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| The keema pasta that I cooked for dinner |
A lot of the pasta dishes that I write about feature fancy meats – duck sausages from Italy, wild boar sausages from France, pork choriz Spain. We pick these up during our travels and are also fortunate to have friends who bring them for us. The flavours that these meats add to a pasta dish are indeed exceptional.
Does that mean that I never cook pasta with ‘regular’ meats?
Well, last night was once such instance when I did so. K wanted pasta. There was regular mutton (goat meat) keema at home. I requested Banu to wash the keema and keep it ready for me and boil some spaghetti and keep a bit of the water in which it was boiled.
I came home and made a simple pasta with the keema and it did turn out to be pretty decent.
I admit that I used some of the remaining cow’s milk cheese from Nice that was still at home but you can make this pasta with regular ingredients like keema and local cheese too. I used a dash of ketchup which food snobs might look down upon. So this a no-pretence pasta and is easy to make.
I am sharing the recipe in case you want to try it yourself. This is my recipe by the way and I am not making any claims of it being Italian or stuff
Recipe
Ingredients (for 2)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, 1 garlic clove, 250 g minced meat, 1/2 teaspoon dried herbs – oregano, rosemary, chilli flakes (pizza sachet stuff), 1 tablespoon ketchup, 75 g spaghetti boiled as per pack instructions and keep a bit of the water it was boiled in, 100 g cheese, 1 teaspoon salt
Cook:
– heat extra virgin olive oil. Add some garlic into the oil to balance the flavours of meat
– add the minced meat/ keema
– add some dried oregano, rosemary, thyme, chilli flakes to the meat and stir till cooked. You will know its cooked when the meat turns from pink to light brown. Some fresh herbs like basil or parsley would be nice to add too
– add a bit of ketchup for tanginess and sweet
– add the spaghetti and some salt and some of the water in which the spaghetti was boiled
– toss the spaghetti and meat together for a couple of minutes and then switch off the flame.
– add grated cheese and some more extra virgin olive oil to the pasta and eat
I did a Periscope live video while I cooked which you can catch here
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| Keema pasta. Cooked in about ten minutes with preboiled spaghetti |
Tomato ketchup in spaghetti really transforms the dish, especially when you allow it to cook a bit instead of just tossing the spaghetti. I discovered this by accident when trying to replicate spaghetti I had in Venice and it turned out close to it. Experiment and do not hesitate to substitute with local ingredients is what I believe in too.
Lot of food geeks look down upon ketchup but its quite a useful ingredient. ITC Sonar, a hotel in Kolkata does wonderful stuff to smoked hilsa fish by adding a bit of ketchup and Worcester sauce (not 100 pc sure of the latter)…I agree on the local ingredients bit too. I think that was the focus of the famous chef (from Noma?) who did a pop up at Australia recently using Aussie ingredients