Off-Topic General Discussion - Page 424

The number one thing to cooking well is starting with quality ingredients. I've pretty much resorted to "apathy" food because I don't have time to sit around boiling jus to get a reduction. Sauceless Italian pasta is ridiculously easy (impossible to screw up) and will be phenomenal as long as you have the right ingredients.

Pasta (for 2):
2 handfuls of pasta (fresh is better, but dry is more affordable)
Eyeball 4-5 Tbps e.v. olive oil (make sure it has an import label)***
2 handfuls rough chopped parsley (substitute 1 handful of dried parsley flakes)
A block of pecorino romano (I prefer the fattier/saltier taste) or parmigiano-reggiano (king of cheese) for grating. make sure it has an import label***

The *** ones make up almost all of the flavor so you need excellent olive oil and cheese. Ones with import labels are less risky because they're under strict quality controls. If you know of a local olive oil that doesn't taste like factory then go with that. You want it to be mellow yet full bodied.

Anyways the cooking part is hilariously easy.

1. Put water in a pot.
2. Put lots of salt in it. It should taste like the ocean
3. Heat it up (you don't have to boil it; higher heat is less and less efficient but does cook faster. Also a heavy rolling boil means you don't have to stir as much)
4. Cook (i.e. dump it into the water and stir sometimes) your pasta 1-2 mins less than what the packaging says. If you like soft pasta then I guess you can go the full duration, but the pasta is the backbone of this dish and theres no high fructose corn syrup Prego to mask it so wimpy pasta makes wimpy dish. The easiest way to tell for doneness is pull out a strand and taste it. Eating while you cook is delicious as long as you don't have an infectious disease.
5. Whisk the olive oil and parsley together in a bowl (the oil stops the parsley from clumping making it easier to spread in the pasta)
6. Add the pasta and mix thoroughly
7. Split and plate the pasta
8. Very very very generously top with fresh grated cheese

If you want to go really fancy top the pasta with scallops

Scallops (for 2):
5-10 scallops depending on size***
Salt
Pepper
Butter (optional)
Garlic (optional)
Rosemary (optional)

1. Prepare your scallops***
2. Heat a pan. Cast iron skilelts are best. Add cooking oil if you're not using butter
3. Add your butter and add garlic to the side of pan. You don't want to cook on the garlic but you do want some of the garlic flavor compounds to join your oil. Same with the rosemary. Aromatics are nice.
4. Season your scallops right before they hit the pan. Sea salt is better. Fresh ground pepper is better.
5. Sear scallops for 45s to 90s on each side depending on size and pan (the better the pan the less time you need to develop a good enough sear).
6. Flip them until they're done. The more you flip the more evenly they'll cook (but the more effort it takes). They're done when they're no longer translucent.
7. Your pasta should've finished at most 3 mins prior (cooking is almost all about timing). Top the pasta with scallops.
8. Optional. Add a sprig of rosemary to the hot butter pan briefly. Just as it colors, take it off to garnish the scallops.

*** Choosing scallops:
- Dry packed > wet. Wet scallops are packed in garbage chemicals but more importantly have less robust flavor. Dry scallops need to be soaked in water before seasoning and cooking. Wet scallops should be soaked in water multiple times to wash out the random bleach and whitening agents they put in there. After wetting/soaking/washing scallops dry them again (lol I know right? this is to get rid of excess surface water so they sear better)
- Fresh ~ Frozen. Fresh ones are generally better, unless you live nowhere near a body of water and buy from a questionable grocer. If there is a fishmonger nearby buy fresh from them. Otherwise buy frozen or previously frozen ones from Costco. Sam's Club is full of cancer.
- Sea scallops ~ bay scallops. Sea scallops are bigger and fry nicer. They're also farmed in an extremely ecology unfriendly way (sadface.jpg). Bay scallops are smaller but some say have more robust flavor. They're usually farmed in farms which are also environment unfriendly but at least harvesting them doesn't involve dragging a huge chain along the ocean floor. Diver scallops are sea scallops farmed individually. They are the best of both worlds but also cost a million dollars.

GLHF

don't freud me bro