[Mastrap]

Picture this: A small village (Mont Louis) high up in the Pyrenees, early evening. It's getting cooler, the locals are having the first Pastis. A small bar, a tantalising smell. Strangely enough I felt the need to investigate.

On the menu one thing: Pasta with a sauce bolognese. Strange for France, but the smell, it called to me. So we tried it and it was the finest, the very best, the most amazing Bolognese I've ever eaten.

The chef only spoke Spanish with the merest smattering of French. English? I must be joking. German? Ditto. Finally we managed to get a translation chain going (English ---> French ----> Spanish) Here's the result:

For a family:

200 g smoky bacon, diced

200 g chicken liver, diced

200 g miced pork

400 g minced beef or veal

250 ml Passata

1 large carrot

1 large stalk of celery

1 large onion

butter

salt pepper

4 cloves

nutmeg

a large glass of red wine

500 ml home made or fresh beef stock

a small glass of marsala wine, if that's not availble a not too sweet port will do.


In a large, deep pan gently fry the bacon until the fat runs.

Finely (!) dice the carrot, the sellerie and the onion. In the bacon pan melt butter and gently fry the vegetables - about 15 minutes. Stir and keep an eye on them, they must soften but not colour.

Add more butter, up heat and add miced beef and pork. Break up with a fork and brown. Add chicken liver and cook until it changes colour.

Add marsala wine, wine, passata and stock. Bring to the boil. Salt and pepper. Reduce heat and cook on minimum heat for a minimum of 5 hours. If it gets too dry add more stock.

After 3 hours add cloves and grated nutmeg to taste.

Eat with fresh Parmesan and a bottle of red.

No pictures today because connectivity is provided by my mobile at a snails pace.


Peace and love to all. More bulletins as events warrant

Edited because I got muddled up in multi lingual confusion

[The Jackalope]

I'm going to save this one to make when I get back from my trip. Thanks!

In case anyone needs to know, 100 grams more or less equals about 3.5 ounces.

[Timo]

I CANNOT wait to try this. Thanks be to Mastrap!

[daimoni]

.

[maxelson]

I now officially belong to the Church of Mastrap.
Seriously. This week, you are my hero.
I will not be making this until there occurs a fine autumn day- bright, sunny, a nice snap to the air, a tinge of woodsmoke, leaves in a deluge of color. Then. THEN...
Mas- I would promote you to minor deity status if you would be so kind as to drop a recipe a week while on your travels. I can do that, you know. I got connections.

[Timo]

OK, I'm thinking: "sellerie" I can figure out. But what is "passata"? Is it


plus Ah?

No?

So I found this:

Q. I have looked on your site for Passata, which is, I now know, like a tomato paste. However my receipe needs 200ml! [a little more than 3/4 cup]. What should I mix with the paste? It is for aubergine [eggplant] and pepper rolls.

A. We didn't really do a brilliant job of answering the earlier question of what passata is, did we? In fact, we wonder now where we looked for the original answer. This time, we looked through more than 30 major Italian cookbooks and reference books, and guess what? No recipes whatever. So that pretty much undoes our earlier answer that passata is a "cooked" tomato paste. There are also very few references. Our leading food dictionaries have no entries, skipping from paskha (a Russian sweet cheese dessert) to passion fruit. An online search (sadly including our own entry) does not inspire confidence.

Finally, we came across two British books A Cook's Guide to Italian Ingredients and La Cucina Italiana that seemed to agree on a definition for passata: "sieved red tomatoes." Depending on the degree of sieving, the pulp can be perfectly smooth (polpa di pomodoro) or slightly chunky (passata rustica). So passata � and this is answer we're going with � is skinned, seedless, unflavored, uncooked tomato pulp, either slightly chunky or smooth.

According to both books, passata is sold in bottles, cans, or cartons. If you can't find it in a store (and none of our online partners sell it), you can drain and sieve canned tomatoes to make passata in any quantity you need. A food mill will work especially well for this. Don't use tomato paste in your recipe, which is both too concentrated and sweet to stand in for passata.

[maxelson]

Thanks, Timo. You saved me the search.

[Sven G]

Originally posted by maxelson:
I now officially belong to the Church of Mastrap.

Anagram: Mastrap = Mr pasta!

[Timo]

Originally posted by Sven G:

Anagram: Mastrap = Mr pasta!

[kenau] W H O A ! [/kenau]

[philzilla]

Originally posted by Timo:
OK, I'm thinking: "sellerie" I can figure out. But what is "passata"?

i can't believe you didn't already know this. dude, even i knew!

[daimoni]

.

[Sven G]

Originally posted by daimoni:


I confess I didn't know either until now. But at least we know how to pronounce oregano properly. Heh. Heh.

Do you spell it "oregano" abroad? In Italy, we say origano!

(Anyway, the pronounciation is something like "o-'ree-ga-know"... )

P.S.: For the culturally driven, here's Bologna's home page:

http://www.comune.bologna.it

[ReggieX]

Holy moly. that sounds AMAZING. Not just the food, either.

[philzilla]

Originally posted by Sven G:
(Anyway, the pronounciation is something like "o-'ree-ga-know"... )

that's funny, because we pronounce it like that here too

[TNproud2b]

Would this be as good as, say, a Jack-in-the-Box egg roll?

[daimoni]

.

[Timo]

Originally posted by TNproud2b:
Would this be as good as, say, a Jack-in-the-Box egg roll?

L O f'ckn' L !