Making pasta has got to be the single most popular choice amongst home cooks when it comes to quick and easy dinners. Everyone has a recipe of their own, and almost everyone will also claim expertise.
This is all good and well, because much like sinigang or nilaga, every house will have their own special recipe that you won’t find anywhere else. And chances are high that these recipes create dishes that are GOOD.
I make my marinara sauce from a recipe I learned from a friend while we were working in the same restaurant a few years back. It’s a very simple sauce that only requires a can of tomatoes, onions, garlic, a dash of white wine and a beef cube. It’s a very basic red sauce, but this recipe is one of the most potent ones I’ve ever tried. For full details on how to make this, you can grab the August issue of Appetite magazine or check out the recipe on appetite.ph!
The problem I had with making pasta at home was that they never were quite the same when I would have them at restaurants. At home, my pasta sauce and my noodles didn’t seem to go together very well, literally feeling like you took two different things and forced them together. At restaurants, I always noticed how the pasta noodles were beautifully coated with the sauce, and how they would cling to each other effortlessly.
I did a little research, and the answer hit me on the head.
Watch this.
Notice in the end, when the pasta dish comes out. The fabulously thick and red tomato sauce is put on top of the perfectly al-dente pasta noodles, and is served to the kid.
This imagery is actually quite common, as I can recall several other commercials that have the same thing.
This imagery is actually quite common, as I can recall several other commercials that have the same thing.
Visually, it is arresting. I mean let’s admit, it looks GOOD! This is how we are instructed to serve our pastas. Noodles below, and then you put the sauce on top. So at home, we usually have one giant bowl of noodles, and then one giant bowl of pasta sauce. And then when it’s time to eat, you serve and that’s when you mix the two together.
It took me a while to figure out that the reason why my pasta sauce and my noodles feel like they were forced together was because they were in fact FORCED together.
Good Italian restaurants will always serve your pasta tossed and mixed already, as in it arrives at your table ready to be gobbled down. This is because in the kitchen, all pasta dishes are finished on a frying pan. They put sauce in the frying pan, heat it, and then add in your noodles and toss them up. Simple. Easy.
It’s this final step with the frying pan that makes all the difference. Believe me.
So how does this translate for us at home, where we usually cook for 5 people. Simple. Start it off by making your sauce in a deep pan and not in a pot.
Something that looks like this:
And not like this:
When you are about to finish making your sauce in the pan, you can add in the cooked pasta noodles, and cook them together until they’re done.
It’s really that simple. You’ll end up with a perfectly coated and well incorporated dish.
Some tips:
- Use TONGS whenever you handle noodles, especially in the end when you have the sauce and the pasta together.
- Don’t throw out the pasta water. You can use this to make your sauces a little runnier if it becomes too thick, especially with WHITE sauces.
- Keep tasting as you go along. Check for saltiness and for missing flavor factors. It also helps to keep you from eating like a wild animal at the table because you’re so hungry.
- Make your red sauces in advance, as the flavor of tomato develops over time
- Serve your pasta in individual BOWLS instead of giant dishes and plates. Eating from a bowl adds more fun. ADMIT IT!
And lastly, as they say in Italy:
MANGIARE!