Date: January 14, 2020
This was my third practice work with my Sony A6600 camera. I’d done outside foliage, and trains, today it was cooking. I tried a recipe I had done before but that only rated three stars. My notes had some ideas about what could be done to get another star.
Let’s get started! Line up the ingredients
Prep the ingredients for cooking. In addition to the ingredients below I had 1¼ pound each of spicy and sweet Italian sausage links. Last time I used bulk and thought the links might be less fatty. Not so much, it’s really the same stuff, just pushed into link casings. And it was time consuming taking the sausages out of their casings.
Naturally, we start by sautéing the mirepoix (carrots, celery, onion) then toss in the aromatics (garlic, red pepper flakes, dried Italian seasonng, and salt)
When that is done, add the sausage and cook until no longer pink. When I made it before it was much to greasy, so I drained some grease before adding the tomato sauce and chicken stock. I got a nice little bit.
Then add, the crushed tomatoes and chicken stock.
Pressure cook for 20 minutes with a 20 minute release. Meanwhile, start simmering some water for the pasta and enjoy a glass of Pinot Noir
When the cooking was finished I still had too much fat so I spooned some a lot out. Not the most pleasing picture – but it’s important to see what the process is.
Last time I didn’t get nearly enough of the excess fat off so this was a nice start.
Drain the pasta – I used Penne – and toss one cup of the sauce with the noodles.
Dinner is served: portion into pasta bowls and ladle some more sauce on top. Sprinkle some parmesan reggiano on top and dig in.
Sad to say, but even with taking off more of the excess fat, this dish doesn’t climb up to four stars. I found it too watery. That was a problem I didn’t think I’d have when I mixed everything together for pressure cooking. The vegetables and meat really release a lot of liquid. And it was still too fatty.
Carla and I talked and agreed that a search for the killer Italian meat sauce recipe would be fun.
A note on the pictures. I didn’t set up multiple flashes shooting through translucent umbrellas like I sometimes do. I simply used one on-camera flash. I’m reasonably pleased with the photos considering the set up and continue to be happy with the Sony A6600 paired with the 18-135mm lens.
