I had no idea what to call this concoction of mine, and then it hit me. The three main ingredients are baby Marrows, Mince and Mushrooms, so the Triple M Pasta was born.
I was walking through the supermarket just grabbing everything I felt like eating that evening, not worrying about how I am actually going to put it together. I was in the mood for pasta though, so I thought about a lasagna of sorts. I did not want to buy lasagna sheets though, as I prefer making those fresh, but I was not in the mood for the extra work involved with that.
So I threw caution to the wind and came up with this. My guests LOVED it, I got emails the next day asking me to PLEASE make notes of what I did so I can recreate it! Luckily I took lots of photos!
Triple M Pasta
*This can serve 6 – 8 people
- 500gm pasta, I used fusilli
- 500gm lean beef mince
- 1 cube beef stock
- 2 onions, diced
- 2 sticks of celery, diced
- 3 carrots, grated
- couple of knobs of butter
- large pack of big brown mushroom
- 8 cloves of garlic chopped
- 500gm baby marrows
- cheddar cheese, grated
- Mozzarella cheese, grated
- 3 plum tomatoes
- bunch of oregano
- a good large pan of Basic White Sauce
First fry the onion, celery and carrot in a pot with some butter and a bit of garlic, fry until translucent and remove from the pot.
Next brown the mince, season well with salt and pepper and return the carrot, onion and celery mixture to the pot like so.
Mix that well, add the beef stock (prepare it by stirring it into a mug of boiling water), add some worcestershire sauce and turn down the heat and let it simmer.
Turn on your ovens grill / broiler.
In another pot, boil some water, salt it well and cook your pasta. As always, don’t overcook the pasta! Strain it in a colander when done.
In yet another pot (yes this is a dishwasher’s nightmare) fry the baby marrows in some butter, season with salt and pepper. Don’t overcook them, they will cook more in the oven and you still want some crunch in them when you eat.
Remove the stems of the mushrooms, place them upside down in an oven pan with a grill rack at the bottom with a bit of butter in each. Sprinkle them with the remainder of the garlic and flavor with salt and pepper. Put that under the grill for 5-10 minutes.
Once the mushrooms are done, set the oven temperature to 180 degrees celsius.
Great now its assembly time. You may need a big oven dish for this. I started with a thin layer, about half of the pasta, and covered it with the mince
Then a layer of marrows
Next cover it with the remainder of the pasta, and lay out those tasty mushrooms on top
Pour the white sauce over the pasta, try and spread it out as evenly as possible. Then cover the entire dish with heaps of cheese, mix the mozzarella and cheddar. Slice up some tomatoes and lay them on top of the cheese. Sprinkle the tomatoes with salt, pepper and freshly chopped orgenano.
Bake in the oven at 180 for about 30 minutes, then turn on the grill so you can brown the cheese, this takes about 10 minutes. Keep an eye on it so you don’t burn the cheese.
Here’s how mine looked fresh out of the oven.
We really enjoyed this dish, pretty much everyone went round for seconds, and one or two even went round for thirds!! It does look like a lot of work, but believe me it’s worth it! Perfect for the mid-week blues.
Ciao!
