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Favorite pasta sauces


Sandra Levine

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Puttanesca for sure.

Carbonara would be second, I guess.

Although, now, if we aren't limited to Italian pasta sauces, I love some chile oil and thai basil over top wide rice noodles. Thats hard to beat. Granted I'd probably like anything with rice noodles involved so maybe that doesn't count

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not sure the egullet guideline for plugging brands

but have you ever tried the Lloyd Grossman tomato and chilli sauce?

that is definitely my favourite pre made pasta sauce.

hear hear! I have decided that I really can't make it better myself (or not with limp UK tomatoes, at least).

Fi Kirkpatrick

tofu fi fie pho fum

"Your avatar shoes look like Marge Simpson's hair." - therese

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not sure the egullet guideline for plugging brands

but have you ever tried the Lloyd Grossman tomato and chilli sauce?

that is definitely my favourite pre made pasta sauce.

hear hear! I have decided that I really can't make it better myself (or not with limp UK tomatoes, at least).

Phew, I feel better now - it's not bad is it?

Also , scarily enough there is an Asda's own brand one (One of there special range) which is quite good too!

Onto 'proper' cooking, some of my favourites are

Pancetta, some onion and peas, along with a slug of white wine, and crush some of the peas. Good with linguini. Some people would add cream. They are wrong.

Anchovies, olive oil, chilli, garlic,parsley, lemon zest. Good with any long pasta.

A long cooked tomato sauce, cooked with a piece of browned, boney meat - ribs, pork chops etc. Shred the meat at the end and return to the sauce. Good with Penne.

Clams, if I can get the right type (Tricky near me), with garlic, chilli and white wine.

Mussels sometimes cooked as per the clams, or sometimes with pesto.

I'm also a big fan of the more classic sauces - puttanesca, carbonara, and if I can be bothered, a good ragu.

I love animals.

They are delicious.

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great winter sauce is salsiccia e funghi. my brother's ex-girfriend's mother, from ravenna made this and it was as "emiglia-romagna" as you can get.

onions, sausage, porcini - in lots of olive oil and butter. finish with cream. (make sure you cook the sauce with the cream for a minimum 10-15 min...it needs to incorporate all the falvor.

only for the commited, tortellinin in brodo...one of the icons of italian cuisine, exemplifying the creativity and adherence to simplicity. everything about it has a purpose, from the broth to the extra dough in the tortellini pinch... - her grandmother hand-made about 1,000 tortellini for chirstmas lunch!

-che

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My best friend got me hooked on noodles with canned tuna, sour cream, capers, dill and black pepper. Much better than the classic casserole, especially if made with homemade noodles.

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Flash-cooked tomato sauce: chop some fresh tomatoes and available fresh herbs (basil, sage, thyme, oregano, etc) and place them in the bottom of a serving bowl along with a generous amount of salt and pepper. Heat some olive oil with a clove of garlic in it until it is smoking, and then pour it over the tomatoes and herbs to flash-cook them. Immediately add the pasta, toss, and serve.

A simple tomato sauce with good canned san marzano tomatoes, a good deal of olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper (no onion). Adding some italian sausage (no casing) and red pepper flakes is acceptable. Or fresh basil.

Ragu--with tomatoes. Also made with rabbit and no tomatoes.

Tomatoes, rosemary, garlic, olive oil (about 1/3-1/2 cup for each can of tomatoes), finished with a bit of good balsamic vinegar.

Arugula, black pepper, olive oil, and manchego (tossed raw with hot pasta).

Clams, olive oil, garlic, a few cherry tomatoes, and parsley.

Ok, that's all for now... :smile:

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- artichoke bottoms, lemon zest, parsley, EVOO + garlic

- tuna fantastic - so called because it's made of tuna, and it's fantastic. tinned tuna, chopped fresh tomatoes, chopped fresh basil, capers, EVOO + balsamic, stirred into hot pasta

- the classic EVOO, chili, parsley + garlic

- chicken livers fried with bacon, onions, garlic, pan deglazed with red wine and/or port and maybe a chopped tomato/little tomato puree for body

- my mum's bolognese, made the Maltese way with equal quantities of pork mince, beef mince and bacon mince (now THERE's a concept)

Fi Kirkpatrick

tofu fi fie pho fum

"Your avatar shoes look like Marge Simpson's hair." - therese

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The simplest and surest bet (imho) is one that in Marcella Hazan's The Classic Italian Cookbook is described as Tomato sauce number 3. tomatoes, butter, onion and a pinch of sugar. Just bright fresth tomato taste. What a joy, as Jimmy Buffet sang "It was so simple I could jitterbug it plum evaded me." How can something so simple be so good, yet it is.

Charles a food and wine addict - "Just as magic can be black or white, so can addictions be good, bad or neither. As long as a habit enslaves it makes the grade, it need not be sinful as well." - Victor Mollo

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The simplest and surest bet (imho) is one that in Marcella Hazan's The Classic Italian Cookbook is described as Tomato sauce number 3. tomatoes, butter, onion and a pinch of sugar. Just bright fresth tomato taste. What a joy, as Jimmy Buffet sang "It was so simple I could jitterbug it plum evaded me." How can something so simple be so good, yet it is.

Marcella's tomato sauce w/ butter & onion is so good I just eat it right out of the pot :shock:

I love cooking with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

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Olives

Garlic

Marinated Banana peppers

Red Onion

Anchovies

EVOO

Throw them in the food processor.

Over medium heat for about 4 minutes. Throw in pasta, I usually us angel hair.

As an option throw in some shredded pepperoni

Never trust a skinny chef

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For a tomato based sauce, I normally use canned crushed Italian tomatos.

1 Pop top can Italian crushed tomato

1/2 can anchovies

1/2 Cup Red Wine or so..

good pinch of salt

good pinch of sugar

1 clove Garlic

drizzle of evoo

fresh basil

fresh oregano

Another good way for summer is just some evoo, garlic and fresh basil. Then top the dish with Lemoncillo Whipped cream.

Never trust a skinny chef

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Puttanesca, hands-down.

For that pesky mushy leftover pasta, I am fond of frizzling leftover (unsauced) spaghetti or linguine in oil with garlic and red chile flakes till crisp-chewy and topping with a lightly fried egg and oil toasted crumbs. The broken, oozing yolk is already a perfect sauce right out of the shell.

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You fry fresh, ripe, in-season tomatoes till they're brown? Don't think I've heard of that...

Fresh tomatoes, fried until they are brown

i10272.jpg

Martial.2,500 Years ago:

If pale beans bubble for you in a red earthenware pot, you can often decline the dinners of sumptuous hosts.

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I love the Barilla sauces. They're every bit as good as the pastas. If I'm not making my own, of course. I also love a simple olive oil, with toasted garlic and a chiffonade of fresh basil.

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I love the Barilla sauces.  They're every bit as good as the pastas...

Are Barilla sauces sweet? My experience with jarred tomato sauces is that they never taste like homemade tomato sauce. Are there any that don't taste like sugar and instead taste like tomatoes?

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Curious - what sort of pasta is this:
(it has to be the bronze die variety)
:unsure:

Most commercially made pasta is made with a Teflon die - this makes the pasta really smooth so sauces don't stick as well to them. Some specialty producers will use a traditional bronze die that creates a rougher texture, which helps the pasta hold the sauce.

allison

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I love the Barilla sauces.  They're every bit as good as the pastas...

Are Barilla sauces sweet? My experience with jarred tomato sauces is that they never taste like homemade tomato sauce. Are there any that don't taste like sugar and instead taste like tomatoes?

There are no added sweetners in the Barilla sauces and they're pretty darn good for a bottled sauce. I kepe a few jars on hand for emergencies and periodically just use one of them up as the base for home made sauce. I add some herbs, some canned tomatoes, EVOO etc and freeze up the batch.

Have not tried fried ripe tomatoes but I just had homemade fried green tomatoes this past weekend and they were fantastic.

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ah...pasta...one of my all-time favorite foods on earth.

i absolutely adore fresh pesto. you can't really go wrong with a meal of pasta and fresh pesto, roasted fish, and salad. even my friend who is very non-adventurous with food (if he had his way, he'd have meat and potatoes every night) cleaned his plate.

something about carbonara really appeals to me. a big plateful of pasta alla carbonara with a pinch of salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper makes me happy. :wub:

my newest love is vodka sauce. that light pink, sweet, creamy sauce is irresistable. :biggrin:

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