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Seeking No Tomato Pasta Sauce Recipe

Dragonfly

Dragonfly

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Do you have a killer recipe for a pasta sauce that does NOT use tomatoes or any kind of tomato sauce?

Care to offer it up?

From insanely simple to somewhat complex, I'll consider them all.


Thanks in advance.
:cheers:
 
I have many.

What would you like? Pesto? Scampi?
 
White clam sauce is awesome and easy.

Saute up some onion in olive oil and white wine. Season with salt, pepper, garlic and crushed red pepper. Add clams, cover, and simmer until the clams open. You can also add canned clams with their juice.
 
I honestly can't really eat pasta without some kind of tomato sauce.
 
Alfredo sauce: butter, heavy cream and lot of grated Parmesan cheese. Done.

For carbonara: do all of the above and add chopped crispy fried bacon.

You can change the variations like sour cream instead of standard heavy cream and so on.

Easy peasy.
 
Carbonara is another easy one.

Saute up some Pancetta (sliced a little on the thick side works best for me) in olive oil. Add in a little garlic and pepper (no additional salt. The Pancetta has that covered). Pour over warm (not steaming hot) pasta. Crack in a couple of eggs and good Parmigiano Reggiano or (my preference) Pecorino Romano, mix thoroughly and plate. Tossing in some finely chopped Italian parsley adds a little color.
 
Dragonfly said:
Pesto please. Then, if you're feeling generous, the scampi. :mrgreen:
Click to expand...

Pesto:


2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed (can sub half the basil leaves with baby spinach)
1/2 cup freshly grated Romano or Parmesan-Reggiano cheese (about 2 ounces)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts (can sub chopped walnuts)
3 garlic cloves, minced (about 3 teaspoons)
1/4 teaspoon salt, more to taste
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, more to taste

I like to add 1/2 cup of mushrooms too.

Blend.

Scampi is pretty straightforward. Sautee minced garlic and shallots in butter. add white wine. garnish with basil.
 
For a super quick and easy pasta- just boil whatever kind of pasta you like, drain, then throw it into a pan and add chopped garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper and a little dab of butter. Fry it a bit till it gets coated. Finish with some grated parmesan cheese.
 
Peas and Proscuitto is another classic. Cook up some peas and finely chopped white onion in olive oil. Add in some proscuitto. Toss with little elbow macaroni and good romano. You can add mushrooms to this too.
 
I am not a fan of tomato sauce. I like what has been mentioned here already several times - just a simple sauce with butter (or olive oil) and garlic, salt and pepper.
 
If you're not scared I've got one that's a little off the wall.

Dice up some mango, banana and red onion. Slice up a habanero pepper or two so you've got nice, thin rounds. Grill a chicken breast so it's got marks but isn't quite done.

Saute up the onion in olive oil, salt and pepper until it starts to sweat (don't kill it). Add the habanero and chicken. Once the chicken is almost done add in the mango and banana. Cook until juices from the fruit start to render. Serve over angel hair pasta and garnish with fresh basil.

-edit-

Almost forgot...right at the end, add some orange juice to the pan. It cuts the heat from the habanero.
 
Yeah, those two are what I would have written. Especially Alfredo, you can make it a bit healthier and go light, but it's still slamming if you get good cheese. Way better than most restaurants and store bought.
PoS: Alfredo: butter, cream, parmesean, salt, pepper
american woman: Melted butter with garlic, salt, and pepper


Another twist:

garlic (even powder works fine)
olive oil (either depending on if you like the taste)
parmesean cheese
diced fresh tomatoes
salt/pepper

just risne the pot after pasta is strained, and put past back in there. Mix it all up in there and done. Doesn't need to be piping hot, can be lukearm, nice for summer.
 
If you want to try something really different go for this:

Curry sauce:
- minced garlic, ginger, onions, fry in a pan with oil.
- add in sliced chicken and cook until all ingredients are caramelized.
- in a bowl whisk together curry powder (lots of it) and coconut cream milk (or powder diluted with water- which is what I prefer) until you get a gooey sauce.
- add into the pan and reduce until it thickens and combines with the chicken.
- pour over drained and cooked pasta- works with oriental noodles too.

I had this in Vietnam once I believe.
 
Damn. No disrespect to anyone else, but I'm ready to invite Lutherf over to the house to cook dinner.

He's nailing it!
 
On a Historical note, there were no Tomatoes in Italy before Columbus brought them back from the New World.
 
Dragonfly said:
Do you have a killer recipe for a pasta sauce that does NOT use tomatoes or any kind of tomato sauce?

Care to offer it up?

From insanely simple to somewhat complex, I'll consider them all.


Thanks in advance.
:cheers:
Click to expand...

Pick just about anything that's Thai, Chinese, Japanese or Italian (northern/Tuscan). Here are some specific suggestions


Moving to the realm of "teach a man to fish," consider the following:

Step one:
  • Learn to make the mother sauces. Learning them will give you both flavor profile starting points as well as techniques that transfer to literally thousands of dishes. With that as your baseline, you can do all sorts of things...add "this" or that" additional flavor element and, voila, you have a variation on a mother sauce that's all your own. Since you want to cook pasta, learn allemande, bechamel, hollandaise and veloute first. I suggest starting with bechamel and veloute (the two classic white sauces).

    Gordon makes a bechamel w/cheese


    Basic veloute sauce


    147784055a60421382a078f25a1d0194_5+mother+sauces.jpg



    You can certainly drench the pasta in these sauces, or you can simply cook the pasta, toss it in a bit of olive oil with some cracked black pepper and then serve whatever protein or veggie you're having on top of the pasta with the sauce over top of the whole thing.


    Ramps and pasta w/hollendaise

    2-pastaasprampdaise.jpg



    Shrimp, pasta and sausage w/Hollendaise

    SaCwtCdMfAAFgYhq2bMNmk5Nol8GLCjFcwGmS71J4OdB_oaCa1NpbCCXK2lg0Vg7_b9eggMuXKjS_aH6Xl3T23JjiquRagyrE3SqaQ=w600-l68


Step two:
  • Learn the basic Italian sauces. There's a good deal of overlap with French, but the flavor profiles are different and they're generally more forgiving of imperfection.
    • Pesto (basil sauce)
    • Carbonara (egg sauce)
    • Alfredo (cream sauce)
    • Bean/nut sauce -- What suits you? Chickpeas, lentils, pine nuts, almonds, peanuts, some other bean/legume...you can mix a few in one sauce if you like...
    • Pot/drippings sauce -- This is the sauce that will result just from braising meats. Same exact notion as using roasted chicken drippings to make gravy. Either embellish it with something -- cream, wine, vinegar, fruit juice, etc. -- or just toss the pasta with it and be done. When you roast something, what drippings you don't use, you pour into a container (separate the fat or don't, as you see fit) and store it in the fridge or freezer until you need a quick sauce starter for some pasta, veggies or potatoes.
Step three:
  • The main difference between sauce and soup is how much sauce there is and how viscous the sauce is. Accordingly, whatever you can imagine as soup, all the more so if it's a soup in which you'd put noodles, if you just use less of it and make it bit thicker than it would be for soup, and voila, you have sauce.

Step four:
  • The techniques I most often use to build upon the basic sauces noted above is:
    • Flour or egg based sauces: Separately saute or otherwise prepare whatever it is that I feel like adding to the sauce, and then add it in after the sauce itself is made. Why? Because cooking w/eggs and flour is basically chemistry and I don't want to screw up my sauce by introducing items that may cause a reaction by altering the temperature effects. (Salt especially will do that, and when you saute something you need to season it while it's cooking not after it's cooked. The salt from the seasoned "add in" ingredient doesn't disappear just because you can't see it or taste it as, per se, salt.)
    • Most other sauces: Saute whatever "add in" ingredients and then commence to cooking the sauce in the same pot.
 
I have done this one a few times,
https://www.privateclubsmag.com/blackened-red-snapper/
PONTCHARTRAIN SAUCE
When it comes out right it is amazing, it is still good when the timing is off, but just not amazing.
I have served it over baked flounder, but it would likely be good over cardboard.
 
A dish I make is a take on pasta puttanesca.

Mise en place:
  • Onion, shallots or leeks as you prefer (brunoise)
  • Chopped broccoli
  • Bacon or other meat (lardons) -- You can use fresh seafood too -- cleaned, chopped/sliced as appropriate to the type of seafood -- but the cooking sequence will be different b/c seafood cooks quickly.
  • Diced/chopped black olives (and/or other olives, at your discretion)
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Diced fresh herbs (I like to use rosemary, but you can use marjoram or sage or whatever) or thyme sprigs (I bundle mine with a string, but you don't have to). If you opt for basil, you'll want to julienne rather than dice.
  • Butter
  • Some white wine and some stock of your choosing (veggie, poultry, beef, seafood if your meat is seafood, etc.)
  • Optional: minced garlic

Cooking

Quick and easy way:​


  1. [*=1]Put a large saute pan on the stove to preheat it. You want a hot (med high heat)
    [*=1]Cook or make some pasta.
    If you cook dry pasta, follow the directions but take it out of the water a minute to minute before the instructions indicate.
    [*=1]While your noodles are cooking, saute the meat until it's halfway done. (season with light sprinkle of salt)
    [*=1]Add in the onion, broccoli, olives and butter and continue to saute until the onion is near done. (season with light sprinkle of salt and pepper)
    [*=1]Add in the herbs, but if you're using basil, don't add the basil at this point. Continue to saute.
    [*=1]Pour in a splash or two of wine and broth/stock and cook on med low until it's about half gone.
    [*=1]Optional Seafood variation: When the liquid is half gone, add in the seafood, season lightly with salt, stir and cover. This is when your pasta should be coming done. (Note: If you're using bonefish -- bass, trout, swordfish, tuna, etc, you'll have to cook it separately and you won't add it into the pan at all. You'll just serve it on top of, leaned on, etc. the pasta on the plate.)
    [*=1]Add the pasta into the pan with a couple tablespoons of the pasta water, saute for a couple to three more minutes (however long it takes for your seafood to be done) and the remove the pan from the heat.
    [*=1]Add in most of basil if you are using it.
    [*=1]Place the food on a plate or in a bowl (be sure to remove thyme sprigs -- if I'm cooking just for myself, I remove them as I eat) and drizzle with some syrupy balsamic vinegar. If you used shrimp, chunks of lobster, or other large seafood items, place the seafood on top of the pasta. If you used basil, garnish with a bit of the remaining basil.
If you are familiar with the cooking times of things and did your mise en place, the above will get your meal done in about 10 minutes.

If you like garlic, mince it and add it in earlier for milder garlic flavor or later for stronger garlic flavor.


The hard way:
The process is much the same, but you'll cook everything separately -- cook the meat, cook the seafood, and saute the aromatics -- and then when the pasta is done, you'll combine the solid ingredients with the wine and broth -- but don't put in the seafood and basil that you'll use for garnish --stir it all together really quickly on med heat to cook off most of the liquid, add in the pasta stir it all together, add in the seafood chunks (if you're using bonefish, don't put it in at all), stir for a minute or two at the most (just enough to get the shrimp, or whatever warm again and to coat it with flavors of your aromatics) and then serve as described above.
​

For folk who like tomatoes, just add diced tomato, halved cherry tomatoes, etc. to the mise en place and add them in at whatever point suits you. I add tomatoes after I put in the wine and stock and before the liquid is half gone, but if you want them mushier, add them earlier, or firmer, later.


So there you go. You now have my general suggestions from my former post and a specific recipe of my own devising.
 
One other general idea: cook whatever saucy/soupy thing that suits you, and put noodles in it.

After all, like rice, noodles can be easily added to just about anything. Hell, cooked noodles added to sauteed onions, or garlic, or sage, or thyme, or whatever with a good bit of butter (more than is needed to saute the aromatic(s) of your choice) or the oil of your choice and salted is a pasta dish.
 
longview said:
On a Historical note, there were no Tomatoes in Italy before Columbus brought them back from the New World.
Click to expand...

I know, it's amazing and very hard to believe but that is the God's honest truth.
Italians were perplexed and even a little frightened of "the love apple" at first!

But I'm wondering WHY anyway.
Hey Dragonfly, do you just hate maters or are you allergic?
 
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