Spaghetti Carbonara for Dinner

Hello everyone 👧.

Yesterday, I went to grocery shopping with my Mum and Sister. We planned to eat out afterwards as it it was almost dinner time, but we cancelled our plan. It's the second day of Eid's celebration and most of the restaurants are closed during the public holiday. I'm craving for pasta, so I just bought necessary ingredients while doing our grocery shopping.

As soon as we got home, I immediately started preparing the ingredients to make pasta dishes. I have to do it earlier as I'm worried my Dad will eat another food for dinner without waiting for me to finish the meal I cook for family dinner. If my Dad is hungry, he will find any food on the table to fill his stomach without waiting for people to finish preparing food for him.

The ingredients for family dinner

I'll cook spaghetti carbonara for dinner. Instead of making the spaghetti and carbonara sauce from scratch, I just use the pre-made ingredients that I bought from the grocery store just now. The ingredients I use for this are as listed:-

1. Spaghetti (Pre-made)
2. Carbonara sauce with onion and cheese (Pre-made)
3. Capsicum
4. Chicken sausage
5. Black pepper
6. Bacon
7. Chicken stock

No oil been prepared as the bacon's fats will produce oil while frying it.

Bacon swimming

I'm not an expert cook and my Sister taught me spaghetti serving portion measurement. I just prepared 7 servings of spaghetti as the 4 servings of spaghetti seem like not enough to satisfy 4 family members for dinner.

According to my Sister, this is the measurement for one serving of spaghetti.

Before knife work, I boil the water. When the water is boiling, I insert spaghetti into it.

While waiting for the spaghetti to be cooked, I chop the capsicum and chicken sausage into cubes, except for the bacon. If the bacon is able to chop in cube, I definitely will do it.

Capsicum cubes, chicken sausage cubes and bacon slices

Then suddenly my Mum came into the kitchen and I'm forced to switch the main chef baton to her. Currently, I am only serving as a recipe book guide (my Mum is not familiar with preparing spaghetti carbonara dishes) and helping my Mum prepare the dinners for our family. For those who know me and have read my older post about my lack of confidence in the kitchen, this is the explanation of it 😅.

My Mum helped me chill down the hot spaghetti using cold water. My Mum prefers less starch for every meal for heathy meal and her doctor recommended her to less consume it due to health issue.

My Mum chilling down the hot spaghetti.

Next, using a non-stick frying pan, we fry the bacon first until its fat produces oil and the meat turns golden brown.

Then insert the chicken sausage until it is cooked, followed by the capsicum cubes.

Chicken sausage cubes

Capsicum cubes next

Assuming that the pre-made carbonara sauce is already salty, my Mum sprinkles the chicken stocks as she sees fit. Afterward, we insert a whole bottle of pre-made carbonara sauce and simmer it together with the ingredients my Mum cooked just now. We also add a bit of hot water to the cooking to add more carbonara sauce.

My Sister wonders why we didn't add pasta water to the carbonara sauce. My Mum and I didn't know about it. Maybe next time when we cook pasta again.

Sprinkle the chicken stock

Last step, we put the spaghetti into the simmering carbonara sauce. We take turns (my Mum and I) stirring it until the sauce and spaghetti blended together while cooking it on the pan.

It took less than 30 minutes to prepare this spaghetti carbonara dish. In addition, my assumption of 7 portions of spaghetti for 4 family members dinner is accurate. 4 of us family members are satisfied with the just nice portions we have for dinner.

While enjoying our dinner in the kitchen. I asked my Mum, the sudden main chef, about our spaghetti carbonara didn't seem to be perfect. My Mum agreed with me and still thinks what is missing in this meal. I replied that it is less flavorful since less chicken stock is being put into the dish while cooking. My Mum replied to me: Yes, indeed.

As for another topic of conversation during our dinner, I mentioned that I think we cooked better than the restaurant and it's cheaper. A plate of spaghetti carbonara offered by a restaurant costs around RM15.00 (USD3.4). In this case, the ingredient we use is cost only around RM25.00 (USD5.6) that we able to produce 7 plates serving portions of spaghetti with an assumption value of RM105.00 (USD24.7) if we spend money for the same quantity of meal at the restaurant. This makes us happier when we eat our spaghetti carbonara for dinner.

Meanwhile, my dog, Uku Chan feels sad. As we think it is not appropriate for him to eat spaghetti carbonara, we did not share it with him.

That's all. Thanks for reading my post 🤗.