Yes, I know that I have done a similar post before. Hell, used the same plate too. Still I thought I would post this. It’s so my sort of cooking after all.
I mean what could be better than taking out the spaghetti that Banu has boiled and kept in the fridge, take out the mortar and pestle and pound away the day to create some beautiful (yes, I have been watching too much of Masterchef Australia of late) intense flavours, take out the Kalman’s Hungarian sausage that Romi got for you, skin and chop, & following Ritu the Diva’s cooking technique, fragment, cube the ponir Manishita sent for you from Dhaka & then Kolkata through Kaniska, whip up the dish in five minutes and top with a dash of balsamic that Vishal had got you?
A lot of generous friends were involved in tonight’s dinner.
Chef Max told me, when someone who had moved to Berlin was looking for spicy pasta for an Indian palate, that aglio olio is the most ‘spicy’ of the lot as it has chilli flakes in it.
I like an aglio olio too and I like to pack it with some pretty sharp and piquant flavours. With the chorize-like Hungarian sausages and feta in taste and haloumi in texture like ponir I had my ingredients.
When it comes to Italian or West European look for Mediterranean flavours as they come closest to our taste preferences and weather conditions too.
I aimed for a deceptively calm and simple looking dish with some heady passionate flavours and got them without much of a fuss.
Here’s how.
Ingredients:
100 g spaghetti boiled ala dente (firm), aglio oglio base: 10 cloves of garlic, 4 olives, 10 whole black pepper corns, 2 finely chopped green chillies, 2 finely chopped red chillies – pounded together starting with the driest ingredient going in first, 200 g sharp cold cuts – Hungarian sausages, 100 g sharp cheese – ponir, feta, even parmesan, 1/2 a finely chopped tomato (for a bouncy break in texture & touch of sweetness), 1/2 a teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon balsamic, 2 tablespoons olive oil
Recipe
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Heat olive oil…
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Add aglio oglio mix…spread and let it sizzle for a minute
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Add meat and tomatoes together…stir. Skin the sausages in advance so that the bits spread through
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Add cheese/ ponir in this case…stir..it will slowly melt in the meat…keep some separate for plating which I didn’t
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Add part of spaghetti …slip part of meat/ cheese etc on top…then add the rest of spaghetti…add salt and keep swirling with a spoon so that all the flavours spread through the spaghetti
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Two minutes and you are done
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Put on plate…top with a dash of balsamic
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Click, post and eat
That heap looks sumptuous..could easily be added to My comfort food list! And I'm beginning to get quite curious about the special ingredient..Ponir!
A nice twist on good ole aglio, olio e peperoncino! Looks yummy 🙂
yeah it's pure comfort 🙂
yeah…take the base and then take it where you would like it to go 🙂