We made a Bolognese sauce yesterday, loosely based on on a recipe from Barbara Lynch's "Stir". Her big "secret" for amping up the flavor was to use finely minced chicken livers, totaling about 1/6 of the total weight of the other ground meats (burger, lamb, pork, veal, whatever). So, that'd be 1/2# liver to three pounds ground meat. I gotta tell ya, the dish was spectacular! I am the last person in the world to consider eating liver (other than foie gras), but this was just a deep, rich sauce with no hint of liver taste. I'd bet a pound of burger with your usual Sloppy Joe fixin's and a couple/three ounces of minced chicken liver would be worthwhile. Who knows, maybe even chili?
We served the sauce over spaghetti squash "noodles". If you haven't tried spaghetti squash yet, do try it soon.
Willy The two spellings are for two similar but different dishes: lasagna for the southern style that we all grew up with (tomato, mozzarella, ricotta), and lasagne for the northern, with a lot less tomato, bechamel and usually some kind of Bolognese sauce. Or so I understand it.
I also read something about "a" being singular and "e" being plural as regards--I think--the number of noodles, as in "lasagne requires several lasagna noodles (er, sheets)". I'll dig around some more.
Yeah, I'm always interested to learn more. My wife says that the Time-Life Italian Cookbook that came from was put together by kidnapping a bunch of Italian Grandma's and observing them while they cooked. I will say, it's one of my favorites, right up there with Marcella Hazen. The meatballs are to die for!
Scotch: Current favorite- The Arran (anything by them), Glenmorangie 12yr Lasanta, sherry cask finished. The Balvenie Double Wood, also like Oban 18yr, and The Glenlivet Nadurra (Oloroso sherry cask finished) among others. Neat please.
About meReal name: Aaron
Location: Farwell, Michigan - near Clare (dead center of lower peninsula).
Occupation:
Healthcare- Licensed & Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT) at MyMichigan Health, a University of Michigan Health System.
Gotcha covered on the edit, Willy. Whodathunk chicken livers. That's part of what I throw away (or give to the animals) from the insides of a chicken I'm about to spatchcock.
I use chicken livers as "step one" when I get a hankering for a batch of fried catfish. Actually, in small amounts they do lend a great flavor that most folks never recognize, sorta like anchovies. My wife will even eat them in Cajun Dirty Rice and she HATES the smell of liver. I can only cook it when she is gone.
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