It’s been a busy week and we’ve not cooked half the meals we planned for; however we did get time to cook a recipe from Jamie’s dinners: Pasta with sweet tomato sauce and baked ricotta.
Throughout every book, Jamie frequently boasts about his brilliant, ‘simple’ tomato sauce, but having tried it a couple of times it never ends up as great as the description. Either his recipe is wrong or we’re missing something, so inspired by his ‘bit of this, handful of that’ approach we made the dish with our own instead. It’s really yummy so I’ll post it here sometime.
The dish starts with softening onions, then making a tomato sauce, sweetening it with a small amount of sugar, adding some balsamic vinegar and mixing with cooked tagliatelle. Finally, top with pieces of the ricotta, which had been baked in the oven with chilli, s&p and olive oil.
I’ve been burned (proverbially) by following some of Jamie’s instructions to the letter, including making pizza dough when I created a well of flour and salt and poured the water in the middle – the barrier burst and I ended up covering the worktop and floor with yeasty water. This time, after baking the ricotta, he instructs you to ‘crumble it’ over the the pasta. Asbestos fingers perhaps, so I picked at it with a spoon to get lots of small-ish pieces. It still ended up looking presentable.
The good news is that both Kitty and I enjoyed it. Pasta and a simple tomato sauce is delicious as it is, but the ricotta added both texture and flavour to the dish and I’m sure we will cook it again.
Recipe Reviews 