Questions about passata/tinned tomatoes.

halloweenqueen_2

I don't like tinned tomatoes that much and i never remember to buy passata, but i make my own by mixing 4 parts water to 1 part tomato puree which I always seem to have a couple of tubes of! With a few herbs in it as well its lovely on pizza!

ti1980

Thanks for all the replies so far.

I'm not very keen on tinned tomatoes either so have bought the Sainsbury's passata a couple of times until I went to Asda and saw their Smartprice one was half the price.

Emma, I will type out what I put in my pasta in your thread in a bit.

Mamabear

I should explain, she says flicking her long flowing locks in a very creative way, cooking is an art and the following is my interpretation of an old family recipe - it usually works and only goes wrong if I try to rush it and either don't sweat the veg for long enough or shorten the cooking time.

I can't give you precise volumes or weights - no one ever gave me any - but a top tip is that the veg should roughly equal the meat in volume.

3 large Onions (finely diced)
5 large Carrots (grated - my 1 cut corner - I hate dicing carrots)
8 sticks Celery (peeled with a potato peeler and finely diced
1 head of Garlic (very finely diced)
Olive oil (quarter of a cup) - I use Aldi's for cooking
2 Bay leaves
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 - 3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 kilos mince -a mixture of beef and pork (or veal if you can bear it)
don't bother with lean mince - the fat is full of flavour
1 and a half tetrapacks of Lidl's passata
half bottle of ok (but not great) red wine
1 stock cube (I'm a bit of a stock cube fetishist and I tend to bring back stock cubes whenever I'm out of the country

Sweat the onions carrots and celery - the books all say for 20 minutes or until opaque - I find this takes at least 40 minutes and is best done on a simmer ring, if I try to do it on a higher flame the onions 'catch' and the sauce is tainted. Half way through add the garlic.
Add the meat and allow to brown stir in the vinegar, soy sauce, stock cube bay leaves and wine. When the alcohol has evaporated add 1 pack of passata. After an hour or so I taste it and may add some anchovy paste (Burgess, in a tube from Sainsbury), perhaps some tomato puree (a squidge or 2) and probably some more passata. Allow to simmer, stirring occasionally adding a little water from the kettle if needed (don't let my DH anywhere near it as he like to add pints of water. Grate a nutmeg into the sauce just before turning off the heat.

For a special - extra rich - sauce I add a few chicken livers, finely diced (remove the stringy bitter bits) and through in for the last 10 minutes of cooking.

Add a little freshly grated parmesan and if you are not dieting a little knob of butter and a large glass of (your favourite) poison...

As with all stews, the sauce is even better the next day and is even better with 'proper' pasta (Di Cecco, Barilla, Buitoni - anything with a bit of guts) as unfortunately the stuff made for the uk market seems to collapse on contact with boiling water :mad: )

The sauce is not low fat but is very rich and a little goes a long way. I find that the above amounts will make at least 20 servings for 2 of us (i.e. 40 portions) with very healthy appetites.

I hope you try it, if you do, I know you'll love it.

Anne

leonie_2

Thank you so much for taking the time to write that out.

May I just ask? do you turn the heat up when adding the meat so it browns?

Thanks

Edited to add:

Im always looking for a good base for bolognaise (sp) and chili, and you are so right about the onions, they really need ages to make a good sauce!

Mamabear

Hi Leonie,

Yes, I missed that bit - I hadn't realised how difficult it is to type up a recipe from scratch. I had to 'mentally shop and cook'

Fortunately I am mental so was already half way there.

Anne

jenk_3

WOW this sounds so yummy!! Thank you so much for typing this out, I know you have your hands full right now.

Im going to print it off and give it to Hubby, he loves Italian food so Im sure he will have great joy trying to cook this.....that and the wine anyway!! LOL

Thanks again

Emma