Bloody Mary Sauce with Bucatini Pasta

To download a copy of the recipe for Bloody Mary Sauce with Pasta, click HERE.

A recent post that featured chicken sauce served with linguini  received a great response from readers. Today’s recipe is for another sauce that’s both delicious and just a bit unusual. It’s based on the unique flavors of a classic Bloody Mary, and is quite easy to make from scratch.

Some Cook’s Notes before we begin.

• The base sauce used in this recipe is an easy tomato sauce we’ll make from scratch. If you prefer not to make your own tomato sauce and want to purchase a jar of sauce instead, that will work also. You’ll need about three cups of the base sauce.

• Although the sauce can be used with any pasta you like (or anywhere else you might want to use a good tomato sauce), in this post I’ve selected bucatini. If you love pasta and have never had bucatini, you’re missing out on a real treat. It’s a long pasta, a good bit thicker than spaghetti, that has a small hollow through the middle. This makes the bucatini a thick-walled tube that has a wonderful mouth-feel and that holds sauce very well. (The photo at right shows what this looks like.)

• As you might expect, one of the ingredients of Bloody Mary Sauce is vodka. If you prefer to make a Virgin Mary sauce, just replace the 1 cup of vodka with ½ cup of tomato juice, and skip the cooking-down-the-vodka step.

• This recipe makes about three cups of sauce. That’s twice as much as you’ll need to sauce one pound of pasta. The recipe provides an overview of the canning process for saving the unused sauce (or for saving the entire batch for future use). Refer to other published sources for additional details.

This recipe makes about three cups of sauce.

We’ll start by making the base sauce:

Put the contents of a 28 ounce can of tomatoes, including the juice, into a non-metallic bowl. You can either use crushed tomatoes or, if using whole tomatoes, crush them with your hand.

Add 1 small grated carrot; 1 large rib of celery, chopped; 1 Tbsp chopped onion; 4 minced cloves of garlic; 9 ounces of tomato paste (that’s 1-1/2 six ounce cans); 1-1/2 tsp dried basil; 1 Tbsp sugar; and a pinch of chili powder to the bowl.

Put the mixture through a food mill. (If your food mill has more than choice of orifice plate, use the plate with the widest holes.) Scrape the underside of the orifice plate into the milled mixture. Discard the remaining solids in the bowl of the food mill.

Add 2 tsp of olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste to the milled mixture and stir till combined. Set aside till needed.

Next, we’ll use the base sauce to make the Bloody Mary sauce.

Slice 2 ribs of celery very thin.

Warm 2 Tbsp of olive oil in a deep skillet. Add the celery and cook till tender but not mushy.

Add 1 cup of vodka. (Be careful: the mixture may flame up. If it does, just give it a moment and the flame will go out.) Put the skillet back on stove and reduce to about half volume.

Reduce heat to low. Add 1-1/2 cups of the base sauce; the juice of 1 large lemon; 1-1/2 tsp hot sauce; 3 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce; 3/4 tsp celery salt; pinch paprika; 1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper; 3/4 tsp prepared horseradish; and 1 tsp sugar.

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Now you’ll either want to store half of the sauce for later use if you’re using it for the pasta right away, or to store all of the sauce for later use.

Transfer the sauce you’re saving to one or two 1-1/2 cup canning jars that have been sterilized, leaving ¼” head room (the air space at the top of the jar). On each jar, place a lid that has been processed in hot water as per the manufacturer’s instructions. Apply a ring seal to each jar.

Place the jars into a pot of hot water that completely covers the jars. Bring to a boil, then let simmer for about 40 minutes.

Remove the jars from the water. (Canning tongs are helpful for this.) Allow to cool. As the jars cool, you should hear the lids make a popping sound as they seal the jars, caused by the vacuum that forms in the head space above the sauce in the jar.

When you’re ready to cook the pasta:

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Drop 1 pound of bucatini into the water and let the water return to a boil. 

Cook the bucatini one minute less than recommended on the package.

While the pasta is cooking, begin heating 1-1/2 cups of the sauce in a skillet.

Drain the pasta, reserving ½ cup of the starchy pasta water. Add the pasta to the sauce in the skillet and mix to combine.

Add some of the pasta water to the skillet, starting with ¼ cup and adding more only if needed for texture. Mix until everything is combined. Cook till the pasta is done.

Garnish with parsley to serve.

To download a copy of the recipe for Bloody Mary Sauce with Pasta, click HERE.

Serve this to the pasta-lovers you know, add a Caesar salad on the side for good measure, and you’ll keep all them very happy!

Visit again next week for another delicious recipe! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Chicken Sauce with Linguini

To download a copy of the recipe for Chicken Sauce with Linguini, click HERE.

Just to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with the classic idea of topping linguini with a well-made clam sauce. It’s just that a “classic” – whether a book, movie, song, or food – is something that, because it’s so good, has been around for a long time and is familiar and comfortable to almost everyone. I like the idea of making something good; I just want to make it in a way that’s not so familiar.

And that’s where Chicken Sauce with Linguini comes in. Rather than serving some chicken on top of a plate of pasta, this is an actual chicken-based sauce, prepared in the style of a classic clam sauce, served with linguini in much the way clam sauce usually is. The chicken sauce even looks a lot like clam sauce, due largely to the fact that chicken that’s been cut up very small bears a striking resemblance to clams that have been cut up very small. But make no mistake; the taste and aroma are distinctly chicken, and are an ideal complement to the pasta.

Since the amount of chicken used is quite small, about 4 ounces, this is an ideal way to make use of a bit of leftover cooked chicken that’s too small to be a meal by itself. If you don’t have any leftover chicken you can, of course, cook a small amount up fresh. And if you don’t feel like cooking such a small amount of chicken, using a 6.5 ounce can of canned chicken breast also works well.

This recipe makes four servings.

Finely chop four ounces of cooked chicken and set aside.

Warm 3 Tbsp of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add 2 minced cloves of garlic and cook until aromatic, about 30 seconds – 1 minute.

Add ¼ cup of dry white wine (chardonnay or similar) to the skillet and cook for a few minutes till reduced to about half.

Add the chicken, ½ cup of chicken broth, 1 Tbsp dried parsley, ½ tsp dried oregano, ½ tsp salt, ¼ tsp fresh ground black pepper, and 1 Tbsp bread crumbs to the skillet. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer for 15 minutes.

While the sauce is cooking in the skillet, drop 1 pound of uncooked linguini into a pot of salted boiling water. Cook the linguini one minute less than recommended on the package.

Drain the linguini, reserving ½ cup of the starchy pasta water. Add the linguini to the skillet and mix to combine.

Add some of the pasta water and 3 Tbsp of butter substitute. Mix until the linguini is combined with the sauce. Cook till the pasta is done.

Top with fresh grated parmesan to serve.

To download a copy of the recipe for Chicken Sauce with Linguini, click HERE.

So if you’re looking for something different for dinner, give Chicken Sauce with Linguini a try. Fresh food doesn’t get much easier than this!

Be sure to visit again next week for another home-cooking recipe! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Sausage and Pepper Sauce with Breaded Turkey Cutlets

To download a copy of the recipe for Sausage and Pepper Sauce, click HERE. For the breaded turkey cutlets recipe, click HERE. 

What is Sausage and Pepper Sauce, and why are we using a sauce made with one meat as a topping for another meat? Good questions. Here are the answers.

Sausage and Pepper Sauce is a nice change from the usual tomato sauce. It’s a savory red sauce, but instead of being made from tomatoes, it’s made from freshly roasted red peppers that have been pureed, seasoned, and combined with browned sausage meat. (Some tomatoes are used, but the flavor of the sauce is really defined by the roasted red peppers and the sausage meat.) It’s simple to make, and ideal anywhere you’d usually use tomato sauce.

Why turkey cutlets? The idea of using meat as a condiment, either on vegetables or on other meats, is one that has been around a long time, and that has gained new traction in recent years after Chef Michael Symon began to champion it.) Sausage, with its deeply seasoned flavor, seems a natural choice to be used this way. Even if you put it on more traditional dishes like pasta, however, this is a sauce you will be very glad to have in your arsenal.

Some Cook’s Notes before we begin:

• This recipe makes more sauce than you’re likely to need for any one dinner. Homemade sauce is one of those things it’s just as easy to make more of than less, so make the extra and save it to use with another meal.

• I usually roast red peppers on the stove top. That’s fine for one, or perhaps two, peppers. In this case I roasted three peppers, so the stove top would have been cumbersome. As described in the recipe, in this case I used the oven broiler.

• In the photos, you’ll see the sauced cutlets served with rice and baked zucchini sticks. Needless to say, feel free to serve them with whatever sides you like.

This recipe makes one quart of sauce (about twice what you’ll need), and four breaded cutlets.

First, we’ll marinate our cutlets.

To make the marinade, combine 2 Tbsp white wine vinegar; ¼ tsp salt; ¼ tsp fresh ground black pepper; and 1 Tbsp fresh thyme in a bowl. Whisk in 2 Tbsp of olive oil. Place four turkey cutlets in a sealable plastic bag and pour in the marinade. Let the cutlets marinate in the refrigerator for 2-4 hours, turning occasionally.

When the cutlets are almost finished marinating, begin making the sauce. First, we’ll roast our red peppers. Set the oven on broil, and prepare the peppers as follows.

Remove the tops, bottoms and cores from three red bell peppers. CCut into quarters; remove any remaining seeds; and trim away the ribs.

Place the peppers, skin side up, on a baking sheet lined with foil and sprayed with cooking spray.

Broil for several minutes until the skins of the peppers are blackened. (Be sure to keep an eye on them. You’re looking to blacken the skin, not cremate your peppers!)

Remove the baking sheet from the oven, Wrap the blackened peppers in the foil and set aside while the peppers steam and gradually cool a bit.

When the peppers are cool enough to handle, peel away and discard the blackened skins.

Cut the pepper flesh into pieces and set aside.

Next, we’ll cook the sausage.

Remove one pound of sausage meat from the casings.

In a non-stick pan, cook the sausage till well browned, breaking any large pieces up into small pieces as it cooks. Set the cooked sausage aside.

Now it’s time to cook the remaining sauce ingredients.

Add a little olive oil to the sausage pan. Add 1 medium chopped onion and cook until translucent.

 

Add ¼ tsp red pepper flakes; 2 chopped garlic cloves; ½ cup chopped fresh basil; ½ Tbsp chopped fresh oregano; 1 tsp chopped fresh mint; and 15 ounce can diced tomatoes. Cook for another two minutes.

Add 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar; 1 tsp salt; 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper, and the chopped roasted red peppers.

In a blender or food processor, or in a bowl using an immersion blender, puree the pepper mixture.

Add the cooked sausage to the pureed pepper mixture, stir to combine, and set aside till needed.

To make the turkey cutlets:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Shake the excess marinade from the cutlets. Bread the cutlets by dredging in all-purpose flour, dipping in 2 egg-substitute eggs, and coating with seasoned panko breadcrumbs.

Place the cutlets on a baking sheet lined with parchment or foil lightly sprayed with cooking spray. Bake until cooked through and golden brown, about 15-20 minutes.

To plate:

Place the turkey cutlets and your side dishes on the plate. Top the cutlet with sauce, remembering not to over-sauce the turkey. Serve hot, pausing only long enough to accept compliments from your family and guests!

To download a copy of the recipe for Sausage and Pepper Sauce, click HERE. For the breaded turkey cutlets recipe, click HERE.

All that’s left is to decide what you’ll put the extra sauce on for another special dinner soon!

Looking forward to seeing you here again next week for another tasty, home-style recipe! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)