Pasta....
I recollect my first pasta making & eating too, thereafter. It was some evening during summer of 1998, when I had nothing to do. In the morning, I already saw how to make pasta in one of the shows aired by the then “Discovery Channel” & the program was intimate escapes—a show I tried not to miss. The host, a lady was travelling across Italy & in one of the shows, there was a sneak-a-pick showing how to make a pasta.
Voila…I had everything in the kitchen—flour, eggs, salt, oil, garlic & the notorious tomato ketchup. So I started with an assumption of 100 g of flour & 1 egg. I was not too happy with the result since the pasta was tough. I gave up…
Once I joined the hospitality institute & in the same time, the pasta craze came up with the introduction of “pasta treat” by Sunfeast—a cheap imitation just like Maggi, but I savored it well…until, La Cucina Italiano [i.e. the Italian cuisine] came up. It was a craze for me, when I couldn’t think of any other kitchen but Italian. The language, the eating habits and almost everything was backed by passion for Italian food. Pasta, desserts, mains, appetizers [antipasti in their lingo]—I am not a bigtime fan of pizza by the way, unless, it is thin crust & topped with loads of pork cold cuts!!
Perhaps the most challenging work was convincing a friend who disliked mushrooms, that it is a good combination of mushrooms & fusilli. Yes, he liked it...to the extent that he also left me a thank you note & a note of praise in Orkut [a social networking site by Google].
“This pasta is too dry…add some sauce,” a friend told me long back, when I was cooking pasta for a guest. Come on dear…let the guest taste the pasta. He is not spending some 70 AED for goddamn pasta loaded with sauces & sauces [quite natural when cooking for an Indian palate]. The sauces [which can be from simple butter & sage sauce to the elaborate ragout of Bologna] actually, are meant to complement the pasta, should not be overpowering itself. “No. put some more stock,” came a calling from another colleague. I was telling myself, “Ok…but when I become the boss; I will cook the real way.”
What is my favorite pasta, if I am asked? Well. It’s hard to say. I like fettuccine [more if it is fresh/homemade], fusilli, penne, spaghetti [but never with Bolognese!!!]. I am a fan of Lasagna also [About which I will write separately].Sauces? I am a fan of the meat ragu [I wrote about it before, In search of the perfect Bolognese—please go through the archives]…Alfredo sauce, with some wild mushroom popped in, Carbonara sauce..but my least favorite is “Tomato Basil Sauce”.
I recollect my first pasta making & eating too, thereafter. It was some evening during summer of 1998, when I had nothing to do. In the morning, I already saw how to make pasta in one of the shows aired by the then “Discovery Channel” & the program was intimate escapes—a show I tried not to miss. The host, a lady was travelling across Italy & in one of the shows, there was a sneak-a-pick showing how to make a pasta.
Voila…I had everything in the kitchen—flour, eggs, salt, oil, garlic & the notorious tomato ketchup. So I started with an assumption of 100 g of flour & 1 egg. I was not too happy with the result since the pasta was tough. I gave up…
Once I joined the hospitality institute & in the same time, the pasta craze came up with the introduction of “pasta treat” by Sunfeast—a cheap imitation just like Maggi, but I savored it well…until, La Cucina Italiano [i.e. the Italian cuisine] came up. It was a craze for me, when I couldn’t think of any other kitchen but Italian. The language, the eating habits and almost everything was backed by passion for Italian food. Pasta, desserts, mains, appetizers [antipasti in their lingo]—I am not a bigtime fan of pizza by the way, unless, it is thin crust & topped with loads of pork cold cuts!!
Perhaps the most challenging work was convincing a friend who disliked mushrooms, that it is a good combination of mushrooms & fusilli. Yes, he liked it...to the extent that he also left me a thank you note & a note of praise in Orkut [a social networking site by Google].
“This pasta is too dry…add some sauce,” a friend told me long back, when I was cooking pasta for a guest. Come on dear…let the guest taste the pasta. He is not spending some 70 AED for goddamn pasta loaded with sauces & sauces [quite natural when cooking for an Indian palate]. The sauces [which can be from simple butter & sage sauce to the elaborate ragout of Bologna] actually, are meant to complement the pasta, should not be overpowering itself. “No. put some more stock,” came a calling from another colleague. I was telling myself, “Ok…but when I become the boss; I will cook the real way.”
What is my favorite pasta, if I am asked? Well. It’s hard to say. I like fettuccine [more if it is fresh/homemade], fusilli, penne, spaghetti [but never with Bolognese!!!]. I am a fan of Lasagna also [About which I will write separately].Sauces? I am a fan of the meat ragu [I wrote about it before, In search of the perfect Bolognese—please go through the archives]…Alfredo sauce, with some wild mushroom popped in, Carbonara sauce..but my least favorite is “Tomato Basil Sauce”.
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