Guest post by Mr. Aashish Sood of Wandering Thoughts
Serves 4
Ingredients for pasta sauce
4-5 cloves garlic
3 Green chillies, finely chopped
50 grams Amul butter
1 teaspoon thyme
50 ml Del monte olive oil
100 gms finely diced green and yellow capsicum
250 gms finely chopped red onion
100 gms Del monte corn
100 gms Baby corn
100 gms diced mushrooms
200 ml tomato puree
1 can tomatoes
100 gms cream cheese
2 teaspoon Oregano
2 tablespoon Del monte Pasta sauce
Salt to taste
Ingredients for garlic bread
2 cloves of garlic, finely crushed
50 gms Amul butter
Bread
Ingredients for pasta
300 gms of Del monte pasta of your choice
Preparing the sauce
Pour olive oil in the pan. Add onion to the hot oil. After about 2 mins of cooking; add capsicum, green chillies and mushrooms to the onion. After 5 mins of cooking, add puree and canned tomatoes and break them roughly with ladle.
Add pasta sauce, thyme and tablespoon of oregano to the mix. Let it simmer for 10 mins. Once the mix is cooked; add cheese, corn and baby corn to the mixture. Add salt to taste
Preparing garlic bread
Add garlic paste to the butter. Slice the loaf diagonally. Coat the butter-garlic mix on two sides of loaf. Heat the loaf on the pan till golden brown.
Preparing the pasta
I prefer to use elbow macaroni. Though the recipe works equally well for all varieties be it penne, spaghetti, fusilli, fettuccini etc. No layered pasta though. Pasta takes approx. 15 mins on a boiling water to reach al-dente stage. You can judge when the pasta is done by taking out a piece and biting on it. If it feels firm and soft at the same time and doesn’t taste raw or floury when chewed, it is done.
Add boiled pasta to the simmering mixture and let it cook for about five minutes.
Serving
Place the pasta in the center of a bowl. Sprinkle oregano and place garlic bread on side.
Serve piping hot
Tips
Time the pasta so that it is taken off the stove just as the sauce is prepared so that you can strain it straight into the pot. Makes the infusion of flavors much more easierIf you have to keep the pasta strained for some time… make sure you cool it as soon as it is taken off the heat so that the pasta doesn’t get overcooked in its own heat. Add the cream cheese towards the end so that it provides a creamy smoothness to the pasta but
doesn’t get cooked too much.
Make sure the ingredients are not cooked too much or else they won’t stand out in the pasta. I personally don’t like olives. But if you don’t mind them, you can put some 6-7 pieces of coarsely chopped pitted Del Monte black olives when adding cheese to the mix