Goan Choriz in Instant Noodles - Comfort Food at its Best

If you've lived in a hostel it's more or less guaranteed that you've experimented with instant noodles. Maggi and other brands were the backbone of our meals, especially if one wanted options apart from Mess food! Assorted vegetables, ketchup, chilly and other sauces, spices, pickle masalas, anything and everything was pressed into service to add zing and flavour and even body to the basic noodles.

I spent many happy years living the hostel life and one of the best things that emerged from those years is my concoction of instant noodles with Goan choriz. Slightly soupy, the thick and spicy sauce coats every strand of noodle punctuated with chunks of the fat and meat of the choriz beads - heaven in a bowl!  The unique flavours of this local Goan sausage are the foundation of this dish. The cheese slices cut the sharpness from the spices of the choriz and give the sauce a wonderful roundness.

I made some for my lunch today and my friend M pinged me to ask for the recipe. I confidently told her to look it up here on the blog. And then I thought why not dig out the recipe myself and send her the link. That's when I discovered, much to my horror, that I haven't written about it. You cannot imagine my shock!

Anyway, let me fill this terrible lacuna right away. Better late than never, correct? So here goes...

Noodles with Goan Choriz

Instant noodles - Maggi or any other
Goan choriz sausage - approximately 15 to 20 beads, peeled
1 small onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 slices Britannia Cheese
tomato ketchup
oil

In a pan fry the onions and garlic till just brown. Remove the onions to a plate.

In the same pan add enough water to cook the noodles. Add the flavouring spice that came with the noodles now.

Add the choriz and let it boil in the spiced water for a few minutes.

Break the noodles up a little and add to the pan. Let them cook fully.

Add the fried onions and garlic, a good splash of ketchup and the cheese slices. Stir to mix.

Reduce the liquid to the consistency to the consistency you like and serve.

I usually make a big bowlful and then get comfy in a big chair and enjoy it with a good book. The perfect dish for a solitary lunch.  No. I don't share. 

A can of tuna, a bottle of pesto, a jar of spaghetti

It was one of those days when roti sabzi, daal chawal or any variations of these just didn't appeal. So I went through the fridge and the pantry cupboard to see what I could find. A can of tuna, a bottle of pesto and a jar of very old spaghetti is what I came up with. Just perfect for a simple dinner! Of course I added a few more ingredients, but barely.

1 can tuna chunks
enough spaghetti for 2
1 small jar pesto
olive oil
fresh cracked pepper
100 ml cream
A chunk of cheese. I used Aged Cheddar

Boil water and set the spaghetti to cook. Add salt to the boiling water, and add a good splash of olive oil and toss after you drain. reserve a bit of the water, about half a cup should do.

Heat a large saucepan and empty the jar of pesto. Add a couple of ladles of the pasta water. Stir quickly to mix. Dunk in the tuna chunks and the accompanying brine or oil. Break the chunks a bit. Add the cream and stir to make a nice sauce.

Take a plate. Put a heap of the spaghetti in the middle and then top with a generous amount of the pesto cream sauce. Crumble some cheese on top and drizzle some top quality full flavoured olive oil for extra zip. Mix the spaghetti and let the sauce coat all the strands.

Tuck in!