Tomato sugo

Last weekend Leith and I did a good deed.  We drove to Stawell to help out moving some furniture and boxes around, and then we were rewarded by Leith's mum in the traditional manner: with food.  We visited a farmers' market on Sunday and got ourselves a box of saucing tomatoes!  We also got a whole lot of fresh herbs from her garden.  So on Monday night, I made sauce.

I didn't have a recipe, and I read a whole bunch online, each different to the last: leave the skins on vs blanche and peel them; add sugar, don't add sugar; add onion, don't add onion; puree, don't puree etc  So I ended up deciding to just make my own sauce however the hell I wanted.  In fact, I made three kinds, because I needed three pots to fit all the tomatoes.

Ingredients:

• Tomatoes
• garlic cloves (1 clove to approx every 500g of tomatoes)
• a splash of oil
• salt and pepper
• tablespoon of caster sugar
•  a decent splash of water
• a slug of olive oil

Optional extras:

• finely chopped onion
• basil, parsley, oregano, thyme, any other herbs you like
• olives
• anchovies
• chilli
• anything you want!

I made three kinds: one that was tomato with garlic and four herbs; one tomato, garlic, basil and chilli; and one tomato with garlic, basil, olives and anchovies.  I didn't remove any skins because I couldn't be bothered, and also, it just seemed so wasteful.

Wash your tomatoes to remove any dirt.  Chop them into quarters, taking care to remove any impurities.  Put them in the largest pot you have, or three!  Add about a centimeter of water to each pot, add a slug of olive oil and the smashed garlic.  This will stop the tomatoes from burning on the base of the pots, but don't add too much as the tomatoes will leech water once they start cooking, and the sauce will be too runny.  Put the pots on a medium to low heat, and cook covered for about 40 minutes.  Stir occassionally, and let the tomatoes break down.  Add a tablespoon of sugar or so to each pot and stir in.

Once the tomatoes have started to break down considerably, add a generous sprinkle of good quality salt and cracked pepper.  Add your herbs and whatever else you are including (although I didn't add the olives until after I'd pureed).  Continue to simmer for 15 mins or so until there is a reasonably balance of liquid and tomato chunks.  Remove from the heat and pulse a few times with a bar mix until it has the consistency you want.  I pureed mine so that it was mostly smooth, but included a few little lumps still.  Two of my pots were just right, but put the third back on the heat for 10 mins to thicken a little more.

Pour into serving sized bottles and keep in the fridge or freezer, depending on when you think you might use them.  This is what it looks like if you drop one of the containers - the largest one - of delicious tomato sugo.

Leith used one right away to make us pasta!  He used some of the amazing things we came home with, including a giant golden zucchini and a homemade calabrese salami.   Here's what he made:

Ingredients:

• 250g wholemeal pasta spirals
• 1 jar of tomato and herb sugo
• golden zucchini
• salami chunks
• finely chopped onion
• parmasen cheese to garnish
• olive oil

Slice the zucchini into fat steaks, sprinkle them with salt and pepper and brush them with olive oil.  Then cook them on a grill until they blacken and go all squishy.  In the meantime, cook your pasta in just a little salted water.

Saute the onion in the olive oil until golden.  Add the salami and fry until all the delicious porky juices start flowing.  Add your sugo and simmer until heated through.  Leith here demonstrates his technique of keeping the wooden spoon clear of the pan, so it doesn't absorb all the flavours.  A worthy tip, if you believe in such things - I have to confess that I never do it!

Add the pasta and mix through, then finally, add the grilled zucchini and mix gently again.  Garnish with the parmasen, and voila!  Delicious pasta full of yumminess.

Tuna and Broccoli Penne with Chilli and Garlic

 

Pasta. It's the thing I make when I can't think what to make but I desperately need something yummy. 

Broccoli. I am craving broccoli at the moment. I guess this is my body's way of responding to Winter and all the humdrum that seems to come with it.

Tuna. Protein. Freshness. Health. Etcetera.

So this pasta not the quickest, but it's still pretty quick. It's got a few steps but they're all hella basic. And it's both yummy AND good for you. Rock.

Ingredients 

• 500g penne
• Two heads of broccoli. That's right, two! 
• Tuna steaks. Proper fresh tuna steaks from a fishmonger that have been farmed sustainably, thank you.
• Garlic. Just, shitloads of it, okay?
• Chilli. Hot ones.
• Bread crumbs
• Olive oil
• Lemon juice
• Grated Reggiano

Start by preparing your tuna. Take it from the fridge and rub some good olive oil into it on all sides, season with some salt and pepper. Then leave it to rest on the bench for about 10 minutes.

Cut your broccoli into small florets. Blanche it in salted water for absolutely no more than 60 seconds, then strain it.

Heat a non-stick pan to a medium heat, put the tuna on and cover it. You don't need to add oil as the fish has a lovely coating already. Sear the tuna until almost cooked through (you can check by slicing into it with a knife - you want it to be still pink in the middle), flip and sear the other side and remove from the heat. Take it from the pan, and let it rest. Don't rinse the pan you've cooked it in - you can use it again in a moment and you want to keep the tasty fish juices.

While the fish is cooking, finely chop the garlic and chilli. Put your breadcrumbs in a dry pan and put it on a low heat. Toss the crumbs occassionally to prevent them burning, and remove from the heat. Once the fish has rested for at least five minutes, break it down into large flaky chunks. It will do this quite easily. You want it to be all pink and fleshy in the middle.

Put the pasta on. When it's done and draining, reheat your fish pan and add a splash of oil. Add the garlic and chilli and stir through for a minute, so that it's highly fragrant  but not burnt.

 

Put the drained pasta, broccoli and tuna chunks in the pot, add the garlic and chilli oil. Toss the lot through with lots of salt and pepper, fresh lemon juice and another splash of olive oil. Serve with the breadcrumbs and grated parmasen.

Beef ragu

This is another really simple recipe that doesn't take much effort but is best when left to cook for a long time, like four hours worth of time. It's so easy to throw together though, that I would recommend starting it the day before you want to eat it, as it can be put on after dinner, and left to cook until you go to bed. Then just re-heat it the next night.

Use a cheap cut of beef as the slow cooking process will turn just about anything to velvet. You can use any pre-made tomato napoletana sauce, but I was lucky enough this time to have an exquisite home-made version courtesy of my workmate, David, which turned this from mmm to wow.

Ingredients

1 kilo of diced beef chuck steak
1 big jar of napoletana sauce
1 brown onion
lotsa garlic
olive oil
0.5 litres of beef stock
splash of red wine
herbs of your choosing (basil, oregano, sage and rosemary all spring to mind)
penne, or your preferred pasta
parmasan, salt and pepper to taste

In an oven proof dish, brown the beef in a small amount of olive oil, then remove from the dish. Add some more oil to the dish, then throw in the finely chopped onion and garlic. Once the onion is softened, add the tomato sauce, stock, wine and herbs and bring to a boil. You could add a couple of chopped tomatoes too if you wanted. Then add the beef back in, put the lid on the dish and place in the oven at about 150 Celcius, or as low as you can manage with the sauce still sizzling and leave for at least two hours and preferably four. If you make it the night before it's even better.

When you're ready to eat, bring the sauce to the boil, cook the pasta and scoff it down with garlic bread, if you know what's good for you.

Pasta sauce with slow roasted mushrooms (and other yummy things)

This is a pasta sauce that I like to make from time to time. It's basic, rustic and good for you. The giant field mushrooms have a really meaty texture, and the mushroom flavour becomes potent through the roasting. It takes a little while, but is ridiculously simple, and can be varied according to your preference and whatever you have to hand. Sometimes I also slow roast some tomotoes brushed with balsamic, then add some pecorino or fetta, other times I've just sliced and tossed the mushrooms through some pesto.

It always goes well with a chunkier pasta, like parpadelle, farfalle, orichiette or similar.

This time I mixed the mushrooms through with some sauteed kale and toasted walnuts and had it on gnocchi. This was an excellent combo. In a perfect world I would have made the gnocchi from scratch with a mix of both standard and sweet potatoes, but this time I used fresh potato gnocchi. Here's the recipe:


Ingredients
3 large field mushrooms
1 bunch of kale or Tuscan cabbage
lotsa garlic
a big knob of butter
olive oil
gnocchi
salt and pepper and parmasan to taste

Brush the mushrooms lightly with olive oil on both sides. Place them on their caps and throw a shake of salt and ground pepper over them. Put them in a slow oven (about 140 Celcius).

After about 30 minutes, start the rest of the preparations. First chop the walnuts into big ol' chunks and scatter them around the mushrooms, then return to the oven. Boil some water for the gnocchi, then melt the large knob of butter in a deep, non-stick frying pan.  While this is melting add the gnocchi to the water. Throw the roughly chopped garlic into the buttery pan and after about half a minute, the equally roughly chopped kale and toss through the butter.   At about this time the gnocchi will be done. It takes about 2 minutes, but will float to the top of the water when it's done. Drain the gnocchi on a plate. You can add a splash of the pasta water to the kale to help it wilt, and if you have a bottle handy, add a splash of wine (white or red, either is good but I prefer red) to it as well.

Remove the kale from the pan and rest in a dish. Take the mushrooms from the oven and slice in half, then across in approximately 0.5 centimeter slices. Mix the mushrooms and garlic through the kale.

In the same frying pan you cooked the kale, add a generous splash of olive oil and then scatter the gnocchi into the pan. Toss at 1 minute intervals, until each gnoccho is golden brown on at least one side.  Throw the mushrooms and kale mix over the top, add a small amount of salt and plenty of cracked pepper and grate parmasan over the lot.

Penne Puttanesca

This is a slight variation on the classic. I find capers too salty on top of everything else, and opt to add capsicum instead.
 
Ingredients:
packet of penne pasta
1 capsicum, finely sliced
generous handful of kalamata olives
6 anchovy fillets
tin of crushed tomatoes
lots of garlic
lots of finely chopped continental parsley
slug of olive oil
salt and cracked pepper
parmasen to serve

Bring pasta water to the boil. While it's heating, fry up the garlic and anchovies in olive oil, add capsicum and olives and fry on high heat for a minute, then add tinned tomatoes and half the parsley and the salt and pepper, and simmer. Add the pasta to the water and cook until al dente.

Once pasta is cooked, drain and then add to sauce and stir through. Top with parmasen and devour with a glass of delicious red wine.

Mammoth Prawn Pasta

    Prawns (larger and fresher the better)

-            Chopped/torn Basil (fresh)

G     Garlic

-           Tomatoes

-           Olive oil

-           Fresh spaghetti

-           Cracked pepper

Marinate the prawnies overnight in some beautiful olive oil, cracked pepper, little lemon juice (optional, if you haven't got time – it’s delish without marinating them too).

In boiling water, blanche the tomatoes + peel.
Fry garlic in olive oil.
Dice into bite size pieces.
Put prawnies in with garlic and oil for a short while until cooked. Gently stir in diced tomato and leave in until tomato is heated (not long or tomatoes go soggy).
When heated, take off heat + stir in basil (keep some to garnish).
Garnish with basil

A bit of murray salt is an essential accompaniment. Fresh fetta is an optional extra you can sprinkle on at the end.

Haloumi Pasta

haloumi - several large pieces
1 tin of crushed tomatoes
1 bunch of coriander
1 onion
1 teaspoon turmeric
0.5 teaspoon cumin
0.5 teaspoon chilli
slug of olive oil
pasta spirals
salt, pepper to taste
lemon

Chop haloumi into rough pieces. Mix spices in olive oil and coat haloumi in mixture. Leave in fridge for at least 30 mins (can be overnight).

Finely chop onion and fry in a little oil. When onion is softening, add haloumi and fry until browning and soft. Add tinned tomatoes and half chopped coriander. Simmer.

Cook pasta until al dente. Toss through the sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste, garnish with remaining fresh coriander and serve with wedge of lemon.