Spaghetti 'Bolognese'

 

When I was a little girl, one of our favourite meals was ‘spaghetti mince’; my father had been in Italy during the Second World War and had brought back a taste for their food. This was about the only ‘foreign’ food we ever ate. The spaghetti had to be bought from a speciality shop – an ‘Italian Warehouseman’ – and came in long lengths, which were doubled over and wrapped in blue paper so that each strand must have been about a metre long!  Usually, Mum patiently bent it into the boiling water, but when she was in a hurry, she guiltily broke it into more convenient lengths.

 

Over the years, the name changed to ‘Spaghetti Bolognese’ and garlic was included and a sprinkling of mixed herbs.  Eventually, my mother started to try different recipes, which included bacon or chicken livers or whatever the recipe writers of the day considered appropriate.  I suspect very few resembled 'classic' spaghetti Bolognese - if there ever was such a thing.  Parmesan cheese was sprinkled over the top, sparingly, from a shiny, green cardboard container.

 

By the 80s, spaghetti Bolognese had become a standard in most households and, for that matter, it was about the first meal most people learnt to make on leaving home. The recipe varied greatly and I doubt that many citizens of Bologna would have recognised it.

 

‘Spag bol’, as it was disrespectfully known, was, of course, one of my first attempts at cooking - an effort to reproduce a favourite, which I had seen cooked many times. My own recipe became firmly established when I created a vegetarian version, and I’ve used it ever since. I got the idea for using carrot and the dash of hot sauce/chilli flakes, when I ate spaghetti Bolognese in the Portofino restaurant in Lancaster. The recipe always goes down well, and because of its familiarity, many meat eaters enjoy it. Dressed up with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese – or, if you want to be really trendy, slivers of Parmesan – it’s certainly good enough for the proverbial dinner party, as long as your guests are used to eating spaghetti, that is!

 

The most pleasing sauce is made with the tiny brown lentils, (those which become red lentils when split), but any whole lentils will do and it’s fine made with split ones, too, although the resemblance to the ‘real thing’ is considerably less.  I have used  the sauce, or something very similar, in a number of iterations, such as lasagne.

 

You can make this recipe gluten free, using the appropriate pasta. 

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

1/2 cup whole lentils

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1 carrot

1/2 green/red pepper

4 fresh OR 400 g/14 oz can chopped tomatoes

1/2 tsp sage

1/2 tsp basil

1/2 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp cinnamon

a good shake of hot sauce OR 1/4 tsp chilli flakes

1/2 tsp salt

pepper

 

25 mm (1 in) column spaghetti

 

Method:

• Cook the lentils as usual.
• Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Dice the onion and garlic and fry until starting to brown.  This will add more colour to the sauce.
• Dice the carrot and add. Cook until it’s slightly softened  Now add he diced pepper.
• Dice the tomatoes and mix in the sage, basil, oregano, cinnamon and chilli (sauce). If you’re using fresh tomatoes and the sauce seems too thick, it can be thinned by the judicious addition of a little wine. This also improves the taste. Water can be substituted in extremis.
• Now add the salt.  When everything is mixed together and heated through, add the lentils. Cook gently for ten minutes or so to let all the flavours combine. Taste and check the seasoning – the hot sauce should just give it a slight ‘lift’. If the tomatoes have produced too much liquid, simmer a little longer, with the lid off. The sauce should be fairly thick, when it’s ready.
• While the sauce is simmering, cook the spaghetti. Check that it's cooked to your taste, and toss it in olive oil and cracked black pepper. If people are to help themselves, it’s easier to put the spaghetti and sauce into separate dishes. Freshly grated - or shaved - Parmesan cheese is the ideal accompaniment; have a small bowl of 'Parmegan' for vegans. 

Note:

• Italians don't serve their pasta and sauce separately and you might prefer to tip the spaghetti into the sauce before serving it.  Remember to save some pasta water in case the sauce looks too dry.  The only issue with serving it this way, if you are giving it to guests, is that it's really difficult not to flick bits of sauce around while dishing up the food!
• In heavy weather, however, it's probably worth mixing it first and serving in bowls.  You might want to break the pasta into shorter lengths, too. 

Variations:

• Use linguine, fettucine or another long past, instead of the spaghetti
• If you’re fortunate enough to be in the land of cheap red wine, a dollop in the sauce improves it immensely.
•  In really hot weather, when appetites are failing, the sauce is still quite delicious without the lentils.  
• Use a cup of mixed, finely chopped nuts, instead of the lentils. They will not need water, of course and you would add them after frying the vegetables. 

 

You will find more pasta, main-course recipes here.

Broccoli sauce with walnuts and lemon

Blender alert (see Note)

This creamy broccoli sauce is perfect for pasta, and so easy to make. Whizzed together with walnuts and seasonings, it is both surprisingly satisfying and creamy. The first time I cooked it, my reaction was that it was hard to believe that it was dairy free.  Broccoli is by no means a voyaging vegetable, because it keeps so poorly, but it is readily available in many places. This recipe is a particularly good way of using up broccoli, when has started to turn yellow and it's great if you haven't been able to use up the stalk.

I like to serve it with spaghetti, but I think it would go well with most varieties of pasta.

 

Serves 2 

 

Ingredients

 

1/2 broccoli

1/3 cup walnuts

1 clove garlic

1/2 tsp onion powder

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 tbsp nutritionalyeast

1/4 tsp chilli flakes

1 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

 

Instructions:

• Add about half a cup of water to a saucepan and bring it to the boil.
• Cut the broccoli into florets, and cut off the woody end. Peel the thick skin from the stalk and slice the stalk. (You can use a peeler, if you wish, but I find that you can loosen the skin from the base of the stalk and simply tear it off with your knife blade.) Boil the broccoli and stalk for 4-5 minutes until just soft.
• Remove from the pan, reserving the cooking water, and tip it into a blender or food processor.
• Add the walnuts, garlic, onion powder, lemon and olive oil to the blender with the broccoli and whizz them together until they form a smooth paste.
• Season generously with salt and pepper, then add a little of the cooking water, whizz again, and continue adding more water until it reaches a sauce-like consistency.  Check the seasoning, once the sauce is the thickness you want..
• In the meantime, cook your pasta of choice according to the instructions on the package. You can use some of the pasta water in the sauce to thin it to the correct consistency, if necessary.

Serve the sauce piping hot with the pasta, with more black pepper ground over it.

 

Note:

• If you don’t have a blender, you can still make this into a delicious sauce, but of course it won’t be as creamy.

Variations:

• Leave out the salt and/or lemon juice and add some salted lemon at the blender stage.
• Add freshly-grated nutmeg just before serving.
• instead of blending in the walnuts, chop them, to add additional texture to the sauce.
• Instead of using onion powder, chop a small onion and cook it with the broccoli.
• Rather than using this as a pasta sauce, pour it over vegetables or any main course dish.

Aubergine, with pesto and pasta

Gluten free with the appropriate pasta

 

This recipe is very freely adapted from one of Jamie Oliver’s. Firstly I tweaked it so that it just made one serving, then I tweaked it again for this blog to serve two, and then I adapted it for a voyaging locker, which probably doesn’t include fresh basil, but might and, I now believe should, include a jar of pesto.

Before going any further, not all jars of pesto are created equal. Some contain a ghastly green puree, while others look like something you’d be quite proud to make yourself and have a delightful texture, just like the Real Thing. When I first came across jars of pesto, I was inclined to believe what it said on the label about having to be kept refrigerated. However, my local supermarket sells small jars at a very reasonable price and as I wanted to try out different recipes for calzone, I thought I’d probably get through the jar quite quickly, anyway. I used most of it and then out of curiosity, left the near-empty jar in my locker. it kept for months.

I was also surprised how good it tasted: the one that looked the best value, “Pam’s” is not an expensive brand, so therefore there wasn’t much chance of it being made with Extra Virgin Olive Oil, pine nuts or Pecorino cheese - all of which would be found in a traditional pesto. In fact the ingredients were canola oil, 35% basil, sunflower seeds, cheese (unspecified), garlic, sugar :-(, salt and natural flavours, so it’s rather surprising that it does taste so good, which implies that the best part of the pesto is the basil. My “Pam’s” Pesto also included three e-numbers in the ingredient list: E202 - potassium sorbate, E270 - lactic acid and E300 - ascorbic acid, and I thought that before suggesting that others put it in their lockers, I should see what these were. I had a look online and even the most hysterical of ‘health-food’ sites seemed pretty chilled about lactic and ascorbic acid. There was a bit more tooth sucking about potassium sorbate, although it is derived from sorbic acid, which occurs naturally in rowan berries. It is very commonly used in all sorts of food production and the worst that anyone had to say about it was that if it is consumed in high doses during pregnancy, it might effect the DNA. Personally, I feel quite happy about my jar of pesto: my only genuine reservation is that it contains cheese, and I prefer to eat a vegan diet. The reason I’m rabbiting on about this is because fresh basil doesn’t keep well at all - even if you have a fridge and for something like this recipe, you wouldn’t want more than a quarter of a cup, which wouldn’t use up a whole bunch. However, by all means make your own pesto if you prefer!

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 large or 2 small aubergine

olive oil

salt

4 tbsp pesto

Pecorino cheese or "Parmegan"

pasta spirals or similar

6 cherry tomatoes

black pepper

• Cut the aubergine in half. Rub it – particularly the flesh, with oil and put it on a well-oiled baking sheet. Roast it at 180° for 35 mins. Or cook it in the pressure cooker until it’s tender, cut it in half and briefly fry it in a little oil so that the flesh is lightly browned.
• While it’s cooking, cut the tomatoes in half. The original recipe says to remove the seeds, but I don’t bother. Then cut them into fine dice.
• When the aubergine is thoroughly soft, let it cool and scoop out the flesh. Chop it all up, put it into a bowl and keep warm.
• Pour the pesto over the aubergine and mix it all up. Add olive oil for taste and texture.
• Now add a little bit of cheese.
• As soon as the pasta is ready, add some of the water to the aubergines so that you have a saucy consistency.
• Mix in the tomatoes.  Grind plenty of black pepper over it.
  
• Tip in the drained pasta and serve.

Pass round extra cheese, and maybe pine nuts, chopped almonds - or sunflower seeds at the table.

Notes:

• If you have fresh basil, some leaves would be a lovely addition when the pasta is served.
• I like aubergine skin, so I generally just dice the aubergine and mix it with the pesto.
• This isn’t particularly filling, so you might want to increase the pasta from what you normally would cook, or serve it with bread, or maybe even add some cooked white beans or chickpeas to the aubergine sauce.

Mushrooms and Brussels sprouts with creamy hemp sauce

Blender Alert

I love Brussels sprouts and it always seems a bit of a shame to use them as an addition on the side rather than star of the show. They go very well with mushrooms and mixed with this thick hemp sauce, shine in a really good combination to go with pasta.

Hemp seeds, aka hemp hearts

Hemp seeds, also known as hemp hearts, are one of the latest wonder foods, but I particularly like them for making vegan milk and a cream for cooking, because there’s no need to soak them first. Hemp is also a very low-impact crop to grow, requiring little water and no fertiliser; it doesn’t have to be grown in the tropics and processing the seeds doesn’t mean (generally) women are using caustic chemicals, often with inadequate protection, so we should certainly use it in preference to cashew nuts. To serve, linguine, or fettuccine are my choice.

Unfortunately, you really do need a blender or this sauce, although, of course, you could take the concept and use some other form of cream.

Serves 2

Ingredients

olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 medium onion, diced

200 ml water

1/2 cup hemp seeds

1/2 tsp mushroom stock powder

2 tbsp nutritional yeast

1/4 tsp salt

generous grind black pepper

2 cups Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved

6 or 8 button mushrooms, thickly sliced

fettucine or linguine – about 25mm/1” dia. stacked on end

Parmesan cheese to serve

Method

• Heat some olive oil in a saucepan over a medium heat. Add the garlic and onion and cook for a couple of minutes, until the onions become translucent. Remove from heat.
• Now add the cooked onion and garlic to a blender, together with the water, hemp hearts, stock powder (if using), nutritional yeast, salt and pepper. Blend for a minute or so to make a smooth and creamy sauce. Taste and adjust seasonings.
• Put some more oil in the saucepan, and add the Brussels sprouts and cook for a few minutes, until they start to brown on the edges.
• Meanwhile, add water to another saucepan and bring to the boil for the pasta. When it’s boiling, cook the pasta as usual.
• Now add the mushrooms to the sprouts and fry for a few more minutes, stirring frequently, until they are browned. A pinch of salt might help here.
• Lower the heat and add the prepared sauce to the vegetables and stir to combine. Gently cook the sauce until it’s thick. When the pasta is cooked, add it to the pan, saving the pasta water, into a jug. Use some of this water to rinse out the blender and add to the pan.
• Cook the sauce a little longer: if it seems too thick, add more of the pasta water.

Serve immediately with extra hemp seeds and/or Parmesan or vegan "Parmesan" cheese.

Notes:

• The pasta sauce will thicken quickly once heated. Keep a close eye on it. If it is too thick, add extra pasta water to loosen it up.

Variations:

• You could use other vegetables, such as asparagus, green beans, mange-tout peas, etc instead of the Brussels sprouts. But the latter are particularly good!

• One alternative I would recommend is broccoli, but cut it into very small florets, the same size as half a sprout, otherwise the sauce won’t coat everything evenly.
• Substitute dried mushrooms for fresh, if these are unavailable.

 

Pasta with chickpeas and vegetables in tahini sauce

I have just suggested 'Pasta' for his recipe, because it will really go with just about any short pasta.  Indeed, if you make more sauce, it would also successfully coat a longer type of pasta.  While I've suggested specific vegetables, this is essentially a meal that can be made using ingredients you’d have in your lockers, with whatever vegetables you have to hand. There is, however, one proviso to this: I suggest sprinkling black sesame seeds over the meal when it’s served: white sesame seeds can be used as a substitute, but the black ones look and taste great!

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

1/2 cup of chickpeas, soaked and cooked

olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

about 4 button mushrooms, sliced

1/2 red pepper, chopped

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp chilli flakes, or to taste

about 6 florets from a head of broccoli

4 handfuls of pasta, such as fusilli

2 tbsp tahini

reserved water from the pasta

salt and pepper

1 tbsp black sesame seeds

 

Method:

• Cook the chickpeas in the usual way and set aside.
• Add olive oil to a large saucepan over a moderately high heat.
• Add the onions and garlic and cook for a few minutes until the onions are softening, stirring frequently to ensure nothing burns.
• Add the mushroom and red pepper and sprinkle with salt, stir into the onions and garlic and cook for a few minutes until there is some colour on both the onions and red peppers, then lower the heat. Add in the chilli flakes, stir well and cover. Leave over a low heat while you cook the pasta.
• Bring salted water to boil in a saucepan and throw in the pasta. Stir well to ensure that it doesn’t stick together. Bring back to the boil, cover and lower the heat so that it doesn’t boil over. Set the timer for 5 minutes
• When the timer rings, add the broccoli florets and cook until both pasta and broccoli are just not soft. If you like crunchy broccoli, wait a bit longer before adding it.
• While this is cooking, put the tahini into a small, together with generous amounts of salt and pepper. When the pasta and broccoli are done, remove them from the water, using a slotted spoon, or drain the water into a jug, and add them to the vegetables.
• Add a tablespoonful or so of pasta water to the tahini and mix to a smooth consistency. Tahini varies tremendously in how thick it is, but you want to end up with a sauce that pours easily and will coat the pasta and vegetables. Mix with a butter knife or mini whisk until it becomes a creamy colour, then add to the pan.
• Stir gently until everything is mixed and serve.

Garnish with a generous amount of black sesame seeds.

 

Note:

• If you have no black sesame seeds, substitute with white.
• I'm not sure the pasta water has the same effect when used with gluten-free pasta, but it can't do any harm!
  

Variations: 

• Use white beans instead of chickpeas.
• Replace the broccoli with cauliflower florets.
• For a voyaging variation, use chopped cabbage.
• Add green beans or asparagus with or instead of some of the other vegetables.
• Replace the red pepper with carrot.
• Add a couple of tbsp of freeze-dried peas with or instead of some of the vegetables.
• Use bulgur wheatinstead of pasta. In this case you will have to cook the broccoli separately.
• Add chopped fresh herbs, if you have some.

Voyagers' pasta

In a cool, damp place, or when, as is usually the situation on a boat, you’re watching your water consumption, the conventional way of cooking pasta is far from satisfactory.  The instruction tell you to fill a large saucepan with water, bring it to a full rolling boil, plunge in the pasta and boil it, uncovered for the apppropriate length of time.  In anywhere that isn't actually hot, with all the hatches open, this method steams up the boat and in any situation, it uses far too much water. I have two ways of cooking pasta, which both yield very acceptable results without resulting in a steamed-up boat or using excessive amounts of water.

 

Even North American cookbooks bottle out and resort to ounce measures when including recipes for pasta, because it's usually fiendishly difficult to guess how much to make.  a thrifty voyager doesn't not want to waste pasta and it's one of the least useful leftovers unless you happen to have a passion for pasta salad.  Of course, if you have a new pack, you can work out that you need a quarter, or whatever, for 2 servings, but many voyagers – and I am one of them – decant their pasta into large, plastic containers to save them from weevls.  Moreover, once you've taken out the first serving, it becomes more and more difficult to divide up what's left, let alone remember how many servings have already been removed. I am therefore assuming this is the situation and as we can’t use scales underway, I am giving my measurements by the handful. I generally use about 4 handfuls of pasta for 2 people, assuming a generous amount of sauce, because this is a main course, rather than the smaller amounts used more to flavour the pasta, of traditional Italian cuisine.  I have small hands, but after experimenting, I reckoned that a handful is about the equivalent of a cup. Of course, this only works for small pasta, but if you follow the same plan, I’m sure you’ll soon work out what is appropriate for you.  I'm afraid it will be a matter of trial and error.  With spaghetti, or linguine: pull it out of the container and make a column of pasta with a diameter of about 25 mm (1 in). this seems to be about right for two.  You can actually get sticks with holes in them for measuring long pasta, and they're very good.  I've had two in my time, but both got thrown overboard (not by me!).  I generally use Method 1, but Method 2 is useful when preventing the cabin from steaming up is really important.

 VOYAGERS’ PASTA

 

Serves 2 

3 cups water + 1/2 tsp salt OR 2 cups fresh water, 1 cup seawater

4 handsful pasta OR 25 mm (1 in) column spaghetti, etc

1 tbsp olive oil

Method 1

• Heat water to boiling point.
• When the water is boiling rapidly, add the pasta and stir several times to separate the pieces from one another. If you are using long pasta, plunge one end in the water and then gently press down the other end until it’s all in the water. Then stir vigorously so that it all separates.
• Cover and turn down the heat so that the pan doesn’t boil over – it needs to be very low and often you need to move the lid slightly to let excess steam escape. Cook for +/- 10 minutes until the pasta is the texture you like. The only way to check this is by sampling a piece. A pasta spoon (the type with spikes) or kitchen tongs are ideal for this.
• Drain and serve with butter or olive oil and plenty of coarsely-ground black pepper.

Method 2 uses a pressure cooker and although unconventional, keeps steam to a minimum.

• Heat water to boiling point. Add olive oil or a knob of butter to help prevent the pasta from frothing up and boiling over.  This will mean that the sauce won't cling to the spaghetti as well as you'd like, but it will stop the vent from getting clogged.
  
• When the water is boiling, add the pasta and stir several times to separate the pieces from one another. If you are using long pasta, plunge one end in the water and then gently press down the other end until it’s all in the water. Then stir vigorously so that it all separates.
  
• Put on the lid and clamp it; keep the heat fairly high until the cooker comes up to pressure.
• Lower the heat and cook for no more than 3 minutes - you may need some trial and error with this, depending on how hot your flame is, how big the pressure cooker and at what pressure it cooks.
• Remove the pressure cooker from the heat and let the pressure reduce gradually – if you de-pressurise rapidly, the pasta collapses. The pasta will cook perfectly with this method.
• Drain and serve with butter or olive oil and plenty of coarsely-ground black pepper.

Notes:

• If you’re cooking for more than 2 people, keep a careful eye on things when you close the lid, to ensure that the liquid doesn’t froth up into the vent. This is unlikely to happen unless the pressure cooker is more than half full and you forgot the oil. 

• If you’re very concerned about condensation, lift the pasta from the pressure cooker with a pasta spoon or tongs, rather than tipping it through a colander, which always produces clouds of steam.

Oddly enough, I had only just finished writing this post when I came across an article on the Guardian website about cooking pasta.  It bore out my method!  https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/jun/28/10-food-rules-you-should-ignore-felicity-cloake

Mushroom Strogonoff, with lentils and pasta

Even ‛traditional’, meat-based strogonoff seems to vary considerably. In USA, it’s usually swamped with sour cream (which is generally both thickened and soured artificially); in Europe they are more likely to stir a couple of tablespoonfuls of crème frâiche into the sauce. They also include a little tomato purée and Dijon mustard is essential: although mushrooms and onions weren’t included in the original recipe, mustard most certainly was. Neither tomato purée nor mustard is generally mentioned in USAnian recipes. A little white wine or brandy can be added for special occasions.

Apparently allspice was in the original recipe. I also include paprika for its earthiness, which I really like.

Many vegan versions of this don’t use a ‛meat’ equivalent at all, so couldn’t really be much further from the original. I like the combination of textures of either seitan or lentils with the mushrooms and I cook this meal in two different ways. The seitan looks more like the original, the lentils are quicker to prepare. I decided to put them as two separate posts, because they need slightly different cooking and also, different pans.

Serves 2

Ingredients

olive oil

4 or 5 medium/2 cups sliced button mushrooms *

1 small OR 1/2 onion finely chopped or sliced

1/2 cup whole lentils

1 cup water

1 tbsp flour

1/4 cup brandy or white wine

1/4 cup mushroom stock or water

salt and black pepper to taste

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp Dijon or brown mustard

2 tsp tomato paste

1 tbsp (vegan) crème fraîche

Method:

• Heat some olive oil in a pressure cooker, over a medium-high heat and add the sliced mushrooms. Cook them for about 5 minutes. Remove them from the pan and set aside.
• Add some more olive oil and when it’s hot, add the onions. Cook until just turning translucent but not browned.
• Add the lentils and stir around with the onions for a minute or so, pour in a cup of water, put on the lid and bring up to pressure. Cook for 10 minutes and let the pressure come down gradually.
• Put the pan back over the heat, remove the lid, sprinkle on a little flour and stir to coat everything and cook off some of the raw flour taste.
• Add the brandy or (far more likely!) wine to the pan.
• Stir in the mushroom stock or water, salt and black pepper, allspice, paprika, mustard and tomato purée. Mix well and simmer gently for about 10 minutes so that the flavours combine.
• Stir in the crème fraîche and the reserved mushrooms, and cook for a few more minutes. Don’t let it boil.

Serve with pasta, mashed potatoes, fried potato wedges or whatever takes your fancy. (I like either fettuccine or smashed potatoes.

Notes: 

• *If you have lots of mushrooms, or they’re cheap, feel free to use a lot more! Other varieties would be as good, not better, than button mushrooms.
•  Instead of crème fraîche, use yoghurt, or vegan cream plus 1/2 tsp lemon juice or vinegar.

 

Chickpeas and fusilli in tomato sauce

 

 

This is an old favourite of mine. Incredibly simple to make, but astonishingly good to eat. Moreover, this is perfect voyaging food, because it is made from ingredients that you will have in your lockers. I prefer it with fusilli – spirals – but of course it will go with whatever pasta you have on board.

Serves 2

Ingredients

1/2 cup of chickpeas, soaked and cooked

a good glug of olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, crushed or diced

425 g/14 oz can of tomatoes (See Notes)

a little wine

about a dozen black olives

1 tsp capers

1 tsp Annie's Mixed Herbs

up to 1/4 tsp chilli flakes

salt and pepper

4 handfuls of fusilli

Method:

• Cook the chickpeas as usual.
• Pour the olive oil into a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook until softened and translucent. Add a little salt to speed things up, if you want.
• When the onion is almost cooked, add the garlic and cook until it’s soft.
• Now add the tomatoes and rinse out the can with wine, if you’re using it. If you’re using whole tomatoes, break them up with your spoon.
• If you’re using them, stone and halve the olives. Add the drained capers.
• Season with herbs andchilli flakes - which give a nice lift - and a generous amount of black pepper. Taste and add salt if it can take it.
• Bring to the boil and add the chickpeas.
• Lower the heat and cook until the sauce has become quite thick.
• When the sauce is almost ready, cook the fusilli until it reaches the consistency you like.
• Remove it from the cooking water with a slotted spoon, or drain it into a jug (you may need some of the water to thin down the sauce) and add it to the other pan. Cook for a few minutes longer. Check the seasoning and serve.

Add Parmesan (vegan, if you prefer) at the table, if you like it.

Notes:

• Ideally, use chopped tomatoes in purée, but if you don’t have those, any others will do. It’s worth using better quality tomatoes in this recipe (most recipes for that matter!) for the extra flavour. They seem to be less watery, too.
• Substitute dried, cooked chickpeas with a can

Variation

• Use cannellini or butter beans.
• Add finely diced celery if you have some.
• Try this with pasta shells, or similar. You want a pasta that will hold the sauce.

Basic White Sauce - and Variations

 

Basic white sauce is needed for Welsh rarebit, custard or lasagne. Proper Sauce Béchamel is made by lovingly stirring 2 tablespoons of white flour into 2 tablespoons of butter over a low heat for three or four minutes. It’s then cooled and a cup of scalded milk is added. Into the pan goes a small onion studded with 2 or 3 cloves and half a bay leaf. This is then cooked until thick and smooth, after which it’s put in a moderate oven for 20 minutes, before straining and seasoning. If you’re in a hurry, you can simply stand and stir it until the sauce has thickened and all the floury flavour has gone. I believe sailors usually have other things to do and go for a lowbrow, non-gastronomic alternative, using cornflour. It’s incredibly easy to make well in one pan and yet cookery writers insist on making a big issue of it, with suggestions for double boilers, pre-heating the milk, etc, etc, which is a lot of trouble and results in extra washing up.

The simplest of white sauces consists of milk, cornflour and either salt and pepper or sweetening. After that, all sorts of goodies can be added, but let’s start from zero. The following recipe makes enough sauce to coat a lasagne, provide four servings of custard, and make a generous amount of Welsh rarebit for two.  Half of the amount would probably be enough for a coating sauce such as cheese sauce for cauliflower.

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

2 tbsp cornflour

1 cup (plant)milk

salt and pepper

 

 Method:

• Put the cornflour into a small saucepan and add about a quarter of the milk.
• Blend until all the flour is mixed and a smooth thin paste results.
• Add the seasoning and then the rest of the milk. Mix again.
• Put the pan over a medium-high flame and stir the sauce constantly and fairly briskly until it starts to thicken. (You can tell that this is going to happen when it starts coating the side of the pan and the back of the spoon.)
• Still stirring, lower the heat and let the sauce boil.
• Once it’s boiling, continue cooking and stirring for one full minute and then remove the pan from the heat. This ensures that the starch is properly cooked. If it isn’t, it spoils the flavour of the sauce.

Notes

For best results, you need a first-rate saucepan. Too many stainless steel ones cook unevenly with the result that the sauce goes into lumps. If you have any doubts about your pan, use a flame-tamer and as low a heat as your patience will permit. Even with a whisk, once lumps have formed they’re almost impossible to remove. If using dried milk, add it as you mix in the cornflour, so that it dissolves when you heat the water.

This method guarantees you a smooth, cooked, white sauce.  Food reformists object to using cornflour, because it’s super refined and has no nutrition apart from carbohydrate.  Proper cooks use white flour instead of cornflour, in many instances, saying that it gives a better appearance – a sauce made with cornflour has a sheen on it that you may not want.  If either of these are your view, you can use white wheat flour instead of cornflour, but it will need about ten minutes cooking and really should be blended with a knob of butter, over a low heat before you start, to reduce the floury taste. Once it’s been brought to the boil, you do not need to stir continually,  but keep an eye on it in case it catches and burns. You need 2 tbsp plain flour for 1 tbsp of cornflour and you might want to have white flour on board, just for this purpose, so that you don’t have brown bits in your white sauce, but white flour is not as nutritious as whole wheat.

Best alternative: However, in my opinion by far the best way of making a quick Béchamel sauce, which has more flavour than that made with conrflour, cooks more quickly than that made with wheat flour and looks more attractive than either, is to use gram (chickpea) flour.  This gives the sauce a delicate hint of yellow, which looks very appetising.  

 

Ingredients

 

  4 tbsp of gram flour 

knob of butter or 1 tbsp oilive oil

1 cup (plant) milk

1/2 tsp onion powder

 salt and pepper

 

Method:

• Melt the butter or warm the oil in a small saucepan, over a medium heat.  Mix in the gram flour and cook gently for a few minutes.
• Add about 1/4 cup of milk and blend carefully, ensuring that there are no lumps. Then add the rest of the milk and the onion powder and raise the heat slightly and bring to a slow boil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
• Gram flour can sometimes go through a lumpy stage as it thickens: just keep on stirring untl it's smooth.  It needs longer cooking longer than cornflour, but 5 minutes after it's become smooth should be plenty.  Taste it and see.  Raw gram flour tastes unpleasant - you will easily taste if it needs more cooking.  Adjust seasoning.

Note:

• In fact 'white' sauce made with gram flour doesn't really need milk, because there is more flavour in the sauce, anyway.  This is an advantage for vegan cooks, who may not have plant milk on board.

The above recipes will give you an exceedingly boring and bland white sauce. Personally, I think white sauce is pretty boring at the best of times and have never been able to see the logic of dumping a cup of it on an innocent cauliflower. The following suggestions and variations will help turn it into something that complements the rest of the food.

 

Variations:

• The first thing you can do to improve it is to add a large knob of butter with the seasoning. Once you have your confidence, you can actually melt this first and then stir the cornflour into it. A dollop of olive oil also enriches it.   
• If you have the patience, it’s well worth infusing the milk with flavourings. A tea infuser is useful for this: put a broken bay leaf, and a pinch of whatever herbs you fancy into the infuser and leave it for ten minutes or so in very hot milk. If you want something even better, a piece of onion, a garlic clove, a chunk of carrot, a couple of pieces of parsley, some mushroom stems, some broken cinnamon, a blade of mace – any or all of these can add a bit of character to a basic sauce. Put them in the cold milk and bring gradually to simmering point. Don’t boil or you’ll end up with a skin to deal with. Cover the milk while the flavours infuse, so that it stays warm longer. Be careful with mushrooms if you want a white white sauce, because they can colour it. Strain through a sieve before using. If you have any light-coloured vegetable stock, this is a good addition: mix it with dried milk.
• Cheese. Oh, lovely, wonderful cheese!  I dare say you can buy really good vegan cheese in large, cosmpolitan cities.  I have yet to find any, but as mentioned below, there is an acceptable alternative vegan sauce.  A generous addition will turn this boring gloop into a delightful adjunct to your vegetables and make an instant meal with pasta. Choose a cheese with a pretty strong flavour and grate away. A quarter of a cup will add interest; half a cup is about the minimum to give it a definite flavour. 
• Vegan cheese sauce can be made by substituting a couple of tbsp of nutritional yeast for the real thing.  I’ll be honest, it won’t be as good, but it will still be a vast improvement on white sauce. However, if you go to the trouble of infusing the milk and then add 1/2 tsp lemon juice and 1/2 tsp dijon mustard, it will be much improved.  Add olive oil or vegan ghee to substitute for the fat in the cheese.
• Lemon juice. A tablespoon of this will add savour to your very basic sauce and complement carrots, for example. If you’re using a fresh lemon, add some of the rind, grated. This has much more oomph than the juice and adds a little colour. With the addition of honey, you will end up with a sweet sauce to go with puddings.
• Dried or mixed mustard, Worcestershire sauce, chilli: all these can be added to a standard white sauce to enhance the flavour, without substantially altering the texture. They will alter the colour, however.
• Green peppercorns, celery salt, dried minced garlic, and fresh or dried herbs will introduce a lot more character into the sauce, but will spoil the pure, unsullied whiteness, if this matters.
• If you add two, chopped, hard-boiled eggs, some chopped parsley and the rind and juice of half a lemon, pour it over cauliflower and sprinkle with a cup of breadcrumbs, fried in olive oil or butter, you end up with Cauliflower à la Polonaise. This turns the cauliflower into a main course and is great with deep-fried chunks of potato or Oven chips. Broccoli, courgettes, etc can be given the same treatment.
• A tablespoon or two of Dijon mustard makes for a very pleasant sauce with burgers.
• Fresh mushrooms fried in butter or olive oil, can be added to make a quick pasta sauce. Season with 1 tsp crushed green peppercorns, ½ tsp tarragon and/or dill (weed) and a clove of garlic. You could add a chopped onion and fry it with the mushroom, if you like. If you feel confident about making white sauce, the mushrooms can be fried in the saucepan and the cornflour added to that, to ensure that none of the delicious flavour is wasted. Use cream and you have a meal fit for a king!
• For a sweet sauce, omit salt and pepper and after the sauce is thickened, stir in a tbsp of honey and return to the heat. It can be further flavoured with vanilla essence, lemon juice or rind, orange juice or rind, rum, whisky, cocoa, coffee, etc. Brown sugar or treacle can be used instead of honey, for a different flavour – and colour.
• For extra richness, incorporate some cream. After the sauce has boiled, allow it to cool a little and then gently stir in the cream. If you need to reheat it, do so very gently so that it doesn’t boil, otherwise the cream may curdle.
• For custard, or lasagne, an egg, beaten in, adds extra richness. The easiest way to ensure that this doesn’t curdle, is to do the same as with cream. If the sauce is too thick, add a little more milk and heat it very carefully. 

 

Edit: 26/4/25