Spaghetti al cartoccio (in a package)

From Puglia. This dish looks fairly impressive, but is in fact quite easy to do. Spaghetti or linguine is mixed with seafood, and baked in the oven. The pasta absorbs the flavours from the seafood and the sauce is concentrated wonderfully. I had this dish at a restaurant near here “Zia Teresa” in Torre a Mare a while back. They served it using foil packets, but some people use greaseproof paper. Make one large package, or as I prerfer, one package per person. The recipe is really just a guide. The seafood is different from chef to chef and from day to day, depending on what is available. Include some kind of mollusc, like mussels or clams, something from the squid family, like calamari or octopus and something from the prawn family like prawns, scampi and shrimps. Some people also include a little fish, about 200 g, such as red mullet, sea bream or bass. Serves 4.

• 350 g spaghetti
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and bruised
• 1 kg of fresh tomatoes
• 200 g unpeeled raw prawns/shrimps
• 350 g clams (vongole veraci)
• 500 g mussels
• 200 g baby octopus or baby squid
• A large sprig of fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• Olive oil
• 2 chillis (optional, use the chillis which you are used to. It is usually made quite mild here)
• Dry white wine

Wash the mussels and clams under cold running water and pull the beards off. Put them into a large pan along with a clove of garlic, the parsley and half a glass of wine. Put on a high heat until all the shellfish are open. Remove  most of them from the shells (you leave a few whole for garnish, if you like)  and reserve the cooking liquid, strained if need be.

Blanch the tomatoes for a few seconds in boiling water, and then peel and deseed them. Roughly chop.

Heat about 4 tablespoons of oil in a large pan with the remaining 2 cloves of garlic. When they have browned, remove them from the oil. Add the octopus or squid, and cook over a medium heat for about 5 minutes.

 

 

Add the tomatoes and cook for a further 5 minutes. Add the cooking liquid from the shell-fish and the chopped chillis (leave them whole if you want to remove them at the end of cooking)  and cook for a further 5 minutes. Add the unpeeled prawns and cook for a further 5 minutes. If you’d prefer to peel the prawns you can, but you’ll be losing quite a lot of flavour.

Cook the pasta about half the time recommended time on the packet. Drain and mix with the sauce.

Use a large square of kitchen foil, or 4 smaller ones for individual portions. Bring all 4 sides up and pinch together the corners, so you have a sort of foil “basket”. Fill each pouch with the pasta and fold over the top to close. Dont close them too tightly, leave some room. Bake in an oven preheated to 200°c for about 10 minutes.

Unwrap the package or packages at the table and have some finger bowls and napkins handy.

Spaghetti with green beans

Spaghetti with green beans finished dish

From Puglia. This is another very simple recipe that I cook a lot when green beans are in season. The pictures have been sitting on my computer for a while, so they are no longer in season, but should be fairly easy to get. The recipe uses ricotta marzottica or dura, which is hard to get outside Italy. The best substitute is grana or parmesan. Don’t use regular ricotta, it’s a different thing completely. The beans are cooked for quite a long time and you might consider them to be overcooked, but it works well with the pasta. If you prefer, you could add the beans along with the spaghetti.Serves 4.

• 500g green beans
• 360g spaghetti
• 1 quantity tomato sauce or pasatta
•  Ricotta marzotica or grana

Spaghetti with green beans ingredients

1. Top and tail the beans
2. Boil the beans in plenty of boiling water for 10 minutes.
3. Add the spaghetti to the water and continue cooking until the pasta is al dente.
4. Drain the beans and pasta and mix with the warmed tomato sauce.
5. Serve topped with ricotta marzotica or grana.

Spaghetti al cacio e pepe

Spaghetti al cacio e pepe. From Rome. This is another recipe that I cook a lot, but have never got around to posting. Spaghetti (vermicelli is a synonym for spaghetti) with pecorino and black pepper sauce. Anyone who has ever been to Rome will know it. It seems like almost every trattoria there has it on the menu.   It is very simple, just three ingredients, but one of my favourite ways to eat pasta. It  is always worth spending a little more to get really good quality ingredients, but it is especially important to use good cheese with this dish. Use a good Pecorino Romano DOC (PDO). Serves 4.

Spaghetti al cacio e pepe finished dish

• 320 g spaghetti
• 160 g  Pecorino  Romano, grated.
• Lots of freshly cracked black pepper.

Spaghetti al cacio e pepe ingredients

Roughly crack the pepper corns. You can use a pestle and mortar, or as I do a coffee grinder. How much you add is a matter of taste, but it’s very important that it should be freshly ground. Don’t grind it too finely.

Cracked pepper

Cook the pasta until it is al dente  and drain, reserving some of the cooking water.

Spaghetti al cacio e pepe mixing the pasta

Mix the pasta together with some of the cooking water and most of the cheese. You should obtain a creamy sauce that coats the spaghetti well. If the sauce is too wet, add some more cheese. Likewise, if the sauce is too dry, add some more cooking water. Add the pepper and mix again. Serve topped with the rest of the cheese.

Spaghetti with olives

Spaghetti con le olive. This is a good store cupboard standby. Try to use the best olives you can find though as they make a big difference to this dish. Serves 4

Spaghetti with olives ingredients

• 400g passata
• 1 tablespoon of capers
• 100g olives in brine, chopped, stones removed
• 1 onion, chopped
• Oregano
• Olive oil
• 320g spaghetti

1. Fry the onion in some olive oil.
2. Add the passata, the olives and the capers. Season with salt and pepper and add a good pinch of oregano.
3. Cook over a low heat for half an hour.
4. Mix with the cooked pasta and serve.

Spaghetti with olives finished dish

Spaghetti with mussels

Spaghetti with mussels ingredients

Spaghetti con le cozze. This is a recipe that I cook a lot, but have never got round to posting. I, like the Barese, love mussels.  They are always cheap and are available all year. Here the size changes with the season, but you can make this dish with big or small mussels, it doesn’t matter. They say that the smaller ones have a better flavour. Some people open the mussels raw for this dish. To be honest the flavour is probably marginally better, but I am not very good at opening them so I never have time. If you are adept at opening mussels, feel free to remove the shells before adding them, but don’t forget to include any water that comes out. Some people also remove the shells after they have opened. Again, it depends on my mood, but I usually don’t.You can also use fresh or tinned tomatoes.

Serves 4

• 1kg Mussels weighed with the shells
• 1 clove of garlic
• 500g peeled tomatoes
• Olive oil
• A few sprigs of chopped parsley
• Chilli (optional to taste, can be fresh or dried)
• 320g Spaghetti

1. Sauté the garlic for a few minutes so that it softens, but doesn’t brown.
2. Add the chilli (if fresh, if you are using dry, add it after the tomatoes)
3. Add the tomatoes and cook for a few minutes.
4. Add the mussels and cook uncovered over a medium heat until they are all open
5. Add the parsley and stir
6. Mix with the cooked spaghetti and serve.

Spaghetti with mussels finished dish

Pesto Genovese – Official recipe

Basil is very much in season here at the moment, so I bought a couple of bunches at the market and decided to make pesto.I dug out the official recipe from Consorzio Pesto Genovese. It’s very specific about exactly where the ingredients should come from. I’m providing the original recipe, but feel free to substitute ingredients from another region. eg. Basil not from Genoa 🙂 The recipe also calls for a pestle and mortar. This is undoubtably the best way, but you can get very acceptable results using a blender. Just put all the ingredients in a blender and blitz until almost smooth. Serves 6

Pesto Genovese Ingredients

• 50g of basil leaves (from Genoa of course)
• Extra virgin olive oil (from Liguria)
• 6 Tbsp grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano
• 2 Tbsp Pecorino (romano, toscano, sardo or siciliano)
• 2 cloves of garlic (can be omitted)
• 1 Tbsp pine kernels (from the Mediterranean area)
• 1 tbsp chopped walnuts can be substituted for the pine kernels (must be European from the species “Juglans regia”)
• Coarse sea salt

1. The traditional method uses a wooden pestle(where the dish gets its name from in a round about way) and a marble mortar. Start by pounding the garlic and salt until you get a smooth paste.
2. Add the basil, a handful at a time, and keep grinding using a circular motion until each batch of the leaves is incorporated. To preserve the essential oils in the basil, you shouldn’t be too rough with it.
3. Add the pine kernel and grind some more.
4. Add the cheese and mix well.
5. Add the oil, little by little, until the pesto has the right consistency – a matter of taste.
6. Serve with pasta or added to minestrone. The recommended pastas are troffie, trofiette or trenette, but it goes with just about any pasta. I usually serve it with spaghetti or linguine.

Pesto Genovese finished dish

Bavette with clams and courgettes

Bavette alle vongole e zucchine. This is a nice alternative to the standard spaghetti alle vongole recipe. Serves 4.

• 320g bavette
• 800g clams
• 1 shallot – finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic – peeled, whole
• 1 chilli (fresh or dried) or to taste
• 300g courgettes – cut into match sticks
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley
• 100ml dry white wine
• 200g tomatoes – peeled and diced

Bavette with clams and courgettes ingredients

1. Open the clams by  putting them in a dry pan over a high heat for about 5 minutes. Reserve any liquid that is produced.
2. Remove the clams from their shells and put aside.
3. Heat some oil in a pan and cook the shallot, chilli and garlic clove until softened.
4. Remove and discard the garlic.
5. Add the clams, courgettes and parsley and cook for a few minutes.
6. Add the wine and the liquid from the clams and allow to reduce for a while.
7. Add the tomatoes, season with salt and cook  until the sauce thickens – about 20-30 minutes.
8. Cook the bavette until al dente, drain and add to the pan with the sauce and mix well.

Bavette with clams and courgettes finished dish

Bavette with fresh tuna

Bavette al tonno fresco. I’m not sure where this dish originates, but it feels like a Sicilian recipe due to the inclusion of tuna and pine nuts. It’s quite economical too as 200 grams of tuna feeds four people. My problem now is trying to think of a way to use up the other 800g I bought at the fish market this morning. I couldn’t resist, it was €2 a kilo 🙂 Serves 4.

Bavette with tuna ingredients

• 320g bavette (or spaghetti or linguine) I used bavettini – a smaller version of bavette
• 100g cherry tomatoes – halved
• 2 anchovy fillets – chopped
• 20g pine nuts
• 70g good quality black olives
• 200g fresh tuna – cut into small cubes
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic – finely sliced
• 1 shallot – finely sliced
• 1/2 glass white wine

1. Fry the shallot and the garlic in olive oil until it starts to colour.
2. Add the anchovies, half the pine nuts, the olives and the tomatoes. Cook for 2-3 minutes.
3. Add the capers and tuna. Cook for a further 2 minutes.
4. Add the wine and allow to reduce a little.
5. Remove from the heat. Add the lemon zest, parsley and the rest of the pine nuts.
6. Meanwhile cook the pasta until al dente. Drain and add to the pan with the tuna. Return to the heat and mix well.  Allow the pasta to take up the flavours for a minute or so, remove from the heat and serve.

Bavette with tuna finished dish

Spaghetti with Gurnard

Spaghetti con la gallinella. Gurnard is used mainly as a soup fish here. This recipe however serves it poached and flaked with spaghetti. This avoids the problem of navigating the numerous bones.  When you’ve finished you’ll be left with a couple of litres of pretty good fish stock which is worth saving and would freeze well. Serves 4.

Spaghetti with gurnard ingedients

• 320g spaghetti
• 300g whole gurnard – cleaned
• Zest from 1 lemon
• Parsley – finely chopped
• 1 clove of garlic
• 100g small or cherry tomatoes – sliced
• Stock vegetables (Onion, carrot, celery)
• Olive oil

1. Peel and chop the stock vegetables. Add to a pan with 3 litres of water and a large pinch of salt. Simmer for 30 minutes. You can omit this step if you are pressed for time.
2. Add the fish and poach for 5-6 minutes. The fish should be starting to flake, but not dissolving. Remove the fish and allow to cool slightly. Strain and reserve the stock.
3. Flake the fish taking care to remove all the bones.
4. Mince together the lemon zest, the garlic and the parsley.
5. Fry the fish gently in a little olive oil and add a little of the stock. Be careful not to add to much, you don’t want it too sloppy.
6. Cook the spaghetti in the stock until al dente
7. Just before the spaghetti is done, add the minced ingredients and the tomatoes to the fish and warm through.
8. Drain the spaghetti and add to the pan with the fish. Mix well and cook for a further minute or so.
9. Serve immediately.

spaghetti with gurnard finished dish

Bucatini and Mussels all’Amatriciana

Bucatini e cozze all’amatriciana.  This is a new twist on the classic amatriciana. The addition of mussels works surprisingly well. It is adapted from “Sale e Pepe” which is something like the Italian equivalent of “Good Food Magazine”. The original recipe calls for guanciale, but as this is hard to find, even in Italy, this is my version using pancetta. Serves 4

Bucatini amatriciana with mussels ingredients

• 320g bucatini or spaghetti
• 1 kg mussels
• 400g passata
• A clove of garlic
• 50g pancetta – cubed
• 1/2 a glass of dry white wine
• Pecorino romano cheese – grated
• Chilli powder to taste
• Olive oil

1. Fry the pancetta in a little oil along with the whole garlic clove.
2. When the garlic has browned, remove and discard.
3. Add the chilli and fry for a few seconds.
4. Add the passata and cook over a low heat for about 30 minutes.
5. Meanwhile put the mussels in a pan along with the wine and cook over a high heat until the mussels have opened. Drain and reserve the liquid.
6. Shell the mussels, reserving a few for decoration.
7. Pour the mussel liquid into a large pan and add water to make it up to about 3 litres. Bring to the boil and cook the pasta until al dente.
8. Shorlty before the pasta is ready, add the mussels to the tomato sauce and allow to heat through for a minute or so.
9. Drain the pasta and add to the pan with tomato sauce.
10. Mix well and serve with the pecorino on the side.

Bucatini amatriciana with mussels finished dish

Spaghetti with Prawns and Courgettes

Spaghetti zucchine e gamberetti. I cooked this to use up the leftover prawns from yesterday’s trip to the  fish market. Serves 4.

Spaghetti with prawns and courgettes ingredients

• 320g spaghetti
• 300g medium prawns, legs and antenae removed.
• 1tbsp capers – soaked for a few minutes and drained.
• 3 small or 1 large courgette -sliced thinly into rounds or quartered lengthways and sliced into quadrants if large.
• 1/2 onion sliced
• Tomato sauce or passata
• A pinch of dried thyme
• Olive oil

1. Fry the onion gently in the oil until it starts to soften.
2. Add the tomato sauce, the capers and the thyme. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, uncovered, for about 20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile fry the courgettes gently in olive oil until soft. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Add the prawns to the tomato sauce and cook for a further few minutes until the prawns are cooked.
5. At the last minute add the courgetttes to the sauce.
6. Meanwhile cook the spaghetti until al dente.
7. Dress the pasta with the sauce and serve.

Spaghetti with prawns and courgettes finished dish

Puttanesca authentic recipe

Pasta alla puttanesca from Campania. The translation of the title of this dish is “whore’s pasta”! There are a lot of stories as to how it got its name, but one of the most common is that it was a dish that the working girls could quickly prepare between customers. Another version is that is was cooked in brothels so customers would be lured in by the enticing aromas. I don’t really buy that one. I think food would be the last thing on the customers minds 😉 It is a relatively modern dish, probably dating back to the end of the second world war. Both Lazio and Campania claim it as their own. This is the Campania version. The recipe comes from Accademia Italiana della Cucina.

A note about the olives. Use the best you can find. Don’t use pitted black olives as properly matured olives are too soft to have their stones removed mechanically, so they will almost certainly be green olives which have been dyed with ferrous glucomate (E151, a synthetic coal tar).

Puttanesca ingredients

Serves 5

 

• 500g bucatini, linguine, spaghetti or similar
• 500g peeled tomatoes (fresh or tinned)
• 2 anchovy fillets (salted or in oil)
• 100g good quality olives, rinsed. The recipe calls for Gaeta olives, which of course can be green or black, but I have only ever seen this dish prepared with black olives. You can leave them whole or stone them and roughly chop. I prefer half and half.
• 50g capers, rinsed and roughly chopped. The recipe doesn’t stipulate salted or in brine. I prefer the salted variety
• 100g olive oil. This seems a lot but you need a fair amount to allow the anchovy fillets to dissolve properly. Use less if you wish
• 1 clove of garlic, peeled and lightly crushed
• 1 chilli (fresh, dried or a good pinch of chilli flakes)
• Chopped parsley

 

 

 

1. Gently fry the garlic, chilli and anchovy fillets in the oil. Mash the anchovies with a wooden spoon until they have completely dissolved.
2. Remove the garlic. You can also remove the chilli if you don’t like it too hot. If you prefer a really fiery dish, crush or finely chop the chilli before frying.
3. Add the tomatoes, olives and capers. Mash the tomatoes thoroughly with a fork and cook over a medium high heat for 15 to 20 minutes.
4. Cook the pasta until al dente, drain and add to the pan with the sauce. Toss the pasta with the sauce and heat gently for a couple of minutes.
5. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

 

 

Pasta Puttanesca

 

Tomato sauce

This is a really simple recipe for an Italian style tomato sauce.  In the UK we tend to dress our pasta with a lot more sauce than the Italians do (dare I say too much? ). If you can’t find really ripe fresh tomatoes, use tinned. You won’t get good results with supermarket ‘bounceable’  toms. This recipe is makes enough sauce to dress 4 portions of pasta. Really! Trust me!  🙂 On this occasion I served the sauce with linguine, but it goes equally well with many other short or long pastas (e.g. spaghetti, bucatini , sedani, penne, cavatelli etc.)

Tomato sauce ingredients

• 250g tinned tomatoes or peeled fresh tomatoes
• A pinch of sugar (optional)
• 2 cloves of garlic, lightly crushed
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 10 fresh basil leaves, torn
• salt

1. Put the tomatoes and their juice into a saucepan along with the garlic, sugar and a good pinch of salt. Cover and heat gently for about 30 minutes without stirring.
2. Remove the garlic and mash the tomatoes with a wooden spoon. If you’re using tinned tomatoes cook uncovered for a further 15 minutes  until the sauce has reduced.
3. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
4. Immediately before serving, stir in the olive oil and the basil.
5. Use to dress pasta

Tomato sauce

Linguine with tomato sauce

Carbonara – Authentic recipe

From Lazio.  What is Carbonara? If You ask an Englishman they’ll probably tell you it’s a dish prepared with cream and ham! Nooooooo!!!!! 😉 More crimes against Italian food have been committed under the name of Carbonara than any other dish.

So, in an attempt to set the records straight, I present the authentic recipe (as deposited in the archive of Acadamia Italiana della Cucina). No cream! No ham! And don’t you dare cook the eggs! 🙂 Serves 6.

• 600 grams spaghetti or bucatini
• 120 grams guanciale or pancetta — diced or cut into strips
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 medium eggs (very fresh)
• 100 grams mixed Parmesan and pecorino Romano (or all pecorino) — grated
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

1. Cook the guanciale in a pan along with the whole peeled garlic clove and a little oil, until the guanciale is well coloured. Discard the garlic.
2. Beat the eggs in a bowl with a little of the cheese and a pinch of salt.
3. Cook the pasta until al dente, drain and add to the pan with the guanciale.
4. Lower the heat to a minimum and add the egg mixture. Mix well. Be careful not to let the eggs set. If the dish is a little dry, beat in a little of the pasta cooking water. This is not mentioned by the academy, but some people say it’s essential for the “creaminess” of the sauce.
5. Remove from the heat and add the rest of the cheese. Mix again and serve immediately.

Here’s a quote from Kate/Susan over at Kate, Katie, Susan, Sue who cooked the recipe as part of an Italian evening.

“That carbonara was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten, certainly the best pasta dish I’ve ever eaten. I would rank it above lasagna in my estimation.”

And this one’s from Cui at Equipoised.

The bottom line… carbonara typically feels too heavy and sickening after a while because of the addition of cream (an American adulteration). The egg way produces a much lighter, more palatable dish. And it was really the best carbonara I’ve ever had, ever. I tend to serially order carbonara at Italian restaurants because it is by far my favourite pasta, and I’ve had a lot of carbonara, but I feel like I can’t have it with cream any more after trying this.

Spaghetti amatriciana

Spaghetti all’ amatriciana. From Lazio. This is another Italian classic. Pasta with pancetta (or guanciale if you want to be really authentic), tomatoes and chilli. It is more traditionally served with bucatini, but is just as often served with spaghetti. Serves 4.

Spaghetti amatriciana ingredients

• 360 grams Spaghetti
• 100 grams pancetta — cubed
• 1 onion — thinly sliced
• 500 grams tomatoes — peeled, seeded and chopped
• 1 fresh (or dried) chilli — seeded and chopped
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• Parmesan or pecorino Romano cheese to serve (optional)

1. Grease a flameproof casserole with oil, add the pancetta and cook over a low heat until the fat starts to run.
2. Add the onion and cook until lightly browned, stirring occasionally.
3. Add the tomatoes and chilli, season with salt and pepper, cover and cook for about 40 minutes. If it looks like drying out, add a little water.
4. Serve with the cooked spaghetti.

Spaghetti amatriciana finished dish