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"I" - Italy - Baked Fusilli

Baked Fusilli recipe
 
Our little “Around the World for £4 or less” experiment took us to Italy this evening. What else would you cook on a budget from Italy? It had to be pasta really....
 
The Pasta should really have been Ziti which is a tubular pasta and would have held the sauce better. But we're tight, it's bitterly cold out and the local supermarket don't be a Gluten Free version anyway. Enough excuses, Fusilli did the job fine!
 
This is a recipe Sue created from two traditional recipes combined to keep it within of £4 budget. It's as traditional as possible.
 
Ingredients:-
 
Pasta of your choice ( We're not shapist here.....)
Oil (Olive if you have it. We didn't and used Vegetable Oil)
2 Onion chopped – 1 large, 1 small
3 cloves of Garlic minced
500g Minced Beef (Or Pork and Beef if you prefer)
2 tbsp Tomato Purée
1 tbsp dried Origano
1 tsp Dried Rosemary
½ tsp Chilli Flakes
1 tin chopped Tomatoes
5 tbsp Butter or Margarine
200g Cream Cheese (Philadelphia or shop own brand)
2 tbsp Basil, part to garnish
50 g Grated Italian style Cheese
100g Grated Mozzarella
1 Egg
Salt to season
 
Method:-
 
Making the Mariana Sauce
 
(1) Heat the tin of chopped Tomatoes and add the Butter, ½ tsp of Salt and an Onion sliced in half.
(2) Stir then let simmer for 15 minutes. 
(3) Remove the Onion and set the sauce aside.
 
Meat Sauce:-
 
(1) In a large frying pan add chopped Onion and Garlic to the Oil and fry until translucent.
(2) Add the Chilli flakes and Herbs and simmer.
(3) Add the mince and cook through until browned.
 
Pasta:-
 
(1) In a separate pan boil salted water, ad the Pasta and cook until Al Dente.
(2) Drain the Pasta.
(3) Add the mince mixture to the Mariana Sauce, add the Tomato Puree and a few spoonfulls of the Pasta water.
(4) Simmer for a further 10 minutes.
 
Cheese Sauce:-
 
(1) Mix the Cream Cheese and half of the grated Italian style Cheese, 1 Egg and a pinch of Salt.
 
Bringing it all together:-
 
(1) Drain the Pasta and add to the mince and sauce mixture. Stir and make sure the Pasta is well coated.
(2) In an ovenproof dish layer the Pasta mix then the Cream Cheese mix and repeat.
(3) Top off with Mozzarella and the remaining half of the Italian style grated Cheese.
(4) Bake at 180c until the topping is slightly browned and the whole disk is piping hot.
 
We served ours with a little dress salad and home-made Garlic bread.
 
 

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Better Gluten Free Batter recipe, eat will on universal credit

We’re always experimenting, that just how we are! We’ve found two issues with the various GF Batters. If you use Egg as a binder, it sticks, but it’s very heavy. If you use just Cornflour etc. there’s no protein to ‘Fix’ the batter as it hits the hot Oil. As a result you end up with lots of particulates in the Oil. These burn the next time you fry and ruin the Oil.

I think we’re found a fix!

These measures made enough better for 2 Cod Loin fillets and 6 Garlic button Mushrooms. But as long as you scale 1 / 5 - Gram Flour / Cornflour it should work.

Ingredients:-

1 Tbsp of Gram Flour
5 Tbsps of Cornflour
Salt & fresh ground Black Pepper to season
2 Tsps of Baking Powder
2 Tsps of Turmeric
Soda Water

Additional Cornflour to dredge

Method:-

(1) Add the dredging Cornflour to a bowl.
(2) Set your fryer to 160c and allow to heat up.
(3) Mix the main batter ingredients dry.
(4) Add enough Soda Water to make a batter which will stick.
(5) Dredge to items you intend to Batter in the Cornflour.
(6) Fry until floating and golden brown in batches.
(7) remove each batch to drain.
(8) Re-dunk to re-heat just before serving.

The excess batter formed Scraps and floated making preserving your Oil much easier. Although this seems a low frying temperature the protein in the Gram Flour will burn at 180c and the batter will be dark and slightly bitter. But both the Fish & the Mushrooms held their moisure and the Garlic Butter stayed in the batter. Also the few Battered Mushrooms left this morning would easily have refreshed with another brief frying - Bonus!

 

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