TRADITIONAL CRETAN MINCED MEAT WITH SPAGHETTI
Ingredient
1.5 kg meat from the leg of pork
80 g balsamic vinegar
100 grams of wine
Salt and pepper
80 grams of olive oil
2 large dry onions
5 cloves garlic
A bit of red
hot pepper
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 tsp oregano
1/2 pound spaghetti or linguini briskly
300 grams grated cheese for spaghetti.
Instructions
Cut the meat into strips. Cut with kitchen scissors each strip into smaller
pieces.
The pieces should be about the size of chickpea.
It is better to do this job
overnight.
Pour 2 TBs olive oil over the minced
meat and stir. This way the small pieces of meat are covered with oil and will
not dry during the night.
Peel and mince the onions and garlic.
Put the oil in a saucepan and
place it over medium heat.
Put in onions and garlic. Stir
occasionally until they become soft and tender.
Place the pieces of meat into
the pot and mix.
Lower even further the heat
and leave the meat to warm up and produce its fluids.
Add salt, pepper, cumin, and a
little hot pepper.
Watch the minced to simmer but
not burn.
Do not put any water.
Let the meat to simmer in its
fluids.
Check from time to time to make
it sure that it has not dried out, but that still has liquids.
Add the vinegar and wine and
stir.
Let the meat simmer until soft
and tender.
Remove the pot from the heat.
Put some cooked minced in a
plate and taste the flavor of it.
If you don’t like it, correct
seasoning.
SPAGHETTI
Put in a pot plenty of water
and place it over high heat.
When the water boils, pour in
half a pound pasta cutters and stir well.
Put a little salt in the water
for better taste.
Each kind of pasta needs cooking specific number of minutes.
Read the instructions on the package and follow them.
Remove the pasta from the heat
and strain it. Wait until it drains well.
Put the pasta back into the same
pot that you boiled it.
Put into the pasta two tablespoons
of minced meat and some sauce.
Mix, so that sauce and fat goes
everywhere and prevents pasta from sticking together.
Put again the pot on the heat and cook the pasta for two more minutes.
Remove the pot from the
heat.
Sprinkle over the serving dishes
grated cheese.
Serve the pasta over the cheese.
Put above pasta plenty of
minced meat and sprinkle above it grated cheese.
Of course instead of macaroni you can use, spaghetti, or linguini, or any
other kind of pasta.
If you want, you can make your own pasta, which is tastier than the pasta
you find in commerce.
Homemade pasta
Dough
Ingredients
120 g. olive
oil
125 g. frozen
margarine
1/2 cup of
warm water
1/2 cup milk
or kefir
1 egg
1 sachet of
dry yeast
500 g. durum flour
Instructions
Dissolve in a cup of warm water the yeast.
Put in a bowl the olive oil.
Grate the margarine with tomato grater and put it in the bowl.
Stir well with a fork.
Add the dissolved yeast into the bowl and stir.
Gently knock the egg and add it into the bowl.
Add milk or kefir.
Mix all ingredients well and add the flour.
Knead well and seeks to achieve stiff dough.
Leave the dough covered with a towel on edge, to rest for half an hour.
Open a sheet moderate in thickness.
Cut the sheet into oblong strips of 5 cm width.
Place three strips one upon another.
Cut the pasta in rectangular 1 cm in width and 4-5 cm in length.
Sprinkle lots of flour over the pieces of pasta and wiggle back and forth
to loosen them.
Keep going until you make all the macaroni you need.
You will cook all the macaroni you made.
If you live some for later use, they will dry up and will
become useless.
How to cook
the homemade pasta
Put the homemade macaroni in boiling water.
Pour a little salt.
Let them boil for five minutes.
Put on a small plate a few macaronis and try them to see if they are ready.
If you think that they aren’t properly cooked, boil them two more minutes.
From this step continue as described above.
If you didn’t use all the dough, keep the remaining in a food bag in the
freezer for another use.
