(Photo by Shoji Kudaka)
If cooking isn’t your forte, but a nice meal is something you want to try to master, try pasta pomodoro! With a variety of tomato sauces available in your local commissary or grocery store, this dish is easy to cook and a tough one to mess up.
One afternoon, after another Work-from-Home day, I threw on my apron and tried to recreate a familiar recipe from my days as a server at an Italian restaurant about 20 years ago. Although I’ve cooked it at home from time to time since then, the results have always been pretty consistent.
There are no secrets to the recipe below, but I would like to share one tip: fry garlic at the beginning just until it’s turned golden brown. Don’t overcook because burned garlic will ruin the taste of the sauce. Like people say: the first step is always the hardest.
Give it a try but also make it your own as it goes well with many different toppings and ingredients. Other popular variations include bacon, tuna, and sausage. I love simple and spicy pasta, so I added eggplant, tomatoes, and red chili.
Ingredients
7 garlic cloves
Water [roughly 70% of a pot, enough to let pasta soak in]
120 grams of store-bought pasta [I used “Ma Ma Spaghetti” a Japanese brand with a thickness of 1.4 millimeters]
Two tomatoes
Two eggplants
A few sprigs of parsley (for topping)
180～200 grams of tomato sauce (I used Prego Italian Sauce)
Two red chilies plus a morsel of sliced red chilies (add as needed)
Garlic (Photo by Shoji Kudaka)
Tomatoes (Photo by Shoji Kudaka)
Eggplants (Photo by Shoji Kudaka)
Parsley (Photo by Shoji Kudaka)
Recipe (for one person)
Before you start cooking, prepare ingredients by chopping garlic cloves into small pieces, dicing tomatoes into medium-sized chuncks and dicing eggplants. Also, chop some parsley.
1. Bring water in a pot to a boil on high heat.
2. Add the pasta to the boiling water and turn the heat down to medium-heat. Leave the past in for about five minutes.
(Photo by Shoji Kudaka)
3. While pasta is boiling, fry garlic and red chili with olive oil in a frying pan just until the garlic is golden brown.
(Photo by Shoji Kudaka)
4. Add sliced tomatoes and eggplants into the pan and fry for a minute or so until the vegetables are tender.
(Photo by Shoji Kudaka)
5. Next, add the tomato sauce and fry for another minute or so, then remove from heat. Wait until the pasta is cooked to the softness desired by the cook.
(Photo by Shoji Kudaka)
6. Once the pasta is ready, strain the water and incorporate the pasta into the pan with the tomato sauce. Fry over high or medium-high heat for another minute or so.
(Photo by Shoji Kudaka)
(Photo by Shoji Kudaka)
7. Plate your pasta and top with chopped parsley.
(Photo by Shoji Kudaka)
