Most of these recipes are Italian cuisine; Italian and Japanese cuisine are my two favourite cuisines. Surprisingly, despite being Chinese, and growing up in a Chinese family, I do not like Chinese food. I'm pretty sure I could make quite a few Chinese dishes, but none of them do I spend time researching on how to make them taste better, nor are they worth writing down.

Resources

I've sourced these recipes from all over the internet, but there are a few sources I would like recommend:

• Adam Ragusea
• Ethan Chlebowski

Both these YouTube channels dive into the science behind cooking instead of just listing recipes. By understanding the fundamentals and knowing why you should add an ingredient, you are able to quickly improve your cooking skills.

Also another Netflix Series / Cookbook:

• SALT FAT ACID HEAT
  • This series has greatly enlightened me on the importance of salt and fat in cooking. Originally I thought salt was only to make food taste saltier, but it turns out salt does a lot more than that.

Pasta: Parpadelle

Ingredients:

• Flour
• 2 eggs / cup of Flour
• Salt

Recipe:

1. Add all ingredients into food processor and mix on lowest setting.

   • Using a food processor instead of a stand mixer or mixing by hand is strongly recommended. Instead of adding all eggs at once into food processor, I like to keep it 1 or 2 eggs short. Essentially enough such that flour does not combine into a dough. Then I add water, bit by bit, until the dough combines. This ensures that I have just enough water content to form the dough.

   • By minimizing the water content of the dough, we maximize the al dente feel. A food processor is fast, it will quickly let you know if enough water has been added or not. A stand mixer, on the other hand, is slower, and will keep you guessing.

2. Knead the dough, adding flour as necessary, until dough rises back up when pressed.

3. If you have a pasta roller, now is the time to use it. Roll the dough until it becomes semi-translucent (thinnest setting on your pasta roller). If you are rolling by hand, you may want to let the dough rest for 20-30 minutes first, otherwise the tense gluten structure will make rolling very difficult.

   1. During the rolling process, especially if you are using a pasta roller, it is important to remember to keep adding flour. Otherwise you will end up with a sticky mess.

Bolognese Sauce

When I say spaghetti sauce or pasta sauce, I'm really referring to Bolognese sauce. I like having ground beef/pork in the sauce. I once ate pasta everyday for 3-4 months straight.

Ingredients:

• 1 can of crushed tomatoes in puree
• Chicken Liver
• Milk or Sugar (possibly even baking soda?)
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 6 medium cloves garlic, minced
• Red Bell peppers
• Parsley
• 1 large onion, finely chopped (about 2 cups)
• 3 tomatoes (or grape tomatoes)
• 1 pinch red pepper flakes, optional
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• Red wine
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt, more to taste
• Ground Beef or Pork

Recipe:

1. Boil 4 tomatoes until soft and skin starts to peel
   1. I find that cherry and grape tomatoes work very well here; however, instead of boiling them, cut them in half and fry them in a pan skin side down with some olive oil. I like to fry them until the skin starts to burn. The burnt skin adds a earthy taste to the sauce and also assures me that the skin is tenderized.
   2. The only cumbersome part is that you need to do this in a seperate pan.
2. Drain water and soak tomatoes in cold water. Peel skin off. Remove stem.
3. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan, over medium heat.
4. Finely chop onions and sweat the onions in the saucepan, also add finely chopped garlic and lots of salt. It is important to chop onions and garlic as finely as possible, to the point where no bits of onions can be discerned in the finished sauce. Using a food processor is recommended.
5. Take out the onions and garlic and set aside in bowl
6. Add more olive oil then add minced beef, red wine and more salt. Stir until brown and only oil/fat remains
7. Add back in onions and garlic mixture
8. Stir in tomato paste until minced beef appears red.
9. Add chicken liver slurry and stir well
10. Add boiled tomatoes, crush with spatula
11. Add oregano, basil, and black pepper
12. Add can of crushed tomatoes, fill same can with water and add in water as well
13. Bring to boil on high heat
14. Adding butter at this stage is optional, more fat means tastier food.
15. Stir and taste. Optionally add milk and sugar to reduce acidity (sourness)
16. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, until the sauce thickens slightly, about 20 minutes. Adjust the seasoning with more salt and pepper, if desired.

Making the Pasta

Generally any kind of store bought dried pasta is fine (i.e spaghetti, fettucine), you can also make your own!

1. Bring pot of water up to boiling
2. Add salt to the boiling water! (enough to make the water taste salty - yes, taste the water please)
   1. This step is very important, I cannot stress this enough! Store bought dried pasta is not seasoned, there is no salt in it! When you cook the pasta, the pasta also absorbs some of the water, you want to make sure that this is salt water.
   2. If you followed my recipe on making your own pasta and added salt to the dough, you STILL need to add salt to the water! Unsalinated water will pull the salt right out of the dough!
3. Put pasta into boiling water. If using homemade pasta, pasta will generally be ready in under a minute. If you are using store bought dried pasta, it will take some more time. Use your sense of taste to gauge whether pasta is ready.
4. I highly recommend combining the Bolognese sauce and pasta in a frying pan drizzled with extra virgin olive oil over medium to high heat. This will reduce the sauce further and also fry the pasta a bit. It is much tastier this way.

Meatballs

Perfect to put into the already meat crazy Bolognese sauce to make Spaghetti and Meatballs!

Ingredients:

• Ground Beef or Pork
• Onion
• Parmesan Cheese
• 1 Egg
• Parsley
• Salt
• Ground Black pepper
• Basil
• Oregano
• Bread Crumbs (Panko)
• Olive Oil

Recipe:

1. Add all ingredients into bowl and stir until uniformly distributed. Control water content using bread crumbs.
2. Form into meatballs.
3. In a frying pan, add olive oil and fry meatballs on all sides
4. If making alongside Bolognese sauce, make sure to add fried meatballs into sauce and let simmer for a while.
   1. I haven't tried this before, but it sounds like a good idea. If you own a food syringe, try injecting some of the sauce into the meatballs while they are frying.