English Listenign Lesson Lab Online
Views #481 | Low Intermediate 4

How to Make Spaghetti

Akane shares her spaghetti recipe.
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Hello, and welcome to our show.
Today, we’ll be making one of my favourite recipes.

It’s called the egg spaghetti.

First, what you will need for this recipe is:

About a hundred grams of dried spaghetti,
Two table spoons of olive oil,
Fifty grams of minced meat,
About a half of a medium onion,
Half a cup of chopped mushrooms,
One cup of tomato sauce, or peeled crushed tomatoes
(I prefer peeled crushed tomatoes)
And lastly, you will need one egg.

First, let your water come to a boil, and boil your dried spaghetti.

While you are waiting for your spaghetti to boil, you can prepare your sauce.

Heat up the pan with the olive oil, and add the minced meat.
Brown the minced meat until it gets nice and brown.
Lower the heat to about medium heat, and then add your chopped onions.

It’s important to fry your onions in lower heat so that you can let it caramelize. It’ll take a while but it will be worth the effort, because all of the sugars will come out of the onion and bring a nice sweat taste to your sauce.

Then, add your mushrooms (your chopped mushrooms), and keep stirring it around until it gets nice and tender.

And then lastly, you can add your tomato sauce, or peeled crushed tomatoes.

And let it simmer for a bit until it gets nice and warm.

Your spaghetti should be ready by now. So you can drain the water out and add a bit of olive oil to your spaghetti, so that it won’t stick. Put your spaghetti on a plate, and then pour some of your sauce on top.

Now, you can fry your egg on a pan sunny-side-up. I like to leave the yolk nice and soft. And then put the fried egg on top of your spaghetti. Now, when you eat your spaghetti, I like to pierce the egg with a fork so that all the yolk drizzles out and becomes a part of the sauce. The egg is quite alkaline, so it brings a nice mild taste that counteracts with the acidic tomato.

And enjoy!

Learn vocabulary from the lesson!

minced meat

You'll need fifty grams of minced meat and one egg.

When something is 'minced,' it is chopped into very small pieces. Notice the following:

  1. You can make this pasta with minced meat or cheese.
  2. Too much minced meat is unhealthy for you.

brown

Brown the minced meat until it gets nice and brown.

Here 'brown' is used as a verb, meaning to cook the meat until it turns brown, showing that it is cooked. Notice the following:

  1. You need to brown the hamburger before you do anything else.
  2. It will take a few minutes for the steak pieces to brown.

caramelize

It's important to fry your onions in low heat so that you can let it caramelize.

When something that you cook 'caramelizes' it means that you cover it with melted sugar. In this case, it means more to cook them until they become clear. Notice the following:

  1. The caramelized onions on the top of this bread really give it a lot of flavor.
  2. The best part of this salad is the caramelized walnuts that go on the top.

simmer

Let it simmer for a bit until it gets nice and warm. 

When something 'simmers,' it cooks at a lower temperature than boiling, but there are still a few bubbles.  You usually simmer sauces on low heat. Notice the following:

  1. How long do you have to simmer the sauce?
  2. This soup has been simmering most of the day.

drizzles out

I like to pierce the egg with a fork so that all the yolk drizzles out and becomes part of the sauce.

When a liquid 'drizzles out' of something it comes out slowly, rather than all at the same time. Notice the following:

  1. The oil just drizzles out of this bottle.
  2. You have to use something that lets the frosting just drizzle out.

alkaline/acidic

The egg is quite alkaline, so its taste counteracts with the acidic tomato.

An 'alkaline' material contains alkali, which are used in chemistry to neutralize acids. Something 'acidic' has acids, so it has a sharp and strong flavor. Notice the following:

  1. Some people don't like grapefruit because it is so acidic.
  2. If I have coffee and orange juice in the morning I get an upset stomach because they are both very acidic.

Vocabulary Quiz

minced • brown • caramelized
simmer • drizzles • acidic
  1. They sell the most amazing almonds here.
  2. This actually isn't hamburger. It's chicken.
  3. This coffee is really . Do you have some cream I can put in it?
  4. When the bottle is shut like this, the milk just out, it doesn't pour.
  5. Why don't you the meat while I cut the vegetables?
  6. You can put the meat and potatoes in the pot in the morning, and they can just all day.
Answer the following questions about the interview.

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