Cooking Experiments: Creamy Curry Pasta

Over the weekend I bought some cooking cream in the hopes of trying my hand at carbonara (my fav which causes fatty ass but I probably need some adipose there!). When I got home and started googling for a recipe, to my surprise most of the recipes only used eggs and no cooking cream! A moment of enlightenment for me.

So over to today's lunch. The lunch gang decided that Friday is a splurge day after the crazy week we've had. And so we drove out to the nearby New Chapter by The Owls Cafe. Going into CCC reminded me of the Sponsor a Brick from many many years ago and now I was a stranger entering.

Creamy curry pasta - New Chapter (left) & homemade (right)

At New Chapter, I ordered the creamy seafood pasta (can't remember name) which had 'curry' and 'spicy' in its description. It turned out to be so much better than my previous visit where I'd ordered the mushroom carbonara. We had two waffles for sharing and that stuffed us all - even the thorn among the roses! It kept me going even when I left office late.

When I got home, mum was knocked out from tiredness so I left her to sleep. I opened the fridge and we didn't have much fresh food - only some shiitake mushrooms and my three cartons of cooking cream. So, inspired by my lunch I googled for a recipe and found one that was manageable with what I had available.

I set out boiling the spaghetti, mincing the garlic, onion and ginger (this I added on) and slicing the mushrooms. I cut down the garlic and onion from the recipe as it looked mountainous and I had a gut feeling that it might be too much for us to handle.

The ingredients were sauteed till soft and golden (mine went slightly charred) and then in went a carton (200ml) of cooking cream, a teaspoon of curry powder and some chicken stock (this I added on because I didn't have meat). The cream bubbled furiously and I was panicking (as usual) while stirring - didn't know that it would cook so fast! But the cooking process was really short, probably like 5 minutes. Cream/dairy products can't be on high heat for long as the proteins will start to curdle and result in a lumpy consistency.

Taste-wise it was 'not bad' (according to mum), worth another try but maybe with more salt, bird's eye chilli, chilli flakes and curry leaves. The good thing about cooking at home is that everyone will eat it and if need be, there's always the two black shadows (big and small) with the sorrowful hungry eyes ever ready for a morsel.

Rating: Success.