Dudes! This is actually my recipe!
OK, so out in the real world, its Linguine con Vongole, and it's supposed to be made with genuine clams. You have to deal with the shells, and drain out all the sand, and all that. Thank you, I'll have the nice people at the restaurant do that, most of the time.
Or, at the other extreme -- and it's not like there's much in between -- it's a can of Snow's clams with the packing juices and "1/4 teaspoon dried parsley". And maybe some cream on the odd theory that a "white clam sauce" must require it.
So I'm going to be snotty and plebeian at the same time here. Canned clams, but real ingredients. No sand, but actual preparation. There is a middle ground where you buy cooked (maybe frozen) clam meat at your local shellfish purveyor, but unless you live in Oakland or your Trader Joe's happens to have it, go with the can.
If you've got a bigger crowd, you can stretch the same sauce over a pound of pasta. If you've got a really really big crowd, start doubling up on the cans of clams and bottles of juice, until you get to such a huge crowd that you need those giant cans (clams and juice both) that are weirdly labeled something like "#2". Just keep the proportions roughly correct, and remember that you'll need a HUGE pot to boil the pasta in and a very large pot just for the sauce.
3/4 lb. pasta
2 tbsp. olive oil
2-3 anchovies, mashed
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
A few shakes dried red pepper flakes
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1 8-oz bottle clam juice
1 10-oz. can whole baby clams (I use Geisha)
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
1/8 cup fresh parsley, chopped
Grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese (optional)
I've put pasta first in the ingredients because if you use some really gnarly thick pasta, you'll have to get it going before anything else; on the other hand, if you use capellini (and this dish does work with capellini), you need to throw it in at the very last minute, when the sauce is all but done. Anyway, boil the water first. You never know; someone might have a baby.
Chop/mash the anchovies and pop them into a skillet (9 in. or so). Press on them with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula to flatten them out. Then add the olive oil and turn the heat on low while you prepare the other ingredients.
When the anchovies have pretty completely dissolved into the oil, add the garlic and turn the heat up a little. Then just keep stirring until the garlic smells cooked instead of raw. It will look a distinctly awful greyish-brown at this point.
Add the wine and turn the heat up to a full boil. Add the dried basil and the pepper flakes. Stir regularly. You're ready to move on when enough of the wine liquid has boiled off so that it's thick and soupy. Careful: if you turn your back on it for two minutes at this point the remaining liquid will boil off and you'll have burnt crap at the bottom of your skillet and be stuck with takeout Chinese.
Add the clam juice and about a third of the fresh basil. Keep the heat high, stirring until you get back to the soupy appearance again. At this point you can add pasta cooking water (don't forget to scald yourself pulling it out of the cooking pasta) to thin the sauce and then boil down more. This cycle can go on for hours if you have a thick pasta that requires long boiling; make sure you have a friend check that you haven't just gone into a coma.
When the pasta is within about three minutes of being done (for capellini, about two minutes before you put it in), add the clams and the second third of basil. Keep the heat high and add water as necessary.
Drain the pasta (but do not rinse) and return it to the pot. Now, if you are confident that the amount of sauce matches the pasta exactly, add the sauce to the pasta along with the remaining basil; otherwise, dress the pasta with a little olive oil, add the remaining basil to the sauce, and get everyone to table. (And turn the burner under the sauce off!)
Serve with parsley and optional cheese sprinkled over the top.
If you find you have too little sauce, you can add a little more pasta water and boil vigorously for a minute. This even works with the dregs of the sauce, maybe adding a little more olive oil as well.
Other optional additions: olives, capers, cheese in the sauce. You can add a tablespoon or so of butter to get a slightly thicker and richer sauce. Earlier (about when you add the clams), some claim a tablespoon or two of vodka smooths the sauce out, as long as you boil it enough to cook away the hard alcohol. If you must add vodka, I think it is probably better to add it to the guests rather than the sauce, but whatever.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Pasta with Feta Cheese and Cherry Tomatoes
This is from...well, what? It's called Pasta, the publisher is Hermes House, which is an imprint of Anness Publishing in London, and Jeni Wright is listed as the Contributing Editor. It's a wonderful collection of pasta recipes. But good luck finding it.
The Anness Publishing website says that Hermes is the imprint "...for non-trade sales, promotional sales and customised publishing for major customers" and assures us that "...products can seldom be supplied from stock..." This is the publisher promising you can't get it, let alone Amazon or Alibris.
Your best bet appears to be to time-travel to 2006 or so, when it was on the shelf at Pegasus Books in downtown Berkeley, and buy the copy before I did, thereby causing a rift in the space-time continuum. Or at least erasing this blog post.
Spaghetti (all quantities negotiable, see below)
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
8-12 cherry tomatoes, halved
pinch nutmeg, optional
3-6 oz. feta cheese
1-2 tbsp. chopped fresh basil
4-8 pitted and halved Kalamata olives
For this recipe, everything is up for grabs. Cherry tomatoes vary in size and juiciness, and you rarely can just go buy 8, as the original recipe suggests. The original recipe calls for 3 oz. of pasta, but I've found this much sauce will easily serve for twice that much. And feta cheese also comes in non-negotiable discrete hunks. I suggest you see which of these limitations affects you, and just try to adjust everything else.
Heat the olive oil, and then cook but do not brown the garlic (a minute or so). Add the halved cherry tomatoes and cook on fairly high heat for a minute or so. You want the cherry tomatoes to wilt and give up some of their juice. At this point you can mix with cooked and drained spaghetti, stirring in the feta, basil, and optional nutmeg (I'm not a fan) afterwards, or you can add the cheese and basil and cook another minute. If it doesn't look saucy enough, add a few tablespoons of the reserved pasta cooking water (you did reserve some pasta cooking water, didn't you? Don't you always reserve some of the pasta cooking water?), and serve with the pasta. Olives scattered on top of each serving, maybe with a little more chopped basil and grated Parmesan or Asiago if you're a real cheese nut.
If you cook this too long with the feta cheese, it will disintegrate and you'll have sort of a cheese sauce dish. It's not bad, but I like it better with the discrete chunks of feta.
The Anness Publishing website says that Hermes is the imprint "...for non-trade sales, promotional sales and customised publishing for major customers" and assures us that "...products can seldom be supplied from stock..." This is the publisher promising you can't get it, let alone Amazon or Alibris.
Your best bet appears to be to time-travel to 2006 or so, when it was on the shelf at Pegasus Books in downtown Berkeley, and buy the copy before I did, thereby causing a rift in the space-time continuum. Or at least erasing this blog post.
Spaghetti (all quantities negotiable, see below)
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
8-12 cherry tomatoes, halved
pinch nutmeg, optional
3-6 oz. feta cheese
1-2 tbsp. chopped fresh basil
4-8 pitted and halved Kalamata olives
For this recipe, everything is up for grabs. Cherry tomatoes vary in size and juiciness, and you rarely can just go buy 8, as the original recipe suggests. The original recipe calls for 3 oz. of pasta, but I've found this much sauce will easily serve for twice that much. And feta cheese also comes in non-negotiable discrete hunks. I suggest you see which of these limitations affects you, and just try to adjust everything else.
Heat the olive oil, and then cook but do not brown the garlic (a minute or so). Add the halved cherry tomatoes and cook on fairly high heat for a minute or so. You want the cherry tomatoes to wilt and give up some of their juice. At this point you can mix with cooked and drained spaghetti, stirring in the feta, basil, and optional nutmeg (I'm not a fan) afterwards, or you can add the cheese and basil and cook another minute. If it doesn't look saucy enough, add a few tablespoons of the reserved pasta cooking water (you did reserve some pasta cooking water, didn't you? Don't you always reserve some of the pasta cooking water?), and serve with the pasta. Olives scattered on top of each serving, maybe with a little more chopped basil and grated Parmesan or Asiago if you're a real cheese nut.
If you cook this too long with the feta cheese, it will disintegrate and you'll have sort of a cheese sauce dish. It's not bad, but I like it better with the discrete chunks of feta.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Paul's Favorite (Pasta w/ Salami & Summer Squash)
This is another recipe from the late Jeff Smith, the Feudal Frugal Gourmet. I'll start with something very close to his original and then discuss modifications.
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced or minced
2 small summer squash (zucchini, crookneck, etc.), cut into matchsticks
1/4 lb. dry-cured Italian salami, cut into matchsticks
1 tbsp. capers, drained and chopped
1/2 cup cream
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 lb. fettucine or other pasta, cooked
Grated parmesan, asiago, or other hard cheese
Try to get a decent Italian salami (it seems to be correlated with spelling it "salame", if that helps). In the Bay Area, Gallo, Molinari, and Columbus all sell "chubs", the stick of salami wrapped in some kind of paper and covered with a gray-white moldy substance. Elsewhere in the country, your mileage may vary. If you are desperate, you can cut prepared salami slices for this, but the result is a lot greasier. If you can only find German salami, abandon all hope and look at the variations below.
Heat the olive oil and saute the garlic in it just briefly. enough to be able to smell the cooked garlic, not so much as to brown it. Add the summer squash and saute, stirring regularly, until nearly tender, under 3 minutes. Add the salami and capers and some pepper, and stir for another minute at most. Add the cream and simmer until the sauce is reduced to your taste. Serve over the pasta, with the grated cheese on the side.
This makes a lot of sauce for 1/2 lb. of pasta; I routinely made this much -- maybe adding another squash and a little more cream -- to serve with a full pound of pasta. You can stretch the sauce by simply adding more cream; you may have to if you reduce it too far. This can be a vegetarian dish if you replace the salami with another squash or two.
For a slightly more upscale version, use 2-4 oz. of pancetta instead of salami; chop the pancetta finely and start off by cooking it in the pan on low until it is browned and the fat is rendered. Then remove the pancetta and use the fat, with olive oil added only as necessary, and proceed with the dish. Put the browned pancetta bits back in with the capers.
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced or minced
2 small summer squash (zucchini, crookneck, etc.), cut into matchsticks
1/4 lb. dry-cured Italian salami, cut into matchsticks
1 tbsp. capers, drained and chopped
1/2 cup cream
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 lb. fettucine or other pasta, cooked
Grated parmesan, asiago, or other hard cheese
Try to get a decent Italian salami (it seems to be correlated with spelling it "salame", if that helps). In the Bay Area, Gallo, Molinari, and Columbus all sell "chubs", the stick of salami wrapped in some kind of paper and covered with a gray-white moldy substance. Elsewhere in the country, your mileage may vary. If you are desperate, you can cut prepared salami slices for this, but the result is a lot greasier. If you can only find German salami, abandon all hope and look at the variations below.
Heat the olive oil and saute the garlic in it just briefly. enough to be able to smell the cooked garlic, not so much as to brown it. Add the summer squash and saute, stirring regularly, until nearly tender, under 3 minutes. Add the salami and capers and some pepper, and stir for another minute at most. Add the cream and simmer until the sauce is reduced to your taste. Serve over the pasta, with the grated cheese on the side.
This makes a lot of sauce for 1/2 lb. of pasta; I routinely made this much -- maybe adding another squash and a little more cream -- to serve with a full pound of pasta. You can stretch the sauce by simply adding more cream; you may have to if you reduce it too far. This can be a vegetarian dish if you replace the salami with another squash or two.
For a slightly more upscale version, use 2-4 oz. of pancetta instead of salami; chop the pancetta finely and start off by cooking it in the pan on low until it is browned and the fat is rendered. Then remove the pancetta and use the fat, with olive oil added only as necessary, and proceed with the dish. Put the browned pancetta bits back in with the capers.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Maman's Red Sauce with Meat
The Maman dictated this recipe to me as I was about to go off to the store. There were a couple gaps, but we filled them in as we went along and this is the complete version.
This is a very simple version of a ragu, and it can be fancied up with different ground meats (including Italian sausage meat) or even with a piece of braising meat, which you would brown, cook until extremely tender, and then shred back into the sauce.
2 tbsp. butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 green pepper, membranes and seeds removed, finely chopped
2-4 cloves garlic
1 lb. ground beef or other meats
1 28 oz. can tomato puree
2 6 oz. cans tomato paste
2 tsp. dried basil leaves (or about 4 tsp. fresh)
2 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. freshly ground fennel seeds (optional)
1/2-1 cup red wine
Melt the butter in a large skillet, dutch oven, or stock pot. Saute the onion and green pepper until the pepper is soft, about ten minutes. The pepper should fade to a dimmer green along the way. Add the garlic for the last couple of minutes, just until you can smell it among the cooked onion and pepper smell. You can optionally take out the onion/garlic mixture while you brown the beef.
Add the beef and stir to brown evenly, breaking it up as you go. Drain fat if necessary and then add the tomato puree and paste. Stir in the seasonings and turn to low. Add about 1/2 cup of the wine, with more or water added as you go along to keep the sauce thinned to your taste. You need to stir it often enough -- and add enough liquid -- so that it does not stick to the bottom of the pot, where it will scorch and, if you are so foolish to then stir it up, ruin the entire batch. (Alternately, you can use a crockpot for the simmering, in which case the bottom doesn't scorch, but the edge of the top gradually develops a burned crust that will take you two hours to clean off. Or transfer to the oven at 350° to simmer.)
It will be perfectly edible after a half-hour or so, but it will get better over the next couple of hours. Some people say you should always put the entire sauce away for a day and reheat it for best results. OK, but what did you eat the first day?
If you open a bottle of red wine to use in the dish, you can drink some as you cook, but try to avoid drinking so much that you forget about the sauce and go to bed.
Serve over pasta. Leftovers can be frozen in small containers (one or two cups), or (special bonus recipe) combined with fresh or leftover cooked pasta -- macaroni, penne, and fusilli all work fine -- in a ratio of about 2 cups cooked pasta (1 lb. dried pasta = 4 cups uncooked = 8 cups cooked) to 1 cup sauce and baked in a casserole somewhere between 350° and 400° for about a half-hour. Top with grated mozzarella, and if you really want to push the whole Fake Lasagne thing, put in a layer of ricotta in the middle.
This is a very simple version of a ragu, and it can be fancied up with different ground meats (including Italian sausage meat) or even with a piece of braising meat, which you would brown, cook until extremely tender, and then shred back into the sauce.
2 tbsp. butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 green pepper, membranes and seeds removed, finely chopped
2-4 cloves garlic
1 lb. ground beef or other meats
1 28 oz. can tomato puree
2 6 oz. cans tomato paste
2 tsp. dried basil leaves (or about 4 tsp. fresh)
2 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. freshly ground fennel seeds (optional)
1/2-1 cup red wine
Melt the butter in a large skillet, dutch oven, or stock pot. Saute the onion and green pepper until the pepper is soft, about ten minutes. The pepper should fade to a dimmer green along the way. Add the garlic for the last couple of minutes, just until you can smell it among the cooked onion and pepper smell. You can optionally take out the onion/garlic mixture while you brown the beef.
Add the beef and stir to brown evenly, breaking it up as you go. Drain fat if necessary and then add the tomato puree and paste. Stir in the seasonings and turn to low. Add about 1/2 cup of the wine, with more or water added as you go along to keep the sauce thinned to your taste. You need to stir it often enough -- and add enough liquid -- so that it does not stick to the bottom of the pot, where it will scorch and, if you are so foolish to then stir it up, ruin the entire batch. (Alternately, you can use a crockpot for the simmering, in which case the bottom doesn't scorch, but the edge of the top gradually develops a burned crust that will take you two hours to clean off. Or transfer to the oven at 350° to simmer.)
It will be perfectly edible after a half-hour or so, but it will get better over the next couple of hours. Some people say you should always put the entire sauce away for a day and reheat it for best results. OK, but what did you eat the first day?
If you open a bottle of red wine to use in the dish, you can drink some as you cook, but try to avoid drinking so much that you forget about the sauce and go to bed.
Serve over pasta. Leftovers can be frozen in small containers (one or two cups), or (special bonus recipe) combined with fresh or leftover cooked pasta -- macaroni, penne, and fusilli all work fine -- in a ratio of about 2 cups cooked pasta (1 lb. dried pasta = 4 cups uncooked = 8 cups cooked) to 1 cup sauce and baked in a casserole somewhere between 350° and 400° for about a half-hour. Top with grated mozzarella, and if you really want to push the whole Fake Lasagne thing, put in a layer of ricotta in the middle.
Final note: some find this recipe a little thin on meat. If so, you can remedy by:
- carefully cooking down so there is less liquid;
- using a little more ground beef (say, another third of a pound); or
- adding one uncooked Italian sausage, removed from its skin and crumbled in when you brown the beef.
Simple Chili
I'm not sure whether this recipe appears exactly somewhere else. It's easy to remember, anyway.
The fact that we serve it over pasta is a nod to Cincinnati chili, which I made a version of for a while. But everyone told me to stop and we retreated to this more basic rendition. Except that it still gets served over pasta.
The choice of chili powder and of optional fresh or dried chile gives you a lot of room to adjust the heat. Standard supermarket chili powder is pretty bland, and name brand powders may be hotter and more flavorful. McCormick's makes a Chipotle chili powder that's reasonably fierce for a supermarket product. In some markets you can find powdered chile, which has no other spices (salt, oregano, and cumin are typical). You can even buy some dried chiles, remove membranes and seeds (or not, if you are extremely brave), roast them in the oven or a dry frying pan until they start to crisp, and then use a spice grinder to make your own freshly powdered chile, whose flavor should be very bright. If you do this, add in a little more cumin and other seasonings to taste, and consider additional salt.
2 tbsp. butter
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 lb. ground beef
1 tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 fresh or dried chile (optional)
1 14-1/2 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 14-1/2 oz. can cooked kidney beans
Tabasco or other hot sauce to taste
Condiments: grated cheese, raw onions or shallots, minced jalapeno, etc.
Melt the butter in a large skillet, dutch oven, or stock pot. Saute the onion until translucent. Add the garlic for the last minute or two. If you prefer, you can take out the onion/garlic mixture while you brown the beef.
Add the ground beef, breaking it up with a spoon or spatula while stirring it so that it gets evenly ground. You may add the chili powder and cumin while browning it, but if you're using a very fatty ground beef and will have to drain it after browning, you may want to wait.
Drain the beef if necessary, add the onions and garlic if you removed them, and add the seasonings if you haven't already, including the optional minced fresh or dried chile. Add the diced tomatoes with their juices and adjust to a simmer. Cook for a half-hour or so, though you can leave it there essentially forever, maybe adding a little water or beer from time to time to keep it from getting too thick.
About ten minutes before serving, drain the kidney beans well (I rinse them off in a strainer) and add to the pot. If you prefer a less separate bean flavor, add them sooner. But if the beans sit in the chili for hours, the whole thing will start to melt into an indistinct chili-ish mass. Which is fine if you like that.
Serve over pasta, if you like, with such condiments as appeal to you passed around at table.
The fact that we serve it over pasta is a nod to Cincinnati chili, which I made a version of for a while. But everyone told me to stop and we retreated to this more basic rendition. Except that it still gets served over pasta.
The choice of chili powder and of optional fresh or dried chile gives you a lot of room to adjust the heat. Standard supermarket chili powder is pretty bland, and name brand powders may be hotter and more flavorful. McCormick's makes a Chipotle chili powder that's reasonably fierce for a supermarket product. In some markets you can find powdered chile, which has no other spices (salt, oregano, and cumin are typical). You can even buy some dried chiles, remove membranes and seeds (or not, if you are extremely brave), roast them in the oven or a dry frying pan until they start to crisp, and then use a spice grinder to make your own freshly powdered chile, whose flavor should be very bright. If you do this, add in a little more cumin and other seasonings to taste, and consider additional salt.
2 tbsp. butter
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 lb. ground beef
1 tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 fresh or dried chile (optional)
1 14-1/2 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 14-1/2 oz. can cooked kidney beans
Tabasco or other hot sauce to taste
Condiments: grated cheese, raw onions or shallots, minced jalapeno, etc.
Melt the butter in a large skillet, dutch oven, or stock pot. Saute the onion until translucent. Add the garlic for the last minute or two. If you prefer, you can take out the onion/garlic mixture while you brown the beef.
Add the ground beef, breaking it up with a spoon or spatula while stirring it so that it gets evenly ground. You may add the chili powder and cumin while browning it, but if you're using a very fatty ground beef and will have to drain it after browning, you may want to wait.
Drain the beef if necessary, add the onions and garlic if you removed them, and add the seasonings if you haven't already, including the optional minced fresh or dried chile. Add the diced tomatoes with their juices and adjust to a simmer. Cook for a half-hour or so, though you can leave it there essentially forever, maybe adding a little water or beer from time to time to keep it from getting too thick.
About ten minutes before serving, drain the kidney beans well (I rinse them off in a strainer) and add to the pot. If you prefer a less separate bean flavor, add them sooner. But if the beans sit in the chili for hours, the whole thing will start to melt into an indistinct chili-ish mass. Which is fine if you like that.
Serve over pasta, if you like, with such condiments as appeal to you passed around at table.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Genevieve's Fravorite (Ground Beef Stroganoff)
This one came from a cookbook I don't even own anymore: the edition of Fanny Farmer just before Marion Cunningham took it over and got all fna-fna (Susan please correct spelling) "We don't cook with Campbell's soups." It's cool, Marion had the right idea; I'm still a little ashamed of this 50's era dish.
All the same, Genevieve has fed it to many of her friends (secretly, and only leftovers, at first; I think she knew I wouldn't volunteer to make it for strangers), and declares that they, as well, consider it food.
2 tbsp. butter
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 lb. ground beef
1/2 lb. mushrooms, sliced
1-2 tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 can Campbell's "HealthyBequest Request" Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 cup (8 0z.) sour cream
I use a 12-inch non-stick electric skillet to make this. If you don't have one, you probably should just go buy one. 11 inches would do, but a round 12-inch skillet is 31 sq. in. shy and a bit too shallow as well.
How much garlic flavor you want is a choice. You can chop the garlic finely and include it in the last couple minutes of cooking the onion for a distinctive, strong flavor; or you can put peeled cloves on toothpicks for most of the cooking process and fish them out at the last minute for a much milder flavor. Unpeeled would probably be milder still.
Heat the butter and saute the onion until translucent. If desired, include chopped garlic for the last minute or so. If you want to keep the onion flavor separate, remove it and set aside. Put in the ground beef and turn the heat up, breaking the beef up as it cooks. When it is all cooked, you may drain some of the fat if you like.
Stir in the mushrooms and flour (less if you drained fat off, more if you didn't). Lower the heat and cover the skillet, cooking for about five minutes, or until the mushrooms start to look cooked.
Stir in the cream of mushroom soup and return to low heat. This is one of the two places you could return the onions, if you removed them. It will take fifteen or twenty minutes for the whole thing to come together.
Check the seasoning, and add salt and/or pepper to taste as necessary. This is the other point at which you could return the onions. Stir in the sour cream. Some like it thoroughly mixed in, some like it stirred less, kind of streaky. Cook it only briefly and don't let it boil with the sour cream.
Serve over rice. I know, I know, regular beef stroganoff is over noodles. Get it through your head, this isn't regular beef stroganoff.
All the same, Genevieve has fed it to many of her friends (secretly, and only leftovers, at first; I think she knew I wouldn't volunteer to make it for strangers), and declares that they, as well, consider it food.
2 tbsp. butter
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 lb. ground beef
1/2 lb. mushrooms, sliced
1-2 tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 can Campbell's "Healthy
1 cup (8 0z.) sour cream
I use a 12-inch non-stick electric skillet to make this. If you don't have one, you probably should just go buy one. 11 inches would do, but a round 12-inch skillet is 31 sq. in. shy and a bit too shallow as well.
How much garlic flavor you want is a choice. You can chop the garlic finely and include it in the last couple minutes of cooking the onion for a distinctive, strong flavor; or you can put peeled cloves on toothpicks for most of the cooking process and fish them out at the last minute for a much milder flavor. Unpeeled would probably be milder still.
Heat the butter and saute the onion until translucent. If desired, include chopped garlic for the last minute or so. If you want to keep the onion flavor separate, remove it and set aside. Put in the ground beef and turn the heat up, breaking the beef up as it cooks. When it is all cooked, you may drain some of the fat if you like.
Stir in the mushrooms and flour (less if you drained fat off, more if you didn't). Lower the heat and cover the skillet, cooking for about five minutes, or until the mushrooms start to look cooked.
Stir in the cream of mushroom soup and return to low heat. This is one of the two places you could return the onions, if you removed them. It will take fifteen or twenty minutes for the whole thing to come together.
Check the seasoning, and add salt and/or pepper to taste as necessary. This is the other point at which you could return the onions. Stir in the sour cream. Some like it thoroughly mixed in, some like it stirred less, kind of streaky. Cook it only briefly and don't let it boil with the sour cream.
Serve over rice. I know, I know, regular beef stroganoff is over noodles. Get it through your head, this isn't regular beef stroganoff.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Big Batch Vegetarian Red Sauce
This recipe is pretty seriously cribbed from Bob Sloan's Dad's Own Cook Book, which has at least the minimum number of usable recipes (3) to justify its space on the shelf. My changes are absolutely crucial and remove any question of copyright violation.
Actually, before we get started, let's talk about tomatoes. It is, of course, possible to make a tomato sauce starting with fresh tomatoes rather than canned. But I don't see why you'd bother, unless you're making one of those uncooked fresh tomato sauces that is really something else entirely.
So, what canned tomatoes? The original recipe calls for crushed tomatoes, but that just doesn't sit right with me. Even settling on whole tomatoes still leaves lots of choices. Some people like San Marzano tomatoes, though this merely starts another argument about what really defines San Marzanos. Some like Glen Muir Organic Tomatoes. Some insist the tomatoes must come in tomato juice, not puree. Some say that the sauce won't cook down properly if the tomatoes have calcium chloride added.
Here's what I suggest: buy the most expensive Italian San Marzano D.O.P. tomatoes with as few additives as possible, and make a sauce. The next time, go to the Dollar Tree and buy Uncle Ernie's Holiday Camp Tomatoes. If you can't tell the difference, well, there you are. If you can, interpolate.
2-3 tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped or grated
1 green or red bell pepper, seeds and membranes removed, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 - 1 cup red wine
2 28 oz. cans tomatoes
1 6 oz. can tomato paste
2 tsp. dried basil or 1 tsp. dried and 2 tbsp. chopped fresh
3 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
2 tsp. dried oregano
1-1/2 tsp. salt
Pepper to taste
2 cups water
In a large pot, with a heavy bottom (unless you don't mind stirring constantly to avoid scorching), heat the oil until a drop of water sizzles in it. Add the onion, celery, carrots, and green or red pepper. Cook, stirring, until most of the moisture is gone and the carrots begin to soften, 8 minutes or so if grated. Add the garlic and cook for a couple of minutes.
Add the wine and raise the heat, cooking until the liquid begins to thicken. Break up the tomatoes by hand and add them, along with the tomato paste, dried basil, about half the parsley, the oregano, salt, pepper, and water.
Lower the heat and stir the first few minutes until there is a low, steady bubbling. Simmer, continuing to stir now and then, for an hour or so. At this point, you could:
Serve with pasta. Or vodka and tabasco.
Actually, before we get started, let's talk about tomatoes. It is, of course, possible to make a tomato sauce starting with fresh tomatoes rather than canned. But I don't see why you'd bother, unless you're making one of those uncooked fresh tomato sauces that is really something else entirely.
So, what canned tomatoes? The original recipe calls for crushed tomatoes, but that just doesn't sit right with me. Even settling on whole tomatoes still leaves lots of choices. Some people like San Marzano tomatoes, though this merely starts another argument about what really defines San Marzanos. Some like Glen Muir Organic Tomatoes. Some insist the tomatoes must come in tomato juice, not puree. Some say that the sauce won't cook down properly if the tomatoes have calcium chloride added.
Here's what I suggest: buy the most expensive Italian San Marzano D.O.P. tomatoes with as few additives as possible, and make a sauce. The next time, go to the Dollar Tree and buy Uncle Ernie's Holiday Camp Tomatoes. If you can't tell the difference, well, there you are. If you can, interpolate.
2-3 tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped or grated
1 green or red bell pepper, seeds and membranes removed, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 - 1 cup red wine
2 28 oz. cans tomatoes
1 6 oz. can tomato paste
2 tsp. dried basil or 1 tsp. dried and 2 tbsp. chopped fresh
3 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
2 tsp. dried oregano
1-1/2 tsp. salt
Pepper to taste
2 cups water
In a large pot, with a heavy bottom (unless you don't mind stirring constantly to avoid scorching), heat the oil until a drop of water sizzles in it. Add the onion, celery, carrots, and green or red pepper. Cook, stirring, until most of the moisture is gone and the carrots begin to soften, 8 minutes or so if grated. Add the garlic and cook for a couple of minutes.
Add the wine and raise the heat, cooking until the liquid begins to thicken. Break up the tomatoes by hand and add them, along with the tomato paste, dried basil, about half the parsley, the oregano, salt, pepper, and water.
Lower the heat and stir the first few minutes until there is a low, steady bubbling. Simmer, continuing to stir now and then, for an hour or so. At this point, you could:
- Serve the sauce with chunky vegetables;
- Use a food mill to process the liquid into a thin tomato sauce (a passata, I think), discarding the solid vegetables;
- Use the food mill in multiple passes to grind the solids, producing a thick, smooth, sauce (Papa's favorite);
- Use a food processor to puree the sauce, if you don't mind it turning slightly orange;
- Use a blender, if you don't mind the orange and also don't mind the vague sense that you're producing the base for a Bloody Mary Smoothie.
Serve with pasta. Or vodka and tabasco.
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