hi everyone and welcome back to
dimitra's dishes so today I'm going to
teach you how to make baked orzo and a
light tomato sauce it's a really nice
side dish to make that goes with meat
this is really similar to like the uvet
recipe that I've taught you how to make
only there's absolutely no meat in it so
it's perfect as a side so I've already
started cooking my onions cuz they take
about 10 to 15 minutes to soften up um
what let me show you what else we're
going to need we're going to need some
chopped garlic salt red pepper black
pepper and dried oregano some shredded
parmesan cheese chopped
parsley one lound of orzo AAS of black
pepper four cups of either water or
chicken stock I'm using water because I
don't have any chicken stock on me today
and a 28 o can of uh tomatoes that I've
crushed I couldn't find the already
crushed ones so I just puree them in my
food Pro in my blender um they were
diced tomatoes if I'm correct okay so my
onions are nice and golden and soft so
I'm going to add my
garlic and onions cook much faster than
garlic so you always want to cook them
separate you want to cook the onion
first and then add the garlic otherwise
you run the risk of burning garlic and
once garlic is burned it tastes horrible
tastes bitter and you're going to have
to start all over unless you want
bitterness and burnt tasting garlic in
your food I don't think you want that so
we're gonna cook the garlic for about
three to four minutes until it's nice
and
soft that should be really quick I'll
move all of these things out of my
baking
dish so you need a like a 9 by 13 in
baking dish what you could also do um I
like to bake it in this because it gets
like a it gets a lot of surface area to
cook in the oven but you can definitely
cook this in a pot if if you have those
really nice cast iron uh enamel uh pots
that I always love you know and I Rave
about definitely cook it in there I just
um I'm just going to cook it in my 9x13
in baking dish today cuz that's
traditionally how it's cooked so I'm
just going to
put my pasta in here until my sauce is
ready and this orzo pasta is pretty easy
to find now if you can't find it you
could definitely substitute elbow
macaroni or any small pasta that you can
find but if you look uh usually you
could find it in like the the European
specialty food section in your
Supermarket it's usually there um you
could also find it in the pasta section
most of the
time
okay my garlic is almost done
cooking okay so the garlic is nice and
golden I'm and the onions are also nice
and soft and perfectly cooked
I'm just going to add my puree
Tomatoes let them
cook I'll add my spices and my
salt and you know what I'm just going to
pour my water in here so I could get
whatever Tomatoes left in this blender
out definitely don't want to waste any
of
that I'll add some black pepper
and now I'm just going to let this cook
for about 5 minutes until it's nice and
it's just going to reduce a little bit
then I'm just going to add my water
bring it to a boil and pour it over my
pasta and pop it in the oven my oven is
preheating at
375° so make sure you do that before you
start cuz all this goes really really
fast as you can see the sauce is super
super quick and I use this sauce this is
a really good sauce to make whether
you're using pasta or not if you if you
made my beans my baked beans recipe
isuse a similar sauce the only
difference is I haven't really added any
sugar to this um it doesn't need any
sugar when you're cooking with pasta
this sauce is a really really good sauce
to add to anything
meat pasta beans you name it it's a
really nice sauce to know how to make so
I'm just going to cook this for about 5
minutes and then I'll add my water and
bring it to a boil and I'll show you the
next step
okay so the sauce has come to a boil and
I'm going to add it to my uncooked orzo
pasta that I have in my 9 by3 in baking
dish underneath my baking dish I put a
half sheet baking pan just to make it
easy to take in and out of the oven okay
so I'm just going to pour the
sauce let me mix it Stir It all
around okay I'm going to cover it with
aluminum foil and like I said my oven is
preheated to
375° I'm going to let this cook covered
I'm going to let It Bake covered for 25
minutes and then I'm going to uncover it
raise my oven temperature to 400° and
let it cook uncovered for another about
15 minutes or so okay so my orzo came
out of the oven what I did which I
didn't mention so when I when I baked it
for at
375° for 20 to 25 minutes it was like 20
minutes then I uncovered it and I saw
that it had kind of absorbed most of the
sauce so I added another cup of boiling
hot water that I had boiled I just put
it on the stove really quickly and once
it came to boil I added it and I let it
cook at 400 for 15 minutes so what you
do now is take your cup of
ice and just kind of put it in there so
it slows down the the cooking time and
creates a little more of a sauce also
and it will prevent your orzo from kind
of like gelatinizing and becoming like
one big glob of pasta which you don't
want some of it even got that nice
crusty like crispiness on the side okay
then we're going to add our chopped
parsley for some really nice
freshness mix it all up
a little
more this is super super good with
almost anything you could serve this on
the side of fish grilled
chicken shrimp meatballs whatever you
make it tastes super super good and then
you take your grated
Parmesan and you just sprinkle it all
over the top and it's going to melt and
be nice and cheesy and very delicious
you know where to go to get all the to
get this recipe and and many many more
www.d dishes.com I'm going to take a
little bit out and have me some lunch
right now and I'll see you guys next
time bye everyone