Traditional sauce like Maman taught us

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beef, cooking, dinner, herbs, pork, postaday2013, simmer, tomato sauce

I spent this morning with the baby boy food shopping to get everything necessary to make my mother’s tomato meat sauce, the foundation of her lasagna. It is still cool enough to warrant a nice steaming dish of lasagna and it is one of the best dishes to make in bulk because the second platter is going directly to the freezer. The smell in the kitchen was so delicious, onions and garlic, the two best aromas in the world. The smell became more complex once I introduced pork sausage and ground beef to the onions and the garlic, after I drained the excess fat, that is when the tomatoes joined the party. The accessories that enhance the body of any sauce are the herbs, which in this case were the traditional oregano, basil, bay leaf, crushed red pepper and thyme. The only thing left is to simmer and let your nose enjoy the sweet yet rich smells that start to come together into a singular smell that is tomato meat sauce.

Lasagna is all about great ingredients and assembly, that’s it. I assembled mine with the ready for the oven lasagna pasta, my mother’s sauce, heaps of ricotta, fresh mozzarella, shredded mozzarella and parmesan cheese. The platters each weighed quite a bit, manly dishes, quite hefty and substantial. Homemade sauce and lasagna, all in a day’s work.

This is what’s for dinner tonight

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cooking, dinner, food, menu, porcini, pork, postaday2013

It never fails, around 5:00 p.m every day, if you’re watching t.v, you get a ton of commercials; all asking you the same question “what’s for dinner tonight?” and then they proceed to tell you what you should be buying for dinner tonight. As I was pondering the same old question, none of the commercials gave me inspiration. I knew what I had in the refrigerator but what to do with it? My baby boy is picky about pork; he doesn’t prefer a simple sautéed pork chop. He likes to have something more complex, something saucy. So when in doubt, I fall back on my father’s tried and true mushroom flavored cream sauce, easiest thing to make.

I make it a point to keep dried mushrooms on hand, specifically the dried porcini mushroom, they are mildly flavorful and their texture holds nicely in a sauce. All you need to do is soak them in boiling water for about twenty minutes, the mushrooms will regain their meatiness and you will get flavor from the reconstituting liquid. I sautéed the pork chops until they became a caramelized brown on both sides, by the time that happens they are more or less done, I put them aside and I sauté minced shallots until soft in the same pan that has the drippings of the pork. As the shallots are getting translucent, I add the mushroom liquid and some chicken stock and I let it simmer so that it reduces a little. Once it has simmered for a bit and reduced, I add about a quarter of a cup of heavy cream.My secret ingredient is a splash of white vinegar to offset the cream and give the sauce some oomph. Afterwards, I add the porcini mushrooms and the pork chops with whatever juices to the pan, simmer it for a few minutes and voila it is done. I had string beans left over from last night so there you go, dinner is served.

One thing about the picture showing the chicken stock, there is the small container of veal demi-glace. I chose not to add it at the last minute because I felt that it wasn’t necessary since I had the mushroom infused water and I wanted the mushroom to shine and not be over powered by the veal demi-glace. That is the great thing about cooking, it isn’t constrained at all, you can do whatever you want. It’s up to you.