I seem to collect bolognese recipes like a bad habit – many are more complicated than this one and involve grinding your own meat and tomatoes, slow simmering for days, and babysitting the whole operation until it comes to a savory finish. “The Big Sauce” as my Vo calls it. And yet, this recipe manages to conjure up the same “cooked for days” taste with a whole lot less work.
The recipe calls for a few funny things – like baking the bolognese in the oven, simmering the sauce with parmesan rinds and then finishing the pasta off in the pan. All of these steps will help turn your sauce into something extraordinary. Continue reading Rigatoni Bolognese→
Love is Bacon and Eggs for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
I come from a long line of women who cook with such confidence, it borders on defiance in following a recipe. I can’t say that I don’t follow recipes, as I most certainly do. But I have to admit that my favorite times in the kitchen are those when I am cooking the dishes that I know so intrinsically, using the recipe would only cause me to second guess myself. This dish, a comforting amalgamation of fatty bacon and oozy eggs and cheese, is one I always love the best when made without a recipe. I just know it’s going to be good by the feel of working with the ingredients that are in front of me.
Carbonara, for me, isn’t determined by the standard laundry list of ingredients (pasta, eggs, pancetta, parmasean, and a healthy dose of black pepper) so much as the proportions. I like mine as gloriously lux as possible – comfort food at its finest – which means that I’ll be a bit of an ingredient snob in order to get it just right. Ironically enough, this dish still manages to be one that I seem to be able to make at any time – I always have the ingredients lying around the fridge. Maybe that’s the appeal – so easy to make, but insanely full of panache and class. All cooking should have results such as these. Continue reading Pasta Carbonara→
