On this edition of Ihe Idiot’s Cookbook, we are going to swap the sweltering sunshine and humidity of South India, to the, supposedly more tolerable, sunshine of Italy. Red sauce pasta is on the menu so let’s get cracking shall we?

The Classic – Courtesy ITC

NO! Not that. Step aside ITC Sunfeast Pasta. We’re going old school this time. 😎

End Goal

The first thing that I learned was that unlike the Ready to Eat stuff, you actually prepare the pasta and the sauce separately and then stir them together at the end. This modularity is good for the purposes of a tutorial because you can essentially swap one part out and make all kinds of pasta combined with your very own sauce to suit your tastes and now you know how to make a whole bunch of meals, not just one, without getting bored of the taste,

Pasta

This is the easy part. The pasta I made was linguini but you can really do the same set of steps for anything.

Heat up the water in a large pot and add salt. Bring it to boil. While you may be tempted to try and rush it by using less water, this actually makes a huge difference to the taste because uncooked pasta is pretty terrible. Also less salt is always better than too much because you can always add more later but there’s no coming back if you add so much the water tastes like it’s from the Dead Sea.

Once it’s properly boiling add the pasta in, and continuously stir. If you don’t stir then it sometimes clumps together which nobody wants.

Watch as it softens slowly and taste a small piece at this point because you can add salt/extra water as appropriate here.

Don’t keep it on till all the water is gone, leave a tiny bit of water because it helps when you want to mix the sauce later.



Proportions: 4-5 cups of water for 500g (or 1 pound) of Pasta

Sauce

Here’s where you have the opportunity to be creative. But this is a basic recipe where you can’t go wrong. While I’ll probably try some stuff out later for the first time I didn’t to burn the kitchen down. So a simple red sauce it is.

Heat a little oil in a saucepan and then add some chopped onions until they start to brown a little and become tender. One point to note is to keep this on until the sharp onion odour is replaced by the smell of the wonderfully cooked fried onions fully.

Reduce the heat and then add the tomato puree (or paste) as well as some thinly chopped tomatoes according to the proportions below. I also added some diced carrots and green peas but this is all entirely optional.

Add one cup of water and stir till the puree is mixed properly and the mix has an even texture.

You can add some pepper, basil or chilli powder here according to your taste preferences. (Personally I add go for the chilli but what do I know :P)

Reduce the mixture on a hot flame while continuously stirring until you get an evenly thick sauce, with a texture about midway between the mix when you started and the paste, leaning onto the thicker side.

Proportions: 7-8 tablespoons of tomato puree + 1 chopped onion + 1 chopped tomato (+ 2 teaspoons of spice i.e. chilli powder) + 1 cup of water to be reduced

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Once both components are ready, add the pasta to the saucepan containing your sauce and toss it continuously until it’s mixed throughout. It’s now ready to serve, but as a finishing touch I like to add some cheese flakes on top and mix it in because in my (admittedly limited experience) any dish is better when served with cheese.

The Dish is Served

Happy Cooking!! 🙂