Otaku cooking – Alfredo and Carbonara Spaghetti

Wow, managed to drag this post for like… an entire friggin month based on the EXIF data lol. So that Saturday i was supposed to go for a haircut, while my mom went shopping at a local mall. With my lol luck, the barber is closed and i ended up joining my mom for shopping instead and we’re only shopping groceries. Out of a sudden thought, i just felt like having spaghetti, and its been a while since I’ve had some nice creamy Alfredo/Carbonara spaghetti.

Eventually that thought evolved into cooking some nice Alfredo Spaghetti for myself out of the random, and usually its a rarity for otakus being tied with cooking, as instant (and cheap!) food stuff would be the general preference (such as instant cup noodles). And on the day itself – Sunday, the whole idea of taking photos and even making a blog post about it never even occurred to me until the idea of taking some pictures of the spaghetti for my sister that isn’t coming home this week (lives at her university dorm) just to tease her.

From there, I’ve gotten myself some nice pictures, and of course, i decided to write up about the whole recipe and process on preparing this dish. Don’t worry, its really simple, just time consuming and takes up a bit of cash XD So if you’re interested in preparing yourself some nice spaghetti, read on after the fold.

So lets start on with the ingredients!

• 6 pieces medium sized onions
• about 1 or 2 pieces of garlic
• Leggo’s Alfredo Pasta Sauce 565g
• San Remo Reg No5 Spaghetti 500g
• sugar/salt to taste
• Fresh milk
• Olive Oil
• Chinese Parsley aka Coriander (you can use other kinds of garnishing/flavor enhancers such as parsley, or even
• Cheese for the finishing touch. Typically people use Parmesan. I’m using mozzarella for this heh. Also to note that butter is also used in this, however i missed it out 😛

Optional stuffs (up to your preference, feel free to add/change them):

• half a pack of Ayamas Premium Black pepper cocktail sausages 500g (this is up to you)
• a pack of sliced ham (up to you also)
• about 500grams of sea prawns/shrimp
• about 200g of canned button mushrooms

References from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fettuccine_alfredo

So to begin, slice and dice the ingredients! (lol) and once that is done, i started off by heating up the wok and pouring some olive oil into it, and then some chopped garlic, once it gets slightly golden in color, i pour in the prawns to give them some good frying. Prior to that they are marinated with just salt and sugar. Same method applied to the sausages, after both items fried to satisfaction, i take them out of the wok and proceeded to pour in the premade Alfredo pasta sauce:

Before pouring the sauce, I’ve had some garlic and onions fried with olive oil, to get that extra aroma/taste out for it. Once the onions and garlic gets slightly cooked (very noticeable with the strong aroma coming out) i just pour in all of the sauce along with some milk and sugar/salt. Below is a picture on the fried prawns and sausages:

Once the sauce thickens a little, just proceed to pour in the cooked spaghetti, and let simmer for a minute or 2. Lastly just pour in the rest of the ingredients such as the mushrooms, prawns, sausages and ham. And its done:

So lastly, all that’s left is to sprinkle some cheese and Coriander and its finally done:

Pretty simple ain’t it? Well, considering the delayed post, and I’ve already went on and cooked up a second Carbonara dish, i guess ill post it up too! So for the ingredients:

• about 2 pieces medium sized onions
• about 1 or 2 pieces of garlic
• Prego’s Carbonara Mushroom Pasta Sauce 300g x2
• San Remo Reg No5 Spaghetti 500g
• sugar/salt to taste
• Fresh milk
• Olive Oil
• lots of black pepper powder
• Parsley
• Parmesan Cheese! (got it right lol)

Optional stuffs (up to your preference, feel free to add/change them):

• half a pack of Ayamas Premium cheese cocktail sausages 500g (this is up to you)
• Some sliced pork, forgot its quantity, so you’ll can just refer the below pictures.

References from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonara

Ok I’ve gotten a little lazy for this particular dish, then again, the original recipes i referred from the Internet is much simpler, so why not just keep it simple as well? 🙂 The only slightly “challenging” part was trying out how to cook the sliced pork differently, which i will explain. First off, the pork is marinated in salt and a LOT of black pepper, with an egg mixed into it. I start with the usual garlic in the wok, and then in goes the pork. Once the pork is somewhat half cooked, i pour in some milk and let the meat absorb it. Once its drying up, i sprinkle some Parmesan over it, and of course, putting them aside on a plate. The aroma and taste was surprisingly good after tasting a few pieces of it ^^

The rest was pretty similar to the above dish, frying up the sausages as well and then taking them out again. The sauce on the other hand had some slight difference – LOADS of black pepper.

And finally, the result:

Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese and parsley, and it is finished. Hope you guys like the above recipes/pictures. Feel free to ask away if you have any questions pertaining the dishes above.