Showing posts with label lasagna sauce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lasagna sauce. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Pasta Sauce Or Red sauce

Pasta sauce or Red sauce

I love pasta, penne with red (tomato) sauce is my most favorite dish. Here is how I make my pasta sauce.

Ingredients (serves 3)
2 medium sized red onions, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
2 tsp ginger-garlic paste (mince garlic and ginger together)
8 medium ripe tomatoes
Spice mix (Oregano, basil, Italian seasoning)
Salt, black pepper
Red chilly powder (if you want to make sauce hotter)
Cream (optional)
cheese (optional)
meat (optional)
Other veggies (optional)

Method:
I like to blanch tomatoes before making puree, so that it becomes easy to take out their skin and preserve bright red color and tangy taste. Take a big pan for tomatoes and fill it with water, bring it to boil. Once tomato skin starts loosing up, turn off the heat. Throw away water and keep tomatoes aside to cool off uptil they become warm. Take out their skins, seeds, stems. Process tomatoes to make fine puree, and keep
aside.

Finished Sauce (camera flash messed with color of sauce :( )


I usually process onions and carrot in food processor for fine chopping. So sauce becomes more consistent.
Take a heavy bottom saucepan and saute ginger-garlic paste, add in chopped onions and carrot. Saute them nicely till they become transparent.  If you are using veggies/meat then saute them after onions and carrots.   Add in tomato puree, add about half cup of water and saute for a while. If you are using meat in sauce then add upto one cup of water. Add spice mix, salt and pepper, add red chilly powder if you wish to make hotter. Give mixture a nice stir and bring mixture to boil. After boil reduce heat and cook through on low flame for about 10-15 minutes with lid on. If you have added meat to sauce then you may need to cook for about half hour or till meat cooks through (depending upon meat used). Take out lid and reduce sauce further depending on consistency of your choice. I prefer to reduce added water and that defines consistency for sauce.

Few people prefer to add cream/cheese, but its optional. There is your sauce ready. Enjoy it over your pasta, can be used in lasagna as well.


Bechamel sauce (white sauce)

Bechamel Sauce

Also known as white sauce. This sauce can be used in various french, Italian recipes. This sauce also serves as base of cheese sauce. Its super smooth in texture and requires no special ingredients.

Ingredients (For about 200ml sauce)
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp all purpose flour
250 ml milk (any milk shall do)
pinch of salt


Method:
Melt butter in heavy bottom sauce pan. Once butter has melted take out pan and start incorporating flour slowly while stirring. Put pan back on medium heat and let mixture bubble a bit, make sure mixture does not become brownish. Start adding milk into slowly into mixture and keep stirring while doing so. This avoid lump formations so its essential step. Bring milk to boil and then lower the flame and cook for about 2-3 minutes more. This sauce thickens and reduces as it cooks so that's your sign to check for doneness. Add in pinch of salt and give it nice stir. Take out flame and cover sauce surface with wax paper or non-reactive film  to avoid skin formation on milk.

Bechamel/White sauce


That's it your bechamel sauce/white sauce is ready. Let it cool before using in any recipe.