By Request

BETTY SHIMABUKURO

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Daughter longs for
her old school's spaghetti

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Being a conscientious mom can be so thankless. Consider Amy Okada, who wants to provide her daughter with a great bowl of spaghetti:

"I have recipes for fancier spaghetti sauces but my daughter still favors her Lunalilo Elementary School spaghetti," Okada writes.

She sought the recipe on behalf of daughter Cherie, now in seventh grade and no longer afforded visiting privileges to the Lunalilo cafeteria.

This recipe comes courtesy of school cook Reagan Tyau, who says the dish pops up every five weeks on the menu and is a favorite of the kids.

The secret appears to be the addition of quite a bit of American cheese, which boosts the protein content of the dish. "Kids just love cheese in general," Tyau says.

Once cooked, the sauce is mixed in with the cooked pasta and the pans are put under 200-degree warmers and held until lunchtime. Tyau says the noodles absorb a lot of the sauce, making the dish quite firm -- in fact, you can cut it like lasagna. (Interesting contradiction: The kids don't much care for lasagna, Tyau says.) To recreate this effect at home, place your pan in a warm oven for 30 minutes or so.

The recipe that follows was cut down from Lunalilo's 100-portion formula. I tried it out at home, where the reception was inversely proportional to age: The kindergartner was quite happy; the 16-year-old said, "school food??!!" and accused me of trying to kill him.

Depending on how saucy you like your pasta, you might want to play around with the amount of noodles you fix. The school's original recipe seemed to offer a lot of pasta to sauce. This recipe cuts the proportion somewhat.

Lunalilo School Spaghetti

1 pound ground beef
3 tablespoons dehydrated onions
2 (1-1/2 ounce) packages McCormick Spaghetti Sauce mix
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
Pepper to taste
5 cups crushed tomatoes
1-1/2 tablespoons chicken base (see note)
1/2 to 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
3/4 teaspoon sugar, or more to taste
Salt to taste
10 ounces American cheese (13 slices)
1 pound uncooked spaghetti

Brown ground beef. Drain fat; add onions, spaghetti sauce mix, pepper, oregano and garlic. Stir in tomato sauce, chicken base, Worcestershire, sugar and salt. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer 45 minutes.

Meanwhile cook spaghetti. Drain, but do not rinse.

If sauce needs thickening, dissolve a little cornstarch in hot water and add to sauce. Stir cheese into sauce to melt, then stir in spaghetti.

Transfer pasta and sauce to a baking pan and cover with foil. Place in a 200 degree oven for 1 hour. Serves 10.

Note: Chicken base is a paste, sold in supermarkets alongside chicken broth or boullion.

Approximate nutritional analysis, per serving: 460 calories, 18 g total fat, 9 g saturated fat, 55 mg cholesterol, greater than 1500 mg sodium, 53 g carbohydrate, 22g protein.*

Food Stuffs: Morsels

Send queries along with name and phone number to:
"By Request," Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
500 Ala Moana, No. 7-210, Honolulu 96813.
Or send e-mail to bshimabukuro@starbulletin.com

Asterisk (*) after nutritional analyses in the Body & Soul section indicates calculations by Joannie Dobbs of Exploring New Concepts, a nutritional consulting firm.