Filipino Spaghetti

Filipino Spaghetti

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Filipino Spaghetti is our version of Italian Spaghetti, in which it requires the use of banana catsup and sugar. Our version is a sweet-style as kids like it sweet. I should say even adults. 😀 In the Philippines, birthday parties are not complete without this. We always serve this during birthdays, family gatherings and other occasions. For me, I don’t need a special occasion to cook this and let me tell you that I cook this every month. Yes, I need to eat this monthly or else, I will die. Haha! Just kidding! This is my favorite pasta, ever! And I will not trade this for any pasta in the world.

I don’t put hotdogs in my version of Filipino Spaghetti. My version is very simple but I really, really love it. People around me also love my version, that I even get requests to cook this during parties. If you’d ask me what pasta I can eat in a week, I would say THIS ONE.

Ingredients:

500g spaghetti
400g ground beef
750g spaghetti sauce (Italian style)*
250g tomato sauce
1 cup pasta water**
250g cheddar cheese, grated
1-2 tbsp white sugar
¼ tsp salt
2 cups banana catsup
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp garlic, minced
¼ cup onion, chopped

Instructions:

1) In a large pot, pour water in and bring to a boil. Put salt. Add spaghetti noodles and cook until tender (refer to your package for the cooking time). Drain, reserve one cup of the pasta water and set aside.

2) Using a separate pan or a pot, sauté garlic in butter until fragrant, then add onion.

3) After the onions are translucent, add the ground beef. Cover and let it simmer for 20 minutes, checking from time to time. The beef will produce water, so no need to add water at this time. If it dries, add a little water, enough to cook the beef.

4) After 20 minutes or when the beef is cooked, add the spaghetti sauce, tomato sauce, banana catsup, pasta water then cover and simmer for 10 minutes in a low-medium heat.

5) Add ½ cup of grated cheese. Mix.

6) Place sauce on top of the cooked noodles. Top with more cheese.

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I usually serve my pasta without bread. But since I have extras with me, I decided to make garlic bread.

For the garlic bread:

6 slices white bread
½ cup softened butter, salted
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp parsley flakes

Mix and spread the butter-garlic mixture on your bread and put it in an oven toaster and toast it for 5 minutes at 250°C or until it turns light brown. Be careful not to burn the bread.

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*I prefer to use Italian Style spaghetti sauce and just add some sugar to it because I want to control its sweetness. You can omit the sugar and replace the Italian Style with the Sweet-Style sauce. (In the Philippines, we have Italian-Style, Sweet-Style and Filipino Style spaghetti sauce.)

**If you don’t want to use pasta water, you can replace it with 1 cup water with 1 tbsp cornstarch. The reason I use pasta water is that I don’t have to use cornstarch to thicken the sauce.

Now, it’s time to stop talking and eat! 🙂

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Enjoy!!

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