Did I ever mention how fantastic a cook my dad is?

Well he is. Both our noche buena and media noche feasts were prepared by him. Up to now I am hoarding in my fridge a bottle of the oh-so-delicious mushroom gravy he made for the turkey.

Anyway, among the dishes he prepared for noche buena was this salted fish spaghetti. I've been craving this dish for the past week nos so I decided to try my hand at whipping it up with a few changes of my own.

It's really easy to do, quick to prepare and a bit different from your usual pasta dishes. Anyways, here's the recipe:

Salted fish spaghetti:

Ingredients:

pack of spaghetti (our preferred brand is San Remo. you can never go wrong with this)

canned pimentos (chop em up)

onions, chopped (a whole 1 will be great)

garlic, macerated (the more the merrier. I used up 1 and a half heads)

olive oil (for sauteing)

basil (either fresh or dried is okay)

1-2 bottles of spicy dulong in oil (i used bottled gourmet daing...you can also extend with spanish sardines)

parmesan cheese

patis and black pepper (for seasoning)

Boil noodles first and set aside when ready. Saute garlic til brown., Add onions and fry til transparent. Put in the dulong together with its oil and just saute for a couple of minutes. Add the pimentos and stir for a bit. You can opt to put in some basil to make sure it mixes well with the stuff being sauteed. Mix in the cooked noodles and and keep on mixing til the sauteed stuff are mixed evenly with the noodles. 

You can put in a little fish sauce (patis), a dash of black pepper and some more basil and season to taste. Once you're happy with it, remove from heat and set out in dish. Top with parmesan.

Other optional toppings are olives, capers and some chopped up parsley.  Additionally, you can also mix in some chopped celery during the sauteing stage to give your dish a little twist.

The idea is to just let the saltiness of the fish and the different flavors of basil, garlic and onions as well as the oil in which the bottled fish were immersed be absorbed by the spaghetti. 

Hope you enjoy this dish as much as we did