Ev's Greek Spaghetti Dinner

Total Time: 1 hr 35 mins Preparation Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 1 hr 20 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 8
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, minced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 1/2 lbs lean ground beef
• 2 (1 lb) cans plum tomatoes, pureed
• 2 cups water
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon maggi seasoning sauce (a liquid soy-yeast extract blend lacking this, use regular dark soy sauce)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 2 small dried red chilies (my kids won't let me add this, but it's good) (optional)
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano, crumbled (mediterranean)
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, crumbled
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil, crumbled
• 2 bay leaves
• 8 allspice berries
• 1 1/2 cinnamon sticks (each stick measuring about 3 inches in length, 2 sticks broken in half, don't use one of the halves)
• 1 1/2 lbs cooked spaghetti (or pasta of your choice)
• 1/3 lb butter, cold
• 1/2 cup grated mizithra cheese (or parmesan, but myzithra is authentic)
• more grated cheese, for the table

Recipe

• 1 in a medium to large sized pot, add the olive oil, onion and garlic and cook, stirring often, over high heat until onion is translucent and whole house smells good, about 4 minutes. add ground beef and smash down with the tip of your wooden spoon to break it up. brown beef well.
• 2 when you think it’s been browned long enough and it’s time to give it a stir to redistribute the meat for more browning – stop – wait another minute and a half to two minutes, and then stir up the meat. do this repeatedly until all the meat is good and brown. this is important for the end result. for a good meat sauce, you want your meat to have browned sufficiently, and most people don’t give it enough time. in all, this process should take 12-15 minutes.
• 3 add all the remaining ingredients, bring back to a boil, and reduce heat to a simmer. simmer, uncovered, for 35 minutes, then cover pot and simmer a further 30 minutes. this is as long as i cook it for my family, the sauce is as thick as we like it. if you like your sauce thicker, cook it uncovered slightly longer before covering the pot (another 5-10 minutes?). if you like your sauce thinner, cover the pot after 25-30 minutes of simmering before continuing with the additional half hour.
• 4 fish out bay leaves, chilis (if using), allspice berries and cinnamon sticks.
• 5 this recipe makes quite a lot of sauce, which is a good thing as you can freeze what's left to enjoy on another day, when there's little to no time to cook a homemade meal.
• 6 to make authentic greek-style pasta: cook pasta (i usually use spaghettini, but not exclusively) in the regular way until al dente. drain.
• 7 in the dry pot you cooked the pasta in, add the butter (butter, not oil, not margarine); melt and brown the butter. this takes about 3-4 minutes at high heat. turn off heat source and add spaghetti back to the pot. toss to coat with browned butter.
• 8 put spaghetti in large platter, pour half of sauce over, sprinkle with about ½ cup myzithra cheese.
• 9 put the remaining sauce in a deep bowl and serve at the table for people to top off their pasta along with extra grated cheese.