areiamus

From my post at Vimeo:

I can make a few things really well. They turn out a little differently each time I cook them; whether that’s due to variation in available ingredients, my mood, or something lent by the time and place in which I perform the act of creation, each instance, each iteration, allows for a slightly different and so wholly new experience.

There’s no killer secret to a great bolognaise sauce. However, I do find that carrots (to offset the acidity of tomatoes), good quality (that is, non-supermarket) mince, and at least half an hour to simmer down from ‘oh man I added way too much liquid’ to a rich, thick sauce all improve the flavour.

If you’re willing to eat nutmince (the texture is similar, but the taste is not really my thing), you may use that instead of meat mince. Alternatively, I’ve found adding a can of cannelli beans and a can of kidney beans and a can of corn kernels also work pretty well.

Ingredients used in this particular iteration of spaghetti bolognaise:

• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 onions, diced
• 2 carrots, grated
• ~400g beef mince
• 2 birds-eye chillis
• 1 tablespoon each of dried oregano, thyme and basil (fresh is better!)
• generous turns of pepper grinder, big pinches of salt
• one ripe tomato, roughly diced
• 1 can tomatoes
• 2 cups beef stock
• splash of red wine
• lots of olive oil

Best with thicker pasta. Freezes like Arnold Schwarznegger in that terrible terrible Batman movie that they killed Alfred in - by which I mean well. It freezes well.

When I catch the train later in the evening, which is any time after 6, I have a tendency to doze off. This seems to happen more often when I’m sitting in the aisle seat and the unfortunate window seat occupant must either: tap me awake, mutter ‘excuse me’, or lift their arms (and bags, I suppose) high in the air and attempt to navigate the 15cm gap between my knees and the seat in front of us – all of which rouse me and spark an awkward moment where it’s clear that they’ve broken the commuter code of non-interaction, and I’ve broken the social convention of impersonal helpfulness without acknowledgement.

The aforementioned happened at Taringa this evening, just one station from my destination of Indooroopilly. As I struggled to gather my thoughts and decide what to eat for dinner, salmon attacked - not grilled or fried, but perched atop ribbons of pasta with fresh basil. Inspired, I set off to Coles.

Ingredients:

• 200-300g salmon fillet (preferably not actually from Coles)
• 300g or 5 small or 3 big tomatoes
• 3 fresh basil sprigs
• 200g linguine
• 3 garlic cloves
• sea salt & cracked pepper
• olive oil

And so:

1. Set 2-3L of water to boil. Add linguine, stir briskly and cover until water reboils. Cook for the rest of the time uncovered, around 10 minutes. If you bite a strand and it’s the same colour all the way through, it’s ready. Tip some of the water off to a spare pot. Drain pasta in a colander, toss with a little olive oil to prevent sticking. Return the saved water to the main pot, set the colander in the pot and cover until you’re ready to serve.
2. Finely chop garlic, dice tomatoes and wash basil. Add garlic, salt & pepper to 2-3 tablespoons olive oil over high heat. As the garlic starts to sizzle, turn the heat down to medium and add tomatoes. Cover and simmer for until the tomatoes have softened and there is some liquid in the pan.
3. Cube the salmon not smaller than 2cm a side. Lower the heat and evenly space the salmon pieces in the pan - there should be enough liquid that they’re not frying. Scatter basil leaves over the mix and cover for 2 minutes. Very gently stir, turning the salmon over and mixing the basil into the sauce. Cover for another 2 minutes.
4. Serve immediately.