There is nothing a little hacking around the kitchen won’t get you. A steal for all those who want to impress someone with their ‘culinary genius’ but don’t want to do all the manual labor that comes with the title, here’s the good news; store bought pasta can easily be made to taste homemade. Here’s how:
Start off with sautéed vegetables: Veggies can be awesome, if used properly. Dice up some onions, carrots, garlic, pepper, or anything and sauté them in a little oil. Once they are glazed enough, add them to the sauce. Using fresh vegetables will make your sauce smell and taste like freshly home-cooked sauce.
Beef it up: Pop in some ground beef, chicken or mutton, cook until it turns brown and add it to the sauce. Make sure you drain out the stock though, you don’t want the grease to clog up your arteries, now do you?
Spice it up: A tea spoon of thyme here, a hint of oregano or basil there, a pinch of crushed chilies or paprika for those who like to bring on the heat! Just don’t go overboard with the spices, since the pasta sauce might already have these flavors incorporated!
Add some sugar: You might find this odd, but the key to a good pasta sauce doesn’t lie in the zest, it’s about that uppercut of sweetness that most store bought pasta sauces don’t give you. Sugar helps in bringing out the flavor of the sauce by balancing the acidity in the tomato and neutralizing the citric acid, so that the sauce packs the right amount of punch to make you ask for more. leo.
Add some pasta water: Life made sense the minute pasta water turned out to have some use! When your pasta is finished, add the pasta water into the tomato sauce, a few tablespoons at a time. The starch found in the pasta water amalgamates well with the pasta sauce, giving it a beautiful texture.
Nothing wrong with a bit of dairy: If you want to give your tomato sauce that creamy rich taste, add about half a cup of milk or cream cheese. This gives the sauce that silky texture we all pine for! You can even add a bit of Parmesan cheese in the sauce while simmering it.
Isn’t life a tad easier? So, now if your pizza guy stops taking your orders seriously, you can always pop open a can of store bought sauce and make it taste like the real deal!
Contributed by:
Mustafa Naveed Malik, a student of Marketing and an insatiable pizza lover. He is a prolific writer and regularly updates his pieces on his facebook page, Brewed at 5AM .
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