Day 68: Building a Better Spaghetti
Spaghetti, or as it’s known in the pre-K ‘hood, pasghetti, is a seemingly simple dish of meat, sauce, and noodle. It is a staple across kitchens not in only homes filled with small children, but also with bachelors in the hope of luring unsuspecting women into their hovel in the hopes of making small children.
Spaghetti is a rare dish in that it’ ( Read more... )
I have only made spaghetti a handful of times. Oil, I agree, is a mistake, unless you have leftovers in which case a little bit is a good call so the noodles don't dry out and merge together into the unstoppable, starchy BORG! Combining the sauce and the noodles works just as good, but I tend to put a teaspoon of oil in the motherfucker just in case.
Oddly enough I've always been a bigger fan of the meat sauce. Don't get me wrong, I love the shit out of meatballs and really anything made of meat, but I prefer my meatballs on their own, unaccompanied by noodles.
At one point a couple months ago I found myself making my favorite treat, dumplings, when a startling thing occurred to me: Half of the wrappers got all FUBAR in the fridge. So I had all this pork filled with vegetables, sauces and spices and nowhere for it to go, so I made spaghetti. I'll be damned if it wasn't one of the best tasting sauces I've ever had, though, albeit unintentionally, it fell into the category of "fusion," so I should probably be kicked in the balls right there. Here is what I used for the ground pork:
-cabbage
-garlic (spice rack)
-minced onions (spice rack)
-chives (spice rack)
-orange sauce
-that Asian spicy chili sauce shit (just a touch for kick)
-hoisin sauce
- and I think a touch of dumpling sauce for an ever so slight vinegar tang
Used a pre-made sauce: Prego Basil and Spice I think.
Browned the meat and then put it in the sauce as per usual, probably should not have had the spices on them at that point but nothing I could do then. I think the sauces staved off some of the burning of the spices. When the pasta was about ready and the sauce hot enough to serve I drizzled fresh mozerella in the sauce. It made the sauce a little bit thicker and it was a nice surprise to find it sticking to the spaghetti. The orange sauce and chili I think were perfect for the meat sauce, and the dumpling sauce and hoisin sauce definitely added some more complexity in terms of tastes.
If you ever find yourself in a situation with too much dumpling filling and not enough wrappers, give it a try. Hell, it's Chinese and Italian food together, it's like the story of Matt's fucking life.
Buz
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