Spaghetti Bolognese - Vegetarian

A niece on her visit to India gave me a Spaghetti seasoning. And it has been lying on my kitchen shelf for a while now. And C, my sister-in-law who makes her own spaghetti sauce at home, offered to show me a quick method to make this tasty pasta dish. Here is how she made it :

Ingredients:
Onions - 2 large - finely chopped.
Garlic - 7-8 pods finely chopped

Tomato Purée - 800 ml
Spaghetti - 200 gms
Salt, pepper to taste
Spicy Spaghetti seasoning - 2-3 tbsp
Olive oil - 2 tbsp
Cheese - as much as you like ( grated)
Sugar - 1-2 tsp

Take a wok and add the olive oil, and sauté the onions and garlic.

Take the spaghetti seasoning and place in your palm and lightly crush it to release the flavours and then add to the sauteed onion and garlic mixture. The seasoning contains dehydrated onion, garlic, spice, sugar, salt, green and red peppers.

Blend in the tomato Purée

And stir it for a while and leave it to simmer till it thickens. Add ground pepper too. And salt to taste. Mix in the sugar.

Meantime, prepare the spaghetti. Slide the pasta into boiling water to which a little salt and oil have been added to prevent it from sticking to each other. Allow to cook till the spaghetti is at the al dente stage ( firm but not mushy) . Once it reaches this stage, drain into a colander and hold under running water. This removes extra starch and allows the strands to remain separate.

By now, the spaghetti sauce would be nice and thick. Place the spaghetti on a plate and spoon the sauce on it and garnish with grated cheese.

You now have a quick delicious meal, ready to be devoured.

Note: My sister in law, however, says that the sauce made with fresh ingredients is hard to beat. If you have the patience, you would need to blanch a kilo of tomatoes, and then mash through a strainer to remove the seeds. Add dry/fresh basil, thyme, pepper, sugar, salt, garlic and make the sauce. The quantity of onion and garlic would need to be increased. Add bay leaf for a special flavour.