Friday, November 7, 2014 – Last month was invent a simple recipe and practice it a few times. This month was pick a random Good Eats episode from season 1 and do a bunch of recipes in that episode.
So I randomly picked Season 1 Ep 11 – Pantry Raid 1: Use Your Noodle, which was an episode about how to cook dried pasta. Kinda boring actually, since anyone worth their salt knows how to cook dried pasta. There weren’t even any recipes in this episode, just Alton Brown doing a tutorial of how to cook dried pasta, followed by him tossing in whatever he had lying around.
Fortunately, I got a copy of Good Eats: The Early Years (aka, Volume 1 of the Good Eats book series that Alton wrote when Food Network initially refused to monetize the Good Eats TV show by releasing the episodes in any physical or online format). And in the chapter for Pantry Raid 1 (pp 60-63), there is a recipe for tossing noddles with melted butter and toasted crumbled saltine crackers.
The original recipe had noodles, butter, saltines, salt, pepper, and parsley. I added the garlic and the hot sauce (because I put Frank’s in everything) because garlic and hot sauce are awesome. And instead of using fresh garlic, I use freeze-dried garlic. Yes, it works.
Overall, it was delicious, buttery with a great contrast between the soft noodles and the crispy toasted saltines. The garlic and the hot sauce a little extra something to the flavor.
There are a few changes I’d make for the next time. For one, 6 saltine crackers just isn’t enough. I need at least twice as many saltines. Second, I had some leftover fettucine, so I used that. Next time, I’d prolly use a thinner noddle like spaghetti. Despite being tossed in melted butter, there’s not so much “sauce” as much as it is just fat, so using a thinner noodle is more appropriate here. Lastly, I tried to toss my noodles in a 10-inch frying pan. That frying pan just isn’t big enough. Next time, I should use my 12-inch saute pan. (Or just melt butter and toast crackers in one pan and toss in a big bowl. But then I’d have to wash two things instead of one.)
Still, like I said, overall it was delicious. A perfect meal for if I have visitors coming in from out of town and I want to cook something for them that’s not too complicated.