Come on Chefs of PH - what am I missing

[The Moose]

Right, I wanna make a pasta and meat dish.

I'm going with something slightly unusual here - I'm going to get some pasta (exact sort yet to be determined) and cook that up as normal.

(fairly simple so far...!!!)

Then I'm going to cook up a couple of mince meat burgers and a really nice sausage or two (butchers meat - I know what I'm getting there).

Anyway, I want to cut the burgers up into 1/6ths or maybe 1/8ths and the sausages into 1/4s and whack them into a big bowl with the pasta, toss them around (a bit like a salad) and dish up like that.

What I'm lacking is inspiration of what to use as a sauce. I really like the flavor of the meat and the pasta together, but think there needs to be something subtle to tie the two together. I was thinking just the cooking juices from the meat, but that could be a bit minging really?? I don't really want to go down the tomato route. Obviously a white/creamy sauce is a defo no-no. And also obviously, this does indeed sound a little like a glorified spaghetti and meat balls (which I guess it is), but I havn't tried a sauce that I really love.

Or am I being silly and just have the meat and the pasta?

On a side note, what would the PHer Chefs views on whacking some veggies in there as well (poss peas, carrots or similar)??

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated... I think a trial run is definitely going to have to be done!

Cheers

The Moose

[grumbledoak]

Your doing "Pasta Meata Balla!", whether you like it or not. Normally a tomato based sauce, but you could spice it up with some chilli.

The fat-tongued mockney does it here: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-recipes/m...

[Cactussed]

Add something green (I'd use broccoli or mange tout), some garlic and olive oil and that's about it. If the sausage isn't spicy, then I'd also add some fresh chilli, no seeds and finely diced. That's it.

[Odie]

Why not go with a traditional italian style meal, where you have 2 courses as part of your main.

Pasta Course (decent pasta with a nice but sparse pesto sauce)

Meat Course (Chicken Breast, nice piece of meat or A nice fish fillet with a sparse amount of veg maybe 3-4 boiled new potatoes or some carrots maybe 5-6 small carrots)

Dont forget, decent parmasene (sp) & nice olive oil.


ETA and something on topic - Sauces what about a fruit sauce? apple, orange? Depends on the meat of the sausages and burgers if its beef how about a mild mustard sauce? How about adding some olives and a bit of side salad, with a nice dressing.

Edited by Odie on Monday 27th July 12:26

[bridgdav]

If you like the tastes of the meat why mix them.
You'll have big chunks of meat in the dish, probably sitting on top of the pasta, unless you have big pasta.

I suggest a pasta based dish with subtle flavours, then put the meats on top.

Make a basic thin Sauce from Olive Oil and any of these:

Pesto
Chillis
Spices
Herb Based
Garlic
Red / White Wine

You could also cook the pasta in water adding any of the above to flavour, complimenting the meats..?
Toss the cooked Pasta in a wok with the oil and additional ingedients.

Serve

[grumbledoak]

Odie said:

Sauces what about a fruit sauce? apple, orange?

And it (your post) was going so well! Right up to this point.

Burger and Sausagemeat "a l'orange" with pasta?

[AndyAudi]

I stuck Meatballs & Whisky Sauce onto this forum a few weeks back. Very Tasty .

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/xforums/topic.asp?h=0...

[The Moose]

LOL @ ^^!! *

The one thing I did forget to mention is that I'm not a fan of chili at all and therefore try to avoid that if possible! :P

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if tomato is the way...even though I would rather not.

A very meaty bolognaise sauce may work with the chunks of burger/sausage being the main bit of meat (if you like)...I think I'm going to have to get cracking with some attempts at this!!

Cheers

The Moose

ETA: * actually at grumbledoak

Edited by The Moose on Monday 27th July 12:46

[The Moose]

AndyAudi said:

I stuck Meatballs & Whisky Sauce onto this forum a few weeks back. Very Tasty .

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/xforums/topic.asp?h=0...

Sounds really good!! How long did you boil off the whiskey for?? Also, what sort of cream did you whack in and roughly how much?! (I hate not knowing details!!) Did you not season with any herbs/spices??

Cheers

The Moose

[escargot]

onions & garlic gently fried in olive oil (very gently - you don't want to get the olive oil too hot at all) then pour over the pasta.

[The Moose]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Cheeky barsteward!!

I don't like chilli...I will eat tomato, but just don't fancy it for this!!

Cheers

The Moose

[Lefty Guns]

I once had pasta with fillet steak and a cream/black-pepper sauce in a pub in Seascale (Cumbria). It was, unusual. But not nasty.

[AndyAudi]

The Moose said:

AndyAudi said:

I stuck Meatballs & Whisky Sauce onto this forum a few weeks back. Very Tasty .

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/xforums/topic.asp?h=0...

Sounds really good!! How long did you boil off the whiskey for?? Also, what sort of cream did you whack in and roughly how much?! (I hate not knowing details!!) Did you not season with any herbs/spices??

Cheers

The Moose

Whisky doesn't need long before it "vanishes" (Don't inhale incase you fall over)
About 1/4pt of single cream is enough for 2, it colours really quickly with the /meat juice/onion/mushroom/whisky mix, one heated through you're done. (Use the pan after taking the meat out to rest)
Only seasoning was a plenty rough ground mixed peppercorns (giving specks of colour)
I'm not one for a sauce as such more a "coating" on the pasta.

[num2uk]

I would go for a variation of this Jamie Oliver recipe, have tried it myself and with good quality sausages it's excellent. Would think you could adjust it for what you wanted to do.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-recipes/p...

ETA Just read you don't like chili. Would think it would work OK without the chili, this just adds a bit of heat.

Edited by num2uk on Monday 27th July 13:05

[LeoZwalf]

My OH does this one every so often. Bit of sausage with pasta is lovely, this is what she (and now I!) does:

Squeeze sausage meat out of the sausage skin.
Chop an onion, chuck it in a pan with the sausage meat.
Open tin of chopped tomatoes, whack them in the pan with the onions and turn the heat down.
Let the onion/sausage/toms mixture reduce down so the wateryness of the toms is no longer. Add a sprinkling of salt and grind some pepper in.
Cook pasta (spaghetti usually seems to work best with this dish).
When pasta is al dente, mix it in with the reduced onion/sausage/toms mixture.

Job done! Upon serving, drop a a few leaves of fresh basil grate and a generous sprinkling of fresh parmesan on top.

[RDM]

I always find throwing in some capers to a recipe like that really adds
to it.

[chard]

1 tin of anchovies in oil (odd I know but it works)
4 cloves garlic
1 large fresh chilli

Chop them well will plenty of oil + add meat.

[Cactussed]

chard said:

1 tin of anchovies in oil (odd I know but it works)
4 cloves garlic
1 large fresh chilli

Chop them well will plenty of oil + add meat.

I LIKE this idea!

[Wadeski]

Nigel Slater does a good recipe thats similar with sausage meat, garlic, cream, black pepepr and herbs.

its lovely