members recipes

Ingredients
[b]Lamb[/b]

200ml white wine
5 lamb escalopes
30ml groundnut oil

[b]Soffrito[/b]

1 medium white onion
5 chantenay carrots
1 red bell pepper

[b]Roast garlic[/b]

4 garlic cloves
10ml vegetable oil

[b]Caramelised Onion[/b]

1 white onion
50g unsalted butter

[b]Tomato Sauce[/b]

10 piccolo tomatoes
10 large, salad tomatoes
50ml extra virgin olive oil

[b]Final product[/b]

1/2-3/4 bottle red wine
2 star anise
5 basil leaves
Water (optional)

[b]Garnish[/b]

3 basil leaves per person

Method
Season at each stage. That way, the lamb gets seasoned, the base gets seasoned, the sauce gets seasoned, and you can get a better control of the seasoning than if you merely check at the end.

[b]Lamb[/b]

Heat some groundnut oil in a large pan

Cut the escalopes as small as you can get them, no larger than 1 cubic millimetre (I didn't have any mince, so I made my own. Yes, it took a while.)

Brown the lamb 'mince' in the pan. Add the white wine, boil for a minute, then simmer gently for 10 minutes.

[b]Soffrito[/b]

A proper soffrito has celery, and garlic. But, I didn't have any celery, and I wanted to roast the garlic (or, if I'm honest, I forgot the garlic, then remembered it and decided to roast it anyway).

Top and tail the carrots, deseed the pepper and peel and halve the onion.

Place them all in a blender and blend until a very fine dice, or course paste, is achieved.

[b]Roast garlic[/b]

Remove the roots and peels from the garlic

Place in an ovenproof dish in the oil

Place in the oven at 200C for 30 minutes, or until the garlic is softened and starting to brown.

[b]Caramelised Onion[/b]

Peel the onion, halve it and remove the root

Slice with the grain, as finely as possible

Place in a saucepan with the butter

Cook on a very low heat until the onion has caramelised (about 2-3 hours)

[b]Tomato Sauce[/b]

Place the tomatoes in the blender and blitz at full power to get a smooth, liquidy sauce

Place in a wide pan with the oil

Put the pan on full heat and reduce by 2/3rds.

[b]Final Product[/b]

Place the lamb, red wine, star anise, and soffrito in a pressure cooker.

Bring to full pressure and then let cool.

When the pressure has dropped, add the tomato sauce, bring back up to pressure, then simmer very gently for an hour.

Let cool again, until the pressure has dropped, then add the basil, onion and garlic.

Add up to half a pint of water to keep the sauce moist. Bring back up to pressure, simmer for an hour.

Cook the pasta to your liking (I suggest heavily salted water with olive oil added, bring to the boil, add the pasta, bring it above the surface of the water a few times to coat the pasta with the oil, then simmer until ad dente)

Drain the pasta

Spoon the pasta on serving plates

Top with a generous ladle of sauce

Shred the basil and scatter onto the centre of the sauce.

Season to taste.