Elbow Macaroni with Garlic Crumbs / Vegetarian Pasta Recipe / Italian Cuisine

Its been two months now that Gulshan has gifted me this book... best ever Pasta Sauces by Linda Fraser...and finally today..this is my first meal from these menus. Sometimes I do cook Spaghetti and Fusilli in my own Indian style..but always wanted to learn the authentic Pasta Sauces - the heart of Italian Cooking in a proper way. The thing I like most about Pasta is that it is so versatile and almost anything to everything goes with it and there are so many shapes and varieties of pasta.

I selected a basic pasta recipe to begin with. Elbow Macaroni with Garlic Crumbs. It is a hot and spicy vegetarian pasta dish. In this recipe , The Elbow Macaroni is cooked until it is al dente (" to the tooth"), which means it is just tender, but still firm to the bite and tossed with a hot and flavorful tomato sauce and finally Garlic crumbs are sprinkled on it. The original recipe uses Rigatoni and has bacon in tomato sauce, I have replaced Rigatoni with Macaroni and omitted use of bacon.

Ingredients: Serves -2

• 1 cup Elbow Macaroni
• 1 cup chopped Tomatoes with Garlic and herbs 
• 2 shallots , chopped
• 2 tbsp butter
• 3 slices bread
• 1 tbsp Olive oil
• 1/2 tsp crushed dried red Chillies
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• Salt per taste

Method:

A. Cooking Pasta : Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling salted water with few drops of olive oil according to the instructions on the packet, until al dente. Drain well.

  

 
       B.  Preparing the Pasta sauce:  Heat oil in a medium saucepan and fry the shallots for about a minute. Now add the dried chillies and chopped tomatoes with garlic and dash of mixed Italian herbs. Add salt , ground black pepper , mix well and cook for 2-3 minutes. The sauce is ready.

 

   C.    Preparing The Garlic crumbs:  Cut the crust off the bread and reduce the bread to crumbs using a blender or food processor. Heat the butter in a frying pan, add the finely chopped garlic and bread crumbs and stir fry until golden and crisp. Ensure the bread crumbs do not stick to the bottom of the pan or burn by continuously stirring. 

 

      D. Toss the Pasta with the tomato sauce in a bowl with the help of 2 forks to mix evenly. Sprinkle with Garlic crumbs and serve immediately. Enjoy the hot spicy and delicious Pasta !