Spaghetti with Salsiccia

Friday, 4th May 2012

A variation on something that was quite successful last year.
Roast cherry tomatoes in the over with a garlic clove and plenty of oil for 20 minutes or so. Meanwhile chop up fresh salsiccia into bite sized pieces and fry them quickly until browned, then add them to the tomatoes.
While the pasta cooks chop and fry a shallot and add spinach to the pan to wilt. Add the salsiccia and tomatoes to the spinach, mash up the roasted garlic, which will be soft by now, and mix that all together briefly and season. I ground in some red chilli for extra spice.
Drain the pasta and top with the sauce.
Really very good. A lovely combination of flavours with a good balance of spice, sweet tomatoes, spinach, garlic and oil, with the tasty salsiccia.
This should work very well as a veggie dish I imagine, with something else instead of sausage (button mushrooms maybe?).

Spaghetti Bolognese

Friday, 2nd March 2012

Tried to do a more authentic Ragu than the standard mince and tomato sauce that most often passes for Bolognese. Brown some bacon and add chopped onions, garlic, celery and carrot and let them soften. Add mince (I used a mix of beef and pork) and stir it around until it is browned. Add stock with some tomato concentrate mixed in. Season and cook for 40 minutes. Pour over pasta and serve with grated parmesan.
Came out very nicely indeed. Thinking about buying a mincer to make my own mince though, so I can use a decent quality piece of meat.

Rolled and stuffed veal escalopes

Thursday, 24th November 2011

Home Book of Italian Cookery p120. Served with spaghetti and sliced, sautéed "Kräuterseitling".
The escalopes are flattened, stuffed with a mix of bacon, herbs and parmesan and rolled. Then browned on all sides and cooked for 30 minutes in wine and stock.
No matter how hard I tried to flatten the veal escalopes they just kept pulling themselves back to their original size and thickness, so they were difficult to roll. Also, I didn't have any suitable string so I had to try and secure the rolls with cocktail sticks, which was less than successful. And they came out tough and dry after cooking.
The flavours were good but, unfortunately, the meat was barely chewable. Nice pasta and mushrooms though.