The Unlikely Cook

I have never quite fancied pasta.

I often see pasta as 'the ang moh instant noodles'.

But last Friday, after I took the girls to visit an old friend, my buddy's great cooking completely changes the way I look at pasta.

She cooked a small pan of fusilli for us, and I have never tasted such great pasta! I actually wished I could have more!

She showed me how she cooked it and gave me the list of ingredients she used. I improvised the recipe a little by adding in chicken bits.

 

Serving: two

Ingredients:

1.5 cup of fusilli

Half of boneless chicken thigh (diced)

5 to 6 florets of broccoli (diced)

4 brown button mushroom (diced)

Butter or margarine to oil the pan

3 teaspoons of salt

1 tablespoon of corn flour or plain flour

A packet of cooking cream (as below) from NTUC or Cold Storage (placed in the yogurt section)

 

Preparing the fusilli

1) Boil water with a teaspoon of salt.

2) Cook the fusilli for 10 minutes when water is boiled

3) Drain the water and set the fusilli aside

Preparing the chicken

1) Before dicing, immerse the chicken thigh in a bowl of water with a teaspoon of salt for 10 minutes.

2) Dice the chicken thigh.

3) Boil a small pot of water and immerse the diced chicken thigh in it till half-cooked.

(This is also to get rid of the chicken smell.)

4) Drain the water and set the diced chicken thigh aside.

Preparing the sauce

1) Pour the cooking cream into a bowl.

2) Add 1 tablespoon of flour to the packet of cooking cream and stir till the flour is dissolved.

Steps:

1) Using medium fire, oil the frying pan with margarine or butter.

2) Pour the diced mushrooms and broccoli into the frying pan and fry them till cooked.

3) Add the diced chicken thigh in and fry for a while.

4) Add 2/3 of the sauce into the pan.

5) Add fusilli in.

6) When the sauce boils, add in 2 teaspoons of salt.

7) Stir to mix everything in.

8) Add in the remaining sauce and 1 teaspoon of salt.

9) When the sauce boils, turn off the stove and serve the pasta hot.

Quite an easy recipe for an amateur like me!

At first I didn't get it right. The girls said that the pasta was too hard (I didn't boil it for 10 minutes), the taste was too bland (not enough salt) and the pasta was not creamy (I didn't add the flour or there was too little flour).

I only got it right at the third attempt. While I usually don't eat or eat little of what I cook, I loved it and indulged in it this time!