**Updated** September 10
Both Michelle and I had a pretty lukewarm response to this sauce. It was very good, but a fair bit of work to produce and not any better than any other sauce we’ve made, recipe or made-up. Perhaps this is because a tomato sauce is so intuitive to us, I don’t know. Anyway, it is a very tasty sauce, which is always the goal, but probably not a repeat as we can do as well making things up as we go.
Original Post…
So if a recipe asks you to use a 12 inch skillet to cook a meat sauce, and you want to use a dutch oven instead because you would like to double the recipe to have enough to freeze for later, what should you do? You said dutch oven right? Now what about if your recipe book backs it all up by saying they tested both and found that with everything else the same, the dutch oven method resulted in a much weaker and more watery sauce than the skillet? We are going skillet and hoping the sides are tall enough to contain it all!
Now can you tell me if the recipe calls for pancetta and you can only find proscuitto, could you use it as a substitute? We’ll let you know on that one.
Why the questions you ask? Mich and I have decided on a new approach in the kitchen. We have TONS of really nice cookbooks. They contain a seemingly endless supply of great eats in them. But when it comes time to get down to it, we often turn to the tried and true recipes. So to breath new life into the whole operation, we have decided to try a new recipe from the collection at least once a week. Last week it was Shrimp Fra Daivolo with Linguine. It was quite the start! Quite possibly the best tasting prawns we’ve had. The secret? You sear the prawns, remove add brandy or sherry, then flame on baby! Remove and set aside for later. Mmmmmm. (Sorry I didn’t take any pics - too busy drooling!)
If I get my shit together I will report on our weekly trials and give a little idea about whether it is a repeat or not, and why. If I REALLY get my shit together I will post the recipe as well.
Tonight is Pasta with Bolognese Sauce. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but this is a new way for us to make this sauce. Both this week and last week were tomato based sauces because we have had a bumper crop of tomatoes that we need to use. Getting pretty good at the fresh salsa!
Both our recipes so far have come from a great book that you should think about picking up. It explains why each cooking method or ingredient is used over another. They test all possible or popular ways and decide which they think best and explain why. It’s called The New Best Recipe. You can buy it here or here. We will likely invoke a rule to prevent no back to back use of any book, but again, we are on the tomato trail right now. Anyway, we’ll let you know how it goes. So far:
Week One: Shrimp Fra Daivolo with Linguine
Week Two: Pasta with Bolognese Sauce
Week Three…TBA
Until then…
