Pasta

Rigatoni with mini meatballs

 Pasta is always wanted and favourite meal in my family. One of the important thing – it shouldn’t be overcooked, then I add some sauce and voilà – super speedy and tasty dish is on the table! During this week I made these rigatoni. They look awesome and tasty, don’t they? 🙂 I also had some minced veal in the freezer, plus a can of whole tomatoes and fresh basil. You simply can’t go wrong with these nice ingredients! This flavourful and tasty lunch or dinner can be ready in a half hour or less. Enjoy!Rigatoni with mini meatballs

Rigatoni with mini meatballs

  • Servings: 2
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print
You can also add a quail egg to the meat mixture, optional.
Ingredients 
250g dry rigatoni
Mini meatballs
150-160g veal or beef, finely minced
1 tbsp finely chopped onion
1/2 tsp dried marjoram
freshly ground sea salt and black pepper, to taste
Tomato sauce
1 shallot or 1/4 medium onion
1/2 tsp dried garlic (or 1 chopped garlic clove), optional
1 can of whole tomatoes (about 250g drained)
1/3 tsp dried oregano leaves
1 tsp dark muscovado sugar (or sub with white)
freshly ground sea salt and black pepper, to taste
1 tbsp olive oil, for frying
Garnish
some parmesan shavings
few basil leaves
Method
  1. In a bowl, mix meat mince with onion and all spices. Shape small meatballs – about 2cm in diameter. Place them in a greased baking tin and roast in preheated 200C oven for 15-20 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, heat oil in a frying pan on a medium-high heat, add chopped onion and garlic, saute for 5-7 minutes. Add whole tomatoes, roughly crush them with a spoon. Add oregano, sugar, salt and pepper, and simmer on a low-medium heat for 5-8 minutes until it’s thicken a bit.
  3. Transfer mini meatballs in a tomato sauce, cover and simmer for 5 minutes more. Adjust the seasoning.
  4. Bring a large pan of salted water to boil. Add dried rigatoni and cook according instruction on a pack. Drain, drizzle with olive oil.
  5. Put rigatoni on a serving plate, pour over the tomato sauce with mini meatballs. Top with parmesan shavings and basil leaves.

Enjoy!

Macaroni a la flot

 Flot means fleet in Russian. This simple dish consists of macaroni mixed with fried minced meat. In 17-18th centuries, in Russia similar dishes were quite popular among travelers and especially sailors; that no-fridge time meat was salted-cured and kept in barrels, thus seamen could cut a piece of the meat anytime, fry it and mix with some boiled macaroni. The dish became popular again during World War, but instead of fresh or frozen meat was used tushonka – canned stewed meat (usually fatty pork or beef), which was always on hand, and it could be stored up for years without loosing its nutritional value. Post-war period was also hard time for Russia, so such not expensive and nourishing dish didn’t get out of use. Nowadays, ‘macaroni a la flot’ are still widely-cooked and well-known dish; normally pasta tubes are used for macaroni, which mixed with fried minced meat (it can be pork, beef or mixture), onions and sometimes tomato paste or fresh chopped tomatoes.Macaroni a la flot

Macaroni a la flot

  • Servings: 4
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

You may try to add a shredded carrot or chopped tomato and saute it along with meat.

Ingredients
500g minced beef meat (with not less then 15% fat, or you may add some pork)
350g uncooked tube macaroni (like maccheroni, maccheroncini, bucatini, ziti or any other)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 Tbsp sunflower oil (or any other veg.oil)
1/2 Tbsp butter
salt, black pepper
chopped parsley or fennel for garnish, optional
Instructions
  1. In a deep pan, melt the butter with oil on a medium heat, add onion and fry for 4-5 minutes. Add meat and use wooden or stiff spatula to break it up into small pieces. Season to taste. Ensure you stir the meat regularly so it doesn’t stick to the pan and to  make sure it cook evenly. The meat is cooked when it shows no signs of pink.
  2. Meanwhile, put pasta into a large pot of boiling water. Be sure to add plenty of salt to the water. Cook the macaroni according to package instruction.
  3. Add 3-4 Tbsp of pasta-boiling water to the meat, mix well.
  4. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and add to the pan with meat. Give it a good stir.
  5. Serve warm. Sprinkle with chopped parsley or fennel, if desired.

Enjoy!

Meatless or not Monday

It’s supposed to be Meatless Monday inspired by a recipe of veggie lasagne I came across here.

However, I found few strips of bacon in a fridge and had to use it. 😀
Below the adapted version of wonderful, yummy and cheesy lasagne! 
It’s a pretty flexible recipe and adding more vegetables would be tasty (peas or zucchini). I love chunky pieces of cottage cheese (also it’s a good source of Calcium!), but you can sub it with ricotta. 
Veg lasagna-2

Ingredients (serves 4):
6 sheets dried lasagna
300g cottage cheese
3-4 strips of smoked beef bacon, cut into medium pieces (escape it for veg option)
100g mozzarella cheese
50g pecorino cheese (or parmesan)
1 can*400g chopped tomatoes
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
10-15 basil leaves, chopped
100g spinach leaves, chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled
150-200ml vegetable or beef stock 
1tsp muscovado sugar (or any)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
 
 
Let’s cook it!
  • Heat a pan, fry bacon for 1 minute. Add garlic, onion, celery and fry until softened (during the process the garlic gives out the nice flavor, so at the end just take it out). Add the tomatoes, sugar and stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10-12 minutes. Add basil leaves. Season to taste with salt, pepper.
  • Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F.
  • Meanwhile, in warm water soak the lasagna sheets for 8-10 minutes.
  • Spread few spoons of the tomato sauce and chopped spinach in the base of greased gratin dish. Top with 3 sheets of lasagna then spread over half of the sauce and half of the cottage cheese.
  • Repeat layers. Spread over grated cheeses.
  • Bake for 30-40 mins until the top is golden. 

Serve with green salad and a glass of white wine. 😉

Veg lasagna-1

Penne with basil and parmigiano

Hi guys
Long time didn’t post anything. I had short and unplanned trip to Russia, then had been moving into a new apartment (bigger, lighter, lucky me). But one Russian saying says “moving is worse than a fire”, and I can’t agree. It really drains me. Thank God, almost all stuff already in place.

Since my small basil has been grown I’m trying to use it, it gives wonderful aroma:)

The simplest dish- penne with basil and parmigiano. Serve 1-for yourself 😉

-You can use any ready basil pesto or do it the quickest version: basil, some parmesan and olive oil mix in a blender until smoothly combine or  fresh basil leaves with olive oil.

-Cook 100-200 g of the penne in plenty of boiling salted water around 9 minutes. Drain it, reserve few spoons of cooking water or use cream.

-Toss and stir the hot pasta with pesto, fresh basil leaves and reserving water or cream.

-Spinkle with pistachios and parmesan.

 

Serve and Enjoy:)

 

Have a lovely weekend!

Mila

 

Blog at WordPress.com.