easy tomato meat sauce
Pretty much stuck at home today because of the ice on the hill outside the house and after shoveling off the sidewalk I did not want to work too hard in the kitchen tonight.
So I did a quick dig through the pantry, fridge, and freezer to see what would make a nice meal. I had a 1/2 can of tomatoes left over from making the red sauce for chicken enchiladas, some ground lamb in the freezer, and a 1/2 package of spagetti noodles; so I decided to put them to good use.
Servings:
2 to 4
Preparation Time:
1 hours
Tools
- 3 qt. saucier (or other wide flat sauce pan) w/ lid
- liquid measuring cup
- measuring spoons
- cutting board & knife
- grater
- wooden spoon
Ingredients
- 1/4 c. chicken stock
- 1 t. porcini powder
- 1/2 t. dry thyme leaves, rubbed
- 1/4 t. aleppo chile flakes
- 1 T. olive oil
- 1/2 large yellow onion, minced
- 1/2 carrot, finely grated
- 1 t. kosher salt
- 1/2 lb. frozen, lean ground lamb
- 1/2 t. fresh ground pepper
- 3 large garlic cloves, smashed & minced
- 3 tomatoes, chopped
- 1 c. tomato juice
- 2 T. wine
- 1 t. fish sauce
Cooking Instructions
- Place the pan over a medium-low heat.
- Heat the chicken stock to boiling in a pyrex measuring cup (less than 1 minute in the microwave on high).
- Carefully remove the stock from the microwave and stir in the porcini powder, rubbed thyme leaves and leave to steep.
- Prepare the onion and carrot.
- Add the oil to the pan (it should start to shimmer right away) and swirl to coat the bottom of the pan with the oil.
- Place the onion, carrot, and salt into the pan and stir to combine.
- Place the ground lamb into the pan and cover.
- Every couple of minutes turn over the ground lamb, scrape off the cooked meat, crumble it, and stir it into the onion and carrot.
- When the lamb is almost completely cooked, remove the lid, and let it cook for 15 minutes, stiring occasionally, until it starts to look a little dry.
- (Start boiling the water for your pasta.)
- Smash and mince the garlic cloves and stir them and the pepper into the lamb. Let it heat through until you can smell the garlic.
- Cut the tomatoes in half, remove the seeds, then chop the tomatoes into fairly small pieces.
- Stir the tomatoes, tomato juice, and chicken stock into the lamb.
- Let it simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.
- (Add the pasta to the water.)
- Add the wine and fish sauce and cook for another 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.
Notes
The time breaks in this recipe were so I had time to put together a green salad and fry up some brocoli with some chili-garlic paste.
portlandpiper – Wed, 2007 – 01 – 17 19:59