Make Pasta, like, three ways; because you love pasta.

I make the assumption here that you can cook plain pasta. If this is wrong, email all complaints to News@UCCExpress.ie.

Bolognese Sauce. I won’t judge you when you eat it by youself.

No really. This is Bolognese.Prep time, like ten minutes, tops. Cooking time, 45min+.What you need.

• A pot.A pan.
• A knife and Board.

Ingredients

• 200 Grm of Ground Beef.
• 4-5 Rashers - or Pancetta if you can get it. (lol)
• A Glass of Red wine/ Equivalent amount of Porter/Stout/Ale
• 70ish MLs Milk (two Shots worth)
• A Carrot
• A stick of Celery
• A medium Onion
• 2 Tablespoons of Tomato Puree
• A cup of water (Or stock, if you have it.)
• Parmesan (As much as you want)
• Salt and Pepper
• 400g pasta of your choice

1. Chop Everything. Including the Bacon/Pancetta. Fry the meat until it browns (This is called the Maillard Reaction, it adds flavour to meat) Once the meat browns add the veg you chopped.
2. Caramelize all your veg, don’t burn it, but get it brown. Once this happens, add the wine, and cook it off for a few minutes on a medium heat.
3. Once the wine cooks, add the tomato puree, stir it around to coat everything, and then add the milk and water. Make sure everything is incorporated together, there’s no clumps of tomato Puree and so on, and then taste it with a teaspoon. Add salt and pepper to your taste.
4. Turn it down. Low as you can, put a lid/piece of tinfoil/ plate over it and leave it simmer. Give it a half hour, but if you can give it more, that’s top notch.
5. Put it on whatever pasta you want. Cover it in Parmesan. Enjoy.

 TipsThis is pretty close to how Italians make Ragu Bolognese, There’s no herbs and shit, all the flavour comes from the booze, and the browned meat. That’s it, it’s just basic ingredients cooked together. Really.

Cheesy Creamy pasta. 4 servings approx. (If you eat it all at once, ‘approx.’ means i’m not wrong)

Alfredo- Ish. Prep time, 15 minutes, Cooking time, 15 minutes.What you need

• A knife and Board.
• A small pot.
• A medium pot.
• A fork or whisk.

Ingredients.

• 2 tablespoons of flour.
• 3 tablespoons of butter
• 2 cloves of garlic.
• 1&½ cups of milk.
• 100 Grams of Parmesan or Cheddar.
• Salt & Pepper
• 400 grams of your favourite pasta.

Optional extras

• Cooked Chopped Chicken or Bacon.
• Chopped Spinach.
• A few leaves of parsley.
• 1 egg yolk

1. Chop your garlic finely and throw it into your small pot, add the butter and gently apply heat till the butter all melts. Next add your flour and mix it with the butter and garlic, cook it for about a minute, or until it bubbles a little.
2. Next add your milk, slowly, making sure to stir constantly so that the sauce doesn’t get lumpy, once this is all in, add the cheese. You can also add your cooked meat or chopped spinach here. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Turn down the heat on your sauce to very low, and stir it occasionally while you make the pasta. Once the pasta is done, put it back in the pot you cooked it in and let it cool for a minute.
4. (While your pasta is cooling, if you want you can turn off the heat on your sauce and mix and egg yolk through, it makes it extra creamy and delicious). Pour your sauce over the pasta and toss it through, try to get an even coating covering as much as you can. You can also throw some fresh parsley in now as well to give it a fresher flavour.

 Tips

• This sauce can also be used with spuds, it’s delicious with them.
• Cooking up a little butter and flour is called ‘making a Roux’ and you can use it to make any sauce thicker.
• If you make this basic sauce, you can add extra cheese and it makes a great dip for tortillas.
• You can replace the butter with a mix of olive oil and sunflower, but not just olive oil, because it’s too dense.
• If you don’t add cheese, you have a pretty simple creamy sauce, which you can use with loads of stuff.

Carbonara, Serves 2 (You, and that person you want to impress)

There’s literally no cream in CarbonaraCooking time, 10 minutes. What you need.

• A pot.A pan.
• A knife and Board.
• A Cup.
• A cheese grater.

Ingredients

• 200g Pasta (Though Tagliette is best)
• 4 pieces of streaky Bacon/ 100G pancetta
• 90 G Parmesan/ Hard Cheese grated
• 2 egg yolks.
• Olive oil.
• A generous pinch of Black Pepper.

1. Cook your pasta, you pasta cooker you. Grate your cheese, chop that meat.
2. Fry the meat in some olive oil, get it crispy. Mix up your egg yolks, pepper and cheese.
3. Once the pasta is cooked, drain it. Take the meat off the heat for about a minute. Toss the pasta and the meat together in whatever container you have that works best. Then mix in the yolk mixture. Make sure there’s an even egg coating over the pasta.
4. Add more cheese if you want.

 Tips. This is just pasteurising an egg, you can swap out the meat for a chopped spinach or something if you want, but egg yolk is a great base for a really quick sauce. Once you nail these guys, you are like halfway to being a pasta boss.