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As a general rule, I am not fond of lamb and thick pasta but this has made me a fan of both! I started off with a diced red pepper and lamb spaghetti with olive oil in mind but Chris objected to the diced red pepper and spaghetti. With his meddling this turned out amazing but I refuse to give him full credit! You may notice that the seasoning for the lamb is stolen from the moussaka recipe. Special thanks to Araceli for the blended red bell pepper idea.
4 servings or 3 Chris and Ying servings
- 1/2 pound linguini
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- 1 lb lamb shoulder with bones
- 1/2 tsp all-spice
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp chilli powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp masala wine/red wine
- 2 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 2 roma tomatoes, diced
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 1 medium onion,diced
- 1 clove garlic, smashed
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup grated Parmigiana-Reggiano
- 1/4 cup fresh basil or parsely, chopped
- crushed red pepper for serving
- Cook the linguini according to the directions on the package.
- Heat 1 tbsp oil in a saucepan and saute the onions, garlic and red bell pepper over medium-high heat for about 10 minutes. Puree the mixture with a little water and leave aside.
- Slice the lamb thinly, saving the bones. Season the sliced lamb with the all-spice, cumin, paprika, salt, black pepper, nutmeg, garlic powder, chilli powder and salt.
- Heat 1 tbsp oil in a saute pan and brown the lamb bones before adding the chopped tomatoes. Saute for an additional 5 minutes then return the pureed bell pepper mixture to the saucepan. Simmer for about 5 minutes before adding the milk then simmer for another 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, heat 1/2 tbsp oil in a large saute pan (everything is going to get in here!) and brown the lamb slices for about 5 minutes. Deglaze with the masala/ red wine, stir in the pureed bell pepper-milk sauce and simmer for another 5 minutes. Toss in the cooked pasta, basil or parsley and Parmigiana-Reggiano. Salt to taste. You can remove the bones but someone might enjoy them!
- Serve with crushed red pepper and extra Parmigiana-Reggiano if desired.
This is also good chilled, for a nice lunch-box meal!
I made these because I could not find any of these in the 3 supermarkets I visited in Mountain View. Compared to the ones I found in Singapore’s Cold Storage, these are way better so I think I would be making them from scratch from now on!
makes 24 large fingers
- 2 eggs, separated
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup and 3 tbsp all purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 9 X 13 inch baking sheet or equivalent, lined with baking paper
- Preheat oven to 205 °C (400 °F).
- Beat the egg whites in a electric mixer with 1 tbsp of sugar and till stiff and shiny.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, remaining sugar till pale and thick. Whisk in the vanilla extract.
- Sift together the flour and baking powder.
- Fold in half the egg white foam into the egg yolks, follow by the flour mixture, then the remaining egg white foam.
- Pipe onto the baking sheet with a pastry bag(or plastic bag) fitted with a 1/2 inch round tube.
- Bake for 7 to 9 mins, till a toothpick inserted into the middle of a ladyfinger comes out clean.
For tiramisu, the ladyfingers can be shaped to fit the containers you are using or just spread the whole mixture onto the sheet and cut into the desired shape later.
These tiramisu are made in individual ramekins because I do not trust my cutting and serving skills. If you wish to show off the beautiful layers, make the tiramisu in one 28 oz rectangular container and serve onto plates carefully!
makes 4 7 oz portions
- 2 eggs, separated
- 4 oz mascarpone cheese
- ½ cup whipped cream
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 cup strong black coffee, cooled
- 3 tbsp dark rum/brandy
- about 12 large ladyfingers
- 2 teaspoon cocoa powder/shaved chocolate
- Add 1 tbsp of rum/brandy to the cooled coffee.
- In an electric mixer, beat the egg whites on high till soft peaks are formed but not dry.
- Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a separate bowl till pale and creamy. Whisk in the mascarpone and 2 tbsp of rum/brandy.
- Use a rubber spatula to fold the whipped cream into the egg yolk mixture, then carefully fold the egg white foam into the cream mixture. Try not to lose too much volume.
- Dip each ladyfinger into the coffee mixture for around 3 seconds. Allow the excess coffee to drain off before lining the containers. Do not soak the lady fingers in the coffee or the lady fingers would disintegrate when you try to life them out.
- Using half of the cream mixture available, top each container with the cream mixture.
- Repeat with the ladyfingers layer, then with the cream mixture. There should be a total of 4 layers. Sprinkle with cocoa powder or shaved chocolate.
- Chill for at least 2 hours before serving but the tiramisu is at its best after at least 12 hours in the refrigerator, making this the perfect make ahead recipe for dinner parties.
Take care to drain each ladyfinger carefully before lining the containers to avoid unsightly liquid pooling in the containers.
The ladyfingers and whipped cream can be homemade easily for even better results.
The recipe from this lasagna comes from… the back of the San Remo’s lasagna packet! Well actually, only for the cheese sauce. We used our own ragù recipe for the meat sauce. After multiple tries and modifications, this might actually be worth a try. ;) We named this San Remo lasagna in honour of the back-of-the-packaging inspiration though.
Serves 6 as a main course
For the cheese sauce
- 2 tbsp butter
- 65 g shredded cheddar
- 65 g shredded mozzarella
- 2 cups whole milk
- 2 tbs plain flour
- Prepare either of the meat sauce recipe.
- When the meat sauce is almost done, start preparing the cheese sauce: Melt butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour; fry for 3 minutes.
- Remove from heat and stir in the milk.
- Return to heat and stir over medium fire for about 15 minutes. Its okay not to stir it continuously.
- Add in the cheese and stir the mixture till all the cheese melts.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degree celcius.
- Assemble the lasagna in a 12″ x 12″ baking dish. The base layer will be the meat sauce. Followed by a layer of lasagna sheet, meet sauce and cheese sauce. Repeat the three layers to make about 3 to 4 layers in total. Remember to always end with the cheese sauce layer.
- Grate the additional cheese over the lasagna and bake for 40 minutes.
The pasta sheets will expand when cooked, so there is no need to ensure that the sheet covers the whole layer. You can of course also overlap the lasagna sheets to cover the baking dish if you like pasta.
The difficulty in the recipe is adjusting the moisture level of the ragù such that the pasta sheets can be properly rehydrated and cooked without becoming soggy. This will depend on the shape of your baking dish ,the number of layers you have and the exact temperature of your oven, to name a few. Have fun experimenting!.
For the cheese sauce, you can also use cheddar only or mozzarella only (or any combination of the two cheese to make up 130 g).
Acknowledgment: San Remo instant lasagna packaging for the cheese sauce recipe.
This is our improvisation over the mushroom-flavoured beef ragù recipe that we posted before. The story begins one fine morning when we realized that we had half a pumpkin left over from the pumpkin soup we made a week earlier. While Ying Ying decided to make pumpkin soup, I decided against it later on. Too bad the pumpkin and carrot were already baked. I remembered reading Jamie Oliver using pumpkin in one of his lasagna recipe. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the recipe with us. Oh well, what better than to improvise ourselves! Surprisingly, the lasagna turns out really good. Here is the ragù with pumpkin recipe. (Oh, and did I tell you that we only had 300 g of beef?)
Makes approx. 900 g
- 300 g minced beef
- 200 g minced pork
- 1 heaping cup (~250 g) Prego fresh mushroom flavoured sauce
- 1½ white onion, chopped roughly
- 2 shallots, smashed and minced
- 3 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
- 1 fresh tomato, diced
- Tomato sauce (to taste)
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 2-3 tbsp margarine
- 1 tsp freshly-ground nutmeg
- White and black pepper (to taste)
- Salt (to taste)
- 2 cups warm water
For the baked pumpkin
- ½ medium pumpkin
- 1 large carrot
- vegetable oil
- First prepare the baked pumpkin and carrots. Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Chop the pumpkin and carrots into large pieces (approximately 3 cm x 3 cm). Smear the baking tray with some oil and place the pumpkin (with the skin side up) and carrots on a baking tray. Bake for 35 minutes.
- When the pumpkin is done, remove the skins gently. Dice the carrots into small cubes.
- Heat the margarine in a large wok until bubbling but not brown and fry the onion. When the onions are turning soft, add garlic and shallots and fry for another 30 seconds.
- Add the minced beef and pork and fry until they are no longer pink, ensuring that there is no big lump of meat.
- Mix in the Prego sauce. Stir in tomato sauce, salt, both peppers, nutmeg and sugar. Mix thoroughly and fry for 3-4 minutes.
- Mix in 2 cups of warm water and the diced tomato.
- When the meat sauce starts to simmer, mix in chopped pumpkin and diced carrots.
- Cover the wok and stir occasionally until the water is reduced to half the volume (but still wet). Taste the ragù and adjust the seasonings as necessary. The ragù should taste a little sweet due to the pumpkin.
- Continue simmering until most of the water has been reduced, stirring more often to prevent the ragù from burning.
We find this ragù a very good match as lasagna sauce. The saltiness from the cheese sauce perfectly balance the additional sweetness from the pumpkin, while the pumpkin also provides a much better consistency for the lasagna.
Acknowledgment: This is an improvisation over our original beef ragù recipe with the pumpkin inspiration from Jamie Oliver.
This mushroom-flavoured beef ragù was one of my favourite food from my childhood days. I used to ate it with spaghetti (and still do, sometime, though I prefer wide ribbon pasta with it now, such as tagliatelle). However, I found that the best place to use this ragù is to replace the meat sauce in a typical lasagne dish. Its slightly sweet and sour flavour really fits a lasagne.
Makes approx. 900 g
- 500 g minced beef
- 1 heaping cup (~250 g) Prego fresh mushroom flavoured sauce
- 1 medium onion
- 1 medium carrots
- 1 fresh tomato (or canned tomato)
- 2-3 tbsp margarine
- Tomato sauce (to taste)
- 2 tbsp sugar
- freshly-ground nutmeg
- Salt and pepper (to taste)
- 3 cups water
- Slice the onion into small (approx.) 0.5 cm x 2 cm slices. Dice the carrots into small, scant 0.5 cm cubes. Dice the tomato.
- Heat the margarine in a large wok and fry the onion. When the onions are turning soft, add the carrots and fry until onion is golden.
- Add the minced beef and fry until cooked, ensuring that there is no big lump of meat.
- Mix in the Prego sauce and water. Add tomato sauce, salt, pepper, nutmeg and sugar. Add the tomato cubes. Mix thoroughly.
- Simmer until the water is reduced (but still wet), stirring occasionally. Taste the ragù and adjust the amount of tomato sauce, salt, pepper, and sugar as necessary.
- Continue simmering until most of the water has been reduced, stirring more often to prevent the ragù from burning. (If cooking the ragù for lasagne, leave the ragù just slightly wetter.)
The right flavour for this ragù should have a hint (how much will depend on your palate) of sweetness and sourness. Use generous amount of sugar and tomato sauce to adjust the sweetness and sourness.
Acknowledgment: This is an original recipe adapted from my mom’s recipe.
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