Beware of rabbit holes. With just a flick of my iPhone I managed to destroy my strict annual summer No Cooking Rule. That’s all it took. A little idle curiosity while driving with Mr. Friday, and suddenly, on a Saturday night, I was chopping onions and garlic and tending to a pan of simmering meats and tomatoes. I had turned on the stove and was cooking. In the summer. When my default mode is to eat only cool salads, watermelon, peaches, strawberries and ice cream. When someone else tends the grill and I picturesquely sip frosty flutes of light and refreshing Prosecco. I picture myself in a nimbus of gauzy sunlight, wearing a flow-y white frock. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. And yet, it was quite fun and novel standing in the kitchen, peering into a hot saucepan, anticipating a good meal.
Quite often when I am driving with Mr. Friday I whip out the smart phone to answer life’s difficult questions. You know the kind of thing I mean, when you have to know immediately what was John Wayne’s last movie? What time is it in Sydney? Was “On Broadway” really in that old Radio Free Europe television commercial? But here was the killer; innocently I Googled “Food52 weekend entertaining”. And that’s when Nigel Slater’s Really Good Spaghetti Bolognese became part of our food canon. https://food52.com/recipes/26984-nigel-slater-s-really-good-spaghetti-bolognese
We had been trying to think of something other than our usual steak or pork chops or grilled pizza to have for dinner when we would be entertaining a new friend. One of my bad habits is that I think nothing of trying new recipes on company. Which means dinner parties at our house are often fraught with peril. Sometimes things fail miserably: the soufflé falls, the cream doesn’t whip, the cake self-immolates, the risotto is runny. Luckily we usually have enough cheap white wine to gloss over any imperfections, and people have been known to return.
The Spaghetti Bolognese was a great recipe. It was a little time consuming, as the mixture needed to simmer for at least an hour to an hour and a half, but I was able to swan around and fold napkins and fluff the hydrangeas, while stirring, occasionally, and gulping down the aforementioned Prosecco. And luckily there were tasty nibbly snacks and good music. With dinner we also had bread, a little salad and bowls of sliced peaches that were lightly dressed in a snow drift of freshly whipped cream. And the summer continues on its course. Perhaps I can boil up a pot of pasta every now and then. It will keep me in practice for winter. It is good to break the rules, as they say, otherwise we would never enjoy some of the fleeting forbidden pleasures.
I always think that the folks at Food52 are the cool kids. They have excellent ideas, and are witty and irreverent. You should try listening to their podcasts, too: https://food52.com/blog/12480-announcing-burnt-toast-the-food52-podcast
They have more sources for the unusual than we basic home cooks, but we can make adjustments. My grocery store doesn’t carry pancetta, but the thick sliced applewood smoked bacon I substituted seemed to work just fine.
The comments in parentheses are mine.
Nigel Slater’s Really Good Spaghetti Bolognese
Serves 4
For the bolognese
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 3 ounces cubed pancetta (I diced 4 slices of thick cut grocery store-sourced bacon)
• 1 medium onion
• 2 fat cloves garlic
• 1 carrot
• 2 stalks celery
• 2 large, flat mushrooms such as portobello, about 4 ounces (I left the mushrooms out)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 pound ground beef or lamb
• 1 cup crushed tomatoes or passata
• ¼ cup red wine
• ¾ cup stock
• 1 nutmeg (I used McCormack’s ground nutmeg, quelle horreur!)
• ¾ cup half-and-half or cream
For serving
• Spaghetti or tagliatelle for 4 (I used Buitoni fresh linguine)
• Grated Parmesan
1. Melt the butter in a large, heavy-based pot — then stir in the pancetta and let it cook for five minutes or so, without coloring much. Meanwhile peel and finely chop the onion and garlic and stir them into the pancetta. Peel and finely chop the carrot and celery and stir them in, too. Lastly, finely chop the mushrooms and add to the pan, then tuck in the bay leaves and leave to cook for ten minutes over a moderate heat, stirring frequently.
2. Turn up the heat and tip in the meat, breaking it up well with a fork.
3. Now leave to cook without stirring for a good three or four minutes, then, as the meat on the bottom is starting to brown, stir again, breaking up the meat where necessary, and leave to color.
4. Mix in the tomatoes, red wine, stock, a grating of nutmeg and some salt and black pepper, letting it come to the boil. Turn the heat down so that everything barely bubbles. There should be movement, but one that is gentle, not quite a simmer. Partially cover the pan with a lid and leave to putter away for an hour to an hour and a half, stirring from time to time and checking the liquid levels. You don’t want it to be dry.
5. Pour in the half-and-half or cream a bit at a time, stir and continue cooking for twenty minutes. Check the seasoning, then serve with the pasta and grated Parmesan.
“It is impossible not to love someone who makes toast for you. ”
― Nigel Slater
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