​Where should I start? Meatballs, as simple as it is, it's one of those dishes that I have a love-hate relationship with. 

I tried to make meatballs possibly two times and both were not good ones. Consistency was good but the seasoning part is where I always make a mistake. Unfortunately, meatballs, like burger patties, you won't really know if you did the seasoning right, until it's cooked. I guess you can still salvaged it but for avid cooks like me, that's just masking the error. At the end of the day, it still means the seasoning was not done right.

This time around, I was able to do it right, well at least half way. I tell you why it was half way. I bought a ready-to-cook Italian sausage. Just because in Dubai, Italian ground sausage somehow is not easy to find. I had to improvised. That being said, it still means I had to play around with the seasoning because the Italian sausage that I got is already seasoned and I have to mix it with an unseasoned ground beef. So it was still a success, albeit half way.

Tip 1: This is exactly how my meaty meat sauce was done, without the meat since this has meatballs
Tip 2: If you have a sauce that your family particularly like, you can just add the meatballs part to up the ante
Tip 3: Get your kiddos involved. Sure there will be funny shapes, it won't be uniform but you and they will have fun.

Ingredients for the meatballs:
3 slices white bread, crusts removed and diced
2/3 cup cold water
1 lb ground beef
1 lb ready to cook Spicy Italian Sausage (taken out from casings)
1/4 cup grated parmegiano regiano
6 cloves garlic, minced finely
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1-2 tablespoons white sugar (depending on your preference)
1 large egg
3/4 cup all-purpose flour to dredge meatballs
Light olive oil to saute

Ingredients for the sauce
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp cooking oil
1 large onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium green capsicum, diced
2 (6-ounce) cans tomato paste
2 (8-ounce) cans tomato sauce
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can stewed tomatoes
​1 tbsp Italian Seasoning (ready made or make your own)
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp sugar (to cut the acidity, especially good with young eaters, but if they are very much into the authentic Italian sauce, no need to add sugar)
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water

Instruction for the meatballs:
​1. Place bread pieces in a small bowl, add cold water and soak for at least 5 minutes then mashed with fork
2. In large mixing bowl, add beef, pork sausage, parmegiano regiano, garlic, salt, pepper, sugar, egg and mashed bread. Mix until well combined.
3. Form into 1 inch meatballs (about half a scoop of ice cream), but if you want big meatballs, oh please go big by all means!
4. Dredge/roll meatballs in flour, dust off excess flour
5. Heat a large skillet over medium heat with 3-4 tablespoons olive oil.
6. Add meatballs in batches without crowding the pan. Saute until brown on all sides (turn every minute). Don't worry about not cooking the them through, it will be cooked fully when it's added to the sauce.
7. Set aside

At this point, if you followed the size of my meatballs, it should actually be cooked through by this time. The one you should worry about are your kids stealing them before you are able to make the sauce. 

Instruction for the sauce:
1. In the same pan, saute onion and capsicum in butter and oil, until onion is tender, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and saute 30 more seconds.
3. Add tomato paste, sauce and stewed tomatoes, seasonings and water.
4. Simmer for 15 minutes. 
5. Add the meatballs
6. ​Simmer for another 15 minutes.

I have to confess, because I made small meatballs, I did not add them all into the sauce (thinking I will make more sauce later on). The problem with that was, my kids ate the ones not in the sauce when I went to work. Apparently, according to my nanny, they ate it with rice and were even fighting over it. 

That for me is a clear translation of success.

Happy Eating!!!

I'm not kidding, it is as easy as counting up to 5!

Tip 1: I love panchetta and I usually add them to any dish that calls for bacon, or just to up the ante for any stir fry veggie
Tip 2: Please only use the real deal parmigiano reggiano. I will not recommend using a substitute or the powdered in a bottle one. I have made a mistake of buying one before, never again.
Tip 3: Have everything ready. Mis-en-place you all! I might be an organised chaos lady but I usually have my ingredients arranged according to its order of use.
Tip 4: Cut the ingredients in half if there's only 4 of you. We're only 5 but my Jason eats for 3. No lying, he ate 3 plateful of this for dinner and even had the left over for lunch the next day.

Ingredients: 
500 grams spaghetti
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups grated Parmigiano Reggiano
4 slices of streaky bacon, diced
154 grams of panchetta (small pack)
8 garlic cloves
Freshly ground black pepper
​Salt

Serves 8

Instructions:
Cook pasta as per package instructions. Drain and reserve a cup of pasta water.

In a medium size bowl, whisk eggs. Once done, add grated Parmegiano and combine with fork. 

Slowly add a tablespoon of pasta water into the egg and cheese mixture, one at a time.  2-3 tablespoons is a good ratio to bring the temperature up. This is to temper the egg and ensure it does not cook as scrambled egg later on. 

In a frying pan, fry your bacon and panchetta on its own fat. If you only have bacon, just double the amount and you are good to go. Once it's brown, depending on how cook you like your bacon bits. Fish it out of the pan and set aside.

Use the fat in the pan to fry the minced garlic. Once it becomes fragrant, add pasta.

Switch the flame off and move the pan to the unused stove top. You will finish cooking your carbonara using the residual heat. This will also ensure your egg does not get scrambled.

Slowly add the egg mixture and quickly toss pasta and egg continuously until pasta is well coated. 

Add more pasta water to achieve the sauce consistency you prefer.

Add the bacon and panchetta bits, pepper and a little bit of salt. I use my Himalayan salt to complete this dish, not too much though because panchetta is salty enough. Serve hot! 

You can add parsley, or other type of herb you feel like having.

Happy Eating!

As I said from the first Spaghetti Challenge issue, Super Meaty Spaghetti, this combination can either wow you or repulse you! 

Tip 1: You should cover your panini or sandwich press with aluminum foil.
Tip 2: The more meat in the filling, the better 

Ingredients:
3 garlic cloves, pressed
slices of bread
shredded cheddar cheese

Instructions:
Place butter and garlic in a small bowl. Cover it with clingfilm before melting the butter in the microwave.

Brush both sides of the bread and toast.
​
Top the bread with cheddar cheese. Add spaghetti and meat. Put more cheese on top. Top with second piece of the bread.

Finish it off in a griddle or panini press. 2 minutes each side to ensure the the cheese has melted.

Slice it in half and voila! no more left-over!

I have been meaning to resurrect my blogging which means resurrect my relationship with the kitchen and what better way but to put myself on a challenge.

I thought, why not make as many spaghetti dishes as possible?

Who does not like pasta? One might not love pasta but for sure like it on some level. Actually, I do not know anyone who does not eat pasta at all!

So here we are on my 1st week of Spaghetti Challenge and I decided to do a super meaty sauce that calls for minced chicken, beef and pork. The result was yum!

So far so good. Now I'm all hyped up and excited to think of what variation I will go for next week! 

Tip 1: if you are to create one of the ingredient, then please do it before you start cooking
Tip 2: if you would like your spaghetti with lots of meat, then by all means, increase the quantity of your meat.
Tip 3: if you do not like sugar, then just add one tablespoon. By the way, sugar is a natural food enhancer. I don't use MSG in my cooking but do use sugar from time to time. 

Ingredients:
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp cooking oil
1/2 lb minced chicken
1/2 lb minced beef
1/2 lb minced pork
1 large onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium green capsicum, diced
2 (6-ounce) cans tomato paste
2 (8-ounce) cans tomato sauce
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can stewed tomatoes
​1 tbsp Italian Seasoning
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water

Servings: Perfect for 500 grams of pasta.

Instructions:
Brown the meat in a heavy bottomed pot.

Add onion and capsicum and saute until onion is tender, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and saute 30 more seconds.

Add tomato paste, sauce and stewed tomatoes, seasonings and water.

​Simmer for 30 minutes.

While this sauce is simmering, in a separate pot, cook spaghetti according to packet instructions.

Personal preference:
I like to keep the sauce and pasta separate. I get a pan and just mix as many pasta to sauce or vice versa I like. That way I can make it spicy if I want to or keep it as is depending on my mood. 

This is what I did with the left over... either you will love it or you will be disgusted. Nothing in between!

Happy Eating!!!

Stir-fried noodles or pancit is a staple for us back home. Not so much in my house but once in awhile it's nice to have it as part of a meal or have it as a snack with bread.

This noodles are especially perfect for glazed chicken wings which I recently discovered. YUM. So here it goes.

Tip 1: Any meat can be used, prawn, chicken, beef
Tip 2: Adjust the saltiness to your preference.
Tip 3: This amount is for big gatherings, if you're only cooking this for a simple meal, then cut the ingredients in half.

Ingredients:
50 grams rice noodles
1 large size onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
250 grams pork, sliced lengthwise, tossed in 1 tablespoon soy sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
3-4 tablespoons soya sauce
2 large carrot, sliced lengthwise
500 grams yellow Chinese Noodles
1 medium size cabbage, shredded
1 litre water

10 generous servings

Directions:
Soak rice noodles in warm water for 5 minutes. Drain and set aside.

In a large wok, saute onion and garlic in oil. Add pork bits. Salt and pepper to taste.

Add soya sauce and all vegetables to the wok. Cook for 2 minutes.

Add water. Bring to a boil for a minute.

Drain the vegetables & meat and set aside while returning the liquid to the pan.

Add both noodles to the pan. Mix well and cover. Let it simmer for 5 minutes.

Return vegetables and meat to noodles. Toss to mix well.

Photos next time!

It's solely Julia Roberts' movie Eat. Pray. Love. and her fantabulous way of eating that got me into researching for this recipe. I'm not quite impressed by the story and how the flow of it went about. It started slow, then great, then slow, then just became a little bit cheesy.

You can already guess which part ranked "great" for me. The dining part definitely made a huge impression... to my stomach!

I wasn't sure how it would taste. Movies are all about acting... so it was a risk. I hate wasting food and if the end result isn't as I expected, I'd be very disappointed! But, after cooking this... I understood... Julia wasn't acting ... it was rich, creamy and just a really beautiful dish.

I think everyone should cook it, eat it and find out for themselves how great of a dish this is. It's a typical Italian dish. It wasn't made to be complicated... it was made for you to taste each and every component of the dish and how each complements the others.

Tip 1: Use as many or as less cherry tomatoes. My husband loves how it bursts in his mouth, to think that he doesn't like tomatoes.
Tip 2: Add the basil towards the end of your cooking. Basil is one of the herbs that has lighter oil, which means if you add it earlier in the cooking, its flavour would be lost among the crowd.
Tip 3: I haven't used chicken or beef in this dish but I bet it would taste good too.
Tip 4: You can use guanciale or lardon instead of pancetta. It's just easier for me to find pancetta in the supermarket so that's why I prefer to use it.
Tip 5: Of course, if you want to use a different pasta, say a Bucatini, a spaghetti-like thicker version with holes in the middle, it's up to you. Pasta and sauces are partners. Thick sauces call for thick pastas, thin sauces call for delicate pastas.

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
227 grams or 8 oz pancetta
2 large onions, diced 1/2 inch
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
4-cans (227 grams or 8 oz) tomato sauce
15 cherry tomatoes optional
500 grams spaghetti
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano plus extra for garnish
Fresh basil leaves, sliced

Directions:
Cook spaghetti in a large pot of well salted water. Cook it 2 minutes less than what the package states. Drain and set aside making sure you reserve 2 cups of pasta water for later use.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the pancetta and saute over low heat until it is brown and crispy, about 15-20 minutes. Remove pancetta and set aside.

Bring the pan to medium heat, add garlic, onions and pepper flakes. Season with salt. Cook the onions until it's transluscent, starting to turn golden and the aroma starts whafting through the air, about 10-15 minutes.

Add the sauce 2/3 of pancetta and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer the sauce for about 25 mins. Adjust the salt, as needed. Reserve 3 ladlefuls of the sauce for later use. In the last 5 minutes of simmering, add cherry tomatoes. If the sauce becomes too thick, add some pasta water until your desired consistency.

Add the drained pasta to the remaining pot of sauce. Add cheese, drizzle with olive oil and toss well to ensure the flavours are married well. If the coating is too thick, add more sauce. It should be a balanced coating.

Serve on individual bowls, sprinkle additional parmegiano cheese, basil and divide the remaining pancetta on each bowl. Make sure each bowl has a cherry tomato or two. Cherry tomatoes will still be whole but once it's in your mouth, it bursts into a sweet flavour that works so well with the sauce and pasta.

Enjoy your Spaghetti All'Amatriciana, pasta in a creamy tomato and cheese sauce with a fresh flavour of basil and a good side of spcicy kick.

Related Post: Eat. Pray. Love. - Eat! Eat! Eat!

-AcousticChef, cookin' one tune at a time!