Modernist Spaghetti Marinara Sauce

Modernist Spaghetti Marinara Sauce

Yesterday I tried a new Spaghetti Marinara Sauce, inspired by Modernist Cuisine At Home.  The technique uses pressure cooking (the pressure cooker is fast becoming one of my favorite kitchen tools) and very simple ingredients.  The idea would be to experiment with the pressure cooker and see what different tastes we could create in it.  Worth considering is to try some of my older recipes [Jan Smith's Spaghetti Sauce] using the pressure cooker and seeing if there are any differences worth noting.  When I do that, I'll let you know how it turns out.  If you have already done it, let me know.

This version uses minced carrots and onions as a base for sweetness.  I think we could easily try onions, bell peppers and celery for a cajun type feel, or just use garlic instead as the base of the sauce (with no onions or carrots or even sausage).

Ingredients
1  medium sized yellow onion roughly chopped
1  large carrot (I never bother pealing my carrots, but you might want to) chopped
6 cloves of garlic
1 16 oz package of ground pork or Jimmy Dean Sausage.
Olive Oil
2 14.5 oz cans of Tomato Sauce, Crushed Tomatoes, or Petite Diced Tomatoes.
Big handful of fresh mushrooms sliced
Fresh Basil
1/2 Cup of Heavy Cream
Salt

Instructions

1.  We start by chopping the onion and carrot up and putting them with the garlic into a food blender (Cuisinart) till it is all minced.

2.  Cook the Sausage in the pressure cooker until it is done.  Remove it to a paper towel covered plate to soak up the oil.

3.  Add olive oil to the pan.
4.  Add the minced carrots, onions and garlic, and cook for 5 minutes or so.
5.  Add the two cans of tomatoes and drained sausage and sliced mushrooms.

5.  Pressure Cook at 1 bar for about 1 hour or so. I actually cooked it for about 2 hours, so I'm not sure if that did anything good or bad.  Anyone have any research on over cooking things in a pressure cooker?
6.  Depressurize your pressure cooker.
7.  Add a big handful of barely chopped (or torn) fresh basil leaves.
8.  Add 1/2 a cup of heavy cream.
9.  Add Salt and Olive Oil to taste.

Ours came out magically.  It was a very different taste than what we are used to, but the whole family loved it.  We put it over pasta and mashed potatoes (of all things).  It was even better the next day.