Creamy tomato and salami fettucine & evaporated skim milk question

[Lellyj]

Hi all
The other night I just couldn't decide what to cook inspite of spending hours wading through the forum!  So I sent out an SOS for easy suggestions and a number of kind and more experienced thermomix enthusiasts replied with suggestions, which will keep me busy for a while!  Thank you!  One of the most recommended recipes was this pasta dish from the EDC which I cooked the other night.  I am probably the only person in the world to stuff it up as I thought I would use evaporated skim milk instead of the cream and it curdled pretty much as soon as I put it in.  Now I remember using evap sk milk in other recipes and you had to add some cornflour to the milk or end the evaporated skim milk at the end of cooking to avoid the curdling.  I was wondering what others do or if indeed anyone else had had this problem.

I chucked that batch out to the chooks and made it again using cream, and it was delicious, can imagine that you could and think it would be lovely with the salamii left out as a vegetarian option, too, but I wouldn't make it often with all the cream, so would like to hear if anyone has a solution to the curdling problem.

Thank you!

[Zan]

No idea on the curdling problem, but I make it often without the salami and with far less cream - it's the kids regular pasta sauce.

[Merlin]

I have used less cream and substituted creme fraiche or even the philadelphia extra light cooking cream you can now get in supermarkets. Sometimes I have even used a combination of sour cream and normal cream depending on  what's in the fridge. I have to say I haven't tried  evaporated milk, but I reckon it would work.  if I was using it, I'd put in cornflour to thicken the sauce as this dish seems to work best when the sauce is clinging to the pasta. I agree that the quantity of cream used in the recipe seems too rich for my family, but you need some creaminess for the recipe to work, so that's why I usually have to add in some sort of cream.

[brazen20au]

i'm sure i've done it with evap milk and no curdling. though i use rice or soy milk now

[Lellyj]

Thanks for your replies . . . some good suggestions, I haven't tried almond milk before, also the low fat cream cheese sounds like a good option, too.  Thanks!

[Sonan]

HIya
I actually made that dish tonite without seeing this on the forum....it did go a bit curdley but I perservered and the resultant dish didn't look too bad....and it tasted okay...!! LOL but I thought cream and yoghurt would curdle too, so maybe that is what it is meant to look like?
I was going to give it a go replacing the cream with stock and see what that looks like ! We used trimmed bacon instead as salami is too fatty and it was nice....it would also be good with prawns I think thrown in at the end and a dash of white wine?

[faffa_70]

This is a great dish too if you replace the salami with chicken. 

[Tam]

Have made this one a few times now - second time I used ham (frozen from the Xmas leg of ham) and light evaporated milk mixed with a  couple of teas of cornflour - perfect, no need for cream really..........so I'm thinking that perhaps it needs the cornflour.