Home Pasta

Everytime I cook pasta, I'm reminded of home.

Not that we always had pasta at home, not that my receipe is special in some way, but because of the way I was taught to cook it. The method is strictly tied to the workings of home... and I'm forced to re-imagine a lazy Sunday back in JB.

You always put the fire right at the LOWEST setting from the start - because mom has SHARP ears. She can pick up the sound of a sizzling saucepan even when she's out in the garden. And she'd immediately call out to me.

"Turn down the fire or it'll splatter!!"

Yes, mom. So the fire is always at the lowest. Let the diced onions slowly saute in the pan with only a little oil, until they get soft. How'd you know they were good? When you tap a wooden spatula on the pile of cooking onions, and it wouldnt feel hard to the tap. That's what mom said.

Then you add the meat, stirring as you do so, to ensure that there's as LITTLE sizzling as possible. Again, mom'd be able to hear you if you just tossed the meat onto the pan. Add salt and pepper.

Stir until the meat is 90% cooked (only a few chunks of red remain). Then add the sauce. It can be the premade kind from Prego, or if you desire, add 2 cans of puree, then top up using 1 empty can of puree and filling it half way with water. The sizzling should die away.

Now you can raise the temperature, because it's all cold.

While some people love the sourness of the tomato sauce, mom and dad don't really fancy the zestiness of the sauce. So you add a little something sweet. But mom hates sugar. At the time I learned, we were on a brown sugar spree, and adding brown sugar to spaghetti sauce just sounded weird, so I went with the next best thing - a teaspoon of honey.

Slowly stir the honey into the mixture and it'll help to ease the sourness.

By this time, you might be concerned that the sauce is a little too watery (especially if you used the puree method). This is the best time to add cheese. But Oliver and Mom dont really fancy the strong smell of parmesan - while I and jasper have no qualms with coating our pasta with a THICK blanket of grated parmesan cheese.

A simple work around - i take a slice of mozzarella, or whatever kraft singles are in the fridge, tear up the slice into tiny pieces and sprinkle into the sauce. Stir the tiny pieces until they melt and it'll thicken up the sauce uniformly. Use lighter cheeses to reduce the strong smell if you dont like it. Turn the fire off.

Before you finish up, sprinkle some thyme over the top of the sauce and cover to let it stand. Sauce is done.

Hopefully, you've put the stock pot on to boil before you started the sauce. Or else everyone's gonna smell the sauce (because of the thyme) and come asking about lunch. It should be half full of water, with a generous sprinkling of salt, and a tiny bit of olive oil on top.

By this time, the water should be boiling.

Drop however much pasta into the water and stir, so that sticks slowly bend around the inside of the pot and are quickly submerged. If you wait for the pasta to soften and sink in on it's own - the tips may burn from the heat over the edge of the pot - and dad (the engineer) will immediately take note and complain.

Mom always said to cook the pasta until it looks white in the water and when you lift it up against the side of the pot, it sticks and doesnt slide down. Another way, if you're not good with heat is to use long wooden chopsticks and just stir the mixture with them. If you can FEEL the pasta hitting against your chopsticks, then they're not done.

If you can retrieve a single strand of spaghetti from the boiling pot, give it a wiggle and pull at it from both ends until it breaks. If it breaks without a sound - then it's good. Any tiny *peck* sound that you hear is a clear indication that the inside is still too firm.

Once the pasta is JUST nice, but still FIRM, you can turn the fire off and serve.

Most pasta fans will dictate the good ol' dunk-the-lot-in-cold-water thing, but I dont. See, it takes my family some time to assemble. And this is the image that I always keep in my head when making my pasta. I just leave the pot on the stove and imagine.

I imagine dad taking his time to put this tools away downstairs.

I imagine oliver slowly crawling out of bed.

I imagine jasper trying to finish the last fifa game and pausing.

I imagine mom watching the last scene of AFC before coming over.

I'd just leave the pasta on the plate on the dining table. By the time the family assembles, the pasta has pretty much cooked itself to the perfect degree of softness. And this is the timing that I always keep in my head.

Once they've all sat down in my imagination at the dining table, then only do I remove the pasta from the pot and serve. And it's always been perfect.

I don't know how make pasta any other way. And I dont want to.