Facile Pasta con Sarde

(Easy Pasta with Sardines)

Pasta Con Sarde is a well-known Sicilian dish. It involves scaling and cleaning fresh sardines, and gathering other ingredients like pine nuts, raisins, and fresh fennel fronds. It’s delicious but not the simplest sauce to make. Here’s a short cut version – Facile Pasta con Sarde.

Ingredients:

• ¼ cup olive oil
• Salt, black, and red pepper
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 can sardines packed in olive oil
• 1 ½ lbs. ripe tomatoes
• ½ pound long pasta

Grate the tomatoes on the large holes of a box grater and set aside.

Sauté the garlic in oil in a pot on low heat. Add the salt and pepper and the sardines. Break up the sardines and simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the tomatoes to the pot. Bring it to a boil, lower heat and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

In another pot of salted water, cook the pasta until almost done and add it to the sauce to finish cooking.

 Definitely no cheese on this sauce but a sprinkle of toasted breadcrumbs or chopped parsley would be fine.

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Fresh Tomato Sauce with Rusks

I got this recipe from a Greek friend. When she first mentioned it to me, I assumed the ‘rusks’ were some kind of vegetable. Well, they aren’t. Rusks are dry, hard biscuits or twice-baked bread.  You can make your own, you can use crumbled hard tack or pilot bread, or like I did, use Italian biscotti (not the sweet, cookie kind).

Fresh Tomato Sauce with Rusks Ingredients:

• 4 or 5 ripe tomatoes
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 3 cloves sliced garlic
• Salt, black, and red pepper
• 1 -2 cups crumbled rusks
• 1/2 lb. pasta

Start by putting up a pot of salted water for the pasta. This is a quick, fresh sauce and can be made by the time the pasta is done.

Grate the tomatoes on the large side of a box grater and set aside. In a large pot, sauté the garlic in oil for a few minutes until it starts to color. Add salt, black and red pepper and the grated tomatoes and cook for 20 minutes. Some of the liquid will evaporate and the sauce will thicken. When the pasta is almost done the way you like it, add it to the sauce to finish cooking.

Using a mortar and pestle or the bottom of a small frying pan on a cutting board, crush the rusts to make about a cup full. Serve the pasta and pass the rusk crumbs as you would cheese.

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Basic Bolognese

Different people make Bolognese differently. My recipe is for basic Bolognese. I don’t used any garlic because the sofrito (carrot, onion, celery) is enough for the aromatics. Some people use pancetta, but with a mix of pork and beef it isn’t necessary. Often recipes call for chicken or beef stock but that’s not needed with a pound of chopped meat already in the sauce. Don’t be tempted to add and basil, oregano, bay leaf or any other herbs or spices. They’re not needed. On American menus you sometimes see “Spaghetti a la Bolognese.” Spaghetti should never be served with Bolognese sauce, only broad long pasta like mafalda, pappardelle, tagliatelle, fettuccine, and sometimes rigatoni.

Ingredients:

• 1 diced carrot
• 1 diced medium onion
• 2 diced celery stalks
• Olive oil
• ½ lb. each – beef and pork
• 1 6 oz. can tomato paste
• 1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
• 1/2 cup dry white or red wine
• salt & black pepper to taste

Dice the onion, carrot, and celery. That’s the sofrito, the base for many Italian sauces. Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot and sauté until soft, about 10 minutes. Add the tomato paste and stir. Cook for another 5 minutes. Remove the sofrito to a bowl and set aside.

Add 2 tablespoons of oil to the pot and brown the meat, breaking it up with a spoon as it cooks. Return the sofrito to the pot. It’s fine if some of the meat is still a little pink.

Now add the wine and deglaze the pot. Stir and cook for 5 minutes and then pour in the crushed tomatoes and 2 cups of hot water. Turn the heat down to low and simmer for 2 hours. If the sauce gets too thick as it simmers add more water. While the sauce is simmering, start a pot of boiling water for the pasta. I’m using fettuccine. Drain the pasta when it’s done and save a cup of the pasta water.

To serve, put a sauté pan on low heat. Put some of the sauce in the pan, add some pasta, and stir with a little pasta water. Place in a dish and sprinkle with Parmigiana cheese.

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Spaghetti with Cherry Tomatoes

This is a simple and quick recipe similar to aglio e olio. You can make the sauce in the time it takes to cook the pasta. Spaghetti with Cherry Tomatoes has a fresh light taste so I wouldn’t recommend any cheese on this one.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. spaghetti
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 6 cloves garlic, sliced
• Salt, black pepper
• Red pepper (from a pinch to a tablespoon)
• ½ cup chopped parsley
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes

Start a pot of water for the pasta and begin to cook the pasta.

Slowly cook the garlic in the oil in a large frying pan. Add the seasoning (salt, black and red pepper) and the parsley. Stir and then add the tomatoes (half of them cut in half). Cook over a medium heat until the pasta is almost done.

Add a cup of the pasta water to the sauce and then add the almost cooked pasta to finish cooking. Add additional water as necessary to keep it moist.

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