Pasta with tomatoes and minced meat: recipe

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

In the process of globalization, all countries begin to exchange culture. This also includes fashion and food. Pizza and pasta, popular in modern times, came from Italy to Russia. The second dish may well pass for an everyday dinner, because it is fast, tasty and inexpensive. There are different versions of the delicacy, but in this recipe, pasta with tomatoes and minced meat will be considered, as well as tips on how to diversify it.

What is pasta?

Many Russians believe that pasta is ordinary pasta with various additives and always cheese, but there are significant differences between these concepts.

Russian "pasta" is a collective word. This includes Chinese noodles, and soba - a Japanese pastry product, and plain vermicelli. Speaking of "pasta", it is worth noting that the name refers to a specific dish, and special products are used for it.

Thus, the word "pasta" familiar to us is a generalizing concept, and "pasta" is a more specific one. In Italy, the dish is very popular, has more than 300 toppings and is found on everystep. Features of the choice of products for pasta with minced meat and tomatoes will be described below.

How to choose products

The main components of the delicacy are special pasta (spaghetti), meat (raw or semi-cooked), vegetables (tomatoes, etc.), herbs and, of course, cheese. Vegetarian options are often found without a second ingredient.

Ideally, if spaghetti is the basis for the pasta recipe with minced meat and tomatoes, but in their absence, any other durum wheat pasta will do. These retain their shape and taste, and in pasta, the integrity of the products is just as important.

A prerequisite for meat is diet. Fat is allowed a minimum or should not be at all. When choosing semi-finished products, pay attention to the salinity of the product: the less, the better.

Vegetables (in particular, tomatoes) must be strong so that they do not turn into shapeless porridge during heat treatment. The same goes for greens - a fresh ingredient will give a strong aroma and a pleasant taste.

Soft cheese is better not to use and give preference to hard. They differ in texture, smell, and taste, so do not experiment.

Ingredients

To prepare pasta with tomatoes and minced meat, we need:

• spaghetti;
• minced beef;
• parmesan cheese;
• bunch of parsley;
• cherry tomatoes;
• olive oil;
• s alt, red pepper.

All products are optional. So,spaghetti can be replaced with regular pasta, ground beef with chicken, parmesan with any other hard cheese, small cherry tomatoes with regular-sized tomatoes. If desired, you can add more spices to the pasta, for example, Provence herbs. Garlic will also come in handy.

Cooking

Before starting work on pasta with tomatoes and minced meat, all the ingredients should be brought to a ready-to-use state: defrost the meat, wash and peel the vegetables.

• First boil the spaghetti until medium done. In Italian cuisine, a little “undercooking” is allowed to keep the pasta slightly firm, but if this is not to your liking, this nuance can be omitted. Drain and cool slightly while you prepare the filling.
• Cherry tomatoes cut in half into large slices. Grate the cheese. Cut the onion into smaller pieces, chop the greens.
• Take a frying pan of a suitable size, heat it up. Pour 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil and put the minced meat in a container. It must be fried to medium readiness so that no frying occurs, and at the same time the redness disappears. Add onion to meat. Cook for about 5 minutes until the onion becomes translucent. S alt, pepper, sprinkle with spices if desired, then mix well.
• Add tomatoes to minced meat. Put out a little so that they do not have time to completely soften, but let the juice go.
• Send the pasta to the filling, mix well. Then sprinkle generously with cheese, add half a glass of warm or hot water, mix and closelid for a couple of minutes. When the cheese is melted and the pasta begins to "stretch" a little, sprinkle the dish with herbs and leave to reach under the lid.

Pasta with minced meat, tomatoes and cheese is ready! Serve the delicacy hot, until the cheese has had time to cool and harden. Everyone at home will appreciate the dish, and you will fall in love with its simplicity. Bon appetit!

With eggplant and cream sauce

Additional ingredients will always come in handy, especially if it's eggplant. Many do not like a vegetable, but only because they do not know how to cook it properly. Garlic and parsley go well with this ingredient, so it’s worth adding all this to the main recipe together. Below is a recipe for pasta with minced meat, eggplant and tomatoes in a creamy sauce. Cheese can not be spared, but it is better to buy two or even three types. Any milk will do.

• Wash the eggplants, cut off the tails. Chop into medium sized pieces. The peel can be removed if desired, but this is not necessary.

• As in the main recipe, boil the pasta, fry the meat with onions, spices and then season with tomatoes. At the same stage, eggplant should be poured. It is important to ensure that the vegetables remain whole, but at the same time they are not raw.

• Now the course of action changes a bit. The contents of the pan should be poured with low-fat milk so that it rises 0.5-1 cm above the level of the entire filling. After a couple of minutes, pour 2/3 of the cheese into the pan, mix.
• Whenthe filling will become a homogeneous consistency, add pasta, mix. Now only greens and garlic remain, which should be sent to the dish a couple of minutes before readiness. Stir and let rise for a while.

A fragrant and spicy dish is ready. Serve sprinkled with remaining cheese on all plates. This option will be a little more satisfying than the main one due to eggplant.

Cooking Tips

Your gourmet dinner will be even better with the following tips.

• You can use any kind of greenery, but pay special attention to the basil. In combination with good cheese and meat, it will become a real decoration of the dish both in appearance and in taste.
• Long pasta will be good with a thin sauce with small pieces of stuffing, while short pasta will be more tangible slices.
• If you decide to add garlic, in no case do not crush it. So it will lose some of the smell and taste. It is not recommended to fry the vegetable, it is better to put it in an almost ready stuffing.