codisc
new member
Reged: 02/25/04
Posts: 21
|
|
In the March Cycle Sport article on Saeco team member and last year's Giro d'Italia winner Gilberto Simoni he says "...I've already convinced Claudio Corti to hire our own cook for the Tour de France so we can have some decent food. We're going to load up the Saeco bus with Italian pasta, Italian tomato sauce, olive oil and Parmesan cheese. When you're away from home for so long and when you're tired and stressed out, having food that is nice to eat and tastes of something is important. In France tomato sauce is like ketchup and they cook the pasta until it's like rubber. I'm not prepared to eat that stuff any more." So to save you guys and gals from a similar fate I am offering up this sauce recipe, with my wife's permission.
2 large cloves of garlic
1 large onion - bigger than a baseball, smaller than a softball
1/2 - 1 green bell pepper
Chop the vegetables up and saute them in olive oil in a large pot until the onion is transparent. Use low heat to avoid burning.
For meat sauce add about 1 pound of lean ground beef and brown with the vegetables. Or, brown Italian sausage in a frying pan, then add it to the sauted vegetables. For meatless sauce skip this step but pay attention below.
Add 2 large cans (about 35 oz size) of Italian tomatoes. I get the whole peeled ones, drain the liquid into the pot, then mash the tomatoes up in the can before adding them.
Add 1 can (6 oz) tomato paste.
Add
1 1/2 tsp basil
1 1/2 tsp oregano
1 1/2 tsp parsley
Use fresh herbs if you can get them, or grow your own.
salt and pepper - start with about 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper
1 to 1 1/2 tablespoon sugar
If not adding meat, add 1 tsp or so fennel.
Simmer this at least an hour using low heat to avoid burning. Stir every 5-10 minutes. Crack the lid to let some of the water out. Open a bottle of wine and drink it while the sauce cooks.
Adjust the seasoning before serving.
Cook the pasta according to the package directions. For taste, put a little salt and a little olive oil in the water before the pasta goes in. Test with your teeth; don't mess up the ceiling. Drain the pasta when you judge it's done but don't rinse it - you want to serve both the pasta and sauce hot.
codisc
|
Dave_Thompson
prophet
Reged: 12/19/03
Posts: 717
Loc: Spokane, Washington
|
|
Drool!
--------------------
Steel lover, but then I like Ti with carbon too.
Licensed bike geek.
|
TheMightySkunk
journeyman
Reged: 12/26/03
Posts: 82
|
|
Poor Gilberto won't be able to enjoy this recipe, because it's for sure that neither he nor his cook has the faintest clue what a baseball is, nor a softball. 
--------------------
"I haven't failed. I've just managed to find 100,000 ways that don't work"
--Albert Einstein
|
DiabloScott
friend
Reged: 12/30/03
Posts: 35
Loc: Concord, California
|
|
I hear this a lot about how the French can't cook pasta. And there was rider diary I read that talked about how the French were always eating some kind of gross orange-colored soup as a first course. Then I read an article about Davis Phinney racing the Coor's Classic when some French teams came over and complained about American food - he thought that was hilarious.
Actually I think French food is like a big joke and French people don't really eat it - they just sell smelly cheese and snails and frogs' legs to tourists to get a huge laugh, then they go home and eat normal stuff. Restaurants have special menus for the locals but you have to know the password or else you get the one with snails.
--------------------
Check out my bike blog! http://diabloscott.blogspot.com
|
Lon
sage
Reged: 12/20/03
Posts: 595
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
|
|
I read a few years ago that the big trend of eating out in Paris were in their Italian Restaurants. The gist of the article was that they had so many.
I can attest to this as in two visits to Paris we ate in a great deal in Italian Restaurants and we had excellent food. It started since we could read the menu. The non tourist restaurants do not have translated menus. I sure did not want to order calf brain thinking I was getting roast beef.
No doubt the food at rural hotels trying to serve huge groups is the problem. I would think that is the case more than the fact it is Italian food.
|
TheMightySkunk
journeyman
Reged: 12/26/03
Posts: 82
|
|
After about 15 business trips to France, gritting my teeth and putting up with the French attitude, affectations, greasy food, and snobbery, I decided about 10 years ago that I would take their frequent advice to Americans and never return. That decision is one I have not regretted for a moment.
When I have the desire to see a good bike race, I go either to the SFGP, the US Chmps in Philly, the Jayco Bay Series in Melbourne, or to the Tour Down Under in Adelaide, where the racing is just as fun to watch, the fans are terrific, good food is not a problem, it's WAY cheaper, and nobody bitches me out because I don't like snails, garlic, wine, or The French.
As John Kerry says, "The French are.....The French".
--------------------
"I haven't failed. I've just managed to find 100,000 ways that don't work"
--Albert Einstein
|
codisc
new member
Reged: 02/25/04
Posts: 21
|
|
Simoni doesn't need to know how big baseballs or softballs are. According to his interview in Cycle Sport his wife "makes better pasta than French Chefs."
When I started this thread I didn't expect it to turn into a Frog-bashing exercise, but from some of your comments maybe they deserve it.
codisc
|
Lon
sage
Reged: 12/20/03
Posts: 595
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
|
|
Personally I always found the average Parisian as friendly as the average New Yorker! They are big city people.
The French do have an attitude but when you don't react to it it pretty much goes away. In 84 I was bitten by a believe it or not Swiss Dog under the Eiffel Tower. The police and everyone could not have been nicer. They even took me to a hospital near my hotel instead of close by so we could get back easier. There must have been 30 cops there in just a few minutes to find the dog and check its papers for shots. Plus since they decided we looked poor they took us to a French Hospital. They felt we could not afford the American Hospital. Best part yet my doctor was goreous. Somewhere I have a picture my wife took.
|
OmegaMan
new member
Reged: 03/16/04
Posts: 1
|
|
You broke rule #1 for cooking pasta, which is never put oil or butter in the pasta water. The oil coats the pasta and the sauce won't stick.
|
MichaelKatz
friend
Reged: 12/19/03
Posts: 26
|
|
Codisc,instead of simply drinking the wine, try putting some of it in the gravy (my Italian friends look down their noses at me and call me a barbarian if I say "sauce"). As blasphemous as it sounds, I have for years used sweet red wine as the "secret ingredient" in my gravy with great success. If done right, it adds some sweetness and enhances the taste of the tomato paste. Believe it or not, the best wine I have found for this is Mogan David or Manaschewitz sweet red. Too heavy and sweet for drinking but great in the gravy!
|
Previous
Thread Index
Next
Threaded
Gilberto Simoni talks pasta
Edit
Reply
Quote
[Re: 
Re: Gilberto Simoni talks pasta