Cooking a plate of ‘premium taste’ pasta at home is actually very easy and much cheaper. Moreover, not many restaurants can get their pasta right because they either cut cost by using cheap ingredients or some are halal joints and didn’t use white wine which give the pasta the ‘luxurious flavour’.
Good pasta does not require much ingredients. The basics are garlic, onion, basil, olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. For the creamy pasta I am cooking, I use chopped onion and garlic. BTW, garlic price has skyrocketed like 200%. I bought 3 bulbs of garlic for RM2 when usually, I can for only 50 sen.
For the seafoods, I use some very fresh white prawns and frozen scallops. I added a few leaves of sweet basil to the seafoods for flavour.
Since I have some abalone mushrooms, I use them. However, a better choice will be either button or fresh shitake mushrooms as these mushrooms will lend more flavour.
To get that creamy taste, butter will be a good choice. You can substitute with olive oil which is a much healthier choice but what’s a bit of butter, right?
My hubby bought some 5-minute quick cooking spaghetti which is rather mushy. If you are boiling spaghetti, remember to keep testing and tasting to make sure that you get the al dente texture.
For the recipe for creamy seafood pasta :
300 gm spaghetti – cook according to instruction, usually I use only a bit of salt, no oil. Drain and leave aside
Seafoods
4 large prawns
4 scallops (or fish or squid wateva is fine)
4 cloves garlic and a small onion – chopped till fine
A few sprigs of basil or any type of dried herbs
Cream – 200 ml ( I use President brand, you can find this at the cheese section, in UHT box)
Wine – 100 ml (I use chardonnay, you can omit it, no problem at all)
Bit of butter, salt, pepper, black pepper
Parmesan cheese – for sprinkling on pasta
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Method :
1) Heat butter and add in chopped garlic and onion and fry till soft (do not brown)
2) Add prawns and seafoods, stir till change colour
3) Add in white wine and cream. Add a bit of water if too dry. Add herbs
4) Flavour with salt and pepper
5) Pour creamy seafood sauce over pasta and serve
See? Just a few steps. And you get a really nice plate of pasta. Cooking pasta just take a bit of practice. Once you have tried a couple of times, you can experiment with any ingredients.