When I travel, I make it a point not to buy anything that I’d be able to find back home anyway. Travel is about discovering new things, after all. Or, when travelling somewhere I had visited before, it is a reacquaintance with food specialties and delicacies that had made previous visits memorable.
So, the loot from my food shopping adventures in Negros Occidental was a strange mix of old favorites and unusual items. A box of napoleones (not available in my part of the boondock), the squid rings that Alex empathically asked for more than once, muscovado rocks, green makopa, dulce gatas, dried hibiscus buds and hibiscus jam…
And then there was the jar of crumbled lean chorizo. The cooking instructions said heat or fry, as desired. The first time we had the chorizo at home, I just served it with fried eggs. With the jar still half full, I decided I could do much more than serve the tasty meat by itself. It so happened that, two days later, we had leftover tomato sauce from the chicken afritada. I combined it with the chorizo and made a simple sauce for my angel hair pasta.
I boiled the pasta and drained it. In the same pan, I lightly fried a couple of tablespoonfuls of the chorizo in its own oil. I poured in the leftover afritada sauce (minus stray pieces of vegetables), adjusted the seasonings, tossed in the pasta and lunch was ready.
Total cooking time? Less than 10 minutes.
Angel Hair Pasta With Crumbled Chorizo
Ingredients
- 2 to 3 tablespoons chorizo with the oil, crumbled
- 1/4 to 1/3 cup tomato sauce, or leftover sauce from your tomato-based meat stew
- salt
- pepper
- sugar
- cooked angel hair pasta for one, or use your preferred pasta shape
- Parmesan grated, to garnish (optional because the chorizo is already quite salty)
- parsley snipped, to garnish
Instructions
- In a small pan, fry the crumbled chorizo in its own oil until lightly browned.
- Pour in the tomato sauce.
- Season with just enough salt, pepper and sugar to balance the flavors.
- Add the cooked pasta and toss.
- Transfer the cooked angel hair pasta with crumbled chorizo to a shallow bowl.
- Sprinkle with Parmesan and parsley.
- Serve hot.
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