How to dry cooked pasta.

I often use pasta as my starch when I have pre-cooked "saucy" foods like curry or Chili con carne, and of course pasta sauce. The problem with pouring saucy foods over just cooked pasta is that if the pasta is not drained thoroughly then the water from the pasta eventually pools at the bottom of the dish and just dilutes the saucy goodness on top. Water is good but it's for drinking, not eating, you know? So, what do I do to make this problem go away? I have two methods, one hot and one cold. :)

For hot foods, like say if I'm going to pour some cold curry or spaghetti sauce on the pasta and heat it up in the microwave, I first pour out the pasta on the dish I'll be serving it on then microwave just the pasta by itself for about five minutes. Basically what this does is it makes the water clinging to the surface of the pasta "boil". I then take the pasta out and mix it around with a fork or a spoon. You should see a lot of steam leaving the pasta at this point and that's the point since steam leaving equals water leaving. You'll notice that the surface of the pasta will quickly start to "dry out". With the excess water now evaporated away, pour on what ever cold sauce you want to heat the pasta with and take it for a spin in the microwave again. Voila! No soggy pasta! Woohoo~! Oh, just remember, microwaving the pasta will "cook" it further so you may want to adjust how al dente it is before you stick it in the microwave so the texture ends up closer to what you prefer. I'm not a big al dente guy so I'm all good usually. :)

So, if I have this awesome hot method, why do I need a cold one? That's because I'm big fan of Hawaiian food, da bes kine ya~, and that means I love macaroni salad made with mayonnaise! I'll post my recipe for my mayonnaise macaroni salad in the near future but what's important here is that if you make mayonnaise macaroni salad with hot macaroni you end up with... macaroni floating in oil. Although tasty in its own way, trust me I've had it and it's good ;) , it's not exactly what I'm looking for. So, when I boil macaroni to make salad with I run it under cold water until it's all chilled then take it for a spin in the, you guessed it, salad spinner! I have one of those OXO pump type salad spinners and about six to seven pumps usually does the trick for me. By the time I stop the salad spinner by pressing down on the little black button, the pasta is nice and dry and ready to meet some mayonnaise. Yum yum yum!

So why not just salad spin all pasta whether hot or cold? I suppose you could but then I'm not sure if pouring boiling hot water on the inner basket of a salad spinner, which is most likely made of plastic, is such a good idea.

And there you go. Two ways to dry cooked pasta. Never have soggy pasta again! :D

Pasta ala Sawtelle

Since I mentioned the quick pasta dish I've been so enamored with lately, I think it's only right that I mention my recipe for it. Here are the ingredients:

- 1 serving of pasta: For me this is how much pasta fits into a ring I make with my index and fore fingers.

- 1/3 stick of butter: This isn't exactly correct since I buy large blocks of butter from Costco and slice what I feel like but this should be close enough.

- 1/2 cup of milk: I like a little sauce left over when I'm done. Feel free to adjust to your tastes.

- 1/2 cup, spaghetti sauce: The tomato kind. Anything will do. I like the stuff in the glass jar that comes in three packs from Costco. Yeah, I shop there a lot. As a matter of fact, I'm probably over due for a run. :p

- 1 Tbsp of my "secret mix": Not so secret actually. I found myself constantly adding salt, garlic powder, oregano, ground pepper, onion power, etc. so I just pre-mixed it and have it in ready in a plastic container. I do this sort of thing a lot, especially with BBQ rubs. Mmm, mmm, good~!

- pinch of red pepper flakes: Something about them red pepper flakes. It's just not the same without'em...

You might be wondering why I call this "Pasta ala Sawtelle". Well, the reason is because the milk + tomato sauce "sauce" was something I decided to make at home after having dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in West L.A., Sawtelle Kitchen. It's usually the fried katsu plate or the seafood linguini for me when I'm there and after a decade of eating the stuff it finally occurred to me one night that "Hey, there's like tomato sauce and cream in this sauce. I should try that at home." Alas, no seafood at home, too much hassle, but the dish is still delicious and literally takes 20 minutes to make, most of that time is waiting for the water to boil so I'm very happy with it.

Okay, enough background info. On to the cooking.

1) Boil the pasta: Again, up to you how "al dente" you want it. Me, not so much. You... well, do what you like. :)

2) Drain the pasta and set aside: I like to lower the heat on my stove before I take the pot off the fire. That way, I can place the frying pan I'll be using the make the sauce with on the fire while I dump the contents of the pot in to the colander to drain the pasta. Remember, every second counts~, especially when you're hungry.

3) Melt the butter in the pan: Don't burn it now. I did say lower the heat before putting the pan on it.

4) Put the "secret mix" and the pinch of red pepper flakes in the bubbling melted butter, stir together, and let it cook until I can smell that the spices in the mix have "toasted". Again, don't burn it~.

5) Pour the milk and the spaghetti sauce in the pan and stir together with the melted butter and spices mixture. Let the whole thing come to a boil then let it boil for a minute or two in the pan.

6) Add the drained pasta from the colander in to the pan. Mix together with the sauce until nice and evenly coated. We're almost ready to eat!

7) Pour the whole thing on to a plate. Break out the block of Parmesan cheese, yes mine is from Costco, and grate it on to the plate covering the off-pink pasta with a blizzard of Parmesan flakes.

And that's it! It's time to dig in!

Of course for variation sake, you could throw in a variety of grilled meats like chicken breast, steak, or what ever floats your boat on the pasta. Believe it or not, one of my favorites is... Fried Eggs! ;p

The why.

As I'm sitting here eating the quick pasta dish I'm quite enamored with at the moment which I cooked for myself, it occurred to me that there were recipes I used to make long ago that I no longer remember how to make. This struck me as being quite sad. I'm sure I'd still love those recipes all over again if I could make those old recipes but now I just don't remember how.

And that is why I've decided to start this blog really for myself so I'll be able to remember in the future what I love so much today. And if it just so happens you like the recipes too then more power to me! :D And to you too of course. :)

Hope you enjoy! I know I will~.