Low-Fat Spaghetti with Home Made White Sauce

“Delicate homemade white sauce in the faster recipe”

Remember I used to go Clarke Quay with my close female friends for dinner quite often, for a dinner gathering or before hitting to the high spots on Friday nights. We liked to dine in the French restaurants for their delicious spaghetti or pasta meal.

Nowadays, I do not dine out so often. I do home-cooking, home-cooked spaghetti, with my home-made spaghetti white sauce.

There is always better to cook at home than dine-out, spend at lower cost to get better quality food (Of course, it’s without crew services, and you have to wash your own utensils after cooked and plates after meal!). I added prawns to my ham and mushroom spaghetti.

Cook this dish during weekday, after your work. It should take about 30 min to complete the cooking and to serve.

Let’s see:

Ingredients
300 grams of dried spaghetti noodles (diameter about size of a table tennis ball)
12 pieces of medium prawns, shelled and deveined (leaving tail and head intact, if desired)
½ cup of picnic ham, diced
½ cup of button mushroom, thinly sliced
½ cup of onion, chopped

4- 5 slices of extra light cheddar cheese (about 84 gram)

1 bowl of low-fat milk (about 500ml)
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoon of butter
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of salt to boil noodles
1 pot of water, 70% filled (about 1500 ml)

Garnish:
Chopped parsley
Sprinkles of ground black pepper
Parmesan cheese, grated (Optional)

Method
1) Bring a pot of water to a boil over medium-high heat. Add salt, and noodles. Boil noodles for 8 min, or until soften. Drain, and place in a large bowl added with olive oil. Toss briefly to mix noodles with oil. Set aside.

2) To make sauce: In a large saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion, and sauté for 1 min, or until fragrant. Add in ham and mushroom. Stir fry for 3 min.

3) Reduce heat to low fire. Beat egg yolk with milk. Gradually stir in milk mixture. Put cheddar cheese, and simmer for 2 min, until heated through. Stir all ingredients to combine well, before heat off.

4) Divide noodles in serving plates. Pour white sauce and ingredients over noodles. Garnish, and serve immediately.

This recipe is simple without any special ingredient used. It yields an agreeable pleasant taste and aroma in the palate, and most suitable for one who does not like too-creamy type of flavour. Most of the ingredients are easily available in your refrigerator. Besides, I used low-fat products in this recipe. Most importantly, I did not add any heavy cream. So, a decent portion of this spaghetti counts about 350kcal. It’s lower in calorie as compared to the regular one which counts at least 500 kcal per portion. So, it’s a low-fat version

Tips: Boil noodles till al-dente, and not soft, if you like to have the noodles with texture or bite in the centre.
*If find sauce too watery, add plain flour or cornstarch slurry to thicken it.
*Taste the sauce right before heat off. Sprinkle some salt, if desired.