Tomato paste | Chef Doru's Blog

This is another great Romanian dish from my grand-grand parents collection – White beans with smoked ribs.

Ingredients:

500 gr of dry white beans
1-2 big yellow onions
1 sweet red pepper
1 carrot
1-2 tbsp tomato paste
1 bay leaf
1 rack of smoked ribs or any kind of pork smoked meat or some good smoked sausages
parsley, dill and thyme
2-3 garlic cloves
salt and pepper to taste

For easy cooking, after washing the beans, keep them in water for the night and the next day boil them in a pot. While boiling, chop the onion and brown it in a pan with some corn oil, add tomato paste, bay leaf and red pepper and the carrot cut in small cubs and cook everything for 5-10 minutes. When the beans are almost done, add the onion mixtures and boil until cooked through (2-3 hours or less depending of the beans you use). 10-15 min before is ready, add the ribs cut in small portions. After everything is ready, take the pot of the heat and add the thyme, parsley and chopped garlic.

White beans with smoked ribs

Courgette and bean stew – a hint of summer (robin-ellis.net)
Quick Chorizo & Three Bean Stew (eatalready.com)
Fabada Asturiana (It’s Bean a Long Time) (pezzarellaskitchen.wordpress.com)
Jalapeno turkey chili with black beans recipe (voxxi.com)

This sauce was made after a lot of trials and inspired from different marinara sauces found on the internet. I think the results are amazing.

Ingredients:

250g bacon
2 medium onion, chopped fine
4 celery stalks, chopped fine
2 medium size carrots, chopped fine
2 bay leaf
250g mushrooms
10 cloves garlic
1 large can crushed & peeled tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
1/2 cup red wine
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp italian seasoning
250g bacon
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp of molasses
3-4 tbsp Tiranga – hot sauce
250g Barilla spaghetti (half package)
Parmigiano cheese

Directions:

Cut and saute the bacon in a large pan until crispy. Take out and set aside on a plate with paper towel. In the bacon fat left in the pan, saute for approx. 10 min the carrots, celery and onion on medium low heat until soft and season with salt and pepper. Add red wine and allow to simmer for an additional 5 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients except the bacon and simmer on low for 30 minutes. Cook the spaghetti for 8 min in boiling water and put them on two plates. Spread the sauce on top of the spaghetti and sprinkle bacon and shredded cheese.