With Halloween just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to make spooky treats and dishes! This year, I teamed up with Granville Island Brewery to create a special dish for the occasion. Most Halloween themed recipes I’ve seen tend to be on the sweet side, but I wanted to create a hearty dish that would compliment the dark but smooth , mocha flavoured porter.

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I’ve always wanted to use squid ink pasta in my cooking, but it’s surprisingly hard to find in Vancouver and I wanted the ingredients to be complimentary as well.

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It made so much sense to use seafood as protein in this dish, I found a nice mix bag of seafood at my local grocery store and I chopped it up small. I didn’t want to over power or take away from the look of the pasta so I went with a “clear” sauce – basically butter, chili pepper flakes, garlic and lemon. It was the perfect mix with the seafood.

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Granville Island Brewery’s Mocha Porter is made with JJ Bean coffee and what I love about this porter is that it’s easy to drink. Often, I find porters to be too bitter for me to enjoy but maybe because of the cocoa and coffee flavour, it makes it so enjoyable. If porters aren’t your thing, the pasta also pairs very well with my favourite Granville Island beer, Lions Winter Ale!

Seafood Squid Ink Pasta
Makes: 4-5 servings

Ingredients:
Squid ink pasta (I found mine at Save On Foods on Cambie)
1 small bag of mixed seafood (you can substitute with fresh seafood like salmon, cod, squid, etc), chopped into small pieces
4-5 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp chili pepper flakes
1/2 cup butter
Olive oil

Instructions:
1. Boil the pasta to instructions (mine were 5 minutes)
2. In a pan, heat some olive oil and add seafood. Cook until done.
3. Add garlic, chili and butter and stir.
4. Mix in pasta and mix well.
5. Squeeze lemon juice and mix well.
6. Enjoy right away!

 

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