Tag: meat

Ragout? Not just meat! Here's how to do it with vegetables, fish or seitan – Italian Cuisine

The sauce is an indispensable condiment for pasta, but it can also be done without meat, to vary or for those who follow a diet veg

As the ragout season pasta, no one ever! We must admit it, if there is an emblematic dish of Italian cuisine it is him, the king of sauces, rich, greedy, to be collected with bread after finishing the pasta. But the meat does not like everyone or maybe sometimes you want to vary. So the sauce can also be prepared with the fish, with the vegetables, even with the seitan. Let's find out how.

The vegetable ragout

Every season has its own vegetables: in winter the Vegetable Ragu it is prepared with broccoli, radicchio, cauliflower, carrots, fennel, in summer with zucchini, peppers, aubergines. What are the vegetables you have in the fridge, cut into small pieces and put them to fry with extra virgin olive oil and a clove of garlic. Leave the vegetables crunchy, they should not be overly stewed or lose flavor. If you like, you can add tomato sauce, or even a spoonful of concentrate. Season with salt, pepper and basil. The smell of the vegetable garden on the plate … irresistible!

The fish sauce

With fish sauce means any sauce, white or red, which is prepared with fish cut into small pieces. It can be the grouper, for example, or the octopus, or the swordfish. But also the sea bream (maybe the grilled and advanced lunch), the tuna, i shrimp. Cut the fine fish and brown it with extra virgin olive oil and fresh garlic. The preparation is really fast. Add the white wine, then add, if you want a red ragù, of the past – not exaggerated in quantity or the tomato will hide the aromas of the fish – or the cherry tomatoes. Then add fennel, or parsley. With some ingredients, such as swordfish or tuna, olives and capers are also perfectly combined Sicilian.

The seitan ragù

For a 100% vegetarian sauce, but also vegan, you can replace the seitan to the meat. The procedure is exactly the same as a traditional ragout. Chop the seitan or cut it very thin and fry it in extra virgin olive oil with carrot, celery and diced onion. Add the wine and then add the tomato sauce. Add salt and pepper, add a sprinkling of nutmeg if you appreciate it. Cook for an hour on low heat.

The lentil ragout

For winter evenings, the perfect substitute for animal proteins is lentil. Also in this case it is cooked in the same way as the traditional ragout, choosing, if you have little time, the lentils red hulled, which are cooked quickly, otherwise the normal ones, to be kept in water one night before preparing the sauce.

The pasta is suitable for meat sauce

The juicy ragù go well with the homemade pasta, like maltagliati, tagliatelle or pappardelle. Those more dry instead with the short pasta: tortiglioni, penne, conchiglie.

Fresh meat at the supermarket, here's how to recognize it – Italian Cuisine

After the service of the hyenas, which told of sausages and steaks expired and repackaged in a large butchery, we asked the expert if the meat from the fridge is really safe

Steaks, sausages and slices sold even if expired, after having been repackaged with a new expiry date. And when the appearance betrayed the bad conditions, the meat could be minced and sold to prepare meatballs or meat sauce. It happened in the butchery of a large supermarket, as they told them Hyenas in their program. The hidden camera has resumed the dialogues between the boss and the employee: «It does not matter if the meat has expired, what is left to re-label the re-packets and what is worth reproaching.
Fortunately though this is a case so rare to make news.

«The meat sold both in the butcher's and in the supermarkets are subject to control procedures by the producer and subjected to periodic official controls by the veterinarians of the ASL, explains the doctor Maria Grazia Volpe, of the Institute of Food Sciences of the National Research Council. "Furthermore, on the industrial packaging of foodstuffs of animal origin there is always the identification mark of the establishment which gives the certainty that the processing of the meat took place in a factory under the control of the official veterinarian".

Before consuming a food, it is always good to be certain of its safety: "It is essential for our well-being, because if the food is contaminated from a microbiological point of view or contains harmful elements, it can constitute a health hazard, with effects that they can manifest themselves after a short time, as in the case of acute toxins, but also after many years, through chronic diseases even serious . Here are his suggestions for choosing the freshest meat.

The labeling

The label is one very important tool and it is necessary to learn how to use it carefully when buying meat packaged in supermarket counters. Attention must be paid to the indications given: animal species (pig, bovine, sheep), trade name (fillet, capocollo, for example), country where the animal was bred, country in which it was slaughtered, factory code , reference code of the animal or the lot, price per kilo, date of preparation of the package, expiry date, method of preservation. Also for meat preparations, it is important to check on the label if frozen meat has been used, if there are additives, preservatives, flavorings.

Preservation

It is always advised to respect the methods and the term of conservation indicated on the label. Home preservation, if not correct, greatly affects the durability of food. The appropriate conservation methods allow to avoid potentially harmful deterioration, contamination or microbial growths. The meat in the fridge must always be protected by enclosures and containers and, if of different species, they must be separated. They must also not come into contact with other packaged foods, with vegetables, fruits and cooked food.

«Alarm bells

It is very important that the meat sold in refrigerated counters is in suitable condition. For example, the presence of excess liquid indicates that the food has been stored for some time. Attention also to the excessive presence of frost: it means that some temperature change has occurred. And, in general, if color or smell is altered, it is better not to consume the product.

Color

The color of the meat actually depends on many factors such as the species of the animal, the age, the sex, the type of feeding and above all the concentration of myoglobin in the muscle fibers and the structure of the muscle. Then it does not always indicate freshness some meat.

The expiration date

Some foods can be eaten even after the expiration date. There is a difference between "to be consumed within", the formula generally used for fresh and highly perishable foods, from «preferably consume within, which instead indicates only a time span within which the product loses some of its organoleptic characteristics, but is still edible. Dried pasta, rice, chocolate, freeze-dried foods, some canned foods can be consumed even after the expiration date.

In fresh foods, chemical alterations are triggered over time and microbial growth is recorded that can change nutritional and organoleptic characteristics and it is not enough to evaluate its taste, smell and fragrance. Food can be contaminated by pathogenic bacteria such as Listeria, Campylobacter, Staphylococcus or Salmonella, which do not modify the sensory and physical characteristics, but are also very dangerous especially if they are eaten raw or undercooked.

These pathogenic microorganisms may be present in very low quantities at the beginning of the conservation period, and increase in number, until they become dangerous, as they approach, and exceed, the expiration date. For meat there is no uniformity: if the burgers and minced meat prepared by the butcher should be consumed within 48 hours, the interval rises to 4 or 5 days for medium-sized beef cuts and arrives at 7 – 10 for steaks or other small cuts packed in modified atmosphere. For this reason it is very important to read the labels carefully.

5 mistakes not to do in cooking the meat stew – Italian Cuisine

It is one of the tastiest dishes to savor on these cold December days. Prepare it well you can, provided you do not make these mistakes, from the choice of meat to cooking

The stew it is one of the most popular traditional stewed meat recipes, from north to south. And there is not one single stew but many, different (and all very good) depending on the vegetables that you want to add to the meat. Preparing this dish is not impossible, provided you do not fall into these 5 errors very common.

Calf or beef?

Meanwhile, we decide whether to prefer a stew of calf or beef. The difference between these two meats lies in tenderness and taste. The first is a young animal, with one soft meat but with little taste. A stew dthe beef will be tastier instead and, to make it soft, all you have to do is cook it at 75 ° for at least two hours. In this way the meat will soften until it becomes tender.

Vegetables? Those you prefer!

In the original version, together with the meat are added celery, carrots and onion. Usually only one onion, one celery and three carrots, which give the sauce a lot of sweetness. All well sliced, so that it can brown well in a little oil. Then you can add mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers or potatoes. Of these, choose the variety Bintjie, which has firm flesh, fine grain and delicate flavor. In addition, they also take long cooking times very well.

And then…

No stew dish ever comes to the table. To accompany it, to make it really one of the super comfort food, it takes mashed potatoes or, better yet, polenta. Which can be yellow, made with soft corn flour, with a soft and velvety texture, or taragna, for those who love the strongest flavors. The important thing is that it is very hot and served separately, so that each diner decides the amount and whether to flood it with tasty sauce or savor it alone.

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