Sooner or later, after laboring over the stove and blender to make tasty, easily-chewed, and nutritious meals for the baby, you start to think about ways to divert the cooking efforts back toward the grownups. Then things like this happen:
1 pound* rigatoni
4 red bell peppers
1/2 pound** ground lamb
2 cloves garlic***, chopped fine
1 onion, chopped medium-fine
olive oil
salt
black pepper
2 dried hot peppers****
vermouth
ground cumin
Cut the peppers in half, carve out the inedible parts, and lay the pepper halves skin-side up on a foil-covered baking sheet. Drizzle generously with olive oil and sprinkle on some salt. Bake in an oven***** at 400 degrees****** for half an hour or so, till the skins have blackened and blistered. Let them rest, then peel and puree them in a blender with the oil and juices and browned bits from the pan. (Leave out the salt and go light on the oil, and you have peppers for the baby instead.)
Meanwhile, generously salt a large pot of water and bring it to a boil.
Heat some olive oil in a saucepan. Break open the dried peppers and cook them with the garlic till the garlic is fragrant but not brown. Add the onion, salt lightly, and cook till it has softened.
Add the lamb to the saucepan, salt and pepper it, and cook till it is no longer pink. If the browned juices start sticking to the pan, sluice in a little water to dissolve them.
Reduce the heat and pour in the pureed peppers. Add a barely noticeable pinch of cumin and a slug of vermouth. Taste for salt and pepper and add more, if needed. Simmer, stirring intermittently, for five or 10 minutes till it all seems to be a sauce.
Cook the rigatoni in the big pot of water. Drain, add a lump of butter*******, and toss with the sauce.
* Or, if all you can get is imported Eurogroceries, "500 grams."
** Or about half of a package weighing about half a kilogram.
*** Before you start cooking, check to see if the ayi used up all the garlic in the house without mentioning it.
**** Or some red pepper flakes, if you're in a country that sells red pepper flakes.
***** Step one: buy an oven. Chinese kitchens don't have them. Our oven sits on the countertop and is basically a double-sized version of the standard American toaster-oven.
****** About 200 degrees Celsius on the toaster-oven dial. Or thereabouts. As long as it's hot.
******* Did I remember to include "butter" on the list of ingredients up top? No? Oh, well. I didn't put "water," either. Cooked pasta gets butter on it, OK? Good.
