As a child, when we say spaghetti, we will always thick of Jollibee. I grew up loving the sweet cheesy tomato taste of spaghetti from Jollibee. It even became my standard when cooking spaghetti at home. I even remembered recooking my neighbor’s Italian spaghetti, when she gave us a plate during her son’s birthday party, by adding sugar just to make it sweet.
However, as I grew up and explore different foods, including pastas, there more to just the sweet style or the Pinoy style spaghetti sauce I love. I begun exploring adding herbs, like Italian seasoning, basil, parsley and the likes. I begun to love pastas with real tomatoes, making the dish a bit sour than the usual sweet style spaghetti. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the simplicity and sweetness of the Pinoy style spaghetti. I just widen my option to other pasta sauces.
One of my now favorite sauce is the creamy marinara sauce. It’s a plain marinara sauce mixed with all purpose cream to make it creamy. I usually prepare this for special occasions, like birthdays, Christmas and New Year. It’s simple and affordable, if you’re going to cook this for ordinary days. You can make it extra special by making seafood marinara, ingredients are: shrimp, squid and mussels.
Today’s recipe is a simple and affordable recipe perfect for Lenten season.
Ingredients:
500g Pasta of your choice
3 Tbsp Olive Oil
5 cloves Garlic
1 pc Onion
2 small cans Tuna in Vegetable Oil
1 small can Mushroom
2 cans Whole Tomatoes
1/4 cup Parsley, chopped
1/4 cup Black Olive, sliced
1 Brick All Purpose Cream
2 Tbsp Sugar to balance the acdity of the tomatoes
Salt
Pepper
Parmesan Cheese for garnish
Procedure:
1. Cook pasta according to package.
2. Saute garlic and onion in olive oil.
3. Add the canned tomatoes. Slightly crushed the tomatoes to small pieces.
4. Add the chopped parsley. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes at low heat or until the juice is reduced.
5. Add the Black Olive and All Purpose Cream slowly with continuous stirring. This should be done at very low heat and do not let the sauce boil or the cream will curdle.
6. Add sugar, slat and pepper to taste.
7. Garnish with Parmesan Cheese. Served with toasted bread.
HOW DOE SIT TASTE?
This Tuna Pasta in Creamy Marinara Sauce is creamy but not that rich. It’s not that sour since the sugar balance some of the acidity of the tomatoes. It has the flavors of tuna, hint of parsley and the distinguishable taste of the black olive. To further increase the the flavor of this dish, I recommend adding a half to one teaspoon of Italian Seasoning (I don’t have Italian Seasoning in my pantry right now, I forgot to buy one. But I usually add Italian Seasoning to further enhance the flavor of tomato based pasta.)
