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the goods sauce: 2 pork chops (about 1 inch thick, with bone) 1 lb steak (I buy a piece of Kosher rib-eye) 2 bottles of passata (they are around 750 ml or 3 cups each) or tinned tomatoes 2 tspns smoked / sweet paprika 2 tspns hot paprika 2 tspns salt 2 tspns ground pepper 1 onion 4 cloves garlic 1 porcini stock cube or 1/2 oz dried porcini mushrooms olive oil 1 lb button mushrooms 1 lb light sour cream about 1 lb of curly pasta noodles 3-4 cups mixed grated cheese ( I like a cheddar, parmesan, mozzarella combo...you can buy these mixes already grated) time: 30 - 40 minutes active sauce: 5 hrs putting it together: 1 hr you will need:
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stroganoff pasta bake In a recent breakfast radio interview, the 2 DJ's were joking with me that the only dish most blokes will cook for a girl is Beef Stroganoff, and when that fails to impress they'll resort to Pork Stroganoff, or Chicken Stroganoff. I countered that most guys also have a Spaghetti Bolognese recipe, if push comes to shove. Well, this dish is not quite either...it is the world's easiest pasta sauce which makes a wee detour with some mushrooms and sour cream, then winds up back on top of pasta, smothered in cheese and baked until the whole things reaches a giddy, cheesy perfection. Your neighbours will be on your doorstep, noses sniffing high, hoping for an invite. And that's okay, because this dish feeds a small army! I also love this recipe because you can stop at any point and still have a meal in front of you; cook the meat and tomato sauce and you can serve it over spaghetti or buttered spaetzle. Add the mushrooms and sour cream and you have a goulashy-stroganoffy wonder that would be great with crusty bread, or go the whole nine and toss the sauce through some big, fat, curly noodles and top it all with grated cheese and bake it in the oven.
The Sauce: In a plastic bag, combine the paprikas, salt and pepper. Toss in the pork chops and steak and give it all a shake and a bit of a rub. Let the bag sit in the fridge (an hour or two if you're not pressed for time). Heat about 1/4 cup of olive oil in a large stock pan. Toss in the chops and steak and sear them on both sides. About 4 mins per side. Add the passata (this is strained, cooked tomato sauce. you can substitute 2 large tins of tomatoes if you like), the porcini stock cube ( you can substitute 1/2 oz dried porcini mushrooms, just soak them in 1 cup of hot water for 20 minutes, dice them finely and add both the mushrooms and the water to the sauce) the whole, peeled onion, the peeled garlic cloves (give them a poke with a knife so that their juice can seep out during the cooking). Cover with a lid and reduce the heat as low as it will go. Let this simmer away for 3-5 hours. Taste: you might like a little salt or sugar or even a few herbs if this tastes too simple for you (the paprika is enough for me). I usually make the sauce a day (or longer) ahead. That way I can refrigerate it, take it out and skim off any fat and I then pour the sauce through a strainer into a saucepan. This means that I can push the garlic cloves into the sauce, I give the onion one last squeeze and then discard it. I also tear apart the meat. I can remove any fatty bits, take out the pork bones and go through the sauce looking for any bone that might have splintered off during the slow cooking. I am left with a brilliantly red sauce, free of most fat, any bones and full of flavour. Heat the sauce and add about 1 lb of small button mushrooms, cut into quarters ( or left whole...it's your choice). Simmer for about 40 minutes. Remove from the heat and add about 1 lb of (light) sour cream. Stir this through. In the meantime, bring a pot of salted water to a rapid boil. I use the biggest, curliest noodles I can find for this dish...they grab the sauce like greedy little devils and put a lot more flavour and bite into each forkful! Boil about 1- 1 1/2 lbs of dried pasta noodles. Cook about 1 minute less than recommended on the package. You want the noodles cooked just shy of 'al dente' as they are going to be baked again in the oven and will continue cooking. You don't want them to get mushy. Pour the noodles into a large baking dish. Pour the sauce on top and nudge it around a bit to make sure that the sauce gets to the bottom of the dish. Cover with about 3 cups of grated cheese. How much you need will depend upon how big your dish is and how much cheese you want on top. Serve with a big salad and some old fashioned garlic bread. And a bloody good bottle of red!
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