Great Tomato Sauce
Particularly successful pasta sauce today. Slow-cooking is always best, but this time I made the sauce in two parts to attempt to match the cooking technique to the ingredient. Mostly, I didn't want to slow-cook the fennel bulb in the tomato sauce, as it doesn't taste of anything if you do that. So I oven-braised it instead.
No thanks to me we now have a lemon thyme plant (in addition to our two regular thyme plants). I love thyme, and the lemon thyme should make particularly good mead. This is my first experiment cooking with it. I also experimented with our new two kinds of oregano.
Braise (put in a little ceramic casserole in this order):
Stems and some leaves of lemon thyme (other leaves in sauce)
A bit of oregano
1/4 c or so of red wine kicking around the kitchen
A bit of salt
Fennel Bulb, sliced
3 asian hot peppers (the little ones, we had some which needed eating)
6 cloves garlic, peeled
6 hot italian sausages, well pricked
Cover and put it all in a 325 oven for 45 minutes.
Sauce:
Saute 3 onions (1 was a Vidalia, then I noticed)
Add a bit of salt and lower the heat a bit.
Add 3 peppers and the fronds/stems of fennel.
Saute until it browns. I did this in the tall saucy pot, so it got quite steamy. That plus the salt made it moister than if I'd used the wide pot, and it cooked more slowly and got pretty soft. Then, suddenly, I turned my back and it stuck to the pot. That meant it was time to move on.
Add generous amounts of oregano and lemon thyme leaves.
Stir in 3 cans of crushed tomato.
Get it bubbling, then reduce heat to a simmer.
Took out the braise and cut up the sausage, then put it back into the oven. The sausage hadn't released much juice yet, and wasn't cooked (I was more concerned about the former). I think I might have tossed the peppers in the sauce at this point. Put it back in for 1/2 hour.
That's 75 minutes of slow cookin' for those keeping track at home.
Stirred the sauce on and off.
After the braise hit 75 minutes, pulled it out and it was looking good. Transferred the sausage, garlic, peppers, and cooking liquid to sauce to cook for another hour or two. Put the casserole with fennel back in the warm oven. Tasted fennel bits... Perfect.
Put the fennel into the still-simmering sauce as I was putting the spaghetti on. That was another hour or so on, and things were simmering calmly.
Don't forget (as I always do) to put black pepper in before you start dishing it out.
Result: Fennel tastes fennel-y, sauce tastes saucy, garlic is kinda roasted, and it generally came out really well. Don't munch on the little peppers if you have issues with that sort of thing.
No thanks to me we now have a lemon thyme plant (in addition to our two regular thyme plants). I love thyme, and the lemon thyme should make particularly good mead. This is my first experiment cooking with it. I also experimented with our new two kinds of oregano.
Braise (put in a little ceramic casserole in this order):
Stems and some leaves of lemon thyme (other leaves in sauce)
A bit of oregano
1/4 c or so of red wine kicking around the kitchen
A bit of salt
Fennel Bulb, sliced
3 asian hot peppers (the little ones, we had some which needed eating)
6 cloves garlic, peeled
6 hot italian sausages, well pricked
Cover and put it all in a 325 oven for 45 minutes.
Sauce:
Saute 3 onions (1 was a Vidalia, then I noticed)
Add a bit of salt and lower the heat a bit.
Add 3 peppers and the fronds/stems of fennel.
Saute until it browns. I did this in the tall saucy pot, so it got quite steamy. That plus the salt made it moister than if I'd used the wide pot, and it cooked more slowly and got pretty soft. Then, suddenly, I turned my back and it stuck to the pot. That meant it was time to move on.
Add generous amounts of oregano and lemon thyme leaves.
Stir in 3 cans of crushed tomato.
Get it bubbling, then reduce heat to a simmer.
Took out the braise and cut up the sausage, then put it back into the oven. The sausage hadn't released much juice yet, and wasn't cooked (I was more concerned about the former). I think I might have tossed the peppers in the sauce at this point. Put it back in for 1/2 hour.
That's 75 minutes of slow cookin' for those keeping track at home.
Stirred the sauce on and off.
After the braise hit 75 minutes, pulled it out and it was looking good. Transferred the sausage, garlic, peppers, and cooking liquid to sauce to cook for another hour or two. Put the casserole with fennel back in the warm oven. Tasted fennel bits... Perfect.
Put the fennel into the still-simmering sauce as I was putting the spaghetti on. That was another hour or so on, and things were simmering calmly.
Don't forget (as I always do) to put black pepper in before you start dishing it out.
Result: Fennel tastes fennel-y, sauce tastes saucy, garlic is kinda roasted, and it generally came out really well. Don't munch on the little peppers if you have issues with that sort of thing.