This was less of a search for the perfect pasta sauce, and more because we had an empty fridge and needed to knock up something tasty from what is commonly known as ‘store cupboard standbys’. What do you mean you don’t always have porcini mushrooms in the house? Hand in your John Lewis Store Card at once and never darken this blog again!

Preparation time: 10 minutes plus 30 minutes soaking
Cooking time: 50 – 60 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2

Ingredients

• dried porcini mushrooms – 14g
• onion – finely chopped – 1tbsp
• tinned tomatoes – 200g (about half a tin)
• butter – knob
• olive oil – slug
• s & p
• pasta (such as penne) – 220g
• grated parmesan

Start by reconstituting the mushrooms. Place them in a bowl and pour over 375 ml of barely warm water. Leave to soak for at least 30 minutes.

Lift out the mushrooms by hand and squeeze as much of the water as you can back into the bowl. The water the mushrooms were soaked in will be rich with porcini flavour and is an important part of this recipe.

Thoroughly rinse under the tap to remove any soil or grit. Pat dry with kitchen paper and set aside.

Filter the mushroom water through a sieve lined with kitchen paper and set aside.

When you are ready to make your sauce, put the chopped onion into a saucepan along with the oil and butter and place over a medium heat. Cook until the onions are a pale golden.

Add the tomatoes, porcini (roughly chopped), filtered soaking water and season with salt and pepper.

Cook uncovered at a gentle simmer for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the cooked pasta and thoroughly mix with the sauce.

Serve immediately with a generous grating of parmesan.

Verdict: Looks like we’ve stumbled across another excellent pasta sauce – this time stuffed full of rich woody mushroom flavours. A perfect midweek dish which can easily be made with a few ingredients knocking around the kitchen.

Drink: A bottle each of Fallwood XXX and True Tyke from a recent excursion to Haworth.

Entertainment: ‘Neds’ on DVD.

Fallwood XXX

True Tyke

Haworth

Neds

Well this is as close to perfection as you are likely to get in this increasingly imperfect world. As with all the other sauces in this occasional series, I turned to the ever reliable Marcella Hazan for inspiration and guidance, and once again she delivered the goods with this simple (slightly faffy) delicious recipe.

Preparation time: 10 minutes plus 25 minutes to salt the aubergine
Cooking time: 40 – 50 minutes
Skill level: easy with an element of faff
Serves: 2

Ingredients

• 1 medium sized aubergine
• 2 cloves of garlic – finely chopped
• parsley – finely chopped – 2 generous tbsp
• 1 tin of (quality) tomatoes – about 400g
• 1 chilli – finely chopped
• pasta (ideally spaghetti) – 200g
• olive oil
• s and p

First the faffy bit.

Cut the aubergine in half lengthways and then cut (lengthways again) into 1cm slices.

Stand the layers upright against the inside of a colander and generously sprinkle with salt (double up the layers if necessary).

Place on a plate (to catch the liquid) and set aside for at least half an hour to allow the salt to draw some of the water out of the aubergine.

After half an hour, rinse under the tap and pat dry with some kitchen towel.

Pour oil into a large heavy frying pan (enough to just cover the base), and place over a high heat. When the oil is beginning to smoke, lay in your aubergine slices (you’ll have to do this in batches) and cook until brown and softened on the underside. Flip over and repeat.

When cooked, place on kitchen towel to soak up some of the oil.

Repeat until all the aubergine is cooked.

OK, that was the faffy bit, although all of the above can be done in advance (up to 2 days).

To make the sauce, pour some olive oil in a large heavy frying pan (Readers tip: Why not use the same frying pan you used to cook the aubergine?) and fry the garlic over a medium heat until it becomes lightly coloured.

Add the tomatoes, parsley, chilli and some salt and stir thoroughly.

Adjust the heat to a slow steady simmer and cook for about 25 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Meanwhile cook your pasta in the usual way.

Cut the aubergine into slithers (about 1cm wide) and add to the sauce.

Heat through for 2-3 minutes (add a little pasta water if looking too thick).

Twist in some black pepper, taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.*

Add the cooked pasta, mix together, drizzle with some good olive oil and serve.

*Sauce could be made in advance and refrigerated for up to 3 days

Verdict: As said at the beginning, this is a pretty much perfect dish which if you cooked the aubergine in advance would be an excellent mid-week treat. If I were to try and improve on perfection, I’d probably include 2 tbsp of capers at the adding tomatoes stage.

Drink: A bottle of the One Stop Shop’s finest.

Entertainment: ‘Celebrity MasterChef’ on the iPlayer. What is it doing being broadcast in the afternoon? Our hopes go with Kirsty

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Skill level: very easy
Serves: 2

Ingredients

• farfalle – 220g
• bag of spinach – 250g
• basil – generous handful
• 1 garlic clove – crushed
• extra-virgin olive oil – a slug
• nutmeg – ¼ tsp
• ricotta 150g
• parmigiano reggiano – finely grated – 20g
• salt & pepper

Cook the pasta as you normally would (al dente).

Meanwhile, to make the sauce, put 225g of spinach, the basil, garlic, olive oil and nutmeg in a food processor and whiz.

Add the ricotta and most of the parmigiano reggiano and whiz again to a smoothish paste. Season to taste.

Drain the pasta and stir in the remaining spinach so the leaves wilt.

Add the sauce and stir to warm through.

Serve with the remaining parmigiano reggiano.

Serving suggestion (not recommended)

Verdict: Quick, easy and tasty … perfect midweek dining fare.

Drink: A Wednesday evening build up to the weekend bottle of white.

Entertainment: * ’2012′ on DVD. Utter tosh.

FACTOID: This 3 herb pesto is the one and only exception to the rule.

Preparation time: a relaxed 15 minutes
Cooking time: 8 – 10 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2

Ingredients

• Fusilli – 220g
• pine nuts – lightly toasted – 20g (plus extra to serve)
• almond flakes – lightly toasted – 20g (plus extra to serve)
• basil leaves – ½ bunch (25g)
• flat-leaf parsley – ¼ bunch (12g)
• mint leaves – ¼ bunch (12g)
• 2 anchovy fillets
• 1 garlic clove
• Grana Padano – finely grated – 50g
• extra-virgin olive oil – 90 ml
• finely grated rind and juice of ¼ lemon
• s & p
• dried chilli flakes (optional)

Lightly toast your nuts*.

Put the nuts, herbs, anchovies and garlic into a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped.

Add the cheese and with motor running, gradually add the oil to combine.

Add lemon rind and juice and pulse to combine.

Taste and season.

Meanwhile, cook your pasta the usual way until al dente (8-10 minutes).

Drain, but reserve 30ml of the pasta water

Return the pasta to the pan.

Add the pasta water to the pesto and pour over the pasta – toss to combine.

Serve hot (in heated bowls), scattered with extra nuts, basil leaves and chilli flakes, and drizzled with a little extra oil, if desired.

Verdict: An excellent twist on traditional pesto. A conventional basil flavour to start with a fresh mint and lemon to finish.

Drink: A bottle of the ‘featured small producer of the week’ from Nicolas…I love the French staff who work here – it’s impossible for them to say ‘Have a nice day’ without sounding sarcastic.

Entertainment: Stewart Lee followed by Rafe Spall.

*Snigger

Self-indulgent photo of the week: Yumblog Junior sporting an improvised sun hat.

When looking for tasty ways to eat our way through a sack of onions it was only natural we turn to The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking‘ by Marcella Hazan, a book which up to now has never failed to deliver excellent pasta sauces. And this is no exception … sweet, unusual and utterly delicious.

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour
Skill level: easy
Serves: 4 (although we halved the quantity of pasta and ate the lot between the 2 of us)

Ingredients

• onion – very thinly sliced – 675g
• butter – 25g
• olive oil – 2 tbsp
• dry white wine – 100ml
• chopped parsley – 2 tbsp
• parmigiano-reggiano – finely grated – 6 tbsp
• pasta (preferably spaghetti) – 450g
• s & p

Put the butter, olive oil, onions and some salt in a large heavy based sauté pan, and put over a very low heat.

Cover and cook for at least 45 minutes.

Uncover the pan, turn up the heat and cook until the onion turns a rich golden colour. Make sure any liquid completely boils away.

Add LIBERAL grindings of pepper, taste and add more salt if necessary. The onions become very sweet when cooked for this length of time and so need plenty of seasoning to counteract this.

Add the wine, turn up the heat and cook until all the liquid has bubbled away – stirring frequently.

Add the parsley, stir thoroughly and take off the heat.

Add the cooked, drained pasta and parmesan.

Toss everything together thoroughly and serve.

Verdict: Oh my gosh Roberta, as I said at the beginning, as well as being delicious this is also an unusual sweet tasting pasta sauce. Make sure you are generous with the pepper as this should be an integral part of the flavour.

Drink: Finished off the white.

Entertainment: Several episodes from the third series of ‘The Inbetweeners’ – the latest favourite thing here at Yumblog Towers.

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 10-12 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2

Ingredients – feel free to experiment with the ratio of garlic/chilli/capers – quantities quoted below are relatively modest.

• spaghetti – 220g
• seafood mix (usually prawns, mussels and squid) – 200g
• prawns (the larger the better) – cooked/prepared – 200g
• cherry tomatoes – halved – 200g
• 3 cloves garlic – chopped
• 2 chillis – deseeded and finely chopped
• capers – rinsed – 2 tbsp
• dry white wine – 180ml
• a slug of Pernod/Ricard (optional but nice)
• extra-virgin olive oil – be generous
• flat-leaf parsley – handful – chopped
• s and p

If you are using frozen prawns/seafood mix, please make sure they are thoroughly defrosted.

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4.

Pour some olive oil into a frying pan and quickly cook the seafood/prawns for a couple of minutes until slightly seared.

Remove from the pan and set aside.

Heat some more oil in the pan and sauté the garlic and chilli for 2 minutes.

Add the tomatoes and cook for a further 2 minutes.

Add the wine, Pernod and capers and bring to the boil.

Season with salt and pepper, turn down the heat and gently simmer.

MEANWHILE, cook the spaghetti in boiling salted water for 6 minutes.

Drain and add to the sauce along with the seafood and parsley.

Cut 4 large squares of baking parchment.

Place 2 squares in the centre of a bowl and spoon in half the spaghetti mixture. Gather up the paper to form a parcel and tie the top with string. Repeat with the other half.

Place your parcels on a baking tray and bake for 15 minutes.

Transfer to serving bowls, cut the string and serve.

Verdict: This makes a great Saturday night dinner (assuming of course like us, you spend your Saturday nights indoors). We had to make this a couple of times to get the balance of flavours right – be generous with the ingredients.

Drink: Obviously finished off the bottle of white. Obviously opened another.

Entertainment: ‘Steptoe And Son – The Christmas Specials’ on DVD. Two not particularly Christmassy Christmas Specials from 1973/74. The second one had an uncharacteristic happy ending when Albert and Harold eventually manage to spend their Christmases apart. Worthy of the overused term ‘classic’.

This recipe (such as it is) came straight from the horse’s mouth … or rather straight from the mouth of the enthusiastic Italian bloke at Borough Market who sold us our eighth of vacuum-packed Bottarga. As a result the quantities are fashionably vague … you just need to use your common sense. Incidentally, in her indispensable book ‘The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking’, Marccella Hazan describes the tuna Bottarga we had bought as a ‘much cheaper, but not desirable substitute’ for the grey mullet variety.

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 10-12 minutes (or as long as it takes you to cook your spaghetti)
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2

Ingredients

• spaghetti – 240g
• Bottarga – finely grated – 50g
• unsalted butter – melted – as much as you want/dare
• parsley – a good handful – chopped.
• s & p

Coming soon from Yumblog: Celebrity Chef Top Trumps

Cook your spaghetti in plenty of boiling salted water.

(I vaguely recall ‘Nigella’ looking coyly at the camera and delivering a scripted quote supposedly from her grandmother about how pasta water should be as salty as the Mediterranean sea)

Meanwhile grate your Bottarga using the finer part of your grater.

Also finely chop your parsley.

Also melt your butter.

When the pasta is cooked, drain, return to the pan*, add the butter, Bottarga and parsley, stir and serve immediately.

Incidentally, the same stall at Borough Market was selling this stuff – a mixture of olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes, oregano, fennel and chilli. It’s VERY unusual and VERY good.

* With the heat off – Bottarga should never be cooked.

Verdict: I had such high expectations for this that I must say I was a tad disappointed. Bottarga is certainly packed with salty fishiness but personally I prefer an anchovy. Perhaps the grey mullet option IS a lot better. If you want to find out, it can be bought from here.

Drink: A sharpener at The Market Porter, a few alarmingly expensive bottles of beer from Borough Market and a cheeky bottle of red.

Entertainment: The Christmas edition from the second series of ‘Homicide, Life on the Streets’. ‘Ho Ho Homicide’

Although I’ve made pesto many times before, I’ve generally haphazardly chucked the ingredients into the food processor and left it to chance. Despite the results usually being good, I thought it was about time I consulted the mama of authentic Italian home cooking, Marcella Hazan and see if she had an angle on this classic sauce. And indeed she did … double cheeses and butter.

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: none
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2
Recipe: ‘The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking’ by Marcella Hazan

Ingredients

• basil leaves – 50g
• 1 clove of garlic – finely chopped
• pine nuts – 1½ tbsp
• extra virgin olive oil – 4 tbsp
• butter – softened to room temperature – 25g
• parmigiano reggiano – finely grated – 25g
• romano cheese – finely grated – 1tbsp
• coarse sea salt

Quickly soak the basil leaves in water and gently (but thoroughly) pat them dry with kitchen towel.

Put the basil, oil, pine nuts and a good pinch of salt into the food processor and process to a smooth creamy consistency. (If wanted, the pesto can be frozen at this stage.)

Incidentally, have you seen the price of pine nuts these days? They’ve always been costly but struth, pound for pound they are now worth more that life itself.

Transfer to a bowl and thoroughly mix in the two grated cheeses.

Next mix in the softened butter.

Taste and season if necessary.

When serving with pasta, loosen with a spoon or two of the hot pasta water

Dogs can’t look up

Verdict: Once again another excellent recipe from Marcella Hazan – it’s almost as if she knows what she’s talking about – she ought to write a book. A perfect pesto with (unsurprisingly) a buttery finish.

Drink: A variety of 6 for £5 Polish beers.

Entertainment: ‘My Wrongs #8245-8249 And 117‘ on DVD. A very short film directed by Chris Morris about a troubled man referred to as ‘Him’, a talking Doberman called Rothko, a decapitated duck, a kidnapped baby and a Routemaster destined for ‘Shit Off’. 10 minutes of Chris Morris’ warped genius. Watch.

Don’t be fooled by that innocent face.

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2

Ingredients

• Paccheri – 200g
• 1 red pepper – seeds removed – thickly sliced
• 1 yellow pepper – seeds removed – thickly sliced
• Kalamata olives – pitted and crushed – 40g
• 2 cloves of garlic – crushed
• fresh marjoram or oregano leaves – 1tbsp
• capers – 1tbsp
• red wine vinegar – 1½ tbsp
• olive oil – 50ml
• s&p
• plus shaved Parmesan to serve

Preheat oven to as hot as it will go.

Put the peppers, olives, oil, garlic, marjoram/oregano, capers and vinegar in a roasting pan, toss to combine and season to taste.

Roast, stirring occasionally, until the peppers are tender and starting to caramelise (20-25 minutes).

Meanwhile, cook pasta in a large saucepan of boiling water until al dente (10-12 minutes).

Drain and add to the pepper mixture. Combine everything together.

Serve immediately with shavings of Parmesan.

Verdict: A delicious sweet and piquant sauce which perfectly compliments this particular brand of pasta. There is something about Paccheri which sets it above other pasta shapes… I suspect it would be tasty even if served topped with a steaming coil of doggy doo… however, that’s a theory I’ve yet put to the test, so until then best stick to the roasted peppers.

Drink: Micro bottles of (sp)Asda* French beer

Entertainment: Celebrity MasterChef. Imagine our delight when Gregg said he loved “the BIG flavours of Dick“.

* Sorry, but (sp)Asda were doing a special on Pampers – it seems our anti-Walmart principles are as throw-away as the disposable nappies we now shamefully use.

The third in this occasional series and the third taken from ‘The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking‘ by Marcella Hazan. The marketing department here at Yumblog (Yumedia Communications) believe this to be the most comprehensive, authentic and definitive cookbook on the subject, so if you like Italian food (and who doesn’t) you should really consider investing a mere £16 and adding this weighty volume to your library.

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 46 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2
Recipe: ‘The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking’ by Marcella Hazan

Ingredients

• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• onion – finely chopped – 3 tbsp
• carrot – finely chopped – 3 tbsp
• celery – finely chopped – 3 tbsp
• butter – 85g
• double cream – 100ml
• sea salt

Put all the ingredients except for the double cream into a frying pan and cook uncovered at the merest simmer for 45 minutes. Remember to stir from time to time.

Turn up the heat slightly to increase the simmer, stir in the double cream and adjust seasoning.

Cook for a minute, stirring continuously.

Serve with pasta and parmigiano-reggiano.

Verdict: As always with these pasta sauces, the slow cooking of the tomatoes produces a rich and sweet sauce with a great depth of flavour. Despite the long cooking time, the vegetables retained a pleasing crunchiness. A tomatoey creamy delight.

Drink: A fruity French red.

Entertainment: A dip into various Graham Linehan-written comedy box sets.