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Archive for the ‘pasta recipes’ Category

Canned Tuna Recipes: Tuna Pasta

Posted on Jan 28, 2010 06:50:31 AM

Tuna pasta is the most common of the canned tuna recipes, and also the typical lunch of college students. After all, what’s quicker and cheaper that that? Drain the pasta, open the can of tuna, and it’s done, no need to add extra oil either, the one in the can will do,  just don’t expect to be of the highest quality.

The only problem is, this is too simple to have any taste, but when you are a penniless student you hardly care. When you’re older though, with a job and more refined tastes (well, sort of), pasta with tuna needs to be more sophisticated, even for a lazy Saturday lunch. So here we go, just to remind us that we’re getting older and fussy about certain things.

For two people:

• 160-200g (5½ – 7 oz) short pasta (ie no spaghetti)
• a tin of  200-250g (7-9 oz) tuna in brine, drained
• ½ onion or 1 stick of leek, thinly chopped
• 3-4 tbsp olive oil
• a handful of olives
• 1 tbsp capers
• salt and pepper
• ½ tin tomato purée (passata di pomodoro) or  plum tomatoes

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, add the onion or the leek, let sauté for 10 minutes at medium heat. Add the tuna and the tomatoes and let it cook on a medium heat for 10-15 minutes.

Cook pasta according to the packet instructions (here is a little help on how to cook pasta), drain and keep some of the cooking water. Add the pasta to the frying pan, and mix it with the tuna sauce on a medium heat. Add  a tbsp or two of cooking water if it’s too dry. Finish with the olives and capers, and you’re good to go: tuna pasta recipe for adults.

Back to the library now.

Cauliflower Pasta

Posted on Jan 27, 2010 07:06:04 AM

This cauliflower pasta recipe is the proof that you can make pasta with pretty much anything.The cool thing about this cauliflower pasta is that you cook the cook the pasta and the cauliflower in the same water: additional taste guaranteed.

For 2 people you will need:

• 160-200g (5-7oz) short pasta (ie no spaghetti)
• a cauliflower
• olive oil, salt and pepper
• a handful of raisins
• a handful of grated Parmesan
• ½ glass whit wine
• a clove of garlic

Chop the cauliflower and cook it in boiling salted water for 10-15 minutes until tender. Turn off the heat. Take the pieces out of water using a ladle, but keep the water, as you will use the same for the pasta.

In a frying pan heat the olive oil with the garlic and gently stir-fry the cauliflower. After 2-3 minutes add the white wine. When it’s evaporated, add pepper and raisins and, and some more salt if necessary. Continue stir-frying for about 10 minutes more.

In the meantime, bring the cauliflower water back to boil and cook the pasta (follow this post on how to cook pasta if you’re not sure), without adding salt.

When you drain the pasta, make sure you keep some cooking water. Put the pasta in the frying pan with the cauliflower, on a medium heat, and mix everything together. Add a tablespoon or two of cooking water if it’s too dry.

Sprinkle with Parmesan and that’s how this cauliflower pasta is done.

Sicilian Recipes: Spaghetti with almonds and basil

Posted on Jul 22, 2009 11:13:10 PM

This spaghetti recipe is a sure shot, something to cook for your guests, who will be amazed by this sauce, and will ask you: “how did you do that? It’s delicious.” And you will say, in a casual I-get-that-a-lot manner “oh no, it’s really easy, it just takes ten minutes.” Except that it does.

You can say whatever you want about Jamie Oliver, but his recipes work. This one is taken from Jamie’s Italy, and it’s a Sicilian sauce. The beauty of it is that it’s not a cooked sauce, it’s all with raw ingredients, a sort of pesto.

For 6 people:

• 450g (1lb) spaghetti
• ½ clove of garlic (it’s one clove in the original recipe, but Jamie is a bit too generous with garlic for my taste)
• 4 handfuls of fresh basil
• 150 g (5½ oz ) of almonds
• 150 g (5½ oz ) of grated parmesan cheese
• extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper
• 600g (1 1/3 lb) of tomatoes

Toast the almonds in a pan (no oil), smash the garlic with a  pestle and mortar. Add the almonds, garlic and basil to a food processor and whiz them until you have a coarse powder consistency. Pour the mix in a bowl and add the tomatoes cut in half. Gently squeeze the tomatoes with your hands, mixing well. Add the Parmesan cheese and add a bit of olive oil to loosen up. Add salt and pepper if you feel like it, but it’s not always necessary.

That’s it, when the spaghetti are ready and drained, pour them in a bowl and serve. This spaghett recipe will make you popular.

Pasta Recipes: Sausage pasta with saffron

Posted on Jun 25, 2009 04:17:18 PM

Of all the pasta recipes, this is probably my favorite. My aunt Elia would be proud of me: this gnocchetti alla campidanese turned out really good. This one is a typical Sardinian dish (Campidano is a vast plain in the south part of the island), whose basic ingredients are sausage and saffron. If you add some grated Pecorino cheese (less optional than in other pasta recipes) the resulting taste is fairly strong. Be ready for it.

Which sausage? Well, I wouldn’t know a proper word for it. In some recipes you sometimes find Italian sausage, but I’m not sure what it means. In this case it would be a Sardinian sausage, but it doesn’t help either. Let’s say it’s pork sausage, with a fair amount of fat. It’s not spicy, and it’s not a salami, which means it’s raw and you’re supposed to cook it. I’ve pasted a picture below. Whichever closest you can find to that, the better.

Which pasta? Sardinian gnocchetti (I found them in a Deli shop) is a ribbed pasta with a shape similar to small gnocchi, but that’s the only thing they have in common. An alternative is another type of pasta called malloreddus.

This pasta recipe is for four people:

• 320-350g (11-12oz) of gnocchetti or malloreddus
• a few strands of saffron
• 150g (5 oz) sausage
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• ½ onion, chopped
• salt and pepper, olive oil
• a handful of Pecorino cheese

Remove the skin of the sausage and the fat in excess, and reduce it to small pieces. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and sauté the onion at low heat for about 10 minutes.

Add the sausage and let it go for another 10 minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes and the saffron. Let if go at medium heat for about 30-40 minutes until the meat is cooked and the sauce has thickened.

Cook the pasta, drain, and add to the pan with the sauce. Stir for 2 minutes at high heat and serve.

More pasta recipes.

Lasagna Recipe – How to make lasagna

Posted on Jun 10, 2009 06:46:02 AM

I should have maybe started with my family’s lasagna recipe (which, by the way, we call pasticcio), made with bolognese sauce and béchamel, but I went for a lighter version with tomato sauce instead.

The first thing you need for lasagna is fresh pasta. If you want to try the experience of making it yourself, follow the homemade pasta recipe. Otherwise check your supermarket, they probably sell ready pasta sheets. One of the good things about making pasta yourself though, is that you can decide how thick the sheets will be. For these lasagnas we made them very thin, and as a result the lasagna literally melted in our mouths, even though the lasagna fell apart when it was transferred to the dish, but it was worth it.

This is how to make lasagna. You will need:

• 1 or 2 tins of sieved tomatoes (passata di pomodoro), or chopped tomatoes, salted
• 1 or two balls of mozzarella cheese, torn in pieces
• a handful of grated Parmesan cheese
• Brie, diced

The quantities of ingredients can vary here, the important thing is the right balance on each layer. The reason why I’ve included brie (definitely not part of the traditional recipe) is that tomato sauce has a less strong taste than bolognese sauce, and this should be balanced with a cheese with a stronger taste. Mozzarella is there because it melts, and also because an all-Brie lasagna would be unbearably heavy.

To cook the pasta you’ll need:

• the usual boiling salted water in the usual pan. This time and this time only you are allowed to add some olive oil to the water
• a bowl filled with cold water
• a clean and dry cloth, unfolded

Put the pasta sheets in the boiling water, 2-3 at the time, for 2-3 minutes (or whatever the packet says if you’re using ready-made pasta), then put them in the cold water until they’re cooled, then lay them on the cloth to drain the excess of water.

When there’s no room left on the cloth, preheat the oven at 180°C /350°F and start building the layers, picking up first the pasta that you cooked first. Each layer will have:

1 sheet of pasta (or the necessary to cover the surface of the container you’re using + tomato sauce + 2-3 pieces of mozzarella + 1-2 pieces of Brie + one sprinkle of parmesan

When you’ve reached the top, thie recipe for lasagna is almost over: finish with a generous sprinkle of Parmesan and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes, until the edges are crusty and the surface is brownish. Ecco fatto, the lasagna is ready.

There will be more lasagna recipes in the future, but the pasya machine had an accident, and I’ll have to get a new one. I don’t want to sound too Italian, but I somehow can’t accept the idea of using pre-made lasagna noodles.

Mushroom Recipes: Tagliatelle with mushrooms and zucchini

Posted on May 9, 2009 05:40:54 PM

After the fresh homemade pasta recipe, what to do with all that yellow stuff? Here’s a little suggestion: tagliatelle with mushrooms and zucchini. Mushroom recipes in Italian cuisine are just too many to count, but we have to start somewhere, so here we go.

As the fresh pasta cooks very quickly, it’s better to prepare it after the pasta sauce.

For the sauce for 2 people you’ll need:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 200g (7 oz) mushrooms, chopped
• 1 courgette, chopped
• single cream
• ½ glass white wine

Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the garlic. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium heat and add the courgette and the mushrooms.

Turn up the heat, stir and pour the wine.

When the wine has evaporated, turn down the heat again and let the pasta sauce simmer for about 10-15 minutes until cooked. Add some hot water if it’s too dry (but mushrooms usually let go plenty of liquid).

When the sauce is ready, add the cream. Don’t be shy with it, add as much as you need to make the sauce creamy enough.

Bring a pan of water to boil, add salt and the tagliatelle. Cook the pasta for 3-5 minutes until it’s al dente, drain and transfer immediately to the sauce pan. Mushroom recipe done.

Eating fresh homemade pasta (made by you) is a different story, isn’t it? Also, check out these pasta recipes.

Fresh Homemade Pasta (pasta fatta in casa)

Posted on May 7, 2009 05:41:48 AM

Making fresh homemade pasta is not difficult, sure it’s time consuming, but it pays off in the end.

First of all, you’ll need a pasta machine. This from Amazon.co.uk is the pasta machine I have, and it does a decent job. This one from Amazon.com is basically the same.

For the pasta dough. The basic ingredients are: flour, salt, eggs. The proportions are typically: 100g (4/5 cup) flour x 1 egg. This is not a strict rule, actually I wanted to make it more eggy and yellow, so I added a yolk or two.

In the end I used 500g flour ( 1/5 cups), 5 eggs, 3 yolks and a pinch of salt.

Which flour? Some cookbooks get around this problem in a smart way: “pasta flour” they say, or 00 flour (finely grounded wheat flour), which is what you would use in Italy. As 00 flour is not sold in the supermarket, if you don’t want to be ripped off by one of those Italian food delis, I would stick to either strong flour or all-purpose flour.

Now, for experiment’s sake, I made two doughs, one for each kind of flour, and even though the strong flour was a bit harder to work, the results were very good in both cases.

The homemade pasta dough. Sift the flour in a bowl, add the salt and make a well in the middle. Break the eggs straight into it and beat them with a fork. Start circling around (using fingers or fork) and bring in the flour. When you have a kneadable pasta dough, transfer it to the working surface and work it for 10-15 minutes, add some more flour if it’s too wet, or sprinkle it with water if too dry. When it’s elastic and smooth dust it with flour and cover it with clingfilm. Let it rest for 30 minutes.

The preparation. In the meantime, take all the paraphernalia for the staging area. Use a large surface (read table), cover it with a tablecloth and dust it all over with flour. Fix the pasta machine, and leave the flour packet and a knife at hand.

Roll it. Take third of the pasta dough and flatten it as much as you can with your hands. Stick it between the rolls of the pasta machine and start rolling it from less thin to thinner. Pass the dough 4-5 times before changing the settings. This is where you need an extra pair of hands to hold the dough. If you’re planning to make lasagne, make it as thin as possible, a  little less if you’re making tagliatelle.

Let it dry. When the strips of pasta have the desired thickness (like the ones in the picture), if you’re making lasagne your job is over, you can let it dry. If you’re making tagliatelle though, don’t go back to the pasta machine yet, let it dry a little bit, let’s say 15 minutes, otherwise it will be all sticky long before hitting the boiling water. When you have your tagliatelle, stretch them out carefully and let them dry completely. If you’re not using all the pasta you can freeze it.

More pasta recipes and homemade pasta recipes.

Pasta Recipes: Pasta with Lemon and Sage

Posted on Apr 18, 2009 08:42:23 AM

Typical case of taking one of the pasta recipes from a magazine, ending up doing a different thing that works, partly because you don’t have all the exact ingredients, partly because you feel that the original recipe could be much better with some change.

Pasta recipe for four people:

• 320-350g (11-12 oz) fusilli pasta
• zest of one lemon
• 10 leaves of sage
• 20g (1 ½ tbsp) butter
• 5 tablespoons of breadcrumbs
• 2 tablespoons of ricotta cheese

While pasta is cooking following the packet instructions, and this post on how to cook pasta, melt the butter in a frying pan and add the breadcrumbs and 5 torn leaves of sage. You’re not frying, just make sure everything is coated in butter.Take off the heat and put aside.

Peel one lemon and cut half of the zest into small pieces, the other half into sticks.

When the fusilli are ready, drain them, but keep some of the cooking water. Put the frying pan with the bread and sage mix back on the heat, and pour the pasta, a little bit of cooking water, the lemon zest pieces and the ricotta cheese.

Stir for 1-2 minutes and serve. Decorate the pasta with the lemon zest sticks and the remaining sage leaves.

Make sure you only peel the yellow part of the lemon zest, which is really thin and gives the lemon flavour. The white part right underneath it is has a bitter taste and could spoil the pasta sauce.

More pasta recipes

Pasta recipes for beginners (or how to cook pasta properly)

Posted on Apr 14, 2009 05:08:12 PM

Before publishing more pasta recipes, few, well known rules about how to cook pasta properly won’t do any harm. Before starting, consider that different types of pasta will cook in different ways. Ribbed pasta (like rigatoni) will attract the dressing better, but a non-ribbed pasta on the other hand will cook more evenly.

Pasta goes into boiling water, everybody knows that. But not many know that pasta likes space so there has to be plenty of water. Every 100g of pasta require one liter of water. 300g means 3 liters.

What about salt? There’s a rule or two for that too. Salt has to be added after water has reached boiling temperature, or boiling will be delayed. If you have one liter of water add 10g of salt, for 2 liters add 20g and so on.

A general opinion about cooking pasta is that you have to add oil to the water in order to keep the noodles separated. This is useless, and a waste too. Use good quality pasta in enough water and it won’t stick.

Wait for 30 seconds for the salt to dissolve and pour the pasta. If you’re using spaghetti, use your hands to push them down instead of breaking them. Make sure you don’t touch the boiling water.

When you add the pasta, the water will stop boiling, so try to make it boil back as quick as possible by turning up the flame and covering the pan. When it’s boiling again, turn down the heat a little bit and uncover the pan. In general, the level of heat should be the highest you can get without making the water boil out of the pan.

With a wooden spoon move the pasta every now and then, this is a great substitute for oil in order not to make it stick. If you’re not sure for how long to cook it, follow the instructions on the packet, which should be for pasta al dente (dente = tooth). It means not so hard to be raw but not so cooked that it won’t fall to the floor if you throw it at the wall.

Al dente is how pasta should be in the end. Don’t overdo, for at least three reasons: pasta won’t stop cooking until it’s cold, and long before you’ve finished eating it, it will be like chewing gum; if it’s too cooked your stomach will take longer to process it. And finally: this is the way the do it in Italy. Once you become an al dente expert, you can taste it to know when it’s time to drain it, using the packet as general guide.

When it’s time, have the colander ready in the sink, and drain the pasta. Get rid of all the water (in some cases you might still need a little bit of it). Add the pasta to the sauce, if it’s in another pan, and let it go for 2-3 minutes, until everything is well mixed.

Pasta should be eaten immediately, but if you’re going to eat it at work the next day, or if you’re preparing a cold pasta salad, put it under cold water after draining it. This will stop the cooking.

More pasta recipes

Zucchini Recipes: zucchini, prawns and cherry tomatoes pasta

Posted on Mar 29, 2009 10:17:02 PM

I’ve finally made it with the quickest of the zucchini recipes with pasta. By “finally” I mean that Italians abroad are not big pasta eaters, at least in my experience, and in our household we’re no different. Pasta is lunch, not dinner food, and it’s not the best thing to have in the lunch box, as it should be eaten straightway.

This zucchini recipe was improvised with what we had in the fridge and my darling Claudia (a better cook than me when she wants) did the miracle. This picture is not good enough (like many of this blog. Will I ever improve?), but zucchini, prawns and tomatoes make a very colorful pasta sauce.

This pasta zucchini recipe is for two:

• 170g (6 oz) long pasta (tagliatelle or spaghetti)
• one chopped zucchini
• 100g (3 ½ oz) prawns
• 10 halved cherry tomatoes
• extra virgin olive oil
• ½ chopped onion
• 2/3 glass of white wine
• a clove of garlic
• salt and pepper
• a sprinkle of lemon juice (optional)

Let the shrimps thaw in boiling water if frozen. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan with the garlic and add the shrimps, half of the wine, and a sprinkle of lemon juice. Season and let it simmer until there’s little cooking liquid left.

Put the shrimps aside, rinse the frying pan and put it back on the fire with some more olive oil and the onion. Let it sauté at low heat until the onion is lucid, then turn up to medium heat and add the courgette and the rest of the wine.

Let the courgettes simmer until they start to become tender, then add the shrimps and the tomatoes. Cook for about five more minutes. The most important thing here is to take the pan off the stove when there’s still some liquid left. If the courgettes are still a bit raw it doesn’t matter.

Cook the pasta following the packet instructions, drain and transfer it to the pan. Stir all together at medium heat for 1-2 minutes and serve.

A final note on lemon. On the one hand it’s not a perfect match with zucchini and tomatoes, but on the other it gives a very interesting note. If you’re bold enough give it a try, otherwise this zucchini recipe can live without it.

More pasta recipes, more pasta sauces, and some tips on how to cook pasta properly