Enduring appeal of Italian
Giuliano’s first book, The Classic Pasta Cookbook, sold more than half a million copies worldwide, so it obviously hit the spot for many people. He went onto write several others, including Every Night Italian, and How to Cook Italian, but I found several more, new gems in his last book, Thirty Minute Pasta: 100 Quick and Easy Recipes.
There are many types and shapes of pasta in Italy; some pasta is made with wheat flour, others with buckwheat, chickpea, chestnut flour or farro. The latter is an ancient, Etruscan grain similar to spelt, which is gaining in popularity. The most common is made from flour and eggs, or flour and water. The latter tends to be made from durum wheat, a harder flour that results in a firmer, sturdier pasta best suited to oil-based and more robustly flavoured sauces – e.g. those with anchovies, olives, capers or fiery red chillies.
Tender homemade egg pasta is wonderful, but not necessarily better than quality bought pasta, it is simply different. The Italians just use them for different recipes. It’s not difficult to make a simple pasta sauce yourself; it can be made in a fraction of the time it would take to you to go to the shops to buy it, so why not snap up a few packets of good Italian or organic pasta, from Noodle House Organics, and whip up a little spontaneous meal for family and friends. After all, as Giuliano says: “Cooking for someone is one of the most loving gifts you can bestow, because you are giving a little of yourself.”
- Giuliano Hazan’s Thirty Minute Pasta: 100 Quick and Easy Recipes is published by Stewart, Tabori and Chang.
Serves 4
½ large sweet yellow onion
3 tablespoons butter
3 ounces pancetta, sliced 1/8 inch thick
1 pound radicchio
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3–4 sprigs flat-leaf Italian parsley
1 pound penne (fusilli is also good)
¾ cup heavy cream
½ cup grated freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Fill a pot for the pasta with about six quarts of water, place over high heat, and bring to a boil. Peel the onion and finely chop it. Put the butter in a 12-inch skillet, add the chopped onion, and place over medium-high heat. Sauté until the onion turns a rich golden colour, about five minutes.
While the onion is sautéing, cut the pancetta into narrow strips about one inch long. Remove any bruised leaves from the radicchio, cut it in half lengthwise, and cut off the bottom of the root. Finely shred the radicchio. When the onion is ready, add the pancetta and cook until it loses its raw colour, one to two minutes. Add the radicchio and season with salt and pepper. Add about ½ cup water, lower the heat to medium, and cover the pan. Cook until the radicchio is very tender, about 20 minutes. Check periodically and add more water if the liquid evaporates before radicchio is tender.
Finely chop enough parsley to measure about one tablespoon.
After the radicchio has been cooking for at least 15 minutes, add about two tablespoons salt to the boiling pasta water, add the penne, and stir well. Cook until al dente.
When the radicchio is tender, uncover the pan, raise the heat, and let any remaining moisture evaporate. Add the cream and parsley and cook until the cream has thickened and reduced by about one-third. When the pasta is done, drain well, toss with the sauce and the grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, and serve at once.
Radicchio adds a refreshing, slightly bitter flavour to salads. When it is cooked, it loses some of its bitterness and makes a rich, luscious sauce. The Veneto region of Italy is known for the many varieties of radicchio grown there. The one from Treviso is the radicchio most often used in cooking. It is elongated and shaped a little like Romaine lettuce. The most prized is the one available in late autumn called tardivo. It is distinguished by how the tops of its leaves curl in toward the centre and by its rich, deep flavour.
I recommend using beef chuck, which is about 20% fat, to keep the sauce moist. If you will be using a leaner cut, add a tablespoon of butter.
Serves 4
½ medium yellow onion
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 pound fresh tomatoes
¾ pound ground beef chuck
Salt
10 ounces dried-egg tagliatelle or pappardelle (or 1 pound rigatoni or shells);
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Fill a pot, for the pasta, with about six quarts of water, place over high heat, and bring to a boil.
Peel the onion and finely chop it. Put the olive oil and butter in a 12-inch skillet, add the chopped onion, and place over medium-high heat. Sauté until the onion turns a rich golden colour (about five minutes). While the onion is sautéing, peel the tomatoes and coarsely chop them. When the onion is ready, add the ground beef, season with salt, and cook, stirring, until it has lost its raw colour and just begins to brown (two to three minutes). Add the tomatoes, season them with salt, and cook over medium heat until the liquid the tomatoes release has almost completely evaporated (10 to 12 minutes). Add about two tablespoons of salt to the boiling pasta water, add the tagliatelle, and stir until all the strands are submerged. Cook until al dente.
When the pasta is done, drain well, toss with the sauce and the grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, and serve at once.
ONE of my favourite restaurants in Verona is Il Pompiere. They make a pasta dish when peas are in season that is thoroughly infused with their sweet flavour. Marco, the chef/owner, was kind enough to share his secret with me. It’s actually very simple. Once the peas are tender, half are pureed until creamy and mixed back into the sauce.
When the pasta is tossed with the sauce, it absorbs all that delicious pea flavour, which is why I like using the wider tagliatelle noodles. Although you could make this with premium frozen peas, the sweet flavour of fresh peas is worth the extra time it takes to shell them.
Serves 4
½ medium yellow onion
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1¾ pounds fresh peas (or 12 ounces frozen peas)
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
10 ounces dried egg tagliatelle or pappardelle
Fill a pot for the pasta with about six quarts of water, place over high heat and bring to a boil.
Peel and finely chop the onion. Put the olive oil in a saucepan or deep 8-inch skillet, add the chopped onion, and place over medium heat. Sauté until the onion turns a rich golden colour, about five minutes. While the onion is sautéing, shell the fresh peas, if using. When the onion is ready, add the peas and season generously with salt and pepper. Stir the peas well, then add about ½ cup water.
Cook over medium heat until the peas are tender, adding water if it evaporates completely before they are done. It should take 15 to 20 minutes for the peas to become tender. (If using frozen peas, add water only once and cook for six to eight minutes).
When the peas are tender, remove from the heat, take out about half the peas and puree them. A food mill will make the smoothest puree, but if you don’t have one you can use a food processor. Put the pureed peas back in the pan with the whole peas.
Add about two tablespoons of salt to the boiling pasta water, add the tagliatelle and stir until all the strands are submerged. Cook until al dente. After the pasta has cooked for about two minutes, add ¾ cup of the pasta water to the pan with the peas and stir well. When the pasta is done, drain well, toss with the sauce, and serve at once.
One of the restaurants we enjoy going to when we are in Valpolicella, the wine country outside of Verona, is Alla Rosa Alda, in the tiny hilltop town of San Giorgio. One of their specialities is a pasta dish they call ‘tagliatelle embogonè’, in the local dialect. It is homemade egg noodles, with a sauce of fresh cranberry beans. When I was growing up, my mother made a soup with chickpeas, tomatoes and rosemary that I loved. I’ve adapted it here, taking inspiration from Alla Rosa Alda’s dish, into a pasta sauce that is now one of our favourites at home.
Serves 4
½ medium yellow onion
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus a little extra for drizzling at the end
1 medium clove garlic
1–2 sprigs fresh rosemary
1 pound fresh tomatoes
Salt
1½ cups canned chickpeas, drained
Freshly ground black pepper
10 ounces dried egg tagliatelle
Fill a pot for the pasta with about six quarts of water, place over high heat, and bring to a boil.
Peel the onion and finely chop it. Put it and the olive oil in a 12-inch skillet and place over medium-high heat. Sauté until the onion turns a rich golden colour, about five minutes.
While the onion is sautéing, peel the garlic and finely chop it. Finely chop enough rosemary to measure one teaspoon. Peel the tomatoes and coarsely chop them. When the onion is ready, add the garlic and rosemary. Sauté for 10 to 15 seconds, then add the tomatoes. Season lightly with salt and cook until most of the liquid the tomatoes release has evaporated (about 10 minutes).
Add the chickpeas, season with pepper (and again lightly with salt), and cook for five more minutes. Scoop out about half the chickpeas and puree them.
A food mill will produce a smoother texture, but if you don’t have one you can use a food processor. Mix the pureed chickpeas into the sauce and cook for another one to two minutes.
Once the pureed chickpeas are back in the pan, add about two tablespoons of salt to the boiling pasta water, add the tagliatelle, and stir until all the strands are submerged. Cook until al dente.
After the pasta has cooked about two minutes, mix two tablespoons of the pasta water into the sauce. When the pasta is done, drain well and toss with the sauce. Drizzle a little olive oil and grind some black pepper over each portion, and serve at once.
Minus the pasta, this soup spans at least three generations. My mother learned it from her father. Then, it became one of my father’s favourites.
He is particularly fond of beans, and this is a thick soup of all beans and very little else. The little else, though, is garlic and parsley, which give cannellini beans an immensely satisfying flavour.
I’ve added pasta to make the soup substantial enough for a meal.
Serves 4
1 large clove garlic
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 cups (2 15oz cans) canned cannellini beans, drained
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3–4 springs flat-leaf Italian parsley
1 large beef bouillon cube
4 ounces dried egg noodles, such as tagliatelle or pappardelle
Peel the garlic and finely chop it. Put it with the olive oil in a four- to six- quart soup pot and place over medium-high heat.
After the garlic begins to sizzle, add the cannellini beans and season with salt and pepper.
Cook, stirring occasionally, for about five minutes. While the beans are cooking, finely chop enough parsley to measure one tablespoon. After the beans have cooked for five minutes, add two cups of water and the bouillon cube and cover the pot.
Once the soup has come to a boil, break the egg noodles into approximately one-inch pieces and add them to the soup.
Lower the heat to medium, add the parsley, and cook, covered, until the pasta is al dente. Serve hot.
- THERE’S great Italian food at Dunne & Crescenzi at the Arnotts Project in Dublin’s Jervis Centre. Stroll down Henry Street for a bit of sales shopping and take a delicious pit stop at Dunne & Crescenzi – brunch, lunch, coffee or a Prosecco with the girls while browsing for the bargains! Take home some pasta, olive oil, coffee, chocolate... and other goodies.
- The Noodle House Organic Pasta was established by Ingrid and Alois Basler in 1998 in Curry, Co Sligo. To find out where you can purchase their organic pasta, sauces and jams, call 071 91 85589 or email: nhorganicpasta@eircom.net or www.noodlehouseorganics.ie
- Darina Allen’s new book ‘Forgotten Skills of Cooking’ has been shortlisted for the André Simon Food and Drink book awards. The winners will be announced in the spring.
- Learn how to cook the perfect romantic meal for Valentine’s Day on the one day Culinary Cupid Course on Saturday February 6, 2010 at Ballymaloe Cookery School. Phone 021 4646785 to book.
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