pasta

Competition: San Remo Diamonds Dinner

- Alex Leave a comment

Pasta making

Photo by ClumsyJim.

San Remo is offering three people the chance to take a friend to the Diamond Dinner, to be held in Adelaide on Monday 24 October.

The Australian Diamonds (that’s the national netball team) are taking on the Silver Ferns on Wednesday 26 October and this is the fourth year in a row that San Remo has hosted a pre-match dinner.  The menu has been designed by Adam Swanson, owner and executive chef of Zucca, at Holdfast Shores, and also a San Remo brand ambassador.  With the twin themes of sport and pasta I’m sure it’s likely to be healthy and tasty (well, it will undoubtedly involve pasta so tasty is a given).

If you want to attend, you will need to enter through the San Remo facebook page.  Submit your best pasta recipe by 11:59 am (AEST) on 2 October.  The recipe has to use San Remo pasta AND has to be one you’d serve the Diamonds before a big match (so probably not your richest, creamiest carbonara …).

Not only will you win dinner for two with the Diamonds, you’ll win a year’s supply of pasta, a San Remo cap and apron and a pasta pot.

And, if you don’t live in South Australia … don’t despair, you can still enter because the prize for interstate winners includes airfares and accommodation.

Do you need any more reasons to cook pasta this weekend?

Pasta Presto

- Alex 6 Comments

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We eat pasta at least once a week and, often, it is an emergency meal.  We get home late from something and throw some frozen filled pasta in boiling water and mix through some bought pesto.  Proper lazy food.

But then there are occasions (all the time, really) where there is no excuse for such laziness.  As Susan, at the Well Seasoned Cook, is hosting Pasta Presto Nights this week I took this as an opportunity to NOT crack open a jar but instead use up what was in the fridge.

Fortunately, the fridge was well stocked for pasta making.  We had half a jar of passata – absolutely essential for a fast pasta sauce, as well as half a small pot of tomato paste.  An excellent start.

If you’re using dried pasta, start cooking it before you start on the sauce.

I started by heating some olive oil in a pan, and crisping up a couple of rashers of bacon, chopped up.  Then I added a roughly chopped leek and 3 minced cloves (large!) of garlic.  Once the leek had softened, in went the passata, and I rinsed out the jar with some of the red wine that was open.  Then I mixed through the tomato paste, and added a teaspoon of oregano and a tiny scotch bonnet chilli (the first of what is looking like a very large harvest), very finely chopped.

And I just let that all very gently simmer while the pasta cooked.  Shortly before the pasta was ready I stirred through the remnants of some mascarpone (probably about 75g worth).

Mix the pasta through the sauce, and serve, topped with plenty of parmesan and black pepper.

From start to finish, this took less than half an hour (in fact, the sauce was finished before the pasta had finished cooking) and it was absolutely delicious.  The tiny chilli added a lovely background heat that built up as we ate and the mascarpone and tomato paste both enriched the sauce and made it fabulously creamy.

The only problem?  We don’t always have a fridge so conveniently stocked for pasta sauce making!

Bolognese Sauce

- Alex Leave a comment

 

 

I’m feeling brave … after all, a bolognese sauce is one of those things that everyone makes, everyone knows how to make and everyone has an opinion on how it should be made.

In Bologna, the home of the Bolognese sauce, it is called a ragù and the ‘Bolognese’ comes from the sauce’s French name, sauce bolognaise.  Strictly speaking the sauce should contain just a dash of tomato paste … so please don’t complain that what follows is not a traditional Bolognese sauce!

I had a good read through quite a few recipe books to come up with my final approach.  I knew I had to make do with what was already in the house – so recipes calling for chicken livers, pork and various other exotica will have to wait for another time.  In the end, I most closely followed the recipe found in Ainsley Harriott’s Ainsley’s Friends and Family Cookbook (Amazon US, Amazon UK).  This is a great book as it’s very practical.  Most of the recipes are simple, or quick, or make use of store cupboard ingredients (or all three) which makes it a great resource.  However you happen to feel about Ainsley’s television persona, this book is certainly on the money.

My personal opinion is that, in order to make a good Bolognese sauce you need to make sure you cook it slowly and for a long time, so I was happy to see that Ainsley wants you to simmer your sauce for at least 2 hours, and preferably up to 4.  I really think that if you do give your sauce a good, long, slow cook you cannot go far wrong.

Here is my interpretation of Ainsley Harriott’s Bolognese sauce.

Begin by heating some olive oil in a large pan.  Chop (or dice) two rashers of bacon and add this to the oil.  Fry until starting to crisp, and then add 1 finely diced onion, a diced carrot, garlic to taste and 1 anchovy, finely chopped.  This is a pasta sauce tip I picked up from watching Rick Stein:  an anchovy in a pasta sauce adds depth of flavour without fishiness.  Ainsley’s recipe has you add anchovy essence at the end but I had to make do with the real thing!  Add a scant teaspoon of dried thyme (a few sprigs of fresh thyme, if you have it) and a bay leaf and leave this to cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  The vegetables should start to soften and take on a little colour.

At this point, it’s probably worthwhile winding the heat up a little because next you add 500g beef mince.  Mix this into the vegetables well, breaking up clumps and sauteeing it so that it’s well browned (you don’t want an anaemic, grey sauce, do you?).  Add 2 tbsp of tomato paste and stir well.

Now add 300mL of red wine (if the pan needs deglazing use a little of this prior to tipping in the whole lot) and a 400g tin of tomatoes.  Finish with a grate of nutmeg.  Give it all a good mix, bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for 2-4 hours.

Most of the time is taken up with the simmering so while you do have to be in the house you can hardly call this recipe labour intensive.  And best of all, serving is not a time sensitive process!

When you’re ready to serve, correct the seasoning and off you go!

spaghetti bolognese

Serve with your favourite pasta (and discover it’s tricky to take a photo that makes it look appetizing!), but make sure to save some leftovers for home made schnitzels …