Pasta Delight - Cooking a delightful meal

Being the food lover that I am I should have entered the kitchen and taken things in my own hands a long time back. Surprisingly I never moved beyond boiling eggs to perfection. May be the need to attain perfection was the barrier. More believable would be I was too involved with eating.

March’11 I made the paradigm shift from being a consumer to a producer. It does not just sound big but it is. The transition would not just affect my life but others too. And with the advent of social media I do not know what the magnitude of the impact would be.

It would be impossible to believe till now that this blog would talk about a recipe. And it’s really not. This is not just any recipe. It’s a life altering approach to cooking, learning and pasta J

It’s not the ingredients that matter; it’s the time and the timing that matters. Unlike all traditional ways of writing recipes I am going to introduce the ingredients on the way. How ever some basics need to be in place. A 2 burner gas, frying pan, pots, spatula, whatever you will find it on the rack in your kitchen.

A word on numbers the quantities mentioned is for a meal suitable for one person. But it will turn out to be so tasty that you will definitely cave for more.

Like life this recipe begins with water. The vegetables that have to be boiled are put in the pan. It can be anything of your choice, 100 grams corn, 50 grams beans, ideally both. Wash them in the pan and keep them to boil in this water only. While the water boils take 2 onions and take of the peel. Do this by hand. Savour the tears. Continue washing hands and drying them with the hand towel that is hanging behind you. Cut the onion into 2 pieces. Then keep the flat side of the piece on the slab and make 3-4 vertical cuts. Turn it 90° and now make cuts as close to each other as possible. Mind your finger. After about 75% of the onion is cut turn it 180° and then start from the other end. Repeat this for the other 3 parts. If you are confused read this 2 more times. There is no You-tube video for this. Please do not search.

While this finely chopped onion is put on the frying pan take out the ginger-garlic paste and butter from the fridge. Place the edge of the butter near the burner while you take out ¾ spoon of ginger garlic paste on the onions.

Wash the two tomatoes that are hard and crisp. Cut a small slice off the top of the tomato. Now keep it vertical and make 3-4 cuts turn it and make 3-4 cuts again. So now the tomato is like a flower. Get back to the butter, take ½ a spoon of butter (its so easy to cut, that's why it was kept near the burner!) and mix it with the onions and ginger-garlic paste. Mix it well but do not waste too much time. Back to the flowery tomatoes. Place them horizontally and cut slices so that you get finely chopped pieces. Mix these two to the frying pan. Yes even I love this sound – channnnnn!

Take the pot with boiling beans and corns off the stove. Place 100 grams of pasta (any type is fine) in 1 litre of water on this stove. Please cover the pot, the gas is not to waste. Put some salt in the pot of boiling pasta.

Add salt and red chilly to taste to the frying pan. Till now I have not got the correct proportion but I always get the taste right. So do not bother much! The boiled veggies are a pain. Taking the beans out of the hot water requires some effort and practice and cutting it into small pieces requires more. But who said this is going to be easy. Go ahead chop the beans. Whenever you get bored stir the contents of the frying pan. It makes you feel like a real cook, the chopping is actually some chotus’ job. To feel like a real expert you have to squash the things in the frying pan. I find it easy when I lift the pan a little with my left hand and squash with the spatula. But there is no dearth of equipment, find what suits you and go ahead. Do this otherwise the pasta will look like it’s been cooked by some halwai with chunks of tomatoes and onions.

Cutting capsicum is so much fun after the teary onions, mushy tomatoes, and fuming beans. I was told not to eat the things inside it, basically eat just the cover. Cut it into small pieces, figure out your optimum technique, but enjoy it. Unfortunately only 1 capsicum is sufficient. Beans and capsicum go into the frying pan. Some real stirring action needed. Take the corns out from the hot water. It’s easy when a strainer is used. Add them to the frying pan, also to add at this point is pepper. Again figure out the quantity. Tilting towards the higher side? – no problem.

When the water starts to boil with the pasta, close the gas. And do not forget to stir the pasta while the water was boiling. Use a spoon to do this and the same can be used to eat the pasta. Do not use the spatula for stirring the pasta.

ok. All contents go into the frying pan. Yes you are very close. And I know it looks really tempting. Start stirring baby. Continue doing it. Don’t stop. Exactly like that. While your awesome pasta gets a little dry add a sachet of ketchup. Don't say you don't have it? What do you do with the extra sachets at KFC? Don’t tell me you give them back. Stir the pasta with the ketchup. A little more. Put the gas off. Before you savour the pasta clean up the kitchen. Veggies in the bin, pots in the sink.

Pour the pasta slowly in the plate you are going to devour it, don’t let even a tiny bit of onion remain in the pan, it’s precious. Scrape of from the spatula as well. It’s ready! This was the moment you were waiting for. Hold on a little more. Serve yourself some cold juice, turn on some nice music, sit comfortably, and enjoy.

Bon Appétit my friend.