A scientist in the kitchen

Spaghetti pasta is probably the most popular type of pasta in the the Philippines. It is so popular, in fact, that Filipinos have developed their own version of spaghetti sauce to cater to the Filipino palate.

A warning though, because our spaghetti tastes sweet! Rather I would call it sweet-spice taste using tomato sauce and catsup as the sauce. In the grocery stores, you can find tomato sauce labeled with “Filipino style”.

While I prefer the Italian style of cooking pasta, I still crave for Pinoy spaghetti now and then. For that, I turn to my Dad to cook the spaghetti for us. My Dad cooks really great Tagalog dishes and I’ve learned a lot from him. For the spaghetti, I usually all the ingredients before I let him in the kichen. Two cooks in the kitchen don’t mix well! But then, once he is ready to cook, I usually assist him and wash after him. Otherwise, the kitchen would really be a mess!

The recipe calls for half a kilo of spaghetti, banana catsup, a pouch of tomato sauce and uses corned beef hash instead of fresh ground beef. Freshly crushed black pepper adds to spiciness of the dish for sweet-spicy spaghetti only in the Philippines. Note also the absence of herbs. And since it’s sauted Pinoy-style, soy sauce is added to mixture.

Here’s how he does it:

Cook spaghetti according to package instructions. Place contents of a can of corned beef has in a bowl and mix with 2 tsp black bepper. Saute chopped garlic (4 cloves) and onions (1 large onion, minced) in vegetable oil. Add the corned beef hash and 2 tbsp soy sauce. Mix well then add the sauces (1 cup banana catsup and 2 pouch of regular tomato sauce - banana catsup is already sweet so no need to use Filipino-style spaghetti sauce). Simmer for a few minutes then add the cooked spaghetti. Make sure that pasta is well-coated with sauce. Serve topped with cheese.

Hope you enjoyed my contribution to this week’s Presto Pasta Nights. You may also be interested to participate in “To market, to market…“

Popularity: 79% [?]

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Stumble it!