leftover milk

Steve Pope wrote:


Here is what I once posted on the subject.

Pasta fresca and pasta secca are two different pairs of shoes. The
taste, texture and mouthfeel are completely different. It is like
comparing apples and oranges. The pastas are made with different types
of wheat. Pasta secca is made with hard wheat (triticum durum), which
grows in the south; pasta fresca is made with soft wheat (triticum
vulgare), which grows in the north. Most high-quality pasta secca is
made with no eggs; most, but not all, pasta fresca is made with eggs.
Good-quality pasta secca is rougher-textured and thus better suited for
heavier sauces; pasta fresca is always smoother, but more absorbent and
is better suited to lighter sauces. Filled pastas (paste ripiene) are
nearly always made with fresh pasta.

Victor
 
Ophelia wrote:



- 300g ground lean beef
- 300g sausage (pork, pork fat, salt)
- (optional) 100g pancetta, if I add it I reduce sausage to 200g
- 8cm x 5cm (section of a 1/2kg butter stick) x 3cm circa block of unsalted
butter (I don't weigh nor measure it, just go by the eye)
- 1 celery stalk
- 1 medium onion (I prefer white or yellow)
- small carrot
- parsley
- 150-200ml cream or 400ml whole-fat milk
- half a glass of white wine, say 100ml
- 250ml of tomato sauce (ingredients: tomato) or peeled tomatoes
(ingredients: tomato) avoiding tomato sauce/peeled tomatoes with more than
one ingredient.

Melt the butter in a pentolino ("small pan") whose height is similar to its
diameter, we don't want a too wide pan (too much evaporation would occur)
nor a too narrow one (it would make wine-evaporating too difficult).
Sometimes I have used two pans: first a wide one for the initial phase until
the wine-evaporation, then a smaller pan for the long simmering phase.

Finely mince celery, onion and carrot and add them to the butter, let them
cook at least 10" over very very low fire, maybe using the smaller burner
and putting under the pan a fire-breaker steel net as these:
http://www.famasas.com/gme/18-36frangifiamma.jpg

Remove the casing from the sausage and break it up in small pieces, it will
later break up more due to heat and stirring but in the start it must be
somehow broken finely. Add the meat to the pan and mix all well, let the
meat get some color (2-3 minutes, no more) then putset the fire to high and
add the wine. Mix frequently until the wine evaporates and then add the
tomato sauce/peeled tomatoes, let it get back to simmering and then reduce
the heat to a very low minimum as when sauteeing celery carrot and onion. If
using peeled tomatoes do not worry about the big chunks, they will break up
during simmering. Now you've added almost everything to the ragu', cover it
with almost completely with a lid (I keep it a little on one side) and let
it simmer. The goal is to let it simmer at least 3 hours.
After about 1 hour after the lid is closed and the heat reduced, it's
usually time for the first milk or cream addition: 1/3 will do, cover
partially again and let simmer. After about another hour pour another third
of the milk or cream, cover partially again and let simmer. Get back to the
ragu' around the third hour of simmering, add the remaining milk or cream,
mix it well and let the ragu' cook some more while the milk gets absorbed.
Now it's time to check for saltyness, since sausages are never salted the
same, so taste a coffeespoon of ragu' and add salt as needed, along with
your favorite freshly ground pepper (sometimes I use white, sometimes black
and sometimes even the mix of the 2).

I never made two perfectly equal ragu' because sometimes I just vary the
quantity of some ingredient and sometimes I miss one ingredient and
substitute it with something else or I'm trying some new ingredient I don't
know, as a new brand of butter. I don't use oil but many people nowadays use
it, even here in the valley of butter.
When I want a stronger ragu' I use garlic or shallot instead of the onion or
in combination with them. If I want a richer ragu' I use cream instead of
milk. If I want it hot, I don't know why but something stops me from putting
hot peppers in this ragu', maybe just a mental limit due to habitude, so I
just put on the table my various hot chiles (fresh, dry, ground...) and let
the ragu' alone. I have no issues in adding hot peppers to many pasta sauces
but not ragu', this is too familiar a dish to be contaminated with a
less-familiar product as hot peppers.
This sauce is tightly tied to egg-noodles and parmigiano reggiano: be it a
lasagna, be it tagliatelle alla bolognese (for ragu', nothern italian style
tender-wheat egg-noodles are way better than southern italian style
durum-wheat no-egg noodles such as spaghetti) or just some ladles over
smoking hot polenta, it always calls for grated parmigiano reggiano.
Another use for this ragu' is pasta al forno, along with bechamel (as in
lasagne) or not. When I have ragu' available at home I use it also as a
sandwich item: bread, ragu' and grated parmigiano is a heavenly snack but
also a nice part of a dinner, and it gives a hearthy touch to many kinds of
stuffings, as for stuffed zucchine or stuffed savoy cabbages. I also use it
with rice, boiled and drained as pasta or cooked with the right amount of
water so one doesn't have to drain it.

Note regarding "spag bol" - I use ragu' over every kind of pasta, even
spaghetti, no problem with that, but let's clarify one thing about
"spaghetti bolognese": tagliatelle alla bolognese is a tradition of bologna,
spaghetti bolognese is not, it's just something invented by people who've
never seen bologna in they whole life (southern italians who use spaghetti
instead of tagliatelle and make a tomatoey ragu' instead of a meaty one,
nothing to share with Bologna). Let's show some knowledge and speak of
"tagliatelle alla bolognese".
--
ViLco
Let the liquor do the thinking
 
"ViLco" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Wow! Thank you VERY much for all that!! I prepare mine my ragu in
similar ways that you describe but I haven't used cream/milk. I shall be
trying that very soon. We don't like spicy food so wouldn't be adding any:)
I would never have thought of putting that ragu in a sandwich! Btw I
usually use canned tomatoes. What do you think of those?

Thanks again, Vilco:) Anything else you wish to share will always be
welcome..:)
--
--

https://www.shop.helpforheroes.org.uk/
 
On Mar 16, 6:14?am, "ViLco" wrote:
Did you use the seconds symbol (") when you meant minutes(')? Those
would be handy symbols to use when typing recipes.


--Bryan
 
Because some may have missed this in the Leftover Milk thread, I'm taking
the liberty of reposting it with a top-post. Vilco, your directions are so
explicit, and the recipe sounds so great, that I think everyone should see
it!

Felice

"ViLco" wrote in message
 
On 3/16/2011 10:05 AM, Felice wrote:
May I contribute a low-fat version of Ragu Bolognesi that I like.
Ragu Bolognesi (? la JVS)

My modification of the classic Italian meat sauce for pasta! A ragu is a
meat sauce with tomato; it is not a tomato sauce with meat and it should
be rich without being heavy. Bologna's ragu is the most famous in Italy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INGREDIENTS:

1 cup carrots, diced small
3/4 cup celery, diced small
2/3 cup mushrooms sliced (optional)
1/2 cup fresh or 1 tab dried oregano (mixed Italian or Provencal herbs
possible)
2 cup onions, diced small
3/4 lb ground fat-free turkey or chicken breast
2 oz chopped fat and cholesterol-free soy pepperoni
6 ounces fat-free Canadian bacon, diced or julienned.
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tab minced garlic
4 tab Italian tomato paste, diluted in 10 tablespoons beef stock
Chopped sun-dried tomatoes can be added with the paste
2 cups fat-free skim milk
Salt and black pepper


PREPARATION:

In a sauce pot, stir in the carrots, celery, mushrooms and onions with a
squirting of oil. Season with salt and pepper. Saut? the vegetables for
about 3 minutes or until translucent. In a mixing bowl, combine the
meats and season with salt and pepper. Increase the heat and stir in the
meat and cook for 5 minutes, or until browning. Stir in the oregano,
wine, garlic and diluted tomato paste (sun dried tomatoes), and reduce
the heat to very low. Cook partially covered for 2 hours. From time to
time, stir in a quarter cup or so of skim milk. The sauce will look
milky with each addition but by the end of the two hours it will be
incorporated. Season with salt and black pepper.

Yield: 4 servings




--


James Silverton, Potomac

I'm "not"
[email protected]
 
Serene Vannoy wrote in news:8ua5n0Foq0U1
@mid.individual.net:


I freeze milk regularly, and it's fine when thawed. Don't worry about the
greenish color when it's frozen; that goes away when thawed.

Tom
 
Back
Top