Saturday, June 4, 2016

Weekday Bolognese Sauce #Recipe @PegCochran


This recipe comes from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything FAST.  It's a great cookbook with recipes that are fast but not boring and are still full of real ingredients. Many of the recipes are variations on a theme--you start with a base recipe and alter it this way or that way to produce different dishes.

While this bolognese did not have the incredible depth of Marcella Hazan's recipe which cooks for hours, it did have fantastic flavor and it's great to know you can pull it together on a weeknight!

Ingredients:

2 TBL olive oil
1 lb. ground beef, pork or veal or a combination of all 3 (I used beef)
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup red or white wine
1/4 cup cream
1 lb. spaghetti or pasta of your choice
Parmesan cheese, grated

Heat 2 TBL oil in a skillet over medium high heat.  Add the meat, chopped onion, celery, carrot and onion. 

Brown meat




Add veggies to browning meat


When the meat is browned add 1/4 cup tomato paste and cook, stirring, about a minute.  Add wine and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.   Add diced tomatoes and let simmer until wine reduces by half.  Stir in cream and turn the heat as low as possible.


Add tomato paste, wine and cream

Boil pasta and drain, saving some of the pasta water.

Add some of the pasta water to the sauce if you want it saucier.  Pour over spaghetti, add grated Paremesan and enjoy!



As a variation, add 1 pound finely chopped mushrooms, or use half the meat and twice the amount of veggies, or omit the can of diced tomatoes.

These instructions are not exactly as Bittman wrote them--he gives a step-by-step timeline of what to do when.  I prefer having my chopping all done before I start, but that's up to you.


Amazon 

The entire town of Cranberry Cove is popping with excitement. Monica Albertson is baking cranberry goodies by the dozen and shopkeepers are decking out their storefronts for the first annual Winter Walk—an event dreamed up by the mayor to bring visitors to the town during a normally dead time of year.

But it’s the mayor who turns up dead during the grand opening ceremony, his lifeless body making its entrance in a horse-drawn sleigh. Monica’s mother and stepmother quickly become the prime suspects when it’s discovered that the mayor was dating both of them, and to make things worse, her half brother Jeff uncovers a clue buried near one of the bogs on Sassamanash Farm. Now it’s up to Monica to find out who really put the mayor on ice.

5 comments:

  1. mmmm, I love Bolognese sauce--thanks for this one peg!

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  2. That DOES look easy, and yummy. Thanks!

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  3. I will have to pin this one. Thanks!

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  4. love the book and this recipe looks great too.

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  5. I can't wait to try this recipe. Not only does it look tasty but easy too.

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