Who let Plonq loose in the kitchen?

[plonq]

I've been hard at work out in the kitchen today, partly cleaning it up but mostly making some spaghetti sauce. My brother used to make the best sauce, and I'm trying to loosely emulate what he made. I call it Everything But The Kitchen Sink Sauce. The recipe is fairly simple.

Start with some ground meat (hamburger works, or you can use Italian sausage). While it sautees in olive oil, cut up and add some onion, peppers, mushrooms, olives and lots of fresh garlic. Simmer that all together for awhile. Add some more olive oil. Add some butter while you're at it. Butter makes everything taste good. Dump in a couple cans of tomato paste and splash in enough water so that you can stir it. Add red wine, olive oil and more butter until it's much runnier than you would like. Add various spices until it tastes about right.

Add some more garlic. [Are you daft? There's already six cloves in there!] [Shut up brain!] Taste it, and then add a bit more. If the sauce starts to cook down too much then add more red wine. Simmer for a few hours. Enjoy.

[edit]

Arr! T'is a fine sauce if I do say so me maties! T'will make a hearty addition to me spaghetti!

Comments

[felinaeus.livejournal.com]

ooooh... tasty. but needs more garlic... acouple more bulbs should do it... and spice.

And if you can find any, try Heinz Chili Sauce, the homestyle kind.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

I added another 4 cloves, and a bit of garlic powder for good measure. I think it's got about the right amount now.

I don't have any chili sauce, but I added a dash of crushed, dried chili.

(The last time I tried this I crushed in some dried habanero. That was a mistake on several counts. For one thing I had dried habanero stuck beneath my fingernails, where it burned for days after. Also you can't imagine how many times you touch mucus organs, and other sensitive things throughout the course of the day... Also, it was just too hot.)

[felinaeus.livejournal.com]

Oh, Heinz chiili sauce isn't hot, just... well... you have to try it to understand.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I shall. I will make mental note of it for our shopping trip tomorrow. I'm never adverse to trying new sauces (though I may have to throw out my spicy banana ketchup in order to make room in the fridge).

[kamiten.livejournal.com]

For some reason your recipe frightens me. o.O; I will have to try it.

[boinggoat.livejournal.com]

*rightclick* *save*
For future hunger.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

I never write down the recipe when I make spaghetti sauce (where's the fun in that?) but here's a rough breakdown of what I did today.

First I cut up three large, mild Italian sausages, mixed them up with a decent amount of olive oil and put it on medium/low flame to brown through. While that was gently browning I thoroughly minced 8 cloves of garlic. Every two cloves I took over and added to the pot, stirring in a bit more olive oil each time. I didn't use my garlic press because I wanted the little chunks of garlic in the sauce.

I then cored and diced a whole red pepper and added that to the mix along with (you guess it) a bit more olive oil. Next I diced a Walla Walla onion and stirred that in. Finally I quartered and sliced about a dozen large mushrooms and added those a couple at a time, stirring the mixture each time. Once the mushrooms were all in I dropped in a couple tablespoons of butter and covered the lot of it and let it cook down a bit while I washed the dishes.

I then added a couple 5.5oz cans of tomato paste (one was roasted-garlic flavoured, and the other was seasoned - but it works just as well with regular tomato paste). I added another can of water, and then started adding red wine until it was a bit thinner than I wanted. Then I added some more butter and red wine and let it cook for about 15 minutes.

The next step was to start tasting and then adding more garlic, and various spices (I just opened various spices and added them if they smelled even vaguely like they'd go well in spaghetti sauce. I'm sure I added a few that would trip the gag reflex in purists, but what'cha gonna do?) Finally I added some salt, pepper, and chili flakes, then I let it simmer on low heat for about 5 hours to thicken up, stirring it occasionally.

[orleans.livejournal.com]

Sounds delicious. :D As a tip, try ground turkey in spag sauce. I find it works very well, and is healthier than beef.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

Ground turkey definitely works well in sauces, I've used it in the past. Given the butter, and some of the other things I added to this sauce, making it "healthier" was not a big concern though.

Then again, aside from the butter, there's really nothing bad in this sauce either.