Baked Pasta with Fish, Bacon and Cheddar - Too Much isn't Always Wonderful

It's been a while since I made pasta.

Why?
Ask me questions!
- Are you too loyal to rice, so that eating pasta makes me feel guilty? Nope, I love almost all food almost equally. HAHA
- Do you just hate pasta? Of course not! (who can possibly hate pasta, btw?)
- Are you on low carb diet? Bah! I am on high everything diet.

You're never gonna get it right.

- Are you too lazy to cook pasta?....

Hmmm...this question is rather difficult to answer...

- Are you crap at cooking pasta?

Errr....can I say "no comment"?

I know that most people find cooking pasta "quick and easy".
I still remember a friend's answer to "what do you cook for your husband every day?". She said "Easy. Pasta."

I don't get it. To me, cooking a good pasta dish is challenging. It involves a lot more steps that how I normally cook. But, knowing me, I was probably making things difficult for myself. It could never be "simply cook the pasta and mix with the sauce" for me. Purely because I don't know how to achieve a good pasta dish that way...yet. I always felt obligated to do too much, and too much isn't always wonderful.

Baked Pasta with Fish, Bacon and Cheddar

This dish photographed like a sweet dream.
Golden, glistening, glorious, gorgeous.
Too bad it doesn't taste as amazing as it looks.

I baked this pasta dish to get a crunchy top with a creamy bottom.

The top was great. The bacon's tasty (as if bacon could ever taste bad), the fish pieces were succulent, the scorched cheese layer with bits of herbs and black pepper flakes was delicious, and the pasta has a touch of wonderful crunchiness to it.

But the bottom was not too great. The bottom part of the pasta turned dry and it didn't get most of the good parts from the top, and it went too hard to mix. I should've added more sauce to keep the pasta creamy at the bottom next time (if there's gonna be a next time).

Although the dish wasn't a success, let me still share what I did for this dish:
- Pasta for two, boiled and drained
- Fish fillet, seasoned with salt and pepper, seared just a little bit, not completely cooked
- Bacon bits, pan fried without oil until shrunk and cripsy
- Sauce: oil from the bacon, finely chopped garlic, dried herbs (rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage), salt, pepper and cream, sauteed and cooked in a fry pan
- grated cheddar cheese, black pepper and dried herbs topping

Preheat oven to 250C, assemble pasta in an oven proof dish, pasta, fish fillet, pour sauce, add grated cheese on top, bake until golden brown, add bacon bits.

It's more like a savoury pasta cake than a creamy pasta dish.
Sigh.

Sharing this failure with Presto Pasta Nights gang (Gosh, it's been a while, and I wonder if sharing failure is allowed. Oppps), hosted this week by Equal Opportunity Kitchen

I promise that I'll share something that isn't a food disaster in my next post, guys. Wish me luck. I need it so.