Italian

Ragu Pasta with Poached Egg

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Ragu Pasta with Poached Egg

I love Italian cooking and always love trying new recipes and different styles of cooking traditional dishes. This is an improvised Ragu Pasta recipe from my friend and mentor Joe Kwan and his lovely wife Winkie.

They cooked this delicious Ragu Pasta for our social last weekend and it was such a subtle dish that I too wanted to recreate it for our dinner tonight. Truly it was wholesome Italian cooking, peppered with lots of unmerited flavour.

It’s fairly easy to cook although the poached egg part requires a little skill. Typically to poach an egg, you have to add a little vinegar into a pot of boiling water and stir the water so that the egg retains its shape and slowly cooks. But because I needed to quickly cook and make sure that dinner was served on time, I took some short cuts. Read on to find out how it is done, the ho sim lang way.

Recipe

Ingredients

250 grams Minced Beef
125 grams Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese
1 box of Barilla Friget Penne
1 can of Anchovies
Handful of Pine Nuts
2 stalks Sweet Basil Leaves
2 stalks Flat Leaf Parsley (aka Italian parsley)
1 large Yellow Onion (I was supposed to be using a French Shallot and a Red Onion)
1 piece Bay Leaf
1 bottle of Barilla Bolognese Sauce
1 bowl of Sweet Cherry Tomatoes
1 cup of Cabnernet Sauvignon red wine
3 tbsp Olive Oil (and some for cooking the pasta)
Black Pepper
Sea Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. Pour the box of penne dried pasta into the pot. Add a little salt and olive oil. Add the kettle of boiling water and cook the pasta for 11 minutes to al dente or longer if you like.

2. While the pasta is cooking, add salt and pepper to the minced beef and give it a good mix. In a small frying pan, roast the pine nuts until they are brown. After the pasta is cooked, scoop the pasta and dry them out in a colander but reserve the water in a bowl.

3. Wash the pot and then add olive oil. After you have marinated the beef for about 10 minutes, fry the beef in the pot over low fire. While that is cooking, cut and chop the onion. Slice the cherry tomatoes and tear up the parsley leaves and basil leaves.

4. Add the prepared ingredients including the roasted pine nuts, into the pot and stir fry, turning up the heat a little. Add the can of anchovies along with the olive oil in the can into the pot. Continue to stir fry until the onions are softened and you can smell the fragrance of the beef sauce. Add a cup of red wine. You can use any red wine. Add a bay leaf. Continue to cook over a medium fire. Do this until the wine evaporates and the sauce thickens.

5. Add the bottle of bolognese into the pot and cook with the minced beef sauce, maintain medium heat over the pot.

6. In another smaller pot with boiling hot water but with the fire off, poach two eggs. You can crack an egg into cling wrap, give the package a twist and then sous vide the egg in the water bath until it is cooked. Depending on your preference, the eggs can be either firm or watery-runny.

7. Once the Ragu sauce is ready, add the cooked penne pasta into the pot and give it a good mix. Add the reserved broth of pasta water into the pot to allow the sauce to combine with the pasta easily.

8. Once pasta is well mixed with the Ragu sauce, grate the entire block of Parmigiano Reggiano (aka Parmesan) cheese into the pasta and give it another good mix.

9. Serve the pasta with additional parsley and basil leaves and gently place the poached eggs into the pasta. Serve hot.

Bon Appetit!

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Roast the pine nuts until they start to brown.

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Cook the penne 11 minutes

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Marinate the minced beef with salt and black pepper.

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Chop the yellow onion

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Slice cherry tomatoes into halves.

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Sweet Basil Leaves

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Italian parsley and a can of anchovies.

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Stir Fry the ingredients

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Preparing to poach the egg in cling wrap.

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Twist it into a small package for the water bath.

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In a hot water bath, poach the eggs to desired doneness.

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Grate the entire block of Parmigiano reggiano cheese into the pasta.

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Deliciously yummy Ragu Pasta with poached egg.

Home Made Pizza

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Home Made Pizza

I love pizzas, but for most restaurants that make this lovely piece of slightly leavened bread, do it for much profit. Expensive for run of the mill pizzas and anything premium can really break your budget.

And if you decide to make it yourself, then it suddenly becomes very affordable. The ingredients are so much cheaper and the best part about making the pizza yourself is you can make as many pizzas as you like. There is no additional cost.

I bought bread flour, instant yeast, tomato puree and some other ingredients and I was on my way to making my own pizza.

Recipe

Ingredients

3 cups of Bread Flour
7 grams of Instant Yeast
A cup of lukewarm water
Pinch of Salt
1 teaspoon of Castor Sugar
3 tbsp of Olive Oil
Tomato Sauce (pasta sauce)
A punnet of Cherry Tomatoes
A punnet of White Button Mushrooms
1 packet of Wild Rockets
Mixed Mozzarella and Cheddar Cheese

Method

1. Using a kitchen aid machine (if you don’t have one, get it!) and a hook fixture attached, mix flour, yeast, sugar and salt together. Turn on low speed. Combine the ingredients well. Add the water and continue to mix well until it is well mixed.

2. Remove the dough from the machine and knead it a little. Then place the dough into a bowl and add the oil. Cling wrap and allow the dough to rise a little. While it is being left to rise and allowing the yeast to work its magic.

3. While that is working, and rising, you can prepare the other ingredients. Slice the mushrooms, cut up the cherry tomatoes and wash the rocket leaves.

4. After you have prepared the ingredients, you can knead the dough and cut it into smaller dollups. With a rolling pin, roll out the dough into whatever shape you like. (your pizza mah)

5. Spoon the tomato sauce (pasta sauce) onto the rolled out dough. Decorate it with sliced mushrooms, cherry tomato halves. Top the pizza with mix mozzarella and cheddar cheese.

6. Pre-heat the oven to a hot 230 degrees. Then bake the pizza for 10 minutes. After baking, the pizza bread should be slightly burnt and nicely roasted. Top the pizza with wild rockets and serve immediately.

Bon Appetit!

Pasta Pommodoro

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Pasta Pommodoro

If there is one thing that I enjoy more than rice is pasta. I would rather have pasta anytime of the day and they are great for that much needed quick meal.

So I was hungry the other day, and decided that I would whip up a very classic Pasta Pommodoro aka Tomato Pasta. Italian pastas are usually like that, singular and simple. Uncomplicated would be the other word that I would use when describing this particular pasta.

The main ingredient and star of the dish is none other than tomatoes. With a little help from the usual suspects like garlic and good quality olive oil, the end result is a very nice single flavour pasta.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 large Tomato (you can have more if you like)
150 grams Pasta (you can have any kind of pasta, but I used Barilla Farfelle.)
2-3 pieces of Garlic
Olive Oil
Salt
A sprig of Thyme
A small can of Tomato Puree (Gilda brand has very tiny came of Tomato puree)

Method

1. Boil the pasta until al dente then reserve. In another pan, add 2 tbsp olive oil, add the minced garlic and stir fry until fragrant.

2. Then add the diced tomato and continue frying. Add some tomato paste or puree. Add a little water to dilute the sauce a little. Add the pasta into the pan. Combine the ingredients. Add the leaves of Thyme for flavour. Add salt to taste.

3. Once cooked serve with grated parmesan.

Bon Appetit!

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Pommodoro aka Tomatoes

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Pasta

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Thyme

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Pasta Pommodoro

Seafood Spaghetti in Tomato Sauce

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Seafood Spaghetti in Tomato Sauce

A quick and dirty recipe that I love to use whenever I am short of time to cook, is none other than spaghetti. There are so many permutation of recipes that I could think of with just so few ingredients. It is the technique that is most important when cooking pasta, not so much the choice of ingredients. Of course, if you have fresh ingredients, then that makes for an even better pasta experience.

I usually do this lovely Italian styled recipe with a little Singaporean twist to it. It is not al dente but you could make it that if you wanted to. I cook for my family, and that means my toddler needs to be able to eat it and enjoy it. So I do the Singaporean thing which is to make the pasta softer than usual, and very soupy with lots of sauce. You may not like my style of pasta. But my family loves it and that’s all that matters.

So I got home really late this evening, and it didn’t help that the taxi driver tried to be a know-it-all race car driver. He was speeding, taking sharp turns and slamming the brakes all throughout the journey back. By the time I got back, I was near exhausted and almost collapsed. It was really tough.

Plus I promised the family that I would make the most fantabulous pasta in the world. But I was really zoned out and feeling like crap. It doesn’t help that I have motion sickness and that basically worsened my dizziness. It took me longer than usual to recover this time around, but when I managed to overcome the sickness, I jumped straight into the kitchen.

I like my pasta in a certain way, so this recipe had a moderate difficulty rating as compared to my even quicker and dirtier soups that I make every morning. So if you’re ready, let’s get down to it.

 

Recipe

Ingredients

half a packet of Barilla brand Spaghetti (cooks in about 8 minutes al dente, but I usually cook them in about 11 minutes)

8 large Prawns (these are slightly greenish in colour)

8 large Scallops (defrosted)

a can of Narcissus Button Mushrooms (small can will do)

a can of Hunt’s Whole Tomato Sauce

a bottle of Leggos’ Tomato Paste (you can use any brand of sauce or paste, it doesn’t really matter)

Salted Butter

Olive Oil

Sea Salt

Black Pepper

 

Method

1. Firstly boil the pasta in a pot of water with a dash of olive oil and a pinch of sea salt. Boil for about 11 minutes (or longer if you are cooking for kids). After cooking, drain and add some olive oil to prevent it from becoming dry and clumpy. You may wish to douse it in ice cold water to stop the cooking so that the noodles are still firm.

2. Then add butter into the frying pan, with a little olive oil and sauté the button mushrooms. Add a little black pepper and sea salt. Stir fry until the mushrooms sear and shrink down in size. Then add the prawns to cook together with the mushrooms. Keep the heat moderate, and when the prawns start to curl up into the shape of a letter “C”, that is the sign that the prawns are “cooked”. If you don’t watch over this process carefully, what will happen is the prawns will continue curling and will eventually form an “O” shape. That basically means the prawns are now “Overcooked”. Simple tip.

3. Reserve the prawns and mushrooms into their individual plates. Now to cook the scallops. Add some butter, and olive oil to a new pan (if need be, wash the pan that you’re using) and turn the heat to a moderate level. Stir fry the scallops and also allow them to sear on both sides. You want to add a little salt so that they will taste a little better. Now with the scallops, it can be a little tricky, if you fry too long, it dries up too quickly. If you don’t cook it well enough, it may not taste as fantastic. This one requires some skill, and there are not many visible cues like “C” or “O” to help you along. So I will say – use the force.

4. After the scallops are done, place them in their plates and you can now add the pasta into the pan. By now they would be a little dry, and so you would need some water. You may add whatever water that you reserve before pouring out the pot (that you cooked the pasta in). Now the part that I like the most, preparing the tomato sauce.

5.  I use a combination of tomato paste and tomato sauce (I don’t mean Maggi Tomato Sauce, but the real tomato sauce with real tomatoes in the can). Pour the sauce into the pasta, and add two tablespoons of tomato paste and stir. Add a little salt and black pepper and continue to cook. Break up the whole tomatoes and combine the paste into the sauce. Mix well.

6. Once it is ready, using a pair of food tongs, serve the pasta onto the plates with the rest of the ingredients. Typically I wouldn’t cook it this way, but it is my quick and dirty recipe. I usually would use a lot of garlic in my cooking, but I used up all my garlic making the Bak Kut Teh yesterday. Sprinkle a little thyme or basil leaves if you have them. Delicious.

Bon Appetit!

Green Mussel Spaghetti

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Green Mussel Spaghetti

My chef friend Alvin taught me this dish a long time ago when we were still in the business, and I liked it so much that it has now become one of my favourite dishes to prepare if I have a little more time on my hands. Alvin was always quick to prepare everything, and it was a little challenging to glean off the master, but after a while, I managed to work out the recipe and managed to make it work in my home kitchen.

To make this dish, you got to have the freshest green mussels. Finding them fresh is not difficult as we have them harvested locally in our waters. The only problem was that the ones caught locally were too small for this dish. I usually get them at $3 a kilogram for my steam mussels recipe, but I was looking for the bigger ones. Cold Storage sells these in sealed packets, imported from some exotic location, and they are expensive.

Good thing they sold them in smaller packets, a little cheaper, and the portions was just about right for two persons. You just need to wash and de-beard the clams and they are ready to be used. It does seems like a lot of work at first for something that is so simple in terms of number of ingredients, but personally I enjoy the process of creating this dish, so I don’t really mind.

Then there is the herb pesto sauce which is, in and of itself, another recipe. I am not kidding. I literally wrote a recipe for that. Check it out here. Recipe: Herb Pesto Sauce.

Okay now that you already have the basics of what this dish would require, let’s try it.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 packet of Green Mussels (about 750 grams)
200 grams Spaghetti
2 tbsp of Herb Pesto Sauce
White Button Mushrooms (quartered)
3-4 cloves of Garlic (minced)
Olive Oil
Chardonnay
Salted Butter
Sea Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water and then add it into a pot for cooking the spaghetti. This helps shorten the cooking process. The pasta that I usually use, cooks in 8 minutes. If you want them a little softer, you can cook them a little longer, like another 3 minutes. Be careful not too cook too long. Remember to pour a little olive oil into the pot. Once ready, scoop the pasta out onto dinner plates.
2. Saute the mushrooms in salted butter in a small pan until they are fragrant. Remove the mushrooms and then add the minced garlic to fry. Do this until you can smell the garlic. Then add the herb pesto sauce and give it a good stir. Then add the mussels and a splash of chardonnay. Seafood usually cooks very quickly, so you want to monitor your seafood carefully.
3. Add a little sea salt for taste, then add the mushrooms back into the pot and continue cooking. Once the ingredients are are sufficiently cooked, pour them over the cooked pasta and serve immediately.

Bon Appetit!

 

Herb Pesto Sauce

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Herb Pesto Sauce

Another quick and simple to make herb pesto sauce. Ingredients are easily available and not too expensive. Try it.

Recipe

Ingredients

A bunch of Italian Parsley
A bunch of Basil leaves
7-8 cloves of Garlic
Olive Oil

Method

1. With a good processor, minced all the ingredients together. Add enough olive oil and then mix well. Store in a bottle with lid and throw it into the fridge for use later. Easy.

Bon Appetit!

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Mushroom and Ham Penne (Olive Oil)

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Mushroom and Ham Penne (Olive Oil)

Yesterday my wife and me took leave to go shopping and also have a little couple time together. We decided to have breakfast at our favourite sandwich shop called the sandwich shop and I pondered over the nondescript naming of the cafe. I guess there is no harm in calling a spade a spade.

But we were greeted with a smorgasbord of sandwiches and every permutation that we could imagine that could be placed on tiny shelves. There was roast beef, cold cuts and brie, egg mayo, wild rockets and crayfish.

Wifey wanted pasta and somehow the spirals with sundried tomatoes looked appealing as well. And so we decided on that and ate our breakfast. The pasta was cold and probably sat in the fridge chiller for a tad too long.

It was then that I vowed to myself that I would cooked a better pasta breakfast then that which we purhased at the shop. Here’s the recipe. Enjoy.

Recipe

Ingredients

1. 150 grams of Barilla Penne
2. 4-5 White Button Mushrooms
3. 2 slices of Breakfast Ham
4. 20 grams of Salted Butter
5. Pinch of Sea Salt
6. Sprinkle of Mixed Italian Herbs

Method

1. Cook the Penne in a small pot of boiling water for about 11 minutes to al dente. If you wanna make it softer, continue cooking for another 2 minutes. Don’t forget to add some sea salt.

2. In another pot, melt the butter over low heat, be careful not to burn it, and then add the sliced mushrooms to cook. Turn up the heat to medium. Flambé the mushrooms if you can. If you can’t, don’t worry, I understand.

3. Remove and reserve the mushrooms and add the shredded ham to cook in the juice of the mushrooms. Add a sprinkle of mixed Italian herbs. Cook till you can smell ham.

4. After that’s done, pour the ham and mushrooms into the penne pasta in the other pot and give it a good mix. It should look like the photo above.

Bon Appetit!

Spaghetti Carbonara

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Spaghetti Carbonara

One of my all time favourite pasta to eat as well as to prepare, the spaghetti cabonara, a cream based pasta that will tantalise your tastebuds and bring you all the way to Italy. Truly, there is no pasta that is so distinctively yummy as this one.

I made my pasta a little more creamy just so you guys can see the texture of the pasta. I am using spaghetti here instead of linguine because I still have spaghetti at home. But that said, linguine makes a better pasta as it can soak up the cream based sauce really well.

I know some recipes call for eggs and parmesan cheese, but my version doesn’t require all these, it is simple, and easy to do. Anyone can do it. So are you ready?

Recipe for 1

Ingredients

125 grams of Barilla Spaghetti
50 grams of Streaky Bacon
4-5 pcs of White Button Mushrooms
4 cloves of Garlic
100 ml of Cooking Cream
15 grams of Salted Butter
100 ml of full cream Milk
1 tsp Black Pepper
1 tsp Mixed Italian Herbs
Pinch of Sea Salt

Method

1. Firstly we cook the pasta in the pot. I use Barilla Spaghetti which cooks in 5 minutes to an al dente. Remember to add a little sea salt and olive oil. If you prefer it a little softer, add a 1 or 2 to the cooking time.

2. In another pot, stir fry the quartered button mushrooms in salted butter. I find salted butter much better to work with as opposed to unsalted butter when it comes to cooking, but if you’re baking, then perhaps unsalted butter might work better for you. Once the fragrance of the mushrooms can be inhaled (lack of a better word!) you should remove the mushrooms and set them aside. Then in the juice of the mushrooms, cook the minced garlic, cooked until fragrant. Then add the chopped streaky bacon. Fry this until the fragrance of the bacon can be breathed (still trying to find a better word!). I am not using olive oil in this recipe because butter goes better with cream in this carbonara recipe. Furthermore the oil in the streaky bacon is more delicious.

3. The pasta should be about al dente by now. You can remove the pasta or continue to cook it longer until it is softer. In the meantime, you add the cooking cream into the ingredients and cook, add the milk to dilute the carbonara sauce a little. If you like the sauce to be a little thicker, you can just use the cooking cream and leave out the milk altogether. Add herbs flakes and black pepper. A little salt to taste. Cook till the sauce is hot. After that drizzle it over the pasta and give it a good mix. Serve with grated parmesan cheese if you like, but it is already quite rich if you ask me.

Bon Appetit!

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Spaghetti Bolognese

 

Ho Sim Lang

Spaghetti Bolognese

I learnt how to make Pasta when I went overseas to study in Australia. And one of the few things that I learnt as a student was learning how to cook Pasta. I used to live in student housing just off campus in a very small property. There were quite a few Singaporeans residing there as well, so it wasn’t so tough for me especially dealing with homesickness and loneliness.  Ah, those bittersweet days.

One of the first few foreign friends that I made in the first couple of months was this Tongan bloke by the name of Ma’afu. He was studying to become Pastor and was attending seminary school elsewhere. He was part-timing as a tutor for the students that lived in that property, kind of like a property manager. We became friends, and on one occasion, he taught me how to make Pasta.

For him, pasta was actually Spaghetti Bolognese. Of course I didn’t know any better, so I just follow lor (Singaporeans were very good at doing that.) So as soon as I learnt how to actually do it, I never forgot it. That’s the one thing that I never really understood about myself. I just needed to see a recipe once and it would retain in my memory. It’s been more than 20 years, but I can still remember how it was supposed to be done.

From that time until now, I have also learnt a whole lot more about food handling and how to extenuate the natural flavours of the ingredients that I was using, and that helped too. The key I believe is to use fresh minced beef, and nothing comes as fresh as the minced beef from Cold Storage. I like shopping at Cold Storage, the ingredients there are somehow fresher. The only bad thing about them is that they are a lot more expensive.

So wifey said that she would like to eat Pasta, and for me the decision to make it is a no-brainer – it has to be Spaghetti Bolognese.

Here’s how it is done.

Recipe

Ingredients

Half a box of Barilla Spaghetti – cooks in 5 minutes

150 grams Minced Beef

A punnet of White Button Mushrooms

4 pieces of Garlic

A bottle of Prego Pasta Sauce (Traditional)

Olive Oil

Butter (salted)

Sea Salt

White Pepper

bunch of Basil Leaves

Sharp Cheddar & Mozzarella Cheese mix

 

Method

1. Boil a pot of water for the cooking of the spaghetti sticks. They should be done in 5 minutes if you want them to be Al Dente. Remember to add some oil and sea salt into the pot. This helps the pasta to not stick together and it also flavours the pasta. If you don’t really like it Al Dente, you can opt to cook it a minute or two longer. Quart the mushrooms, and then fry them in about 30 grams of butter in a small pot. Fry until you can smell the mushrooms. Then off the fire and reserve the mushrooms one side.

2. Place the minced beef in a bowl and add a pinch of salt and white pepper. Mix the salt and the pepper into the minced beef and let it marinate the meat for about 5-10 minutes. Mince the garlic and then fry them in a wok with about 2-3 tbsp of oil. Fry until the fragrance of the garlic comes out. Then add the marinated minced beef in the wok to fry. Don’t fry too long. Just until it turns from reddish to light brown. Then add the buttered mushrooms into the wok and continue to fry under medium heat.

3. Then add the pasta sauce into the wok and cook until the sauce starts to bubble slightly. Then add the basil leaves and continue to cook over low heat. The pasta should be either Al Dente or softened by this time (it’s all about timing it properly). With a food tong, serve the pasta onto the plate, there should be about enough for two servings and a little more. Measure them out if you like, about 170 grams (ideal) or equally. Then ladle the sauce over the pasta and top it with sharp cheddar and mozzarella cheese mix. Easy.

Bon Appetit!!