cooking notes

here are some recipes written more or less how they appear in my head as i'm cooking them. the titles are what they're called in my head (usually whatever the original recipe was intended to be) even if the way i cook them has drifted since then — there's no pretense of “legitimacy” or “authenticity” to any of these recipes at all, just stuff i actually make.

for similar reasons, these probably aren't good recipes for learning to cook any of the named dishes — i'd recommend just following the original recipe in that case

spaghetti alla puttanesca

(original recipe: The Pasta Project)

ingredients

  • spaghetti
  • olive oil
  • a few garlic cloves, minced
  • red pepper flakes
  • anchovy (fillets or paste)
  • capers olives etc, chopped
  • parsley
  • tomatoes (canned is fine, i usually use a whole 400g/14oz can)
(2024 aug 29)
this incarnation was pretty rough: i forgot the parsley entirely and didn't have any anchovies so i substituted with fish sauce (but it happened to be made from anchovies, so it worked out!)

instructions

  1. cook the spaghetti until it's almost as cooked as you want it (save some pasta water!). if the spaghetti gets done earlier than the sauce, stir in a little olive oil to keep it from turning into one big clump
  2. in a separate pot, add the garlic and olive oil to a cold panα; turn on medium heat
  3. heat until the garlic starts to change colorβ
  4. add parsley and pickled things, and optionally a little of their brine
  5. stir; give it another minute or so to combineγ
  6. add tomatoes and cook for a bit longer
  7. add almost-cooked pasta, then add saved pasta water until the sauce is how you want it
  8. serve; top with whatever

thoughts

  1. doing this gives you a bit more time for the heat to infuse the garlic into the oil without immediately cooking the garlic
  2. it'll still be on the heat past this point, so add other stuff now so the garlic doesn't get overcooked
  3. especially important for the parsley since i usually only have the dried stuff

“ethiopian” salad

with apologies to the ethiopians

ingredients

  • lemon juice
  • olive oil
  • a few garlic cloves
  • salt, pepper
  • msg (opt.)

  • lettuce (any kind)
  • onion (any kind)
  • tomato (i prefer full-size, not cherry)
  • jalapeño (recommended!!!)
  • other vegetables. use what you got
(2024 aug 29)
simple version with just lettuce, onion, and bell pepper. i added some red wine vinegar and soy sauce to the dressing as well

instructions

  1. “paste” the garlic: chop it up as finely as you can bother to, then pour some salt on it and use a flat side of a knife to grind the garlic down even further, using the salt as an abrasive
  2. add the garlic and lemon juice to a big vesselα
  3. deseed the jalapeñoβ
  4. chop vegetables; i cut the lettuce into bite-size pieces and onions into thin strips
  5. add remaining dressing ingredients to a big vessel. mix vigorously with a fork or whisk to emulsifyγ
  6. add the vegetables; toss well
  7. serve

thoughts

  1. this gives the lemon juice a chance to take the edge off the raw garlic
  2. i don't like running into the jalapeño seeds while eating, so i remove the seeds. you can still keep the ribs in for spice
  3. the garlic is the only emulsifier here, and hand-whisking isn't super effective for this sort of thing, so don't expect a perfect emulsion (or any at all if you skipped the garlic). the intention is just to get the lemon and oil to both evenly coat the vegetables when you toss them; if the dressing separates too much then that'll be much more difficult