Teaching Michael Mondays (1/4) -- Pasta in an Olive Oil Bath

Michael's second cooking mishap started out innocently enough: a harmless recipe for "Pasta with Garlic and Oil" (from How to Cook Everything: The Basics by Mark Bittman). It seemed simple: boil pasta, lightly toast garlic, toss together with parsley and red pepper flakes.

Michael is in the habit of eating lunch with a friend, and offered to bring in some for her prior to cooking it.

Said friend (who we're told is NOT a girlfriend) is not a fan of red pepper flakes, so Michael ignored the direction to add them to the recipe. He was out of parsley, so he ignored that direction as well.

Now, despite leaving out two ingredients, Michael, who was very worried about the recipe's end result, continued to "follow the directions exactly."

He didn't have minced garlic in water from a jar, as instructed. Instead, Michael decided to chop up a fresh garlic clove. But how much? The recipe instructed 2 TBS, but Michael had some idea that one was suppose to use a lesser amount of fresh spice "rather than dried or pre-packaged spices" -- and so he halved the amount, thinking that the fresh garlic would be stronger than the jarred kind.

In his retelling of the saga, Michael added:

It's been a while since I did this, and I don't remember exactly how I made it. But I keep thinking of the recipe as calling for 3/4 cup olive oil, so there's a chance I accidentally used 3/4 cup instead of 1/3 cup when I first made it.

 Regardless if Michael used 3/4 a cup of oil or 1/3 a cup, the resulting dish was pasta swimming in oil with a slight garlic flavor only noticeable "when you managed to find a piece [of garlic] to crunch into." Michael's friend was reportedly amused by the fact that he needed to follow a recipe for something so easy -- and still managed to screw it up.

Stephanie's "Expert" Recommendations:

There's no doubt that cooking is difficult, so I do give credit to Michael for consulting a recipe first.

In this scenario, I wouldn't have cut ingredients out completely. Instead, when Michael didn't have parsley, my recommendation would've been to stay within the Italian flavor profile, but substitute a different spice, such as oregano or basil, instead. Perhaps instead of red pepper flakes, Michael could've added fennel seeds, which would give an added depth of flavor.

As a healthier cook, I also would've used less than the prescribed amount of olive oil. Even if the original recipe called for 1/3 of a cup, that seems like quite a lot, when you figure the serving size is 1 TBS. To create more of a "sauce," I would've reached for part-skim or fat free ricotta, which would've added a creaminess to the dish -- and -- (added bonus) boosted the protein for the overall meal.

Kudos for trying, kid.

To those who are curious, the original recipe does call for 1/3 cup of olive oil. We will never know how much Michael ACTUALLY used, but as a very wise and slightly snarky older sister, my money's on 3/4 cup.