[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAzGLxBhJeY&w=560&h=315]
On my first show I talked about a basic marinara sauce. Here are a few words plus the ingredients for each recipe!
My basic marinara sauce usually contains a piece of chicken, as mentioned in the video our family uses chicken in the sauce to ‘sweeten’ it. We never make a vegetarian sauce, but it can be made that way easily. I cannot stress enough how important it could be to use organic tomatoes. Tomatoes get 35 different pesticides, and with stores like Aldi’s offering store brand versions they are becoming very reasonable in price. Onions however, are not susceptible to pesticides so conventional onions are just fine! If I am making meatballs I usually bake them on my broiler pan and then finish cooking in my sauce, sausage and ground chuck are also cooked before putting in the sauce. Any decent Italian will tell you you must flavor the meat before putting in the sauce! I always save leftover sauce in the freezer, even if it is a small amount. I always have a few small snack bags of sauce tucked away for when the kids want fried mozzarella.
Basic marinara ingredients: (in order in the video) pesto, diced onions, sliced garlic, salt, pepper, tomatoes, oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, and turmeric.
Carbonara was first created in Rome, Italy in the mid 20th century. The word is likely from carbonaro meaning ‘charcoal burner’ and is thought to be “coal miners pasta”. Guanciale was the original meat used which is a bacon made from pork jowl, most use pancetta or bacon. Bacon and eggs, provided by American soldiers after WW2, made the dish sought after and popular. If you use cream, or just making with egg and worried about scrambling your eggs, you can temper the eggs with hot cream or pasta water to slowly warm them before adding to the hot pan. Any type of pasta shape can be used for this sauce.
Carbonara sauce ingredients: pancetta (bacon or guanciale), salt, pepper, egg yolks and fresh chopped parsley.
Please let me know if you have any questions! Ciao!