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Needles to say, pasta is a true Italian original. We Japanese love pasta, and there is a surprisingly large amount  of Italian restaurants in Japan.

Today, I would like to introduce the recipe for “spaghetti Napolitain”. Spaghetti is of course a kind of pasta, but it may be hard to call this item purely “Italian”. This is Japanese style spaghetti. Formerly, there were many Japanese style western food restaurants. Just after western recipes arrived in the old days, people were slow in getting used to genuine western food. Sometimes it was difficult to find western ingredients. So, Japanese chefs adjusted the recipes to take advantage of the ingredients available, and to please the Japanese palate. Spaghetti Napolitain is a masterpiece and reminds people of good old Japan (^^).

Let’s take a look at the video of “Cooking With Dog”.

[Ingredients for Napolitan (serves 2)]

150g Spaghetti (5.29 oz)
1500ml Water (6.34 u.s. cup)
2 tsp Salt
1/2 Onion (120g/4.23 oz)
1 Garlic Clove

4 slices of Pork Loin Ham (100g/3.53 oz)
5 Button mushrooms
2 Bell Peppers

2 tbsp Olive Oil
3 tbsp Tomato Ketchup
3 tbsp Parmesan cheese (1 tbsp for topping)　

1/2 tbsp Butter
Parsley

Source of the recipe:  Cooking with Dog

[Tips from JAPAN Style]

*Pork Lion Ham>> can be any kind of ham.

*Adding just a little bit of soy source makes it more Japanese!

* 2 tbsp Olive Oil >> more true Italian or 2 tbsp Corn Oil >> more Japanese

What makes this dish more Japanese style is the use of ketchup instead of tomato sauce. I guess it’s easy to get the ingredients for today’s recipe, even outside of Japan. Please do give it a try and turn your thoughts toward “good old Japan” (^^).

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