preventing nasty shit in your fridge / the best easiest pasta ever

ew and yum

Today’s recipe: the best easiest pasta ever. Scroll down to skip the story and get cooking.

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Don’t look now.

But there’s something nasty in your fridge.

Growing.

Pulsating.

Building a life.

Having children.

Getting promoted.

Winning bacteria awards.

Leaving a lasting legacy.

Experiencing life in all its glory.

(this sentence is a sign that you should throw out the nasty gunk in your fridge.)

Having to actually take the time out of your day to throw out smelly, overgrown stuff that you spent your hard-earned money on is among the worst feelings ever — and it’s a big deterrent in getting motivated to cook.

So unless you’re trying to discover new species in your refrigerator, ingrain these two things in your mind:

Tip #1 - Buy as LITTLE as possible from the store.

Whenever you go grocery shopping, you probably have this whole romantic view of how you’re going to use every product you buy.

You think to yourself:

On Monday I’ll meal-prep my lunches with all of these vegetables, I’ll use these tomatoes for something on Tuesday, oh I’ll probably use this whole bunch of cilantro by the end of the week, I love cilantro, I’ll meal prep for Thursday with these cucumbers, and I’ll use this head of cabbage with these bananas on Friday, lalala.

(cabbage and bananas? what’s wrong with you)

In reality:

• Monday you get home and you’re too tired so you don’t end up meal-prepping.

• Tuesday you get home and you’re too tired to cook so you UberEats.

• Wednesday you actually cook.

• Thursday you get home and you’re too tired to cook so you UberEats.

• Friday your coworker asks if you want to go to happy hour for shots. Hell yeah you do.

Boom everything in your fridge is nasty.

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Biggest lies people tell themselves:

1. I’ll do it tomorrow

2. I’ll just sleep 10 more minutes

3. I’ll use this whole bag of spinach

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You have to be mindful and ultra-specific about what you’re going to cook before you buy stuff. So make sure to…

• Eat something before you go grocery shopping.

• Not use a cart, use a basket.

• Stick to your list when you get to the grocery store.

Don’t get pulled into impulse buying. That’s exactly what the grocery store overlords want you to do.

Listen, I get everyone’s situations are different.

I live in the city. I can literally crawl out of bed, crawl into the elevator, crawl out of the front door of my building, and I’m already in the grocery store.

*grocery store worker* - pls leave we’ve asked you several times not to crawl in here

Most people live relatively far from the grocery store and aren’t trying to go there several times a week.

But the point is to be really specific and mindful about what you buy — ESPECIALLY fresh stuff. Know exactly what you’re going to make with that ingredient before you toss it in your cart, and only get enough for the recipe you’re making.

Don’t rely on future you to figure out how to cook with your groceries.

Future you sucks.

Otherwise, you’re just going to have new shit growing in your fridge on top of the stuff you forgot about.

And when you’re going to try a new recipe (like the one below), I have a personal rule:

+1 THING ONLY.

What this means is ONLY try a new recipe that has only ONE ingredient that you don’t already have.

If you try anything more than that, it’s already a headache.

If you follow this, you have less to buy, less to lose, less risk, and less to stress out about when you cook.

So basically, don’t try new recipes that have a bunch of ingredients you don’t have.

Luckily the one below only has like 3 ingredients.

Tip #2 - Learn recipes that effectively “clean out” your fridge.

Cleanin’ out the fridge is either:

• the worst feeling ever, because the things you bought went bad and it’s nasty and mushy and gross and smelly and you’re quite literally throwing money into the trash can and you feel stupid

• the greatest feeling ever, because you used the last of the ingredients in your fridge to create something amazing, right before they went bad. You didn’t waste anything, you created something fucking amazing, your parents are proud of you, your team just won the championship, your dog learned how to —

There are a bunch of recipes like this, like fried rice, stews, frittatas, chilis…

Today’s is a pasta.

The following recipe is

1. really easy, delicious, and barely uses any ingredients

2. something that can be easily adapted to clean out your fridge

So without further ado…adieu…

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THE BEST EASIEST PASTA EVER (YES THAT’S THE NAME)

Nothing beats simple.

I’ll give you two versions of this: the base form of the pasta so you understand the foundation of it (which is great on its own), and then an example that I did to clean out my fridge today.

In it’s simplest form, all you need are the following:

Ingredients:

• 2 servings of your favorite pasta shape

• 4-8 (bigger) cloves of garlic (more or less is fine, don’t trip on exact amounts)

• ~1 tbsp. oyster sauce (see note below)

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

• S + P

Steps:

1 - Bring water to a boil and salt your water generously.

• For me it’s about three heavy pinches of salt. If you don’t know your taste, start with less (1 big pinch) and you can slowly learn from there for next time.

• The goal is to infuse your pasta with flavor from the start, rather than needing to “top it” with salt at the end. Salt advocates will say as salty as the ocean, but start with less. You can always add more salt, but you can’t take it out.

2 - Drop your pasta in according to the directions and cook about a minute before al dente. SAVE YOUR PASTA WATER.

• The reason why recipes always say to cook it before al dente isn’t because all chefs like chewy pasta. It’s because you’re going to continue to let it cook a bit in the sauce.

• I’m usually doing this in the background while I’m prepping the rest of the ingredients but if you don’t want to multi-task, don’t. Do it at your own speed.

• Pasta water is crucial. Don’t pour it all out. I’ll explain below.

3 - Roughly chop up your garlic.

• Don’t get stressed over how perfectly minced it is. A rough chop is fine, just try to make it uniform throughout.

4 - Heat up about 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (or any neutral cooking oil) in a pan.

• It may seem like a lot, but realize this is the main “sauce” for your pasta, so there needs to be a solid amount of it.

5 - Sauté the garlic for a 1-2 minutes on medium heat, but keep a careful eye on it.

• Garlic burns really quickly. Easy trick? Put your garlic in the oil before you even turn the heat on. No, you won’t have the satisfying “sizzle” of dropping it in hot oil, but bringing up the temp gradually will allow your garlic flavor to infuse easier without burning.

• Undercooked is better than overcooked when it comes to garlic. Even if you’re not sure if it’s ready, just move on to the next step. It’ll be fine.

6 - Drop your 1 tbsp. of oyster sauce in, mix it up, and let it cook down for about 2-3 minutes.

• This is the star of the dish. It brings a CRAZY amount of flavor and that sexy golden brown color with just a little dollop. Note that when you put something like this in with the garlic, it slows the garlic from burning, but you still have to keep an eye on it.

7 - Drop your cooked pasta into the sauce. Gradually add a little bit of pasta water at a time, up to around a quarter cup. Mix it all up and let the pasta water cook down and meld with the sauce.

• The reason why pasta water is so important is because it has lots of starch in it. This starch is almost like a liquid glue that helps emulsify the oil sauce you were making and meld it with the pasta into perfection.

• If you ever feel like you need more, just add a little more pasta water. If you feel like you added too much, don’t worry, just let it cook down more.

8 - Top with some black pepper. Serve and enjoy.

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A note about oyster sauce:

If you’re not Asian you may be unfamiliar with oyster sauce. Yes, I understand it’s easy to get turned off of it by the name and the smell, but I’m telling you this (and fish sauce) is a HUGE difference maker to upping your cooking game in an easy way.

Think of it as a giant umami punch in the throat.

In a good way. A punch in the throat in a good way.

The good thing about oyster and fish sauce - they are fermented and highly concentrated. What does this mean? You buy one bottle of it and it will last you a very long time without going bad. I cook a lot and it took almost a year to finish the fish sauce I have. I consider these kitchen staples, and you’ll soon see why.

Just don’t smell it too hard. I’m serious.

This is the one I use. Lee Kum Kee makes two different kinds - this “boat lady” one is the premium one. There’s also a cheaper “panda” one made by the same brand. Use any.

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My clean-out-the-fridge-version: Mushroom Chicken Pasta

Yes I have a video for this one, but I won’t always have one. I’m messing around with some new equipment and may be posting on social medias eventually. If you’d like to follow on Instagram, hit @tangylanguage. I know it’s fast, it’s not meant to be instructional. But just so you can get an idea.

Basically what I had here were the base ingredients (pasta, garlic, oyster sauce, olive oil, S+P) and I had:

• ~6 button mushrooms, sliced

• 1 leftover scallion, chopped

• Some leftover shredded chicken

• Parmesan cheese for topping

In this case, mushrooms take a while to cook down, so I sauté’d those for a couple minutes before moving on and adding the scallions and garlic.

I added the chicken right at the very end because since it’s already cooked chicken breast, it can dry out really quick if I cook it any more than it already is.

Then just topped with more scallions and parmesan!

Other stuff that would work great:

• cherry tomatoes

• onions

• broccoli

• bacon

• any ground meat

Fridge: cleaned.

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That’s it for the first issue guys, I really hope you enjoyed it.

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