Technically, this wasn’t the first dish that I made – that would be the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies – the kind you can get a recipe for on the back of almost any bag of Tollhouse ingredients. While they are tasty, I didn’t originate that recipe – so you are not going to see it reprinted here.
Shortly after my mother had remarried, I was out on my own. I had a job and apartment, but had only set foot in the kitchen to cross it to the fridge and get to the boxed dinners that so many bachelors live off of. One evening, something clicked inside. I don’t know if it was in my head, or my stomach, but the idea of yet another frozen slab of food bombarded with microwaves to make it palatable was simply out of the question. I had seen people cook on TV before, and I was smart enough to boil noodles and brown meat without burning down the apartment building – so off I went to gather ingredients.
I learned a lot from that first plate of spaghetti. I learned that first and foremost, the spice rack can be your friend or your foe, depending on how you use it’s contents. I also learned that the quality of the ground beef makes a big difference; this is mostly viewable when you refrigerate leftovers and come back to find globules of solidified fat sitting on the top of the food. Rule number one – if you don’t want to imagine that building up in your body, don’t eat it in the first place. This rule is also known as the ‘spend the extra money on the higher quality meat now, or you’ll spend it on medication for clogged arteries later’ rule.
As the years went by, my daughter named this dish “Daddy’s World Famous Spaghetti”. I don’t know if it will ever be world famous, but it is in her world, and that makes me very happy.
So, now that you have a little background on this dish, allow me to demonstrate:
(note: you’ll actually have to do the cooking, but I can walk you through it)
Here’s your grocery list:
1.5 ls of ground beef (Sirloin if at all possible – something with a low fat content)
1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 can sliced black olives
1 package Baby Portabella Mushrooms (buy em sliced, or slice em yourself)
1/4 cup minced garlic
1 sm box spaghetti noodles (You’ll use about half – a little over if you are cooking for a few people)
1/4 cup dried basil
1/4 cup dried oregano
1 tsp kosher salt
1/8 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup merlot
3 small cans tomato paste
Get a large pot of water to a rolling boil. While this is heating up, start a medium-sized saucepan (12 – 14 inches wide x 2 inches deep) on medium heat (5-6 on most electric stovetops). Add in your olive oil to the pan, and a splash of Olive Oil to the water for your noodles. Add in your minced garlic, and your mushrooms, and sauté them for a few minutes. How long is a few minutes? Why, until they look a deeper colour of brown, but still keep their form. If you cook them into mush at this point, throw it out and start over.
After a few minutes of scooting these sliced portabellas through the heated olive oil and garlic , add in your black olives, and let it sit for a couple more minutes. When you see that the moisture in the pan is getting low, or cooked away all together, splash some of the chicken stock into the pan. You will do this several times while making this dish, and should alternate between the chicken stock and the merlot. Don’t forget to save some of the wine for yourself!
By now, your water should be boiling! Drop your spaghetti noodles into the water, stirring occasionally so they don’t clump together. Fortunately noodles do not have to be watched closely (please do be mindful of the time you start them, and don’t leave anything on the stove unattended). Now that your noodles are cooking, take your ground beef out of its package, and start browning it in the pan with the mushrooms, garlic and black olives. Add your Worcestershire (don’t try to say it – just add it in) a little at a time, stirring it all around as you brown the beef. Sprinkle your dry spices and salt over the top as well, and mix thoroughly in the pan. Let it sit here and there, splashing in chicken stock or merlot as needed. If the pan gets too dry or too hot, you’ll get a nice little sizzle and cloud of steam when you do this. That is perfectly fine, just try and slap a lid on the pan and get as much of that steamy goodness trapped in with your food. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.
Did you stir the noodles? Yeah – good idea – -go stir the noodles now.
Now its time to make your spaghetti sauce, and we’re gonna do it right in the pan with the meat. You can pour out the excess moisture from the pan if you like, but if you used a high quality meat like I told you to, you really don’t have to worry about there being a lot of fat in there. So feel free to open up those cans of tomato paste, and drop their contents right in. Stir it all up (and turn down your heat a little).
Now it looks like a dried-up mess, doesn’t it?
Not for long.
Take your remaining chicken stock and merlot, and slowly add them into the pan, mixing up your ingredients as you go. How thick or thin you make your sauce it entirely up to you. If you like it thin, go get some water or more chicken stock. If you like your sauce thick, add a little moisture as you go, and stop when it is just a touch thinner than you prefer. Put a lid back on this (it will start to bubble up – if it boils, turn down your fire).
Now, get those noodles off your stovetop and drain them. But how do you know if they are done, you ask? Well, in time you can pretty much just tell by looking, and some chefs will scoot out one noodle to taste. This is a good way to burn the poop out of yourself, and I for one do not recommend it. But before you toss out the boiling water, go ahead, fish out that one, lone noodle…..
…then toss it onto your kitchen cabinet door. Did it stick? The noodle is done! If your noodle didn’t stick, throw it away – don’t put it back in the pot. You can always get another noodle to test later.
After you have drained your noodles, take your meat sauce et al, and mix it in over your noodles. You can do this in a pot, into a large serving bowl, or have plates brought to the stove to heap up the goodness step by step. The addition of cheese atop your spaghetti is encouraged, but entirely up to you.
A few key things to remember while you are cooking:
1) Don’t let a pot or pan run dry for too long. This can equal anything from simply a ruined dinner, to a kitchen fire. Trust me when I say that neither one is a good option.
2) Adding too much merlot to the spaghetti sauce or to yourself will either make the food taste bad, or make you too inebriated to care.
3) clean as you go – if you don’t have little hands to help clean up, then its all gonna be on you. Toss out that can from the tomato paste as soon as you empty it, and its one less thing to clean up after dinner.
Lastly, remember if you have the option, any dish shared always taste better. That older couple that lives in the apartment next door? Scoop some up and bring it to them. It’ll make them happy, and it’ll make you happy (plus you won’t have to store leftovers unless you want to)
