Author: Doctor Spaghetti

25th of October is World Pasta Day. To honor this day, I’d like to share the best pasta recipe ever. It’s a treasure I don’t feel deserving to keep for myself.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients:

• Two cans of chopped tomatoes
• 12 black olives, without pits, chopped
• 2 tsp of capers, chopped
• 1 garlic tooth, chopped
• 2 tsp of dried parsley
• 100 g of grated parmesan
• 350 g of spaghetti

Cooking:

Heat the oil and bake the garlic for half a minute. Add the olives and capers and bake for another minute. Add the tomatoes, close the pan and cook slowly for 10-15 minutes, remember to stir occasionally. Add the parsley and cook for 5 more minutes, with the lid open. In the meantime cook the spaghetti (preferably al-dente, of course!). Drain the spaghetti, and serve with the parmesan.

Simple, right? You may rightfully wonder, what makes this quick and easy recipe the best pasta recipe ever? Well, for starters its really tasty. Cooking is easy, as long as you don’t make a fuss of it and don’t overdo it.  It’s quick – within 20 minutes you’ve got yourself a tasty, healthy, nutritional meal. But so are other recipes, aren’t they? Well, this one has a trick – it opens a plenty of opportunities. First of all, the basic recipe is all done without fresh ingredients, and is still healthy. If you feel like adding extra freshness, all it takes is getting fresh parsley. Got some spare time (and tomatoes)? Skin some fresh tomatoes to give your recipe extra flavor.  To spice things up add 1 tsp of dried chili flakes to the garlic. For some extra bite fry an onion before adding the garlic.  Tired of the black olives? Use kalamatas instead (tip: add a tsp of lemon juice). For a Spanish touch replace the parmesan with machego, to give your sauce a ‘putanesca’ twist add some anchovies, and so on.

Happy World Pasta Day!

Ramen!