Wine Infused Mushroom and Ham Angel Hair Spaghetti

Was seated in front of a pasta stall at Tanjong Pagar during lunch today. Wanted to try this new stall but decided to do another time as I was not exactly in a spaghetti mood for lunch. As I was eating my lunch, one of the ladies at the table commented that it was very easy to cook the pasta. She was describing to her friend what ingredients to buy, how to go about cooking it and making it sound so easy that her friend actually told her to prepare it for Potluck on Friday. Haha...

It was an unintentional eavesdropping but they were really funny. The way they put the stall owners down and the way they teased each other. One thing for sure is she is really right. It is really easy to cook your own pasta at home. You just need to head out to buy the ingredients and spend a little bit of time cooking.

Had an errand to run at NTUC after work, hence decided to buy the ingredients to cook my dinner. Grabbed a bottle of Wine Infused Pasta Sauce from Leggo’s. It is made from tomato, sweet basil and has Shiraz added. The description itself was enough to tempt me to lay my hands on it. ;P

Next, I went to the mushroom section to get some white button mushroom. I was pretty surprised that there are ready-sliced packages available nowadays. It really makes things so convenient and cooking so effortless. :  Got myself some ham too.

Cooking the pasta was really easy. All it took was about 10min? The mushroom was already sliced so you just need to take out the amount that you want. As for the ham, you just need to quickly slice it. The angel hair spaghetti that I have at home cooks really quickly; 2 min was all it needed. So cook your spaghetti, lightly sautéed with some butter the mushroom and ham, and then add the pasta sauce and finally, the cooked spaghetti and tada! Dinner is ready! :D

All the ingredients that was need to cook your own pasta meal.

The end result: Wine Infused Mushroom and Ham Angel Hair Spaghetti

Zhu Chang Fen aka Chee Chong Fun

Just finish watching a food program by Michelle Chia on Zhu Chang Fen. She has actually gone to China, Guang Zhou, to try out all the different variety of Zhu Chang Fen or Chee Cheong Fun as it is called in Cantonese. Looks really yummy..

Some tips on making good Chang Fen is to use young rice grains and grind them to make a paste suitable for steaming. But with modernization, most of the Chang Fen are made using ready rice powder mix with water and some oil to get the consistency one required to make it. After that, it is drizzled with some special sauce (eg: sesame oil., soya sauce, sweet sauce, etc) to add flavour to the otherwise plain “rice rolls”.

I’m amazed by the wide variety of fillings that was used. From the most traditional plain ones to those with Char Siew (roast pork) and prawns, there are now you tiao (fried dough fritters), durian, eggs, minced meat and spring onions ones! You name it and I think they will have it! Sometimes you really have to take your hats off to the creativity of the hawkers, how innovative they can be in order to survive : )

I still remember that when we were younger, we used to get those really plain Chee Cheong Fun as breakfast. Why? I really do not know. Maybe it was sweet and appetising to kids? Maybe it was cheap and a little can feed and fill many mouths and stomachs? We really do not know the answer. Mum could not answer us too. Haha. They had no fillings inside, only sweet sauce and sesame seeds on top. So when my friend’s mum served us some, it kind of brought back some childhood memories.. : )

A quick snap of what I ate. Plain and simple but lots of memories..

Pizza Hut Pasta

Hitched a ride from a col to Plaza Sing. Went to get some stuff for my retreat and then decided on getting dinner as well with a col. We were racking our brains over what to eat when an advertisement popped into our mind and we decided to head to Pizza Hut.

Pizza Hut recently launched Pasta Perfectto and their Taste & Tell Pasta Challenge really paid off! A group of people were challenged to guess where the pasta that they were eating were from and many guessed that they were from renowned Italian Pasta Restaurants. With such review, it did made me curious to try out their Pasta to see if they live up to the compliments.

The Menu looks pretty decent. The variety was quite ok and the food pics looks tempting. The pricing is really affordable and what makes the deal sweeter when you order the Pasta is the HSBC Credit Card Promotion, you get 1 for 1 Pasta, that is, order one pasta from the ala carte menu and choose one pasta from the defined list FOC. Promotion valid till 29 September 2009.

We ordered the Peppery Ribs and chose Prawn Aglio Olio for the free item. We upgraded our meal with Set B that comes with Soup of the Day, 3 honey roasted wings and a glass of Ice Lemon Tea for just $5. If you prefer not to have the chicken wings, you can choose Set A which comes with a drink and soup for ard $3. However, the set upgrade was only applicable to the ala carte dish so we could only order 1 Set. The one difference that you will find here is that the type of pasta is fixed. The waitress did not ask what type of pasta we wanted nor did we ask as we were ok with the default.

The Soup of Day was tomato soup and it tasted pretty ok. Sour and sweet though a little watery. The honey roasted wings were also quite well flavoured and opened my appetite for more. The Prawn Aglio Olio that was served had 4 prawns perched very nicely on top of the pasta. The presentation definitely wowed me over since i didn’t expect that from Pizza Hut. Taste wise, it was very spicy and Asian as they cooked it with chilli padi. Not for those who cannot take spicy food. The spaghetti was al-dente, another thing that surprised me as not many establishments can cook pasta properly. The Peppery Ribs came with 2 big chunks of chicken riblets and the linguine was coated with black pepper sauce. The pepper tasted fresh and spicy and the bits of mushroom slices that came with it was nicely sautéed tasted very good.

Overall, i would recommend going back to Pizza hut for their Pasta. Taste not bad and fills you up properly. I paid only $10 per person after the HSBC Credit Card Promotion.

For more of the pasta menu, you can go to http://www.pizzahut.com.sg/menu/pastas.asp

Photos taken with SE C905

Black Pepper Pork Rib @ TPC

This was from the same stall @ TPC as my previous post on the Cheese Pai Gu with Kailan. Running out of ideas for lunch and craving for something spicy, decided to try if the zhi char auntie can take orders for something not on the menu. As the Pork rib is really good and we have tried almost all version that is written on the menu, decided to give them some challenge.

Black pepper with pork rib is a good option. Hot and peppery and meaty.. yum yum.. downside was we have to wait quite a while for this special order. :P

Just look at the pic, do i need to say more? ;)

Photo taken with SE W890i