Bolognese - (a work in progress) and crumble (OMG :-)..)

tshewman

Bolognese (ISOP + Bottura) with changes from last time. Pressure cooked beef and pork (I preferred this texture) instead of SV and it left a bolognese stock which I was able to use for tomorrow's dinner (more on that tomorrow :-)..). In ISOP, Heston makes a tomato compote and strains the oil (which is delicious on salads, making crispy bread and many other things). I did the compote first and used the oil to cook/soften the sofrito in it (oh my-small change in base, big change in flavor). The pasta (fresh with a different experience during the making this time-was really moist and sticky-had to wait b/t roller runs) was cooked in a white chicken stock + cheese water (more concentrated this time) and I like this for cooking most pastas (flavor the pasta with the water). The pressure cooking and sofrito cooked in the compote oil seemed to make a huge difference in the dish over all (at least that was the subjective feedback). For desert a modified crumble based on the recent CS skit (I'm waiting for the sit-com series :-)..). Although the only crumble I've ever enjoyed is apple, I prefer a brown sugar crumble with the slight savory (molasses??) note it brings so I used some brown sugar as well as white. I'm not a big crumble fan in general beyond apple........but......am now officially a convert (is there a fruit crumble anonymous??). Highly recommend!! I only had some home made chocolate ice cream available....darn.

tshewman

Hi Steve, Thanks for kind words. See my response to Jack regarding positing of the recipe. I've tried SV (with star anise and other aromatics) for 24 hours and it was quite nice. That said, the pressure cooked version was a big step up in texture and flavor. But to be fair, I treated the sofrito a bit differently and not sure if that would have changed things allot using the SV method. It very well may have in terms of flavor, but the pulled texture (which so far I seem to prefer) likely would not have been achieved. I could turn up the temp and see if it reaches the braised/pulled texture. The addition of the tomatoes does elevate things and this is what heston does using the tomato compote. Sherry instead of balsamic to finish (and I can see how balsamic would also work nicely!) and of course butter. :-). Thanks for sharing everone, these are all great ideas I'll consider next round (still have left overs from the last batch - and last nights so may be a few weeks for the next round :-)..).