Recipes for sauces

lady_noluck

Does anyone have any recipes for sauces such as pasta, bolognese etc?

I tend to buy loads of Chicken Tonight or Dolmio bolognese etc and would like to make some of my own to save a few pennies. Would it be cheaper or would I be wasting my time?

Thanks in advance :santa2:

moneysavingplumber

Chicken Tonight? Dolmio? Yuk!

If you're going to make your own sauces it's well worth it. Just keep it simple. Ragu or bolognese is dead easy and tastes best when kept simple.

I use fresh tomatoes, any kind will do as long as they are ripe and not too dry. The loose variety at your local supermarket will be cheapest.

A basic pasta sauce would need:

1 clove of garlic
5 average size tomatoes
Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
knob of unsalted butter
Tbsp tomato puree
splash of red wine
freshly ground black pepper
salt to taste (start sparingly, you can always add more later)
fresh basil (preferably off the growing herb plant as bought in Morrisons, Asda etc)
small packet of steak mince (around 250gms is usually enough for two)
100g per person dried penne pasta

Preparation is everything, so get your big pan of water warming up for the pasta straight away. Peel the tomatoes by cutting crosses into the bottom and pouring boiling water over them in a bowl and leaving for one minute and then drain and plunge into cold water and drain again. They should peel easily then.

Crush and chop the garlic while heating the oil and butter in a fairly large saucepan at moderate heat.
(Alot of people use chopped onion too which you may prefer but I prefer not to).

Once the oil is warm add the garlic and cook for a few minutes, as it softens, add the tomato puree.

Cook, stirring for around 5 minutes until you see the puree change colour.

Increase the heat and add the red wine, around half a small glass is enough, then reduce it at moderate to high heat for 3 to five minutes.

Chop the tomatoes and add them to the mixture. Add salt and black pepper at this stage. Stir well and and cover for five minutes at moderate heat to soften the tomatoes.

Meanwhile, season and brown the mince separately in virgin olive oil and drain the fat to taste.

Get the penne pasta cooking as per the packet instructions, take one minute off of the cooking time bearing in mind you'll be adding them to the mix for a minute or so of cooking too.

Once the tomatoes are softening then remove the lid and start to cook off the excess water in the sauce and add the mince.

Check the taste and add more seasoning if necessary.

Once it's reduced to a fairly thick consistency and the mince is well cooked, remove from the heat and add the torn fresh basil, stirring in, set aside and cover as you finish the pasta.

Drain the penne and add straight to the Ragu sauce and serve, grating on a little fresh parmesan if you like :xmassmile .

Of course this can be done with spaghetti but I've come to prefer it with wholewheat penne and serve it more like an arrabiata. You can also always cook the pasta first and cool it off in cold water before adding it into the finished bolognese sauce to heat it through if you're not a great timer.

Chris25

moneysavingplumber's given a great reply and you could try this site also http://www.recipezaar.com/r/q=pasta+sauce

squeaky

If you check out the Cooking section of the MEGA index sticky at the top of Old Style there are all sorts of threads listed under "sauces" that will, I'm sure, be very helpful.

HTH