It's end of the year. The weather hasn't been good for the past few days, making me feel gloomy.
We had a half-day out yesterday and when we came home it was time for me to cook dinner. The choice fell on spaghetti bolognaise, a quick and simple pasta dish that has been my mother's signature dish for every birthday occasion in the family when my siblings and I were young, until now. Yes, I am continuing the tradition, however, there's a minor change in the way of cooking the sauce. If my mother cooked and serve the minced meat separately, I would put all of them together. And if some Italian family that I know during serving would mix the pasta with the sauce, I would let people take and put it themselves on their plate so they can have as much as they want. It is quite interesting, though, how people treat the sauce. Some think that it is a kind of soup so they would put as much as they could on the spaghetti. In the end, they have a lot of left over of sauce in plate. What a waste!
The fact is: the tomato sauce is meant to be thick, especially when it is cooked together with the meat, because the meat absorbs almost all the liquid. But it doesn't mean that it is dry. It is just a rich meat sauce. Therefore you should only put a scoop or two of the sauce for a standard size of pasta plate. If you haven't done so, try it. You can't be less than agree with me, I have done this all my age...
Some 17 years ago, I had once learned from a dear friend in Verona, when serving the dish he would put the spaghetti that's already mixed with grated parmesan cheese, put the sauce on the pasta and top it with a cheese slice (because we didn't have mozzarella at that time). Then he put it in the oven until the cheese melted. Wow! That's how the restos do it, isn't it?
Until now I sometimes do that way, but very seldom of course...because nobody in the house could wait even a single minute more. They will keep on coming back when I am cooking the sauce and once I put it on the pasta dish, it will 'disappear' from the kitchen... :))
I realise adding cheese on top makes it very Jerlak. But the presentation-wise looks yummy.
ReplyDeleteThat's the opposite with my kids. Sometimes they'll just pour the grated parmesan on their spaghetti :) I realised that each of us in the house has different habits.
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