Sundried Tomatoes and Garlic Angel Hair Pasta

I’ve been remiss in sharing again. The past days have been hectic. I want to share another pasta dish that makes use of bagoong balayan instead of anchovies, which are soooooooo expensive.

The measurement I’ve indicated here was something that I finally perfected after so many tries. There was a time I put too much bagoong balayan the pasta became unbearably salty. Once I put too much olive oil, the pasta was swimming in too much oil. I finally got this right and carved this on stone so to speak.

I urge you food enthusiasts and adventurous cooks to always write down every recipe you create, every measurement, every dash and splash…just discipline yourself to doing that. I know, it’s super cool not to measure, but the taste of a dish thus varies every time you feel sad, happy or irritable. Measuring takes out the tendency to go overboard with the salt when you feel like dumping it all because you had a bad day at work or an LQ perhaps.

When I first worked with a food company, I wasn’t used to measuring every ingredient that goes to the food I cook. I was initially taken aback by the necessity of doing that so that others may replicate it in my absence. Working with the R&D team further enhanced my discipline to measure everything. In fact, instead of using teaspoon, tablespoon or cups, we simply measure the content of these so that everything is accurate to the last minute detail. Everything must be replicable.

I'm using angel hair pasta for this dish. Angel Hair pasta is otherwise known as Cappeli d'Angelo. In the Philippines however, we might see Capellini which is Fine Hair pasta that's slightly thicker than Angel Hair. Should you not wish to use Angel Hair, you may use Capellini and the recipe will not be affected. However, when using the regular spaghetti noodles that are plentiful in the local supermarkets, you may want to adjust the measurements indicated here. You could try a half tablespoon more of bagoong balayan and also a half tablespoon more of olive oil. Since this is again trial and error, you might want to go slowly by adding just 1/4 tablespoon of bagoong balayan and likewise, 1/4 tablespoon of the olive oil. Then tell me about it...You see I tried this already and I couldn't find the recipe where I noted this. Oh well...

Now here's the recipe…

SUNDRIED TOMATOES AND GARLIC ANGEL HAIR PASTA

Ingredients:

1 package Angel Hair pasta (500g), cooked as per package directions

5 Tbsp olive oil

1 whole garlic, minced

5 Tbsp bagoong balayan (replacing anchovies)

½ cup sun dried tomatoes packed in oil, sliced 

½ cup black olives, sliced

2 sprigs fresh parsley, chopped

parmesan cheese

Procedure:

·        Sauté garlic in olive oil; do not brown garlic.

·        Add the bagoong balayan and cook until oil comes out on the sides

·        Add the sun dried tomatoes and the black olives. Reserve some for garnishing on top. Toss and mix the rest with the cooked angel hair pasta. Top with chopped fresh parsley and parmesan cheese.