Red Wine Pasta Sauce

Boredom is a powerful motivator. Well, it is for me. Some of us find that boredom motivates sitting slack-jawed and staring at the nearest wall, or television, whichever comes first. It was a sense of gustatory boredom which set me virtually thumbing through the pages of Nibbledish for recipes. Of course, since I'm in Japan, I had to make a fair number of modifications to use food stuffs that I can actually purchase without going to an import shop and/or spending my nest egg. Here's the original recipe on Nibbledish which includes such exotic items (for me) as Italian sausage and celery (which I hate, and costs a lot, so I skipped it).

Here is my modified recipe:

• 3/4-1 lb. ground pork (depends on how meaty you want your sauce)
  
• 1/2 large onion (or 1 small one)
• 1/2 large carrot
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 fresh tomatoes
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1/4 tsp. dried sweet basil
• 3/4 tsp. dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp. dried parsley
• 1/4 tsp. (fine) hot pepper flakes
• 2 tbsp. all purpose flour
• 1 cup red wine
• 1/3 cup whole cream
• salt to taste (I used about a teaspoon)

Preheat a large skillet so that it is good and hot before you add the meat. There is no need to add oil to the pan! Cook the ground pork over medium to medium-high heat until slightly browned. Drain off as much fat as possible. While the pork is cooking, cut the onion into quarters and pulse in a food processor to coarsely chop. Add the onion to the cooked pork and stir in.

While the onion is cooking, peel the garlic clove and blitz it in the food processor until it's in tiny pieces (or mince it with a garlic press). Peel and slice the carrot and toss it into the food processor and process it until it is in tiny pieces. Add the carrot and garlic to the pork and onion mixture. Stir well and allow to cook for about 5-10 minutes.

Sprinkle the flour onto the top of the meat then stir well to mix. Add the red wine and allow the mixture to cook and thicken such that the wine reduces by at least a third. Add the canned tomatoes and dry spices (except the salt) to the mixture. Core and quarter the fresh tomatoes and puree them well. Add to the mixture, heat to a vigorous simmer, cover, and lower the heat. Allow the sauce to gently simmer for about a half hour. The carrots should be cooked and the flavors developed. At this point, taste and add salt as needed. Finally, stir in the whole cream. Serve over your favorite pasta.

If you think the flavors are too strong, you can add more cream than I did, but I liked it fine as is. This makes an immense amount of sauce. I'd guess that this is the equivalent of two big jars, only with a lot more heft because of the meat.


I'm sure the wine features heavily into the final taste profile. I used part of a bottle red wine our landlord gave us as a gift. It's pretty good wine, or at least Shawn tells me. I actually hate wine. Just a sniff of it makes me want to stick my tongue out and go "bleeech." However, it was damn good in this sauce.

by Shari (Orchid64)