t figured out in one day. Food science is the same way in my opinion. I’m learning new methods, like this one, all the time. I might tweak it by using the cast iron skillet, or just running the water over the pasta to cover instead of taking out the food scale. But I hope this part illustrates a new approach for you to try out cooking pasta.
Since the goal of the pasta was to cook it in about half the time, it’s going to be a while before the feta and tomatoes to be done. Originally this recipe was to bake for 40 to 45 minutes. Although this is a jam-packed dish, and I took it to check and stir, since it didn’t look like much was happening. Back in the oven it went for another 15 minutes.
I'm still asking myself: why didn’t I make this sooner?! Because this is *so* delicious! I don’t know why I waited. I am so mad at myself! But I’m happy now because I am definitely going to be making this again. I am going to be using a bit smaller block of cheese (or the crumbled kind), cause I realized that I had like 10 ounces or 14 when I only needed 8.
This pasta was different than the pasta that was used in the other video, and I had only tried out that method for the very first time. I’m definitely going to be testing this method a lot more.
I’m definitely going to be making this (again). *fancy dinner night*.
Make sure to subscribe to Sweetly Savory! Thank you and I will see you for the next food trend – a year too late with Sweetly Savory.