I had a conversation with a couple people and realized how varied people’s taste in spaghetti is. So Dopers, share your spaghetti recipes.
Also, let me know what region you live in so I can get an idea if geography plays a part.
In my spaghetti I start by browning an onion in olive oil, adding crushed garlic and sautee for a few seconds.
Then i add fennel italian sausage and brown that. Drain.
Add a jar of sauce (Prego in a pinch altho0ugh I usually splurge on something more expensive), add a can of italian diced tomatos, basil and oregano (fresh if available, otherwise dry), and ceyenne if the people I’m cooking for like it spicy.
Top with fresh grated parmesagn cheese (why do people eat that shaker stuff?)
-Heat olive oil.
-Throw in a whole lotta dried herbs: basil, oregano, marjoram, rosemary, and thyme, and let 'em sizzle a bit.
-Throw in a chopped onion and saute until tender. Sometime midway through the sauteeation, throw in three or four cloves pressed garlic.
-Toss in a spoonful of salt.
-If I’m feeling fancy, throw in some sliced fresh mushrooms and saute a bit more.
-Pour in a cup of wine or thereabouts to deglaze the pan, and then add a can or two of chopped tomatoes.
-Simmer until thick.
-Add black pepper to taste; if the sauce is too tangy, add a spoonful of honey.
My wife likes to add red pepper flakes and less herbage; I don’t really like the combination of chile peppers and tomatoes, so I leave the flakes out.
I eat a lot of spaghetti. Three of four times in a week isn’t unusual.
Fry minced garlic in extra-virgin olive oil. Toss spaghetti with the flavored oil, top with freshly grated cheese and freshly ground black pepper.
Mince a small onion, a few cloves of garlic, and a couple baby carrots. Saute the vegetables in olive oil until the onion is transparent. Add a can of crushed tomato, and some minced (fresh) basil leaves to taste. Simmer for 15 minutes. Have ground black pepper and grated cheese at the table.
Melt a stick of butter in a few tablespoons of olive oil. Add a small minced onion and some minced garlic. When the onion is transparent, add two cups of fresh sliced mushrooms. Saute until the mushrooms are nearly cooked. Then add 1/2 lb of fresh sea scallops. Continue to cook gently until the scallops are nearly done. Then add 1/2 pound of peeled/deveined/tail off shrimp and 1/2 pound of crab meat (or “crab delight” if you’re cheap). Since the crab and the shrimp are pre-cooked watch the pan closely as all you want to do is warm them up. Toss with pasta and enjoy. Black pepper and cheese? Of course!
I have other recipes, too, but these are three I make frequently because they are quick.
Saute onions and mushrooms in olive oil. Add pepper flakes, basil, oregano, and garlic. Warm. Add jarred pasta sauce (usually Prego, but I also like Trader Joe’s Roasted Garlic) and chopped pepperoni or cooked Italian Hot Sausage. Simmer while cooking pasta, usually fettuccini. Top pasta with freshly-grated Romano cheese. Gain three pounds.
This is assuming I haven’t made up 3 gallons of pasta sauce the previous week.
Saute chopped onion, pressed garlic, parsley, rosemary, and basil in olive oil. Add extra lean ground beef and cook until it’s done. Then throw it in a pot along with a jar of vodka sauce, a can of chopped tomatoes, some mushrooms, bell peppers, and whatever else I feel like throwing in. I usually add a little bit of red pepper flakes and white pepper, but not always. And top with fresh grated parmesan or asiago cheese.
Generally I tend to make very simple (but I think elegant) sauce from scratch. What I do is buy a whole mess of fresh Roma tomatoes, and then cut the tips off of them so that they will stand upright on a series of cookie sheets. I stuff fresh garlic cloves in about 10 of them and then roast them slowly in my oven for about ½ hour. After I let them cool completely I remove the skins and then blend them with one of those hand-held stick blenders right in a crock-pot. To this I add salt and pepper and a slash of olive oil and then cook in the crock-pot for several hours. Perhaps 10 minutes before serving I will add a mixture of 2/3 basil and 1/3 parsley (finely chopped). Serve with fresh grated Romano. I find that the end result tastes very fresh and bright.
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[li]Heat up 2 TBs olive oil with 1-2 TBs crushed garlic. Garlic should be heated with the oil, not thrown into hot oil, that makes it bitter.[/li][li]Into hot garlic oil, put 1 finely diced onion to sweat. Towards end (onion is translucent, not brown) add 1 diced bell pepper, chopped fresh oreganum and sweet basil, also dried mixed herbs, salt, pepper. Sautee the lot for ~5 min, remove and deglaze pan with sherry.[/li][li]Add chopped chicken , and 2 TBs butter, 2 TBs olive oil, brown the chicken.[/li][li] Replace onion/pepper mix, add 1 cup veg stock and 2 tsp ground mustard, 1 cup cream and 1 can pomod’oro tomatoes (that’s toe-mah-tow, not toe-may-toe )[/li][li]season to taste (usually needs more salt, pepper and sugar), simmer to thicken, serve over pasta with fresh basil or rocket, Parmesan shavings, a nice Cape merlot or pinotage, maybe a cab-sav…[/li][/list]
OR replace chicken with lean minced beef, diced chorizo/spicy sausage, and bacon (at least two of, usually all three), leave out the cream and double up on the stock. Also leave out the mustard, replace with tomato paste, and add anchovy fillets to the garlic at the start.
I find garlic turns bitter if you cook it too long, that’s why I usually cook the onions first and then throw in the garlic when I start the meat. It seems to retain the flavor better.
A lot of people seem to like mushrooms in their spaghetti which is one thing I can’t stand. Besides that these recipies sound pretty good.
Going from memory… which means I can’t remember the exact portions of the spices…
Chop a small onion and half a green bell pepper;
“Grease” a heated pan with butter/margarine;
Add the onion and pepper bit to cook;
Sprinkle in the 1.25 lbs of ground beef; (Recipe makes three or four servings)
Cook until the meat is brown, turning it over partway through so both sides brown;
Empty the skillet into the big pot… add a small can of tomato paste. Mix.
Then, the spices, in no particular order :
Oregano
Italian Seasoning
Garlic Salt
Chili Powder
Black Pepper.
Then mix again.
Top off with a jar of Ragu generic spaghetti sauce. Makes it more saucy. Smells heavenly - it’s my mother’s recipe… I never can seem to get it quite right… usually too much black pepper, I think.
Brown a pound of hot Italian sausage with garlic. When done thorw in crock pot.
Cut up about a pound of Roma Tomatoes, throw in crock pot.
Dice some Green peppers and Onions, throw in crock pot.
Grab what ever spices and herbs sound good, and throw in crock pot.
Pour maybe a cup of wine, and half a cup of water in crock pot.
Turn on low for about 6 hours, until all the water simmers off and it gets really thick.
Extra virgin olive oil
Garlic
Onions (or not)
Fresh fully ripened Roma tomatoes, or canned if not in season
Hot pepper flakes (or not)
Fresh basil (added at the end)
Tomato paste (if needed to thicken the sauce)
Sugar (if the tomatoes are a tad too tart)
Salt
Pepper
The key is absolutely the freshness of the ingredients. A good tomato sauce should be lively, fresh, aromatic. It should have a fruitiness balanced by a pleasant acidity. I have yet to find a jarred tomato sauce that has any of these qualities.
If I’m feeling somewhat fancy, I’ll add capers, anchovies, black olives (the good kind sold in the deli section), and fresh hot peppers (serrano usually.)
Serve with plenty of freshly grated parmesean-reggiano.
Warning!!!, this is expensive!!!
Unclviny’s crotch pot sketti:
1 pound of ground pork, browned and drained
1 package of hot Italian sausage, out of the casing, browned and drained
1 package of medium Italian sausage, out of the casing, browned and drained
1/2 pound of pepperoni, sliced thick and quartered, cooked and drained
All meats drained very!! well, grease ruins food!!
2 jars of “Olives and Mushrooms” sauce (Mama somebody’s, I get it at the big grocery store)
1 jar of regular old Ragu sauce
Fresh!!! pasta
Dump it in the crotch pot (on low!!) until everything else is ready, slam it, go to sleep
A lot of great sounding Bolognaise(sp?) style sauces here so I’ll bring out my other fave pasta sauce.
Ingredients:
8 high quality pure pork sausages, contents removed
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
6 - 8 sage leaves thinly sliced
1 glass Maderia
300 ml of creme fraiche or sour cream
Salt and pepper
Method:
Gently fry the garlic and sage in olive oil for 1 minute then add the sausage meat and brown. Throw in the glass of Maderia and reduce to a glaze then throw in the cream and season. Allow this to simmer gently while you cook your spaghetti (or pasta of choice, penne is good) then drain pasta whilst keeping a bit of the cooking water on it and add pasta to sauce, mix well and serve with a side salad and a glass of your favourite vino.
*All weights/measurements are approx. - feel free to add more or less to your taste.
On another note I saw a cookery program the other day with this Italian chef who said that in Italy they never have onions and garlic in the same dish, it is always one or the other. Also no chilli with pepper or vice-versa and that they never crush their garlic as it apperentley makes it bitter.
