Tuna and tomato pasta sauce

Now I understand that you will call into question my frequent comment that, “this tastes so good blah blah blah…”’ but maybe, just maybe it’s true!

This pasta sauce is a variation to the old bolognese sauce with a much quicker preparation time using canned tuna and fresh ingredients.  I think the one ingredient that makes this sauce taste so good is the coarsely cut garlic.  I have never had much luck frying garlic, I like to throw it in when all the other ingredients are simmering so the garlic loses its edge and blends delicate flavour throughout the sauce without overcooking or frying in oil.

If you have children looking for a meal to cook, then this is a simple meal that will provide them with a strong sense of accomplishment because it is easy to make and tastes really good!

Like everything you cook, fresh ingredients are a must.

Ing.

1 x onion, finely diced

a tablespoon olive oil

200g canned tuna in oil, the Italian ones tend to be solid piece as opposed to flakes

3 x sprigs spring onion

1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes (or three fresh tomatoes instead)

3 cloves fresh garlic, coarsely chopped   

a handful of chopped fresh Continental Parsley

a tablespoon of tomato paste

a teaspoon of Massell powdered chicken stock

Murray River Pink Salt

Freshly ground pepper

Start by heating the pasta water onto the stove.  Place the pasta into the water when it boils.  Once the pasta is ready, the sauce will be ready.  Timing is everything!

Into a medium heated frypan, fry the onion in the olive oil.  After a minute, add your can(s) of tuna, ensuring to add all the oil in the can.  Mix it up and let it cook for another minute.  Add your tomatoes, spring onion, tomato paste and Massell chicken stock.  Let it settle.  Now add the garlic, Murray River Pink Salt and pepper to taste.  Add your Continental parsley and turn down the heat to low and let it simmer.

Make sure to serve your pasta sauce with freshly grated Grana Padano cheese!

There will be no leftovers, so if you’re into making several meals at one time, make a bigger batch!

Enjoy!

Brendan

Many mushrooms make good pasta

OK, so I’m yet to discover that eating too many mushrooms encourages weird dreams, but if such a condition exists, then I’m in for a show!

I used four types of mushrooms, button, swiss brown, oyster and enoki (which are the long stem small head mushrooms).  The combination of olive oil, butter, garlic and mushrooms is pretty hard to beat.  This is a really delightful pasta which I thought suited the day we experienced today.  

You can use any type of mushrooms, even one type only.  It will still taste terrific.

Make sure you know that the mushrooms you are using are safe, particularly if you ‘found them in the garden’.  I suggest not to use field mushrooms unless you are trained in their identification and potential danger, and you wish to take that risk. 

Ing.

2 cups of Mushrooms, any type (from a reliable source)

300gms spaghetti

One onion, sliced

Four cloves of garlic, finely diced

A handful of Continental parsley

A few sprigs of fresh thyme

80gms butter

300gms fresh thickened cream

A tablespoon of olive oil

1 teaspoon Massel powdered chicken stock* (dissolved in a splash of hot water)

Freshly cracked pepper to taste

Murray River Pink salt

Grated Grana Padano cheese to serve  

Method

The pasta and the mushroom sauce are to be prepared separately.  Heat the pasta water so the water will be heated in a few minutes time, ready to cook.

In a large stovetop pan, gently pan fry the onion in olive oil over medium heat.  Once golden add the butter.  As the butter melts add the chopped garlic to the butter, ensuring it doesn’t fry.  Now add all the mushrooms (whole) and the Massel stock which is dissolved in a splash of hot water.  Sprinkle in some salt and pepper to taste.  Add the handful of chopped parsley and thyme.

Cook it for about 5-7 minutes while the mushrooms reduce.  

The pasta water is probably now ready.  Add your pasta to the water and cook as per the instructions on the packet, which is generally about eight minutes.

Now to your mushroom pan, add the cream.  Stir it about and let it sit for about three minutes whilst it rises.  Let it rise, but not boil.  Once the cream takes on the colour of the mushrooms turn off the heat and let it rest until your pasta is ready.

Strain the cooked pasta through a colander.  Tip the pasta into the mushroom sauce and toss about so everything is covered in the delicious mushroom flavoured cream.

Serve with a generous sprinkling of Grana Padano cheese.

Now eat.

Enjoy those dreams.

Kind regards,

Brendan Blake

 * Massel stock is vegan

Pasta al forno (Italian style oven baked pasta)

The wintery weather prompted me to make a lasagne, but when I arrived home I was asked to substitute the lasagne sheets with macaroni.  Go figure!

My lasagne was instantly converted into ‘pasta al forno’. The method is largely the same but instead of layering the pasta sheets and sauce, the (semi cooked) macaroni is placed at the bottom of the oven dish and the meat is placed atop, covered by a decent layer of nutmeg spiced béchamel sauce.

It is enough to make you over hungry!  A large baking dish will provide several meals, unless the first sitting does as it is expected and the whole lot goes!

Ing.

500g macaroni, I used San Remo

Sauce

1kg premium mince beef

1 tablespoon of olive oil (I used Cobram, but they are all good)

3 tins chopped tomatoes (Annalisa Italian are the best)

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, chopped

3 sprigs spring onion, chopped.

3 tablespoons tomato paste (Leggo’s)

1 handful of freshly chopped Continental parsley

1 heaped teaspoon Massel chicken stock

A good pinch of Murray River Pink Salt

Freshly ground pepper to taste

4 cups boiling water

2 eggs, beaten, for use later.

Béchamel sauce

60gms butter

1 cup plain flour

3 cups milk

1 cup Mozzarella cheese

1 cup grated parmesan (I always use Grana Padano)

Murray River Pink Salt

Freshly ground pepper to taste

A sprinkle of ground nutmeg or mace

Method

Preheat oven to 175C.

In a large pot, on medium heat, heat your onion in olive oil until gently golden.  Add the mincemeat and try to break it up. A whisk breaks it beautifully.  Let it cook with the lid on until it colours up and then remove the lid and let the liquid cook off.  The drier it is the more absorbent it will be when you add the other things.

Now add the three tins chopped tomatoes and the tomato paste.  Mix it up and let it cook. Add the parsley, spring onion, garlic, salt, pepper, boiling water (4 cups) and Massel chicken stock.  Bring it to the boil, stirring occasionally.  When it boils, turn the heat down to the lowest setting and put the lid on.  Let it cook for about 30 mins or longer of you have time.  The longer it cooks the better it will be.

Your pasta water should be already heating on the stove.  Once the water boils, add a teaspoon of Murray River Pink salt.  Add your macaroni and let it cook for about four minutes. Once it is semi-cooked, drain the water and set the macaroni aside to cool.

Bechamel sauce

There are two rules to making béchamel sauce. 

Rule No. 1 Do not stop stirring!

Rule No. 2 If you stop stirring, refer to rule No. 1 

To make the béchamel sauce, melt the butter on medium heat in a medium sized saucepan.  Once melted, slowly add and stir in the cup of flour.  A whisk works very well here too.  It will start to get lumpy.  Now add a cup of milk. Stir it about constantly trying to break up the lumps.  Add another cup of milk, stir…, now add the third cup of milk and stir…

Once the lumps break down, add your two cups of cheeses, Murray River Pink salt, freshly ground pepper and a sprinkle of nutmeg.  Stir, stir, stir.   

When the sauce is thick, but not heavy, turn it off and cover with a lid.  If it gets too thick it will want to become ‘bread like’ and that is not what we are looking for!

Assembly

In your baking dish place a thin layer of the meat sauce.  Now mix the two beaten eggs with the mass of macaroni and layer it all on the bottom of the dish.  Flatten it as much as you can.  Ensure that there will be room for the meat sauce and the béchamel sauce on top, with enough clearance for a piece of foil not to stick to the sauce. 

Once flattened, pour the meat sauce all over the macaroni and press it in.  Now pour, from the saucepan, the béchamel sauce over the meat sauce.  Using a fork, spread it evenly across the entire dish.  If you want, sprinkle some cheese lightly over the sauce.

Cover with foil.  If the sauce is too high and risks sticking to the foil, stand several, snapped to length, wooden or bamboo skewers upright in the dish, just high enough to hold the foil above the sauce.

Place into the oven and cook at 175C for about 40 mins.  Then remove the foil, turn the heat down to 150C and cook for an additional 10 mins so the top browns up a little.

Let it cool before you slice it up into 12 pieces.  The longer it cools the better the piece formation will be.  The first piece is the hardest to remove cleanly!  Otherwise no one should care about the presentation as it won’t last long enough to be admired!

Enjoy.  This is great for the adults and the kids.

Kind regards,

Brendan

Homemade Spinach Fettuccini

A variation on a theme: Homemade Spinach Pasta. Just add cooked spinach! You should all be expert pasta makers now. If not it may be time to buy a pasta rolling machine!

Ingredients

300gm ‘Tipo 00’ white flour

3 eggs (or one egg per 100g of flour)

2 tablespoons of olive oil

Cooked spinach

2 cups of fresh spinach leaves

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Murray River pink salt and pepper to taste

Cook the spinach for 3-5 mins in the hot olive oil, add a splash of water, add the garlic, salt and pepper. Put the lid on and allow to cook for about three minutes. The reduction in volume is remarkable! Add your spinach to the regular pasta mix and you will have ‘spinach pasta’!

The pasta making recipes and instructions are easy to find here under 'Brendan's Kitchen'.

A couple of photos to encourage you!

OMG – this is it! Lamb Ragu Ravioli or Fettuccini

I hope over the COVID lockdown I have assisted you all to become masters of your kitchens and subsequently the preparers of excellent food for you and your families.

If you have ignored all the recipes of the past, this one is the one to use.    

It requires a couple of hours of preparation, but all good things take time and this is no exception.  There are two homemade pasta options, both can be made concurrently.

If you a short of a pasta making machine, please buy one.  Once you master the pasta you will prefer homemade pasta every time.  It’s also important that you know exactly what is in your food.  You are cooking this from scratch! 

This recipe is in three parts, the Lamb Ragu, the Ravioli and the Fettuccini.

The Ragu takes a good two hours to get right.  The longer it is cooked, the better it is.  I suggest you make a double batch so you can store it and eat it over several days. 

Lam Ragu Ing.

500g diced lamb (available at Maxi Ballarat and Castlemaine in the Meat Department)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion (finely diced)

9 fresh ripe tomatoes (I think I’m over canned tomatoes)

3 sticks of celery (finely diced)

2 carrots (finely diced)

3 sprigs of spring onion (finely chopped)

5 cloves of fresh garlic (finely chopped)

A handful of chopped Continental parsley

2 teaspoons of Massel powdered chicken stock

3 tablespoons of Leggo’s tomato paste

1 cup of red wine (whatever you like)

2 cups hot water

A teaspoon of Murray River pink salt

A good sprinkle of Black Cracked Pepper

Ing. Homemade pasta

300g ‘Tipo 00’ flour

3 eggs

2 tablespoons olive oil

(general rule, 100g flour to 1 egg.  500g flour = 5 eggs, etc.)

Method Lamb Ragu

On medium heat, in a large pot (with lid) on the stovetop, brown the chopped onion in olive oil.  Add the lamb, let it brown for about two mins, constantly tossing so nothing sticks.  Cut your tomatoes in half and squeeze out the seeds and other internals and place the outer into the pot.  We won’t be using the seeds of the tomato.  Stir it for about two mins.

Now toss in your diced carrot, celery, spring onions, garlic, parsley, Massel chicken stock, tomato paste, red wine, Murray River pink salt and cracked pepper.  Turn up the heat and bring it to boil.  The task here is to boil off the alcohol of the red wine.  Keep stirring.  Five minutes should do it.  Now add your 2 cups of boiling hot water.  Bring it all to the boil on high heat.  Let it boil for about a minute and then turn it down to the lowest heat setting and put on the lid.  It should stay in this position now for about two hours.  1.5 hours minimum cooking time.  Lift the lid and give it a stir every ten minutes to ensure the base doesn’t burn.

Fresh Pasta

In a mound of flour, add your eggs and olive oil.  Mix it all together into a dough and knead it over and over.  It is a tough job, but someone’s got to do it!  After about 5 minutes of kneading, wrap your dough ball in Glad Wrap and let it rest on the bench.

When you’re ready to roll, cut off about 20% of the dough ball, start to roll it through the pasta roller, at the widest setting, several times then progressively smaller and finer until it has completed six thickness reductions.  This is a good fine thickness.

At this stage you can roll it through your fettuccini setting to make fettuccini, or leave it flat to make Ravioli.

To make the ravioli, lay out your flour dusted pasta sheet, take a few pieces of cooked lamb from the Ragu pot and line them up on the pasts sheet (refer to photos).  Fold the pasta sheet over, form the Ravioli by sealing each pocket with your fingers, then cut to size and seal the sides by pressing with a fork. The previous ravioli technique is better displayed here: https://maxifoods.net.au/kitchen/homemade-roast-pumpkin-ravioli-with-tomato-and-basil-sauce

The pasta takes about three minutes in salted boiling water to cook and be ready to eat.

Pour on the Lamb Ragu, a sprinkle of fresh Continental Parsley and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

This is a winner and a keeper.  It will impress the toughest of critics!

Enjoy!

Homemade Pasta – Fettuccini Pesto

As the pasta making machine was engaged, I decided to make a delicious fettuccini with pesto sauce.  One of the wonderful attributes to this type of cooking is that the ingredients you use are all selected and cooked by you.  You know everything that is in your food.

The pasta was pretty simple, 3 eggs, 300gms flour and 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  That’s it!  The method is on the website or Facebook under ‘Roasted Pumpkin Ravioli’.

Ingredients:

Pasta

3 eggs

300gms ‘Tipo 00’ flour (available at Maxi)

2 tablespoons of olive oil

Pesto

1 cup of fresh basil leaves

300gms roasted pine nuts

½ cup grated parmesan cheese (I used Grana Padano)

½ cup olive oil

To make the pesto sauce, blend all the ingredients in a blender.  That’s it!

The pasta will cook in about 3 minutes.

Mix and eat.  This meal is delicious and so easy to make.

Remember to sprinkle lots of grated parmesan on top.

Enjoy.

Homemade Roast Pumpkin Ravioli with Tomato and Basil sauce

Why give your kids Play Dough when they can make you dinner?  It’s much the same!

This dish comes in two parts, the ravioli and the sauce.  It needs a little preparation but the result is excellent and well worth the effort.

Ravioli

If you have a (dusty) pasta rolling machine at the back of the cupboard your task will be simple.  If you can’t find it, look behind the popcorn popping machine and the automatic bread maker!  Otherwise a rolling pin works just as well. 

Ravioli Ingredients

500gs of ‘Tipo 00’ fine flour, plus a little for dusting

5 large eggs

2 tablespoons of olive oil

400g pumpkin to roast, any variety, I used Kent Pumpkin.  Butternut or Grey will work equally well.

Pasta sauce ingredients

One brown onion, chopped

Two tins of chopped tomatoes

1 cup hot water

A handful of fresh basil leaves or a teaspoon of dried basil flakes

2 heaped tablespoons of Leggo’s tomato paste

1 teaspoon Massel powdered chicken stock

a sprinkle of nutmeg

a sprinkle of cinnamon

Murray River Pink Salt

Cracked or freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200c.  Coarsely chop your pumpkin and lightly coat with olive oil and Murray River pink salt.  Place on a baking tray on baking paper and pop into the oven.

To make the pasta:  Combine the flour, the eggs and the oil on a benchtop.  Mix it into a dough and knead it over and over until it is firm and well joined.  This pasta dough should be hard.  It is hard work to knead it.  If it is too hard add some olive oil.  Form a ball and wrap it in Glad Wrap and leave on the bench to rest for 30 mins.

Start making your sauce.  Gently fry your chopped onion in olive oil.  Once browned add the chopped tomatos and the tomato paste.  Add your basil, Massel chicken stock, hot water, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper.  Bring it to the boil and then turn it down, covered, to the lowest possible setting and let it slowly flavour up.  Give it a stir every five minutes to ensure nothing has stuck to the base.  It will be ready once the ravioli is ready to cook.

When your dough has rested for 30 mins, cut off about a fifth of the ball and start to roll it through your pasta machine or rolling pin.  Roll it nice and thin.  Roll several long sheets and put them aside.

Once your roast pumpkin is roasted and soft remove it from the oven and mash it with a potato masher.  Gently lay out small balls of your mashed pumpkin onto the pasta sheets (as in the photos) and fold the sheet over the pumpkin to form the ravioli envelope.  Ensure to leave room on the sides to seal the ravioli pieces.  Now gently press the pasta around the pumpkin filling and seal off each piece.  Once you have a complete run, cut each piece out.  Seal the ends by pressing along the edge with a fork.

When they are all done, turn off your tomato pasta sauce and let it rest.

To cook the ravioli: boil water with a pinch of salt.  Once boiled, place the ravioli pieces into the boiling water.  They will cook in about three minutes.  When they are ready they will float to the top. Given them an extra ten seconds before removing them to a colander to drain.  Cook all the ravioli, pour over the tomato and basil sauce, sprinkle a little (a lot) of Grana Padano grated Parmesan cheese and eat.

This dish is a winner and a keeper!
 

Brendan Blake