Tortellini bolognese

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
08/09/2014 at 00:50 • Filed to: foodlopnik

My weekend project was to make a proper !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , from scratch. I put it on some spinach & ricotta tortellini, topped with basil and parmigiano reggiano. Let's just say I'm very happy with the results. I cheated and bought fresh pasta rather than make it. But that sauce though. Oh man.

The secret ingredient in any proper bolognese, by the way, is nutmeg.

DISCUSSION (28)

All Motor Is Best Motor > Textured Soy Protein
08/09/2014 at 00:51

By ragu I hope you don't mean the store bought sauce. That stuff is terrible. In fact, most mainstream sauces are way too tangy/zesty. Red pasta sauces should not be tangy.

sm70- why not Duesenberg? > Textured Soy Protein
08/09/2014 at 00:53

Mmmm. Food.

Textured Soy Protein > All Motor Is Best Motor
08/09/2014 at 00:53

No no no no no.

The only things in this that came from a jar or can were the san marzano tomatoes.

Ragu just means meat sauce.

Manuél Ferrari > Textured Soy Protein
08/09/2014 at 00:55

That's not fair to show that. Now I want some :(

All Motor Is Best Motor > Textured Soy Protein
08/09/2014 at 00:55

Oh okay, good. Impressive you made your own all the way from scratch. The best I've done is an entirely home made alfredo sauce. Is that picture yours or just an example?

Textured Soy Protein > Manuél Ferrari
08/09/2014 at 00:56

I'll fax you some.

Textured Soy Protein > All Motor Is Best Motor
08/09/2014 at 00:56

That's mine. Which I have since eaten.

Manuél Ferrari > Textured Soy Protein
08/09/2014 at 00:57

Deal!

I'll rush in to work right now!

I had some beers though so I might crash. Let everyone know what happened if I died.

Textured Soy Protein > Manuél Ferrari
08/09/2014 at 00:59

Yeah I'm a little buzzed too. I bought 2 bottles of wine—one for the sauce and one to drink.

Manuél Ferrari > Textured Soy Protein
08/09/2014 at 00:59

Good work! That's a smart idea.

Hopefully the one you cooked with was cheaper than the one you drank

Textured Soy Protein > Manuél Ferrari
08/09/2014 at 01:00

Yeah, it was like a 7 dollar bottle in the sauce, and a 13 dollar bottle to drink. Nothing crazy.

Manuél Ferrari > Textured Soy Protein
08/09/2014 at 01:02

That is smart spending

I usually don't spend more than $12-15 bucks on wine. $20 at most. I'm not cultured enough to taste the difference between a $20 bottle and a $50 bottle

nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul > Textured Soy Protein
08/09/2014 at 01:03

it's like 1 am and you're showing me made from scratch bolognese on top of some tortellini? Why not show me Kaley Cuoco topless holding a bottle of single barrel scotch, on a Countach.

Be considerate next time geez.

Textured Soy Protein > nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul
08/09/2014 at 01:05

Someone call Kaley Cuoco, we need to make that happen!

All Motor Is Best Motor > Textured Soy Protein
08/09/2014 at 01:06

Amazing! Looks like it's from a 5 star restaurant. Great presentation!

Textured Soy Protein > Manuél Ferrari
08/09/2014 at 01:08

Sometimes I pop for the fancy stuff. I've got a really great liquor store near me where if you spend about $30 or so a bottle you can get some ridiculous wine. One time I found a particularly good cabernet that was $36 a bottle—I liked it so much I bought a case.

Textured Soy Protein > All Motor Is Best Motor
08/09/2014 at 01:09

Thanks. I spent some time cooking in a semi-fancy restaurant. But mostly I'm just a food nerd.

All Motor Is Best Motor > Textured Soy Protein
08/09/2014 at 01:11

I'm a food nerd too, but I'm too lazy to cook most of the time, so instead I waste money on delicious ethnic foods. I'm also a pretty lousy cook anyway.

nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul > Textured Soy Protein
08/09/2014 at 01:13

that or someone needs to get some bolognese tortellini here. Quite frankly I don't care which at this point but if you want to see the look of sheer happiness you'll have Kaley Cuoco on a countach, topless, with a bottle of single barrel scorch and a plate of home made bolognese tortellini while hail to the chief is playing.

You're welcome

Kinja'd!!!

Manuél Ferrari > Textured Soy Protein
08/09/2014 at 01:15

good stores like that are the bomb!

Textured Soy Protein > All Motor Is Best Motor
08/09/2014 at 01:22

I'm lucky in that spending too much time in the kitchen is relaxing to me.

I read so much about food, and have cooked so much stuff, that most of the time I don't really work from recipes—unless I write them myself.

So for example, this bolognese, I just made based on various ideas for bolognese that I've read about, but no recipe or measuring. For something like this that takes a long time to cook, I just get it going and then adjust seasoning as needed.

Oh, and this is the first time I've made it.

Baking is another story. Usually I find a recipe, do it once how the recipe says, then tweak based on how I know things will work. But like, ratios of flour, water, yeast, leavening, etc are not things I have rattling around in my head.

All Motor Is Best Motor > Textured Soy Protein
08/09/2014 at 01:29

I wish there was an easy guide that explained how various spices and ingredients affect food. For example, what does using more yeast in a baking recipe do? Or how do I accentuate some flavor in a dish (given that I know the ingredients)?

Textured Soy Protein > All Motor Is Best Motor
08/09/2014 at 01:55

A lot of that comes down to trial and error and figuring out how different ingredients taste.

The best advice I can give is to work from recipes to start with, and smell and taste everything at each step. Smell and taste individual ingredients before you add them in. Taste your food after you add particular ingredients. Remember those smells and tastes.

Also there's tons of information out there to just read up on. I mostly keep an eye on Serious Eats, Saveur and Food52. But I'll get ideas from recipe sites like Food Network and Epicurious also.

As for yeast...it works on fermentation. Yeast eats sugar and farts out carbon dioxide. The more yeast you use in a dough, the more sugar you feed it, and the more time you give it to rise, the more CO2 the yeast produces. The yeast itself also has a particular flavor.

Baking is its whole own thing though. With my general cooking skills, I can bake pretty well, but it's not something I can just do off the top of my head. I envy bakers, they're mad scientists.

All Motor Is Best Motor > Textured Soy Protein
08/09/2014 at 02:01

I definitely follow recipes, but I'm always unsure of if I'm doing things exactly right. Especially when the directions are more vague like "sear for xxx amount of time" or "blanch the vegetables". I had to look up how to cream butter and sugar properly when I started making banana bread for the holidays each year and I'm still not confident it's actually "creamed", though the bread seems to come out nicely anyway. I've always wanted to try and make the bread "heavier" and more dense but I don't know how. The best banana bread I've had from restaurants is very heavy, thick, and moist (without being undercooked) aside from obviously good flavor.

All Motor Is Best Motor > nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul
08/09/2014 at 02:02

You just gave me a new bedtime fantasy.

All Motor Is Best Motor > nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul
08/09/2014 at 02:03

That's not really her body, is it?

nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul > All Motor Is Best Motor
08/09/2014 at 02:18

I'm jaded enough to be ok with believe it is

Svend > Textured Soy Protein
08/09/2014 at 02:46

That's one thing I do well (ruddy well), Italian food.

I love Italian food and will happily spend all day in the kitchen getting it right and with a nice Chianti Classico can really set the evening off.