Pasta with red sauce again

Mostaccioli with beef and tomato sauce

Here is another variation of a red pasta sauce. This time I replaced the white wine with red and boiled the pasta with bay leaves. Another treat in this dish was sun-dried tomatoes as well as fresh ones. I cut the vegetables in bigger pieces. I sliced the onions and fresh tomatoes instead of dicing them and the sun-dried tomatoes were cut into thin long strips. Dried basil leaves were once again used. Dried oregano, cracked pepper and salt are the usual suspects. One cup of water to add volume to the sauce, I then reduced the contents over time to increase the intensity of the flavours.

Once the pasta boiled, I emptied the water, placed them back in, splashed some oil and added half the contents of the sauce pot. Cooking the pasta in the sauce again ensured the meal was served at a higher temperature.

Some instantly grated fresh Parmesan cheese was also a treat for this serving.

Ingredients:

  • 250g Minced meat, low fat
  • 3 sliced tomatoes with skin
  • 4 sun-dried tomatoes cut in strips
  • 50ml tomato paste
  • onions cut into thick slices
  • Dried basil, oregano, cracked pepper, salt
  • olive iol
  • 1 cup of water
  • red wine (100ml)

No Basil? Continental Parsley to the rescue

I was cooking some mostaccioli pasta yesterday and needed to prepare a red meaty sauce. The cornerstore had no basil left so for a moment I was concerned about the outcome.

What I did have at home was both coriander and continental parsley to green the sauce up a bit. In the end I chopped up some flat leaf parsley and used my usual selection of spices consisting of oregano, pepper and salt.

I was amazed by the result! Continue reading