Journal Alioth's Journal: Spaghetti Sauce 3
A couple of weeks back I went to an Italian restaurant with some friends from work. I had a salmon dish (since I don't speak Italian, I can't exactly remember what it was called) - basically, salmon fillet baked with lemon. The side was spaghetti and spaghetti sauce. Two thoughts struck me: (1) the food is incredible and (2) it can't be at all difficult to make at home.
So I made it. What makes it really is the contrast between the lemoned salmon's tartness and texture, and the sweetness of the spaghetti and sauce. I just guessed at what to do with the salmon and it turned out good. The spaghetti sauce - I had a look at various recipes on the internet, and in the tradition of open sauce (yes, go on, groan now) I decided to use ideas from several to come up with sauce code (yes, groan again) that I thought I'd like best. And in those traditions of Free Sauceware, I'll share what I did...
The salmon is easy, each salmon fillet (adjust quantities to taste, but I reckon this is a good starting point)
* 1 salmon fillet
* About a tablespoon of olive oil
* A thin slice of lemon
* About 2 tsp of lemon juice
* Just a pinch of sea salt
Wrap in foil and put in the oven for 20 mins at 180 celsius (if you have a fan oven). I found it was good to prepare the lemon and salmon in the morning and let it sit and marinade until the evening.
The spaghetti sauce (enough for 4 people, or two very hungry people):
* 500g small (cherry) tomatoes
* 1 tube (about 150g) tomato puree (if in your locality it's called tomato paste, make sure it contains nothing but tomato)
* 2 tsp brown sugar
* 1 tablespoon basil
* 2 tablespoons rosemary
* 5 cloves of garlic (or to taste), finely chopped
* 4 tablespoons of olive oil
* 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
* 1 onion
Chop the tomatoes (into quarters I think is best), slice and dice the onion into small bits, and chop the garlic finely. (I have a device with a handle on that you wind for mashing garlic rapidly into small bits, I don't know what it's called - I inherited it from my grandfather and it's at least 40 years old but it's so insanely useful I'm sure they are still available today) and put in a bowl and add the rest of the ingredients. Then give it a good stir. Once again, I found it was best to prepare it in the morning and allow it to fester in its own juices until dinner time.
To cook, put in a pan and stir on a medium heat until it's ready. Generally it should take less time than the actual spaghetti.
The way the Italian restaurant served this was to leave the salmon in its foil, sitting in the lemon juice and olive oil and serve the spaghetti and sauce as a side. I think that works very well.
Mmmmmmm tasty (Score:2)
Sounds delicious!
Tomato Puree (Score:2)
Wikipedia claims that over here in the US we've got a "Tomato Puree" that is different from paste or sauce, but I've never heard of it.
Also, "garlic mashers" are usually called garlic presses [google.com], but I've never seen one that you "wind". It sounds like what you've got there is a cylindrical/rotary grater [chefscatalog.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, that's the one, cylindrical grater. Except it's all metal and not as streamlined as the one in the picture on that webpage :-)