faux-Fredo lunch (and dinner)

We've had to say a sad goodbye to the Lotte mini "Super" mart in the building where we work: only two or so weeks beforehand, not long after I'd gotten back from France, I learned from a cashier that the store's final day of operations was to be November 10, i.e., this past Saturday. It feels weird not to be able to schlep on down to buy meals and snacks on a whim, but being the pragmatist that I am, I didn't dwell on our loss; instead, I began frequenting a grocery store just up the street, two or three buildings over. For such a cramped store, the new place (new to me, I mean) has a surprising variety of items, including—bizarrely—Gorgonzola cheese. To put this in perspective: most Korean groceries sell fairly standard crap (like the Korean version of processed American cheese), and specialty cheeses are, at best, a rarity.

So when I saw the Gorgonzola, I went a little nuts, deciding on the spot to buy some extra ingredients and make my "faux-Fredo," my version of fettuccine Alfredo, which uses Gorgonzola in place of Parmigiano Reggiano. I like this a lot better than the standard Alfredo; it's much more fragrant and savory. The new store also sells thick-cut bacon, so I bought some of that as well. It didn't have any powdered garlic or powdered onion, so I brought those from my apartment, along with a mix of dried herbs (parsley, oregano, basil).

Below, you can see some of the major steps in the dish's assembly, plus the final product. My two coworkers had this meal for lunch; both guys claimed to love the pasta, but they also bellyached about how they couldn't eat too much for reasons of diet and/or sodium intake. That didn't exactly inspire me to cook anything more for them, but I've already committed to doing spaghetti (I'm getting rid of some leftover sauce) and beef Stroganoff (to get rid of a mess of sour cream and yogurt) later this week. Not to worry: if my coworkers prove unable to help me finish off my leftover ingredients, I can feed my food to the native-speaker English teachers who share space in our office. They had my second batch of faux-Fredo Tuesday evening, and they unreservedly loved it–no silly talk of diets and sodium.

Enjoy the pics.

Thick-cut bacon, cut into strips and sizzling away:

Oyster mushrooms, to be fried in the rendered fat from the bacon:

The office became redolent with the smell of bacon when I began cooking. My coworkers, already worried about their own health, voiced concerns about the other teams on our floor smelling the cooking. I shrugged; frankly, I didn't give a crap. The other teams have food parties all the time, and they never invite us R&D staffers. So fuck 'em.

The Gorg (which was mighty stinky when unwrapped):

Below: fettuccine, which of course stuck to itself when I boiled the first batch of pasta. My mistake was to use a relatively small pot in which to do the boil; for pasta not to stick together, you ideally need a very large pot to give the individual noodles a chance to swim free. For my second batch, done in the evening, I used a larger pot and I stood over the boil, stirring constantly and conscientiously to prevent any clumping and noodle-fusion. This method worked; the second batch of fettuccine came out perfectly.

Pasta:

That second batch:

Once you're sure that the noodles are boiling and not sticking to each other, it's possible to relent a bit and just let the pasta boil, which is what you're seeing above.

Below: the final product—

Tasted pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. This wasn't the "full" version of my dish: in the full version, there's also pan-fried chicken breast and seared shrimp and cooked-down baby spinach (a bit like this). But this quickie version was delicious all the same.