Cooking spaghetti - my way.

55: Spaghetti!!!

Since my guests always seem to like my spaghetti, I thought I'd post my recipe. Today my friend theshanghaieye from flickr came over and took pics while my wife and I were cooking, so you can see the progress with images.

Jakob's spaghetti for three people (and a bit leftover for the night).

Allright, let's begin! First, let's prepare the water. Find a huge pot, and add water. Fill it up to about 80%.

01: Water

Add some spoons with salt to the water. This will make the spaghetti taste more... italian.

02: Salt

Find some sauce. As you see, my sauce of choice is the traditional spaghetti sauce from Del Monte. You can find it in Carre Four if you live in Shanghai, or in the city supermarket at Jing'An temple.

03: Del Monte

Well, open it.

04: Open

Murphy's law stroke our photo-shoot, and the tin opener just broke, so I had to use a knife to get it open.

05: Knife

Cut the garlic!

06: Garlic

Cut three garlic pieces in thin layers.

07: Garlic layers

Okay, well done.

08: Garlic

Then heat the plate, add olive oil and wait until it's hot.

09: Olive oil

Use the time it needs to heat to wash some tomatoes, for example.

10: Tomatoes

Okay, now throw in the garlic.

11: Garlic

Wait for ten seconds or so, then add the sauce.

12: Sauce

Start cutting the tomatoes you cleaned earlier. A bit of fresh tomatoes never hurts these tin box sauces, capisce?

13: Tomatoes

Blend them.

14: Stir

Add some salt.

15: Salt

Smile for the camera.

16: Smile

Cut some more. Tomatoes are healthy, you know?

17: More tomatoes

Beautiful vegetable.

18: Tomatoes

Add them, too.

19: Blend

Start cutting onions. Non piangere!

20: Onions

Cut them in small pieces.

21: Onions

Open up another garlic, don't cut it.

22: Garlic

Then throw it into the water! Not into the sauce!

23: Garlic into water

Add some oil to the water, start heating it now.

24: Olive oil into water

Get the spaghetti ready. If you cook anything else then De Cecco, you're a consumer whore.

25: De Cecco

Smile some more, and don't forget to stir the sauce every once in a while.

26: Smile

Now that the water is heating and the sauce cooking, get the cheese ready. If you don't have a real Grana from Parma, there are flights for under 6.000 kuai to Italy and back.

27: Grana

It must be a Parmigiano! Don't you dare use some toast cheese or something like that.

28: Reggano

Rub the cheese onto a plate.

29: Rubbing

Rub until you have a small hill.

30: Rubbing

Looks good, smells good, tastes good.

31: Cheese!

As for Origano, you should have a italian nonna that provides it to you. If you don't have an italian grandmother, which is probably the case if you don't know how to cook spaghetti and the only reason why you're reading this, find some decent italian store and buy it there for an insane price.

32: Origano

Drop it into the sauce, stupid!

33: Blend

Stir it.

34: Stir

The onions still have to wait. But theshanghaieye was bored and wanted to give them special attention by shooting an exquisite picture.

35: Onions

To the climax: Cook the spaghetti!

36: Climax

Make sure your water is boiling, and throw 'em in!

37: Spaghetti

Stir around so they don't stick to the ground.

38: Stir

Let them boil for about 10 minutes.

39: Boiling

Smile some more.

40: Smile

Seems like theshanghaieye can't wait to try them.

41: theshanghaieye

My wife prepared a salad.

42: Salad

Smile...

43: Smile

Try the spaghetti after 10 minutes. They should be al dente, that means, they shouldn't be too soft and not too hard. If they are too soft, you overcooked them. Shame on you! Better luck next time. If they are still very hard, wait a minute, try again.

44: Try

Now that the spaghetti are perfect, take them out.

45: Spaghetti

Shake 'em so the water is all gone.

46: Throw

Put them back into the pot and blend them with the sauce.

47: Blend

Now fry the onions in olive oil. If you're a onion-taste lover, you can cook them together with the sauce from the beginning, but I prefer it this way.

48: Onions

The salad is almost finished, too.

49: Salad

Yummy!

50: Yummy!

Onions ready? Blend them in the pot with the spaghetti.

51: Onions

Stir it well!

52: Blend

Put the spaghetti on a plate!

53: Spaghetti

Hungry?

54: Spaghetti!

Add the Grana cheese. Finished!

55: Spaghetti!!!

Hope you like this recipe, let me know if it worked for you. I might add some more in that case.

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