Spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce By Kalyan Karmakar

BitebyByte is immensely thankful to reputed Food Blogger and Food Writer Kalyan Karmakar for his kind contribution. Kalyan, in his own words, is — “obsessed about food”. He has authored a book called The Travelling Belly — it touched the heart strings of food lovers across the globe. He is a a columnist for The Indian Express and NDTV Food, the curator for the Time Kitchen Tales from the Times of India, and writes for other publications as well. If you aren’t already, you may follow his blog at www.finelychopped.net, or twitter at @finelychopped (http://twitter.com/Finelychopped) and on Instagram at @thefinelychopped. A Bengali based out of Mumbai, Kalyan loves to travel, and share his experiences from all over the world.

 

Ingredients (for 1):

  • 1 table spoon of olive oil & 1 of extra virgin olive oil or 2 of both,
  • 1  clove of garlic,
  • 100 g slices button mushrooms, 2 carrots,
  • 1 bell pepper,
  • 1 tablespoon walnuts,
  • 2,3 medium sized tomatoes,
  • salt,
  • oregano,
  • black pepper,
  • red pepper,
  • 6,7 leaves of fresh basil,
  • 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan,
  • 50 g pasta (spaghetti ideally)

 

Method:

  1. Heat a table spoon of olive oil on a flat pan on a low flame
  2. Add 1 roughly chopped clove of garlic
  3. Add 100 g slices button mushrooms and 2 diagonally and thickly sliced carrots
  4. After this cooks, add 1 sliced bell pepper (1/2 a green one and 1/2 a red one in this case) and crushed walnuts
  5. Then the juice of 2 medium sized tomatoes (blended in a mixer grinder). You can meats if you want to. We did so lavishly when we were younger.
  6. Add seasoning: salt, oregano, black pepper, red pepper
  7. Bring the sauce to a boil and then let cover the pan let the sauce slow cook after 10 to 15 minutes and a few sprigs of fresh basil if you can
  8. At the end, add pre-boiled pasta (50 g) and a bit of the water it was boiled in and a bit of salt at the end on the pasta.
  9. Add some grated Parmesan (it’s so expensive here that I only add it at the finish), some basil leaves and a bit of extra virgin olive oil. Turn off the hob. That’s it!

Note: Unlike in restaurants, you need not add any sugar to this tomato sauce.