Once more I found myself turning to Maria Luisa Taglienti’s The Italian Cookbook. Some of the recipes I find off-putting due to the inclusion of ingredients I can’t be bothered to buy, but other recipes can be knocked up with the array of foods already in my kitchen. These are two of those.
First off – Meatless Tomato Sauce:
(I failed to scan the whole recipe – the end says something like ‘over low heat for 35-45 minutes or until thickened).
And next Mushroom Sauce:
Both sauces took a lot longer to cook down than the recipes suggest – they were on the hob for at least an hour on the lowest setting (my hob goes straight from gentle simmer to fairly vigorous boil with no inbetween, I imagine if you have a cooker that can do, say, a ‘sturdy simmer’ you’d get this cooked quicker).
I grated the celery and carrot. Seems like the same thing as mincing it really.
It made me sad to discard the sauteed garlic so I discarded it into my mouth (I remain single).
Photos and notes
Meatless Tomato Sauce
The meatless sauce was good – like enriched passata (which it is, essentially). I had worried that it was too basic to be filling, but my concerns were unfounded, though it was in no way an exciting meal. It was an adequate lunch for a Tuesday.
Mushroom Sauce
The mushroom sauce was less of a success – I felt the components didn’t come together; I would make it again, but cut the mushroom up much smaller and perhaps use a variety of mushrooms. I think I just used chestnut mushies in this.
Sauced by Alix
Am I wrong or is the first recipe basically 1) cook some garlic 2) throw it away 3) heat up some tomato puree ?
I once had a similar recipe from Nicola Cox (who ran cookery courses for county folk) which stir-fried neat tomato puree with sweated garlic & onion before adding liquid, herbs and seasoning. She said it was an Italian technique which gave an authentic flavour.