Spaghetti in Cream Sauce with Pan-grilled Fish

I have been posting pictures of my cooking on Facebook for some time. It started out as sharing ideas with a dear colleague to encourage her to do more home cooking for her 2 young daughters rather than her frequent buying take-outs. As months passed, I got hooked on doing the series, which I called it "Tonight's  Dinner" and it became a habit to take extra effort to plate and take photo of my home cooked meals.

Last night's posting received 2 requests from friends asking me to teach them cook that particular dish. All thanks to the attractive photo as I have recently started using online photo applications such as Snapee :). This encouraged me to add on a meal section in this blog.

So friends, here is the cooking instructions as per your requests:

Spaghetti in Cream Sauce with Pan-grilled Fish

Ingredients:

- Spaghetti

- Plain Flour
- Salt

- Black Pepper

- Canola or Light Olive Oil

- Garlic, sliced

- Milk, heated

- Herbs (Thyme & Oregano)

- Sundried Tomatoes and/or cherry tomatoes, cut in small pieces or halves

- White fish or any seafood such as prawns, squid or clams

Steps:

1.  Season fish or seafood with salt, black pepper and thyme.
2.  Cook spaghetti in boiling water with added salt. Drain away hot water when done.  Rinse spaghetti under cool running water, drain and mix in some oil. Set aside.
3.  In a heavy saucepan, heat up small amount of oil and pan grilled/fry the fish or seafood. Set aside when cooked.
4. Heat up clean heavy saucepan with 2 tbsp of oil. When oil is hot, put in the sliced garlic and fry till lightly brown. Stir in 2 tbsp of flour and cook, stirring constantly, until the paste or roux cooks and bubbles a bit, but don't let it brown — about 2 minutes. Adjust heat if necessary.
5. Add 1 cup/250ml of hot milk, continuing to stir as the sauce thickens. Bring it to a boil. Add salt, pepper and oregano to taste. Lower the heat, add in the cooked spaghetti, tomatoes and cook, stirring for 2 to 3 minutes more.
6. Remove from heat and do plating. Topped with cooked fish or seafood, garnish and serve.

Note: For each serving, 2 tbsp of oil and 2 tbsp of flour per cup of milk. You may replace cooking the sauce with half cup of cream and water and thicken with starch thickener.