This ragu from the late 18th century tastes rich, brown and velvety with the surprise of cinnamon and tingly black pepper. The sauce blends well with tagliatelle, pappardelle, penne and garganelli pastas. Experience it as it was first made centuries ago by combining the ragu with hollow maccheroni-style pasta and baking it. You could, of course, simply serve it up without baking.
From The Fresh & Green Table: Delicious Ideas for Bringing Vegetables Into Every Meal by Susie Middleton (Chronicle Books, 2012). Copyright © 2012 by Susie Middleton. Photographs copyright © 2012 by Annabelle Breakey. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
This is the homemade pasta to make with little kids; anyone who can work with Playdough can make these gnocchi with expertise.
Ingredients
Ingredients
This is the quintessential spring luncheon dish, all about the sweetness that's finally bursting up in gardens — long-awaited asparagus, shallot and carrot — made rich with sweet cream. It's also about the way that sweetness seems more pronounced against the salty ham and the tangy mustard.
Ingredients
This is the quintessential Italian pasta dish, especially in Naples and Rome. The clams are the smaller ones — vongole veraci — and they are always cooked in their shells. Once they open, the sauce is done. Here in the States, linguine with clam sauce is made with chopped clams, and I guess this adjustment makes sense, especially since the clams here can be quite large, from littlenecks (small to medium) to topnecks (large) to quahogs or chowder clams (very large). Today, thought, one is ever more likely to find smaller cockles on the market; if you find them, by all means use them.
The beauty and delight of this dish is that it is so fresh and clean — and it is a cinch to make. It’s important to make the pesto with the best ingredients then just toss in the hot cooked spaghetti to coat it and enjoy.