Sunday, 4 June 2017

Mushroom tomato sauce for pasta

For dinner last night I wanted a pasta dish, that should incorporate mushrooms, be meatless and go well with a glass of (cheap) red wine. The latter notion sent my thoughts towards a tomato-based sauce and reminded me of past experiments adding anchovies to achieve a greater depth of flavour.

Ingredients:
- 90 g jar of anchovies in sunflower oil
- 2 brown onions, finely chopped
- 1/2 bulb fennel, finely chopped
- approx. 2 dL white wine
- 300 g brown mushrooms, medium diced
- 3 tomaotes, diced
- 200 g small tomatoes, diced
- 70 g can of tomato paste
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- fresh basil
- fresh oregano
- water
- salt
- pepper

First the vegetables were chopped.
The oil from the anchovies was poured into a large pot and heated on high. The anchovies were chopped and added to the pot. When the anchovies were starting to brown the onion and fennel was added and the heat reduced to medium-high. After a few minutes white wine was added in 3 portions, the liquid being reduced between each addition.
The mushrooms were added and when they collapsed a little after a few minutes, the heat was reduced to low before adding tomatoes, tomato paste, crushed garlic, basil and oregano. The pot was covered and allowed to simmer while boiling pasta. The sauce was stirred occasionally and added water in small portions to ensure it didn't go to dry.
Seasoned to tate with salt and black pepper just before serving with wholegrain spaghetti and freshly grated hard Italian cheese and lettuce.
.. and of course the planned glass of read wine. We were very pleased with the result.

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