I fancied meaty, tomatoey and deep flavour so threw together a bolognese first thing in the morning for the slow cooker. Ten hours later a rich stew awaits me. YUM.
Spaghetti bolognese for the slow cooker:
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 carrot, diced
1 celery stick, diced
500g beef mince
1 tablespoon flour
1 tin tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato puree
A little bay, thyme and oregano
100ml red wine
100ml beef stock
Cook the veg in a frying pan for a couple of minutes. Add the mince and brown, then add the flour and cook for a minute.
Add the rest of the ingredients. Bring everything to the simmer then add to the slow cooker. Leave for at least 8 hours, and serve with pasta, shredded basil leaves and grated cheese.
I have a version of carbonara I like to use when I need to keep the calorie- or egg-count low for this classic Italian pasta dish, but sometimes I need to bust out the real deal. The recipe often comes up for fervent debate, but I think most can agree that pancetta, eggs, cream and parmesan play a part in there somewhere. I love the sweet pungency of garlic, so I also chuck a clove in there for fragrance. For me it’s best when the pasta is really al dente, the sauce slick with no lumpy egg bits, big punches of salty pancetta, with a tiny tingle of black pepper at the end.
Tagliatelle carbonara (serves 2):
4 tagliatelle nests
100g pancetta, diced
1 garlic clove, peeled but whole
50ml single cream
2 egg yolks
Large handful of parmesan
Beat the egg yolks, cream and parmesan together with plenty of black pepper and set aside.
Boil the tagliatelle until al dente. While you do this fry the pancetta and garlic together in a little oil until the meat starts to crisp. Discard the garlic at this point.
Ladle a big splash of the pasta liquor into the pan with the pancetta, drain the pasta off and add this into the same pan.
Turn the heat off, and working very quickly add the sauce mixture into the pan. Shake the pan vigorously and beat with a wooden spoon to make the sauce stick to the pasta. Removing the pan from the heat, and the vigorous motion will stop the egg from scrambling. After about 45 seconds check for seasoning, then serve immediately.
Nigel Slater. What a deity of food writing. No-one can conjure more poignant or vivid portraits of cooking that can transport you to the moment of being mid-mouthful. He has pretty much sewn up the childhood nostalgia food writing market, and we love him for it. I have a couple of his books and they are invaluable. I don’t often cook directly from them, but I use them sometimes just for the joy of reading about food, or to jumpstart my cooking brain when I have reached a culinary dead-end.
When I heard Nigel had a new TV show, Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers, I was overjoyed. Essentially it’s a combination of home-grown veg with his usual disdain for actual recipes and finding harmony between the two. The show itself was a touch disappointing, not quite sparking that Nigel fire. It’s not up to the glorious gratuitous gluttony of Real Food, which is an absolute treat.
There’s still some goodness to be had though, such as the following recipe for sausages and mustard. I substituted double cream for creme fraiche as I had some knocking about, and partnered it with some broccoli to round it out. An absurdly simple dish but I love that sort of thing, so that each is singing in harmony. It’s meaty, potent and creamy, and oh-so-perfect for evenings with a nip in the air. Next time I fancy this might contain mushrooms to lend and earthiness to the dish. Cheers Nigel!
Sausage and mustard rigatoni:
2 onions, sliced
6 sausages, meat squeezed from the skins into little balls
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard
3 tablespoons creme fraiche
Couple of handfuls pasta (I used rigatoni)
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions.
Fry the onions in a large pan. Cover them and cook for ten minutes until softened.
Add the sausage and fry until slightly brown.
Add the mustards, cook for a minute then add the creme fraiche. You may need some water from the pasta to slacken it down a touch.
Jamie Oliver’s title, not mine. Yes it’s another recreation from Jamie’s America. I have a macaroni cheese recipe I’m pretty happy with so it would be interesting to see what this brought to it. You start with a roux, add sliced garlic, whisk in milk, add cheese and then add boiled pasta and tomatoes. For some reason tomatoes weren’t on the menu tonight so I bunged in broc and cauli instead. Breadcrumbs on top, then in the oven for half an hour.
The key differences to mine were to add sliced garlic to the roux. This did lend an interesting smoky note to it which I enjoyed, but I didn’t feel adding both cheddar and parmesan did much for it. If I was going to improve on it, some pancetta would be nice and chewy. This is still a work in progress.
