Recipe! Awesome Cilantro and Garlic Pasta.

[juushika]

My love for Mongolian food (yay, dinner tomorrow!) is based largely for my love in the wondrous herb that is cilantro. In fact, I fill my bowl at the Mongolian restaurant with noodles, fried tofu, sliced carrots, broccoli, soy sauce, vinegar, lime juice, salt water, hot oil, and as much cilantro as I can fit in the bowl without strangers staring at me or waiters kindly removing the serving spoon from my hand. There is no such thing as too much, in my taste. I have used whole containers of it.

Since I cannot eat Mongolian every day (a pity, I know), Devon and I bought two bushels of fresh cilantro to try and find a way to discover more uses for this amazing herb. I have a similarly passionate love for garlic (I can eat more garlic in one sitting than most people will eat in a week), and so we bought three heads of garlic for a similar purpose. I'm not actually a big fan of food, I wish people could live without it, but trust me—even to my narrow tastes, this was an experiment well worth trying.

Because two tries later, I am now in a house rich with the spicy green scent of cilantro and my stomach is full, and we have achieved success. The result is incredible. I present (and I would offer pictures, but I didn't think to write a recipe until all the yummy was consumed):

Awesome Cilantro and Garlic Pasta
Prep and cook time: 20 minutes
Serves two

Ingredients:
1 bushel fresh cilantro
3-6 cloves of garlic (more to taste)
Olive oil
Handful of your favorite dry pasta (I prefer angel hair)
Grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Skin, crush (with flat of knife blade) and then finely chop garlic. Prepare as much garlic as you like: 2 to 3 cloves for moderate flavor, more if you really love garlic.
   
   
2. In a frying pan, heat a few tablespoon of olive oil. Add chopped garlic, and let cook over moderate heat until garlic has softened and become translucent. Do not burn. Remove from heat.
   
   
3. Wash bushel of cilantro. Chop off thick stems. Holding stalks by the tip, pinch fingers around the stem and pull down, removing cilantro leaves. Discard remaining stalks. (Some smaller, thinner stalks are acceptable.) Chiffonade cilantro, leaving a few larger pieces. Feed stems to guinea pigs, or discard.
   
   
4. Add a few more tablespoons of olive oil to chopped garlic. Put on low heat, and add chopped cilantro. Cook over low heat until cilantro wilts. Add a pinch of salt, and black pepper to taste.
   
   
5. Cook pasta as directed in heavily salted water. Drain.
   
   
6. Add olive oil to cooked pasta, using more for thin pasta to prevent clumps. Add garlic and cilantro mixture, stirring to equally distribute through the pasta.
   
   
7. Serve topped with a few leaves of cilantro and a sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese.