How to Cook Pasta Like an Italian
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“MY WAY…”
Frank Sinatra isn’t the only one to croon that line. Every single Italian I interviewed told me their recipe was a modo mio.
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In a tiny town near Salerno in Campania, one nonna told me that her version of Cavatelli with Goat Ragù was “vastly different” from the one her neighbor two courtyards over had taught me the day before. When I pointed out that they seemed exactly the same, she huffed, “Pfff, she uses two cloves of garlic.”
I encourage you throughout the book to do it “my way” … meaning YOUR way! Feel free to add more or less of any ingredient. The amounts listed are just a rough suggestion, and in fact it is almost impossible to give exact quantities in many cases. This is especially true for foods that can vary widely in taste depending on quality or freshness, like grated cheese, garlic cloves, and minced herbs. For example, if you buy farmer’s-market–fresh basil in July, it will taste stronger, and therefore you’ll need less, than supermarket basil you buy in January. Aged, good-quality, imported Parmesan cheese will taste both less salty and more cheesy than pre-grated supermarket cheese, so you’ll need to use less, but perhaps add a pinch more salt to the recipe. The only way through this is to do as the Italians do: Taste as you cook, and adjust seasonings accordingly. I cannot stress this point strongly enough. For raw foods, like the ground-meat mixture for meatballs, pinch off a tiny portion and either pan fry or microwave it and then taste.
I loathe tablespoon and cup measurements for subjective ingredients like cheese, herbs, olive oil, and salt, as how much you use is totally up to your own tastes, but I include them to give you a ballpark idea of quantity. Please use those measurements only as rough guidelines, as many foods, like grated cheese or flour, can vary widely in amount depending on how firmly you pack them into the measuring cup.
CHOOSING YOUR PASTA
There is a fresh pasta and there is a fired pasta, and both types can be made with or without eggs.
Most of the recipes in this book call for dried pasta, but you can use fresh instead, if you like. For just a few recipes, however, it is essential to use only fresh, not dried, pasta, including the appetizer Pasta-Wrapped Shrimp and two of the desserts: Almond Pasta Crunch and Sweet Crispy Pasta Nests.
Not all Italians who like fresh pasta are elbow deep in flour, as evidenced by the many pasta shops located throughout the country. Fresh pasta is also sold here in the States in specialty shops and even in many supermarkets, both ready-cut or as whole sheets. These sheets are very versatile, as you can cut them into any shapes you like and prepare them many ways.
Here are just a few suggestions of what to do with fresh sheet pasta:
1 Unique shapes: Cut the sheet with a cookie cutter or a knife into odd shapes—triangles, squiggly noodles, circles, whatever. It’s called badly cut, maltagliati, in Italian.
2 Pretty patterns: Gently roll the sheet of pasta with a rolling pin over an indented or patterned surface: a gnocchi or cavarola board, or any clean textured surface. Then cut the sheets into whatever shapes you’d like. The indents are not only pretty, but they also make it easier for the sauce to adhere to the surface of the pasta. Or press the dough with corzetti stamps, round stamps used to emboss pasta, to make pasta discs.
3 Ravioli: Use in place of homemade dough, cutting the sheet with a ravioli cutter, for any recipe like the Apple Ravioli with Fava-Pistachio Pesto or Sweet Lemon-Marjoram Ravioli.
4 Italian “nachos”: Cut the pasta sheet into wide strips and fry. Fried pasta, a typical appetizer in many regions of Italy, is served with salami, olives, or cheeses. In Puglia, they serve fried pasta crisps with some left plain and others filled with anchovy paste.
5 Soup “crackers”: Cut the pasta sheet into thin strips and fry. Use them to top soups like pasta e fagioli.
“MY WAY…”
Frank Sinatra isn’t the only one to croon that line. Every single Italian I interviewed told me their recipe was a modo mio.
**************************************************
In a tiny town near Salerno in Campania, one nonna told me that her version of Cavatelli with Goat Ragù was “vastly different” from the one her neighbor two courtyards over had taught me the day before. When I pointed out that they seemed exactly the same, she huffed, “Pfff, she uses two cloves of garlic.”
I encourage you throughout the book to do it “my way” … meaning YOUR way! Feel free to add more or less of any ingredient. The amounts listed are just a rough suggestion, and in fact it is almost impossible to give exact quantities in many cases. This is especially true for foods that can vary widely in taste depending on quality or freshness, like grated cheese, garlic cloves, and minced herbs. For example, if you buy farmer’s-market–fresh basil in July, it will taste stronger, and therefore you’ll need less, than supermarket basil you buy in January. Aged, good-quality, imported Parmesan cheese will taste both less salty and more cheesy than pre-grated supermarket cheese, so you’ll need to use less, but perhaps add a pinch more salt to the recipe. The only way through this is to do as the Italians do: Taste as you cook, and adjust seasonings accordingly. I cannot stress this point strongly enough. For raw foods, like the ground-meat mixture for meatballs, pinch off a tiny portion and either pan fry or microwave it and then taste.
I loathe tablespoon and cup measurements for subjective ingredients like cheese, herbs, olive oil, and salt, as how much you use is totally up to your own tastes, but I include them to give you a ballpark idea of quantity. Please use those measurements only as rough guidelines, as many foods, like grated cheese or flour, can vary widely in amount depending on how firmly you pack them into the measuring cup.
CHOOSING YOUR PASTA
There is a fresh pasta and there is a fired pasta, and both types can be made with or without eggs.
Most of the recipes in this book call for dried pasta, but you can use fresh instead, if you like. For just a few recipes, however, it is essential to use only fresh, not dried, pasta, including the appetizer Pasta-Wrapped Shrimp and two of the desserts: Almond Pasta Crunch and Sweet Crispy Pasta Nests.
Not all Italians who like fresh pasta are elbow deep in flour, as evidenced by the many pasta shops located throughout the country. Fresh pasta is also sold here in the States in specialty shops and even in many supermarkets, both ready-cut or as whole sheets. These sheets are very versatile, as you can cut them into any shapes you like and prepare them many ways.
Here are just a few suggestions of what to do with fresh sheet pasta:
1 Unique shapes: Cut the sheet with a cookie cutter or a knife into odd shapes—triangles, squiggly noodles, circles, whatever. It’s called badly cut, maltagliati, in Italian.
2 Pretty patterns: Gently roll the sheet of pasta with a rolling pin over an indented or patterned surface: a gnocchi or cavarola board, or any clean textured surface. Then cut the sheets into whatever shapes you’d like. The indents are not only pretty, but they also make it easier for the sauce to adhere to the surface of the pasta. Or press the dough with corzetti stamps, round stamps used to emboss pasta, to make pasta discs.
3 Ravioli: Use in place of homemade dough, cutting the sheet with a ravioli cutter, for any recipe like the Apple Ravioli with Fava-Pistachio Pesto or Sweet Lemon-Marjoram Ravioli.
4 Italian “nachos”: Cut the pasta sheet into wide strips and fry. Fried pasta, a typical appetizer in many regions of Italy, is served with salami, olives, or cheeses. In Puglia, they serve fried pasta crisps with some left plain and others filled with anchovy paste.
5 Soup “crackers”: Cut the pasta sheet into thin strips and fry. Use them to top soups like pasta e fagioli.
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