Recipes aren’t required to participate in this thread. This one is about your favorite pasta noodles.
My all time favorite is actually quite difficult to find:
Canneloni a la Toscanna:[ul]Most restaurants will serve you a regular ground beef stuffed manicotti in red sauce. The few times I have had this dish done right it was actually made with a sort of crepe wrapped around a forcemeat of veal and beef. While not an official pasta per se, I still count this because of the sauce and cheese it comes with. The filling is ground exceedingly fine and then wrapped in a small pancake. Two of these are put side-by-side in a small soufflé dish then topped with marinara sauce and cheese before being baked. I suppose this is basically an Italian enchilada. Whatever it is, I’ve only had it done right twice in my life and I really wish I knew who else served this dish. I’ve been collecting recipes for this whenever I see them and will have to test drive a few real soon as I am beginning to get some major cravings for this toothsome bit of heaven.[/ul] Ricotta Ravioli con Pesto:[ul]This is, quite simply, some of the best eats I know of. Easy to make and full of flavor from the pesto. Food like this was what made the peasants outlive kings. The only trick to this dish is sprinkling some Parmesan cheese over the steaming raviolis before the sauce is added. Everyone I know goes berserk when I serve this combination. I also enjoy a side-by-side duet of cheese ravioli with pesto and meat ravioli with marinara. I may have to go one better and do a triptych by adding lobster raviolis in Alfredo sauce to the platter as well.[/ul] Rigatoni:[ul]For simple eating, the broad flat tubes of rigatoni make for simple and delightful dining. No stray strands of pasta to stain your clothes and the ridges on the noodles hold lots of sauce. When I want some pasta in a hurry, this is what I make.[/ul]
For the sake of everyone’s appetite, I’m going to leave out my latest experiments in re-creating high school cafeteria style spaghetti. I’ve recently begun to tease out the mysteries of this dish and think I may have finally discovered its secret. I shall save that for a later post in order to avoid scaring people off.
Give me Tortellini Alfredo any day. Tortellini gives the perfect ratio of volumn of filling to thickness of pasta to surface area for sauce to stick to in each delicious bite. The Alfredo, of course, has to be real alfredo consisting of at least 60% butter and 60% cream, none of this healthy-schmelthy crap. The filling must be cheese based, but many ingredidents are acceptible in the cheese.
Pappardelle con i fegatini: Easy, cheap and rich. Broad flat pasta. Gently cooked onion and garlic. Chicken livers cooked in butter and oilve oil. Sage. A tiny bit of cream and some pecorino.
Fusilli with peas and bacon: Really good peas and a few nice fat bits pancetta nestled amongst curly short pasta is all there is to the dish (plus a little vegie stock).
Angel’s hair with herbs: the only time I bother to make my own pasta. The pasta you made this afternoon with your best olive oil, garlic and three herbs in season. You could throw in a caper or an anchovy too. Get yer Reggiano out too. An afternoon’s work for one minute’s cooking.
Mudcrab ravioli: I’ve never made it, but it used to be a favorite dish at the now closed Latin in Melbourne. Like it sounds, only with more butter.
Brown the onions and garlic in olive oil.
Throw in butter and sardines (from jar drained of oil). Sardines will dissolve in butter.
Add a chopped jalepeno.
Add tinned Italian tomatos and tomato past.
Serve over spagetti.
a little olive oil in the bottome of a pan, one slice of bacon, minced garlic, every kind of pepper you can find (fresh of course) simmered till it all turns brown. Pour over any type of pasta, and a hot, spicy treat.
Along the same lines
Stuffed Shells
The first recipe I ever saw for this, and tried had a ricotta cheese filling. I didn’t really care for that, so I played around until I found something I liked.
First I marinate strips of beef in a spicy BBQ sauce. Very spicy. Then I simmer them on a low heat for about 15-20 minutes, until brown. (Jumbo Shells of course cooked already). Stuff the meat strips into the shells, about two per shell, lay in the bottom of a pyrex oven dish thing, and cover with a garlic cream sauce. Shove in the oven for 20 minutes. The garlic sauce provides a contrast to the spicy meat…ummm…think I know what I’m making tonight.
I’m partial to my mother’s Pasta Primavera. Linguine with fresh veggies sauteed in butter and the whole mess of it liberally sprinkled with parmesan cheese. Mmm.
Good pasta is a treat, but one of my all-time comfort foods is garlic noodles. You just cook a pound of spaghetti in salted water, crush about a dozen cloves of garlic into a few tablespoons of olive oil, saute the garlic till it’s golden and crispy, and toss the oil and garlic with the spaghetti. Add salt, parmesan, and black pepper at the table. I could eat it until my belly was swollen and distended.
Penne with a sauce made from overripe tomatoes, bacon and onion, with a little red pepper flakes for bite. Cook sauce for an hour, then add fresh basil and ground black pepper.
