Chicken tetrazzini, chicken spaghetti—or whatever your mom called it

 

 

Image for the algorithms

We didn’t eat much pasta in our house when I was growing up. Dad was a roast beef man, and Mom brought her German heritage to the kitchen. The closest I came to pasta was Franco-American spaghetti in a can. But as a young adult, I had a friend who was much my senior—probably close to fifty years. Freda Powell taught drama at the college level—with some famous students, notably among them Dan Blocker. And she entertained those drama majors in her home frequently. Her go-to dish was chicken tetrazzini which she would make in huge batches. We all loved it.

Recently I had some cooked chicken that I wanted to do something with, but what? It wasn’t enough for a full meal, so I was looking for something for one. And came across a recipe for tetrazzini that I could cut down to fit my need. Aha! Freda’s dish. Finding the recipe was like a reminder of meals from the past. When I made it, it turned out enough to feed me and Christian, who said he didn’t think his mom made tetrazzini. But when he tasted it, it was familiar.

Chicken tetrazzini or whatever you call it is easy, quick, and adaptable. You can make it for two or twenty. And you can make it ahead. Sometimes it just takes a little reminder to put a familiar dish in your dinner rotation. So consider this your reminder.

 

Chicken tetrazzini or chicken spaghetti (or whatever your mom called it)

Ingredients

16 oz linguini

½ cup butter, softened

4 half chicken breasts, cooked and chopped

2 cans cream of chicken soup

2 cups sour cream

1 tsp. garlic salt

½ tsp. dried parsley

½ tsp. pepper

1 cup chicken broth

2 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese, grated (fresh)

2 cups Mozarella cheese, shredded

Directions:

Cook noodles al dente, drain, and set aside

In a large bowl, combine chicken, soup, sour cream, butter, chicken broth, garlic salt, parsley, and pepper. Mix together thoroughly and then stir in the cooked, drained noodles.

Pour into a greased 9x13 baking dish and spread evenly. Sprinkle both cheeses on top.

Bake, uncovered, in 350^o degree oven 35-40 minutes or until cheeses are melting and bubbly. Let it collect itself a bit before serving.

Serves 8. Leftovers will keep in the fridge, well covered, for three day. Frozen leftovers in air-tight contained may be kept for two months.

If freezing uncooked casserole, do not add cheese. Thaw in refrigerator, add cheese, and bake as above.

You may have garlic salt with parsley in your cupboard. That’s what the recipe specifies, but I don’t think it’s worth buying just for this recipe when you can combine dried—or fresh—parsley and garlic salt. That’s a bit of my mom’ d Depression-era frugality coming out in me.

The simple pasta dish that tests even the best chefs

 

Cacio e pepe

Is past on your summer menu rotation? Sure, traditional Bolognese or lasagna  seems a bit heavy once warm weather arrives. But there are light pasta sauces that make a lovely summer supper, maybe accompanied by a green salad.

The simplest pasta dish of all is cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper pasta). It has four ingredients: pasta, pepper, pecorino cheese, and pasta water. Today’s chefs sometimes use a mixture of parmesan and pecorino, because the pecorino is a strong cheese with a bold flavor. The parmesan softens it. So why is it so difficult that it’s considered the ultimate test of a chef’s skill? It takes talent—and practice and patience—to swirl those ingredients together until they form a smooth, velvet-like sauce that coats every strand of pasta. The starchy pasta water must combine smoothly with the cheeses—it is a slow process. The temperature, the swirl of the ingredients in the pan—both have to be just right. Get it wrong, and you’ll have pasta with clots of cheese.

The recipe is an old one. The usual story is that shepherds, off to spend long, lonely stretches with their herds, could take the ingredients with them because nothing would spoil. They could make cheese from the sheep milk.

Here’s what you do to make cacio e pepe for two:

6 oz. pasta

Tbsp. butter

Tsp freshly cracked pepper

¾ cup Parmesan

½ cup pecorino

Bring three quarts of water to boil, season with salt, and add 6 oz. pasta—spaghetti, fettucine, or other long, thin pasta. Stir it occasionally and remove from the water just before it gets to the al dente stage. Drain, but reserve a cup of pasta water (you probably won’t need it all)

In a separate large skillet melt a Tbsp. of butter and add a tsp. of freshly cracked black pepper. Cook over medium heat, swirling the pan, for just a minute. The pepper should start to toast. Add ¾ cup parmesan and swirl until cheese melts.

Add half the reserved pasta water to the skillet and let it simmer. Remove from heat and add one-half cup pecorino. Again, stir until cheese melts. Add pasta and stir until pasta is coated. Tongs are best at this point. Add more pasta water if needed. If you get it right, cacio e pepe is rich food for the gods.

What started as a peasants’ dish has gone upscale in some restaurants, served as an off-menu luxury items for VIPs, topped perhaps with shaved truffle, or served in a bowl carved from a wheel of pecorino. Italians are however fussy about the purity of the ingredients. Using cream in your cacio e pepe for instance will bring down the wrath of chefs throughout Rome.

Want a less challenging recipe? Here’s one I got from reading Cleo Coyle’s Village Coffee House mysteries—if you haven’t read those, I highly recommend them. Matteo is one of the main characters in the novel, the antagonist in the triangle at the center of the stories. (It’s complicated—read it and see!)

Cacio e Matteo

6 cloves garlic

½ c. olive oil

1.5 tsp salt

16 oz. spaghetti

1 c. Pecorino

1 tsp. coarse ground pepper

1 tsp Italian herb mix

Peel garlic cloves and mash just a bit; put them in a small pan and cover with olive oil. Heat until oil barely simmers. Cover pan and se aside.

Cook pasta, drain, and return to the pot. Immediately pour the warm oil over the pasta. Sprinkle with cheese, pepper, and herbs. Toss and serve immediately.

If you want to be fancy, serve in warmed bowls with crusty bread. A green salad is a nice accompaniment.

 

A couple of quick and easy pasta dishes for fishy people

 

Several years ago a book titled Jam Today: Cooking with what you’ve got made a great impression on me. The idea was to cook out of your pantry. Of course, the author also had access to her husband’s huge vegetable garden, an advantage I was missing (both the husband and the garden). Still that book was where I learned about Pisces, the fishing board from which I order tuna, and the idea of cooking out of the pantry has always intrigued me.

During quarantine, Jordan and I stocked enough to cook out of the pantry for five years. But the cottage has limited pantry space. (One of my pie-in-the-sky dreams is to have a kitchen expert redesign my tiny kitchen.) My basic pantry is a deep drawer next to the sink, but stocking cans in a drawer means you must pull each out to read the label—a pain. The other day I did an inventory of canned beans: four pintos, two cannelloni, one each red, kidney, navy, and black. Not everything is in that drawer—there are cans in a cabinet above my cooking corner that I can’t reach, cans in another cabinet next to the sink that I also cannot reach, and, yes, cans in my bedroom closet. Want cream of celery soup to make Louella’s rice? You’ll have to go on a hunt.

But there are things I routinely keep on hand—tuna, prime among them (I buy it by the case). I also keep canned salmon, artichoke hearts, anchovies, pasta of course, green and white beans for three bean salad and because Sophie loves canned green beans. I could and probably should weed out my drawer and take the rarely used items to a food drive at church—that can of Spam that lurks in my closet, for instance. But a tiny part of me is somewhat of a hoarder.

All that is by way of leading up to today’s two recipes, both of which you can, if you’re like me, cook out of your pantry. Want a quick lunch or a light supper? Whip up one of these, toss a green salad and you have it. Or maybe you’re late getting home one night—a work reception or happy hour with friends—and you’re hungry but not very.  You’ll notice that they are almost identical and certainly start out the same way. The first you’ll also note is called Midnight Pasta—meant, perhaps, for sophisticates home late after an evening at the theater.

Midnight pasta (serves two)

½ lb. pasta, such as spaghetti or linguini

Salt

Olive oil – 3 Tbsp.

4 garlic cloves, sliced

4 oil-packed anchovy fillets

Pinch of red pepper flakes

1-1/2 Tbsp. tomato paste

Half of a small lemon, zested

For garnish: chopped basil or parsley

Grated Parmesan on Pecorino

Cook pasta, stopping it before it reaches al dente because it will cook more in the sauce; Reserve one cup of pasta water and drain off the rest.

Combine oil, garlic, anchovies, red pepper, and salt in skillet. Cook two or three minutes, making sure the garlic does not burn. Add tomato paste and cook another minute.

Stir in the drained pasta, lemon zest, and some of the pasta water. Stir so that sauce coats each strand of pasta, adding more water as needed. Test to be sure pasta is now cooked al dente.

Squeeze juice from half of the half of lemon over pasta, add parsley or basil, and toss. Taste for salt. Spoon into pasta plates and drizzle with a bit more olive oil. Top with grated cheese, and pass lemon quarters

Pasta with tuna, capers and scallions (serves three to four)

¾ lb. pasta, such as spaghetti or linguini

3 Tbsp. olive oi

3 garlic cloves, sliced

3 green onions, thinly sliced (separate white and green parts)

8 – 10 anchovy fillets

3 Tbsp. drained capers

1 cup herbs of your choice, roughly chopped—parsley, basil, celery leaves

1 5 oz. can tuna, drained

Optional: pinch of red pepper flakes

Lemon wedges for serving

Cook pasta and drain, reserving one cup of the water

Combine oil, garlic, white parts of the scallion in skillet. Cook at medium heat for a minute or two and then add the anchovies, pressing on them with a wooden spoon until they almost disintegrate into the sauce. Add some of the pasta water and reduce until it is almost gone. Add remaining water, herbs, and tuna. Stir to coat each pasta strand.

Serve in pasta bowls and pass lemon wedges. Offer optional red pepper flakes, chopped green onion tops, and grated Parmesan or Pecorino.

Buon appetite!

 

A hot plate, some pasta, and leftovers

 

A pasta concoction--what ingredients can you identify?

As the name indicates, I started this blog to explore cooking with a hot plate instead of a stove because I now cook with a hot plate and a toaster oven—and I can’t use both simultaneously or I’ll blow the circuit breaker. I’ve gotten comfortable enough with my induction hot plate that the recipes I choose aren’t necessarily geared to that heat source. But today I want to talk about pasta and the hot plate.

Pasta is a great dish for the hot-plate cook—it offers an easy way to entertain, and in this day, when pasta is no longer red sauce over spaghetti, you can experiment all you want. Pasta is also a great way to use up leftovers. Whatever you choose to put in your sauce, pasta allows you to cook from scratch and to deal with individual foods in your final dish.

Most recipes call for cooking the pasta and, while it’s cooking, making the sauce on another burner. If you only have one hot plate, you obviously can’t do that. My trick is to cook the pasta, whatever shape and size you want, and rinse thoroughly in cold water when you get it to al dente stage. Remember, it will cook a bit more when you reheat in your sauce. Rinsing gets rid of most of that loose starch that makes cold pasta clump. Sure, it will chill while you make the sauce, but when the sauce is ready, you can dump the pasta into the skillet and reheat. Once, in the novel, Saving Irene, I had Henny James, the main character, pour a little olive oil on the pasta to keep it from clumping (I’ve been known to do that). I was roundly criticized by a reader who otherwise loved the book but claimed no self-respecting Italian would ever do that unless they were making aglio e olio (basically garlic and olive oil pasta).

An aside: I’ve discovered the advantages of serving pasta in soup plates. It makes everything so much easier. The pasta can’t slide off the plate. And I also always have parmesan or pecorino in my freezer, for spontaneous pasta meals. But back to leftovers.

One evening I was preparing to leave town the next day and wanted to use up what I could from the refrigerator. Prowling around, I found some good, thinly sliced ham left from a sandwich project, a stub of zucchini, and some asparagus that wouldn’t last much longer. I had spinach fettucine in the cupboard—just the right amount.

I sliced the zucchini thin, julienned the ham, and cut the asparagus into bite-size pieces. I used salt and pepper generously on the vegetables. Then a dollop of butter—maybe 1/8 cup--went into the skillet, and I sautéed the vegetables a bit longer than the ham—they needed to cook, and the ham was precooked and very thin. When the vegetables were cooked, I added the ham and well-drained pasta to the skillet, stirred, and heated on low until thoroughly warm. Just before dishing, I gently blended in a good-sized dollop (heaping tablespoon) of sour cream and some parmesan. Surprised myself both at how good it was and how much I ate.

Another suggestion: use canned salmon as your base. Add green peas (I love frozen petite peas), sliced green onions, chopped spinach. Season the vegetables and sauté in butter. Then sprinkle maybe 2 tsp. flour over them and stir to distribute evenly. Slowly make a sauce by pouring in white wine and half and half—maybe in equal parts. When the sauce is the right thickness (you be the judge), stir in some fresh or dried herbs—maybe a bit of basil or thyme or oregano. Stir in the cooked pasta and top with grated parmesan or pecorino for serving.

In general, spaghetti or angel hair, even fettucine, are best with light sauces. Richer, thicker sauces might call for tagliatelle or another type of pasta with lots of flat surface for the sauce to cling to. Tubular pastas like rotini, penne, or ziti are also good for heavy, meaty sauces—and for cold salads. Leftovers can make great pasta salads. Got some chicken from last night? Add some artichoke hearts, maybe quartered, some green onion, bell pepper if you like it (I don’t), sliced hearts of palm, cherry tomatoes halved, goat cheese--the possibilities are endless. Season with salt and pepper and herbs of your choice, and dress with a mixture of sour cream and mayonnaise or use as I sometimes do your favorite bottled vinaigrette (we like Newman’s Original Oil and Vinegar).

Go ahead, look in your refrigerator, and see what you find. Experiment and make a pasta dish for dinner tonight!

 

 

The joy of brown butter sauce

 

Ravioli with brown butter sauce
Salad of sliced pear, radish, and blue cheese
chardonnay
a menu fit for a fine restaurant

In my recent no-holds-barred cleanout of my refrigerator and freezer, I discovered a twelve-pack of frozen wild mushroom/truffle ravioli. No idea when or why I got them, though I think I expected them to be smaller, appetizer size, and they must have been on sale. I have blogged about this before, so if I’m repeating myself, please forgive me.

My dilemma was what do you put on mushroom/truffle pasta. Eating it without any sauce did not appeal. Both marinara and Alfredo would smother the ravioli, I thought. I took the problem to the Facebook page of “Not the New York Times Cooking Community” (it used to the “The New York Times Cooking Community” until the newspaper disowned us). A wide variety of voices contribute ideas, recipes, pictures, equipment recommendations, renovation suggestions. Some of the contributors are way above my grade level, especially in baking, and I suspect some professional chefs lurk. Occasionally someone will get testy, but generally it’s a good-natured group.

And they are willing to answer questions, so I posed my dilemma and was deluged with answers. I bet I got a hundred responses, everything from marinara lightened with cream to pasta water and butter. Cream sauce, either as is or reduced, was mentioned several times. Someone suggested butter and sherry vinegar, someone else, Hollandaise, which I love but think might also have overwhelmed, and someone said pesto. But the one sauce that showed up most often was brown butter with sage.

I knew about brown butter of course, have eaten dishes incorporating it in restaurants, but never worked with it at home. Truth: I was a bit intimidated. But I found a recipe that was specific for ravioli and adapted it, both in amount and ingredients. The recipe called for chopped walnuts, which I thought added the wrong texture (I don’t like to find nuts in my salads either). It also called for a tiny bit of fresh spinach, which I think would have been wonderful for taste and visual appeal, but I didn’t have any and wasn’t going to the store for a quarter pound of spinach. Fresh sage was specified—my neighbor offered hers, but I have rubbed sage in the fridge and thought it would be fine. So I set about my experiment.

Because in the cottage I can’t cook two things at once, I made the sauce first. It takes a long time to brown butter without burning it, slow and easy and lots of stirring. I wasn’t sure what shade brown I was looking for, but I kept stirring until the butter smelled nutty and looked fairly brown. Some time in the stirring I added minced garlic, but I think another time pressed would work better—if I didn’t want tiny pieces of nuts, I didn’t want to chomp down on a mince of garlic either. You want the garlic to turn golden without burning.

I pulled the sauce from the hot plate and made plated salads of sliced pear, fresh radish, and blue cheese, dressed with a light olive oil and lemon vinaigrette and garnished with watercress. And then it was time to cook the ravioli—a new procedure for me. The trick they say is to let them pop to the surface of the water, but they popped so quickly I knew they weren’t done. I guessed at the timing and ended up with them a bit too much on the al dente side.

Showtime: ravioli in soup plates, with the sauce over them. And oops, much later I realized I had forgotten the sage. I still have six ravioli in the freezer, so next time. It was a good learning lesson and a good dinner besides. Here’s what I recommend:

Ravioli with brown butter and sage

Three or four medium size ravioli per person (some will be ambitious and make their own, but in spite of having made pasta years ago, I’m going to buy frozen)

1 clove garlic, pressed

4 or 5 Tbsp. butter (no substitutes)

½ tsp. dried sage or a handful of fresh leaves

¼ lb. fresh spinach (frozen will not work)

Salt and pepper

Parmesan or pecorino

 

For the ravioli: bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook ravioli until tender. If you’re lucky, the package will give you a guide to time. Drain, reserving ¼ cup pasta water.

Put butter in a large skillet and melt over medium-low heat, stirring all the time. The butter will sizzle and them foam—add the pressed garlic at this point and keep stirring until it is a deep, golden-brown. At least five minutes, though it seemed a lot longer. Remove from heat and stir in sage. Add spinach and reserved pasta water and stir. Put cooked ravioli in the skillet. Toss to coat and briefly reheat at a low setting. To serve, sprinkle with grated Parmesan or Pecorino and optional cracked pepper.

A bonus: I had leftover brown butter, so last night I used it to brown ground sirloin for Hamburger Stroganoff. Added a bit of new flavor! I think I’ll find lots of uses for brown butter now and may store some in the freezer.

A recipe with a back story

One of my kids’ favorite dishes growing up was something I called green noodles. It’s quick and easy, vegetarian if that matters to you, and relatively inexpensive. It is not low-fat, at least not the way I do it. But there’s a story.

Way back when my brother was a bachelor Navy pilot in Corpus Christi, he courted a woman who had two children and little money. She used to tell that one night he was coming for supper and she had no money for groceries. So she cooked with what she had—spaghetti, pasta, and lemon. She made the simplest version ever of a lemon sauce—and he liked it. After they were married, I ate this dish many times at their table. (She is also the one who used to sauté sauerkraut in butter, slowly sprinkling it with sugar and turning, until it caramelizes—neither my brother nor I have ever mastered that since).

When I had children of my own, I gradually began to change the dish. The first big change was to use spinach fettucine in place of spaghetti. Then I thought chopped green onions might add a bit to it. Sliced mushrooms came next, and I loved the way they absorbed the lemon flavor. Quartered artichoke hearts came next, and like the mushrooms, absorbed the lemon flavor in a delicious way. Finally, I thought if you add Parmesan to traditional spaghetti sauce, maybe it would be good on green noodles. It was (though nowadays I prefer pecorino).

For many years that was how I served green noodles. But in recent years, I’ve had bumper crops of basil, more than I could use in daily cooking. So I made pesto and froze it in old-fashioned plastic ice cube trays so that I could pop one out whenever I needed it. A cube of pesto added the finishing touch to green noodles.

Pesto

            Pine nuts are traditional in pesto, but being a good Texan, I prefer pecans.

Combine in food processor:

3 c. packed fresh basil leaves

4 cloves garlic, peeled

¾ c. grated Parmesan

½ c. olive oil

¼ c. chopped pecans

½ c. chopped parsley

Process until smooth. Will only keep in the refrigerator three or four day but freezes well.

Green Noodles

1 16-0z. pkg. spinach egg noodles

1 stick butter (you may want to use less, but I like plenty of sauce)

8 oz. mushrooms, sliced (I always buy whole and slice them myself)

4 scallions, chopped

1 can quartered artichoke hearts, drained

1 ice-cube size piece of pesto, thawed, or about 1 Tbsp.

Juice of one lemon

Cook and drain noodles. Melt butter in the skillet. Sauté the mushrooms and scallions in the butter. Add lemon juice to taste—I like lots. Toss in the pesto and stir to blend. Add noodles and toss to coat. Top with grated cheese.

My daughter-in-law Melanie used to do a slightly different version for her daughters when they were young. At a young age, both girls seemed to prefer savory to sweet, so Melanie cooked angel hair pasta and buttered it liberally; then she added lemon juice and capers. I watched in amazement one day as she dumped capers in out of the jar, not bothering to drain them (as I always do, with some difficulty). “Oh, yeah,” she said, “the juice adds a really good taste.” I tried it, and she was right.

Buon appetito!

I can't resist adding a funny thing with an Italian twist that I saw on Facebook. Police raided the home of an Italian family, looking for marijuana I suppose, and came up with 50 lbs. of dried basil. Gosh, I hope they don't come search my freezer!

The easiest pasta—or is it?

One of the earliest versions of mac and cheese was a thirteenth-century dish known as “de lasanis”—pasta with cheese. Today, Italians call it cacio e pepe—literally cheese and pepper. It has four ingredients—cheese, butter, pepper and pasta. Not even any garlic. You make it in your skillet, so it’s a quick preparation that doesn’t leave you with the kitchen full of dirty dishes some pasta dishes require. Anthony Bourdain once said cacio e pepe “could be the greatest thing in the history of the world.”

So what’s difficult about this? Getting that sauce right so that it’s velvety and smooth and coats every strand of pasta. Get it wrong, and you have pasta floating in cheese clumps in a thin and greasy sauce. It’s happened to me more times than I care to count. It’s a question of getting the pasta water and butter to blend together smoothly.

I’ve read that some chefs say the trick is in the flick of the wrist, learning to toss the pasta in the skillet at just the right angle. Others claim it’s the ingredients—you must use fresh cracked pepper. It’s not just a flavor accent in this dish. It is the flavor. And not any cheese will do—fresh, finely ground pecorino (a sharper Italian cheese than Parmesan). Grated cheese won’t work as well, because the pieces won’t melt and adhere to the pasta as well. Use your microoplane to achieve a texture on the cheese that will blend well.

Every chef makes cacio e pepe differently, and there are plenty of directions on the internet. But here’s a version I’ve had some luck with.

Ingredients

1 lb. fresh linguine or spaghetti

½ c. butter

1 oz. finely ground Pecorino cheese

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Notes on the ingredients: use a European-style butter. It has been churned longer, sometimes allowed to ferment just a bit, and—this is important—has a higher fat content. I prefer Kerry Gold.

As for linguine, unless  you have the seasoned palate of a trained chef, dried will probably be just fine. If you make your own pasta, more power to you—the dish will be better. But in spite of experiments with one of my sons, I have never mastered making fresh pasta. It’s a lot of work.

I sometimes use spinach linguine for a nice variation in flavor, but I’m sure Italian chefs would recoil in horror.

Directions:

Cook pasta. Some chefs says to cook no more than two servings at a time, so the pasta and sauce have enough space to blend in the skillet. If you follow this, cut this recipe in half.

Melt half the butter in a large, heavy skillet. Use tongs to transfer the pasta to the skillet. Stir to coat.

Add 1 cup pasta water. Add remaining butter. Shake and stir until water reduces and forms a creamy sauce. Remove from heat.

Stir in cheese and pepper.

An added flourish if you’re feeling rich: top it with 2 oz. sliced truffles.

The nice thing about this is that, except for the truffles, you probably have everything on hand. And it sure beats elbow macaroni with powdered or processed cheese for the sauce.

Next week: Green noodles. Somewhat like cacio e pepe but with more ingredients. The vegetarian dish  has a history in my family and has long been a favorite.

Quick pastas for those last-minute suppers

The mail carrier brought me a bountiful gift today: the latest copies of Southern Living and Bon Appetit. Couple those with the Food & Wine already on my desk, and it’s a recipe-reading day for me. Once upon a time, I had a large collection of cookbooks, but many drowned when a deluge broke through the flat roof over one part of the house, and most of the rest were surrendered to the great downsizing. So now I don’t cook so much by the book, but by pages I’ve torn out of various magazines. Problem: my collection of recipes is once again headed toward appalling.

But here are two quick and good pasta ideas that you can make at the last minute. We all have those days—it’s five o’clock, the kids are hungry, and you haven’t started dinner yet. Or you don’t get home from work until 5:30 and you didn’t defrost anything before you went to work. These come right out of your pantry.

Bonus: you shouldn’t end up with a kitchen full of dirty dishes with these dinners.

Truffle linguine

            This always makes me think it’s an easier version of cacio e pepe, which is typically hard to master—you have to get the spin of the wrist just right. I find this easier.

1 lb. linguine – (reserve the pasta water)

½ cup good butter, divided use (I use Kerry Gold for everything these days)

2 oz. good, fresh grated parmesan or pecorino (I like the slightly sharper flavor of pecorino)

1 oz. truffle oil—(Oh, go ahead, splurge a little and keep it on hand)

Melt butter in skillet and set aside, dividing into two portions.

Cook linguine; use tongs to transfer it from saucepan to skillet with half the butter in it. Stir to coat. Add 1 cup pasta water, a bit at a time, and stir until water reduces a bit and forms a creamy sauce (you may not want all the water). Add the rest of the butter and stir.

If you want to approximate cacio e pepe, sprinkle generously with fresh ground black pepper.

Remove from heat and divide into four bowls. Sprinkle generously with cheese and drizzle with truffle oil.

Fast tomato sauce with anchovies

2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 tsp. minced garlic

4-6 anchovy filets with a bit of their oil

1 28 oz. can tomatoes, drained of juice and crushed (I prefer San Marzano)

Salt and pepper to taste

Cooked long pasta

Grated pecorino or Romano cheese

            Heat oil to medium in saucepan and add garlic and anchovies, stirring until anchovies break up. Add tomatoes.

            Bring to a boil and cook about 15 minutes. Sauce should thicken as it cooks—serve with linguine and top with pecorino or Romano cheese.

Buon appetito!

Green Noodles

No, it's not green eggs and ham. This is perhaps even better. Te story goes that yesrs ago (more than fifty), my brother was courting the woman who became his first wife. She had promised to cook him dinner but had no money for groceries, so she used what she had on hand, melting butter in the skillet, adding cooked spaghetti and lots of lemon juice. Over the years, I “improved” on the idea.

First, I substituted spinach fettucine for the spaghetti. Then I added scallions and mushrooms. Next inspiration was to add chopped artichoke hearts. Finally, when I had lots of basil, made my own pesto, and froze it in an ice cube tray, I began to add a cube of pesto. I always topped the whole thing with freshly grated Parmesan although these days I prefer Pecorino.

I frequently served this to my children as they were growing up. It was a family favorite that they called “green noodles.” Megan, always weight conscious, used to complain I used too much butter, but I like it that way.

The beauty of it is that it’s still good without any one of my additions, if you have butter and lemon. I often make a single serving for myself.

Green noodles

1 16-0z. pkg. spinach egg noodles or fettucine

1 stick butter

8 oz. mushrooms, sliced (I always buy whole and slice them myself)

4 scallions, chopped

1 can quartered artichoke hearts, chopped

1 ice-cube of pesto, thawed (about a generous Tbsp)

Juice of one lemon

Grated fresh Parmesan or Pecorino

Cook and drain noodles. Melt butter in the skillet. Sauté the mushrooms and scallions in the butter. Add lemon juice to taste—I like lots; the mushrooms soak up the lemon and are delicious. Add artichoke and pesto and stir to incorporate. Add noodles and toss to coat. Top with cheese

Jamie’s wife, Melanie, did a slightly different version for her daughters, Maddie and Edie, both of whom at a very young age loved sour things like pickles and capers. Mel cooked angel hair pasta and buttered it liberally; then she added lemon juice and capers. I watched in amazement as she dumped in capers out of the jar, not bothering to drain them (as I always do, with some difficulty). “Oh, yeah,” she said, “the juice adds a really good taste.” I tried it, and she’s right.

Makes a good and quick meatless meal.

Like anchovies? Here's a recipe for you!

I have lots of friends who turn up their noses and make awful faces at the mention of anchovies--unfortunately some of my family are included in that group. But I love anchovies, sometimes just put one on a cracker and eat it. They're good in dips, salad dressings, all kinds of things--you just have to be careful to use a sparing hand. Not usually part of my cooking technique. I was raised on the school if a little is good, a lot is better. Not true with anchovies.
But anchovies seem particularly suited to pasta sauces. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Quick spaghetti with anchovy/tomato sauce--serves two

1 can (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes
1.5 Tbsp. olive oil
half a small onion, chopped fine
a garlic clove, pressed
7-8 anchovy filets (about 1 can, though I've discovered you can use anchovy paste--1 tsp. equals a filet)
fresh basil leaves, chopped
Salt and pepper
Enough cooked linguine for two--I have one of those things with holes of graduated sizes--you stick some pasta through the hole for two and it tells you if you have enough or not.
Parmesan

Process tomatoes and juices until smooth. Heat oil and sauté garlic and onion until soft. Add tomatoes and anchovies. Boil and then simmer until sauce is slightly thickened. Stir in basil and salt and pepper to taste.

Add linguine, simmer to be sure all is heated, and stir well. The first time I made this I found I left a lot of anchovy in the bottom of the pan. Serve with Parmesan.

This can easily be doubled.


Carbonara with anchovies--serves four (or three who really like pasta and anchovies)

12 oz. linguine
1/4 c. olive oil
3 sliced garlic cloves
1 2-oz. can flat anchovies, drained and chopped
pinch of red pepper (optional)
1/2 tsp. grated lemon zest
1 Tbsp. chopped oregano (it grows in a planter box on my porch)
1/4 c. chopped Italian parsley
2 large egg yolks
salt and pepper to taste
Grated fresh Parmesan

Cook pasta and drain, but keep 1/2 cup of the cooking water.

Heat oil in skillet with garlic and anchovies and cook until anchovies come apart. Add pepper if using, lemon zest, oregano and parlsey. Add pasta, toss to coat and remove from heat.
Separately whisk egg yolks with reserved pasta water; add to pasta and return to stove, cooking over low heat and tossing until pasta is coated in a creamy sauce--probably no more than a minute. Season with salt and pepper and serve with Parmesan.

I know what I'm having for dinner one night this week! All you need is a green salad and crusty bread. Great meal. Disregard what they tell us about carbs and pasta and weight.


 

Straightening out pasta

The other night a friend wanted to go out to dinner, and I wanted to stay home so I prowled through my cabinet and fridge and then my appalling collection of recipes for something I could fix without a trip to the store. Came up with a recipe called Pasta Carbonara with Anchovies. My friend looked over my shoulder and said she guessed I was fixing pasta carbonara, to which I replied, "Not really. Anchovies, not bacon." But the recipe called for an egg sauce, which I though was more typical of aveglemono than carbonara. So I did some research.
It turns out what I made didn't really fit either category, but it sure was good. Aveglemono traditionally has a lemon taste and is not so much a pasta sauce as one for vegetables or leftover ground meat (I swear I've made it for pasta with veggies, but who is a Scot to quarrel with the Italians?). Typically it uses two or three eggs, separated, and you use the beaten whites as well as the yolks, along with broth (warm).
Carbonara is a pork pasta sauce in which pancetta or guanciale (made from pork jowls or cheeks) is cooked in olive oil (or lard) and combined with raw eggs, pecorino or parmagiano and cream, away from the heat so that you don't curdle the eggs.
What I made was neither carbonara nor aveglemono but a cross, and it was delicious.

Judy's Spaghettti with Anchovies

12 oz. spaghetti (I used linguine and less than 12 oz. because some spilled on the floor, and I had to grab fast to keep the dog from eating it--I had visions of dry spaghetti exploding in her stomach)
1/4 cup olive oil
3 garlic coves, mashed
2 oz. can anchovies, drained and chopped
1/2 tsp. lemon zest (I hate shaving zest but the dish could have used a whole tsp if I'd felt ambitious)
1 Tbsp. oregano
1/4 cup chopped parsley (I used chives because they grow on my porch)
2 large egg yolks
salt and pepper

Cook pasta al dente and drain, being sure to catch a half cup cooking water.
In large, deep skillet, heat olive oil, garlic and anchovies. The original recipe called for thin-sliced anchovies, but I prefer mashed--when I get a bite of straight garlic, it's almost overwhelming to me. Cook over medium heat until the anchovies sort of melt in. Add oregano and chives, and then dump in the rinsed pasta. Stir and heat briefly.
Meanwhile in a deep bowl, whisk the reserved pasta water into the egg yolks (I didn't use a deep bowl and splashed it everywhere). At this point, I thought it looked hopeless. I had this dry pasta and watery eggs, but I persevered. I added thee watery egg  yolks to the pasta and in no time at all a wonderful silky creamy sauce appeared. I left salt and pepper up to the individual diner, but found I wanted more of each on my pasta.
We agreed it was rich and earthy but we didn't taste much anchovy--a whole can is a hefty dose of that particular fish. When I did dishes, I discovered a lot of anchovy in the bottom of the skillet so my advice is to stir well.
This was good the next day as lunch but is much better eaten immediately after fixing it.

Original recipe is said to serve four. We had only one serving left over.

Serve with a geen salad. I had some marinated veggies left from another dinner and dumped them over some greens, using the marinade as dressing. Proud of myself for pulling supper out of the cupboard and the fridge. Just wait till I have veggies in the back yard.