Hörnli with minced meat

Ingredients for 2 servings:

• 300 g Hörnli (pasta)
• 150 g minced meat, half-half
• 1 onion(s), small
• 1 garlic clove(s)
• 3 tbsp tomato puree
• ½ cube of stock
• 2 dl milk
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp flour
• salt and pepper
• Spice(s) (e.g. clove, a little caraway, rosemary, bay leaf)
• some red wine
• 1 jar applesauce

Instructions

Working time approx. 20 minutes; Total time approx. 20 minutes

Pasta with minced meat sauce, Swiss ‘national recipe’, quick after-work dish

Place the macaroni in plenty of boiling salted water and cook until al dente. Meanwhile, finely chop the onion and sauté in a little oil in a hot pan. Add a crushed garlic clove and sauté until tender. Season the minced meat generously with pepper and salt, mix with the tomato puree, and brown. Knead the butter and flour in a little cling film until smooth. Deglaze the pan with a splash of red wine or water, crumble in ½ of the stock cube, add spices to taste in a spiced egg or tea strainer, and reduce the heat. Add the milk and loosen the cooking juices. Thicken with the flour and butter. Reduce the sauce slightly or add a little water if necessary. The finished sauce should resemble a risotto—not runny, but not too dry either. Remove the spices, season with salt and pepper, and serve the sauce over the finished macaroni. In Switzerland, apple sauce is eaten with it (please don’t roll your eyes, just try it, it’s delicious!). Instead of milk, butter, and flour, you can simply pour a cup of cream over the fried food and let it simmer for a while. If you do a little prep while the pasta water is heating, the standard version will take just as long as the Hörnli take to cook.