Friday Dinner: Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, and Browned Butter and Mizithra

Stand aside, Old Spaghetti Factory, we've discovered your secrets. Well, all right, they weren't really secrets to begin with. Nothing so mysterious about spaghetti with meat sauce or mizithra cheese and browned butter ... except for the availability of the mizithra, an unpasteurized cheese made from sheep's milk.


Too much of a good thing? Never. Trix prefers her pasta with all mizithra and browned butter, no meat sauce.

Trix and I have long been fans of OSF's spaghetti with browned butter and mizithra, a dish made even more desirable due to the fact that no one else, no restaurant or grocery store, seemed to know about mizithra cheese. That all changed the other week when I found a hunk of "mizythra" (no other brand label visible) at my local Fred Meyer. Trix found some at Ralph's.

Thus we set out to recreate our favorite OSF dish at home -- hers being pure mizithra and browned butter, and mine being half and half (the other half being meat sauce). I like having the tang of the tomato sauce cut into the buttery goodness when it gets to be too rich. I find that after having some of the tomato sauce, going back to the mizithra portion makes it taste as powerful as it did on the first bite. And the tomato sauce seems sweeter and heartier when I go back to it after eating the mizithra. Thus the two are true complements for me, each making the other even better.


Half meat sauce, half browned butter and mizithra. 100% yummy.

The mizithra and browned butter part wasn't difficult to figure out; OSF doesn't do anything fancy. As far as we can tell, they just toss some pasta with browned butter, then pile some grated mizithra on top and garnish with a bit of parsley. The meat sauce was a little more challenging (but not much), because we have a favorite Bolognese sauce, but it's far thicker than OSF's version. Not that OSF's meat sauce is, frankly, anything special -- but a "saucier" meat sauce seemed more appropriately paired with the mizithra and browned butter to me. So I set about retooling the Bolognese sauce I usually use to make it the right consistency for what I wanted here. And I'm very happy to say that it came out wonderfully.


Dessert for me was this gorgeous orange. Your eyes do not deceive you, nor is the picture distorted. It was that orange in color, practically red. I believe the variety was Cara Cara.

Despite having to make two sauces, I never felt rushed. The meat sauce requires an hour of simmering to achieve the best results, so once that's going preparing the browned butter and mizithra is fast and easy.

Now that I know I can make this delicious meal at home, OSF will be seeing a lot less of me!

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, and Browned Butter and Mizithra

Ingredients

• your favorite brand of spaghetti (or other long pasta) - I like Trader Joe's brand, or Barilla

For the Meat Sauce

• 1/2 lb ground beef
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 6oz can tomato paste
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 4oz tomato sauce (the small cans in the stores are 8oz, so use half of one)
• 7-8oz diced tomato and green chiles (I used half of a 14.5oz can)
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp sugar
• 3/4 tsp basil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp marjoram
• 1/4 tsp rosemary
• 1 bay leaf
• dash of garlic powder

For the Browned Butter and Mizithra

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
• 4oz mizithra cheese, grated
• salt to taste
• minced parsley, to garnish (optional)

Method

1. Make the meat sauce. Start by browning the beef and onion in a medium saucepan. Drain.
2. Add the diced tomato and green chiles, tomato sauce, sugar, salt, and spices.
3. Mix the tomato paste with the water until it looks like a thick sauce. Add it to the mixture.
4. Heat everything until it's boiling, then reduce the heat, cover the saucepan, and leave it to simmer for an hour. You'll want to check on it occasionally and stir.
5. While that's going, melt the butter in a small saucepan. Simmer until the butter is amber in color. Don't stir -- the milk solids will darken and fall to the bottom of the pan.
6. Grate the mizithra and mince the parsley.
7. When the butter has sufficiently darkened, strain it into a small bowl using a strainer and some cheesecloth (to make sure none of the solids get through).
8. Time it so that you will be ready to top warm pasta with the meat sauce when it's ready. Heat a large pot of water to boiling, adding salt and oil if you desire. Prepare your pasta according to the package's directions. Usually al dente spaghetti will take between 7-9 minutes. Drain the pasta and pour a cup of cold water over it to stop the cooking.
9. Transfer the pasta back to the same pot. Drizzle with a desired amount of browned butter (depending on how many servings you've got) and toss. If you're making meat sauce, it's up to you if you want to reserve some unbuttered pasta for that half (I do). Alternatively you could simply spoon butter over the portion you desire while it's on the plate and skip this tossing step entirely.
10. On a serving plate, heap with half buttered pasta and half unbuttered pasta. Ladle the meat sauce over the unbuttered half. Generously sprinkle the buttered half with grated mizithra and garnish with parsley.

Nothing "Old" About This Spaghetti

Just over a week until I fly home for Christmas. Woot! Can't wait to see the folks and my friends. It's kind of sad that I haven't lived in California for over a decade (other than a brief stint in '99) and yet I still consider it home.

But this is a food journal, so how does this relate to food? Well, as I'll be gone for 3 weeks, I need to a) not buy any new perishable food; and b) use up the perishable food I already have. This is not a pretty thing, as mostly it's about eggs, eggs, eggs. I could probably make something "real" with the ingredients I have on hand, but it would probably yield too many leftovers. It's also a good excuse to go out to eat (which I love doing), because I can get single servings at restaurants (or double at most, usually).

So today for lunch I went to the Old Spaghetti Factory,because I had a sudden craving for their browned butter and mizithra cheese spaghetti. It's been so long since I've been there that they changed their menu -- no more daily specials! Alas. I always enjoyed looking at those, debating about getting whatever was on special that day rather than my usual. (I think I deviated once.) Luckily, they still had my usual -- the Manager's Favorite, which is a combination of 2 of their classic pasta sauces. I always get the meat sauce and aforementioned browned butter and mizithra cheese. I had the same debate I typically have with myself when I order this; I considered not getting meat sauce and getting mizithra only, but I've never been brave enough to do it. I fear it will be too rich for me, and I do enjoy the flavor combination of the tangy tomato sauce mixed with the deep, rich taste of the browned butter and mizithra cheese.

One of the changes they made is that lunch entrees are now part of their "complete meal," which includes the entree, soup or salad, bread, choice of beverage, and dessert (previously, this was only reserved for dinner, while lunch was served a la carte). Not too bad for $9.99, though honestly, not great either. Pasta's not exactly a costly expense. Still, a delightful and satisfying meal.



First, the bread, a fairly sour sourdough. A whole loaf, even if you're just a party of one. It's been so long that I forgot to do this, but you can request garlic butter instead of plain. I should actually go here more during the winter, just to bring home the bread since I'm not making my own.



Next up, the salad. I got ranch dressing on the side. It's a fairly decent ranch, not the best I've had but certainly not the worst. It has a very nice texture that I enjoy. The greens today were not as good as I've had there before, but not bad.



Ahhh the main course and star of the whole event. The browned butter wasn't as strong today as it normally is, but the pasta was delicious nevertheless. I've never liked meat sauce in restaurants as much as I like the one I make myself, but OSF's is not bad, particularly with the mizithra cheese mixed with it.



A top-down shot of both sauces. Wow, I'm getting hungry all over again!



The end note is the spumoni, which was a little icy (rather than creamy) for my taste, but hit the spot after the heaviness of the pasta. Shown here with the hot tea I managed to neglect mentioning until now!

Overall, a homey, satisfying meal that keeps itself interesting with variety and a yumminess all its own.