Living in Thailand, an essential survival skill is adaptability. A case in point is my first coup d'état. It was February 1991 and Chatchai was just overthrown. I ran out of cooking gas and the shops weren't selling any, apparently on the principle that housewives might be tempted to make bombs out of fish sauce. My mother-in-law said starchily, you should have stocked up. The minute I knew it was a coup, I sent the driver to the gas station to fill up the gas tank. Oh, well, I said, meekly, can I borrow your electric skillet? I managed to survive that coup and two more coups after that. In the process I learned that a cook needs to be nimble. A good lesson learned regardless of the political situation.
It's March 2010, 19 years after my first coup, and 16 prime ministers later, and I'm facing another domestic crisis. In the stores, sugar is fast disappearing from the shelves, a sure sign, not of a coup to come, but of a price hike in the making. (In the background, the Red Shirts are waiting to assemble this weekend.) I have stocked 3 kg of superfine sugar in my pantry so I can keep baking for Cake Mondays. With a sugar shortage looming, I will have to hunt for low-sugar recipes. Adding to the kitchen challenges is the heat of the Thai summer. It was 93 degrees today, and I'm crazy to cook in a hot kitchen. Anyway, come heat or sugar shortage, we must eat. For dinner, today, I made our favorite marinara sauce--with two adjustments. The guys balk at anything meatless so I added meatballs and sausages to the sauce. But cooking it requires about 25 minutes of standing in front of a hot stove (and oven while the meatballs were baking). If you can't stand the heat...!
Making the marinara sauce begins with cooking onions, tomatoes, and garlic (I never do what the recipe says with garlic. I use a free hand.). While it was cooking, I made the meatballs. I seasoned 1/2 pound ground chicken with a tablespoon of Italian seasoning and about 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese. I scooped the meat onto a tray sprayed with cooking oil and popped the meatballs in a 400˚F oven.
The meatballs took about 10 minutes to cook up. Meanwhile, I set a griddle on the stove and grilled the sausages. I used garlic and pepper sausage since I couldn't find sweet Italian sausages in casings. In Bangkok, one must improvise or dinner doesn't make it to the table.
Glen gave me this Braun blender when I moved to Illinois and it has been an essential part of my kitchen equipment ever since. It still works fine attached to the Franzus converter that I got when we came to Thailand in 1989. I added the reserved tomatoes and processed the sauce in eight two-second bursts to make it chunky.
I returned the sauce to the skillet and added the meatballs and sliced sausages.
And there you have it! Spaghetti with marinara sauce, meatballs, and sausage.
This recipe for marinara sauce came from ATK. It cooks up in less than 30 minutes but tastes like it's been cooking all day!
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