minced beef – 好心人

Ragu Pasta with Poached Egg

July 4, 2015 by Ho Lang

Ragu Pasta with Poached Egg

I love Italian cooking and always love trying new recipes and different styles of cooking traditional dishes. This is an improvised Ragu Pasta recipe from my friend and mentor Joe Kwan and his lovely wife Winkie.

They cooked this delicious Ragu Pasta for our social last weekend and it was such a subtle dish that I too wanted to recreate it for our dinner tonight. Truly it was wholesome Italian cooking, peppered with lots of unmerited flavour.

It’s fairly easy to cook although the poached egg part requires a little skill. Typically to poach an egg, you have to add a little vinegar into a pot of boiling water and stir the water so that the egg retains its shape and slowly cooks. But because I needed to quickly cook and make sure that dinner was served on time, I took some short cuts. Read on to find out how it is done, the ho sim lang way.

Recipe

Ingredients

250 grams Minced Beef
125 grams Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese
1 box of Barilla Friget Penne
1 can of Anchovies
Handful of Pine Nuts
2 stalks Sweet Basil Leaves
2 stalks Flat Leaf Parsley (aka Italian parsley)
1 large Yellow Onion (I was supposed to be using a French Shallot and a Red Onion)
1 piece Bay Leaf
1 bottle of Barilla Bolognese Sauce
1 bowl of Sweet Cherry Tomatoes
1 cup of Cabnernet Sauvignon red wine
3 tbsp Olive Oil (and some for cooking the pasta)
Black Pepper
Sea Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. Pour the box of penne dried pasta into the pot. Add a little salt and olive oil. Add the kettle of boiling water and cook the pasta for 11 minutes to al dente or longer if you like.

2. While the pasta is cooking, add salt and pepper to the minced beef and give it a good mix. In a small frying pan, roast the pine nuts until they are brown. After the pasta is cooked, scoop the pasta and dry them out in a colander but reserve the water in a bowl.

3. Wash the pot and then add olive oil. After you have marinated the beef for about 10 minutes, fry the beef in the pot over low fire. While that is cooking, cut and chop the onion. Slice the cherry tomatoes and tear up the parsley leaves and basil leaves.

4. Add the prepared ingredients including the roasted pine nuts, into the pot and stir fry, turning up the heat a little. Add the can of anchovies along with the olive oil in the can into the pot. Continue to stir fry until the onions are softened and you can smell the fragrance of the beef sauce. Add a cup of red wine. You can use any red wine. Add a bay leaf. Continue to cook over a medium fire. Do this until the wine evaporates and the sauce thickens.

5. Add the bottle of bolognese into the pot and cook with the minced beef sauce, maintain medium heat over the pot.

6. In another smaller pot with boiling hot water but with the fire off, poach two eggs. You can crack an egg into cling wrap, give the package a twist and then sous vide the egg in the water bath until it is cooked. Depending on your preference, the eggs can be either firm or watery-runny.

7. Once the Ragu sauce is ready, add the cooked penne pasta into the pot and give it a good mix. Add the reserved broth of pasta water into the pot to allow the sauce to combine with the pasta easily.

8. Once pasta is well mixed with the Ragu sauce, grate the entire block of Parmigiano Reggiano (aka Parmesan) cheese into the pasta and give it another good mix.

9. Serve the pasta with additional parsley and basil leaves and gently place the poached eggs into the pasta. Serve hot.

Bon Appetit!

Roast the pine nuts until they start to brown.

Cook the penne 11 minutes

Marinate the minced beef with salt and black pepper.

Chop the yellow onion

Slice cherry tomatoes into halves.

Sweet Basil Leaves

Italian parsley and a can of anchovies.

Stir Fry the ingredients

Preparing to poach the egg in cling wrap.

Twist it into a small package for the water bath.

In a hot water bath, poach the eggs to desired doneness.

Grate the entire block of Parmigiano reggiano cheese into the pasta.

Deliciously yummy Ragu Pasta with poached egg.

Spaghetti Bolognese

November 29, 2014 by Ho Lang

Spaghetti Bolognese

I learnt how to make Pasta when I went overseas to study in Australia. And one of the few things that I learnt as a student was learning how to cook Pasta. I used to live in student housing just off campus in a very small property. There were quite a few Singaporeans residing there as well, so it wasn’t so tough for me especially dealing with homesickness and loneliness. Ah, those bittersweet days.

One of the first few foreign friends that I made in the first couple of months was this Tongan bloke by the name of Ma’afu. He was studying to become Pastor and was attending seminary school elsewhere. He was part-timing as a tutor for the students that lived in that property, kind of like a property manager. We became friends, and on one occasion, he taught me how to make Pasta.

For him, pasta was actually Spaghetti Bolognese. Of course I didn’t know any better, so I just follow lor (Singaporeans were very good at doing that.) So as soon as I learnt how to actually do it, I never forgot it. That’s the one thing that I never really understood about myself. I just needed to see a recipe once and it would retain in my memory. It’s been more than 20 years, but I can still remember how it was supposed to be done.

From that time until now, I have also learnt a whole lot more about food handling and how to extenuate the natural flavours of the ingredients that I was using, and that helped too. The key I believe is to use fresh minced beef, and nothing comes as fresh as the minced beef from Cold Storage. I like shopping at Cold Storage, the ingredients there are somehow fresher. The only bad thing about them is that they are a lot more expensive.

So wifey said that she would like to eat Pasta, and for me the decision to make it is a no-brainer – it has to be Spaghetti Bolognese.

Here’s how it is done.

Recipe

Ingredients

Half a box of Barilla Spaghetti – cooks in 5 minutes

150 grams Minced Beef

A punnet of White Button Mushrooms

4 pieces of Garlic

A bottle of Prego Pasta Sauce (Traditional)

Olive Oil

Butter (salted)

Sea Salt

White Pepper

bunch of Basil Leaves

Sharp Cheddar & Mozzarella Cheese mix

Method

1. Boil a pot of water for the cooking of the spaghetti sticks. They should be done in 5 minutes if you want them to be Al Dente. Remember to add some oil and sea salt into the pot. This helps the pasta to not stick together and it also flavours the pasta. If you don’t really like it Al Dente, you can opt to cook it a minute or two longer. Quart the mushrooms, and then fry them in about 30 grams of butter in a small pot. Fry until you can smell the mushrooms. Then off the fire and reserve the mushrooms one side.

2. Place the minced beef in a bowl and add a pinch of salt and white pepper. Mix the salt and the pepper into the minced beef and let it marinate the meat for about 5-10 minutes. Mince the garlic and then fry them in a wok with about 2-3 tbsp of oil. Fry until the fragrance of the garlic comes out. Then add the marinated minced beef in the wok to fry. Don’t fry too long. Just until it turns from reddish to light brown. Then add the buttered mushrooms into the wok and continue to fry under medium heat.

3. Then add the pasta sauce into the wok and cook until the sauce starts to bubble slightly. Then add the basil leaves and continue to cook over low heat. The pasta should be either Al Dente or softened by this time (it’s all about timing it properly). With a food tong, serve the pasta onto the plate, there should be about enough for two servings and a little more. Measure them out if you like, about 170 grams (ideal) or equally. Then ladle the sauce over the pasta and top it with sharp cheddar and mozzarella cheese mix. Easy.

Bon Appetit!!