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What's your Favourite Pasta Sauce?

I've been into making pesto recently. Basic recipe of basil, green chilli, pine nuts, garlic, oil and parmesan but varied with goat’s cheese, red chilli and smoked paprika etc. Quick, easy and tasty!
 
Our go to sauces are the ones that can be prepared in the time it takes to cook the (dried) pasta:
Diced tomatoes, diced avocado, crushed garlic and oil. Just tossed into the pasta (spaghetti) and served
Brown anchovies melted down in olive oil, divide broccoli into small florets (or use purple sprouting) and add to the pasta (penne) pan for the last few minutes of cooking, drain and add the anchovies.
 
I use an Italian cured sausage, thinly sliced and fried. Then added to a rich tomato sauce with red wine, oregano, basil, chilli, garlic and salt/pepper.

I love carbonara too and with our own chickens, the results are stunning. Cream - NO!!
 
Love a good bolognese (preferably made the day before with 50/50 beef/pork mince IMHO).

Another simple favourite is olive oil, garlic, fresh chilli and pancetta (preferably the decent thinly sliced stuff from the deli, not the supermarket rubbish). Best with spaghetti or linguine. Topped with proper Parmesan and black pepper. Washed down with something nice, red and Italian.
 
My favourite is made from whatever catches my eye in the supermarket. Tonight’s will be parma ham based as there was a pile of packs reduced by 90% to 23p in Morrisons last Sunday. There’s homemade passata in the freezer and basil in the greenhouse - I’ll root round in the fridge for the rest.
 
Carbonara with no cream here, just some bacon or pancetta, good olive oil and fresh eggs from the farm. Black pepper added to the eggs and Parmesan or Pecorino to finish.

Alternatively a good tarts pasta with capers, tomato, basil, anchovies, dried chilli flakes.
 
My wife uses the onions sliced in half, cut side down on top of half a pack of butter (near enough) melt in pan (do not burn, aim for delicate heat)then a tin of tomatoes on top of the onions. Do not stir. Cook for maybe 2 hours on super low. Take out the onions (!) add s &p and fresh basil. Eat.

I have tried it, but took out the onions (once cooked) , then chop them and put them back in.

Someone quoted the real recipe I think, not my garbled version.
 
Cream - NO!!
I knew I would risk being banned, luckily Tony isn't too much into cooking. I have grown far less dogmatic in recent years, I tend to favour cooking with products as fresh as possible, this means having usually a nearly empty fridge. So you often end up cooking a meal with what you have left, and this can be for instance cream and spaghetti.

We cook very simply, and my GF is a vegetarian who doesn't cook but can nevertheless very well recognize a good meal, and this made cooking difficult for me in the beginning. Today I find that, say, properly cooked pasta, with cream and broccoli to replace the meat, can be heaven if you have good products. About the mustard: Cream, as such, isn't actually an exciting ingredient, so you can wake it up with proper mustard (I love the English one BTW). It depends on the context - why absolutely follow what some chef said decades ago ? Fell free to do what you want in your kitchen, do what you want but make it good.
 
I start by taking all available fish, or anything else dredged up from the sea, including..and especially, anchovies..and hurling them unceremoniously into the bin.

I do a pretty basic Spag Bol type thing, variously using fresh or canned Tomatoes, or something like Dolmio. I'm not proud. I use fresh basil if I have it. Alternatively if starting from scratch I'll happily use dried basil and sometimes a bit of dried Oregano. Onions, or Garlic or both.. depends on mood.

I use lean beef mince but am very particuar about browning it first. It is imperative to cook out the 'offal' flavour which can pervade even the best mince, and to encourage the caramelisation. just as you would with finest steak. or roast beef. Very hot pan, very little oil, get it 'catching' in the pan then add a little water.. rinse and repeat. Nothing worse than under-browned mince. A glug of EVOO (New one on me that.. a bit of pretension I'm happy to mock.. ;)) can always be added once the sauce is progressing, but bit pointless at the browning the meat stage.

A lunchtime favourite is simply a couple of inches of decent chorizo, sliced or chopped, and sweated down before adding skinned and chopped fresh tomatoes from the garden. A bit of seasoning and that's it. I'll happily substitute chopped bacon or ham.. but Chorizo contains pretty much all the flavour needed for a complete sauce.. all on its own. Serve with whatever pasta is lying about. I may add shop bought or even freshly caught mushrooms, chillies, even halved olives. Whatever is available. It's variable, but never less than edible.

I'm not good at Carbonara. I always finish up with pasta and scrambled egg. but it still fills a corner... One day I'll get it right.
 
Almost anything except ragu alla bolognese.

Wednesday is usually pasta day in Casa Don MikeMA. Tonight we will be starting with a small Caesar salad, followed by home made carbonara sauce with a little chopped prosciutto on tagliatelle, and a side dish of sauteed spinach.
 
Norma for me. Fry cubed aubergine in one pan, onion and garlic in another. Add a can of tomatoes to the onion/garlic mixture. Combine the two when the aubergine is cooked, and stir into the pasta together with cubes of pecorino and ricotta salata. Grate a little pecorino over it and sprinkle some parsley. Wash down with a Sicilian red.
 
I like a Puttanesca sauce with lots of garlic, anchovies, crushed red pepper, black olives, and capers. This is a sauce with tremendous "character", and it seems like all the ingredients come together just right. Combine/toss it with al dente spaghettini, and finish with some coarsely grated Pecorino. Heaven.

What do you like?

I've heard that the sauce was created by prostitutes to attract customers.

Putta means hooker.
 
I start by taking all available fish, or anything else dredged up from the sea, including..and especially, anchovies..and hurling them unceremoniously into the bin.

I do a pretty basic Spag Bol type thing, variously using fresh or canned Tomatoes, or something like Dolmio. I'm not proud. I use fresh basil if I have it. Alternatively if starting from scratch I'll happily use dried basil and sometimes a bit of dried Oregano. Onions, or Garlic or both.. depends on mood.

I use lean beef mince but am very particuar about browning it first. It is imperative to cook out the 'offal' flavour which can pervade even the best mince, and to encourage the caramelisation. just as you would with finest steak. or roast beef. Very hot pan, very little oil, get it 'catching' in the pan then add a little water.. rinse and repeat. Nothing worse than under-browned mince. A glug of EVOO (New one on me that.. a bit of pretension I'm happy to mock.. ;)) can always be added once the sauce is progressing, but bit pointless at the browning the meat stage.

A lunchtime favourite is simply a couple of inches of decent chorizo, sliced or chopped, and sweated down before adding skinned and chopped fresh tomatoes from the garden. A bit of seasoning and that's it. I'll happily substitute chopped bacon or ham.. but Chorizo contains pretty much all the flavour needed for a complete sauce.. all on its own. Serve with whatever pasta is lying about. I may add shop bought or even freshly caught mushrooms, chillies, even halved olives. Whatever is available. It's variable, but never less than edible.

I'm not good at Carbonara. I always finish up with pasta and scrambled egg. but it still fills a corner... One day I'll get it right.
Talking of pretension after that opening sentence!
 
Anyfink what comes from the garden. Each cook-up for the freezer is different but all use our tomatoes. Whereas I was the chief cook and bottlewasher for these pasta sauces, my wife's less complex creations seem to have the edge. Enough to see us into another tomato crop, or a siege, lockdown or total disability. Hasta la pasta!
 


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