Mostaccioli with beef and tomato sauce

Here is another variation of a red pasta sauce. This time I replaced the white wine with red and boiled the pasta with bay leaves. Another treat in this dish was sun-dried tomatoes as well as fresh ones. I cut the vegetables in bigger pieces. I sliced the onions and fresh tomatoes instead of dicing them and the sun-dried tomatoes were cut into thin long strips. Dried basil leaves were once again used. Dried oregano, cracked pepper and salt are the usual suspects. One cup of water to add volume to the sauce, I then reduced the contents over time to increase the intensity of the flavours.

Once the pasta boiled, I emptied the water, placed them back in, splashed some oil and added half the contents of the sauce pot. Cooking the pasta in the sauce again ensured the meal was served at a higher temperature.

Some instantly grated fresh Parmesan cheese was also a treat for this serving.

Ingredients:

• 250g Minced meat, low fat
• 3 sliced tomatoes with skin
• 4 sun-dried tomatoes cut in strips
• 50ml tomato paste
• onions cut into thick slices
• Dried basil, oregano, cracked pepper, salt
• olive iol
• 1 cup of water
• red wine (100ml)

Fettucine with red sauce

This isn’t the best shot, trust me it tastes better than it looks. So I’ve learned that there are different variations of the bolognese sauce. In order to avoid erroneous practises, I prefer to call it red sauce or meat sauce.

Not really much to write about here except for the combination of ingredients I used. They are:

• 500g minced beef, low fat kind
• One tin of peeled tomatos (I wanted to use fresh)
• 100mL of tomato paste
• Dried basil (fresh basil is out of season)
• Dried oregano
• Cracked black pepper
• Salt
• Sugar
• White wine (not red, it’s a secret)
• diced onions
• olive oil (this ingredient adds to the controversy)

Mix it all up in stages (how I do it) or all at once (for faster results). Keep an eye on the pasta as cooking time depends on the pot, the amount of water etc.

So there it is, my version of red beef mince sauce. Not my favourite of the pasta/sauce combinations but certainly takes care of hunger for at leat 5 hours. I usually like white sauce with fettucine and red sauce for rigati/mostaccioli pasta.

I’ve experimented with different ingredients in the past such as, adding celery and carrots to the mix. Not the best idea in my opinion as it makes the sauce way too sweet. You might ask why I added sugar but this is just advice I once heard about sugar neutralising the acidity of the tomatoes – it’s only a teaspoon by the way. I have also heard of mixing beef with pork mince. As much as I respect this idea, it doesn’t entertain me enough to try it.

So, how do you do your sauce and do you have any tips or advice on how to make this dish even better?

Continental Parsley

I was cooking some mostaccioli pasta yesterday and needed to prepare a red meaty sauce. The cornerstore had no basil left so for a moment I was concerned about the outcome.

What I did have at home was both coriander and continental parsley to green the sauce up a bit. In the end I chopped up some flat leaf parsley and used my usual selection of spices consisting of oregano, pepper and salt.

I was amazed by the result! The continental parsley added so much flavour to the sauce and it really stood out. I may have been  slow to realise the usefulness of this parsley in hot cooking but I’m glad I found it.

The sauce I made contained the following:

• 250g of minced meat
• Chopped continental parsley
• 150g of tomato paste
• 3 peeled and diced fresh tomato
• 1 cup of white wine
• Fine dried oregano
• Pepper
• Salt

The sauce tasted so fresh and cool. I can’t wait to add continental parsley to other dishes in the future.