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Vegetarian Bolognese-style Sauce
Flexitarianism is all about the art of eating less meat, and choosing wisely when you do indulge. At the moment I am trying to reign in my meat eating ways—see my article on how and why to eat less meat for the motivations behind that move.
But it takes a bit of work to create vegetarian dishes that rival the rich flavors of meat. Yesterday I wrote about tips for beefing up vegetarian sauces, so today I thought I'd share one of my favorite pasta sauce recipes.
I'm a big fan of bolognese and other rich tomato-based sauces with ground beef or pork. And somehow a plain marinara just doesn't have the same effect on me. I'm pretty sure your average Italian would shudder at the inauthenticity of it all, but I find that to create a full-flavor vegetarian tomato sauce, I had to get a little creative. The addition of olives, sun-dried tomatoes, celery and carrots—blended so you can hardly distinguish the individual ingredients—adds a depth of flavor that is, I think, more interesting than your average marinara.
INGREDIENTS
| 2 cans | of plum tomatoes |
| 4 or 5 | sun-dried tomatoes, diced small |
| A handful of black olives, finely chopped | |
| 3 | garlic cloves, minced |
| 1 | onion, finely diced |
| 1 | carrot, finely diced |
| 2 | sticks of celery, finely diced |
| Glass of red wine | |
| A handful of basil leaves | |
| Olive oil | |
| A dash of heavy cream | |
PREPARATION:
- Saute the onions, celery and carrots in olive oil for 5 minutes over a medium heat, until they start to soften. Add the garlic, olives and sun-dried tomatoes, and saute for another few minutes. Pour in the red wine, and let it bubble until the alcohol has burned off. Add the tomatoes and basil leaves, and simmer for 2 or 3 hours over a low heat. Once the sauce has cooked down somewhat, blend using a hand blender—I like to stop just before it gets to a completely smooth puree, so there is still some texture.
- At this stage I season the sauce, and check it for consistency. If it is too watery, you can add tomato paste. And then just before serving, I pour in a tiny dash of cream that seems to bring all the flavors together. For variation, if you are missing the texture of meat, you could follow the steps above, brown a meat substitute in a separate pan and then combine the two after you have blended the sauce.
- Don't forget to serve with plenty of grated parmesan!
Salivating over sustainable eats? Learn how to make your own with help from Emeril Lagasse in Planet Green TV's organic cooking show, Emeril Green.