Beef and spaghetti

The introduction

Hello everyone, I hope, that you are all doing just fine!

Now I want to tell you about this another dish and write about this other recipe, that we used to prepare very often back in my childhood and we just really loved this dish, mainly because of its ingredient, which is spaghetti, you know. So, this dish is spaghetti with beef and this beef we used to call “Tushonka”, and it’s a Russian word and we just knew, that it was cooked beef, however, we knew it as Tushonka.

You know, this Tushonka was sold in cans, there were small and large cans of it and they were kind of different from each other, of course, however, the main idea was the same _ there was beef in its stock with seasoning and some spices, I guess, well, mainly with whole black peppers. My sister just loved Tushonka very much and she used to eat it without spaghetti. Well, she ate it with spaghetti, too, of course, however, she preferred eating it alone.

Well, to tell you the truth, we just loved this dish because of spaghetti, I guess, because evey child loves macaroni and spaghetti and they really enjoy it, however, I don’t think, that spaghetti is something that children should eat that often, because it’s not healthy at all, I mean, it doesn’t really have vitamins and stuff like that and you just eat wheat flour, you know. However, there are moments, when I just really want to eat some spaghetti, especially if it’s with cheese or some sauce, but spaghetti with that cheddar or gouda or some other cheese with different herbs and spices is just way too delicious and you can eat it and never get bored of eating it. There was this one time, when my sister prepared this spaghetti with cheese and this cheese had ham pieces in it and was very delicious and my brother just ate the whole saucepan of this spaghetti it was that delicious and light to eat. 

So, about the Tushonka. It’s mainly prepared from beef, however, there are pork Tushonkas, too, that I have seen and they say that it’s better, than the beef Tushonka and I can agree with that, too. So, this is mainly prepared simply by cooking the beef pieces, I mean, you just put those beef pieces into some water and boil it and add some pepper and maybe bay leaf and season it with salt and it just gets cooked and then you place it in cans and close them and that’s pretty much it. One of the greatest things about the Tushonka is that it has meat in it and if you don’t want to cook the beef and wait for it to get cooked and stuff like that, or if you don’t have much time and you want to eat right away or you have sudden guests and you want to serve them some great dish with meat, you can buy that Tushonka and just put it into a saucepan or a pan or something and heat it and it’s already ready to be eaten. Of course, it’s a good source of protein, too,as you know. So that , if you are on a diet or something and you have to eat cooked meat and you just don’t really want to cook it, you can buy this Tushonka and have some meat like that.

You know, back in those days, we used to have some pigs and we used to have pork, too, of course, and with all that pork with us, we had to prepare some things like Tushonka to store that meat and not get it bitter, of course, because then what would be the point of having pork, when one wouldn’t eat it?! So, we used to prepare this kind of Tushonka, too, and the thing that I mentioned above about pork Tushonka being better than beef one, now you may understand. Well, this pork Tushonka was more tasty than those beef ones. Firstly, because it was prepared by us, well, I mean, my parents, of course, and these canned Tushonkas are not homemade, of course, and they don’t have that great taste as the homemade ones. So, we just used to cut that pork into small cubes and put them into a large saucepan and add some water and black pepper and bay leaf and season it with salt and let it cook. When the meat was all cooked and ready, we would take them with stock and poured them into some glass cans and then we would close them with that special gadget and they were good to go. We used to store them in our cellar and we opened them when we wanted to eat them and it was pretty cool, if you want to know the truth.

So, now you can easily find Tushonkas in any supermarket and they are in small and large cans and their prices are between 3 and 5 laris, I guess, however, it’s not that bad, I mean, it’s worth buying it if you don’t want to buy some raw beef and prepare it yourself, and, besides, this Tushonka is already prepared and you can use it in many dishes, even make some soups with it or prepare tacos or some great wraps with other ingredients added and stuff like that, you know. It’s just really great and I really recommend buying them. At least, you can buy them and have them in your refrigerator and use them whenever you feel like it. You can store them for a long time, if you want to know the truth, so that you need not to worry about it getting bitter or something like that.

Well, now about the dish itself and how to prepare it. You know, preparing spaghetti I always thought was something difficult and I don’t really know why. Perhaps because it needed much time back then, or maybe I thought that it needed much time, because a second seems like a lifetime when you are hungry and you are waiting for the meal to get ready. I remember looking forward to eating some spaghetti impatiently , because I loved it so much. However, now I realize, that preparing spaghetti is not hard at all and it doesn’t really need much time and you can have it in 20 minutes or even less, it all depends on the method that you are using. I mean, if you pour some cold water into a saucepan, of course it will take much time to get to a boil and you will prepare spaghetti in more time, than you actually could have. Check this out _ you can boil the water into this electric kettle, which just needs 2 minutes or so to get the water to a boil and then you can just pour this boiling water into the saucepan and that’s it! There’s nothing impossible in that. That’s my sister’s method of preparing some stuff, that needs water to be boiled and that’s pretty cool thing to do, if you ask me. So that, in that way, you don’t waste much time on waiting for the water to boil, you just have it ready and everything.

So, now about the ingredients.

Ingredients:

• Water 1 litre
• Spaghetti 400 grams
• Tushonka 1 can
• Ground black pepper
• Salt to taste
• Onions, 2 medium
• Thyme (optional)
• Ground coriander (optional)
• Red pepper (optional)

Preparation process

So, the first thing, that you should do is to open the can of Tushonka and take it out and put it into a frying pan and turn the gas on a medium heat, so that it can get heated. In the meantime, you should peel the onions and prepare them for chopping. You know, I hate chopping those onions and that’s why I didn’t use them in this dish some time ago, however, since we have this chopper-blender, I just love chopping onions, I can say, because I just have to peel them and that’s it. All I have to do then is to put them into this chopper-blender and chop them without any effort at all. So, while the Tushonka being cooked in a pan, I add those chopped onions to it, too, and just stir them occasionally. I also add some spices to Tushonka, too, however, it doesn’t really need anything to be added to it, if you want to know the truth. However, I still add some red pepper and thyme and coriander, so that it will have a better taste for me. But it all depends on the person and how they like it, so they might like Tushonka without any additions and even without those onions, it’s all up to them.

Well, in the meantime, you should boil the water and pour some salt in it, maybe a tablespoon or something like that. And then you just add that spaghetti to it and wait until it gets boiled and then it will be ready in 15 minutes. However, you should stir occasionally to this, too, so that the spaghetti pieces won’t stick together and in that case, you will get a big ball of spaghetti or something like that.

So, after all those things you should just wait for that 15 minutes for the spaghetti to get ready and when it’s ready, you should just turn the gas off and take it to the sink and pour some cold water on the spaghetti, so that it will sparkle and stay non-sticky and that starch will be off of them, you know.

Then, you should just add the prepared Tushonka to the spaghetti and mix them well and have that saucepan on a medium heat for a minute or so, so that everything will get cooked together and then you just turn it off and the dish is ready!

You know, this is a pretty simple recipe of the spaghetti and it’s really delicious, too, and, besides, you have beef in it, too, and it’s a great product for eating and if your children don’t eat meat, you can kind of make them to eat it with this method of using spaghetti in their dish and they will love to eat it after some time, if you ask me. This is a great dish for making children eat some meat, well, they won’t have much meat with only that dish, but it’s still something, and, besides, you won’t have to make them eat it, as they will like it with spaghetti and tell you to prepare it again after some time, because every child loves spaghetti and they will want to eat it again, you know.

Well, that was my recipe of beef and spaghetti, that I used to eat so many times in my childhood and I just loved it and I really love eating it nowadays, too, however, there are some other things, that I like to eat besides spaghetti, and well, I kind of eat them mostly these days, besides, there are many other healthier things, than spaghetti and I’m trying to eat healthy foods, if you want to know the truth. So, when there’s a chance of eating healthy dishes, you don’t really need to eat spaghetti, of course, rather, you can eat those other healthy stuff, like fish and vegetables and meat and fruits and live a healthy life. However, sometimes you should eat some spaghetti, too , of course. And when you decide to eat some spaghetti, you can always buy Tushonka and prepare this dish and enjoy it, you know.

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