Get Cooking: 150 Simple Recipes to Get You Started in the Kitchen (16 page)

When is pasta ready? The best advice for determining this is “read the package.” Virtually all packaged pastas give suggested cooking times. The second-best advice is “don’t believe everything you read.” No two stoves or pots or quantities of cooking water are alike, so use the suggested cooking time as a guide, but start pulling pieces of pasta from the boiling water and tasting them a few minutes before that time is up, until you like the texture. It should be firm, not mushy. Some people call that
al dente.
You’ll know it when you taste it.

GO FOR A GARNISH

A garnish is more than just a fancy finishing touch for restaurant food. Especially if you’re cooking for friends, adding a little something to the presentation can make a big difference in the overall effect and the flavor. What makes a good garnish? One handy rule of thumb is to use an ingredient that went into the making of the dish. If you use a fresh herb, for example, save a few sprigs to top each finished serving. Most pastas made with oil benefit from the addition of a final drizzle of a flavorful olive oil. Breadcrumbs, toasted in a skillet with a small amount of olive oil, add an appealingly crunchy finish. You can always throw on a perfect leaf of Italian parsley, or chop a few sprigs roughly and scatter them over the pasta.

GO-WITHS ROUNDING OUT A PASTA MEAL

• SALAD
  Think green with red, red with green: a green salad with a red-sauced pasta, a tomato salad with pesto. (The salad chapter, beginning on Chapter 2: Salads, offers many options and ideas.)
  
• Good crusty bread, warmed in the oven
  
• That same bread, toasted, rubbed with garlic, and sprinkled with olive oil, salt, and pepper (congratulations, you just made bruschetta). (By the way, pronounce it “brus-ketta.”)
  
• Breadsticks from a package or a bakery
  
• A plate of Italian sliced meats, like prosciutto, mortadella, and salami, and an assortment of olives
  
• Marinated vegetables from a jar (roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, eggplant relishes, etc.)
  
• An assortment of tasty cheeses with some sliced apples or pears
  

LOVE YOUR LEFTOVERS

The next time you cook pasta, make extra on purpose. Most pasta dishes reheat well and last a few days in the refrigerator, sealed in an airtight container. Take them to lunch, or reheat them for dinner, warming them in the microwave or on the stovetop (gently, so you don’t actually cook them more). Most pastas also taste great at room temperature—a great way to re-enjoy last night’s pasta as tonight’s side dish or pasta salad.

Those quarter-full boxes and bags that pile up in the cupboard are good for all kinds of things. Throw the pasta into a soup or stew to thicken it and give it more substance. Combine a few types of similar sizes and shapes to make a pasta salad. Break up spaghetti, brown it in a little oil in a skillet, and add it to raw rice before you cook it. Or cook orzo, macaroni, or other small pasta and stir it into tuna salad or cooked vegetables like spinach or broccoli.

But enough from the General Pasta Information Desk. Let’s start using those noodles.

homemade italian tomato sauce

Makes 3 to 4 cups

T
here are many very good commercially prepared tomato sauces available, and it’s fine to use them (especially if you have found one or two that you really like). But there’s nothing like simmering a batch of your own. It isn’t difficult, and it will make you feel as though you’ve been temporarily transported to an Italian hillside, even if just for the day. Canned crushed tomatoes work best, but canned diced ones will work, too; they just make a chunkier sauce. This will keep, in a tightly covered jar or container in the refrigerator, for a week. It can also be frozen—just be sure to leave space in the jar or container, as the sauce will expand a bit as it freezes.

This recipe is followed by two variations; one adding vegetables, the other adding meat. For each of these, the yield will be increased to about 6 servings.

1.
Place a large pot or a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. After about a minute, add the olive oil and swirl to coat the pan. Add the onion, bell pepper, garlic, herbs, and salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is very tender, 10 to 15 minutes.

2.
Add the tomatoes, water, tomato paste, and black pepper. Use a spoon to break up the tomatoes if they are in rather large chunks. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes.

3.
Add the parsley, stir, and serve.

marinara

Add the celery, mushrooms, and zucchini to the pan when you add the onion and bell pepper. Add the diced tomatoes when you add the crushed tomatoes. Stir in the basil when you add the parsley.

bolognese

To make a Bolognese-style meat sauce, cook the meat ahead of time. Here’s what to do.

1.
Place a large pot or a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. After about a minute, add the olive oil and swirl to coat the pan.

2.
Add the meat and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 7 minutes, or until it is no longer pink and the outside edges are starting to brown. While it is cooking, use a thin-bladed metal spatula to break up the meat into bite-sized pieces. Then transfer it to a bowl (use a slotted spoon), and set aside. Use paper towels to wipe out any fat left in the pan.

3.
Proceed with the recipe for plain or marinara sauce, stirring the cooked meat back into the pot when you add the tomatoes.

spaghetti and meatballs

Serves 4 to 6

H
ere’s a basic standby you can fall back on for years to come. This is really a recipe for meatballs, which aren’t at all hard to make, and a method for simmering them quickly in store-bought sauce (to keep things simple for now), piling it all onto freshly cooked pasta, topping with cheese and pepper, and sitting down to a perfect meal. Start making the meatballs about an hour before you want to eat, to allow time for shaping and browning them and then simmering them in the sauce while the pasta cooks. Or, even better, make the meatballs and cook them in the sauce a day or two ahead and then reheat them (slowly, over low heat, stirring gently from time to time) while the pasta cooks. The flavors will become deeper this way.

1.
Pour the tomato sauce over the meatballs in the pot they cooked in. Turn the heat to low, and simmer gently while you cook the pasta.

2.
Put a large pot of cold water to boil over high heat, and add a tablespoon of salt. Place a large colander in the sink. When the water boils, add the spaghetti, keeping the heat high. Cook for the amount of time recommended on the package, tasting a strand toward the end of the suggested time to be sure it is not getting overcooked. When it is
just
tender enough to bite into comfortably but not yet mushy, dump the water-plus-pasta into the colander. Shake to mostly drain (it’s okay to leave some water clinging), then transfer the spaghetti to a large bowl and immediately drizzle with the olive oil. Toss to coat.

3.
You can serve this in one of two ways: Dump all the sauce-plus-meatballs into the bowlful of pasta, shake and toss to mix, top with Parmesan, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and parsley, and serve right away. Or make individual servings, using tongs to place some spaghetti onto each plate and then ladling on a generous amount of the meatballs and sauce. Serve hot, passing around the Parmesan, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and parsley so people can customize their spaghetti-and-meatball experience.

GET CREATIVE

• Don’t forget the joys of a meatball sandwich. Just split a sandwich roll (toast it under the broiler or, buttered, in a skillet, if you like), ladle on meatballs and sauce, and sprinkle some grated Parmesan on top.
  
• You can also add these meatballs to a soup, or make them smaller and serve them, sauceless, on toothpicks for a great party snack.
  
• Add a teaspoon of dried oregano (or 2 teaspoons minced fresh oregano) to the meatball mixture.
  

meatballs

Of course meatballs go superbly with spaghetti, but they’re also great as a main dish on their own, with or without the tomato sauce. If you’re going the classic spaghetti-and-meatballs route, brown the meatballs in a soup pot or a Dutch oven so you can add the sauce to the same pot. If your meatballs have a different destiny that does not involve a sauce, you can cook them in a skillet instead.