I just love a good, hearty pasta dish that is great for cold winter nights. I know, it's summer now, but I haven't made a good pasta sauce in ages. Besides, hearty pasta is a meal for any season! Each time I try to make pasta, it turns into a watery mess! I was determined to get it right! This time, I was finally successful and here I am, sharing my success with you.
I don't know if this counts as a Bolognese sauce, but it does have meat and tomato sauce in it. As you know, I love to add vegetables to my meals (usually twice the amount of meat). This time, I chose carrots and zucchini.
Let's get on with this recipe! It should serve about four to six people.
Ingredients: (These are what I used in this meal, feel free to substitute or omit as you wish)
- 3/4 lb ground beef
- 1 onion
- 2 zucchini
- 2 carrots
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 can Primo Thick & Zesty pasta sauce (680 ml)
- White wine
- 500 g farfalle (bowtie) pasta
- Dried herbs (I used oregano and basil)
- Fresh basil (for garnish)
- Salt, sugar and black pepper
- Olive oil
Directions:
1. Marinate the beef with equal amounts of salt and sugar, and as much black pepper as you like. I'd say about half a teaspoon each of salt and sugar. This is a common Chinese marinating method as it draw out the moisture in the meat and tenderizes it nicely.
2. While the meat marinates, dice your onion, carrots and zucchini into small cubes. Also, mince a few cloves of garlic and toss them into the beef.
3. Heat a small amount of olive oil in a large steel pot. When it's hot enough, add the ground beef to the pot and press gently with a wooden spoon to separate the chunks. Let it sit for a minute or two on high heat so the bottom can brown up before you stir.
4. When the beef is almost fully cooked, add onions at medium-high heat and stir well. I was very alarmed by the amount of fat/water that was appearing in the pot, but this is perfectly normal. Do not pour this fat away as much as you are tempted to! This will give your pasta sauce the thickness and richness that we want in this recipe.
5. When the onions are halfway done and your meat is beginning to brown and stick to the bottom of the pot, pour in a generous splash of wine and continue to stir. As cliche as this may sound, wine gives your food an extra depth of flavour and makes it a lot richer.
6. After most of the wine has evaporated, add in the carrots (and a few dashes of salt) and stir it for two to three minutes. Then, add the entire can of pasta sauce and turn down the heat to low. Add about half a cup of water, but not too much. The sauce should stay thick. Cover and bring the sauce to a gentle boil.
7. After the sauce has started bubbling, keep adding a little water at a time, keeping the sauce nice and thick. Simmer with the lid ajar for 10 minutes.
8. Add in the diced zucchini. Do not be tempted to add more water as you stir the zucchini into the sauce. You can add some, but just a little bit. Mix well until the zucchini is well coated. Cover the pot with the spoon on the side of the pot, and let it simmer for another 10 minutes.
9. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil and start cooking the bowtie pasta. Turn the heat to medium when the water is bubbling nicely, and give it a gentle stir occasionally. When it is done, drain the water, but do not rinse with cold water.
10. When the zucchini has become soft, your sauce should have liquefied just a little and should be easy to stir. Add more dried herbs and the fresh basil and you are done!
11. Serve with the sauce on top of the pasta in a bowl, or toss the pasta with the sauce to let it absorb all the goodness of the tomato flavour!
It turned out so nice and creamy, and not sour like most of my pasta sauces turned out! I guess this is a good sauce; it was my first time trying it as it came free with the purchase of two packs of pasta.
Tips to the success of this sauce:
1. Enough oil/fat -- By adding just a little oil to the pot before you start sauteeing the ground beef, the extra oil will render all the fats out of the meat and incorporate them into your pasta sauce. This gives the pasta sauce a velvety feel on your tastebuds.
2. Enough pasta sauce -- In the past, all my pasta sauces turned out watery and sour because I would use half a cup of pasta sauce and add a ton of water, hoping to save some sauce. I realized that I had been doing it all wrong. To get a full-bodied sauce, you NEED all the pasta sauce you can get your hands on.
3. Not adding too much water -- Taking account into this with the amount of water I add to the sauce, I also considered the large amount of water zucchini has. As it cooks, the zucchini will also release water into the sauce, so be sure not to overladen your pasta sauce with water!
4. Dried herbs -- Even though the canned pasta sauce contained herbs, adding more herbs will enhance the flavour of your pasta sauce. I was really pleased with the balance of the tomato and herb flavours in this one.
Tips for cooking pasta:
1. Start with a pot of strongly boiling water.
2. Rinse your pasta before putting it into the pot -- this will prevent them from sticking to each other as they cook.
3. Once your pasta is in the pot and the water has returned to a boil, turn the heat down so it leaves just a gentle boil. Keep stirring and leaving the gentle boil to cook the pasta; an aggressive boil will just break up your pasta by the time it is done cooking.
There, the most perfect pasta sauce I've made to date! Definitely worth documenting, I am sure this recipe will satisfy all your cravings for a warm, hearty pasta sauce. It is so good you don't even need any cheese to top it off!
♥ Nikki
