My Meat Sauce For Pasta ©
A good meat sauce recipe is essential to every household! The variations are endless! It is an easy recipe and much loved by all, so I just thought I would include it today, as the weather gets cooler and the rain is finally coming gently down. You do want to buy some good mince though, ideally from a butcher, rather than the Supermarket, fat free….. The choice of pasta is up to you, but it is excellent with ‘Pennes” because the sauce runs into all the tubes!
John’s request, for an easy meal! And for Hanna, who calls it , ” My Sunny Meat Sauce!”
Easy
4 Persons
Cooking time 1/2– 1 hour
Preparation time 15 minutes
Cook’s Tip! Mince meat must be cooked on the same day you buy it! Shop>Fridge>Cook
For small children, blend all vegetables finely, or you will hear, ” IOU, there are green and red things Mummy in my food!”
Ingredients
1/2 kilo of good fat-free mince meat.
2 medium onions, finely grated
4 cloves of garlic grated or pressed
1 carrot finely grated (Optional)
2 tbs finely chopped parsley stalks
2 bay Leaves, or if you have fresh, “Bouquet Garni.” Bayleaf, thyme and parsley tied together.
1 stick cinnamon ( Opt)
1 fresh chilli, or 2 dried (Opt )
6 allspice berries
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp Tomato Puree
1/2 glass water
1 tin chopped tomatoes, or fresh, skin removed and grated
A dash of Worcestershire Sauce
1 tsp Dijon mustard
3 tbs white wine
4 tbs olive oil
salt and freshly grated black pepper
Method
1. Place olive oil in saucepan, add finely grated onion, cinnamon and allspice.
2. Sauté, until transparent, do not brown, 2-3 mins. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute.
3. Add fresh mince meat. ( You should always cook mince meat on the same day as you buy it, because it is a perfect medium for microbes to multiply! If it has gone at all brown, throw away and buy fresh!)
4. Stir continuously until all the mince is well sealed and no pinkness is showing.
5. Add wine and cook for 2 minutes, until smell of alcohol has evaporated.
6. Pulse tinned tomatoes, or skin and grate fresh ones, 3-4 are the equivalent of a tin and so much nicer in the summer. Add to meat along with the rest of your ingredients and 1/2 cup of water.
7. Making sure your sauce has enough liquid and checking every so often, leave sauce to gently simmer for 1/2 hour minimum, ideally 1 hour, lid on. The more it cooks the deeper the flavour. When ready the liquid should be slightly reduced and thickened.
8. Check for seasoning and serve together with pasta of your choice. I serve it with “Pennes.”
Sauté grated onion in olive oil, until transparent, 2-3 minutes.
Onions must always be well cooked as they are the base of your flavour and that is why you sauté them in oil first . If you skip this initial process the final flavour will not be the same at all. The frying of the spices also releases their oils and fragrance, and is why spices are always fried or dry fried in spicy recipes.
Add bay leaves and garlic, sauté garlic for one minute only. Garlic should not brown, as it becomes bitter.
Add your good quality mince and stir and break up, over a strong heat, until completely sealed and no pinkness is showing.
Break up the meat well with a wooden spoon, so there are no lumps and so that you are sure all the meat is well sealed.
Now add your wine and cook for two minutes for the alcohol to evaporate.
Here my bay leaves are fresh off the tree, but you can equally well use dried bay leaves.
Chop parsley stalks finely and add to saucepan.
Finely grate your carrot and add to meat.
Blend tomato in blender.
This gives taste, substance and liquid to your sauce. Add it along with your tomato puree, Worcestershire sauce and Dijon mustard. Add 1/2 cup of water.
Bring to the boil, place lid on and gently simmer for at least half an hour, best of all 1 hour. Check from time to time, by stirring, that it is not drying out, if so add half a cup of water. If you have too much liquid at the end take lid off and leave to simmer, another ten minutes. This way the liquid will reduce and give a more intense flavour.
Food Shopping ©
And today for something different !
There are some things that stay still in time in Greece and how wonderful that is !
From Father and Mother to Son and Daughter , nothing has changed, always smiling and willing.
Time to chat, no hurry, fresh garden vegetables, cheese, wine and all that is needed to make a delicious meal.
The next generation.
Rice and Pulses.
Snails.
Sardines.
A wonderful old style weighing machine…..
A change from the usual……. food for thought.
Cucumber Mousse ©
This is a really lovely Mousse, perfect as a light refreshing starter or as part of a buffet.
It goes excellently together with green mixed salad leaves and Vinaigrette, or thinly sliced bread and butter.
This is for Emma, who is an excellent cook and always an inspiration with her delicious cooking and Martin her husband who so kindly, found this lovely recipe book which Emma had recommended, in a second hand ‘Cook Bookshop’ in London and brought out all the way to Greece.
Easy
6 persons
Ingredients
1 large cucumber
225 g cream cheese ( Philadelphia)
150 ml home made mayonnaise, ( see bellow, or second best, ready made.)
150 ml cold water
1/2 level tsp salt
2 level tsp sugar
15 g gelatin leaves
150 g cream lightly whipped
Home made Mayonnaise
1 egg yolk
1 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 tsp salt
Juice of 1/2 lemon, or more
150 ml Corn Oil
Decoration
Cucumber slices
lemon slices
Fennel leaves, or parsley leaves
Method
1. Peel cucumber, cut lengthwise and remove seeds, if large.
2. Placing your cucumber halves, flat side downwards, lay your palm over the top and cut cucumber horizontally into three thin slices.
3. Now cut long ways into thin ‘Julienne.’
4. Holding the ‘Julienne’ together, cut across, resulting in match-head small pieces of cucumber. This takes a little patience, but it is worth it, so that the final result is delicate.
5. Make up mayonnaise, this doesn’t take a second and is worth it in the final result. Place egg yolk, salt and mustard in bowl, add oil slowly, beating continuously. Once you have added 50ml of oil, add lemon juice and then rest of oil more quickly. Taste for salt and lemon, add more if needed.
6. Place water in saucepan, add salt and sugar and add gelatin leaves one by one, so that the water wets both sides. Leave to soften.
7. Mix cream cheese together with mayonnaise. Lightly whip cream until beaters leave a trail.
8. Place softened gelatin over gentle heat and melt, stirring continuously. Do ‘Not’ allow to boil. Draw off heat and allow to cool for five minutes.
9. Pour through fine sieve, onto cream cheese, add chopped cucumber and fold in lightly whipped cream. Mix thoroughly.
10. Pour into 600 ml mould, which you have rinsed out and shaken out the water, so it is wet. this helps when you come to turn cucumber mousse out.
11. Leave to set, at least 2 hours in refrigerator.
12. Half an hour before serving, boil a kettle of water and place in large bowl, your washing up plastic bowl is ideal. Carefully lower mould into hot water, up to the level of the top of your mousse. After 2-3 second, as you giggle slightly the mousse, you will notice, the mousse has detached from the mold. Remove mold from hot water and quickly place serving dish on top of mold and with a quick wrist action, turn mold and dish over.
13. You will now have a beautiful cucumber mousse in the center of your dish.
14. Decorate with cucumber and lemon slices, which you have previously decorated with a channel knife. Decorate with fennel or parsley leaves.
Cook’s Tip : Wet serving dish, shake off surplus water, just before turning out, so that if your mousse is not central on the serving dish, you can slide it a little to get it perfect!
Gather together your ingredients.
Wash and peel cucumber.
Cut cucumber in half and then in half again, lengthwise.
Placing your hand on top of the cucumber halves, slice the cucumber across carefully, at half centimeter
intervals.
Now push back together and cut down longways into thin ‘Julienne.’
As you do this hold slices together with your thumb and forefinger. If too difficult cut the slices lengthwise
individually.
Your cucumber will now look like this.
Now cut across, resulting in small cubes of cucumber about the size of a match head.
Place in bowl and continue chopping the rest of the cucumber.
Cubed cucumber. It is important that you take the trouble to do this diligently, because it will show in your
end result.
In a clean bowl place egg yolk, salt and dijon mustard to make up your home made mayonnaise.
Add oil slowly, whisking all the time. Once you have two tablespoonfuls of mayonnaise, add lemon, after
which you can add the oil more quickly. * Should your mayonnaise separate, add separated mayonnaise
slowly to another bowl with new egg yolk. In this order, your curdled mayonnaise will right its self! If you
add another yolk to the curdled mixture, it will not work!
Lovely mayonnaise ! Taste for lemon and salt, add more if necessary. Here I added some black pepper too,
as I am not very keen on white pepper, but it does mean it shows a little, so that is up to you if you want to
add it or not.
Place cream cheese, cucumber and home made mayonnaise in bowl and mix together.
Place water in saucepan and add gelatin leaves, one by one, so that the water goes in between the leaves.
When softened, melt over a gentle heat, stirring continuously, until dissolved. Do not allow to boil. Remove
from heat, if bubbles begin to appear and stir until dissolved. If the gelatin boils, it will not be effective!
Throw away and start again and stay with it!
Mix in melted gelatin, sieving it into the bowl. Fold into your cream cheese and cucumber mixture your
lightly whipped cream.
Before pouring in your mixture, rinse out mold, shake big drops of water out and pour mixture into wet
mould. This helps later on when you come to un-mold it.
Leave to set for at least two hours in refrigerator. When ready to un-mold, boil kettle of water, pour boiling
water into suitable container, that will fit your mould and dip mould into boiling water for 3 seconds.
You will notice it immediately unsticks from the mould. remove from boiling water, place serving dish on top
and with a quick wrist action, turn out.
Cucumber mousse turned out, notice the neatly cubed cucumber, this is when your handy work shows…..
Take your Channel knife and cut grooves down the out side of your washed cucumber. Do the same to a
lemon.
Once you have cut three or four channels around your cucumber, cut thin slices and decorate your mousse.
Decorate mousse with cucumber, lemon and fennel leaves.
The pepper shows up here, so you might like to choose not to add pepper…..
Final result, with the back drop of my daughter’s ‘Sun Rays’………
What's Cooking In Jane's Kitchen 