This pasta is very simple to cook. I was curious about it in the first place for the presence of breadcrumbs. I’ve never known about this kind of pasta before. When I was browsing my book on Italian cuisine, I came across the recipe and, realizing it was so simple to cook this, i decided to make it right away.
This recipe is rather classic. The original one cooks with only onion, garlic and toasted breadcrumbs. However, there are other varieties originated from the basic recipe. So I cooked the variety with tomatoes as I preferred the pasta with some sauce (this is the influence of enjoying a meal with soup in a typical Vietnamese meal). There’s nothing to regret that I cooked this pasta. It was really good and we had a wonderful dinner.
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I cooked pasta again. Pasta now is often in my cooking list of the week. I never thought I would be in love so much with pasta like this before. Just by a proper way of cooking pasta with basic principles about the nature of pasta in mind, we can always make a good pasta dish.
Once I hosted a year-end party with around 20 friends at my home, most of whom are Vietnamese students studying in Singapore. That time I treated them with only pasta, pizza and wine. I made three kinds of pasta and three kinds of pizza. They were all finished much faster than I could imagine, which caused me think whether I had prepared enough or not 
That’s one good memory about pasta since I started to venture into this interesting section of food. I’m often eager at trying new pasta dish and revisit the most amazing recipes when I want to treat my family and friends. This pasta with asparagus and peas is also very easy to eat, very refreshing with the crunchy texture of the asparagus. Some cream is used helping to combine all the ingredients harmoniously. Pasta with veggies is never out of fashion for me.
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There are very complicated pasta recipes, yet there are many simple pasta recipes. When I need to cook something simple and quick without having thinking much, I often end up cooking some kind of pasta.
Cooking pasta is somehow quite flexible. Adding one more ingredient, or omitting one ingredient, you may have a new pasta dish with different flavor and texture. That’s what I like most about pasta where creativity is never limited.
This pasta can be cooked with or without cream. However, without cream, the pasta may be a bit dry.
Ingredients (serves 4)
- 2 cups asparagus, cut into 3cm pieces
- 2 tbs butter
- 2 medium onions, chopped
- 200g ham, cubed or chopped
- 240ml heavy/whipping cream
- salt, pepper
- 400g short pasta (such as macaroni)
- grated Parmesan cheese, to serve
Cooking:
- Cook the asparagus in boiling water until just tender. Drain.
- Cook the pasta until al dente. Drain and keep warm.
- Heat the butter in a large saucepan, add the onion and cook until softened. Add the asparagus and ham, season with salt and pepper, cook for another 2 minutes.
- Add cream and cook until heated through.
- Divide the pasta into serving dishes and pour this sauce over the pasta and sprinkle with grated parmesan. (or mix the pasta with the sauce before plating).
I tried a new pasta dish with tuna and tomato sauce. Simple, fast to cook yet delicious pasta dishes always inspire me into cooking and trying new recipes.
This pasta using angel hair is really fast to cook. It took only several minutes for the angel hair to be cooked al dente. The sauce was also quite simple. The true taste and texture of the tuna were preserved as it was. The lemon zest added a special fragrance into the dish. For me, this pasta is quite healthy, which made me very happy and comfortable after finishing the meal.
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I had not known about Goulash until I cooked this pasta. The word "goulash" didn’t make sense to me at all when I browsed my book of pasta, until I looked into the ingredients and method to see if I was able to cook this pasta dish. And I said, wow, it was quite simple. So why the name "goulash"? And I googled this term and got some information about this.
So, Goulash is only the name given to a stewed soup originated in Hungary, with the main ingredients are beef, onion, vegetables, spices and paprika. I am so eager at this finding, which means I’ve learned another new thing about cuisine and food culture today.
The recipe from one of my reference books calls for fusili pasta. However, I had only fettuccine left in my pantry. So with this kind of soup, I thought it would make no difference. After not so long time of cooking, two pasta dishes were ready on our dining table. We were so amazed at the taste of it and of course we really really liked it. Again, pasta made us surprised about how far each pasta dish can bring new experience to us.
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I have to admit that this is my first time cooking with baby clams. Baby clams are used in many Vietnamese seafood dishes, but I’ve never had a chance to try a Vietnamese dish with them. So, I only knew the name, and that’s all.
Noticing that the clams were sold so freshly at the supermarket at the reasonable price, I bought some home and made into this pasta. I had been putting this pasta recipe in my list for quite some time, and now I could actually cook it to try the taste.
It took me quite a long time to scrub and rinse the clams thoroughly since I didn’t want to spoil the taste of the dish. When cooking the clams, the shells didn’ t wide open as with large clams or mussels. Cooking time was nearly over and I started to wonder why mine took more time and they were still not open. I took out one and tried to open with the tips of a pair of chopsticks, and I could open the two half-shelves easily. Oh.. so here they were, like that. They were all cooked through. These clams were different from the other kinds. When I closed the two half-shelves, they returned like unopened again. Very interesting to me.
So now I knew a new way of cooking pasta, and gained my first experience with baby clams. I knew another new taste in a very delicious dish.
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I was lucky to have someone testing this dish. My flat-mate’s mother from Indonesia visited her for a few days . The mother is a dedicated housewife. She loves cooking and taking care of her husband and children. However, her daughter – my flatmate, doesn’t like cooking so much. I remembered each time her mother visited her, she stayed with us and cooked a lot of food for her daughter. She even cooked more than enough and preserved them in the boxes so that my flatmate still had good food to eat after she flew back to Indonesia.
When she cooked in the kitchen, or when I cooked, we exchanged a lot of interesting talks about our interest in cooking and baking. This was the meal I cooked and invited her to share with us. She was with me in the kitchen all the time, watching me preparing this pasta dish and asking me about what she didn’t know about this particular pasta. She loves eating spaghetti too, and when I told her this pasta would be a little spicy, she showed no hesistance since Indonesian food is often spicy too. For me, in order to enjoy this dish to the fullist, I needed to reduce the spicy ingredients.
I was happy that she enjoyed this pasta. And we did have a really happy time talking about life in the two countries, about parents and children while having the meal together. This is a very memorable occasion.
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It’s very quick and simple to make this pasta. I prefer pasta with some kind of sauce to dry pasta, such as this dish, however, it is very near the weekend and I am running out of ingredients in my fridge. So I just look into my fridge and see what are still left, then search through my cookbook to get the idea of how to make use of the left-over food stuffs.
This pasta requires only broccoli and short pasta. Of course other typical ingredients of a pasta dish are indispensable. However, with frequent cooking habit, I guess these stuffs are always available in your pantry.
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