The Chef at Home

From time to time, Monte and I invite friends over for a meal or coffee. The home is a wonderful place to mingle with people.

Both of us cook at home. We have our signature dishes that we gradually improve over time. Recently, we had some friends over for dinner. Monte prepared minced pork seashell pasta from scratch. It was so scrumptious that one of our friends e-mailed us to get a hold of the recipe.

So here it goes:
Minced Pork Seashell Pasta
Ingredients: 4 whole garlic smashed and chopped 2 large onions chopped 12 large ripe tomatoes chopped 2 cans of tomato paste on standby (if used, each can requires a cup of water) Olive oil 1 stalk of celery finely sliced 4 large red chillies sliced 2 cubes of beef broth dissolved in 2 cups of boiled water 1 cup of red wine 1000 grams of minced pork (Other meat option: Italian sausages or minced beef) 3 tablespoons of Italian seasoning 1 tablespoon of black pepper Half tablespoon of red chilli powder

Steps: 1 Fry garlic in olive oil until brown and fragrant. Set aside.
2 Lightly fry celery in olive oil, use little oil as possible. The celery produce water, do not discard. You will use it for the sauce.
3 Fry onions in olive oil. After onions are fried, add garlic and meat. Fry until meat is slightly browned and do not overcook as it will cook more during simmering. When you begin frying the meat, add Italian seasoning, pepper and chilli powder.
4 After meat is lightly browned, throw in all the tomatoes and celery.
5 After you have added in tomatoes, chillies and celery, immediately pour in beef broth and wine.
6 Depending on variables such as: insufficient quantity or diluted appearance, add one or two cans of tomato paste. Each can requires about a cup of water.
7 Simmering at lowest possible heat for about 30 minutes.
8 Turn off heat. Spaghetti sauce should have the texture similar to curry. However, should you want a thicker texture, just add more tomato paste and season according to taste.
9 Salt is not included because there is salt in the broth and cooking wine so you should taste before adding salt.
10 There may be need for up to 6 more tomatoes because of using a whole stalk of celery.

Cooking Paste: 1 Add a little salt and a little olive oil in the boiling water.
2 Ensure pasta is blanched in cold water.
3 Drain completely of water.
4 Coat pasta in olive oil.


I guess now you know why my husband is the chef at home.