Posts Tagged ‘fun’

For whatever reason, I felt craving for aglio olio this morning. Naturally, spaghetti aglio olio is my quick win solution for my after work hunger. It’s quick, can be made in more a dozen variation, cheap and pretty brainless. The procedure is easy, and its only by series of unfortunate events you can make it wrong.

So today, I found that my craving for this particular meal, despite the nature of holiday what would allow me to do more elaborate recipe, was a bit odd.

And so after a really quick cold shower (habits derived from years of “mandi pake gayung”) I drove to Oakwood’s Ranch Market to get the supplies. Fortunately, I’ve got pretty much everything stocked in my kitchen, so my brief shop this morning only resulted in baguette, diced garlic , and 200 grams of sliced chicken breast. Other then that these are my ensemble.

The Ingredient
200 g of sliced chicken breast
2 spoons of diced garlic
Extra Virgin Olive oil
Fish Sauce
Salt and Pepper

The Pasta

• Cook the pasta al dente (boil the water, put the pasta in, don’t break just twist and release, wait as recommended by the pack). There is no need to put salt or oil into the boiling water.
• When it cooked, dry the water it
• Heat up a frying pan, when its hot, set the fire to mid, pour a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil.
• Throw in a full spoon of diced garlic.
• Soon after you can smell the unique sweet smell of garlic in the olive, and the color turned yellowish quickly
• Throw all the pasta in, give, a good toss
• Heat up the fire, and give another rounds of toss. The idea is to make sure that all parts of the spaghetti get in touch with the garlic and oil as quick as possible
• Throw 3 pinches of salt, give another round of toss
• By now, your pasta should be looked all oily. Turn the heat off, garnish with fresh parsley (or dried one)

Cooked spaghetti, see how the oil glitters under the light ?

The Topping
To be completely frank with you, the topping can be anything of your choice. For this particular I used slided boneless chicken breast, because its cheap and easy to cook

• Start by pan fried the chicken sliced in low heat, until it gets the mid brown cooked on each sides
• If the pan get to water because of the oil from the chicken, throw the oil out, until it reasonably dry, and add slight amount of cooking oil/
• Add one full spoon of garlic, followed by several squirts of fish sauce
• Stir fried very quickly, ensure that you don’t get the garlic burned or fried

Cooked Chicken, notice the brown-ish tone ?

Garnish
- Readied the cooked pasta on the plate
- Put on the chicken as topping
- Sprinkle some fresh (or dried parsley)
- Add some chili flakes (my favorite is shrimp flavored)

Bon Appetit  !!!

Spaghetti Aglio Olio original take

Spaghetti Aglio Olio as garnished by Fery with added pickled garlic !

As planned, my Sunday goes uneventful. Well other than completing Royal Pains season one featuring, the irresistibly hot, superbly gorgeous, brunette of all time, Jill Flint. I spent my time pretty much drowsing on the bed, and treat me self with a series of high fat, high cholesterol, low fiber diets and snacks, especially, the mouthwatering, home cooked hearty breakfast of three eggs over easy, three beef sausages, a slop of baked beans in tomatoes, and cuts of baguettes. Nothing fancy, no chili sauces, just salt, pepper, and butter.

My own english breakfast, eggs over easy, sausages, baked beans and freshly baked breads. I wish I could have beef bacon too...Yummmm

Hearty breakfast for a lazy Sunday indeed. See you on Monday folks.

I woke up feeling rather gloomy this morning, despite the fact that today is Saturday and no Saturday should be faced ill hearted. But couldn’t help it though cause this morning I need to face a dreaded exam that every bankers in this country should faced.

Thankfully, it went pretty well, if not better than I expected. So after I got back, take an afternoon nap for three straight hours, I felt that it just fit if I rewarded my self with a newly cleaned apartment (of which my hands plays critical role), a cold evening shower and good treat of home made Spaghetti Bolognese.

I have a little story about Spaghetti Bolognese.  When I first studied in Australia, I home stayed at the residence of the Plummer Family. The patron of the house, Jenny Plummer who was no other than my home stay mom though I prefer to see her as a big sister, used to cook a spaghetti bolognese for the dinner, sometimes its for days in a row. Now understandably, as a single mom with one little daughter and a little dog at that time, her hands were pretty full, so the spaghetti bolognese became her main menu. Now Jenny might be good at other things, she was a great mom, a great sister to me, but cooking, wasn’t her specialty, and so her bolognese was barely passed as an edible. Yet, despite all these, the time I spent living under her care, is one of the most memorable part of my life, one that is very fond to me. And those barely edible bolognese ? Well I kind of miss it.

Years after that, one of my great personal challenge is to be able to make a good spaghetti bolognese. And after several trial and error (some are in-edibles), here are my take on the recipe.

Now dear readers, when you read my ingredients, I know that there will be some of you who loathe my choice of an instant spices/ingredients. Its not fresh, yes, inorganic, yes, but its quick and simple. And for many people like me who cooks occasionally, and spent no more then 3-4 hours  a week to do that, its good enough. On the other note, for girls who read this, I know that Spaghetti Bolognese is no brainer, but trust me there are many, many, many good people out there, who can barely sautéed garlic and onions, so please bear with me. Now the heat is on.

The Ingredients
• Half cut of onion, finely diced
• 4 pieces of garlic ( or 1 full table spoon of ready cut garlic)
• A jar of tomato paste (approx. 500gr)
• A dry spaghetti
• A pinch of Italian herbs (rosemary, oregano), parsley
• Salt and Sugar
• 200 grams of minced beef
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Some French butter

Spaghetti Bolognese Ingredients

Cooking the Sauce
• Heat up your cooking pan, when its ready pour a generous amount of the olive oil
• Lower the heat, throw  in the diced onions and garlic, sauté for 10-15 secs until the you smell the sweet scent of the garlic and onions. You will notice that both are turned yellowish, but not fried. This is a sign for you to throw in the minced beef

Sauteed Onion and Garlic

• Throw in the minced beef, give a good stir, mixing the meat with onion, garlic and oil. Try to stir thoroughly, so that every parts of it get the taste of the oil and garlic. After 5 minute-ish you can smell the cooked aroma of the meat, and the color will turned brownish.
• Put in a chunk of French butter, a finger size would suffice, and while it melts, direct your effort to open the tomato paste jar
• When its open, empty the content into the pan, don’t waste a bit, if there is some condiment left, wash it thorough with some water, give a good shake, and pour it in the pan. It will make the mix a little bit soupy, but after a while it will thicken again.
• Stir the mix, make sure that every parts of the beef is now soaked in the paste/soup
• Throw in a pinch of the Italian herbs, each of them. Now when I write a pinch, it means just a finger tip, not too much, cause you just want a hint of its flavor and aroma, and not overwhelmed the sauce.
• Put 2 tea spoon of sugar (this is important !!!). Stir thoroughly
• Let it simmer, with occasional stir for several minutes and its ready.

Finished Bolognese Sauce

The Pasta
• Heat up some water to boiled, give two pinch of salts
• When it boiled, put your pasta in (don’t break the pasta ! Just squeeze and release)

Cooking the pasta, squeeze and release !!!!

• Cook it al dente. Now I know it is easy to say cook it al dente, but the truth is , for un experienced hands, its difficult to determine. In which my trick can get handy. Look at the pasta packing there will some notes saying something like “cook in 13 minutes”, now get your timer, and just set it accordingly.
• When your timer rings, dried the pasta thoroughly, no need to rinse.

Served
• Very simple, get out a plate, put some pasta on it (the cooked one)
• Pour in a generous amount of the sauce on top if it
• You can garnish it with some parmesan cheese, and bread (especially useful to wipe out the sauce !!!)
• And prepare some salad as a side dish
• Drinks suggestion ? Red wine, Ice Tea or Sparkling Grape Juice.

Bon appetit !!!!

Simple salad for side dish

Your spaghetti bolognese is ready, bon appetit !!!

Just want to let you now, I just added link list of blogs on the right side of these page (akhlis, devishanty, glistersandblisters, hning asia, omglolwtf). These blogs are authored by my newly found friends on the blogger community. They were young, creative and very productive, and each of them offers a unique and interesting perspective.

Naturally, their pieces are very colorful and much enjoyable to read, which is why I visit their pages almost daily.

Now I would love to entice you by summarizing their idea in short sentence, but I feel that whatever comments that I write about them, will never do them justice. And to this affect, I encourage you to visit them, and see what they offer.

For other blogger friends who want to exchange link, I would be very happy to do so, just let me know

Cheers !!!