No cooks repertoire is complete without a good pasta marinara.
For dinner tonight will be making pasta with marinara sauce Roaming Gallivants style. We’re using some great pasta, a hollow spaghetti that is extra long called Bucatini Lunghi, from a company called Setaro.
1 green bell pepper
1 small to medium onion
1 bunch celery (more leaves the better)
4-5 cloves of fresh garlic (not whole peeled from a jar)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
5-10 white button mushrooms
16 Oz can Whole Peeled tomatoes (not the kind with basil added)
1 wedge of Pecorino Romano or Parmesan
Salt
Pepper
I should mention that aside from browning the garlic, Roaming Gallivants always cook with the burner on high!
Mise en place – Onion, Celery tops, Green Bell Pepper, and Mushrooms
Dice 1 small to medium onion and put aside.
Mince the top half of 1 small to medium celery bunch (including leaves – the leaves have the most flavor) and put aside.
Dice one green pepper (minus the seeds and white veins inside) and put aside.
Slice 5-10 white button mushrooms and put aside.
Pour a healthy 4-5 count of extra virgin olive oil into a sauce pan (do not substitute vegetable oil. In a pinch you may substitute butter)
Peel four or five whole garlic cloves. I like to give them a little bit of light mash just to open them up. Lightly brown them in the olive oil over low heat (don’t smoke the oil and don’t burn those cloves.)
4-5 cloves in extra virgin oil on low heat
Remove the garlic from the oil when it’s browned. Keep them back and add them back in later after the tomatoes.
Next add in the onions and celery and bell peppers with a little pinch of salt to help them along. Sweat them in the oil over medium to high heat taking care not to brown the onions. Sauté until slightly translucent.
Next add the mushrooms and mix well with your oil, onion, celery, and green pepper mix. Sweat those mushrooms until they get soft making sure not to burn them if you’re cooking in the Roaming Gallivant Style (high flame), you’ll need to constantly stir this to make sure your onions don’t brown. Proceed to the next step without removing the onion, celery, pepper, and mushroom from the pan.
Onions, celery, and green bell peppers into the garlic infused olive oil
De glaze the sauce pan with the juice from the can a little bit at a time until its all in, chunks and all. Mash up the chunks and whole tomatoes as you put it in with the edge of your spoon leave them large.
Salt-and-pepper to taste
Do not boil this sauce just bring it up to a nice heat and then turn off the flame and cover while you make the pasta. This sauce is a fresh green sauce and should not be heavily cooked.
To cook the pasta:
Please note. The pasta water should be well salted (the water should taste like the Sea). Never ever break the pasta before you put it in the water.
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil.
Add the pasta and stir for at least the first two minutes to make sure it doesn’t stick.
Cover the pot to bring it back up to boil.
Keep tasting the pasta as it cooks and when it has reached Al Dente strain the pasta and retain a cup of the water (in case you need to thin your sauce).
Do not rinse the pasta but immediately toss the pasta in some sauce in a pan to impregnate the sauce into the pasta.
Serve in a bowl or on a plate with several scoops of the sauce.
Grate cheese and grind some black pepper.
Eat!
Serve with freshly grated Pecorino Romano and black pepper
Reading this post while hungry is pure torture!!